WWLP

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#1 Jul 1 - 6PM

loveofmylife

About 3/4 of the way through the book now, and it is just stirring up all kinds of feelings i had been able to forget about. It is scary how much my profile and Ns profile fit what they describe in the book, as well as the intense attachment feeling - although I still get tripped up by what seems to be real empathy coming from him.

Anyway, just reading the book and remembering things I've tolerated (and he has commented many times on how loyal, trusting, patient and tolerant i am - all things they look for) set off panic attacks with me. Did anyone else have that reaction?

#2 Jul 8 - 6PM

wholeagain

Yes

And I credit reading that with pushing my process forward much faster. As others have said seeing things in black and white that were identical to what I'd seen in the relationship was shocking. I couldn't explain it away with "Yes but...I know but...our situation was more complicated...yeah but he's different..." I was very good at isolating incidents and making excuses or taking blame. But it became very clear very fast that he wasn't different at all! Nor was my situation. That much info in one place really opened my eyes and I wasn't liking what I was seeing. I'd actually probably been in a mild form of panic for years, this did make it worse at first. Keep breathing, keep reading!

#3 Jul 8 - 11AM

better off

Hugs... it's setting off

Hugs... it's setting off panic attacks (IMO) because you are starting to face the reality of what has happened. And the reality is horrible.. that you intimately trusted someone, completely and without reservation, who is a predator and actually cares nothing for you. You know I love you girl, so I am saying this with kindness and TRUE empathy.. but you have been in such denial that it's been painful to watch. Coming to terms with the truth of this nonhuman Narc in your life is going to be the most difficult thing you've faced in your life. It trumps death, IMO. When I started to really "see" it, I, like many others, got sick with viruses, I physically felt like I'd been run over by a truck, and I was even vomiting over the shock of this emotional rape. This is actually not uncommon. :-( But, I look back and think of it as my body ridding itself of a DISEASE. Do not lose heart... and devastating as that time was, I feel very good these days! :-))) We are all here for you as you move forward. The tough thing is, the only way out is through. But you can do it.

#4 Jul 8 - 2PM (Reply to #10)

loveofmylife

Thanks Betteroff

I think alot of my denial was from the heavy mixed messages and my confusion about how much of these issues were due to our awkward circumstances N says "i TOLD you I wasnt' interested in you in THAT way" from time to time. But then he will sprinkle in talking about the future, flirting heavily, taking me out to romantic dinners, long hugs and sighing, being sweet to me and supportive, and all kinds of other things, such as asking for my relationship status constantly, telling me he is not getting married to someone else because "what in the hell would i be doing!" wink, wink, etc, etc. So I always thought it was the, as you say, "wink, wink.... i told you I wasn't interested" since I was married and he didn't feel like he could come right out and say it. But I did see lots of deeds and insinuated stuff that I thought was his "way" of communicating with me. So he is just shoving all those mixed messages down my throat right now and pretending like none of it ever happened. So I guess that has been part of my denial "did he really want to be with me, but never thought he could come right out and say it, got angry with me because I wasn't becoming available, and then just turned it into an all out war almost" And I still have this question....would a "normal" man have reacted the way he did if a woman was STRINGING HIM ALONG for years and never made herself available, but continued to tell him that she cared for him and interjected that into the work environment? Would that make a normal man pissed off enough to do the things he did? Would LOVE feedback from people on that. This is my main confusion. btw, I put it in another post, but I am not checking my email anymore....

#5 Jul 8 - 6PM (Reply to #12)

better off

I think a normal man, if he

I think a normal man, if he actually felt that way, would have SAID, "I feel like you've been stringing me along all these years, but you continue to tell me you care for me." Did he say that? No. He said, what are you talking about, I've never felt that way about you, when he clearly did, and keeps hinting he does WHEN HE WANTS SOMETHING FROM YOU. A normal man would not take a married woman to romantic moonlit dinners and walks on the beach and then act like he has no idea what you are talking about when it comes to a relationship. A normal man would not have emotional affairs with OTHER married women at the same time, and lie to them constantly about you and everyone else. A normal man would not have a girlfriend while carrying on these emotional affairs. A normal man would not have been engaged to someone else while having you fly across country to meet him for dinner. A normal man would not get angry and blame YOU when found out. A normal man would not KEEP initiating business with someone he thought was all hung up on him that he wasn't interested in and that "violated his boundaries" whatever that means in his twisted mind.

#6 Jul 9 - 10AM (Reply to #14)

loveofmylife

Preserving my dignity

Actually, I was wondering this morning.... how was he going to address this new business venture that he was pursuing with me with all of the women he told (and therefore used me as chick bait)... "she is love with me, it is making it hard at work, I am working on a plan to leave asap, but want to make sure I preserve her dignity in the process." Yeah right.... makes it a little hard to go back to these same women and say "oh, it really wasn't that bad, so I decided to go back and pursue more work with her". but maybe the real reason is so that he could find new victims and tell this story to his new victims as bait.

