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Old 12th May 2011, 06:52 PM   #1
confusedand brokenhearted
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I need help - I feel so low

I met my husband in 2000. I was just getting over the break-down of my first marriage of 12 years. Although I’d loved my first husband and I do believe he loved me there were many serious issues we simply could not resolve and the marriage failed despite the love. I was really scared of getting into another deep relationship with anyone because of this. My new husband (at the time boyfriend) was 45 when I met him and just out of a long term relationship. I was 37. We took things at a slow pace and everything was really lovely. We courted for one year, husband (boyfriend at the time) lived with me in my flat for a year, and then we moved into his newly purchased house (though I was reluctant to do this – given my fear of the relationship breaking down – based on my previous experience and not on my experience of our relationship, as I was deeply in love with him and he certainly appeared to be deeply in love with me). We got engaged in 2004 and husband (then fiancé) started asking me at regular intervals to set the wedding date. We were having major alterations to the house at the time and so, once that work had completed, I set about arranging the wedding. We wrote our vows together and got married in September 2006. It was the happiest day of my life. Husband tells me it was the happiest day of his.

At the wedding I do recall seeing this woman (a guest of his) at the evening reception and being aware of his body language and attentiveness to her, and to feeling ‘threatened’ by her. She wrote some disrespectful rubbish in our guestbook about how he couldn’t be happy for the rest of his life.

After the wedding we had a wonderful honeymoon for 3 weeks. When we returned we found out that his best man was to be married in Thailand over Christmas so we went out there to join them for 2 weeks. We also had another holiday of 1 week in Portugal at the end of February 2007. In effect our honeymoon lasted 5 months!

I adored him. Shortly after the wedding I recall crying when I realised it was highly unlikely, given our respective ages, 43 and 50, that we would celebrate our golden wedding anniversary and that eventually, one day, death would part us. So in love was I with him and us. He, for his part, told me daily that he loved me deeply, had never felt happier in his life, felt like he’d won the lottery when he found me, that there could be no other woman for him, but me. Such was the blissfulness of it.

In December 2007 my husband went to a Christmas party with some work associates. I was not invited, but then, I was never invited to these parties. He returned home at 5.30am. I had woken about 30 minutes beforehand and had come downstairs, wondering where he was, and had just made myself a hot drink. Soon as husband came in he started babbling about his evening and started to mention this woman ‘Angie’. I didn’t know who this woman was and alarm bells were ringing loudly. Husband said she was just one of the office girls and babbled even more to get off the subject. Anyway, it had been my husband’s birthday recently and we still had his birthday cards displayed. One card was from her but just signed ‘happy birthday x’ with no name, however, there had also been a group office card and she’d also signed that one and it was easy to identify the same handwriting. She had also given him a CD. When I confronted husband about this he said there’d been ‘office banter’ and she’d got the wrong idea. I wasn’t entirely convinced, the explanation seemed too ‘pat’ but I think my fear at that time was that maybe there was a relationship blooming.

In April 2008 I took a call in my husband’s office and it was this woman Angie. By the nervous and over-friendly way she was with me on the phone I suddenly had the cold realisation that there really was something going on. I asked my husband about this (he is still at this time telling me how fortunate he feels to have found me, how incredibly happy he is, how much he loves me etc). Over the next year little things kept coming to light – just little discrepancies in explanations, that sort of thing. Whenever I asked husband about it, he’d tell me I was imagining things and nothing had or was or ever would be going on etc. In January 2009 he finally told me he had kissed her, and even this he tried to present in an altruistic way. I was really shocked and hurt and also hurt that he’d been telling me my doubts were based on only my imagination etc. Plus, for me, kissing is a form of infidelity.

