Scrooge Was a Narcissist

Tis the season of lights, mugs of hot chocolate, and giving gifts to the ones you love...unless you are a narcissist.

Here's the thing: Narcissists hate the holidays. Anything that takes attention away from them is enemy number one, so that goes for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, and any other gift-giving occasion. It took me about a year and a half to realize that my ex-husband had never given me a gift for any occasion, despite the fact that I was giving him things for special occasions. I'm not even a "gift person"...if we're talking in terms of "love languages," mine are words of affirmation and quality time. I never thought I cared about gifts at all, until I realized that I didn't get anything from him, ever.

I was giftless in our marriage from 2012 until 2014 when I was doing his greencard application for him. I gave him handmade cufflinks for our wedding. He hadn't even gotten me an engagement ring until the day before our wedding, and only then, because he had to. It was nothing I'd asked for and nothing like the pictures of things I liked that I sent him. I told him I didn't even need a diamond...just something unique and affordable. He came back the day before our wedding with a band half-lined with tiny diamonds, and complained how much he had to spend on it. I apologized, and told him that he didn't need to have done that. Our wedding was three days after Christmas. I gave him a small gift of a tshirt he liked and a full-series set of dvds of his favorite show. He gave me nothing, but I understood, because he had just spent "so much" on my ring. Since we were long distance, I'd find little things here and there that reminded me of him or of us and send them to him...he never did that. Valentine's day came and went. I sent him a card filled with sentiments about how much I loved and missed him. Nothing from him. Then came my birthday. Nothing. Not even a card in our first year together. For his birthday a month later, I bought him concert tickets to one of his favorite bands who was playing in town. Then came Christmas again. We got into a huge fight on Christmas eve, and he still hadn't bought me anything. He stormed out saying "Now I have to go buy you a f&#*ing gift! This should be great!" He came back with eyeshadow that my mom had already bought me for Christmas, and he knew it, forcing my mom to return hers.

I never brought it up until March 2014 when we were preparing for our greencard interview. I said "They want to see receipts from gifts we've exchanged and cards we've given each other...I have copies of all of the cards and receipts from gifts I've given you, but you've never given me anything..." He panicked. "We have to get our story straight!" he exclaimed. "
"Story? What story? I love you. There's no story here on my part."
"Oh, you're going to be like this again? If you doubt me I'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!" he screamed.
I apologized for "doubting him."

He once told me that the only gifts he gave anyone were things that he liked and could use himself. I thought he was kidding...up until he bought me a smart watch for my birthday that year. I never wore watches...he loved watches and had a watch collection. Of course, we were long distance at the time, and the "gift" arrived two weeks after my birthday. And when he came home months later, he took it with him back to his country. I never saw that watch again.

"You didn't like it anyway," was his justification for taking the "gift" he bought me.

From that point until we broke up the final time the following year, I got a few gifts from him, but all things he liked that weren't my style at all--two pairs of Swarovski crystal earrings. They looked like diamonds, but weren't REAL diamonds. I didn't like diamonds at all, and he was very into fake things that looked expensive. A glass rose for Valentine's Day with a cheesy, pre-written poem about love...he sent that while he was cheating on me with the other woman. Same with the fake diamonds, actually. And that year for my birthday, I got a pink (I hate pink) purse that he'd gotten for free from one of his celebrity appearances. He made sure to let me know that he'd spent MORE THAN HALF of his free gift certificate on me.

It wasn't until I ended my marriage and started researching narcissism that I realized this was a common theme amongst narcissists...they don't give gifts, and if they do, it's only things that they'll use/take themselves. Overarchingly, it's also NOT NORMAL in a relationship to NEVER get any gifts. I made every excuse for him, but when it came down to it, it was very hurtful and very much not ok with me to always be giving and never receiving...again, a very common theme with narcs.

So this holiday season, take note...if you give an never receive, it may be time to re-evaluate your relationship...and your partner may be a narc if he's consistently a Scrooge or makes a big deal about how much he "hates Christmas" or makes you feel guilty about spending any amount of money on a gift for you.

Invisible Red Flags

I've been thinking a lot lately about all of the red flags I missed (or worse, chose to ignore). They were there from the very beginning. Looking back, it's very clear that he was only ever using me to help his career. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps sharing these subtle (and glaringly obvious) things I overlooked will help someone else to see clearly.

The Business Meeting 
When I was introduced to my now soon-to-be-ex-husband, the VERY first thing he said to me was "Oh, you're American? I love Americans!" I was on vacation in Europe, and used to being the strange American who spoke only English, so to hear someone say that, in English, was refreshing and immediately intriguing. But what I now realize is that the reason he "loved Americans" was because he wanted to be one (I realize how American-centric and patriotic this sounds, but I assure you, I'm one of the least patriotic Americans out there. I don't think we are the center of the world, and I don't think that everyone wants to come here to take our jobs...but in this case, he had made it his plan to come to America YEARS before I met him, unbeknownst to me, and I was a shining opportunity for this to happen for him). When I was doing his greencard application for him (naturally--he wouldn't do it himself, after all!), I kept coming across interviews he'd given to magazines talking about how much he wanted a career in America, how his dream to was to work in Hollywood, and how his dream vacation would be a roadtrip across America. As our marriage was crumbling, one of his acquaintances from acting school confided in me that when he was studying in London, he was unconcerned with mastering the British accent and solely focused on learning the American accent, because he was determined to work in America.

What's more, our very first conversation established that I was in a position to be able to help him. I introduced myself as a writer, director and producer and that I worked in entertainment business management (all of which was true). He was an actor. It was like I was handing him a golden ticket to what he wanted for his career, and since all narcopaths are completely self-serving, that alone was enough to make him pursue me with vigor. In hindsight, it's no coincidence that his discarding of me began at exactly the same time I began interviewing for jobs outside of the entertainment industry. If I no longer had my professional contacts, I was of little use to him. And it was one month from the time I started my new job (in the tech industry) to when he left me, saying we had "nothing in common, and no future together." Curious timing, isn't it?

As we got to know each other more in the days and weeks that followed, his conversation was focused on how much he wanted to live in America, and how he'd been thinking of moving there. Of course, I was smitten, so I was thrilled by the prospect of him moving to my country! He asked me if I needed a roommate. I said we could figure something out. He was outright telling me that he was looking at Masters degrees in America because he wanted to be here so much, but I thought that maybe I had been the catalyst to make him want to be here because he wanted to be with me.  It's sickening now to realize that THE ONLY REASON HE WAS WITH ME WAS TO HAVE A CHANCE AT ACTING IN AMERICA.

