The Truth. Sometimes It Hurts. But It’s the Truth!

I have had an interesting week, thought wise anyway.  As a result of some comments that I have received to my last few posts, I have felt a little (maybe a bit more than a little) challenged to start looking at my post-narcissist life differently.  I have definitely been a bit stagnant, stuck in an unhealthy spot where I have continued to think about, pine over, and even have some weird desire for my narcissistic ex-wife.

Thanks to some rather pointed comments from a few folks (Amadeus and Catherine in particular), I was forced to look at what I was doing and where I was at.  Quite frankly, I have made some good progress over the last several months.  However, I believe that my new comfort zone, since my ex has been gone, was to recollect, analyze, and talk to myself about all of the things that happened over the last few years, over and over.  It had simply become my new way of life, as if thinking about it and talking to myself about it constantly would somehow change the outcome.  It had even gotten to where if I didn’t think about things, I would feel bad about it, as if I was being remiss in my duties and responsibilities, although to whom I’m not sure.

One of the issues that I have been struggling with is dating, or more appropriately, my lack of success in finding any long (or even short) term interests.  I was wisely asked in a blog post comment what it is that I am looking for, what is it I am hoping to find?  When I really thought about that, the answer was pathetic and even scary.  I found myself trying to find essentially a duplicate of my ex!  Why in the world would I want to do such a thing?  I really started to think about that and the best answer I could come up with is that I enjoyed certain parts of life with my ex so much that I wanted to find that “feeling”, that kind of magic again, and what better way than to look for something similar (if not exactly the same).  That is probably the dumbest thing I could do, as there is only one of her and I certainly do not want her or anyone like her ever again.  The advice that I got was that I may want to consider looking for someone totally outside or opposite of what I would normally look for, which is good advice considering what I had found (and married) that I thought was right really didn’t work out so well.  It is so easy to get stuck in what is “normal”, even when it’s not the best.

Another issue that I had to evaluate was why I was asking the same questions over and over, as if the answers were somehow going to change.  I had actually progressed to a point where I accepted that my ex was a narcissist, that my co-dependence certainly played a part in how things happened, and that I could never and should never want to be with my ex again (which after being discarded 4 times, you would think would be a no brainer).  But nope, in my confusion and need to have ALL the answers wrapped up in a nice, neat little package, I continued to ask, even obsess over what had happened, what my role was, how could it have been different, and I was doing that while showing no signs of slowing, let alone ever stopping.

With some of the recent comments, I felt a little taken aback at first, maybe even a bit like a victim.  I mean geez, I feel bad enough already, right?  Being the evaluator that I am, I continued to think about what people were telling me and, after stepping back and looking at it from an outside perspective, they were exactly right.  I had gotten so used to my routine that it became my only way of thinking.  Seeing the perspective of someone outside was the slap upside the head that I needed.  Oh, I may slip back into my victim mode occasionally, but this week was really the first time in a long time that I again started looking at things in a new way, forcing myself to move forward.

Was it an epiphany?  I don’t really know.  Over the last few months I have certainly been turning a corner in my life.  At a minimum, the comments caused me to turn the wheel a little more, making that corner that I was rounding a little sharper.  It feels quite good, and I honestly found myself thinking about my ex a whole lot less over the last few days.  We can get so wrapped up in our own little world that we don’t see any alternate options.  It’s like we live our own Groundhog Day over and over, thinking that things are just going to magically change.  Not so much.  It takes effort and a change in thinking.  Let’s face it, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome.  Just because I feel insane doesn’t mean I actually want to be insane.  So guys, thanks for the comments.  They really do help.

The truth is always a good thing.  Here’s to more truth (and moving away from my crappy old life)!

Unavailable. It Used To Be a Simple Word.

It’s a simple word, unavailable.  I’ve never given the word much thought until it happened to show up on my phone yesterday as it was ringing.  Funny thing, I don’t ever recall seeing my phone with the message unavailable as it was ringing.  As I sat there contemplating,  simply staring at it, a number of thoughts crossed my mind.