At the end of March 2009 I was going through my husbands accounts trying to find the receipt for a defunct photocopier, when I came across my husband’s mobile telephone bills. OMG. Page after page of daily and multi-text contacts with this woman from March 2007 to May 2008. I cannot tell you the shock of it. (This woman had been a client of my husband’s and we had her personal details on record – which is how I recognised her mobile telephone number). She had been the first person he spoke to in the morning, the last person he wanted to speak to at night, even after we had made love L (our sex life was spectacular and we have been very open to exploring our sexuality so I cannot think this was driven by an urge to seek some dark sexual urge he might feel he could not bring to our relationship). When I confronted him about it he said nothing – so I had to go through all the monthly telephone bills to find out when it started and when/if it had ended. All those lovely special days – contaminated by his betrayal. I don’t think I will ever be able to find the words to describe how I felt. I was utterly devastated. Sure I had been suspicious but, not even in my wildest imaginings had I come up with something on this scale. So began the nightmare that has been the emotional roller coaster of the last two years. Husbands stance was that this was just a flirtatious relationship and he was surprised by its longevity. I researched on the internet and found information about emotional affairs – and even how emotional affairs could scar even deeper than a brief mad episode of adultery. Husband refused to accept it was an emotional affair (please bear in mind, up until November 2007 I had no inkling this woman even existed – and of course there were the daily declarations of love and devotion to me – and his affair had been going on for 8 months at that point). Husband insisted it had not become sexual, other than in the texts to each other (revealed some months after first discovery) – he appeared to have no notion that even that knowledge was very painful to me. Within 2 weeks of discovering the phone records my husband was saying to me that I was simply not trying in our relationship and should have gotten over it by now. Anyone who looked at me could see the deep trauma I was in – the dramatic weight loss, the despair in my eyes. We went to relate for two sessions. In the second session husband declared ‘I don’t do guilt’ and then refused to speak for the rest of the session. Later in the year husband said to me that the counsellor must have experienced being cheated on and that was why he was so empathetic towards me – implying that my husband believed the counsellor was over-empathetic to me. There are so many further incidences of emotional abuse that my heart sinks to even recall. Suffice it to say, husband adopted a stance of leaving, coming back, leaving, coming back. Each time we ‘tried again’ I would ask husband to be honest with me about what happened with this other woman. Each time he would vow it was only a flirtation, sex had not happened, he took his marriage vows seriously. I would get to the point where I really felt he was not telling me the truth (discrepancies in explanations – some of them insanity in and of themselves). I thought I was going mad. I’d end it – tell him with or without sexual contact, I couldn’t continue with our marriage because of the betrayal and the continued lies – he’d leave, then come back, beg me to try again, I’d relent to his tears, and because I loved him, I’d try again, something would come up – he’d accuse me of not trying – off he’d go again. Finally, in January 2011 he moved out. We tried to reconcile a few times, but it simply would not work. My husbands betrayal and emotional abuse did not limit to this incident, there have been other, dreadfully cruel things my husband has done and said, but the emotional affair still remained the main problem underneath, so to speak. We have had some lovely days since March 2009, it hasn’t all been fraught, but still, it has been fractured. I have also looked into this on the internet and it does seem to be about 1-2 years commonly to recover from infidelity, so I don’t think I have taken an inordinate amount of time to recover, particularly as small details were revealed to me by him (like the sexual nature of the texts) on a drip drip basis – with me having to then come to terms with all the months of being lied to prior to this new confession. Finally, at the end of April this year I suddenly started to see a light at the end of the tunnel of what had now become, quite deep depression. I started to really accept that the marriage was over and that I could be happy being single and moving on without him. Husband must have intuited this new attitude in me. We’d split many times before but had really ‘ended it’. Husband was distraught that I was wanting to move on and so one week ago (he says because he didn’t want any future we may have together be predicated on lies) husband confessed that he and that woman did have sex on several occasions. He sent me emails with full gory details, when, where, which hotel, etc etc. He says he’s full of remorse and he certainly appears that way. He says he realises now the great harm he has done to me and that he was wrong to blame me and feel like he was the wronged party when I wouldn’t believe or trust him. I feel like he has plunged me back into the despair of 2 years ago. My heart literally hurts. I don’t know what to do and I am back to obsessing and feeling worthless and ugly and unlovable and valueless. I can’t believe a single word out of his mouth and I can’t believe a single tear he sheds – yet my heart bleeds for him – I feel so sorry for him as he does genuinely appear to be suffering. My friends and family say I should be ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY and never speak to him again. I am ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY but mostly I am sorrow torn and grief-stricken. I feel he is the only person I can or want to talk to about this, but I can’t believe anything he says or does. I honestly believe he has a mental disorder. I think that he has, if not full-blown, then certainly a border-line Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So why do I still feel care and compassion for him? Why am I so broken? I have read so many stories of other people who have experienced betrayal but no story that comes even close to mine – I really need help and I don’t know what help anyone can give L. Please don’t tell me to be ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY – this makes me feel isolated. Can anyone understand what is going on – please.
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Old 12th May 2011, 10:29 PM   #2
Forever
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

