smnp's story
smnp's story
Please I need support:
My divorce was final last December. My ex-husband isn’t a bad person: we just don’t belong together. We actually remain friends, and have a nice relationship. Our child was born extremely prematurely (weighing only 1 ½ pounds at birth), and was very ill for a long time. There are still lingering medical issues that we deal with, but she is improving. Our marriage, unfortunately, was not able to withstand the pressure of the situation. Friends encouraged me to date, after my divorce. My therapist encouraged me to date. I signed up for an online dating site for single parents. I did it just to get everyone off my back. I thought I would never love again.
Until just before Christmas, when I met G.
We exchanged emails for a while, and then started talking on the phone. We spoke for HOURS AT A TIME those first few weeks. He was smart, funny, successful, well traveled, and kind. His child was 2 weeks older than mine, so we had that in common too. Our first date was in the middle of last winter’s blizzard- we had breakfast. We sat & talked for hours, and closed the place down (they only serve breakfast). He walked me to my car, hugged me, and told me he would love to see me again. A half hour later, he called just to tell me how much fun he’d had that morning, and that he sincerely wanted me to know how special he thought I was. Looking back, he had me then. Hook, line, and sinker.
The beginning of our relationship was amazing. I was exhausted all the time because we would talk until early morning hours. He would call at 2am and tell me he couldn’t sleep. He described his exwife as manipulative. He was fighting for custody of his child, and the stress was overwhelming. But he said he felt so comfortable talking to me. He felt he could tell me anything. Because he had shared so much, I trusted him very early on. I was very up front about why my marriage had failed, the stress of my child’s medical situation, my feelings about starting a new relationship, etc. I handed him everything he wanted, all the deeply personal parts of myself (that he would later use against me) on a silver platter.
Last winter was a bear, weather wise. He began canceling dates- there was snow, there was ice, daycare was closed, he had to work late, he had a flat tire. We saw each other only once a week, sometimes only every 2 weeks. We talked and texted every day. He called me “Gorgeous”. He texted “just to bring a smile”. Our dates were wonderful- dinners out, movies in, etc. I never thought I would be able to be intimate with anyone again, after having been with my ex-husband for 10 years. But our physical connection was amazing- I felt like I never had before. I liked this new, sensual side of myself. I liked feeling sexy and knowing how much he wanted me.
But so many cancelations, so many excuses.
In February, I met him for lunch and told him that I worried that he didn’t have time for a relationship. I told him that I liked him very much, thought we had an amazing connection, but that the worst thing for me would be to develop real feelings for him if he could not reciprocate. He “yes’d” me to death, and talked about how stressful his life was with work and the divorce and starting over. He said that he wanted me in his life, and cared very deeply for me.
He was the first to say “I love you”. We were talking late one night and we were both practically falling asleep. As we were hanging up the phone, he whispered, “I love you, S.” I was immediately wide awake. I didn’t say anything about it, because I worried that he said it accidentally, before he was ready. I worried that he said it in his sleep, and maybe would be embarrassed that he said it only a couple of months into our relationship.
By spring, I was spending nights at his apartment. He was asking to meet my daughter, and wanted our children to meet. I was very hesitant. I had decided before even meeting him that I would not introduce my daughter to anyone until I knew it was permanent. He asked again and again. I said no.
He was still canceling all the time. And I tried to stand up for myself. But when someone uses the excuse that he has to pick up his child, or is working overtime because he can’t afford child support, what are you supposed to say? I couldn’t argue, I couldn’t get mad, could I? And any time I even MILDLY mentioned that it bothered me, the abuse would start. Let me be very clear, he never laid a hand on me. But he would emotionally cut me off. He would ignore calls and texts for days. By the time he got around to contacting me, I was so frantic that I blamed myself. I was the one with the trust issues, and he had given me no reason NOT to believe him. It was MY fault: “Oh, G. I love you. I’m so sorry that I’m being unreasonable. I’ll try harder.”