Three months into our relationship, we were already discussing marriage, and he came to visit me. On day three of that visit, we got into an argument. I don't even remember what it was about, but I remember saying something to the effect of "I don't feel good about this." There were warning signs going off in my body. I felt uncomfortable somehow, but couldn't pinpoint it. I just remember feeling off. This set him off (it was the first time I'd ever seen him get angry). He said he would just leave. I didn't want him to leave--I wanted to talk about whatever it was that was upsetting me. Naturally, that didn't happen, and I thought I should just let it go and it would blow over. The next day, he told me that the night before had "set us back" and that "all future bets were off." This was his way of keeping me hooked. I begged for us to go back to the way we were, sure that we could get past whatever it was. Once I did that, things were fine. His plan was back in motion.

His final words to me when we were at the airport for him to go back to his country were "I came here to see if I should take this to the next level, and I think I should." Very businesslike for someone supposedly madly in love with me. It struck me as odd, and as if he'd been planning, but again, I was madly in love, and just excited that he wanted to take it to the next level with me! And after he DID move here, and had a number of unsuccessful auditions and wasn't making any money as an actor (and was unemployed totally), I think he realized that working as an actor here was going to be harder than he'd realized, and he immediately accepted a job on a soap back home in his country. That was when our marriage really fell apart, because now he had his fame ego boost back, he was working in his career--I and our marriage were completely superfluous.

General Disrespect For My Time, Needs and Desires
This was always present, in forms ranging from subtle to blatant. It started, subtly, with what I call "The Patience Test" (something I only realized was a thing after briefly dating another narcissist last year who did the same time). He would keep me on Skype for HOURS while he did whatever he pleased, yet I just had to sit there at the computer and wait for him. He would play videogames, cook dinner, spend hours laughing to himself at YouTube videos he was watching, all while he was on Skype with me. I now realize that it was to see if I would sit there and wait for him. And I always did. I played into the game. If I said something like "Why don't you call me back when you're free?" or "Let me just go do this thing while you're doing that," his answer was always "No no no! I'll be done in just a second. I'm sorry! Thank you for waiting!" and then he'd continue doing what he was doing.

Another great example was our wedding. We got married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse in his city in his country. I needed a translator, since the ceremony was in his language. I asked my friend Mary* to translate for me, since she was literally the only person I knew in the country aside from him, and she and I had been friends for 9 years. I trusted her. The morning of the ceremony, he called his friend Sophie and said "How's your English?" I asked what he was doing and he said she was going to translate. I said that no, I would rather have Mary translate because I knew her and trusted her and he got angry and said "Ok, fine!" Then, when we got to the courthouse, he listed Sophie as the translator. Sophie, a woman I didn't know, and who, unbeknownst to me at the time, turned out to be HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND, translated my wedding ceremony. Mary sat in the audience as my "witness." (As an aside, his other witness, Susan, also turned out to be ANOTHER EX-GIRLFRIEND. Fun fact, he had no friends aside from ex-girlfriends. Of course, I didn't know any of this when he first introduced them to me. He called them his "sisters.")

Probably the biggest example of this was when he accepted a job in his home country, a week after getting his greencard here in the US, without asking me how I felt about it. Naturally, I was devastated. He had JUST moved here to be with me, FINALLY, after a year and a half of us being long distance, he had JUST gotten his greencard, we were FINALLY going to be able to start our life together as husband and work, with him being eligible to work...and he was leaving. He pretended to ask my opinion about it, but when I said "Well, this is not ideal..." he made it clear that if I said no or protested in any way, I would be "blocking his career" and he would "resent me forever." So I really had no say, and he'd already told his agent he'd take it before he talked to me, anyway.

Overarchingly, I had no say in anything. It was what he wanted, when he wanted it. Whatever worked for him was expected to work for me, and when it didn't, I was "dramatic" or "needy" or "unsupportive."

Really Obvious Stuff 
These ones don't even really need explainations. They were obvious signs of abuse and signs that he didn't care about my feelings even a little bit:

• He was consistently rough with me, even in intimate moments. Beyond that, he was downright violent at times. Though he never technically hit me, he would grab me and leave bruises, throw things (including a full suitcase, once) at me, slap my butt HARD out of nowhere, make sounds so loud into my ear that it popped my eardrum (even after I told him it was too loud...and then once my eardrum did pop, he got upset at me for crying because my eardrum popped and I literally couldn't hear and was in pain), which leads me to...
• Sex was consistently terrible. Terrible. It was all about him and what he wanted, when he wanted it, at all times. This probably deserves its own post, actually. He was rough, and even our very first time, he said "Wow, I'm actually making love! I can't believe it! I'm MAKING LOVE TO YOU! I never make love. I prefer to fuck." His idea of "making love" had no love or tenderness in it whatsoever. I remember thinking "Seriously? This is making love to you?!" but didn't say it. 
• He constantly criticized my weight/breast size/any other imperfection he could find. But then when I would get upset about his words, he would say "Well if you're so self-conscious about it, why don't you change it?!" Just go on a diet/get a boob job/whatever else he wanted me to do to 'fix' myself. He never understood that it wasn't that I was unhappy with myself--I was unhappy with his criticism of me. Unfortunately, it did take a toll on my self-esteem after awhile, but thank goodness, I always retained enough inner strength to recognize, deep down, that it was him who had the issues and not me. 

There's much more, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but this is a start. If you recognize any of these things happening in your relationship, take note. These are not things that healthy people do to people they love. These are things that users and abusers do.

PS - If you haven't already seen this video about emotional abuse in relationships, it's required watching.

*names changed to protect privacy

The first time we broke up

I recently came across my old journal I kept with my therapist. I would write her an entry, and she would respond, in-depth and amazingly, to each one. Here was something I wrote in September 2014, when I first realized that I actually didn't deserve to be treated the way he was treating me. I share in hopes that it will help to spark that recognition in one of you who may be experiencing something similar. Let me tell you bluntly what it took me two years to realize--being verbally abused is NOT OK, NOT SUSTAINABLE, and it's NOT YOUR FAULT.

September 4, 2014, 11:50 am

A lot has changed in the last week. There is an aspect to my husband that I've always realized but only recently really admitted to myself - he is verbally and emotionally abusive. I constantly feel like I'm walking on eggshells around him, trying not to upset him, yet many days, any little word I say (or don't say) or thing I do (or don't do) sets him off, and he begins screaming at me. When he explodes, he's generally over it five minutes later, but I'm not. It devastates me, and sometimes takes me days to get over. I've been reading a lot about verbal and emotional abuse, and he really displays almost all of the signs, especially the more subtle ones. I mention this because everything came to a head over the weekend. I was at my parents house (honestly,because I didn't want to be alone for another holiday weekend, because I knew I would get sad). Saturday he asked if he could skype with my sister and brother in law to say hi, but we were out at dinner and then going out for drinks after that, so I told him it wasn't a good time but we could do it tomorrow. He was angry. Sunday when I called him and said "Hey, do you want to skype now? We're all around!" 

