Elena's story

"God, give me justice"

Well, here’s my story. I am right now going through a divorce from a 10 year marriage with a narcissist. When I married him I was 23 years old, I had no knowledge about personality disorders. He was truly “prince charming”, I just fell in love with him, he had all the things I wanted in a man; I met him in church; he met all the requirements in “my checklist”. In just a couple of months after dating, he told me he wanted to marry me, and I accepted. I grew up with an abusive father, so the thought of having someone so nice and loving - felt so good. After we came back from our honeymoon, that’s when the nightmare started. I started to get phone calls from creditors at my job, harassing me to help pay for debts he had delinquent from the past. Then I got a phone call from the previous girlfriend that he had engaged to in the past, asking me to help her recuperate the money he had borrowed from her to buy her engagement ring. I did what I could to ensure these things got paid, with the intent of leaving these things behind us and moving forward with our lives into a better future together. I wanted to believe the best of him, and see those things as just mistakes from the past. Then just a few months after being married, the intimate/sexual distance started; when I realized my "prince charming" was no longer interested in me intimately, I spiraled down into a depression. I would curl up in bed and just cry. What’s so shocking is that he would see me in that condition and he knew why I was depressed (I shared this with him) and he would do nothing about it to fix things. I was confused, I didn’t know why this was happening, I couldn’t explain it; I didn’t think it was normal in a man, but I had no answers for the situation. And I was embarrassed to share with anyone about the sexual distance, it was just embarrassing. This distance remained for almost the entire 10 years, I discussed it with him many times, but he always had a different excuse for it. This got to the point where I stopped feeling like a woman, I no longer felt feminine or beautiful, I actually felt like I was ugly and non-desirable, I felt more like a “thing”, with no gender. I would get depressed frequently. But I lived with the hope that maybe one day things would change. From time to time though, the emotional and sexual distance would really get to me, and I told him I could no longer go on like this, that if he didn't love me to just tell me, and alot of times I told him I wanted to quit - even though I didn't mean it, I was actually hoping that maybe by giving him an ultimatum, it would motivate him to change. A few weeks ago, I saw some bank transactions in his checking account that showed he used his ATM/check card at a nude strip club.

He has never been financially responsible, I have always been in a position where I have to work, I have been the financial tower in the relationship. I was never able to fulfill my desire of being a stay-at-home mom, because he has never made enough money to sustain a household; the only financial thing that has resulted in our marriage is a lot of debt, we ended up with about $45,000 worth of just credit card debt; and even under these circumstances, he still was not satisfied with our 2000 sq. feet home (and it’s only the 2 of us – no children), he said he wanted to have a home so big that the dinning room would fit 16 people, my thought process was – “Wow, you can’t even provide for me financially with what we have, how can we possibly acquire more and bigger things?”

He has been a regular liar through the marriage, lies from little things to big things, from lying about who he’s on the phone with, to lying about money, and later about things to cover up for an affair. I now realize that I was in a manipulative relationship, but I am still having a hard time seeing through the fog, it’s still foggy. It seems that in a very subtle way, he isolated me from my friends and family; my friends and family have shared with me that they noticed this was happening, and for the longest time, I just didn’t see it. Like I said - it has been foggy.

He blames me for the failure of the marriage; he uses any mistakes I made to say it was my fault. There was a point when I felt I was drowning in a “pit of guilt”. This took me into a “Self-blame” or “Self flagellation” battle, and I’ve really struggled with this. I am also sure he’s talking all kinds of negative things with our mutual relationships, which hurts me a great deal because I place a high value on relationships, I really care about my friends, and to think that his negative talks about me would hurt these relationships that were meaningful - hurts me, but I realize I can’t do anything about this. What I did is I selected some people who I felt were my most important relationships, and I shared about the adulterous affair with them and that I was getting a divorce, so they would know the truth, because I am sure he will not reveal that he committed adultery to them. But even then, I realize they will believe whatever they want to believe. I know he has already complained about me to some of them – before I knew about the other woman. I have battled in my heart with this, because I feel this is so unfair. I am now praying – “God, give me justice”, for people to see the truth about this situation, and for people to see the truth about who he really is, and what has really happened here. I have worked so hard for this marriage to work. Close to the end of the relationship (before I knew about narcissism), I told him that I was 100% committed to making things work, and that I loved him so much that I would put my life on the line for his, and he told me – “Why do you want to be with someone who doesn’t love you?” After 10 years, our marriage meant nothing to him. This was so painful. I feel used, taken advantage of, hurt, deceived, betrayed, abandoned, wronged, and rejected. I feel like I have died. My counselor told me that I lost my self in this relationship. God, give me justice…

I welcome any comments from any of you, I feel that maybe this is the only group of people that really understands what I went through…