Dear C&B,
I would not suggest anger...I think the brokenheartedness is sufficient for this case. The facts support you not being able to believe his words, tears, or whether or not he is sincere about his love for you and his being finished (?) with the OW. To be made to feel as if you were going crazy is MORE than just a slap in the face, but let's put that part aside. I know first hand how the heart can literally hurt...like feeling bruised within. I lost half my hair in less than 6 months under the same type of circumstances, and ended up four years later with Leukemia. My ex is NPD although I did not know the meaning of it during my years with him, just the experiences from it. We did not have internet then...and he did not "do guilt" either.

What is he willing to do, what changes is he willing to make from now on to PROVE his fidelity to you and your marriage?

Simply put, you feel the way you do because you love him and trusted him, and you assumed he did for you also. That is the way it is supposed to be in a healthy marriage. You did nothing wrong. Your feelings are normal though crushing.

If he does indeed have NPD, I would run like hell....I didnt run after twenty years of this (I too loved him deeply), he simply walked out... (we were not even at odds over anything), leaving me to deal with feeling like you do right now. We had four children, the youngest was only 15 months at the time. People such as that live in fantacy and can never seem to get enough attention... they always drift back to their old ways unless they get long term professional help. Their tears, blameshifting, cold sarcasim, as well as their ability to lie is just part of the package. They are great actors when it suits their agenda. And when THEY decide it is over, its OVER...your feelings and needs are secondary to their own....if they even can acknowledge that you have any. It took me seven years to stop feeling worthless and finally wish him well from the heart.

Finally, there is a support group/blog for those who love people with NPD online. I do not remember which, but you can google and find it easily. There, after you decide what is best for YOU, you can get the support you need to sever this relationship before it kills you...he will get over you and find someone else in short order once he accepts that you are finished with him....and that in itself will take some doing on your part, because he wont be able to believe that he could possibly be rejected for this appalling behavior. You, on the other hand, have lots of work to do on yourself, or you could end up sick like me. If you do choose to keep the marriage, you will need support to be able to detach yourself emotionally in order to be able to help him. Not everyone can do that and still give a quality kind of love and affection at the same time...but if you cant, you will find out soon enough.

Why did his previous long term relationship end? How do you feel about the prospect of watching over your shoulder for the rest of your life....with having NO trust and not feeling like you can ever measure up to whatever tittilates his fancy? Incidently, my present husband has many NPD traits also, but is willing to LEARN how to love....it is a hard road for both of us, but he is slowly making some progress. I am a more dynamic personality than his ex was and can see through the BS and call him on his behavior when necessary. Otherwise, I am prepared emotionally and physically to leave and he knows it. This detachment is a bitter/sweet thing...one does not get to feel really married, just needed.

Last edited by Forever; 13th May 2011 at 12:02 AM.
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Old 13th May 2011, 12:28 PM   #3
confusedand brokenhearted
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

Dear Forever,

Thank you so much for replying to my post and for offering such understanding and helpful advice.

