NittanyLioness's Story

What the hell just happened?!?

This past January I was happily minding my own business, eating well, working out, and working on my doctorate. I hadn't been in a relationship in a while, but had a profile on an online dating site. I had realized that there were far more frogs than fish and had decided to close my account. Then the email came. A charming, funny, self-deprecating email for a 41 year old man who was divorced and had children. I had strict rules about dating no divorced men or men with children. I had done so in the past and just didn't have a great experience. I emailed him back and told him that I did not date divorced men or men with children, but thank you for his interest. He said he was different and that if I just gave him a chance that he might just prove me wrong. He threw in that he and his ex-wife were amicable in their divorce and had a great arrangement regarding custody.

I resisted.

He persisted.

Eventually, we exchanged some texts and I just wasn't feeling it. He sent me a picture of himself through a text and I immediately noticed that he had on a wedding band. I called him on it and asked if he still wore a wedding band. He told me that he wasn't actually divorced, just separated (lie 1). I told him that I was busy with my degree and was teaching an undergraduate class. My time was taken, but that if I was able to even out and get a grip on the schedule I would get back in touch. I had no intention of doing so.

A couple of weeks passed with no contact. One night he sent me a text asking how I was doing. I responded "Sorry it's not going to work out between us. Best to you and your girls." I assumed that would be it.

I didn't hear from him for another week or so. Then I got another text - "What was all of that stuff about us not working out? We didn't even try." The next night was a phone call after he had been out listening to a band. I had been out as well and was tired. He was all jazzed up about his night telling me about how he had nearly gotten into a fight with this bully at the club and how the N kept telling this guy that he wasn't worth anything; that he was the kind of guy who would be serving the N and the N's kids french fries on their way to a skiing trip in Connecticut. He kept reliving this story. Over and over. I was not impressed and told him so. He didn't ask about my night or where I had been.

The next morning I get another phone call asking me to lunch. We lived about an hour and a half apart. He wanted to meet in the middle in an hour. I came up with various excuses and tried to avoid the lunch. He persisted. I finally gave in and decided that I would do it just to get him off my back. We ended up sitting in my car in a snowstorm until late that night. He mentioned that we should kiss, but I snubbed him. I told my mother the next morning that I was not interested.

The next day I worked on my writing and was happy to be out of the situation; until he called and told me he wanted to come over. Why? Why? Why did I agree??!

And then he started upping his game. Coming to my place every night and driving home to be with his girls in the morning before school. He sometimes would drive me the hour to where I was teaching and wait for me to finish class. He would make the coffee and fix breakfast while I got ready for class. On days that he didn't go he would do things around my apartment to surprise me like clean the refrigerator and freezer (who doesn't love that?!?) or reorganize cupboards. He would bring me little gifts or cheesy VanHalen cd's from the $5 bargain bin. Cards. Flowers. All of this.

And then he started telling me that he needed to be home more. That he wasn't seeing enough of his girls. So, I would spend hours in the car driving him to see his girls, waiting while he visited, and then drive back home. Eventually, I started staying with him overnight at his housemate's home. One night when I was at their house the N went outside to adjust the TV satellite. His roommate looked and me and said, "Isn't N the oddest duck you've ever met?" and then proceeded to tell me that N always bragged about how much money he had, but that he always mooched off of everyone else (N was living in this guy's house for free as a friend favor - had been there a year!) and that N was going to use my car, my gas, my money for everything. Had N told me that he actually had split with his wife because N cheated on her with the wife's best friend? At this point we were maybe a month into the relationship. N overheard most of the conversation. I went to bed confused, scared, and trapped. N came into the room and said that he heard all of it and none of it was true and asked why I hadn't fought for him? Honestly, my gut was still saying something was weird. N cornered his friend (N is 5'10" and nearly 300 lbs with a 4th degree blackbelt) in the kitchen until the friend backed down, eventually coming in the room to tell me that none of what he said was true. My head was totally spinning. What was I going to do? I needed space and I needed it quickly.

At that point the N turned it on and did everything to convince me it wasn't true. Within a month and a half of meeting the N I had packed up my things and moved to an apartment 15 minutes driving distance from his home. I was in love with the idea of being in love - 37 and never married. No kids. Ready to finish grad school. What was next? Love and marriage, of course!

On the 75 minute drive during the move I drove the moving truck and N drove his pick-up. I noticed that he was on the phone the entire way to our new apartment (we had picked it out together. He loved it!). That night he stayed on the couch until pretty late but my gut was telling me that I needed to check his phone. He had two calls on the way to our new apartment; one was 48 minutes with his most recent ex and another that was 2 minutes with the same woman. I was steamed.

"Maybe you should go live with OW!" I said to him in my groggy just woken up state of anger. What? Why would I say that?! I told him that I had had a dream and went back to bed.

He was constantly on his phone. Text messages. Words with Friends. Emails. He is a business owner so he had to use it for business all of the time. He told me that his clients had his number and they knew he could call at any time. Something was off.

I checked his phone a couple of weeks later. Pictures of naked women. Naked women masturbating. Texts of him asking women for pictures of their breasts. I was floored. This was Easter weekend and the first that he was to meet my family.

I went into the bedroom and told him that I thought we had a problem. I told him what I had seen (but only the texts asking for pictures. I was too ashamed to tell about the rest) and that I was uncomfortable with it. I told him I was concerned that an emotional affair would come from it and he told me I was crazy. That it was wrong that I checked his cell phone and how could I. He took no responsibility, no accountability, and made it clear that he had no intention of changing. I knew I was screwed.

