The Hiroshima of bombshells

I don't really have words to describe the interaction I had a few hours ago, and the information I learned from it, but I'm going to try.

The other woman called me today. I emailed her an apology yesterday for a nasty email I'd sent her in anger when I first found out about the affair. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had been extremely unfair to her, and that my anger needed to be squarely directed at my husband, not at her. So I apologized and gave her my skype name, should she ever want to talk in the future.

Five minutes after hitting "send," she tried calling me.

She called me a few times, and though I answered each time, she kept hanging up. Then she signed off. I thought maybe she got cold feet, which is understandable, so I sent her a message letting her know that I'm open to talk any time that worked for her.

Today, she called. I answered. And we spoke for over an hour.

The hangups, I learned, were because my husband was there in the room with her, batting the phone out of her hand and trying to break it as she called me. So she waited until he left today to call.

They met in January, and the affair began right away. He's been living with her all year. Each time he left me, he moved in with her. She showed me his suitcases and his PS4 (that I bought him). She's close with his parents, and talk to them almost every day.

"I want to tell you everything, but I don't want you to be hurt any more than you already are. I respect you as a woman, and I don't want to hurt you," she said.
"I promise you that there is not much that would surprise me at this point. I've already lost everything, and I don't really think I can be hurt any more at this point."
"You have no idea how much I have lost. You can't imagine."
"I can, and I'm sure that he is also bleeding you dry, just like he did me. And I know that you have even more to lose financially than I did."
"It's so much more than that. I want to tell you, but I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want you to tell him."
"I promise I won't tell him. I never want to speak with him again. Can you please tell me?"
"I was pregnant. He wanted me to keep it. But I didn't want to. I didn't want that life."

Somehow, even though this was new information, I knew this in my gut. I nodded and said "I know." And I then began to cry. "I'm so sorry for you. I'm so sorry that you had to go through that."

"So that was why he left me one day in March, then? That's why you were in the hospital?" I continued.
"Yes. His parents called to let him know I was dying. I also tried to kill myself two times after that."

I cried again. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I almost killed myself too, last fall. He almost killed both of us."
She nodded.

"All I have now is my money. I have nothing else. My life is shattered," she said.
"I understand. I never had money, but he took all of it."
"I know," she said. "I told myself that he must have no money because he was sending you all of it, so I paid for everything for him."
"I knew that you paid for everything. I found the receipts for the flights. You even paid his way back to me. That was extremely kind of you."
"I paid for everything."
"I know he spent his money on child support and taxes--"
"He didn't pay any of that. I paid all of that. Because I thought he was spending all of his money on you."
I laughed. "Sweetheart, in the three years we were together, he paid for nothing. NOTHING. Not one bill. I paid for everything. We were both paying for him."

We talked about many things, most of which are a blur. But she really did seem to know all about everything. He told her as much, if not more, about his life than I knew. She knew about his exes, how he was also abusive to them. She was a victim in this just as much as I am.

"I can't imagine how you must be feeling. I promise you, I am not with him, and I will not be with him. I don't want him in my life. I want him gone. He's coming by to get his things later," she assured me.
"I don't want him either. Don't be alone. He can be so violent when he's angry. And right now, his entire web of lies has exploded on him. He must be short-circuiting. I can't imagine how angry he is. Be very careful."
"I know." She nodded.
"Call me or text me when he's gone to let me know that you're ok. I'm worried about you."

We thanked each other, and we apologized to each other again. We empathized, even though we were on opposite sides of the issue, we'd both been destroyed by the same force. She sent me love and hugs and kisses, and I sent the same back to her. She said to call any time I needed anything, and I told her to do the same.

He will not control us anymore.

The Other Woman

Today was one of those days where I woke up in a thin tank top, looked in the mirror, thought "I should really put on a bra to walk the dog..." but then immediately countered that thought with "Fuck it, I have nipples. I HAVE NIPPLES. If Jennifer Aniston could get away with it on FRIENDS, I can get away with it for 10 minutes on my street. So it's that kind of mood I woke up in, so seems like as good of a time as any to talk about the Other Woman (why did I capitalize her? she doesn't even deserve capitals).

Like the good textbook NPD Narcissist he is, my husband lined up new supply waaay before he and I were done. It's now the end of July, he left because I told him I wanted a divorce two weeks ago, and from what I can tell, he started his relationship with the other woman somewhere around January, when I actually thought that we were getting back on track and were going to work things out. Oh, me and my eternal, delusional hope.

