ready2receive's story

I've been putting this off because I didn't know where to start and was afraid of breaking down and reliving the pain. Now, two months NC, I feel strong enough to do it.

In 2006 after I had been divorced from my first husband (a non-N) for nearly four years, I started an intense, whirlwind romance with a co-worker (we were both teachers). I knew he was engaged at the time and told him before we had any physical contact that he would have to decide what he wanted to do, because I would not let him take me for a "test drive." He was either in and would break up with his fiance or I was out. I was insanely attracted to him which I thought meant he was indeed my soulmate. Before anything happened between us, I broke up with a guy I was dating because I had such strong feelings for N and figured that meant that I wasn't mean to be with guy I was dating.

N was a tall, brooding, intelligent, myopic - but sexy as all get out - man. I was completely and utterly taken in. We laid low for a time while he untangled his relationship. He never told her about me but she sensed that he was acting weird and he told her he wanted out of their relationship. (I've since found out that he was horribly cruel about it.)
He left one night to let her start packing and moving, and I stupidly met him at the hotel and we had sex. I remember being disapointed and didn't feel like he enjoyed it.

After she began the process of moving out, I met with him in a park. He told me that he had 3 things to tell me and stated them very matter of factly: "1. I declared bankrupcy several years ago after my divorce. 2. I am married (not engaed! and 3) I love you and there's nothing I can do about that. He also told me that he was happy that I had children because he always wanted to be a stepfather (he has a daughter now in college).

Why I didn't get up and leave when he told me he was married, I will never understand. He let me have sex with him thinking that he had just broken up with his "fiance". That should have been bad enough for me. I still feel terrible that I didn't even think about her feelings and figure that he might just treat me the same way one day.

He filed for divorce and she moved out. We continued to fall in crazy love with each other for several years and on occassion did things with my children and his daughter, though it never went well. I included his daughter, then 16, whenever I did anything fun with my kids, then 10 and 8. N stopped going with us because he didn't really like the chaos of children.

I spend every free moment that I wasn't with my kids, with N. I would drop them off at their fathers and go straight to him or he would come to my place. It became increasingly difficult to see my friends because I didn't want to make him mad and by that point the brainwashing was in full effect. I only wanted to be with him and did not want to do anything to make him not like me. He never put me down at that point; he made me feel like the sexiest most desirable woman. He talked about both of his exwives - they were crazy, of course, especially the first one (she must have figured him out!). They did not co-parent well at all and he had full custody of his daughter, not because he wanted her (he told me he didn't) but I have figured out that he just wanted to win...at anything and everything. I did notice that we had very different parenting styles but figured we really didn't have to co-parent since my children had a wonderful father and his daughter was soon going off to college. duh.

Then we got engaged and began fighting, horrible fights. He wanted to elope, didn't want my children at the wedding, wouldn't let me have my friends at the wedding....I don't know why I married him after all of the limitations and horrible anxiety I had just trying to plan the ceremony. We married and moved in together (I had sold my house and so did he so he moved into my large apt with the plan that we would buy/rent a house when the lease was up.)

My kids are with me 50% of the time and their father and I have a great cooperative relationship. My kids are also great students and have fun quirky personalities, lots of friends. As soon as he moved in, he hid in the bedroom whenever they were there and hardly would even eat dinner with us. There were some good times; he is an excellent cook and would show off and make the kids their favorite food, but overall, he told me, "I can only be around your kids for 30 minutes because I find them boring." He was moody and agitated - would go out to dinner by himself when they were there. He wouldn't even sit and watch TV with us...ever.

I tried desperately to keep the peace. My kids and I had very open discussions about the situation and they were so great. N told me I was "an indulgent mother" one minute; a fanatastic mother the next (now I know that he was just punishing me because his mother didn't nuture him the way I did to my kids and he was jealous - sick). He told me that my children "didn't need me" because their father could take care of them. He wanted me to move out of state and leave them with their father. He made HUGE issues because my son didn't take the garbage out within 2 minutes of being asked and he poked my son with a fork because he had his elbows on the table.

