I am happy to announce that I have been separated from N for ten weeks now. I nearly went mad when it first happened and cried for days and weeks. I feel more grounded now and even get some pleasure out of life. I survived Christmas. I missed the good side of him and was relieved that I didn't have to deal with the need for his approval anymore.
I want to talk about how it came to be that he labelled me sick and crazy. This was a gradual process that began with his patronizing and arrogant condemnation of my feelings. My feelings were inevitably wrong. As time went on he became more dominating. He gained complete financial control of all income even though he was not working. He claimed that he was much more able to manage money than I. I know now that he put whatever money he had into his toys of private mutual funds. Whenever I would ask about money he would say that I was having an episode ( manic depressive). This became frequent and he would say over and over "You are sick, you're sick!!" if I questioned him on suspicious behaviour. This must sound really strange to people. However, this was what I heard for months and I was isolated from friends and family.
He told my coworkers that I was unstable and losing my mind and becoming violent. He removed his antiques from the house and broadcast to his friends that he was removing them because I was mentally ill and he was afraid I would damage them. I would not damage them. What????? was he talking about? He told my daughter I was becoming violent. Anyway, it was like that movie with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman ie. Gaslighting.
I became unstable after all this craziness with money and fears of infidelity ( I was right. he was playing around with two women). I couldn't work and it was getting worse and worse. Finally, I pulled the pin on the relationship. He tried to get me fired from my job by getting me arrested. This is sooooo nutzoid.
So ten weeks later after going to a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a counselor ( I have a good rehab plan from work) I am doing pretty good. They have all said that I am remarkably sane given the stress from my job and the relationship. He called the psychologist and told her I had a gun in the house and was suicidal and homocidal. She did not believe him and came to understand what I was coping with. I realize now that he was projecting a lot of very crazy stuff onto me. At the time I didn't know what was happening and it felt like I was living in Hell.
I feel used, insulted, humiliated, furious, hurt, sad etc about his family believing that I am bonkers. He set it up like that and told his new girlfriend that he has been living with a psychotic abusive bad woman etc etc. So the devaluing was very dramatic and served to excuse his leaving me for someone else.
As the smoke settles I feel relieved that I was released from such destructive insanity. However, the scars are defineately there.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of devaluing. To the point where he involved family, friends, police and may workplace????
I am feeling a bit shakey after Christmas and please excuse the length of this letter.
Sea Storm
Margo/Tremusan writes:
Wow..... and the amazing thing is..... it takes a while to undo all this stuff. We actually start believing we're unstable, and I suppose we are, lol. We're just unstable for the EXACT opposite reasons the N's say we are. We've been driven there by them.
My N worked at making me feel terribly guilty about all the time he worked and about spending the money he made. I was basically all alone during 2 pregnancies and their births. The guilt he made me live with made it easy for him to have multiple lives with other women. Some were long term and some were just women he screwed and made feel cheap and abused by ignoring aftwards. I couldn't ask for anything or he'd pull the...."I'm working so hard because I married you and had children" crap.
He's been telling his family that I've been making him buy things, properties, cars etc. He HAS to work hard because of my demands. Now..... I'm afraid to buy groceries and cringe when the credit card bills come every month. I agonize over buying the girls clothes. His chief complaint about me to his girlfriends was that I was a spender. He'd create arguments, move out and threaten to "throw your ass overboard" or replace me with a teacher with a degree to raise the children. Cut off all money.
When I caught him in one of the affairs.... surprised me by making larger fiscal threats and when I asked him to not come home that first night..... he came home in a weird mood. He wanted to frighten me into letting him off the hook and this he did by saying we would simply get a divorce if I didn't stop asking questions. Apparently he wasn't quite ready for my response..... I was fine with a divorce and went to get my jammies on and put babies to bed..... very cheerfully I might add. He ended up choking and ripping out some of my hair that night when I calmly resisted him from taking all my credit cards, phone and car keys. He'd planned to towe the car and leave me completely broke. I was calm and in SHOCK during all this. Afraid he was going to kill me. I had no idea I was married to a crazy person. I had no idea he was spending so much time with other women, not working. I'm out of shock now but..... I still see white when I think of the danger he put us in. When I remember the look on his face as he said "HOW DARE YOU?" for asking about the affair I caught him in, lol. Amazing the craziness I've found myself in.