I cannot imagine the horror you must have gone through when your first husband just suddenly upped and left. I only found out about NPD last month (and I am still not entirely sure husband has this – perhaps more like your current husband with traits and now wanting to Learn how to love – however, my husband has ‘played’ me so well and, as you say, is such a convincing actor, that I don’t know whether all this remorse and acceptance that he may have a problem, is just another game) how you managed to survive his cruel treatment of you and to make sense of what had happened, without even this insight, I just can’t begin to imagine it. My heart goes out to the ‘you’ you were dealing with that and finding a way to cope with it. I sincerely hope your Leukaemia is long in remission and you are in good health now. I must say, I admire your ability to continue in your second marriage, even though you are aware of the traits in your second husband. It must feel very lonely at times, as I expect it requires you to be strong at all times, and I wonder how you feel supported through it?

I went to see a divorce solicitor on Wednesday, and need to raise the funds to start proceedings. Whether husband has a personality disorder or not, I simply cannot countenance the thought of him dropping any more bombshells in the future. I cannot trust him, at all, and NO I do not wish to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and questioning every single thing.

I told husband I thought he may have NPD or borderline NPD and he is interested in seeking professional help. It is actually spooking me out how he is not reverting to his usual behaviour of taking no blame, or not looking at his own behaviour, or the perennial ‘silent treatment’ and I think it bodes well for him that he is open to considering therapy. I would like us to seek therapy together with a psychotherapist who specialises in NPD and Borderline Personality Disorder. Not to save the marriage, but to speak with someone who really understands. Even now, friends and family cannot truly accept my husband is anything less than charming and deeply in love with me. I can actually see their disbelief when I tell them I suspect he has a personality disorder. Many of my F&F’s know about the many and varied forms of emotional abuse I’ve suffered, but still they cling to this idea of him. I think I need validation and that’s why I want us to see a psychotherapist together. Is that understandable? The very sad thing is; people with NPD are very wounded and sad individuals, so I would really love for him to find help to deal with his own emotional turmoil – because I love and care for him.

Today I am much stronger than I was yesterday. Actually, strike that. At this moment I am stronger than I was yesterday. Lots of ‘thought stopping’ when my mind throws up images of him with her. Sometimes I win that battle and sometimes I don’t.

With regard to your question about my husband’s previous relationship; it was 17 years and 2 children. Whereas, when my first marriage failed, despite a lot of ugliness and unkindness (from us both) at the end, I never doubted my ex loved me and I never doubted I loved my ex, despite not loving a lot of the behaviours. It was over a year before I went on my first date (with my current husband – a blind date set up by a friend of mine) and as I say I was very cautious about getting involved with anyone again. For my husband, he’d only left the relationship 3 months previously and straight away he was saying he hated her, had never loved her and she was ‘mad’. Not having any inkling at all about NPD or BPD I took these declarations with a pinch of salt, as I thought well, it’s still raw and he doesn’t really mean it. In 11 years of being together my husband has kept to this line unswervingly. I have had enormous difficulty in understanding how he could be so mean as to stay in a relationship with a woman he never loved (though of course, she didn’t know he hated her – thought he was her soul mate) and his ‘defence’ was ever ‘I was weak’. Interestingly, recently, since this ‘road to Damascus’ revelation, he has even started to show empathy for his ex and perhaps allowing for the fact that he may have had a hand in the breakdown of that relationship and, good lord, even accepting that he may have ‘demonised’ the poor woman. (Incidentally, I have met her and I thought she was mad myself, however, in recent months I started to wonder which came first; her madness or her association with my husband to drive her ‘mad’)!

Anyway, what a right old ramble.

Thanks so much again for taking the time to read my dismal story and for offering your help. God bless you!

Take care xx
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Old 13th May 2011, 01:05 PM   #4
Raymond
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

That is interesting C&B. Forever will come back. I am just popping in.

I didn't know what NPD was and had to look it up. Personally from reading about it I think it is just another brand of selfishness on which they have put a label. That's fair enough if it helps to give attention to the problems someone is having.