At the end of March, I received an email from a woman that I didn’t know (via FB). She said that she had dated G until January, and that he had been unfaithful to her. She encouraged me to get testing. I called him in a panic, and he explained it away. She was someone he had been seeing causally before he met me, and when she found out that he was with me, got jealous and was trying to upset me. It was painful, but I believed him. I then got an email from ANOTHER woman, claiming that she had dated him until the week prior to her contacting me. I again confronted him, and he explained it away. He convinced me that I was above the childish games. He was never able to explain how they knew who I was… He had plenty of explanations for everything, but never that. He loved ME, wanted to be with ME, talked about marrying ME. I loved him. I was so in love with him. He met my parents. He met my daughter, briefly, once. We began to talk about introducing the children. I even told my ex-husband about him- it seemed like the most respectful thing to do, especially since things were so serious.
He did not exhibit the overt selfishness that I have read is typical for a Narcissist. He always asked about me, about my day, about my daughter and her health. He never belittled me. He rarely got angry with me. The things he did were more about inconsistency. What he said and what he did never matched up. His excuses were thin. His actions were suspect. I always felt uneasy, like I might scare him away if I said how upset I really was. Does that make sense?
In the summer, everything began to fall apart. He stood me up at my own birthday party. Just didn’t show up. I was mortified, so hurt, so confused. He wouldn’t return calls or texts for WEEKS. I remember SOBBING on his voicemail, begging him to call me. I was so afraid something had happened to him or that he had become so depressed by the divorce/custody battle over his daughter that he had hurt himself. I called him one afternoon and said that if he didn’t contact me, I would track down his parents or sister to make sure he was alright. He texted me that day and said that he was “lost” and “in a dark place”. He never apologized for not showing up to my birthday party.
I can’t remember how we got back together after that. I think I called him, in a moment of weakness. I must have said how much I missed him and hoped he was ok. He told me over and over how much he loved me, that he was scared of the intensity of his feelings for me. He “shut down”, he said, because he loved me so deeply and he was afraid he couldn’t be everything I needed. I remember telling him one night that he deserved someone like me. I remember trying to convince him that he was a good person. He would cry, he would tell me how stressed he was, and I would just hold him, stroke his hair, and promise him that he was the most amazing man I had ever known. Because, to me, he was. I thought he was the “reason” I had gone through all the heartache with my daughter’s medical problems and my divorce—that I had to go through all of that to find my soulmate in G.
He still canceled all the time. He still didn’t call when he said he would. He still cut me off emotionally. I thought he was, at worst, a depressed workaholic dad going through a horrific divorce with a manipulative witch of a woman. I supported him. I was so good to this man. I thought that, if I just loved him enough, if I just loved him fiercely, we could come out on the other side and be together.
In late July, some woman posted love song lyrics on his FB wall. She was “just a friend” from HS, he said. He had studied abroad, and she was just a friend from his time in South America. I flipped out. He said that it was lost in translation, that since she was not a native English speaker, it didn’t mean the same as what I was reading. I was so angry and upset. I was tempted to contact her, but didn’t want to “lower myself” to the level of the women that had emailed me in the spring.
In mid-August, I saw him for the last time. He came to my home, I made dinner, and we split a bottle of wine. He said he had a “quick business call” to make to South America. Not anything different than usual, he was always working. He sat on my couch, rubbing my feet, speaking Portuguese. Of course I had no idea that he was calling his “friend”. That she was actually at his apartment, waiting for him to come home from work. We made love that night. It felt so emotionally intense. I had not felt that way before- it really was as if we were intertwined. We lay in my bed afterwards, and he was playing with my hair. I started to cry, and told him that I couldn’t handle him cutting me off anymore. I was still so hurt about my birthday. He looked me in the eyes and told me that he loved me, that I was the only one he was with since January, that he wanted to marry me. He said “I will never leave you again. Ever.” He texted me when he got home that night, thanked me for a wonderful night, told me he loved me.
That was the last I heard from him.