I fell apart and honestly found it difficult to breath for a while there. I sure couldn't eat.... lost about 20 pounds in a mThis all started the 24th of October. During the weeks that followed..... he continued to threaten me about money and how he'd set the entire marriage up to screw me financially. When I phoned his father, and mother.... to ask for help.... they told me the only problem was that I made him spend money and have to work so hard. They pretty much called me a liar about the affair and his emotional and physical terrorism. I was stunned. I realized that they were actually enabling him to bully me. Whether they knew the truth or not..... they would help him control me. I stopped talking to them and wouldn't return his mother's phone calls about presents for the girls. She actually had the nerve to sound put out in her messages, lol.
I filed for divorce a few days before Christmas, after a particularly brutal phone threat session. Not what I wanted for a Christmas full of out of town family and the main celebration at my home. He closed his business down that very same day. 40 people crying and going crazy, jobless during the holidays. The FBI on his doorstep over problems this caused. Once he realized the courts were indeed involved, he got real real nice. Just like my attorney said he would. I was afraid he was going to kill me. I was paralyzed and in pain... my back and neck were seizing. My clothes were hanging on me. It was eerie, to see him turn so nice and I'm still not buying a word of it. He goes between being very very nice then making threats when I'm not "nice." I know the monsters still in there.... even though he looks and acts like the person who conned me into marriage and making babies.
My somatic N is now attending Sex Love Addiction meetings twice a week. He's bending over backwards to spend time with us and has stopped fighting the divorce. In fact, this completely made my head swim.... he's offering to put a great deal of his estate.... .even the pre marital assets... into my name if I'll drop the divorce complaint, alleging cruelty... and file a no fault I can file any time after giving him some time to work on himself and change into a better human being. His attorney wants to know if he's done something that will put him in prison if the divorce discovery goes through. I wonder about that myself sometimes. I wonder about a lot of things. I know so little about him. ::shaking head::
My therapist is always so, I can't say amused, but he sure seems surprised and entertained during our sessions. He thinks I'm very sane and as forthcomingly chocked full of information as anyone he's ever spent an hour with. He saw my N ass shifty, unable to sustain eye contact and "the most unconcerned person he'd ever seen under these circumstances during 30 years of practicing." These visits with the N were before I filed. He won't see him any longer because I was bent on the divorce and the N was bent on working on marriage. herapist wanted me on paxil for anger management, at one point, which I've chosen to pass on. I don't get much out of our meetings but being validated and talking to someone familiar with N is very important to me. He gives me the occassional insight but moslty he's been trying to keep me focused on divorce strategy in the last couple of meetings. It's like...... I've got things figured as best I can and have to simply wait and see what the N and courts do with us. Very frustrating and still waiting for a darned temporary hearing, after 3 months of waiting. Will get one mid April if it doesn't get put off. Again. Money not a problem now but..... it sure could be again if things stretch out and N goes back on warpath. I really do fear that, no matter how strong I pretend to be. Bringing a convicted murderer with him to help him move out of the house was an interesting twist. He later said he was a vietnam vet with his father and had been institutionalized for Agent Orange exposure.... was the perfect hit man bc he had an alibi and was a Marine sniper. My N can't help himself, really. Or he would.
I'm not complaining. Though the suspense sometimes seems to be killing me. Answering the discovery has pushed N to make concessions and beg for me to drop divorce. Though I told him I wouldn't stay married to him if he put EVERYTHING he owned into my name...... I'm sorely tempted to do that.... if only in strategy. He wants to buy my cooperation, get another chance and sign a no fault divorce I can file at any time. Not even sure if all that could be done, but... what he's talking about now. Maybe he's trying to hide something else I'm not aware of. An investment? Where monies were spent? Something emberrassing he doesn't want his family to know? Maybe he's already plotted having me killed, lol? Man..... ::shaking head:: The place I live right now, lol. Sometimes I feel like the protagonist in the second Evil Dead movie.... when his own cut off hand was trying to kill him, lol? Never mind, lol.