I feel your confusion. Here we have someone who appears to have come to repentance and has at last revealed all. Your question must be is this genuine or is it all another game? The bottom line must be in him being able to restore your trust. Has he changed or not must be the question.

At the moment you cannot trust him and therefore any marriage must be on hold. There is no real marriage without trust in my view. When I say trust I mean about third parties affairs etc. Even if he had changed it would take a long time for trust to be restored due to the nature of trust but also because you were deceived for so long.

This may be all hypothetical as you appear to be in the position now where you are not contemplating a restoration of the marriage but are still concerned that he begins to cope with his problems.
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Old 13th May 2011, 04:43 PM   #5
confusedand brokenhearted
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

Dear Raymond,

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for offering your insights and advice.

I agree – NPD is TOTAL selfishness. Sufferers are unable to love and are unable to feel empathy.

I must say I have questioned myself for this need to ‘label’ my husband’s behaviour. For myself, it has really helped me to understand how this man who professed to love me, and to have given me and the rest of the world the impression that he was blissfully happy, could have actively pursued another woman within 6 months of marrying me and then maintained his lies to me (and others, and, ultimately to himself) about it for 4 years. The constant blame-shifting and refusal to acknowledge my feelings of hurt and sense of betrayal, the incredibly convincing acting and the insistence that he was the ‘wronged party’ because of my inability to trust or believe him, has had an insidious erosive affect on my own sense of inner peace and stability. I have often questioned whether I was ‘entitled’ to my feelings of hurt and sense of betrayal, and wondered at my own sanity. Therefore the discovery of this information about this personality disorder has really helped me to understand some of what was going on and validated my hurt feelings.

Incidentally, the person who sowed the seed for me to eventually investigate NPD was the relate counsellor who tried to help us in 2009. I went to a third session on my own and the counsellor told me that in all his years of counselling he had never had a client refuse to speak in a session. He also said the statement ‘I don’t do guilt’ had disturbed him as he felt there was something almost psychopathic about the statement. Further recent research brought up Narcissistic Personality Disorder as part of the psychopathy spectrum. I am not a qualified psychotherapist and therefore am not able to make a diagnosis, so I cannot confidently say my husband is, or is not, NPD, however, there are enough behavioural traits (and not just the ones to do with his adultery and subsequent compulsive lying) to suspect my husband could be suffering from the condition. I sincerely hope he does not have NPD as there is no effective treatment for the condition. The very positive hope is that he appears to want to seek professional help – which a full blown NPD sufferer would never do.

I do still love him and I do still care for him deeply, however, though we went through the ceremony, I really wonder if we were truly ever married – given the speed with which he actively sought to break his vows and start this pattern of deceit and betrayal. Having been married for 4 and half years, for him, 4 of those years have been based on nothing more than lies and emotional abuse. I would also like to add that the first contact I found with this other woman was actually just one week after we married – so I can’t even be sure that the affair had not started sooner than it appeared, or even, given she wouldn’t look me in the eye at the wedding, my feeling of ‘insecurity’ when I saw him with her at the wedding, and the totally inappropriate comment in our guestbook, that the affair hadn’t started before we married. What truth can I really trust? I am absolutely certain anyone witnessing my husband’s despairing, tearful pleas for me to believe him when he said nothing was going on, would have been totally convinced by him too.

I see no hope of being able to move on with this marriage and for no other course of action but divorce. It saddens me deeply that we have come to this, and he is maintaining now that he wants us to stay together, but ultimately, neither of us could be truly happy – he’d forever feel hurt that I didn’t trust him and I would forever feel insecure and waiting for the next betrayal to turn up. It’s not good for any human to live like that. I have no hope that I will move on to ‘find’ someone else, how I could believe declarations of love and devotion from anyone else, I’ve no idea. I bought my husband’s declarations hook, line and sinker and so did everyone else!