#7 Jul 9 - 10AM (Reply to #15)

better off

"I am working on a plan to

"I am working on a plan to leave asap" hahahahahah... I guess his "plan" was you TELLING HIM to leave. What an ass. Do you see how he spins every single thing into it's OPPOSITE. So every single thing he says to you actually means THE OPPOSITE. And loml, sweetheart... you are not the center of his universe. He uses EVERYTHING as bait of course, but his treatment of you is simply a predator seeking his next meal, be it a job, or hero worship, or both. He doesn't think out what he is going to do with you, etc, he operates on predatory instincts, just like he does with them. Please please, you have to understand that YOU are ONE OF THEM. You still are holding on to the belief that you hold a special place in his life, and they are all a vague bunch of other women that he plays fake games with. But you are one of them. You may have something more valuable to him in terms of his PERSONAL GAIN, but it's not you as a person. It's you as a business source, job reference, and hero worshiper. The very second you say a word that's not on his script he punishes you for it, instantly.

#8 Jul 9 - 3PM (Reply to #16)

loveofmylife

betteroff

Ok, I may be beating a dead horse here...but... I hear what you are saying about whenever I "violate" his script, I get punished. Yes, I disagreed for us to work again in the future and he "punished" me by not going to our celebration dinner. But obviously my script keeps being rewritten without my knowledge or consent!!!! If my script was written for me to be WORK ONLY, then why DID he take me out to romantic dinners, ask about my marital status, tell me I'm beautiful, flirt non stop, etc, etc. Is this just part of the pathology? He went down that path for awhile and that WAS in the script....but I guess when a different leading lady showed up (other married emotional lover), that part of my script got written out, and rather than tell me he changed the rules, he just ignored me and denied anything every happened, that he never felt THAT WAY about me??? Perhaps I've answered my own question - this is what the pathology is????

#9 Jul 9 - 7PM (Reply to #23)

loveofmylife

Control Freak

Oh, and one more thing. Last summer, when we were having a lunch with a guy I've known since college, the N turned to me and said "you are a control freak!" Ok, that hurt. My college friend made a comment like "aren't we all?" and laughed. Well, it occurred to me then, that he hated it when I stood my ground on something i believed in - like not firing someone that I thought was valuable. And he couldn't handle it! He wanted to CONTROL everything I did, and he was not able to do so!

#10 Jul 9 - 5PM (Reply to #22)

Susan32

"Because I'm a nice guy"

After the D&D (and meeting the OW), I felt the same way. I thought, "If our script was written for WORK ONLY, why did we have so many lunches together, go to concerts and lectures? Why did you give off the impression that we were having a teacher/student affair? Why did I think of you as a friend? Why did you tell me so many personal/emotional things?" I even asked these things to the ex-P professor... and his response was "Because I'm a nice guy." And, a moment later, he said, "I'm not even your friend." (This was after I said that since it turned out he already had a fiancee,we could be "just friends",and I'd respect that--then he started hoovering me not long after, acting romantically interested) I told my therapist at the time. She validated my feelings of betrayal, as I was sobbing, "I thought he was my friend." Her response was "he's a teacher"--unfortunately, that's the excuse he gave--and the excuse I gave--for his emotional abuse. As if being a teacher justified the outright emotional cruelty, the gaslighting and crazy-making.

#11 Jul 9 - 4PM (Reply to #20)

better off

Another thought I had...

Another thought I had... don't you think it's weird that he has never settled down with anyone by his age? Unusual at least. I know of course that he loved to send signals that he couldn't really settle down with another woman because he was "waiting" for you, but in my experience, men aren't like that, in general. Regardless, he was able to make you THINK that's why he didn't marry someone else, even though he had a "friend" propose to him even though he didn't feel that way about her (sound familiar?), even though he was engaged to someone for a while, even though he seemed to have some sort of longterm girlfriend that you called the Fake Girlfriend. Apparently she thought she was a real girlfriend. He was able to keep you hooked thinking he felt the same way about you as you did about him, the whole "if only we could be together" thing. Only when you COULD be together, well then he didn't want to. Again, using yourself and how YOU would think, you've convinced yourself that it was somehow something YOU did. Which is kind of hard to believe considering he supposedly waited 20 years to have you. Seems like he got put off fairly easily. If it really were the idea you came up with that it was because you hadn't divorced when he thought you MIGHT have... he claimed the two of you had no relationship. A normal person would say, look, I can't do this because of the way I feel about you. If you do get divorced, look me up. Or SOMETHING like that... not his BIZARRE reaction. Except it's not bizarre if you're talking about a narcissist... it's completely normal for THEM to act like that. Anyway, think about his lack of a true relationship with anyone for the past two decades. It wasn't because he couldn't have a relationship with you, obviously, because he crashed that concept once it was possible. It's because he can't have a normal relationship with ANYONE.