God bless ya if you're still reading.... I realize I'm venting and it's long. And yet.... I do go on, lol.....
Yesterday N asked me if I could be kind. He then said he wanted to know if I could specifically be kind to his mother? She's done more than call me a liar and try to help him squash me, btw. I intercepted e mails where she called me an insatiably greedy goldigger. She also went on to say that I wasn't an innocent in this.... she'd seen me flirt with the nasty sweaty fishy fly covered natives who work for us on a third world island. Ya, sure..... she's a nice Catholic lady, lol. She pretty much was laying out what she would do on the witness stand for him..... as far as lying went. She said I was an unfit parent which is really rich bc her son hasn't even been present in their lives and that's all I do is research parenting and care for these little ones. His idea of parenting is hitting and bullying. I'm a very good mother... and it's my priority. Always has been. She sited some silly incident about my oldest dd having no panties on, under a dress in 99 degree weather, during a trip to a beachy fishing villiage as the reason I was an unfit parent...... AAHHHHHH SO ANGRY AT HER!!!!! She went on to say that he should't let me, the only present parent these girls have, get custody of the girls. She doesn't give a rats tail about them at all or she wouldn't be thinking this way. She offered to move to town to do his parenting for him, she certainly understands he won't ever do any with that statement is how I see it. WHat the hell is she thiinking adn I CAN'T EVEN SEE STRAIGHT WHEN I PICTURE THAT WOMAN'S FACE NOW! She sent an email right before Christmas saying N admitted to the affair, she was sorry for doubting me blah blah blah she hoped I'd be there for Christmas. As if. I sent back a very short e mail saying she'd failed her son, not me. Save her apologies for him and kindly do no contact me again. Merry Christmas. Ahhhhhh...... can I now be kind to her? I returned the Christmas gift they sent home with their widdle N. I'll share the last e mail she sent that I intercepted...... it said she didn't think I was going to back down and he should get an attorney to really go at me. She thought I was going to allege cruelty to me and the children. Lordy..... she's quite a piece of work. Not only does she not care if he actually did those things..... she's not talked to him about it AND she's going to help him set up his defense against it, whether she thinks he did those things to us or not. Nice. "Ya ya sure darling..... I can be kind to your mother again. And sure..... I'll give you another chance to feed me sweet little words of poison and make me crazy. See..... that's what decent people do. They allow themselves to be preyed upon with no concern for their own welfare. Yes yes darling.... for the children. I wouldn't want to be the reason for all the damage divorced do... no. Because I'm the one responsible, right? The 7 years of blowtorching my ass (figurative) isn't the problem. That's it. Ya ya..... right." <tic>
End long sarcastic rant.... and thanks for reading..... if you're still there.
One last entry..... I forgot to mention he was stooping a woman who worked labor and delivery where I had my girls. He left me at her mercy, never even showed up, and I had no epidural meds after second baby and nobody would help me. The thing was wiggling in my back but the meds were puddling under my bottom...... Hmmmm....... I asked her about that during our one conversation and she admitted to reading my file and trying not to end up in the delivery room with me, lol. She was on the floor and she was friends with the nurses who called me a bitch in the hall and rolled their eyes at my pleas for help. Man oh man oh man. I guess I should just shut up and be glad she didn't kill me or hurt my babies, huh? Feel lucky.... or... .something. Ya know..... I really don't. I'm really really pissed. I don't think she should be able to get away with it, if only the part of reading my entire file to my dh while I layed there in pain and he chatted about how my boobs (real) compared to her fake ones. No.... I'm not quite ready to give up this anger just yet. My attorney says that any time I feel like doing something about it to go see my therapist. The N wrote out a statement and was prepared to go to the hospital and sacrafice her ass to calm me down some..... but attorney says not to change focus of who the bad guy really is and...... I figure she should be deposed BEFORE I start hammering at her in her workplace. OK! I really am ending this rant.
