Jaime's story

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#1 Mar 19 - 12PM
jaime17
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Jaime's story

Hello everyone, I am on day 7 NC from a man I have come to realize is a narcissist. I'd heard that term thrown around before and always took it as a synonym for "selfish." I had no idea that it was actually a personality disorder, and the depth of depravity and lack of empathy people with this disorder have, until I fell in love with one.

My exN is a neighbor, and we met because our children are in the same activities, etc. I was on the end of an 8-year marriage to my "safe bet" husband...a man I chose b/c I knew he wouldn't leave me, and would treat me reasonably well. However, there was no true connection, no passion or intimacy in our marriage. For the past 5 years we functioned mainly as roommates. I tried my best to make the marriage "work" but by the time I met the N, I was lonely, depressed, and desperate for some excitement in my life. And I believe the N sensed all of that, like a shark senses blood.

It started with friendly banter, then some rather tame flirting through email until the N managed to subtly cajole me into propositioning him. (Looking back, I realize even at that point he was controlling the situation entirely...I've never been one to hit on men, and yet I ended up being the one to tell this guy I would like to meet up for NSA "fun.") So, we met up, and hooked up. And I thought, well, I'm finally doing something for myself. Yes, I'm not proud of that and realize I should've left the marriage first, before seeking anything else. And at that point my expectation was that this would be a "casual" thing to help us both through our "difficult" marriages. (The N portrayed his marriage as being very similar to mine.)

However, we quickly became immersed in each other...talking, texting, and seeing each other all the time. He fast forwarded things dramatically, telling me within a week or so that he loved me and that he knew he had to spend the rest of his life with me. I had never experienced anything on this level, I felt adored and cherished, and the attraction was amazing. However, in hindsight, the first time I met to hook up with him I wasn't physically attracted to him...he is 7 years older than me but isn't aging well, plus he's overweight and has bad teeth. I was attracted to his "vibe," this intensity about him, his intelligence, and his confidence. Soon, I was thinking of him as the sexiest man I had ever met. No kidding.

We made plans for me to leave my marriage and him to leave his; he made so many promises to me that he would be there for me, never leave me, that this would be different than any other relationship I'd ever had (and it certainly WAS, but not in a good way), he said he'd help me with my mortgage and help me raise my kids. However, as I was taking action to end my marriage, his "strategy" was to completely shut out his wife so that she would end the marriage for him. Although I'm sure he lied to me quite a bit, I do believe that he was shutting her out because I was privy to their emails and he would tell me in detail about the arguments and her pleading with him to know why he was no longer acting loving toward her. And he was with me every day, for more than two months. He would tell me about the things he was doing to provoke her into leaving the marriage and why this didn't set off warning signals to me, I don't know.

While all this was going on, even in the throes of what I thought was our "great LOVE," there were moments where his controlling nature seeped out and threw me into a tailspin. The first time it happened, I was spending the day with my kids hiking and what not and knew he had other plans as well. So I didn't text him for 4 or 5 hours because I was busy. When I did try to get in touch, he was cold, distant, and snarky. I felt like i'd been slapped in the face because I didn't expect this kind of behavior from my prince charming. After much teary-eyed coaxing on my part (he was acting like he wanted to break up with me), he finally admitted that "it was a long time to go without hearing from me." I was terrified to lose him, so I sent him a long, loving email the following morning detailing how much I adored him. I'm sure he just ate that up, and he actually told me it was the best email he'd ever received...and that he'd read it over and over. Throughout the next several months, this scenario started to happen more frequently and was mostly centered around my soon-to-be ex husband still living at the house. The N always employed a "shutting down/pulling away" strategy to get me to freak out and do whatever he wanted. At the time, I thought he was just moody. But whenever he acted this way, I would jump through hoops to get him to "open up" and be happy again.

The turning point for the relationship was when his wife found text messages between us. Suddenly, he wasn't nearly as available, and the dynamics shifted between us incredibly. (Or rather, I guess the "real" dynamics started to show through.) He was no longer the pursuer...I was. And there was little I wouldn't do to try to keep him around. He still wanted to see me, but on his terms. He slowly took all those promises of leaving as soon as I was out off the table. At first, I tried to stay firm and hold him to his word of moving out soon. Several times, I tried to go NC and tell him I couldn't see him any more until he was "out," but he always managed to pull me back in. He wasn't done with me yet. But I couldn't stand to lose him, so I stopped pushing as much. I think once he saw how much he could get away with, he ran with it. He'd always wanted a three-way and he started only acting interested in seeing me when there was a possibility of that happening. I never gave in, and tried to explain to him how demoralizing it would be for me to do this with him when we didn't have a committed relationship, but he didn't seem to "get it." Once, out of desperation, I allowed him to take me to a strip club for a lap dance but I couldn't go through with it. Suddenly it wasn't enough to "just" be with me, even for sex. He wanted me to cater to his fantasy. And if it was just plain 'ol me, he would find excuses not to hang out. Interestingly enough, while this was going on, he was still acting derogatory towards his wife. Once, we were in a hotel together and she texted him about getting STD testing (since she'd found out he was cheating); he read it and quickly dismissed her as a F'ing C***. I'd never heard him use language like this towards a woman before, and I was a little taken aback.

