The OW

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#1 Jul 18 - 9AM

Sparrow

The OW

I felt a need to post this today............with all of the past, present posts regarding the topic of the OW.

Most seem to have an obsession with this woman. This onbession is getting in the way of your healing more so then the issue at hand. I just want to put this out there for you to read, think about, and if you have to, read again and again and again..........

THE OW IS NOT, I REPEAT IS NOT MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR NARCS LIFE. SHE IS NO DIFFERENT THEN WE ARE/WERE.......SHE IS NOT BEING TREATED DIFFERENTLY, SHE IS NOT FEELING DIFFERENTLY. THESE ARE ILLUSIONS THAT YOU ARE CREATING IN YOUR OWN HEADS AND IT IS INTEREFERING BIG TIME WITH YOUR HEALING.

This woman will find herself discarded as you/we did. She is riding the high, as we did, depending on what stage of the relationship they are in. Trust me when I tell you, she will be EXACTLY where we were/are and make no mistake about it..........she will be a lost, heart broken victim of this narcissist as we were/are.

PLEASE, PLEASE GET THIS WOMAN OUT OF YOUR HEAD........IT IS DOING YOU NO GOOD........SHE IS IRRELEVANT. A VICTIM AS WE WERE. THE PROBLEM AT HAND IS THE NARC, WHAT HE HAS DONE TO YOU AND HOW YOU ARE GOING TO HEAL FROM THIS VISCIOUS RAPE OF YOUR SOUL.

She, the OW is one of us, and we should never loss sight of this. Stop allowing her to be an obstacle!

Smiles always!

#2 Oct 31 - 11AM

Sparrow

HERE YOU GO INDENIAL......................

Is this the post you were referring to?

#3 Oct 31 - 11AM (Reply to #92)

indenial

thanks sparrow

I need to keep reading this in my dark times :)

#4 Aug 26 - 8AM

Hunter

Calling all Newbies

Read this!!!

#5 Aug 26 - 8AM

Sparrow

Here it is Hunter

Here you go..........

#6 Aug 12 - 9PM

Sparrow

Dentalas

so very glad to hear it! :) Hope you are well.

#7 Aug 12 - 9PM

heritage

Here Again

Told you I would be coming back Sparrow! When OW thoughts enter my head I come to this post and it settles me!

#8 Jul 30 - 12PM

tresor2

So You Think You're Special

This is a great article that sheds some light on the OW thing. I posted it before. Judging the OW only keeps us from our own recovery and healing. They are just people, like us, havin a human experience with a narc. We survived and I hope they do too. I can speak for myself...the Narc wasn't totally to blame for the abuse I suffered. I stayed and took it and tried to change it. That's my problem, not the Narcs, and that's the part of me I'm working on. http://forum2.aimoo.com/NARCISSISTICPERSONALITYDISORDER/THE-TARGET-Healing-Survival-Tactics-Read-Only/So-You-target-Think-You-Are-Special-1-660027.html

#9 Aug 13 - 12PM (Reply to #86)

SoaperGirl

I stayed and took it and tried to change it.

I guess we all tend to feel a certain amount of blame and shame, guilt for our part of the debacle...feeling like it was our fault for opening ourselves up byu responding to, loving and trusting this person. I don't feel inclined to judge my narc's newest OW. She took the bait just like I did, she trusted and believed, and never imagined the horror down the road. I'm not sure what's going on in her situation, but regardless, in time, I know she will be badly hurt as well especially as the narc grows bored with her and starts trolling for new supply. Actually, I feel sorry for her. I wish I could help her, and protect her from the coming pain. Right now, I just feel so helpless being unable to do so. I just have to hope for the best.

#10 Jul 30 - 1PM (Reply to #85)

Done sourcing

Right on! You said "...the

Right on! You said "...the Narc wasn't totally to blame for the abuse I suffered. I stayed and took it and tried to change it. That's my problem, not the Narcs, and that's the part of me I'm working on." Thats recovery talking, congrats! ds

#11 Jul 27 - 12AM

Lost

Mm the OW

For months after I left when I found out that he cheated on me with his ex GF, I couldn't get her out of my head nor understand why he left me for her. I became obsessed with what it was that she had that I didn't. She wasn't attractive, she smokes heavily, she drinks too much, she took a restraining order out on him. When we broke up he said that with the OW, they have this head connection, she is someone he didn't want to change. Wow talk about a kick in the teeth. However 6mths later, well he didn't love her anymore he loves me, realises I am the complete package, complains that she never tells him she loves him, she never organises anything, all she wants to do is sit around and watch TV, she's not a nice person like me, she stinks of rum, she doesn't think about him, she doesn't text him during the day to see how he is going, she pisses him off, she pushes his buttons, didn't invite him to meet her family, she doesn't come into his world, she never has any money, she won't give up working Saturdays, and the list goes on So I would ask myself again why did he choose her over me and why did she go back to him? The perspective that he gives me is that he treats her better than me, posts loving pictures of the two of them on FB, why? Even my therapist says to me that I should stop focusing on her because she is in the same boat as me and he is probably not treating her any better than me. It's him and all his past relationships have been the same. Then I remember how he treats her and talks about her ... it's exactly the same!