I apparently interrupted the commentary on the soccer game he'd just watched, and he EXPLODED at me "I'm watching the commentary! YOU KNOW I LOVE THIS! DO I SERIOUSLY HAVE TO JUSTIFY WATCHING THIS TO MY WIFE?!" 

I said no, and that it was fine, we could talk later. Then he said he could turn skype on, but he wouldn't talk until the show was over in two hours, and at that point I was going to be leaving, so I said "No, it's fine, this is your priority right now, watch your show." 

Then he exploded again "YOU EXPECT ME TO LIVE UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS AND BE A NICE GUY, AND IT'S JUST NOT WHO I AM!" 

So I said "Ok, you're making that clear."

We hung up, and it was all I could do not to cry. I knew I didn't deserve to be treated that way. Since I was at my parents house, I did my best to hold it in and not talk about it (they already hate him, for a lot of reasons--I didn't want to give them one more). Then my dog threw up, and I started uncontrollably sobbing. My mom said "You seem really stressed..." and I told her everything I'd been holding back. I sat on the floor--literally, on the kitchen floor--crying for 3 hours, and my parents said if I hadn't mentioned it, they were going to talk to me. They saw that he's verbally abusive and controlling and on top of that, seems to never consider my feelings in his decisions, and they urged me that it won't get better, and they fear for my safety. I didn't sleep at all that night. Monday morning he texted to say "Hate to argue, but i'm sorry if I made you sad last night." I asked when a good time to talk would be, because I didn't want to interrupt again, and he called me immediately. I said "I'm really hurt and confused...last night I had a breakdown, and I don't deserve to be treated like that." and he immediately jumped to "So, what, do you want a divorce? Are we separated? HERE, I'LL TAKE MY WEDDING RING OFF RIGHT NOW!" and I said "I don't know, I just need some time to think," and he said "No, things are either working or not, I don't give anyone time...I'll just take my ring off and put it here, and you let me know what you decide." I was devastated. I never intended or imagined things would go downhill so quickly, or over the phone. It seems like he just wanted an out. 

September 8, 2014, 2:18 pm

So, I talked to him last night (I know, I know.) It was his "deadline" he so generously gave me as to decide if I wanted a divorce or not, and I wanted to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that I wanted a divorce. It didn't go well. He said he can't believe that I don't have the "respect" for him to just wait until he comes back. I told him my plan all along was to wait for him to come back, but then he put in question if he was even coming back, and then when I told him that I wanted to wait and see how things went prior to this current conversation his response was "So what, you'll make me spend $600 on a flight and then just dump me?" Everything gets turned around. The truth is, I'm having such a hard time because I DON'T want a divorce--it's the last thing I ever wanted. But I don't see any other way. I know he's not going to change and magically become the sweet, caring guy he once was. I know it's not just an issue of distance anymore. And now I can't even picture myself wanting to be in the same room with him. I don't even think that therapy would help him. When I point out to him that he's verbally abusive, he laughs at me (the irony is that he's currently playing a physically and verbally abusive husband on the soap--and getting rave reviews, I might add). He says he's researched all about it, and he's not that. I said there are different degrees of it, and it doesn't just mean men who call their wives "pieces of shit" and who hit them (that's his concept of it). And when I told him that he manipulates my feelings and emotions, again, he turned it around and said "NO I DON'T!" (dismissing me right there!). I know there is no hope for him and no hope for us. I know I will never be happy with him. I know I won't ever get past the hurt that I already feel, and I wouldn't be able to be in a relationship with him and trust him ever again. Plus, now that I've realized that what he has been doing is actually abuse, I'm afraid of what it could turn into. I know he's beaten our dog--the poor puppy used to pee in fear when he'd see him, and I watched him hit him (and then yelled at him and told him it was the most disgusting and unattractive thing I've ever seen--he stopped, as far as I know). I know he's hit ex-girlfriends, and I know that his dad told me that one ex had a restraining order. I just don't know what he's capable of, and i know I'm not special. I know if he felt justified, he'd hit me, too. I don't know why I would even think about letting him come back. I know nothing will change. But there is a big part of me that DOES feel awful about doing it over skype/the phone. Plus I know it gives him more fodder to tell people what a horrible wife I am for dumping him from abroad "while he was just trying to work for money for us." I told him I needed more time and that I would let him know when I've come to a decision, and I said it might be weeks or months. I know what I need to do, but when I talk to him, I just lose my resolve, because I remember how much I love(d) him and how he can be reasonable from time to time, and then I feel like the jerk. In the meantime, I've cancelled the wedding we were going to have here (lost my $2000 deposit). I took him off my insurances today, so that will be another $300 in my check every month. I'm doing everything to protect myself. I just need to strengthen my resolve to not let him come back, even though prior to this past week it's all I ever wanted.

That time I apologized for having a migraine

Today I was looking for something in my email, and I fell into a rabbit hole of reading old emails I sent to my (almost ex)husband. It made me think "When did I first notice that something was off?" And the answer to that was 3 months in.

We met while I was on vacation, and were long distance for the first year and a half we were together. The first time he visited me was three months after we met. I was already in love with him (thanks Skype), and in his third week of visiting me, we took a road trip so I could introduce him to my family. His first impression on my sister and her husband were basically worst-case scenario. He and my brother in law got into a drinking competition, and he ended up throwing up ALL OVER my sister's house, repeatedly. I had never seen so much vomit in my life. While my sister and I were cleaning it up, he literally came out of the bathroom, looked at my sister, laughed, and said "Clean it, bitch!" and then went back to bed. I quickly apologized to her on his behalf (a theme that would only continue) saying "I'm so sorry...I think he's still drunk. He's not like this!" Except, as it turned out, he WAS like this. That was just the first glimpse of the real him.

Since I didn't sleep at all that night because I was up all night cleaning up his repetitive vomit, I got a pretty terrible migraine. I let him know, repeatedly, that I had a migraine and just wasn't feeling well. We headed back to my apartment, and he was blaring his heavy metal music the entire time we were in the car. Every time I would ask him to turn it down, he would say I was boring and no fun, and would gradually turn it back up.

When we got back into the city, we were on the escalator near my apartment. I still had a raging migraine, and he proceeded to slap me, hard, on the butt (playfully in his mind, painfully in mine--also the first time he touched me a little too hard and then got angry at me for reacting to that). I turned to him to give him a look to say "Not now," because I was hurting, and when I have a migraine everything hurts more. When he saw the look, he FLIPPED HIS SHIT, right there in public, threw my suitcase at me, and yelled "FUCK YOU! CARRY YOUR OWN SUITCASE THEN!" and stormed off in front of me. I began to cry, and I was "being a baby."