The last two months we were together, I think I completely lost my mind. I was desperate to keep him, to get things back to the "fairy tale" they'd been in the beginning. I could write a book on all the sweetness and "love" he'd shown me in the first few months, and I'm sure all of you reading this know all too well just how good an N can be at courtship. I'm an intelligent woman, and I keep trying to "out think" him, to figure out a way to reset things so he'd be that guy again. However, the more I tried to make this happen, the stronger he resisted. Then his wife found more texts and emails. (He'd told her it was only texting, and not a relationship, and had convinced her it was with someone from out of town.) This time around she had proof that it was me, someone she knew. She threw him out for about a week, during which time he came sniffing around for...you guessed it, the alluring 3-way. But eventually took him back. I was so hurt, so humiliated, that I was looking for revenge, and so, I went to her. I told her it was so much more than texting (she STILL thought that was all it was) and basically unmasked him to her. She threw him out for another two weeks but guess what? He's now living with her again. He told me he's only with her because of his stepson, who he doesn't have any legal custody of but for whom he seems to adore (I wonder if that isn't also some kind of ego stroke for him...the stepson is very good in sports, something he always wanted to be) and that she would take him to the cleaners if he left her under those circumstances. However, since he's a neighbor, I had to see them out together this weekend, taking a stroll together, looking very chummy. Every time I see him with her it breaks my heart again and again. I've been thinking about putting my house on the market but my kids enjoy the neighborhood. I'm wary of being too reactive and making a decision in haste so for now I'm just trying to suck it up.

Going from "almost" having him out to him crawling back to her, the woman he told me he despised and wanted nothing to do with, is beyond demoralizing. I was in a boring, dead marriage (and my ex-husband has moved on quickly, good for him), but I did try to be a moral person through most of it, and to have good boundaries. When I started with the N I though my self-esteem was decent, but now I feel like a shell of a person. I couldn't make sense of how a person could be so amazingly loving to completely shutting you out of their life in such a short period of time, until I found out about NPD. Now everything makes sense, and makes the pain lessen a little. Last week, I had a "closure" conversation with him, although I didn't get much from him, it was mostly like talking to a wall. I wanted answers but he said he doesn't' live in the past, and that what "was or wasn't" between us was in the past. He said we had to be done "for now" but that if I ever wanted to hook up to let him know. And not to text him b/c he let the wife have access to his phone records so she could see he was on the "up and up." So I should email him instead. Oh, and especially if a girlfriend and I wanted to see him, that would be great.

The a$$wipe even said he needed me to know that he harbored no "bad feelings" toward me for exposing him to his wife. But not once did he apologize for hurting or manipulating me through all of this. Then he ended things with a big, tight hug. WTF. Guess he needed to walk away feeling like the "good guy." The next day, I returned a bunch of gifts he'd given me (without seeing him) and threw out everything else that reminded me of him. I blocked him on FB and have a rule set up to send his emails to the trash bin.

I haven't heard from him (I am checking the trash once a day; morbid curiosity) but he's still renting a lot of space in my head, and unfortunately, my heart. I am seeing a therapist and trying to do a lot of self work and I think I am in a better state of mind than I was maybe a month ago, but progress is so slow. The worst is seeing him with her and feeling like he chose her over me. But as my therapist tells me, I'm the lucky one. I saw him for what he is fairly quickly, and now I can move on with my life. She's the one that has chosen to stay with the abuse.

My goal is to get to a point where I just don't care about him anymore, no longing, no love, no hatred, nothing. Just apathy. I hope this experience will help me to evolve into someone with better self-esteem and boundaries, and to carve out a better life for myself and my kids. I beat myself up a lot; I hate that his wife got hurt in this mess, and his stepson. That's not the kind of person I am. But when I was with him, I was like a junkie, not caring who got hurt in the wake of my next fix.

Mar 19 - 2PM
Hunter
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Welcome to Narcville

Mar 19 - 3PM (Reply to #7)
jaime17
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Thanks Hunter. Does the visit

Mar 19 - 1PM
Brit
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jamie

Mar 19 - 3PM (Reply to #5)
jaime17
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Thanks jamie. I keep telling

Mar 19 - 1PM
Fearless
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welcome

FeFe

Mar 19 - 3PM (Reply to #2)
jaime17
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Thanks fefe, the support I'm

Mar 19 - 3PM (Reply to #3)
Fearless
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I KNOW...Jaime17

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