The first thought was, “Is this a hoovering attempt?”.  Having been divorced from my narcissistic ex-wife for nearly a year, I haven’t had any real contact with her other than a few misguided attempts by her to reach out to me.  The manner in which she has reached out has been very smart, in other words, she could deny they were attempts to communicate with me.  Things like returning relatively unimportant photos to me via envelope, having a bank contact me while she is on the other end of the line, just very disconnected ways of forcing me to think about her.  Was it her simply doing the fake hangup (and it did only ring 3 or 4 times), or was it me simply wanting it to be her?  Regardless, she is gone and isn’t coming back.  Unavailable…

The next thought, and this is one that I still struggle with, is how those suspected or actual hoovering attempts make me feel.  I know that I should NOT want her trying to contact me, and I have done very well at not responding in any way to her hidden attempts at reaching me.  At the same time, there is part of me that still desires it.  I tell myself over and over that I want nothing to do with her and I know that I honestly can never be with her again.  With that said, I still find myself wishing that she would reach out, that she would just try to make contact.  I know it is the co-dependent me still trying to rationalize that she isn’t so bad and that I still love and desire the false self that she created.  Luckily, I am educated enough about it now to know that any contact is bad contact.  Sadly, that doesn’t take away the hidden wish that somehow, someway, she could just “fix” herself and become normal.  Love is blind and in this case, very one-sided love.  I’m not so needy as to ever try to see if she can fix herself, knowing full well that she can’t.  Unavailable…

Unavailable is also a really good description of the narcissist themselves.  Seriously, if there is one word that you should and could attribute to them that can save you a lot of pain and trouble, it would be unavailable.  There is nothing about them that is available.  Oh sure, in the beginning they make it seem like they are COMPLETELY available, that whatever they have to possibly give is yours for the taking.  But that’s not them you are seeing, that is you.  They are simply projecting your wishes and desires right back to you, essentially making your dream person available to you.  That isn’t them, that is a mirage, an image, and soon enough it is going to go away.  The real unavailable them becomes oh so present when the devaluing and discarding begins.  They truly are unavailable in every sense of the word.

Finally, the word unavailable fits me.  I appear to be, quite honestly, unavailable.  I’m not sure how else to categorize it.  I had yet another date just last night, and guess how that went?  Nope, no spark, no wow factor, no feelings of hope, just another checklist comparison, another evening of communicating with another human being but little else.  Every time I have a date, I spend hours afterward critiquing how it went, evaluating her reactions, how I felt, what I thought she was communicating verbally and non-verbally.  Each time, I seem to come to the same conclusion, and that is she simply isn’t what I want, or think that I want if that makes sense.  I know it is absolutely the wrong way to frame it, but this one wasn’t my ex either.  I am not talking about the unempathetic, guiltless, non-emotional part of my ex.  Rather I compare them all to the idealizing, love bombing version of my ex, that dream woman who every man desires.  I KNOW that person doesn’t exist and never existed, but having lived through that phase of the relationship, that has become the standard by which all others seem to be judged.  It has left me simply unavailable to the normal woman.

Having been in a relationship with a narcissist changes a person in so many ways.  A few years back, seeing the word “unavailable” would have had zero impact on me, its just a word after all.  Now, everything seems to get looked at in a different way, an unfair way.  A word as simple as unavailable doesn’t deserve to be dissected and looked at from so many angles.  I shouldn’t be feeling unavailable, hoping for something that likely isn’t possible, the perfect relationship.  I also shouldn’t be hoping for unanswered contact from a psychopath, but that truly pathetic part of me still longs for it, even though I wouldn’t respond to it.  Things in my life are improving, time is having the desired effect and lessening the sting of emotions, but it’s not happening soon enough for me.  That emotionally sound place that I long to be is unavailable.

Unavailable.  One day, it’s prior simplicity will return.  As opposed to all of its current iterations, I desire for it to simply mean that I am unavailable for the narcissist and all of their BS.  I’m inching closer everyday.

