GoddessJojo's story

I'm sure most people feel they don't know where to start with this, but here goes.
After having my heart broken (in a much more traditional way, rather than eviscerated, like with my N) I was 36 and in a vulnerable place. Work was not good and my esteem pretty much in the toilet.

A friend of mine was going through some marital trouble, and started looking up old friends on My Space to reconnect. Her very jealous husband at the time, questioned her about one of these people, an old ex (they dated about six months) who I remembered as well. We were acquainted when we were about 20, but didn't know each other well. I told her, Well, I remember him, why I don't I add him as a friend too and then you can say that we both we friends with him back "in the day". And so it began.

It started pretty quickly, with messaging, texting, etc. G was witty, charming, bright....he had moved from the city he grew up in (one city over from mine) to a lovely little touristy island, after having moved around quite a bit for work. I respected that and envied his bravery, since i had lived in about a one mile radius of the house I grew up in my entire life. We had both been married and divorced, no kids and to a degree, shared our stories with each other. Never had I realized I was giving him all the information he needed to manipulate and charm me. He also revealed to me that "in the interest of fairness, I should know" that he was bipolar and on meds. I felt that it was good of him to be honest with me and he said he was doing great with it, the meds were wonderful and life changing for him.

As things progressed, he was IM'ing me and texting more and more....we were in constant contact with each other. Interestingly, it was rarely via phone calls, now that I look back. All over a period of months.

He decided he would take a trip back home to visit and insisted on seeing me. He would only be home a few days, and was with family, but we would have one evening we could meet for dinner. We met and had a great time. I DID find it odd that he couldn't meet my eyes in an intimate way though....something that would continue for the rest of our relationship naturally. The next few days, he wanted me to be with him and HIS FAMILY. How uncomfortable is that? I am really just getting to know him face to face and I'm in a car with him, his mother and father and going to meet his sister and her family?? Even better was when I had a friend who had a death in his family and I was attending the wake, and he wanted to go with me?

Next, he flew home and was pestering me to come visit him. I was broke and couldn't afford it really, so he offered to pay for the airfare. I accepted and visited him, with him suggesting to me that I should move there so we could be together. I will say now, I never really felt as though I was in love. And I suppose I'm one of the few that will say that, especially ridiculous when you consider what I dealt with, but I think I had so many friends insisting that I wasn't giving ANYONE a chance because I was still hung up on, or still mourning the last relationship, that I had to give things a try. There were a lot of AMAZING things about him and I think I thought I was just numb. Dammit, I wanted to take a CHANCE and finally take a bite out of life.

As fate would have it, I lost my sweet deal on my apartment I was living in and looked at it as fate. I told him I would move down there with him. He was ecstatic. There was one more visit that I had scheduled down there before I would move. This was about one and a half months before the move date.

I got there, and nothing. He basically shut down sexually. At the beginning of the relationship. When you are supposed to be having mad sex (which we had been when we saw each other previously). He blamed it on being the busy season and that he had gotten barely any sleep the entire week before. I remember sitting out on the porch in the morning, drinking coffee, and emailing a male friend of mine saying, "dont' you find this odd?"

There was never any PDA from the beginning,which he had told me he wasn't into at all. I'm not someone who likes seeing people slobbering on each other in public, but didn't realize he also meant just putting an arm around one's waist, etc. However, he seemed to be showing me off to friends and coworkers.

Then I moved. He had traveled home and was driving down with me. He didn't come help me load up my truck with my belongings, because he was visiting his family. The drive down took a couple of days, the move a bit hectic. We immediately moved into a brand new place when I got there, so it was like a fresh start. With him deciding where and how the furniture was set up, with him taking the larger bureau and closet space and with him putting his family pics and belongings all over the house. I had nothing of mine set up anywhere to make it feel like my home. He couldn't sleep without the tv on (blaming it on the bipolar, saying his mind would spin if he couldn't focus on something) and I couldn't sleep with it on. TV stayed on.

He bought into a bar business the next month, and convinced some of his famliy and friends to invest. He brought the money, the other business partner essentially brought the trouble. I was supposed to be the day manager and he wanted to work nights. I wasn't interested in that because it was open til 4am and I was not that kind of night owl. He balked and whined that we would never see each other, so I ended up working nights with him. I worked every aspect of this establishment while he sat in the back office playing video games. My own business that I had was going nowhere because I was so tired working for him, that i had no time and energy. This was when I noticed the incredible amount of drinking he did. When he drank, he would lose control. He was blaming it all on the stress of the business, and that I didn't understand the pressure he was under because it was HIS family's money that would be lost if the place failed. He would drink and get in altercations with the "customers". Not a great area that we were in for this place so we got a lot of riff raff. At one point he got hit in the face and his jaw was broken. Another crisis I helped him through.
I also stopped cashing my checks to help out. We were living on our tips at the time. His partner turned out to be a thief, the business failed and I lost $12,000 in paychecks. THIS was the point when I realized that he thought he was smarter than everyone else, so he could be conned.
All throughout this six month period, there was barely any sex at all. He tried to blame it on be overworked, stressed, and the ups and downs of a bipolar cycle. I felt guilty for how much I was holding this against him, because I felt as though he couldn't help it. I hadn't taken into consideration that he had said his meds had him regulated and that he drank every night.
He had already had an insane drunken blow up at me, where he went ballistic over nothing. I ended up saying, "I'm thinking I should probably move home" and he lost it. Saying that I had been PLANNING to move the whole time and not telling him. I told him I hadn't been planning it, that I was thinking at that moment because of the way he was treating me that I would move home. He kept repeating "NO you said YOU HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT" . This was the first twisting of words. I crumbled because I felt he hadn't understood me and I felt guilty for making him upset.
We both got other work, in our neighborhoods, me working three different part time jobs, him working one BARELY full time job. Money was tight. I wanted to be on a budget and eat in, he wanted to eat out and drink every night (not an uncommon behavior where we live, fyi) Money was flying out the window and that is when I started to become the blame for it. I was working part time jobs, him a full time job.
We were falling behind in rent and I felt even more trapped. I hadn't been financially stable since my move and didn't have any way of moving out on my own, or home.
AND THERE ALWAYS SEEMED TO BE CRISIS. Things that I felt compelled to help him work through! Things that would make me feel like a criminal if I had left him at that time.
Another thing that had slowly happened was that he was ALWAYS with me. We lived in a three room apartment, and if I went into the living room to read a book, he would follow and ask why I wasn't with him. If I talked to friends on the phone, he would sit in the room with me. I felt trapped.