Here was my first ever email to him (the first of many) in which I tried SO HARD to explain how I was feeling, and how I never meant to upset him, and ended up apologizing for my own suffering. It was a pattern that got so much worse, until I realized what was going on and stopped apologizing (which is when shit REALLY hit the fan).

"I want to talk about this tonight, but I want to get out what I was thinking this morning, both because I need to get it out of my head and I also don't want to make you wait all day and for you to wonder what I'm thinking/think it's worse than it is.

Last night scared me. You apologized, and I accept it, but it scares me. I get migraines a lot. Less frequently than I used to, but still, more than I would like. I hate how they make me feel and how they interrupt my life, but if I don't catch it with drugs fast enough (as I didn't this weekend--it actually started on Sunday but I let it go because I thought I was just tired/hungover) they can really ruin my day and, at worst, a few days thereafter. When I have one, I try my best to function normally, but I can't always do that 100%. Everything becomes more sensitive--everything is too bright, too loud, and overall overwhelming. All I want to do when I have one is close my eyes and withdraw for a bit until it goes away. Yesterday that wasn't possible. I was trying my best to be normal, but I guess I wasn't doing as well as I thought because you said I was being bitchy and treating you badly all day. I didn't know I was doing that and I'm sorry if I did. 

I honestly got emotional on the train because I was thinking how much I loved you and how nice it was to have you with me and taking such good care of me and how I just didn't want that to end. I am so appreciative everything you were doing for me, both yesterday and always. I loved that you were there for me to lean on, and that you were massaging my head and holding me, and when it started to really hit me that you're leaving on Friday, and I got really sad and teared up. A couple of tears came out when I had my head on your shoulder. I was trying not to cry as we got off the train and went up the stairs to the escalator because of that, and then when you smacked my butt, I wasn't angry--I really wasn't. In my mind, I just shook my head to say "not now" because I was holding back tears as it was, and then I was completely blindsided with the escalator stuff because I legitimately didn't know what had happened and what was in my head was not at all what you thought it was.

Point is, my not feeling well is not and will not be an isolated event. If you didn't like me yesterday, and if what you thought was a look I gave you out of disgust? whatever it was that you thought I was thinking? caused you to get angry enough to go up another escalator and stop taking care of me in the way that I was so appreciative of, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to constantly walk on eggshells, which is really hard for me to do when I have a migraine.

I just don't want what happened last night to happen again, and the fact that I do get migraines at least once every month or two scares me. Like I said, I try to go on as normally as I can when I have them, but I don't always succeed, and if you don't like me when I have one, then I'm afraid you're not going to like me. And if you react the way you did last night when I'm feeling that way, I know for a fact that I can't deal with that. So it scares me. 

I love you. I love having you with me. I love the way you take care of me. I don't want you to leave, period. But when you offer to sleep on the couch/get a hotel/leave, which is the LAST thing I want, and it hurts me when you do that, too, because I think that means that you just don't want to be around me. I'm guessing that it's your defense from what happened in the past, but it hurts me a lot when you offer to leave because it makes me think that it's what you want. It's not what I want. Please get that into your head. It. is. not. what. I. want. I want you with me. 

And yes, a phonecall would be better, but I don't want to get emotional on the phone at work and have everyone nearby hear me and wonder what's happening. And I want to talk about it in person, but I also want to be completely clear so you can see it and not read into/guess about how I'm feeling. 

I love you."

When we talked about it, he said that it made him want to take three steps back and cancel all plans of our future. He threatened to leave. I now know that he did this to control me--any time I would stand up for myself, he would threaten to leave me. And that worked on me for awhile.

When I look back on the "good times," this was firmly during when I still thought things were perfect with us. But they were not. This was a huge, huge red flag, very early on, and I thought it was my fault because he just didn't understand how much pain I was in because of my migraine. What I didn't realize was that he would NEVER understand, because he's not capable of empathy. 

I am not ok

Not gonna lie, life is pretty rough right now. 2015 has been, by far, the worst year of my life. I'd like to punch life in the face.

My dog is sick. That maybe doesn't sound that bad, but my dog is my constant companion. Last fall, when I was starting to feel suicidal, he was literally the only thing that got me up in the morning. I would not have gotten out of bed, much less out of the apartment many days, were it not for him. And even his illness is indirectly related to the divorce. For a little while, he had someone with him 24/7 while my husband was here. When he left, it went back to me being home really only nights and weekends, and the dog being left home alone for most of the day. After a few weeks of that, he got increasingly bored, and started getting into more and more trouble, which included eating about 50% of the bathroom garbage three weeks ago. Three weeks ago I was on my period. You do the math. 

As a result, my dog has been puking and pooping out bits of tampon applicators, wrappers, and pantiliners for the last three weeks. Just when I think the last of it has come out, I find more. Yesterday, he had explosive diarrhea all day long, and then at 2am, he added projectile vomiting. He vomited up what appeared to be two entire tampon applicators, but google told me that vomiting + diarrhea are potential symptoms of intestinal blockages in dogs, so I threw on clothes, called an Uber car, and took him to the dog ER at 4:30am. 

Upon arrival, he promptly pooped all over the waiting room, and then flipped the fuck out on the two lovely vets who tried to examine him (because he had a HORRIBLE vet experience two weeks ago when I tried to take him to a local vet, who traumatized him, charged $300 and did nothing). They muzzled him and had to sedate him with opiates to take xrays. The xrays were inconclusive, and the vet said that he would need more tests and to be hospitalized, just to be safe. Safety, in this case, would cost $2,500. I cried, right there, while talking to the vet. "I'm going through a divorce and I can't afford anything and I haven't slept and I'm a mess and I'm really sorry!" Ultimately I made the choice to bring him home and monitor him myself. So right now I have a very high dog who has hardly moved all day long. 

There is an added layer of bitterness in that my husband left me with the dog, as much as I love the dog and wanted to keep him. I never wanted to be a single pet parent. I purposefully never got a dog because I knew I didn't have the money or the time to put into a dog. Yet my husband bought him as a "surprise" for me, moved himself and the dog in with me, and then he promptly left me "for work," leaving me to take care of the dog alone. And now that he's gone for good, I have another 10 years to take care of this dog, alone. And having just spent my entire savings on an "uncontested divorce" (more on that in a moment", I really didn't have the $2,500 to spend on putting my dog into inpatient hospital care for a few days. 

