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With all the talk of the OW....

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#1 Jul 29 - 2PM
Sunafterrain
Sunafterrain's picture

With all the talk of the OW....

I think it's rather refreshing that there are so many on this blog willing to address their experiences with their N's and the OW's, NW's etc.

But I'm curious: Did any of you ever watch the relationship with the OW go to hell in a handbasket or have someone tell you that she is/was JUST AS MISERABLE as YOU were? How did this feel to you if you heard or distantly witnessed the demise of their relationship/marriage? Did any of you feel validated that your N was definitely an N or were you healed enough that it didn't matter?

Jul 30 - 5AM
agnesmurphy17
agnesmurphy17's picture

OW

My N took up with a NW woman the day before I left him. He knew I was leaving & he found a replacement. I knew her . . . a woman who was in our social group. I met her only once but she was a long-time friend of the hostess & she had just moved to our area. The hostess set them up togethjer thinking my handsome & professionally successful N was quite a catch (and I was an idiot). (This hostess still sides with N after what happened to her girlfriend.) Well, 10 months later OW left my N & she contacted me. What an eye-opener! When I left him at 2 1/2 years of marriage the physical abuse was just beginning. With her the physical abuse started within 3 months. I showed her all my e-mails from him after I left. She was stunned. He kept it a secret from me that she was living with him in the house I still co-owned. He was seeking reconciliation with me & going on about his broken heart. I bet he would hit send & then go & have sex with her. One reconciliation e-mail was sent from her son's birthday party where he said he was writing a professional e-mail on his I-Phone. Let's see, he stole from her, cost her a bundle of money & abused her. She lost her job because of all the days she missed because of their very sensational breakup. She left in the middle of the night in PJs & sneakers. It took her over 3 months to get her possessions. She had to replace everything she owned. Underwear, shoes, make up, cold cream. She went to a mall in PJs without a coat in cold March weather to buy a bra & clothes her first day out after spending the night in a hotel. He's a university professor & she's a MD (psychiatrist)(anybody can be fooled by a psychopath). I met his first ex-wife. Another revelation of the lies. And she lasted 20+ years because they had a child. It's always the same with man with a personality disorder. He said the same lines of love to each of us--wrote the same love letters. The abuse was variations on a theme. He was a bit more inventive in the abuse department than in the love department. Basically, the relationship lasts as long as the OW tolerates his abuse. Some women accept abuse & others run immediately & then there are the intermediate variations which make the relationship endure a few days longer to a few decades.
Jul 30 - 8AM (Reply to #9)
Sunafterrain
Sunafterrain's picture

Agnes-OW

WOW! That poor woman! How did you feel finding out all of this? Did it help you in what you already experienced and knew to be true? I can't speak to my ex's wife. They are in a joint custody situation, so that just wouldn't work and she's very happy with her life with her new bf, so I don't want to create pain or make waves for her, but there is this side of me that wishes I could talk to her. I think if this happens for anyone, it's truly a blessing. Thank you for sharing.
Jul 30 - 9AM (Reply to #10)
agnesmurphy17
agnesmurphy17's picture

Validation

Meeting her validated me. I had a belief that he suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. But how can on really know? I was very traumatized. I felt crazy. Was I imagining how evil & manipulative he was? Meeting her I realized he's a psychopath. Very little he says is true. Almost everything is a manufactured mythology. A thread of truth but elaborately woven with his own spin. He told me that he left his wife because he fell in love with another woman. The wife told me: Their daughter had emergency brain surgery & he was on a "work" trip staying in a summer house alone to write. The daughter could have died. He never came back. When she was released from the hospital the mother took her to a relative's to rest & recover. He came back to the house with his mistress (with whom he had been while allegedly writing) & slept in the house with her. When the wife found out because the lover left her pierced earrings (wife had no pierced ears & never wore earrings) on the bedstand. The wife threw him out. He begged her not to divorce him. Then he went to stay with the lover (because he was too cheap to rent). This was the woman I replaced. I tried to contact her. But she did not respond. I learned definitively that everything from the first hello to the last good-bye was a lie. He married me for MONEY, SEX & SERVICES (domestic/secretarial). The biggest mistake I made was to stay & "work on the marriage" after I realized within the first year of marriage that there was something very wrong with this man & I was unhappy. But I remained another 18 months, ended up with PTSD, lost even more money. The lies he told about me to his new girlfriend & to the people we associated with. And how many people beleived hsi lies? Many. One learns who one's friends are. We cannot ever conceive the layer-upon-layer of deceit such psychopaths operate. I uncovered only a few because I met two women who had also been involved with him. How much more was he up to that I had no idea?
Jul 29 - 6PM
Arwen
Arwen's picture

My most recent ex N that got

My most recent ex N that got me on this site was married for about five years and in another thing for also about five years and in an out of short flings constantly and women always left him. He admitted that.
Jul 29 - 6PM
tresor2
tresor2's picture