I started to have an online affair with a friend back home. Nothing that would ever be consummated between us, both of us were in a bad situation at the time and just needed to feel attractive and validated in some way. It was an escape. I don't need to tell you that G had spyware on the computer and read all of the emails. He didn't tell me at first, but tried to make a complete turnaround, how he realized he was wrong etc. I was happy and touched, but he soon revealed what he knew about the online affair and used it against me because I had "cheated". After a year of living with a cold and robotic, explosive psycho who took advantage of everything I gave, yes, I suppose I did have an affair.

He got an opportunity to start a big business where we were, and I came along for the ride. It was a lot of battling with the city, legal issues, problems with a competing company. In other words, more crisis and stress. In other words, more explosions about how I caused these problems. I STILL did not see what was happening. I blamed it on the bipolar or him being a nasty drunk. According to him I was old, ugly, fat, stupid. This was the beginning of the gaslighting and constant rewriting of history.His famous quote was "It's not like I hit you." This is when I really saw he could never admit fault, apologize genuinely or have an ounce of empathy. When the company was up and running, the employees all came to me with issues because G wouldn't listen. I was also working 7 days a week, taking on more and more, while he strutted around and acted like the "owner" instead of a worker.

At this point, any male I had as a friend or chatted with, was someone I wanted to fuck. Accusations, screams, demeaning and degrading confrontations. Interestingly, he would rage at me for three or four hours about this one particular guy, THEN go hang out at a bar with him right after and be fine with HIM. I did have a male friend look at me at the time and say, "I'm sorry, but you are in an emotionally abusive relationship." I was stunned. I had never really considered it at this point because I was so demeaned and degraded that I couldn't see I didn't deserve it.

After a five year haul, I left. Him saying he was throwing me out during the argument (per usual) and that we were done and me shocking the shit out of him the next morning because due to his childish rants on Facebook (we are in our 40's mind you) our mutual friends offered me a place to stay. I was still working for him for about four months after that and then left due to his business partner. THAT was a huge favor that man did for me, because I was STILL the one slaving away and couldn't see it clearly.

We live in a very small community and have several mutual friends. Friends that have seen SOME of what he is capable of, but not all of them. He is very funny and charismatic and charms everyone. At the beginning, I wanted to be on friendly terms, because he was acting like the heartbroken one. We still went to do trivia with a couple of friends, one night a week.He dated in one year, no less than ten different women (once again, we live in a SMALL community). I dated one person, briefly, and never heard the end of it from him because the guy was much younger. But he would continue his verbal assaults when the mood struck. I was still walking on the eggshells I had when in the relationship with him, although the beauty of it was, I could walk away and go home to peace and quiet, so that made me smile.

After one particularly awful night with him being cruel and unfair, something finally snapped and I had it. I wanted nothing to do with him ever again. AND started to search about recovering from "emotional abuse" online. And that is how I found the topic of NPD. I was floored, validated, redeemed feeling. It was as if someone had been peering through a keyhole at us and wrote every symptom down. It has been a revelation to me. I have also come to the conclusion that he is NOT bipolar. I think it is a scam he uses to cover his real disorder. During the time I was with him, he was on and off meds and I never saw what you would call a down cycle.
January 1st is one year that we have been over, but it was only in Sept that we had the blow out that lead to my discovery. In the course of that time, I have accused him of NPD (and had a family member of his confirm it)watched him dating a million different girls, although now he settled with one (for Christmas time lol) and had him be full on psycho with me a few times over. I have tried to not speak to him and ignore him when I see him, but it is unavoidable here due to the size of where we live and all of our mutual friends. I don't want to leave a room if he walks through the door, because I feel as thought that would give him supply, so now I hold my ground, and don't even look at him. I also want to be clear, I DON'T WANT HIM BACK AND NEVER HAD THE MOMENT THAT I THOUGHT I DID. I WOULD RATHER SHIT IN MY HAND AND CLAP. I think it was guilt I was still carrying, because he puts on the image of damaged little boy so convincingly. Now that I see him for what he is, I cannot be influenced by it anymore.
I am healing.....that is what is important.