New here and just starting to peel the onion...finally ready to do this.

[Siren]

Hi everyone,

Going through divorce, and I am experiencing so much pain. For the first time in my life, I am having panic attacks and intrusive dreams if I sleep at all, I feel like I'm literally jumping out of my skin sometimes. I've found a therapist, will work on trauma-focused therapy for symptoms associated with C-PTSD.

I'm 43 years old, and my husband of 10 years left on 2/11/17, only two months after I had a major craniotomy for an extremely rare brain disease after four strokes. Luckily, I survived and am doing fairly well. After we came home, I started having serious anxiety problems and was a mess. My old abandonment wounds were seriously triggered and he took full advantage of this again. There was constant drama throughout our marriage, and even the week after my surgery. He repeatedly gives me silent treatments, and on many occasions, he has left, triggering my abandonment wounds, sometimes leaving for weeks at a time. Literally, he's probably left home at least 15 times over the last 10 years. Once, he left for three months. I found out he lied about his past, including having a CPA, graduating from college, and the dates of his marriages. I was livid and I contacted his ex-wife no. 2 who told me she wanted to reach out to me before but didn't want to interfere. She said his first wife and he divorced when she found out he was never in medical school. He pretended to go to Emory, but he had never even graduated from college. Wife no. 1 was trying to work things out with him, but he left when he thought she was cheating. Every wife and girlfriend, according to him, has cheated on him, except for me. Wife no. 2 also claimed she caught him kissing another guy, which I don't even know. She's really still upset with how things ended. He begged her for a reconciliation, but she said she saw no point. He was married for less than a year to her. She said he blocked both of them forever and felt like he just didn't want them to ever be able to contact him. His version of the story was that they pined for him and they kept coming around and posting stuff to his social media accounts. I don't believe that at all.

In any case, the lies kept coming up in our marriage, and I truly never forgave him. Had I found this out before we were married, I wouldn't have married him, but he was a father to my children, and he was good to them. As my daughter grew older, he ignored her. In any case, he would discard, come back, devalue, repeat. He has said that he wants a divorce because I was manipulative and controlling, psycho, you know, the typical projection/gaslighting crap and he immediately stopped contributing to household bills and changed his address. I don't know where he is. He's in hiding and has blocked me from everything, except I'm "allowed to email him," which I did a few times, but he ignored me for a few weeks, until he responded to an email about me having to talk to his attorney because he was "scared" of me. I get it, smear campaign. I've had no contact with him since. At first, I begged him to come home, in an effort to give him time and space. I sent him one final email apologizing for my bad behavior and telling him to freely take all the space he wants/needs, and I would not ask him for anything. Pathetic, but I didn't realize what was happening. I had no choice but to file for divorce and serve him at work because he is refusing to contribute to about $14K of monthly bills per month, and I did not know his address. When I looked up "husband abandoned me and disappeared" and "husband lies about a lot of stuff," the first search results were narcissistic abuse. I have had some time to step back and see the patterns of narcissistic abuse throughout, even with the lovebombing.

I have horrible flashbacks stemming from my childhood. My dad was a narcissist and abused all of us so the patterns were established. Now, the NPD abuse has triggered so much of what was buried deep down inside.

Any support  would be appreciated! I'm so scared about having to go back out to the West Coast for a second surgery in three months, and I need an adult with me, but I firmly believe God will take care of me and the right people will show up just in time. Anyway, I just need to stay strong and follow through with this divorce. He's still playing games and never really hired an attorney for a divorce, just to mess with me. I know this is just more manipulation and using this whole separation to screw with me, but I've had enough, and I am 100% sure that this marriage has made me very sick in so many ways, and it had a lot to do with this rare disease that affects only 1:2 million, and it has literally almost cost me my life. I need out. I need to stay strong, and I need to get better. I am a divorce lawyer so I am familiar with the legal process, and I know what to expect with the defamation and smear campaigns coming.

[radical]

Welcome Siren.
What a terribly hard time you've had.  I hope you now have the space to recover physically and mentally, despite your upcoming divorce proceedings.
I'm glad you have found your way here.  I have found OOTS a safe and supportive community to 'unpeel the onion', heal and learn.  I hope you find as much help here as I have.
Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Warm wishes

[Three Roses]

Welcome! I'm sorry to hear about all that you're going thru right now - not just from your physical challenges but also the feeling of betrayal you must be experiencing.

We will support you as much as "virtual" friends can! You'll find some very good listeners here.  Thanks for joining!

[sanmagic7]

hey, siren, and welcome.  so glad you made it here.

i, too, found this place because of finding out about narcissistic abuse.  i also discovered lots of info on misogyny as well, which sounds like something you may have been dealing with - it puts a double whammy on the entire relationship.  i thought of this when you mentioned how he began ignoring your daughter.  i also totally understand how we've done things before knowing the full story that have kept us in such an unhealthy situation.  pretty brave of you to contact his ex.  that was a stroke of brilliance!

at any rate, i'm glad you're out of it, and i believe now that your healing can truly begin.  i can so relate to all the lies, deceit, and betrayal you've gone thru, and i wish it wasn't so.  just know that you're not alone.

i've found this forum to be so helpful, so many kind, caring, and supportive people here.  i hope you are able to continue sharing with us, and that you get what you need for your next surgery, that it goes well and leaves you healthier than ever. 

keep taking care of you as best you can.  best to you with all these challenges you're facing.  i have no doubt you'll make it.

