Outoftheashes Story

I was the OW. Both the N and I are married with families. Not my proudest moment writing this and certainly NOT the person I ever intended to be. Sharing this is very hard for me, and I would like to thank Thenewjane for encouraging me to post my story.

The N and I met almost 20 years ago in medical school. We were attracted to each other but I was engaged, and he had a serious girlfriend. Looking back, he showed early signs of being completely self-centered. A group of us always celebrated birthdays by going to lunch. When it was my birthday, the N blankly stared at me and said he was going to play golf with his buddies. One of our friends asked him to please, don't do this, as I had done a lot for his birthday. He walked away and could have cared less about my feelings. I was devasted and ended up in tears.

We both got married. His first wife left him after he "forbid" her to pursue a residency that he perceived would hurt their marriage. She walked away, he drank a bottle of Scotch mixed with Drano....and survived. The next few years I spent counseling him daily about life and relationships. I reassured him the right girl would come along as he dated more women than I could count. We lived 2 hours apart and would see each other for business. He would flirt and tell me he had never opened up to anyone the way he talked to me. He was very sweet, and I'll admit I enjoyed the attention and was flattered by his words.

He remarried a very strict, devout Catholic woman. I found this odd given his sexual history with so many women and his love of strip clubs. She insisted no sex before marriage...or so he said. They even taught abstinence classes together at the church. At their wedding, I sat behind his receptionist as she sobbed during the ceremony. How odd, I thought. In hindsight, probably just another casualty. His wife quickly became pregnant and was diagnosed with HPV. All fingers pointed at him and he was outraged and innocent!

During this time, I was hospitalized with abdominal pain for a week. I called him for support. He told me that I hadn't been there for him lately so he wasn't going to be there for me. I screamed at him to never call me back...and cried. He drove to my city to see me and apologize a couple of months later. Somehow I got past his behavior.

About 2 years ago, he started sharing intimate things with me about his marriage. He said his wife hated sex and they had been to many therapists for her problem. He said all the therapists agreed with him and that maybe his wife had been sexually abused. He told me she would not try to pleasure herself, and he found that so sad because it was such a beautiful thing. I listened and gave him lots of advice on how to romance her and maybe put her more in the mood. He also had major issues with his medical practice. Again, I counseled him on what to do. He said I calmed him down like nobody else could. He was so grateful for me.

He started texting me "69" when he couldn't reach me by phone. I thought it was silly but would rush to erase it, knowing my husband would flip. ENTER FACEBOOK. Poke, poke, poke. " Is your poker broken? I keep poking you and you're not responding!" Huh? What is this poking stuff? Okay, I'll play along. And then....nothing for a week. I finally called. He told me how he had always loved me, needed me, and wanted me. He said I was beautiful and smart and we should have been together all along. He said we had so much in common, and his wife...not so much anymore. They had counseling through the church but it wasn't working. He said she was clinically depressed....I'm sure due to his behavior. I opened the door to the N after confessing I didn't feel appreciated by my husband.

Our conversations grew longer and more personal, sneaking time before work, during lunch, and soon at night on the computer. I tried to stop it early on by giving us a few days of not talking, but he would break it every time. I got worn down by the compliments and attention. He would tell me constantly how much he missed me. He suggested I read a book that had changed his life, and would change mine. It was given to him by a mutual friend and titled Leadership and Self Deception. I could never get into this book and only recently picked it up again to look at it. Surprise, surprise...it's all about learning to NOT treat people as OBJECTS. A warning handed to me on a silver platter in the very beginning.

There were other warnings: I am selfish, promise to never get mad at me, I have so many personal demons, there are things you would hate about me. He told me if I could just imagine how successful a joint medical practice would have been for us. And I'm sure it would have been....me doing all the work while he chased other women.

He continued to pursue me at every turn via texts and phone calls, all day, every day. He pointed out everything we had in common and how we could never be together because of our families but would always be soul mates. He sent me love songs that made him think of me. He constantly belittled his wife and how her suggestions to help his business had cost him a lot of money without making things better. He spoke poorly about my husband and said he wasn't good looking and didn't know why I had married him.

His texts became more sexual. When we talked during the day, it was always caring and loving. At night, after he had been drinking wine, his texts became very graphic to the point I didn't even know how to respond. He actually told me I was helping his marriage because he would pleasure himself thinking of me, instead of using porn. Eventually, he wanted to Skype. Everything sexual he wanted done on Skype including exposing himself, sex acts and asking me how he looked. I can remember feeling exhausted by his constant need for attention and praise.