#12 Jul 27 - 6AM (Reply to #81)

Reddley

And he'll cheat on her too at some point

Maybe she's not nice like you ANYMORE... because of the shit he did to her. Who wants to keep being nice to someone after they repeatedly shit on you? Maybe she smokes heavily because he stresses her out. Maybe she drinks a lot because he's just an unbearable asshole and only tolerable when she's drunk. Maybe she is lazy and unorganized now. These guys drain you of energy, self respect, dignity, self esteem... the list goes on. Or maybe he's just full of shit. Or maybe he's just bored of her for the time being. Since he's had a break from you... you're all brand new again. Do not trust the garbage he's telling you! Does it really matter that much how he treats her? The facts you need to focus on are these: You know he's an asshole. You know he treats you like shit. It's time for you to spend time on you now.

#13 Jul 30 - 1PM (Reply to #83)

Done sourcing

It'simple really! They are

It'simple really! They are disordered. You can't trust them! Don't trust their actions. Don't trust their words. Don't trust their thoughts. Don't trust their appearances. Hurt-anger-fear---can keep us running in circles. I must trust that the Narc is disordered and walk away onto the path forward. ds

#14 Jul 30 - 12PM (Reply to #82)

tresor2

Reddley -PTSD

Thanks for the post; you said it perfectly. And maybe she has PTSD and is so traumatized that she can no longer function. I was never a drinker before N and through the course of the relationship, I experienced several meltdowns behind alcohol. The pain was so bad, at times, that I would sit in a room and drink and then call him to talk about how I felt. All he did was judge me about having a meltdown. After 8 years of insanity, I wasn't very nice either. I was critical, judgmental, stressed, sick and took on some of the behaviors of the N. It's call survival.

#15 Jul 25 - 4PM

Susan32

He wasn't worth fighting for...

I think my REFUSAL to fight his live-in girlfriend for him was probably the Ultimate Narcissistic Injury, and boy did I enjoy inflicting it! NOTHING says "You're not worth fighting for" than refusing to fight the OW. Refusing to demonize her, or acting as if she doesn't exist. If you treat her that SHE MATTERS- even at the expense of the Ns/Ps mental well-being, you are WINNING! Nothing tells a Narc they're worthless than refusing to fight the OW they triangulate you with. They're too lazy to fight for the relationship, so they start proxy wars with the OW or OM. They'd rather pit someone against you than FIGHT FOR YOU. I think I have the ex-Psych prof convinced that I worship the ground his wife walks on, burn incense to her, and raised her to sainthood. Wow. THAT triangulation really worked. NOT.

#16 Jul 25 - 3PM

deecbee

Good reminder. I think we

Good reminder. I think we should also be regarding this OW with a little more compassion and less animosity because we were once in the same completely unsuspecting position. I find myself villainizing her in my mind... for what? I don't even know her except for what the Narc shares about her. I'm trying to get out of that unhealthy mindset that she's the "bad" one in all this. It has and always will be the Narc.

#17 Jul 25 - 6AM

Sparrow

Thank you!

I have received so many very nice notes, thanking me for this post. So many have told me they refer back to the post about the OW several times and have found it very helpful. Your appreciation and kind words are amazing. I want to take this opportunity to say that I am so glad you have all found it useful and to tell you that helping others on this forum is a major part of my healing journey as well! We are all here to help one another and I wanted to just say "I couldn't do it without all of you! Thank you all so much" YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!

#18 Jul 24 - 9PM

Erali

This is so true! The OW is

This is so true! The OW is us, or will be us. He will not change for her, no matter what you think you see. She deserves our sympathy, not jealous anger.