Discussing a Narcissist. It’s Difficult.



I had a little bit different experience yesterday, a first in the nearly 2 year discard process from my now ex-wife who happens to be a narcissist.  Those of you that have been following my blog know that my ex works for the same company and, up until recently, even in the same building.  Considering I have worked there for many years (far more than her), I know a LOT of people.  Combine that with her narcissitic personality and physical attractiveness and a lot of people know her too.  Oddly enough, our divorce has seemingly been off-limits, meaning no one has really talked to me about it.  It’s like something that everyone is afraid to broach, with me at least.  That changed yesterday.

Before I go further, it is important to know that my ex has been married 4 times, including me, and 3 of the 4 were from the place that we work.  I know, that should have been enough of a flag right there, but it wasn’t.  In fact, I had been the doofus in between ALL of her marriages.  In my mind, I thought that was what she wanted, i.e. that she only got married so many times because I wouldn’t marry her.  Clearly, I had no clue about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Apparently many people at work thought the same thing, that she ultimately wanted to be with me and most understood that we had spent many years together and were “finally” married.  Of course, that has all changed, we are divorced, and many people were apparently shocked or surprised and didn’t know what to say (other than “there she goes again”).

Yesterday, I happened to be discussing business with a female friend at work that I have known for 30 years.  When we were done talking business, she looked right at me and asked “what happened”, and shared that so many people were taken aback when the divorce became known, and that most didn’t actually know until my ex changed her name back to her maiden name (which clearly had the impact that she wanted – shock and awe and also letting everyone know she was back on the market yet again).  I honestly wasn’t sure what to say, and I struggled with whether I should just minimize it, or tell her what really happened.

Discussing a narcissist to someone who doesn’t know anything about narcissism is incredibly difficult.  It honestly can sound as if you are the crazy one, that you simply have issues with the breakup and don’t want to accept any blame or fault in what happened.  Luckily, this particular woman was also good friends with one of my ex’s other previous husbands and they (including him) were shocked and didn’t understand when she left him.  So I started to explain some things, starting with the crazy making and emotionless process that my ex utilized when she initiated the devaluation and discard phases.  Interestingly, I shared that my ex had told me the particular husband that this woman was friends with pushed and abused her, thats the explanation my ex provided to me at least.  She was both surprised and angered by that, telling me this guy would be the last one to do that (and no, I didn’t know him, although I knew who he was).  Yet another piece of the narcissist puzzle and another lie falls into place.

I found myself at various times during the discussion feeling as though I must have sounded like a crazy man.  Luckily, this person I was talking to is a good friend, one of few that I can trust, and she was easily able to connect my ex with the things that I was telling her.  This woman was also now able to make sense of the heartless things that my ex did to husband number 2 that she knew so well.  It was a relief to tell someone, but it also caused concern that I really don’t want that kind of personal information somehow getting back to my ex, inviting her to initiate some new smear campaign or feel the need to defend herself.  I don’t believe my friend will share the information and she was absolutely understanding and felt really bad about what happened and how it occurred.

I find it very interesting that the divorce has been final for nearly a year and this is the first person that has asked about things.  The feeling that I got during the discussion was that though people were shocked, they weren’t surprised.  Too many people were very aware of my ex-wife’s history what with 3 different husbands from the same work location (and all 4 of us were husbands before she was 36 years old sadly enough).  Of course, in hindsight, I should have known better too.  The saddest part is there WILL be a number 5 (she is living with her latest supply just a few miles away from my house), and likely a number 6 and who knows how high the tally will go.  It is a testament to the acting skills and convincing nature of the narcissist, not to mention the ability and desire for “normal” (co-dependent?) people to love and accept people, even with all of their mistakes and baggage.

It’s not a discussion I really want to have again.  It was uncomfortable on so many levels, a refresher in the trauma my ex created in my and other lives.  Is it ironic that everything associated with the narcissist other than the idealization phase, is difficult, even conversations about them?  Hmmm…

Valentine’s Day – Just Another Day?