I called. I sobbed. I begged. I texted. I yelled. I pleaded. For 2 solid weeks. One night, I was in the emergency room with my daughter- I was so scared. I called and begged him, told him I needed him, please call me, pleasepleaseplease. He ignored me. Then I decided not to humiliate myself anymore. I stopped calling- I went “no contact”. And about a week later, he texted me as if nothing had happened. I said we needed to talk. He evaded the questions that I had, he was being very strange. I don’t know what made me do it, but I searched for that woman on FB. Her profile was wide open- and was listed as “in a relationship” with G. She had pictures of the two of them for those weeks before. There were pictures of them together from the night I called him from the emergency room.
Again, I don’t know what made me do it, but I called the woman that emailed me in the spring (she had given me her # in the email in March). She told me that I was one of SEVEN women with whom he had been intimate. At the same time. SEVEN. She told me that he used Viagra (there were a couple of occasions that he was not able to perform, and I of course thought it was because I wasn’t attractive to him anymore). She was in a new relationship, and wanted nothing to do with him. She felt like she wanted to protect me from what she had been through, and only wanted to save me the heartache. She had answers to every question I asked. She was patient, kind, and genuinely cared that I was in a world of pain. She told me that the rest of the women found out about me when one of them found a love letter I sent him IN THE TRASH. My name and address were on the envelope. She, and the other women, read the letter. They read my intimate thoughts that I had intended to share with only him. That part was probably one of the most painful things. He threw me away. It was a letter telling him all the things I loved about him, how much he had changed my life, how very deeply I loved him. In the letter, I asked him for time. I just wanted time with him and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t willing to make more of an effort if he loved me the way he said he did. And he threw it away.
To say that I was devastated is an understatement.
He had the nerve to text me and ask “What’s wrong?” when I called and said we needed to talk immediately. I was BLIND with anger. I texted him a screen shot picture of that South American woman’s FB, listing them “in a relationship”. He stopped texting. I emailed him the next day- an angry rant telling him EXACTLY what I thought of him. I told him never to contact me again.
I made it five weeks with no contact. I struggled every day not to call him or text him. There were nights that I wanted to end it all, to take all my sleeping pills at once, just to make the pain stop. (I would never leave my daughter. I am NOT suicidal. The thoughts were there, they were scary, but I never would have gone through with it.) I prayed to The Universe, I begged God, to send G back to me. I cried all night and most of every day. I was a walking zombie.
On October 19th, he texted me at midnight, saying we needed to talk. I was strong enough not to initiate contact, but I was NOT strong enough to resist when he reached out to me. We talked on the phone for more than 4 hours. He loved me, he missed me, he couldn’t go one more day without telling me so. He knew he messed up, he needed to find a way to make it up to me. He cried. He let me yell, he said he deserved it. He categorically denied cheating on me. He said that he had not been with ANYONE but me since meeting me last January. He said that he was not with that South American woman. I told him I needed proof. I asked him to talk to her, to ask her to call me or email me with the truth. If she was such a good friend, wouldn’t she want to help him? If he told her he loved me, wouldn’t she want us to be together? He promised he would. He told me how special I was. He told me how much he wanted me- that his body missed me almost as much as his heart. I am ashamed to admit that I had phone sex with him that night. I missed him so very much, he was saying all the things I needed to hear. I had begged God to send him back to me, and wasn’t that what happened? I had missed him, and I couldn’t resist him. I had been so lonely and sad. And, honestly, I had missed the physical intimacy as well.
I didn’t hear from him until 3 days later. I called him that morning and just said I was confused about what had happened. He said that he couldn’t talk just then, but would call me when he finally got his child to bed that night. He didn’t call. I called again the next day, and said again that I was hurt and couldn’t understand what he wanted from me. If we weren’t going to talk, that was fine, but why come back for me after 5 weeks, say everything that he did for FOUR HOURS on the phone, have phone sex, and then dump me like trash again?
He again ignored me.