Then there is the uncontested divorce I paid for. My lawyer made it clear that my (sizeable) retainer fee covered only an uncontested divorce, meaning that my husband and I both agreed to it and weren't asking for anything from each other. If it got more complicated than that, or if she had to negotiate with his lawyer, I would owe 4x what I've already paid to continue it.

Naturally, he is contesting the fact that I filed "no fault" (meaning he did nothing wrong...yeah, I filed that before I knew JUST HOW MUCH he'd done wrong) and am asking him for nothing. Though I could rightfully ask for 50% of household expenses for the last three years, plus 100% of his greencard fees that my family and I paid for plus 100% of my legal fees, I'm asking him for nothing. And he's fighting me.

In order to sign, according to his lawyer, he wants:

1. Me to make all of my social media private.
2. A "formal apology" to be issued to all of his friends and family, as well as to him himself, for "ruining his reputation"
3. Me to contact the mother of his son in order to "normalize relations" between the two of them (even though their "normal relation" was no relation at all, and has been that way for years)
4. Me to sign something stating that I will not contact the media to tell my story
5. Me to sign HIS divorce papers, so that he doesn't have to pay to have mine translated and notarized in order to be recognized in his country.

So basically, he's still trying to control me, my behavior, and my speech. He's TERRIFIED that people close to him might begin to realize who he really is, so he essentially wants me to sign a gag order. He's blaming me for his ex-girlfriend cutting off communication between him and his son. Personally, I think she is totally justified, but I never suggested that nor had anything at all to do with it. Her decision is her decision, and it's between the two of them. It's still all about him and what's best for him. Because of course it is. Only he would put up a fight and make me stay married to him unless he can guarantee that he can control my behavior.

Well, he can't. I refuse to sign anything. I'll start from square one and re-file with grounds of adultery and abuse if I have to. Then it will be public record, and there's nothing he can do about it. I have all the proof I need. The only thing I don't have is the money to do it. 

Then there is my job, which has traditionally been the bright spot in my life lately. Today it was announced that a majorly high-up person was leaving to pursue other opportunities, which means that a bunch of people are getting shuffled around, my boss included. I don't know yet how it will affect me and my responsibilities, but I know it will. And I was just getting into a routine, which was nice since my brain has been anything but focused the last few months. Now everything is uncertain. After I listened to the conference call where the announcement was made, I cried.

It's all just too much. I was supposed to take a vacation next week, which is DESPERATELY needed, but now with my dog being sick and potentially needing surgery, I don't know if that's going to happen. Plus, I can't afford it anyway, but was doing it for me, to try to heal. 

Life needs a swift kick in the groin right now. 

The Confab

I'm still having a hard time believing that all I learned yesterday was real life. Nothing he said was true. NOTHING HE SAID WAS TRUE. What I thought was real, was not real. What I thought my life was, was not my life. I trusted him. I believed his lies. Everything I believed was a lie.

I wonder now if anything was real. Did he love me even a little? Or is he not even capable of love? Did he ever feel anything for me? I always got the sense that what I felt for him was unrequited, but WOW, maybe he honestly never even cared about me, not even a little. I did so much for him. He did nothing for me. In any way. Why would he? He never loved me. He never cared. It wasn't real. It was all fake.

It's a lot to process, and I'm not really processing it, if I'm being honest. I'm numb. I'm not sad or angry. I feel nothing. It's too much cognitive dissonance. I simply can't wrap my brain around it. He had another relationship going while he was married to me. He fathered another child. He was living another life. Everything was a lie.

What's been at least a little bit comforting was learning that he treated his ex the exact same way. I emailed her yesterday. He has a son with a previous girlfriend. They broke up in 2010, and the last time he saw his son was 2012. At first I totally believed him that she was a horrible person, but as time went on and I learned who he really was, I began to feel nothing but sympathy for her. He left her when she was 7 months pregnant. He chose his career over her and his son, just like he did me. I knew that she and I had a lot in common, and I always wondered about her. So I emailed her.

She wrote back a lovely email. She was shocked to hear from me, but also happy. She felt guilty for not warning me, but knew that I was just as taken with him at the beginning as she had been, and knew that I wouldn't have listened anyway (totally true). She confirmed that their pattern was exactly the same as his and mine--at first it was blissful and perfect, then he began to change, and then suddenly she realized that she was stuck in a terrible relationship and pregnant. He was also angry and violent with her. He told her outright, just like he told me, that he would always choose his career over her. She paid for everything for him, just like I did. He also criticized her physically, and made her believe that she was much less than him. It took her years, she said, to realize that it was the other way around, and that SHE was the strong, talented one, and he was sick, sad man. She's now married to a "wonderful, caring man," and in addition to he son with my husband, her husband has 3 children, and she gave birth to a baby girl earlier this year. She is happy. She promised me that I would be, one day, too, and that I am too smart and too good to let him ruin me. She gave me hope.

I know it wasn't me. The problem wasn't me, it wasn't her, it wasn't his current (or now recent-ex) girlfriend. It's him. He is the sick one. He is the one who hates himself, and who is damaged beyond repair. We don't have to be. We have the capability to love and trust, which is what you are supposed to do when you're in love. People who love you aren't supposed to lie and cheat and deceive.

He's the one whose life is all a charade. Mine is real. My feelings were real. I behaved in a way that was truthful and in line with my values and with what a person does when they love another person. He did not. My life will continue. His never began.

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 Discard

I keep mentioning the "Narcissistic Discard" and the day I was discarded. I thought I should explain that a bit. Essentially, once the narcissist obtains new "supply" (usually a new lover who gives him attention after his current lover has begun to see through his facade or question him/assert her needs in any way), he will literally "discard" her like one would throw away a piece of trash.

This happened to me one Sunday in March. He had come back from his work assignment 6 days earlier. This time, he said, he was back "for good" and we were finally going to be together, and live together as husband and wife. But a few days in to being back, I noticed that he was quiet and distant. I asked him what was wrong, and he said that his parents were getting older and needed him there, and that he missed his friends and family. I said "Do you not want to be here?" and he said "I don't know." I thanked him for his honesty, but asked him to please let me know more about that as soon as he'd thought about it.

The next day, we got into a huge argument wherein he accused me of wanting a divorce and ignoring him. None of that was true. Also, I had gone for a drink with one of my closest female friends earlier in the week. We'd had it on the calendar for weeks, and I offered to cancel for him. I asked him if he minded, he said "No, no, of course! Go!", I only stayed out for an hour, but when I came home, he couldn't believe that I actually went KNOWING that he was "sad and lonely". I had been looking forward to him being back for the past year, and now he was turning things around to try to make it seem that *I* didn't want *him*, which couldn't have been further from the truth. He stormed out and didn't come back for hours. I thought that we would talk about it the next day, and that like all of our arguments, he would be over it quickly, and I would be the one to be hurt for awhile.

