His children are a part of the facade

When I met my N he was separated from his wife, with whom he had three children. We met at a bar, I was dancing, he was watching. He was so charming and handsome, and we had so much in common. He seemed like such a rare find. I was in a bad place in my life. I had been doing a lot of partying and sleeping around and he seemed like a knight in shining armor. At first we were just friends with benefits, he made it clear that he didn’t want a relationship with me. So I continued to see a couple other people that I had been seeing in the meantime. Several months later he found out about one of the other guys and that is something that for the rest of our relationship he never let me live down. I was forever a whore who needed him to keep me in check.

He had a very complicated history with his ex wife and children. One that I did not fully understand until I finally talked to her after we broke up. She had a restraining order against him which she enforced several months after we met, a period of time in which he was not allowed to see his children. He convinced me that she was just trying to control him and hurt him through the children. So I went to bat for him, testifying in court about how wonderful a father he was and how he deserved to see his children. He fought and won half custody. At this point I was living with him. I became a part time mom and started doing all of the work taking care of his children on his custodial days. Sure he did the fun stuff and took them to school but I did all the cooking, cleaning, etc. I also provided all the food because he barely worked, and we had free rent because we lived with his father.

At this point his behavior towards me turned from adoring to critical and demeaning. Nothing I did was ever good enough. He was a martial arts master and fitness instructor and I could never be fit enough. I started exercising up to 2 hours a day and cutting my calories to the point where I was 115 at 5’6” and less than 15% body fat. We eventually moved into our own apartment and he encouraged me to get a higher paying job at a local restaurant. Once I did that he told me I needed to work as much as I could to make good money so I started to work 50-60 hour weeks. Then he started to complain that he did all the work around the house and that I was always gone. We fought constantly in front of the children.

It was then that I started to notice how physically and verbally abusive he was to his kids. When they made mistakes, even small ones like being clumsy, he would punch them in the stomach. He would yell at them and tell them that he didn’t want them to live in his house. Especially his boys, his daughter he treated like a princess, but his sons got the worst of it. He would call them awful names and swear at them. At one point he accused his ex wifes boyfriend of sexually abusing his son when he was about 2 1/2. He had me and a lot of people convinced of this. After talking to his ex (years later) she said that he called up and told her that was what he was going to do that, as a way to get back at her. I never actually heard his son say anything about it. If it isn’t true he has actually convinced his own child that he was abused.

About 2 years into our relationship the situation with our landlord became really bad and we had to move out of our apartment, we were also on the verge of breaking up. He didn’t want to rent another place and decided he was going to live in his van with his kids. He had lived in his van with his ex wife and two of his kids (before the third was born) for six months at one time. I absolutely could not live that kind of lifestyle so I rented a room from a family member. He tried to make it fun for the kids. Van camping is what he called it and they would just drive all over the place doing fun stuff. Staying with friends sometimes, going to a local hot springs to play and shower. He would even go out dancing while the kids slept in the van with his pitt bull. He tried to come stay with me a couple times and I almost got kicked out because the people I was renting for did not want him, three kids, and a dog staying with me. Especially since he would show up in the middle of the night. He was infuriated that I didn’t allow him to stay, saying that I needed to stand up to them and that they hated him and that is why they didn’t want him to stay. That is when I broke up with him, enough was enough. At this point I was thousands in debt because of him. He had no credit to speak of so we had charged a lot of stuff to my credit cards. I had also loaned him lots of money for him to start a new business.

I eventually moved to the next town so I could put some distance between us. I blocked his phone number and tried to move on with my life. Of course less than six month later I got sucked back in again because the kids missed me and wanted to see me. I can’t remember exactly how it happened but I found myself moving my stuff into his new house once again. Even then I learned that he had already had a new woman around and she had a bunch of stuff at his house as well. He told me they were done though and that he really wanted to be with me.

I had already bought and paid for a retreat in Costa Rica. He didn’t want me to go but I was determined to go anyway. While I was there I met another very charming man (who I believe is another text book narcissist, which seems to be what I am attracted to). We went out drinking one of the nights and I ended up falling asleep next to this guy. The next morning I got an email from my N asking what had happened, that he felt like I had done something wrong. I was astounded, how could he have known? So in the sake of honesty I told him what had happened, I felt guilty but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. He flipped out, sent me all these horrible emails and told me when I got back that if I didn’t get my stuff immediately that he would through it out into the street. I was crushed but I knew we were done. I ended up hooking up with the same guy before the trip was over. Maybe out of revenge even.

When I got back he made it seem like he really hadn’t said that he wanted to break up and I was such a whore for hooking up with this guy. Like I had cheated and stabbed him in the heart. We tried to work it out. One night he was so upset about what I had done he decided that he needed to punish me for it. He turned me over and spanked me over and over, so hard that I had large bruises. He then proceeded to choke me almost to the point of passing out. I was terrified, but I was even more scared for his children that were sleeping in the other room (I didn’t know what would happen to them if I said something) so I didn’t call the cops. I should have left right then but I was convinced that I deserved it. After that he was so sulky and depressed that I just couldn’t take it anymore so I left. He harassed me with text messages for a while until I blocked him, then it was email until I filtered those so I couldn’t see them.

My life started to spiral out of control after that. I started drinking more and partying like I had before because I wasn’t dealing with all the emotional abuse that I endured. I recognized that I needed to get away from the toxic friends I had developed so I decided to move to Santa Monica.