[Siren]

Thank you all so much. I'm so grateful to have found this site along with OOTF. Honestly, this is bringing me the closure and validation that I was hoping to get, but of course, I realized that wasn't possible after discard from the NPD-stbx. I am so trying to get by, one day at a time. You know, 1 step forward, 1,000 back, and the trauma bond has created so many withdrawal symptoms and cognitive dissonance. My self-esteem from the constant devaluing is crap, but I know it will improve.

I wanted to give everyone some hope when dealing with the smear campaign created by the PD-individual. The NPD "handbook" gave me insight as to what would be said, so at least I fully expected it, but something just so amazing happened in court today. I studied the grey rock method, and I did just that. Several of my colleagues were in the courtroom, and they got to witness the smear campaign at work, and each one of them came up to me after our trial, hugged me and said, "He really is a monster. We know you aren't abusive, bipolar, etc. You are so loved in this community, and I have nothing but kind things to say about you. You're one of the best attorneys that I know, and I'm so sorry you married evil. I wish you only the best."

In court, my ex pulled out his whole bag of tricks, and the judge said, "So you, 6'2", a marine were abused by this woman, 5'2", 120 pounds. Any evidence?" Of course, he had none. So, his excuse for not paying the bills, being as charming as possible, was that since I was the primary breadwinner, and he made 1/3 of my income, that he shouldn't have to pay, and that he moved out because I threatened to kill him. Right. So, the judge said, "You don't get to do that. You don't get to leave your sick wife for any reason, especially, one that I don't buy." He was ordered to pay me 50% of his income as spousal support monthly. Now, that's only a fraction of my bills, but in the end, his offer was he pays "$500," and now, he has to pay me $2,500 per month. THAT is justice. Spousal support, which means, it survives bankruptcy.

The judge said to me, "I wish you only the best and lots of good health." Now, I prayed to God this morning to bring me strength, to not go running back to my ex-NPD-disordered husband, to take away the cravings for just a little while and to bring me just a little justice in this lifetime. God delivered. Apparently, my lawyer said he was completely dumbfounded, shocked, and in complete disbelief. I walked out. Didn't look at him. Got to my car and smiled.

So, how's that for an unsuccessful smear campaign? Truth and justice will prevail.

[sanmagic7]

 

[Kizzie]

Just wanted to say welcome Siren and that I am happy to hear that truth and justice did prevail for you, that's wonderful!!   

[Siren]

Thank you, all! It's just such a strange thing to understand how I miss my Narc so much, yet, he could care if I live or die, and he was out to destroy me from the very beginning. How just so sad.

[sanmagic7]

very sad.  i'm going thru a bout of sadness myself, but it's finally for me and what my narcs did to me, rather than feeling sad about their elimination from my life.  very sad for what i had to endure, for all they did to, as you say, 'try to destroy me'.  the whole thing is sad, really. 

missing the abuse, the deceit, the manipulations, the disrespect - it's also very sad that we do that as well.  so much of our lives were built around those things for so long - it's really not very surprising after all that we would miss what we tangoed with day after day.  it was a sort of a dance, i think.  moving this way and that, having our toes stepped on repeatedly, swirling around and around, sometimes giddy with it all, the adrenaline rush that permeated our waking hours.

finally coming to a calmer place, getting off the roller coaster of the relationship can seem pretty tame compared to what we dealt with concerning our narcs.  not to be able to enjoy the peace that we worked so hard to get is sad, too. 

i hope you find respite from your longing soon.  sitting sadly by your side for awhile, until the sadness passes. 

[Siren]

Sanmagic, that is exactly right -- the rollercoaster ride. It's just dizzying, and getting off seems so strange, and why we did it for so long, that tango...which is what this journey is all about. The deceit. I don't even want to start peeling the layers of that one, since I'm just not ready to find that part out yet. How long have you been away from your narc?

[ricepen22]

good luck, I belive in different gods, but I firmly belive that yours will send you what you need. Take a deep breth and you can do it because you are strong.

[sanmagic7]

hey, siren,

sorry it's been so long.  have been tending to myself for a bit.  wanted to answer your question.

i've been away from my 2 main narcs - my ex and my daughter - for a bit over 2 yrs.  while i don't necessarily miss them physically, miss their presence or their abuse, i've kept them alive and well and by my side by obsessing over what i'd like to say to them, trying to either tell them how i really feel, what i saw them do, what it did to me, all that, or what i might be able to say as a way to fix things so that we could still be a family, etc.

i'm still working on the obsessing part, but it's beginning to slack off, or when either of them pop up in my mind, i'm able to shut that down more quickly now.  it takes practice, tho.  i've realized it's been one way to keep that roller coaster ride going inside my head, and i decided i didn't want to do that anymore.  ugh!  so much busyness in my head that needs to be let go of.    taming this beast is definitely a process.