Meanwhile, I bent myself into a pretzel to make N happy. There was so much anxiety and my son started spending more time at his dads. I didn't know how I was going to get out of the marriage - I was a mess and very much in love but somewhere down deep I knew it wouldn't work out. He actually convinced me that once my kids left for college, we would be just fine together.....he assumed that I wouldn't want my kids to come home for breaks??? summers??? His daughter stopped coming home from college and just lived on campus. He was fine with that.

During this time, I had been searching for new job and after three years of looking, landed a fantastic job as a director of a non-profit - my dream job. It paid 20K more than my teaching job but involved some travel and N pretended to be very supportive. I took the job and loved it (still do). N became VERY jealous and insecure because my job involved me meeting with business people and imagine this - some were men. Meanwhile he was on sabbatical from teaching and traveling spending thousand of dollars and not accomplishing anything from his travels as he promised to in order to get the sabbatical. He would get drunk and text me horribly abusive things in the middle of the night accusing me of dreaming of men in uniform (I have clients who are police/fire svs.) and asking me how I would feel if he took a job at Hooters since it was the same thing. I work for an academic institution!!!!

He always apologized the next day and I accepted his apology but knew it was not right. I would have such anxiety everytime I would have to travel for work and always invited him to come along. He would get angry if I didn't respond IMMEDIATELY to his texts. I was nothing but faithful. I was so stupidly in love with him that I never even noticed that other men were attractive. He didn't like me talking about my job and told me it was "boring" (just like my kids). OUr sex life was always fanatastic and intense, but he started demanding that I dress up like a whore every time and do things that I can't even write about. I am very open sexually but I started to feel like an object. He told me during a fight one night that he "had thought about breaking up with me years ago to find someone who was less uptight in the bedroom." He choose the one area of our relationship that had always been great - just to hurt me. I was dumbfounded. I did everything he wanted in the bedroom and it wasn't good enough.

I spent ALL of my free time with him and he told me he "couldn't survive on the slice" of me that I could provide because I had to spend time with my kids. He wouldn't spend time with me if I had my kids. It got to the point that they couldn't all be in the same room together. They didn't fight - it was just so tense.

Finally, after he had brought up moving out I gave him my blessing and we both agreed it would be best for my kids. We intended to try to stay together living apart (why didn't I think I deserved better?). After he got an apt (for the second time in our relationship, he didn't let me even help him apartment/house shop with him - just signed a lease without even telling me he had). I told him that I was moving back to the town where my kids went to school to make my life easier. In my mind, I knew that this was the final step in my plan to try to get away from this man who had such a pull on me. I was so brainwashed, but I went into self-protection mode.I can't convey in this story all of the little ways he manipulated me - it's so crazy and painful.

I tried living apart as a way to wean myself and get re-established in this town and reconnect with my friends, who were so understanding, and knowing that I would need them. Eventually, this May, I told him that it wasn't working for me. I did not like living apart but was not willing to put my children through another move because I just didn't think it would ever work out. We had an eerily peaceful breakup of our fairly new marriage - I was crying hard and he was actually smiling in a weird way. He told me that he had no room in his life for two teenagers and they would disrupt the lifestyle he has worked so hard to maintain (very quite, classical music playing all of the time, no TV, no friends). He said he wasn't willing to comprise even if it meant losing me. For some reason, I wasn't even insulted. I just appreciated the honesty at that point. The anger came later.

This from the man who claimed for 5 years that I was his dream woman - he would never be able to be with another woman - blah blah blah. Then....just when I was trying to get over him...he decides he loves me too much and wants to try...he will go to therapy now...after I begged him to go before with me.....I said no. Then he wrote me nasty emails- told me I had an "overblown sense of motherhood, was too emotionally dependent on my children." He actually said, "It pains me to say this but you could live without me, but could you ever live without your daughter?" WHAT?? WHO would ask someone that?? WHY????

It went on for a month or two. I tried to forgive but I couldn't forget. He cried to anyone who would listen (all of my friends since he has none). He, now, was the one who wanted to TRY and I was the cold awful one who wouldn't believe in him and give him another chance.

I truly believe he has a personality disorder and have read extensively about NPD before finding this site. There is not a doubt in my mind.

Thank you for reading this story. I know it was long, but it was cathartic to get out.