#12 Jul 9 - 6PM (Reply to #21)

loveofmylife

Yes, you are right

I don't think he can have a normal relationship with a woman. Two Long term relations by the time I met him when he was 30. No engagement out of these. I was shocked that the perfect one wasn't married and thought I'd found a goldmine! One of these LT relations is his other married emotional lover right now! xWife - was grumbling about their relationship while they were ENGAGED (which should be the happiest time)...and made it feel like we had such a great connection and they didn't. Told me that one weekend when we went on a retreat together and did a personality test, that it hit him that he and I were SOOO alike and "what in the hell am I doing with (fiancee)" - implying that he wanted to be with me. Told me he wished I would have professed my feelings to him during that time so that he could have broken it off. xFiancee - They lived together for 3 years and had two wedding dates, but broke up several times during that period. Not sure how that worked with them living together. Also weird to have a woman live with you for three years when you have small children. Told me once that when he and I went out while he was engaged, he stopped sleeping at night cause he realized the engagement wasn't right and then broke it off. Again, implying me. However, he did say that they broke up cause "she wanted the relationship to be only about the two of them", telling me that it was tough with the kids. But now I wonder if she just didn't like all the other women! I'm sure dozens of other relationships after that. Two years ago one woman who he really liked alot and thought was the one...broke up cause he said she was pressuring him to have kids.....I could tell he wasn't being totally honest in that response...and then found out that less than three weeks after this breakup, he was in Hawaii with a DIFFERENT WOMAN on vacation. That one was his current Fake GF that went on for almost two years. But all throughout, there were other people in and out of the picture. And yes, she proposed to him several times and he turned her down. So I'm sure she thought she was the only one. And he told me he didn't want to settle down until his last kid was out of the house - 3 more years and told me he was very independent...which I think really means that he is Loose! Yes, I think his real issue, among many others, is that he has NO LOYALTY TO ANYONE. I thought this whole time that I was THE ONE for him and that is why he confided all of these things to me and made it sound like he could never be happy with anyone else. But now I find out that he was not loyal to me either. I can't even imagine what life would be like where you are loyal to NO ONE. it must be very unsettling and unstable.

#13 Jul 9 - 3PM (Reply to #17)

better off

They rewrite the rules every

They rewrite the rules every day. There is no yesterday. There is only now. Whatever benefits them NOW. Maybe that's why it's hard to accept, you have YEARS of good feelings and memories that you cannot forget, but he ONLY HAS NOW. That IS part of the pathology. They don't learn from "pain," they only go for gratification. It's almost a lost cause trying to figure out Why This and Why That. Because it was working at the time. He had a fiancee giving him supply where he lived, he had you long distance pining away for him, he could snap his fingers and have you fly for dinner... that's pretty powerful. And you don't KNOW how many others there were. You've said on the board that business people have commented that they have NEVER SEEN such a glowing review as you always gave him. Don't you think that was worth a few dinners and flattery and flirting, and emails that actually didn't require anything real from him. Not exactly torture for him to enjoy your company and get so much back from it financially. It just didn't MEAN ANYTHING to him. It's just words, it's just acting. Once you were physically THERE, well then it would have to be real, so fuck that. He can't do that. NOW is now and the fact that you EXPECT him to fulfill all those vain promises, well too bad for you. THAT is part of the pathology. One of the narc books says something about that being a common element in the relationships, that right when it seemed like the relationship should take it off it mysteriously disintegrates. They are rainmen. They only promise and hint and NEVER deliver. Your situation is TEXTBOOK, loml. You keep trying to understand "why" based on why a NORMAL person would act that way. THEY ARE NOT NORMAL. He is not normal. Brain studies prove these guys have a stunted emotional ability... You are trying to find a rational REASON why he did those things when the only reason is that he is pathological. You often bring up his support while your dad was in the hospital but you seem to have forgotten the other things he did then, like telling you to get a spinal column. Instead of beings supportive I just see a guy who never lost an opportunity to blind you and make you feel DEPENDENT on him. That you couldn't survive and do your job without him. As if you were "partners." You would refer to him as a business "partner" when you first came here. But he is NOT your partner... he fostered that feeling, that you were partners, that you worked "together," that you were true partners in life. But he was a CONTRACTOR. YOU were the boss. It was to his advantage to psychologically make you feel like you weren't even PARTNERS, but that you were dependent on HIM. He is a SNAKE IN A SUIT!!!