That night, I took matters into my own hands. I messaged the South American woman. I was not mean, I was not accusatory. I simply asked for the truth. Begged, really. I begged her to tell me the truth. I told her everything that happened and everything that he said to me the night he called. I heard nothing for an entire week. Then, just last week, I got an email from him. “Dear S,” it said, “I appreciate A’s forwarding me your email to me. I would like to wish you nothing but the best going forward, but I ask that you leave both her and I alone. Thank you. G.” My heart dropped. An hour later, SHE emailed me. She said that they had been in each other’s lives on and off for 20 years. That she was with him, and would be with him. That she knew him in a way that no one else did. She said that she knew of his indiscretions, but that all human beings make mistakes. She had the nerve to tell me that “only true love can forgive, and I have forgiven him”. She said that she lived here in the states for 5 months this year. I was with him for nine- so it was more than half of our relationship. She said that she was pregnant with his child, and had miscarried at 8wks recently. She was so condescending—she told me that I was so pretty, and she just KNEW that life had good things in store for me. She said I should hold my head up and smile. She said that she could not apologize for what he did, she knew it was wrong, but that she forgave him. She said that if he treated me so badly, that I should just forget him, and leave them both alone. They are now listed as “engaged” on FB.
I have not stopped crying for eight days. I am a wreck.
Why didn’t he pick me? Why wasn’t I enough? If he was going to settle down, then why isn’t it with me? How could he? HOW COULD HE? How could he still be with me, make love to me, promise me everything? And all the while she was pregnant with his baby? Why wasn’t I enough? Why isn’t he emailing HER, wishing her well and asking her to leave me alone? How could he call me, say all those things for FOUR HOURS and then 10 days later be ENGAGED to someone else? What’s so great about her?
I am a good person. I am kind. I am smart—I have a Master’s degree from an Ivy League University. I have a successful career that I love. I am a phenomenal mother to my child. I am funny. I am thoughtful. I am sincere. I am honest. I am sweet. I am GOOD. I am GOOD. I am GOOD. Why wasn’t that enough?
I talk to him all the time, in my head: My love, My G, Pick me. Love me. Want me. Give me everything you promised me. Why did you leave me? Why did you hurt me? How could you be so cruel? All I did was love you. All I did was care for you. How could you lie about everything? Everything was a lie. Every moment. Every kiss. Every time you pushed my hair away from my eyes. Every inside joke. LIES. LIES. LIES. Why couldn’t you have picked me? Is it because I’m not pretty? Is it because I wasn’t sexually satisfying? Is it because I’m not everything you told me I was?
I feel stupid and used and cheap and worthless. I am unloveable. No one understands. No one gets it. They just say I deserve better and shouldn’t want to be with him. It’s so easy for someone else to say. And I understand how much my friends love me, and how much it must hurt them to see me this way. I understand that they just want me to move on and be happy again. It’s so easy to say “just get over it”. I am not exaggerating when I say: I have watched my child come a breath away from death. I have watched a marriage of almost a decade fall apart. But neither of those things is as painful as this.
I love him. I miss him. Despite everything. Which makes me crazy. Or a masochist. Or both. I just want to stop hurting. I can’t stop crying. Just when I think I can get it together- it hits me all over again. He is going to marry HER. She is going to buy a white dress. They will dance together. He will tell her he loves her in front of all their family and friends. THAT SHOULD BE ME. The pain is unreal. When does it stop? Day 8 of NO CONTACT. It might as well be Day 1 tonight. I feel like it will never stop hurting. I am forever changed. I am different. I will never be the same.
Thank you for sharing your
No, Thank YOU
You did nothing to deserve
Doing everything I can
You can do it.. If I can you
Thank you
smnp
Smnp
Dear snmp, My heart is
Nan
Dear smnp- I rarely post now
Dear smnp
Your Pain
smnp you are in the right place
smnp
Very well said
"That should be me"
Pumpkin
I am so sorry for everything
Fantastic response Mandy
smnp
As Hunter would say, welcome
Dear S, I cried all day today
Im So Sorry
Oh dear .. You have been in
My heart breaks