#19 Jul 25 - 6AM (Reply to #74)

SoaperGirl

This is so true! The OW is will fail with narc too

I agree, that any relationship with a pathological is hard-wired for failure in the long run. I remember some of the things my narc posted on his website about his new relationship with his new OW and so much of the dialogue sounded familiar because I'd heard it during our own!. Sounded exactly the same script he'd used with me! Imagine that! I even had to laugh when he said the OW had told him "You belong to me now!". Hahaha...I had told him the exact same thing! From her picture she lookecd ectstatic, on cloud nine...just as I had done. Perhaps the only thing that was different, but still very much in keeping the narc's true nature..is that he had a different false mask with her evidently created just for her, as mine had been for me. With me, he was always preaching health habits (although he did smoke), taking lots of vitamins, exercise, eating right, lots of salads and healthy foods etc. She told him not to get all health nut on her...and suddenly he agreed! Oh, she was so smart and right about everything! Hahaha. No doubt about it, he was doing some major ass kissing on her, but she was targeted to be his new sugar-mama...she had lots of money he was in dire need of, beautiful property, lucrative business and an expensive home. She was well-heeled with lots of money! He made such a big deal that he'd finally found a woman with high standards, exactly what he was looking for and wanted in a woman..she had also given him the idea of that smoking was deal breaker (prior to me he dropped a woman who insisted he quit smoking within a month!)...Well, he quit smoking the same day with the new OW let him know smoking wasn't allowed in her pet boarding facility (successful business). He made abig deal of it too! The books on pathology/narcissism I've been reading indicated no major changes can or will take place with a narc...anything that does change will revert back inside of a year which so far seems to his limit if our own is any indication at 14 months). Within a year, he should be smoking again, and back to all his old tricks! I do so love watching this bastard self-implode! What a stupid bastard! He keeps making the same mistakes over and over again! The woman may change, but he never does!

#20 Jul 25 - 4PM (Reply to #75)

deecbee

So true about them

So true about them fine-tuning their masks based on whoever they're trying to seduce. My X-N's OW is also from a well-off family and he went from unkempt/unshaven/dirty hipster look that was into obscure music and grimey, low key activities, to a clean-cut, preppy man (I'm taking argyle sweaters prep!) who was into mainstream music and classy dates (on her dime, of course). Dangerous chameleons...

#21 Jul 27 - 1PM (Reply to #76)

Erali

Yep, for each woman is a

Yep, for each woman is a custom mask. But underneath each one is the same thing. Kind of reminds me of this from Return to Oz! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBfmR4rEeHU

#22 Jul 23 - 8AM

BadaBing

Thank u Sparrow

#23 Jul 22 - 10PM

Okay1150

Ouch - that hit the spot

Yes, I have been the OW. Stupidly. No - compassionately. They are charmers, and we are charmed. I had a lot of hatred this last time. And it's not right.

#24 Jul 22 - 9PM

Hunter

Aren't we all the OW???

Aren't we all the OW??? Think about it. Hunter

#25 Jul 23 - 5AM (Reply to #70)

Reddley

I think so

The way my ex N talked about his mother and ex wife... everyone he's ever with from here on in is an OW. They both might be out of the picture in a physical sense but they are both very much so still in his head.

#26 Jul 21 - 5PM

Sparrow

so glad!

So glad to hear that my post is helpful to you! It does my heart good to know that you come back to it and find solace in it! Keep up the good work! You are doing fantastic!!!! Smiles!

#27 Jul 21 - 5PM

heritage

Sparrow had to come back to

Sparrow had to come back to your post again! When I did the drive by yest during the day and saw her car there while he was at work he is doing the same pattern with her. Around the 6 month mark he gave me his garage door code so I could go to his house when I wanted. What I did not know was he had surveillance cameras in his bedroom and den. He would watch me from his office. So now she is being watched. So literally everything does repeat itself. and when he no longer wants you in his home he disarms the code and you didn't even know until you tried it. I will continue to read this post because lately I have been in the rage stage and your post helps!

#28 Jul 21 - 12PM

Sparrow

TNR

My point exactly...........that was my driving force for the post. So everyone would understand that there is no need to focus on the OW. Great analogy, the chair any object. I can't emphasize enough that these women are no different then us.

#29 Jul 20 - 8PM

heritage

Sparrow

I want you to know that because of your post I will get to sleep tonight! I have read it 3 times and I will keep going. After the drive by and seeing her car there I needed to read this. Thank you sparrow!

#30 Jul 20 - 8PM (Reply to #62)

heritage

Ok Sparrow this is on my mind

Ok Sparrow this is on my mind and i ned to be straightened out. Today I thought does he realize how badly he has hurt his ex his 2 daughters and then me. Is he really going to do this agin to the one he is with now? It's so sick. It can't be love because when we love we want to settle with that person and therfe is no one else. He always goes for top notch and gets it because he's a dentist but then I guess his disorder kicks in?

#31 Jul 20 - 10PM (Reply to #64)

Sparrow

dentalas

The one thing you MUST always remember, and I think you may be losing sight of at times..........HE IS INCAPABLE OF LOVE. PERIOD. I know how hard it is for you, all of us to comprehend, because we are not cut from the same cloth. We feel pain, we feel heart ache, we feel terrible when we hurt someone we care about.......THEY DON'T, THEY CAN'T. You have to be able to keep the differences between you and him seperate. He will continue on this path until he takes his last dying breath. It's all he knows.

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