The following day was a Sunday. I got up before he did, and took the dog for a long walk. When I came back in to the apartment, he had his coat and shoes on. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to Starbucks to get some coffee, even though I had just made a pot of coffee before I walked the dog. He insisted, and I didn't say anything.

About an hour later, he came back. I asked him if he wanted to talk, and he said "Yes, I want to talk about how I'm leaving you today." Just like that. Casually, coldly, no emotion. He said it as if he was saying that he was going to take the garbage out now. Which, in a way, was what he thought.

In that moment, I shattered. I don't fully remember the rest of the conversation (really more of a monologue, because I literally lost the ability to speak. My voice tightened to the point that I could barely squeak a sound out, and I was reeling so much that I didn't even know what I would say if I could.) He said something about how we had no future together, we had nothing in common, and he didn't want to be with me any more. He said it was for the best. And he began to pack his bags.

I remember physically collapsing. I could no longer hold myself up. Luckily I was sitting at the kitchen table when it happened. I remember punching the kitchen table, asking him to please wait and talk to me and help me to understand how he could say those things. I remember going into the bedroom and screaming and coming out and begging him again to not go, to talk to me, that we could work things out. I was shaking uncontrollably. And then I stopped crying and went numb.

I laid on the couch for the rest of the time he was in the apartment, while he was packing. I didn't move or make a sound. I couldn't. Teardrops rolled out of my eyes involuntarily, but I was no longer crying. Just leaking, I guess. I stared straight ahead for hours. I was frozen.

He came to the living room, with 3 bags packed, and asked me to call him a cab. I told him that I wasn't going to help him leave, and he would have to do that himself. He got angry, and said I was being selfish, and why couldn't I just help him? He then said that he would stay at a hotel until his flight in the morning. I said ok. Then he asked if he could just stay here one more night.  I said "If you are really leaving me, I think you should stay at a hotel." Again, he couldn't believe how selfish I was.

He walked out the door. I found my tears and sobbed again. The dog whimpered and barked. It was over. I laid on the couch the rest of the night, unable to move.

The next day, he called me while I was at work (yes, I went to work the next day, because I couldn't bear the thought of being in the apartment without him, and thought I could maybe focus on something else...I was wrong) and asked if we could talk. I said I had nothing to talk about. He left me, he'd made his choice, I wasn't going to stop him. He begged to come over and talk. I don't remember agreeing, but I must have.

When I got home, he and all of his bags were back in the living room. The first thing he said was "I can't believe you didn't even call to check on me to make sure I was ok last night!" I actually laughed. HE LEFT ME, and he expected ME to call and "check on him" to make sure he was ok?! "I don't know this city well, and luckily I found a hotel, but my parents couldn't BELIEVE you just left me alone like that! In my culture, we would NEVER do that to someone we love, and my mother will never forgive you for that!"

Then he said he wanted to hear why he should consider taking me back. I told him I had no reasons, and that I wasn't going to beg. He'd already made his choice, and all I could do was accept it. Because the truth was, that Sunday was the worst day of my life. Watching him walk out the door was the hardest mental picture I'd ever experienced. The only thing close to it was seeing my Grandpa on his death bed, emaciated from cancer, and hours away from dying. But even that was expected, and I'd made some peace with it before seeing it. This...this was new.

Over the next few days he admitted that he didn't actually have a flight booked. Every day he promised that he did, but then it came down to it, and he didn't. And he realized that he loved me and just wanted to be with me, but needed to go back to his country to "close doors" and "get his head on straight." But what that really meant, I know now, was go back to his supply. Be with her for awhile more. See what else he could get out of her, and then decide if she or I was better.

But I knew in my heart that I would never get over how I felt that day, being tossed away as if I and our 3 years together meant nothing to him. Even if he "got his head on straight," I knew that mine, for the first time, was beginning to be on straight, itself. And the day after he left, I actually woke up happy and relieved that he was gone.

What was that thing about a woman scorned?

If there is any silver lining to all of this, it's that it has made me tap into a deep, unbridled anger that I didn't know I was capable of feeling. This must be what those highly-trained martial artists use to snap through concrete blocks and stuff...because I just snapped my bathroom towel rod in half. And then I threw a St. Anthony statue out the window just to hear it shatter. (Backstory, the statue was given to me by his friend whose best friend he's been cheating with for all but one month of this year. She knew all along, but rather than tell me, she sent me a St. Anthony statue to "protect my marriage." Didn't work, dumb bitch. What works is saying something like "Hey, maybe you should stop cheating on your wife, you fucking asshole!" So it was very cathartic to hear it shatter. Also, I'm not Catholic, so I'm not gonna go to hell for shattering an idol of a patron saint.)

Tonight, I realized that because his cell phone was on my phone account, I had access to his cloud storage. Apparently he didn't realize this either, but every photo he's ever taken on his phone was there. I dug deep. What I found confirmed what I already knew (that he'd been cheating and lying about it) but WOW was I unprepared for the anger I would feel upon finding pictures of them in bed together, in various states of undress, and in various states of his dick being inserted into her (seriously...he photographed that...) without a condom. He took her to his team's soccer matches. He took her on trips out of town to visit his other friends (HIS FRIENDS ALL KNEW!). He was with her on the night before my birthday, and on my birthday (when he couldn't come on the trip I planned for us because he was "helping his dad"). Every day before he came to see me, he was with her. He was with her, shirtless, on the beach.

I now regret that I filed for "No Fault" divorce. I wonder if it's too late to change that?

I hate him. I HATE HIM.

Unfortunately, this was what I needed to see to kill any hope of him changing. I almost believed him that he "never cheated on me." I thought maybe they just had an emotional affair but nothing else happened. But no.  It's also helpful that he recently gave a TV interview, answering questions about his sex life, what kind of woman he prefers in bed, how he "hates jealousy," how he's juggled four women at one time. I can't imagine how he thinks that will help his public image, and I can't imagine why his PR rep let him do the interview. But it's humiliating to me, because as far as anyone there knows, we are still married.

It's true what they say...once a cheater, always a cheater. And a narcissist won't discard you until he has new supply. He had his new supply since February. He discarded me in March. At the time, I didn't understand how he could just announce he was leaving one Sunday morning over coffee. Now it makes sense. He was already with her. She paid for his flight back. He was set.

It was the proof I needed to harden my heart against him. But wow. Just wow.

So much changes in a year

A year ago today, I took the trip which made me realize that my marriage was over.  I hadn't seen my husband in 4 months, because he was working overseas. So I booked a flight early on to visit him at the midway point of his assignment.