Eventually, I went to see him. Like a puppy, I sat in his office all day while he saw patients. His personal office was an absolute shrine to his wife. I have never seen so many wedding photos of a couple along with framed Bible verses! But still, I sat there like an idiot. God only knows what his staff must have thought of me. He would close the office door in between patients, hug me, hold my hand, and beg me to tell him I needed him. Once we were alone, he would pull back and say "I just can't do this. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but I always think of everyone else and have to put myself first now." TOTAL REJECTION. I went back to my hotel and later that evening, after professing his love via text, I agreed again to Skype with the sexual stuff. The next day, the exact same thing. Once we were alone, REJECTION. I was reeling and cried all the way home. And then, the silent treatment.

I went to see him several times for business, bringing him a small gift each visit. And for me, NOTHING, not one single card/note/token of affection. He continued with the sexting and Skyping. Every time we were alone, he would pull out the religion card and pull back from anything intimate. Looking back, I'm sure this was a form of control. At one point, I was crying so much I couldn't go into a meeting with him. I went to the stairwell thinking he would follow me. He didn't, and when I came out, he had taken the elevator up to the meeting and left me.

This began a long cycle of push/pull. He would alternate between this wonderful, sweet man to cold, callous, and having complete lack of empathy...smug and arrogant. It felt like I became just a big joke, someone to toy with. I could hardly sleep, eat or concentrate at work. Once he contacted me, I would feel relief that he still cared. I knew in my gut something was not right. He claimed he had never felt this way about anyone, never had done anything like this before. But yet, he seemed too comfortable will all of it. I went to see him again and snooped on his FB private messages where I found old conversations between him and a previous girlfriend..."That new photo you posted sure isn't doing anything to help global warming." WTF I thought! How could this man who was so innocent write something like that to an old girlfriend just 2 years into his new marriage. I had been conned.

Still, I didn't want to lose him. He just needed me to make him a better person. I wanted to go back to the beginning where he adored everything about me. Now, he seemed annoyed and just wanted me to go away. At one point, I asked him, "What do you want?" And he said, "You, I just want you." I finally confronted him on the whole Silent Treatment. At this point, I was so obsessed with him that I was thinking about leaving my marriage. I shared this with him, and he said our relationship was just a fantasy and was never real. He said we'd talk more later and would call me back...but he never did. I went to my therapist to figure out what to do. Her diagnosis: narcissism and to run, not walk, away from him.

A month later I mailed him birthday gifts I had carefully chosen (something we had always done as friends.) He texted immediately to say thank you. I was determined to get our friendship back. When I finally talked to him, it was all about him and his depressed, unappreciative wife. Not one word about me. Eventually, I texted him that I hated things were weird between us, and I didn't know if we could even be friends. I watched as the message was read, and he promptly got on Facebook. Four hours later he had some lame comment which had nothing to do about my fear of losing our friendship.

That was my "enough" moment. I meant NOTHING. Discarded by a man who said he could NEVER imagine me not being a part of his life and that he couldn't go a day without talking to me. I blocked him that day, December 27, 2012. I went through a horrible depression and months of therapy. A defining moment was when my doctor put me on Zoloft. I took it for 3 days and could barely function. I left work early one day and talked out loud to myself for an hour. I was not going to let this man and what he did force me to be on mind altering drugs the rest of my life.

He tried to contact me twice 2 weeks later by phone and text. I didn't respond. He tried to hoover on my business FB page by liking a photo in May, and I blocked him from that. On my birthday, I did not hear one word from him. I expected SOMETHING, some shred of decency, care or concern. And there I was, coming FULL CIRCLE with being ignored and discarded AGAIN on such a personal day for me. He showed me who he was all those years ago. I wasn't paying attention.

The one tangible constant that I have had in all of this is TEARS. I cried in the beginning when I felt like I made the wrong decision about who I had married. I cried that our lives were too complicated to ever be together. I cried over his silent treatment and rejection of me. I cried when he discarded me and ignored my birthday. And, I still cry today for the weak, lost, suicidal person I became.

I have remained NC for 9 months. I am doing better but taking recovery one day at a time. I struggle daily with the rejection, blame, and disbelief over who this person really is that I considered a close friend for so many years. A recent hoover attempt was a lame comment on my business Facebook page: "Nice shoes!" Wow. After everything I've been through and still feel, how insulting. He also sent me a text based on a posting on my business Facebook page, "Hope you have a better day." DELETE and BLOCK. Another avenue closed to reach me.

I acknowledge that I still have a lot of work to do on myself. However, I am very ANGRY that this happened. All I did was fall in love with someone who convinced me his feelings were real. He will never know the amount of pain and suffering I have gone through over what he did to me. My marriage and family are back on track. I have learned to ask for what I need from my husband because he can't read my mind. I quietly work on setting boundaries and elimating the "takers" in my life. If the chaos that goes on in his mind is only a fraction of the pain he put me through, then my solace is that his life must be a living hell.