I didn't believe she existed. I actually trusted him, and defended him at every turn to, well, EVERYONE who said "There must be someone else." I really, really didn't think there was. I didn't think he would do that. I even had a truly gifted, famous tv psychic tell me there was someone else, and I didn't believe him. He was right. Everyone was right. After he left me out of the blue (known as the "Narcissistic Discard") in March, and then came back after a string of excuses which went through most of April, all of May, and he finally moved back in in June, it didn't make sense to me why he had to leave me to "close doors" and "get his head on straight." Now I know that the door he needed to close was to the bedroom of the other woman who was paying for his flights.

I'm sort of unhealthily obsessed with thinking about her at the moment, but not in the "What's she have that I don't have?" way (the answer to that is easy: she has money). There is part of me that wants to warn her, but I know that she wouldn't believe me anyway, and I would just come off looking like the bitter wife who doesn't want anyone to be happy. That couldn't be further from the truth, actually. I wish so much that my husband could be happy, but I know that he won't be unless he decides to work on himself...and that will never happen, because he truly believes that everyone else is the problem, and that he has no issues. And I wish for her to know the fresh hell she's about to get into with him.

I know she's in love with him. I remember that euphoric, fairy-tale phase myself. I saw her facebook messages and her emails and her love poems to him (not so fast, she's not creative...she copied and pasted poems by well-known poets and sent them to him). But I know that he's only using her, just like he used me, and he's not capable of real love. She has fallen deeply for his charm and stunning good looks (because damn him, he IS stunningly handsome--I guess a life lived without feeling even a shred of guilt or remorse helps to fight the signs of aging as much as any anti-wrinkle cream). She's already paid for round-trip flights for him to leave his bitch of a wife. She described herself as his "lifeline" and handed over her credit card to him so that he could use it whenever he wanted. She's in deep. And, where I had no real money to spend on him, but spent my life savings on him anyway, she DOES have money, and from what I can tell, a lot of it. When I confronted him about her, he tried to prove his "love" for me by actually saying "Being with her would solve ALL of my problems. She is the perfect escape because she is fucking loaded and I would never have to work again!" (followed by "But I came back to YOU!", you know, as if he was doing me a favor by big, important, famous him coming back to poor, little old me--it was a sneaky backhanded compliment/put-down sandwich, with a side of guilt-trip sauce, which he excels at).

So what I'd really love to say to her is:

"Sweetheart, GOOD LUCK. You will need it. You will also need a lot of money, because in the three years we were together, he paid for exactly one bill. One! Oh, and he also paid for my fitness bootcamp, because he hated the way I looked (more on that in a moment...) Despite the fact that he was working and making a good salary, and was getting a lot of press and fame from his work, I saw none of that money. He will use you, until you catch onto the fact that using you is precisely what he's doing. Then he'll be shocked and hurt that you could even SUGGEST that or think of him that way. It took me a really long time to figure that out, but lucky for him, he already had you taking care of him (though I was still paying the rent and buying the groceries and paying for the wifi and the cell phone he was using to call you).  

I know you're trying to move mountains to get him a job. I did that, too. My GOD the mountains I moved. If I had applied that kind of effort to my own career, I think I would have won a Tony by now. But I did it for him, just like you are. He'll seem to be a little bit grateful, but it will never be enough, and at some point you'll wonder if all you're doing is worth it. It's not. I assure you, it's not. You're gonna come out of this depleted, exhausted, and significantly poorer than when you started. You'll struggle to figure out where it all went wrong because it was SO PERFECT in the beginning and no one had ever said the things he said to you, or swept you off your feet the way he did. No one had ever made you feel more beautiful or more special or more important. It was blissful, yes, but it was calculated on his part. He got you. You couldn't help but fall in love. We all have. Another pro-tip: get on some good birth control. His ex didn't, and he left her with a baby and empty promises of paying child support. Luckily for me, I got an IUD early on in our relationship, and he only left me with a dog. He even bought one bag of dog food, one time.  

You will also need more strength and confidence than you ever thought you had. He will never stop talking to and hanging out with beautiful, single women. Even if you're not the jealous type--I wasn't, either--your insecurities will get the best of you and you will start to hate the person you've become. He needs more female attention than any one woman can ever give him, and he will fly into a rage if you so much as ask who his new female friend is. He will tear you down with putdowns, sometimes after he compliments you (Example--"You are so beautiful. You are truly beautiful inside and out. I'm the luckiest guy to have met you...but, what are we going to do about your boobs?"). He will criticize every little bit of you that he once claimed to love, because he hates himself and has to project that onto others to feel better. He thinks he's fat and ugly and his nose is too big, and guess what--soon, he will be telling you that you are fat and ugly and your nose is too big. Literally, the last thing he said to me, on multiple occasions, before getting on a plane would be "Make sure you go to the gym every day. Promise me?" Not I love you. Not I'll miss you. Go to the gym. And then the first thing upon getting off the plane when I greeted him at the airport was "Ohh, I see someone has put on a little belly." Yes, HE had gained 30 lbs in the two months since I'd seen him...I had stayed the same. But according to him, *I* was the one who put on a belly, and shouldn't get angry at him because he was just joking, and I'm too sensitive, and if I'm going to act like that, he was just going to leave me now. 