In the days leading up to my trip to see him, I felt a sense of dread. Every time we spoke in those days and weeks before I saw him, he had become increasingly hostile toward me and dismissive of my feelings. I had been incredibly sad and depressed ever since he left months before, yet I couldn't talk to him about it. Any time I tried to bring up my feelings, he told me that I was bringing him down, and that I was being unsupportive of him, and that he was tired of hearing about it. Most of our conversations quickly devolved into arguments and him yelling at me if he even heard a hint of sadness in my voice.

So I stopped saying much. I pulled back and quit reaching out to him. I became afraid to open up to him, because I was so tired of fighting. I accepted that I was alone in my feelings. I didn't even talk to my friends or family about it, because I knew that he would be angry if he found out I went to them instead of him. So I was sad and depressed and incredibly lonely. And exhausted.

It was a big deal to me that I wasn't even excited about seeing him. On every trip prior, I had been counting down the days and minutes until I could see him again. This time, I was dreading it. I knew that things were not going to go well. I knew we were going to argue. I could feel that our marriage was crumbling.

This feeling was further confirmed as I arrived to my airport. I called him to let him know I would be getting on the plane soon, and he informed me that he had to work and wouldn't be able to pick me up. I said "Ok, no problem," but I apparently sounded too sad, and he immediately began to scream at me that it wasn't his fault he had to work and he couldn't believe I was pissed at him for not picking me up. I tried to remain calm and tell him that I understood and that I wasn't angry, just disappointed, and he continued to scream at me. I had to put the phone down. I was crying, there in the airport, at the gate. About to board a plane to go see him.

It took me until a layover in Paris for me to say to myself "Ok. You're halfway there now. Just be excited about this." I still wasn't excited, but the dread had started to recede a bit.

When I arrived at the airport there, his dad picked me up. And I spent the next 9 hrs with his dad. As soon as my husband came home, he gave me a peck on the lips and then turned on the tv to watch his team's soccer match. I even said "Hey, it's not like I just flew 3000 miles to see you or anything..." He put his arm around me and continued to watch soccer.

That night, we went to bed, and he stayed up playing video games. Any silly ideas I had of a blissful reunion were out the window. After a little while, I asked him to please come to bed and at least hug me. So he hugged me for a minute or so, and then got back up to play video games. I asked him to please stop and come and lay with me so we could hold each other and catch up, since we hadn't seen each other for four months! He grudgingly did. But of course, it started an argument about how I was being so selfish, and why didn't I just tell him if I wanted him to come to bed (I thought that was what I did?).

The argument kept going from there. All of the sadness and insecurity I'd been feeling for the last 4 months bubbled up. And he only saw it as an attack on him, and me being unsupportive of him, because I dared be sad that my husband had left. Then he uttered the phrase that will stick with me for the rest of my life, and the moment I knew I couldn't be married to him: "Don't ever make me choose between my career and you, because I can tell you right now, you won't win."

In that moment, I stopped speaking. I don't know that any phrase has ever hurt me so much. I just hung my head. My heart dropped. He finally said what I had known for months now--that I was not his priority and never would be. It devastated me. I began to cry quietly.

"What, so you want a divorce now?! Is that what you want?!" he yelled.
"No, that just really hurt me to hear. I want us to work things out. I don't understand what happened."
"I don't want to talk about this anymore!"And with that, he went back to playing his video game.

And I laid in bed and cried. When he finally did come to bed, he was angry at me because I was moving around too much, because I was emotionally upset and also jetlagged and couldn't sleep. "You just don't stop, do you?!" He fell asleep, and I moved to the floor, where I would have more room since he was taking up the entire bed.

That was night one. The rest of the trip got worse from there.

Part of the reason I went to visit him then was that I had a friend getting married in a neighboring country that week, so we were going to go to her wedding. On the way there, I got a call from the friend who was sitting my dog that she was no longer able to dogsit. I began to cry from the stress, and my husband yelled at me, saying "If this is how you're going to act, we're not going to go anywhere!" I told him that it was sad that he couldn't just be supportive and help me try to think of a solution. He told me that I just had terrible friends, and if it had been HIS friends, this never would have happened.

When we finally got to the hotel, we were able to get in touch with one of his friends to take over watching the dog. I was relieved, but utterly exhausted. As I got into bed, he said "You don't seem happy that my friend is taking over," and I said "No, I'm very happy, I'm just really tired and need to sleep." And he proceeded to yell at me about how much better his friends are than mine, and he was going to text my friend and give her an earful about what a terrible person she is. I said "Please don't do that. Please just let me handle it when I get home. She's my friend, so please just let me deal with it later."

That sent him into a rage unlike any I've ever seen. In his mind, I was putting my friend's needs (to not be yelled at) above his need (to give her a piece of his mind) and was choosing her over him. He saw it as the ultimate act of betrayal, told me he hated me and wanted to be as far away from me as possible. His screaming was so loud that someone from the hotel had to come up and ask him to please be quiet, because fellow occupants were complaining. He then announced that he was going to sleep in the car and didn't want to see me.

I laid in bed, shaking. I had never been afraid that he may hurt me physically before, but his rage terrified me, and I didn't know what he was capable of. It was especially scary, too, because I was in a foreign country where I didn't fluently speak the language, and he had the car. I thought he might just leave me there (since he'd informed me earlier in the day that he didn't want to be there anyway, and if we weren't married he would have gone instead to see his soccer team play hours away). I began to think of ways for me to get home without him.

He came back into the room a bit later. Of course he wasn't actually going to sleep in the car. I stayed as far away from him in bed and he eventually tried to put his arm around me. I didn't sleep at all that night.

When I look back at all of the beautiful pictures that were taken during that trip, all I can think of is how sad and scared I was. To me, those pictures show the beginning of the end of our marriage, and of the person I thought I knew. There's one set of pictures in particular that were taken at my friend's wedding...we were off in the corner by ourselves, but the photographer had spotted us and took a whole series of pictures of us smiling at each other, making funny faces at each other, and finally of him hugging me tightly. I remember in that moment feeling so loved and happy to be with him, despite everything that happened at the hotel the night before. What I didn't realize until after I saw the whole string of pictures weeks later was that he had seen the photographer taking pictures of us, and immediately after hugging me, gave a "thumbs up" and a wink to the camera. It hadn't been real. It was posed on his part. I was just an unaware participant who thought that he was hugging me because he loved me and wanted to do it in that moment. Basically the entire ordeal is a metaphor for our entire marriage.

The day I came home, I passed a kidney stone and developed a UTI. Being with him for 10 days had literally made me sick. My body was trying to tell me something, but it took my brain awhile longer to finally really listen.

Well, that was fast...

