katiebird's story

It was a wonderful thing to find this site. I know now that I am not crazy, and I am not alone. Here is my story:

I met my N online, and we began to email and then talk on the phone. He was charming, intelligent, everything my soon to be ex-husband was not.
After my divorce, he flew out to see me, (we lived 2000 miles apart), and it was on this first trip I began to realize something was wrong. He drank too much. He was angry alot of the time. He was NOT the man I emailed and talked to on the phone. Still, I hung in there and we kept in contact. He flew out a month later and on the first night I KNEW the same old things were wrong, but it had escalated. Everything had to be his way, and if I chose an activity, he found some way to ruin it. By the third night, I was ready to take him back to the airport and leave his sorry ass behind.
When he did leave, at the end of the week, I began to slowly get a life of my own and ease off on the contact with him. He called constantly...before work, during work, after work, even at two in the morning. The conversations ended with him saying, "Go away" and then "fuck off." I told him someday I will go away and he would tell me he was teasing me, and I should grow up.
I had a successful fine art career before I met him, but he began to believe he was "directing" my career. He belittled my acomplishments and awards. He wanted me to open doors for him in the local art scene and I refused.
He began to call me names...dumbass, stupid...and attack me on the phone till I cried.
I cut off contact. He crawled back with apologies. This went on and on until I finally stopped answering any emails, texts, and phone calls. He left me alone for two months, and then started again. I told him to LEAVE ME ALONE and he told me to fuck off. I didn't hear another peep till Xmas. I did not answer the email or acknowlege the card he sent.
This past week I disposed of every single letter, card, photo, email, everything that I could find that reminded me of him. I felt better with every torn-up letter and photo. He is history.

The whole thing, from the day we met till the last contact from him at Xmas, lasted one and a half years. He denied the verbal abuse. He blamed it on me. He complained of medical issues, (emphysema and arthritis), when I would cut back on the phone calls. He made me feel as though I was in the eye of a hurricane and when I stopped all contact, the peace that I felt was overwhelming. He was/is crazy. I was simply one more in a long line of women he mistreated. How do I know this? He even wrote his "memoirs" and gave it to me to read. All the women in his past were crazy, never him.
My god, I am so thankful to be free of this man.
I am so thankful to have found this site, and realize that I am NOT the one who was crazy.