Good Ole Valentine’s Day.  When you are in the midst of an exciting and loving relationship, it is another excuse, albeit a good one, to show your companion just how much they mean to you, and hopefully they do the same in return.  It’s sad when you learn some relationships aren’t what they appear to be, especially when they seem so over the top good to you (and to those that are watching from the outside), but are really nothing more than a scene from something not rooted in reality.  It looks real, it feels real, it’s not real.

If there is anything that I have learned after having been married to and subsequently divorced from a narcissist, it is that things are not always as they appear.  What felt real and meaningful turns out to be nothing more than a mini-performance, and I say mini because it doesn’t usually last very long and it definitely has an ending.

I honestly didn’t even realize that today was Valentines Day until I heard it on a television commercial this morning.  It honestly left me a little taken aback, and it left me feeling a bit numb for a variety of reasons.  Yes, I knew the day was approaching but I guess I had tucked it away as something that I really didn’t want to think about given that I am still alone and my ex is…, well, more to follow on that.

The first thought that I had when the TV commercial came on today was “well, here is the second Valentines Day in a row that I have no Valentine”.  Yes, I am feeling a little bit sorry for myself, but just a teeny bit.  It is easy to discount the potential difficulty of that level of sadness when you are with someone, but when you aren’t and you are bombarded with commercials of all the happy couples, it leaves you feeling a bit less than, as if you aren’t quite good enough.  Yes, I know that I am “good enough” and that it is a matter of time and one day things will be better, but I am forced to be realistic about the present.  Being alone is tough enough without being reminded by all of the jewelry stores and flower shops what you are missing out on.

The second thought is that my ex is in the opposite position considering she is living with her new supply.  The ink wasn’t even dry on the divorce decree and she was moving in with him, the poor SOB.  I am sure he thinks they are having a TV commercial style Valentines Day as she certainly made it clear to him that she must be adored and he must follow suit.  Since the discard hasn’t occurred yet, he must be acquiescing to her every demand at this point.  I guess what I am saying is that it is life as usual for her, while I sit here 18 months later still trying to figure out what the hell happened and how to get my life back in order.  I suppose there is even a little bit of bitterness in there, although I truly am FINALLY getting to the point where I don’t care anymore.  I can’t believe it has taken so long.  Yes, I still have my crazy moments where I want her back in my life, but then I allow reality to set me straight.

The third thought, and this goes back to the beginning of this post, is that things aren’t always as they appear, and the “love” of a narcissist is THE biggest deceit I have ever experienced in my life.  Even when I was experiencing the “happy” Valentine’s Days, they weren’t what they appeared to be, and certainly weren’t what I thought they were.  Interestingly enough, I did notice that over the several years we were together, the day became more and more about her and less about “us”.  Sadly, I loved the woman so much that I simply accepted it and let it go, not taking it as a sign that things were about to go in a bad direction.  This one-sided approach to things infiltrated almost every aspect of the relationship and once I did start voicing my opposition to the way things were headed, that is when the devaluation and discarding began in earnest, and once it did, the end came quickly.

The end did come, and it was brutal.  I have accepted it and I am moving forward even though I did wait for my ex, my Valentine, to return for the longest time, too long actually.  I have given up the possibility of ever being with her again given the disorder cannot be cured, will never go away, and she will continue to repeat the cycle over and over.  I knew going in there was risk in that I was husband number 4, but I thought I could do better (and knew nothing about narcissism at that time).  I know better now and am looking forward to the time when I find my true and real Valentine.  It’s not the day that is bad, rather it is certain Valentine’s themselves that taint the meaning of what a relationship should be and make the day a caricature of what it should be.

I certainly understand that now.  Happy Valentine’s Day to those of you that embrace it for the right reasons.

Looking for Answers In a Post-Narcissist World

I continue to be both amazed and baffled at the seemingly never-ending cycling of my thoughts since the end of the relationship with my narcissistic ex-wife.  It has been nearly a year and a half since she moved out for the final time, and I believe that I have experienced every emotion possible and there seems to be no end in sight.