I moved there all by myself, I didn’t know anyone but I needed a clean slate. I had a good job that I was able to transfer too there so I was excited to begin a new life. I had no idea that he also moved to Santa Monica the week before I had, he even had an apartment 5 blocks from my new job. I ended up switching cell phone carriers and his phone number was no longer blocked. So he texted me out of blue saying that he needed help with the kids. At this point he had full custody because his ex wife had been charged with child abduction (she had tried to take them away to her parents house). He always got me with the kids and before I knew it I was paying his rent and we were looking for a cheaper place to move into together. He was being so sweet and telling me all this stuff about how he never got over me and I was always the one. I really thought that he had changed.

After living together for a month I got pregnant. I was so excited to be a mom but I already had concerns about him and how it would affect our relationship. I was still the only one working and I wasn’t making nearly enough to support all of us and our high rent. He worked as a massage therapist and a yoga instructor but he always wanted to work under the table so that he didn’t have to pay taxes and he could collect welfare. He didn’t hardly work at all until a couple weeks after I had the baby. He always had a load of excuses. He didn’t have anyone to watch the kids because I was working, he didn’t want to lose the welfare, he wanted to save his time for the high paying clients... After I had the baby he had a surge of new clients that then tapered off again. So now we were living on my disability which was even less.

At this point I hardly had any friends for a couple of reasons. One, any friends from my past were considered either bad influences (girls) or guys that I must have or will sleep with. Two, I didn’t have much time to socialize trying to keep up with his life. Also I had almost no contact with my family because he hated them and the feeling was mutual. The money that we did have coming in between my disability, his welfare, and the odd jobs he would do here and there was not enough. So everything else we put on credit cards. He had no problem going to whole foods every day and spending $30 on himself for lunch on my credit card. At one point my credit card debt climbed to $26,000.

Just days after the baby was born he resumed his usual schedule of going out dancing 3-4 nights a week and sleeping all day. I was left to care for an infant and a 6, 7, and 9 year old. We grew increasingly distant, so at least we didn’t fight much anymore but when we did he was cruel. Of course I didn’t get in shape fast enough after birth and we didn’t have sex much because I was tired all the time. Which of course was my fault because I didn’t take enough naps with the baby. Which I didn’t have time to because I was trying to handle everything else. When my disability ran out he started asking me when I was going back to work. I refused, there was no way I could do it all. Our relationship rapidly declined at that point. Between selling a car, my insurance claim finally coming through for my sons birth, and a large tax return I had paid off a majority of my debt and did not want to see it start climbing again. About a month later I decided to take my son, who was about 7 months old, and leave.

I went to live with family and at first tried to maintain contact with him. I still wanted to be able to contact the children and wanted my son to have a father. It became increasingly apparent that I would have to cut contact with him completely. The more I talked about it with my family and his family the more I realized the depth of his manipulation and how brain washed I had been. One of the neighbors called CPS on him because she saw him slapping his boys around. For some reason he gave them my number, probably thinking that I wouldn’t tell them anything. But this was my opportunity to finally tell the truth. I told them everything but they said there wasn’t much they could do unless the kids talked (which they are too afraid too) and even if they did all CPS could do is give him a slap on the wrist. Such a frustrating system!! I have so much guilt for not saying anything sooner. I then received a call from his 10 year old daughter saying that and I quote, “You trying to take us away from out Papa is the worst thing your could ever do to us. We really appreciate all the CPS calls. We thought you loved us and we really miss our brother but because of all of this we do not want to talk to you again. Goodbye.” So sad, she sounded like a robot, I knew that those were his words coming out of her mouth.

I finally got in touch with his ex wife because I was ready to hear her version of the story. He had always made her out to be this crazy, vindictive person, only out for revenge against him at whatever cost. I believed it whole heartedly. Once I met and actually talked to her I realized how wrong it was. She had made a lot of mistakes that led her to losing her kids but she was like me. Manipulated, confused, and abused. Not only that, now she is only allowed to see her kids 2 hours twice a month. She talked about all the cheating that he had done. I always wondered if he had cheated on me with all the late nights, especially since he always deleted all of his texts all the time. He was really good at hiding it though because I never was able to fully confirm it even though I found suspicious behavior. I realized that I still had the password to his email and when I looked way back I discovered that he had responded to ads on craigslist to be in adult films (one of the time was while I was pregnant). And during one of the times we were broken up he was creeping on the craigslist personals for late night hook ups with young women. GROSS!! I also noticed the overlaps between my self and another woman that he dated while we were broken up. This is the same woman that he got pregnant during this time. My son has a half brother that is 7 months older. This woman will not talk to him, I still don’t know what happened between them but I can guess.

This is the point that I learned what narcissism was. This man thought he was gods gift to man kind. He was a hyper critical perfectionist that picked on his own daughter for having a belly. He never ever took responsibility for any of his actions and all of the bad things in his life were always caused by someone else. He was a cheater, a liar, and an abuser. Only the people the closest to him saw who he really was. Everyone else sees him as a wonderful father and amazing person. He had me convinced too! That it was me that was so screwed up. I cried when I started reading other peoples experiences with narcissistic relationships.

Right now I am in the process of filing a restraining order and trying to obtain full custody of my son. I am preparing to testify against him on the behalf of his ex wife and his children. I am afraid of him because he used to always brag about what a violent person he could be. He used to tell me stories about the street fights that he would get into when he was doing his martial art training. That he would beat up the guy so bad that he got out of there as fast as he could and never really knew if he had killed the guy or not. I’m talking about eyes popping out, stomping faces into curbs, really gruesome stuff. I am afraid that if his children are taken away that he won’t have anything left to lose and come after me. I know what he is capable of. I am just trying to prepare myself for the worst and protect my son as best as I can. I am also seeking therapy so I can recover from years of being convinced of how much of a horrible person I am. As well as guilt for not stopping the abuse of the other children much sooner.