Mine Had 2 Long-Term Marriages

The two long-term marriages confuse me...one was 20 yrs and the other 14 years and both wives left. I conclude he must have been a great guy to be with if it lasted that long. He was rich and famous and leaving an affluent lifestyle is difficult for some women. One wife ended up an alcoholic and the other was a doctor, so she didn't need his sht. He admitted that he cheated on the wife and after the last divorce, 8 yrs. ago, he went wild and played women like violins. He even told me, "I just toss my hook out there to see what I catch." Women are attracted to him like flies.
Jul 29 - 5PM
deecbee
deecbee's picture

YES. 4 times. I've known him

YES. 4 times. I've known him for most of my life and I've witnessed his interactions with countless females. Let me tell you, as vastly different as each woman was, it ALWAYS ended up the same way. He's been in 4 "serious" relationships (none lasting more than a year) and they all follow this same pattern: - When he first meets them, he would D&D me invests EVERY ounce of energy he had into making them "his". - Within a month or 2, they would be at the stage of being in a monogamous relationship. As soon as he got them to utter the word "boyfriend" his mask would start to slip- he'd begin having tantrums when he didn't get his way, start trying to isolate her from her friends and family, and then it would escalate from there - Then 6 months in, the breakup/make up cycle would start. I suppose all of his exes were relatively sane because eventually, after too many times of his random dumpings, they scrapped his ass for good.
Jul 29 - 3PM
Layla
Layla's picture

My N was actually diagnosed.....

He was single free and clear when we got together and when I ended up leaving him, there were no other women that I was aware of anyway....he'd rather have sex with himself to porn than share real intimacy with a real woman......anyway, he had a custody battle 15 years ago with the mother of his kids (I was the only marriage he had).....and they had to have phychological exams...he was diagnosed narcissistic primary, with a secondary anti social personality...needless to say a very not nice, dangerous person with no boundries.....having an actual diagnosis to me did not matter, it was his ACTIONS that mattered....what he did, what he said to ME...how he made ME FEEL about myself........I don't miss him one iota........I don't care who he is with, or what he is doing. He treated me like GARBAGE. I am NOT garbage. Nor are YOU.
Jul 29 - 3PM (Reply to #3)
Sunafterrain
Sunafterrain's picture

Diagnosis

Great point you make layla about whether or not there is a diagnosis. It really DOESN"T matter....it's how one is treated, but with a Narc, there are exceptions to the abuse rules. They are ruthless.
Jul 29 - 5PM (Reply to #4)
Susan32
Susan32's picture

The OW as a diversion...

Considering the way the ex-Psych prof treated ME, he was not spousal/parental material. I wouldn't have wanted him to be my husband, or the father of my children.... and thank GOD he isn't! I think if my confirmation sponsor had also been my premarital therapist, I think she would've given the ex-P the boot! The OW is so often used as a diversion... when it's all about how Ns/Ps treat US. THAT is what matters. We're led to believe that the Ns/Ps treat their wives/girlfriends BETTER than us, when that isn't what matters. "There are exceptions to the abuse rules"-I think Sam Vaknin talks about the target vs. ally relationship. A Narc would see a fellow Narc as an ally, whereas a Narc sees a normal person as a target. In my case, the ex-P's wife might be an ally, whereas I was a target. My former Narc boss had allies in fellow Narcs/bullies, he treated me as a target.
Jul 29 - 3PM
Susan32
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It went faster than expected

The ex-Psych prof flaunted his girlfriend from LA (he had been having a long-distance relationship with her, claimed he just "happened" to run into her in town) right after I had lost a friend of mine to cancer. He wasn't physically affectionate with her... I EXPECTED that because that's what happens in high school. I thought,"oh, he'll make out with her to rub salt in my wounds. He's cruelly rejected me in public... now he'll play the Happy Impassioned Boyfriend." NOT AT ALL. They looked-and acted-like fraternal twins. They dressed alike. Their interaction was so dry&passionless a casual observer would think they were siblings instead of lovers. When I talked politely&kindly to the ex-P's girlfriend, he pulled the Vanishing Act. He physically abandoned her in front of his colleagues instead of introducing her to them. He came to the senior skit on his own (despite the fact she moved in with him), drank a lot of beer&stormed out when it mocked him. There was a special dinner for seniors... he didn't bring her. When I saw how cold&unaffectionate with her at the concert as he had been with me (I was a student, so the lack of PDAs were EXPECTED)... it was like seeing myself. She even resembles me. Except she's been married to him for the past decade&had his babies. She didn't seem to mind. Some speculated she was a lesbian (and that he was gay anyhow);others speculated she was as much a Narc as him. I took him to task for treating her badly, for lying about her, for acting as if she didn't exist. I wasn't his girlfriend, so I felt entitled to give him The Lecture.