I just want to find some inner peace and understanding of what on earth has been going on for me these past 3 and half years (from that fateful December evening/morning when he returned at 5.30am acting very suspiciously) and I want for my husband to find a way to be happier and live a life with more integrity than the one he has been living so far.

I will keep you posted on how things turn out. I am waiting for a specialist psychotherapist to call me to book an appointment for us both and hopefully we can get that very soon.

Thanks so much

God Bless xx
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Old 13th May 2011, 06:02 PM   #6
Raymond
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

Wow I can understand the situation a little better now CBH. Your thoughts about never being married makes sense. A marriage is not a marriage with unfaithfulness going on. As you say it could have been happening even before you were married. What have you got to go back to when this was happening virtually from the start?

The biggest damage I would say is the long term deception. Such a deep deception. That must destroy a lot of your confidence. I do hope you have other faithful friends or family in your life. Friends and family that would never let you down. You are very loving to be concerned about him but I understand how you cannot entrust your heart to him again after what has happened.

I do hope you recover from all this. There are thousands of trustworthy people in life. I know you have to recover but I do hope you will mend and be able to relate again. You have been in quite an unusual situation. Extreme deception in my view. I hope you will be able to trust someone eventually although the thought must repulse you just now.

I do hope that you are at least able to trust God as He is one that never lets us down. That has been my mainstay after being brought up as an orphan. My wife and I find healing and confidence in His ways revealed in scripture.

God bless
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Old 13th May 2011, 07:52 PM   #7
Forever
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

It is good to have an agape love and compassion for someone such as he. That is what God desires from us...but it does not mean that you are obligated to leave a door open for more of the same treatment. God desires the best for YOU also, and we all have a point of saturation being human.

I am fine. I am very strong because my main support comes from an intimate relationship with the Lord, so I am not at all lonely. I get insight when I need it the most and can see the bigger picture for the situations I was in and am in even now.

Now about you:

I would not be too quick to toss the marriage per se....but that is your call. I would be patient and watch and wait to see if he is indeed "acting" or if he is willing to make practical use of therapy and boundaries that are fitting for what he has done. Will you ever be able to trust him again? Unlikely. Can you love someone that you cannot trust...can you live your life checking on his integrity and are you strong enough emotionally to call his bluff and call a spade when you see it? Can you risk confrontation and the effects that it has on you when you want to question his words or behavior?

Can you give yourself a time frame in which you keep an open door for walking away if you find that things are going one step forward and two steps back?

This is what I do...it works for me, but I am living on borrowed time and have nothing to lose by giving myself up to help my husband who seems to be actually wanting my help. What's in it for me? The joy of serving in a capacity that any body else would understandably run from. For me, this life is just a vapor, the next one is the one that matters more. It is my choice, not my obligation.

Personally, I think this is a CHARACTER problem rather than a personality disorder....that is just a psychological term applied to sin. The people who are like this come in a variety of different personalities, but share the same lack of love and empathy and display self-centered/self-serving behavior. The way your husband demonized his ex wife without regard to what he was bringing to the table in their marriage is astounding. What she must have gone through we will never know....but it is likely that he was with that OW even while being married to his ex given the time frame.

Last edited by Forever; 13th May 2011 at 09:03 PM.
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Old 14th May 2011, 12:23 PM   #8
Chamomile
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Re: I need help - I feel so low

Quote:
Originally Posted by Forever View Post
Personally, I think this is a CHARACTER problem rather than a personality disorder....that is just a psychological term applied to sin.
I agree with Raymond's comment on this, too.
Suppose, you might like to have a justification as to why he did this to you and the label seemed helpful in making sense of his behaviour.
A bit like, Charles, Diana and Camilla love triangle?

Is your h powerful financially and does he work long hours? Have you checked how much he has been spending for what? I wouldn't be surprised if he had been spending awful lot of money for nice hotels, restaurants, gifts etc over the years. It's odd that he married you and not her whilst he seems to need this woman on the side?
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