My lawyer works at superhuman speeds. She just emailed me letting me know that she filed my divorce petition with the state. And upon receiving the email, and the attached document listing "my name vs. his name", I promptly began to sob at my desk...it's not even a desk, actually. It's a spot at a table in an open-concept office. So I sobbed at my spot, in the middle of everyone.

It's the right thing. My brain knows it's the right move, and the only way to be happy again, eventually, down the line. But my heart hurts. My heart never wanted this.

I didn't marry him because I wanted it all to go down in a ball of flames. I wanted him to be who I thought he was, who I knew he could be. I wanted the life I thought we'd have. I thought he was IT for me, and I thought we'd be so happy. I wanted a life and a family with him. I wanted to share everything and make memories with him and grow old together. I fought for that, as hard as I could, for as long as I could.

But it never happened. Reality never matched up with how I thought things would be. And giving up on that hope has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I had so much hope. But there was only so much pain and sadness I could stand, and only so long I could wait.

I tried to call him tonight to let him know that the papers were filed on my end. He didn't answer. Just like he hasn't answered the last two times I've tried to call him. It's for the best, because the first two times I tried I really wanted him to talk me out of it. I was waiting to file for divorce until I was SURE there was no way for us to fix things. But he was too busy to talk to me, just like he always has been, and each day we didn't talk, I got stronger. And I realized that each time he was too busy for me, he reminded me of my place in his life. I never came first, and I never would. He never wanted to hear about my feelings. 

So thank you, husband, for ignoring my calls and my attempts to talk to you. You got what you wanted. You lost me, and now you'll never have to hear about my pesky feelings ever again. 

To my husband:

I wish you hadn't been too busy with friends and appearances and events to talk to me the last few weeks.

I wish you hadn't left me for a job abroad almost as soon as we finally started our life together. 

I wish you would have listened to me and empathized instead of getting angry and yelling at me every time I tried to tell you I was sad and missed you. 

I wish you would have come back when you said you would. 

I wish you hadn't declared that we had nothing in common and no future and walked out on me a few months ago. I wish you hadn't started another relationship while I was still fighting to make ours work. 

I wish she hadn't been paying for your life--no, I wish you hadn't LET HER pay for your life.

I wish you hadn't lied and tried to gaslight me and make me seem crazy when I asked you about her.  

I wish you had let me into your life--

I wish you'd let me meet your friends, go to your events, be a part of the things that were important to you.  

I wish you would have been a part of my life, and been there for me on important days and during important times when I wanted and needed you there. 

I wish I hadn't so often been alone, or a third wheel, because my husband wasn't around. 

I wish you'd shown me vulnerability instead of anger and rage and defensiveness. 

I wish that so much could have been different. 

I wish it hadn't come to this.

In the beginning

Today is a sad day. Some days I just wake up and know its going to be a sad one. Sometimes it fluctuates from minute to minute or hour to hour between sadness and anger. But today is just overwhelmingly sad.

Today I sent the agreement to the divorce attorney, along with her retainer fee that cleared out the little bit of savings I had. Today I formally started the process to end my marriage..the marriage I thought would last for the rest of my life. The marriage I thought was so perfect and I felt so lucky to have found.

That's the hardest part. It wasn't always bad. In fact, it was consistently fantastic for awhile. It felt like a fairytale, which I guess should have been a red flag, but instead, I just enjoyed it and thought that "This must be what a GOOD relationship feels like!" There were always little things that turned into bigger things that turned into red flags, but I thought that every couple had problems, and those were just ours. I knew that no one was perfect, myself included, and I was dedicated to working through everything together. I loved him so much. Unfathomable amounts of love. I still love him. The truth is, I will always love him, despite everything. And even in the end, we still had some great times, and great days. 

In the beginning, we would talk for hours every single day. We had everything in common. He told me how beautiful I was, he listed off my positive characteristics like it was a grocery list. I thought that had finally found the person who really saw me for me, and who liked what he saw. I thought he saw my value, where all others had taken me for granted.  I felt so lucky and so blessed to have finally found a man who reciprocated my love and who thought I was as special as I thought he was.

Even in the bad times that followed, I kept coming back to that. I came back to the beautiful, romantic way we met--I was on vacation that I almost didn't take, at an event I wasn't even invited to and almost didn't go to, in a country where I didn't speak the language. I thought about the dreams I had before I met him--literal, actual dreams--which showed me not only his city, but our future. I even got his first name in a dream. I thought of how neither of us were supposed to be in the place where we were when we met. It was all fate, I thought. I truly believed that. I believed that he was my soulmate, and that I met him because I'd finally done enough work on myself to attract someone like him.

I was so wrong.

But I do believe that he also believed this. The problem is, that he believed it for self-serving purposes. And he's believed it for everyone he met before me, and for everyone who will come after me. Everyone is the next perfect love. Everyone is the one who will solve all of his problems. I wasn't special to him, I was just the one who served him best in the moment when he met me. He was still in love, whatever that meant for him, with his ex. Yet he had just broken up with a different girlfriend--a different woman than the one he was still in love with. I also found out just before he left that he had ANOTHER relationship going while he was with the girlfriend while he was still in love with his ex. That third woman was still in the picture months into our relationship (it's amazing what one can figure out by women who suddenly blocked me on facebook at the time, and by the ones who have done the same thing recently). They were dropping like flies for months after we first met, and he admitted that some of them were in love with him, but he didn't  feel the same way about them, because "he can't be everything to everyone." But I let it slide, because I had also had past loves, some of whom I was still in contact with. I also had to let a few guys down easy--ones that I was casually dating, because I knew as soon as I met him that I wanted to be with him and no one else. I thought we were in the same boat.

We weren't. 

I guess the silver lining in all of this is that he showed me how much I am capable of loving someone, and the extents to which I will go to for love. I had never felt more connected to another person, or to myself and my spirituality. I've never been a pray-er, but I was praying for him and for us every night. I counted the days until I could see him again. I wrote gushing love emails and sent cards and little gifts I would see that reminded me of him. I was a pretty amazing girlfriend in those early days.

Then I started to realize that he'd never bought me anything. He'd never once given me a gift, not even on Christmas or for our anniversary or my birthday. In fact, in the three years we were together, he was never with me on my birthday. There was always work or something more important, or, this year, he was with the other woman out at  a club...when I'd scheduled a vacation just for us. 

I went on vacation alone. 

I had a king bed and a hot tub in the honeymoon suite, alone. 

I went to dinner on my birthday, alone.

And what started as a sad day just turned back into an angry one...all I have to do is remember the way things went down in the last year, and how virtually nothing I ever gave, emotional or physical, was reciprocated. I have to remember the person he was in the last year or two instead of how good it was in the beginning. 

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.