Initially, the feelings were all bad and included the typical loss of love heartache, loss of appetite, inability to sleep, and the constant desire to just want everything to stop and simply go back to how things were.  At that time, I had yet to discover that Narcissistic Personality Disorder even existed, so my life was simply filled with confusion and hurt.  Since I didn’t know what was really happening and had assumed the cause of our breakup was something that I had done or, at a minimum, something that could be identified, my primary purpose in life was to fix things, to figure out what was wrong and correct it.  I simply couldn’t understand why my ex was so incredibly cold, emotionless (she didn’t cry ONCE), and uncaring.  She even moved on to someone new before the divorce was final.  I was devastated by the sheer confusion of it all.

Eventually, I did learn about NPD and I devoured every book and website that I could find.  It did help in that I could at least understand some of the issues that seemed so unreal or out of context.  The sudden change in her feelings, the lack of empathy and emotion, the continuing to try to be my “friend” while at the same time trying to take everything she could legally and then some in the most brutal way possible, it all fell in line with what a narcissist does.  I have come to acknowledge and accept that she is a narcissist, but that hasn’t necessarily allowed me complete freedom to eliminate her from my thoughts.

In the last few months, I have attempted to get on with my life.  What I mean by that is that I have concluded that I cannot EVER go back to her no matter what, while at the same time missing the relationship that we had.  Clearly, to her it wasn’t the same as it was/is to me, and I can understand that.  As a result, it leaves me angry with her and feeling sorry for her at the same time.  I have so many absolutely incredible memories that I honestly treasure, yet they seem tainted by the fact that her role was that of an actress, someone who wasn’t invested the way I was, and the way that I truly thought she was.  It’s like waking up from a dream only to realize that it was just that, only a dream and not real.  Yes, it was real to me, but knowing it wasn’t ‘t real to her leaves things “feeling less” at best.  It is what it is and while not necessarily liking it, I have accepted it.

With all that said, dating hasn’t really helped me move on.  I have been careful to watch out for others that might be narcissistic like my ex-wife while also trying not to be judgemental, or paranoid, or trying to be so cautious that I get stuck unwilling to do or try anything.  What I have discovered is that it is hard to find someone who isn’t narcissistic that can provide the excitement and the feeling of being desired that the narcissist is so good at.  I find myself longing for the feeling of being love bombed, of being so highly sought that you think you have found that one person that was put here on earth just for you.  It is such an intense and powerful experience to have someone pursue you in such a way, and it is hard to move forward with someone in a more normal way, not experiencing that level of fire and think that there isn’t something wrong.  It leaves me wondering if my days of romantic enjoyment are over, if I have been ruined forevermore.  It has resulted in my caring less and less about finding someone new, even though I long to be in a loving relationship.

I have never been alone for this long in my entire life, and that adds to the feelings of loss and loneliness.  I realize that I am in this position for a reason, that there are no coincidences, and that if my destiny includes someone new, then it is going to happen at the right time.  Being an impatient male, I just want to know if and when being alone is going to end.  I know I should be embracing my newfound freedom and independence, but quite frankly, I don’t like it.  It feels as if my life is simply slipping away from me and there is nothing I can do about it.  At the same time, I know that my ex has already moved in with her new companion/supply just a few miles away.  I don’t really care that she has, but it leaves me feeling even more undesirable knowing that after all this time, I am still alone.  Yes, I realize that she still is NOT happy, but it still has the appearance that everything in her life is great, and mine…

I am looking for answers in my post-narcissist world.  I am looking for answers where I am not even sure what the question is.  I do have “up” days where I am thankful to have survived a mess that I didn’t even see coming, but at the same time, I continue to miss the life that I had.  Maybe it is time for me to stop trying to force my life down a certain path and simply let things happen, as what I have been doing certainly hasn’t been working.  There are answers to my questions.  I just have to listen extra careful and hope that one day, I will get the answers I need.