At some point he transferred his phone line onto my cell plan. This was the downfall of everything. I started checking phone bills regularly and was seeing hundreds of texts a day to the same number. We were on a trip for my nephew's graduation with my mother and step-father and I saw the number come up on his phone. Four different times he told me the number belonged to four different people - even claiming at one point that it was just a general number that the cell provider used. Really?

Throughout our vacation he was constantly texting. Everyone noticed. Things between us had gotten pretty sour - lots of fights, my calling him out on his bullshit, etc. Anyway, as soon as our airplane hit the ground he was gone. He didn't speak to me or my friend on the drive home and he slept on the couch that night. I knew that things weren't good, but I didn't understand that things were "that" bad. At this point I did not have confirmation of the OW.

The next day he came home looking to pick a fight. No matter how hard I tried I could not deescalate him. I could not talk him down. I asked him to move out and he did. Well, kind of. He would not come get the rest of his things, so I ended up packing all of his shit and moving it myself. I wanted him out. And then the games really began...

The night he moved out he told me he was going out for drinks with a male friend. After looking at the phone record I know he went out with OW and then came back to my bed. He was texting OW from my bed and I did not let him stay. OW still wasn't confirmed at that point.

The next day I helped him at his business and we had lunch. I saw the phone number come up again. At that point I asked him who it was. He said a friend and I asked if I should call the number. His eyes told me everything. His mood shifted dramatically and I knew. I just hadn't figured it all out yet.

Then he started accusing me of calling his friend. I had once on caller restricted, and was confused because he told me one name, but it wasn't the same name on the phone's voicemail.

And then he accused me one too many times. I texted the OW and said "Hi, (insert name he claimed the number to belong to), this is J. As you know, I am N's live-in girlfriend. If I were going to call you it would be from this number." He. Was. Livid.

He called me immediately and was enraged. That day I got called a piece of shit, psycho, schizo... And then he told me I was really turning out to be someone that he never thought that I was. How dare I do that to his friend. How dare I?!

The next night I was at my grandparent's house out of state and something told me to check the dating site that we had met on. There he fucking was. THERE HE WAS! Same profile, different name, advertising himself as divorced and a year younger. He was using our town as his location. I couldn't believe it.

That's when my anger and rage kicked in. I called the OW and left a message describing that the profile she was so in love with was that of my BF. He had told her that he was in Florida with a friend and that he lived with a male housemate.

Once I knew for sure he just kept saying, "Don't you hurt OW!! Don't you dare hurt OW!!" I am definitely not a physically violent person, but when it comes to verbal sparring I can take a person down hard and quick. N always called himself a genius and would say that his dad tested him when he was a kid and literally tested at the genius level. He had things labeled Genius and always told me that he had never met anyone as smart as he was. He would tell people that he was further along in his doctorate in psychology than I was in my program (he hasn't finished classes with an online school. I am at dissertation stage with a top private school). He had met his match.He denied that this was a woman he was interested in and he wasn't going to be dating her.

He already was dating her. He took her to MY friend's cottage on the lake that we had rented together, but that I let him have so he could create memories with "his girls." He had invited me for a day and then called and told me that his daughters didn't want to leave so I couldn't come. In the entire time that we were together I never met his kids.

Oh. I could go on and on, but you all know the story. The push/pull over the months since we've broken up has been crazy. He decided that he didn't want the other woman and told me he was considering giving me another chance. In his words, "OW is no JG!!"

I saw him two days. he spent the night. No sex, just a manipulated BJ for the N. That night he told me that he needed to go get deodorant from his truck. It was 2:00 in the morning. I heard him talking on the phone. I called him on it when he came back in. He said that he had been telling a woman not to call because he was with someone that he "used to see." I knew it was over.

And yet it wasn't.

The emotional craziness that I have experienced is like nothing I've ever experienced before. I am a smart woman and when I met him I was an independent, healthy, fit, happy, optimistic, peaceful, and loving person.

I don't even recognize myself anymore. Last weekend I found this site and realized that he was 9 for 9 in DSM-IV criteria. Then my anger kicked in again and the text terrorism started all over. I had gone NC for two weeks in August after I found myself laying on the floor of my mother's house unable to move, unable to stop crying, and wishing that my life was over. I knew something had to give.

And yet I haven't been able to.

I text terrorized him so badly last week that HE asked me to never contact him again.

Today I have spent the day crying and wondering if I am a borderline. My mom (always the voice of reason) reminded me that it never felt right from the start. That he bulldozed his way into my life. My friends told me that they never felt good about him and questioned his motives from the start. My grandfather told me that he knew the N was a bullshitter the first time he met him.

And yet I am the one who feels crazy and lost. Except now I feel crazy and lost in N territory. I have no family or friends here. I teach class one night per week back where I lived before N came into my life. I am an island that has been torn apart my an N hurricane. I have a year lease on my apartment (I paid for everything and even though he asked to have his name on the lease I always resisted) and am finishing my degree from afar.

I am so happy to have landed here; an oasis in the middle of Narcville.

And yet I feel so fortunate. The N and I were only together five months. How can someone cause this much damage in five months? And how can someone ignore so many gut instincts and red flags??!

Thank you all for the posts and insights that I've read over the past week. I know I am going to make it through.