#14 Jul 9 - 7PM (Reply to #18)

loveofmylife

Dependence

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head. Damn, you are good. He wanted me DEPENDENT on him in every way. - Dependent on him emotionally, including the support while my dad was in the hospital. Yes, not true empathy, but just to draw me closer to him, make me more bonded to him so that I would be even more dependent on him. Have me bond to him; but still he is not bonded to me. (thus he could give the spinal column comment!) And the years of being my "best friend" when I had marital issues. I could always DEPEND on him. - Dependent on him at work. He made me believe I couldn't do this without him. It was clear he wanted me unstable, by criticizing me constantly and making me doubt myself, to depend on him. So you are right, and I think this may be one of the last pieces of the puzzle. Everything he does is for me to bond TO HIM, to make me more DEPENDENT on him (but not bond himself in the process.). And why??? So he can have complete CONTROL over me. Same as the other married lover. Get her totally dependent on him emotionally; which he has accomplished.

#15 Jul 9 - 8PM (Reply to #19)

better off

Wow.. it sounds like you are

Wow.. it sounds like you are starting to really get it now! ;-) Control is the name of his game! I would cringe at those "sweet" emails he would send you about how "worried" he was about your sanity, etc. Constantly reminding you how lost you would be without his help. grrr. When he was the one who needed all YOUR references and contacts and help. I'm glad you breaking free from his control.

#16 Jul 8 - 7PM (Reply to #13)

loveofmylife

betteroff

THANKS! I'm going to print this one out and read it several times/day. It gets back to, i've been unable to see the forest through the trees cause I've been swimming in him for so long...it just takes time to step back and think about what NORMAL is!

#17 Jul 8 - 3PM (Reply to #11)

Lisa E. Scott

Loveofmylife

Yey! I'm so glad you're not responding to e-mails from him anymore! This is a big step. To answer your question, No...a normal man would not react the way he did. He is nothing but a manipulator and you are so much better off without him. You have to remember that. He will never change. In fact, he will only grow worse. Can you even fathom that? I hope not! Stay away, far, far away! xoxo

#18 Jul 7 - 6PM

smileyfacepr

still reading

Im still reading it also!! But yes most of the stuff definetly resonates w/me! Incredible how alike they all are..how sad for us that we fell for them and loved them so much..how sad for them they have to use and manipulate just to survive!

smileyfacepr

#19 Jul 7 - 10PM (Reply to #8)

Lisa E. Scott

Smileyfacepr

Such a good point: "how sad for us that we fell for them and loved them so much..how sad for them they have to use and manipulate just to survive!" Both sad, but at the end of the day, I think we're much better off than they are. No one can take away our ability to feel love again someday. It may take time before we can experience it, but at least we are capable of experiencing it. They can't take that away from us forever.

#20 Jul 7 - 4PM

Scoop

Yes it did for me for a day

Yes it did for me for a day or two , i mean not cripperling panic but a real sence of a reality smack in the face , i know now that it was my congnative dissonance taking a shift . For me it did die down after a couple of days and the knowledge i gained from the book far out weighed the uncomfortable reality check . I supose when i saw it in black and white and here was a Dr who was explaining my narc to the letter i had to sit up and listern , it was the point that i knew i couldnt "save " him with my love ... I was sad i remember ,so sad that there was nothing i could do for him , i guess i let go and it hurt like hell .I loved him so much but it was not enough . xx

#21 Jul 7 - 4PM

Steph

I read it when I was already

I read it when I was already several months no contact - so it didn't stir up panicky feelings in me, more just helped me make sense of how I got into it. "although I still get tripped up by what seems to be real empathy coming from him." yup....that's always a tough one. thinking of times they seemed genuinly caring and times they showed emotion - like crying - but it's not real. You do see that eventually. Read the recent threads on "the crying narcissist???" by SBlaze. Just further shows that even though they can have tears or seem concerned.....their actions after their display of "emotion" show otherwise. Total sympathy ploy manipulation.

#22 Jul 7 - 3PM

ewa

Which book are you

Which book are you mentioning? Thanks :)

#23 Jul 7 - 3PM (Reply to #4)

rainbow1

Woman who love psychopaths!

Thats the book she is talking about. If you havent read it you really need to! Like everyone else has said.... the book described me and my N to the T. My jaw was dropped the entire time that I was reading it!

_______________________________________________
"dont let yesterday take up too much of today"

#24 Jul 7 - 2PM

enoughalready

loveofmylife

yes-the book made me feel very uncomfortable and uneasy. It describes me and my XN exactly. I have a lot of soul searching and changing to do about myself.

#25 Jul 1 - 6PM

Amy

a little bit....

I read the book about a year ago I think, and it freaked me out. 6 weeks after getting engaged, I bought another copy (my best friend is a psychologist and I had sent her my old copy). I have not read it again yet - but plan to. It is a good reminder of what happened - and why I never want to go back!

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