Don't think that he'll ever return your empathy or validate your feelings. He won't. Your feelings are a threat to him, and he'll wish that you just didn't have them. He'll dismiss you, and if you dare express something to him that he doesn't agree with, he will scream and yell until you are the one apologizing for feeling or saying anything. Nothing you say or do, or think or feel will ever be right. And when you let him know that his screaming at you is not ok, he'll say it was nothing, he was joking, and you take him too seriously. It's a mindfuck. No matter how many times you try to explain yourself more clearly, and without emotion, and as gently and carefully as possible, he'll still explode and he will never "get it." 

Oh, also, hang out with your friends and family NOW. Because though he will encourage you to have friends and family, he won't actually want you to talk to them or correspond with them in any way, because he thinks you'll be talking about him. And if, let's say, you DO get near-suicidal and decide to reach out to your best friends and closest family for support, that will be your biggest, most unforgivable mistake to him. The irony is that even though you'll try to go to him first, he won't hear you, and if he does, you will be made to feel guilty for being sad, because it brings HIM down, and it means that you are being unsupportive of HIM. But he'll make it very clear that though he doesn't want to hear it, you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to go OUTSIDE of the marriage with your feelings. So you will be alone. Utterly, devastatingly alone. I can't prepare you for the amount of alone you will feel. If you want, at that point, you can reach out to me. Please reach out to someone before you start Googling what kind of pills you can overdose on to end the pain the fastest. Thank God, I did. I went against his wishes and told my friends and family, and got a therapist. You should do that, too. 

I know there's more I'm not thinking of right now. And there may be things that will be new to you that he didn't even do to me. Just...good luck. Bolster yourself. Your world is about to blow up."

I'm sorry you're here.

If you're here, I assume it's because perhaps you, too, accidentally married a narcissist. Or maybe you're dating someone who was SO AMAZING but is now critical and blames you for everything. You're worried something is off, so you googled, and you ended up here. I can't tell you how many times I googled, and how many red flags I ignored. And I still married him.

So, welcome. You're in good company, but I'm sorry you're here.

I bet people warned you, didn't they? They warned me, too. His dad even warned me. He always asked me if I was ok, and if his son was being "gentle" with me. He wasn't, but I lied and said he was. His friends all told me to have patience with him, because he's "a child who will never grow up." I didn't listen. I married him anyway.

I thought I could change him. The worst part is that I thought I was over thinking I could change people. I thought I'd learned my lessons, and I just KNEW that he was the right person for me, my soulmate. . I really, truly believed that. I never even believed in "the one" but he made me believe it. I knew that our love could overcome anything

But then I realized it couldn't.

Then I realized that he was not capable of loving me...not in the way I loved him, anyway. He literally couldn't hear my feelings without getting defensive and flipping things around on me, blaming me for feeling sad, for crying, telling me how fucked up I am and how many issues I have to solve. Because nothing was ever his fault. And I believed him, for awhile. But then I stopped apologizing for myself, and stopped trying to explain my feelings for the 72323883849th time, because I always thought that "No, THIS TIME, if I just say it THIS WAY, he'll understand and stop yelling at me." He never understood. I could never make him understand.

And now it's over, or at least in the beginning stages of being over. I contacted a divorce attorney. I just have to pay her, and send the agreement, and then he gets the papers. I'm not so naive as to think that he'll let go without a fight, but all I know is I want my life back. I want my friends back. I want my family back. I want to think about something other than him. I haven't thought about myself or what I want in so long. It's strange.

I can't even identify some of the emotions I'm feeling. I go from sad to angry back to sad almost every other minute. I'm hurt. I feel used. I feel stupid. I think "Maybe I should just keep trying! He was SO CLOSE to changing! I saw hints of vulnerability and he seemed to really hear me now!" but then I realize that I've been stuck in that cycle of hoping and waiting for three years, and I can't do that to myself anymore. It's all awful and confusing, and the only way I know how to deal is to write.

So here I am, and here you are. I'd love to hear from you. Let's help each other.