Dreaming About Your Ex-Narcissist Part 2

I had another dream about my narcissistic ex-wife last night, and I needed it.  I don’t believe it just happened arbitrarily either.  Let me explain…

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was the third birthday that I have had alone since my narcissistic ex left for the fourth and final time.  I have been very effective at No Contact with the exception of her and I working at the same facility.  Even with that consideration, I completely ignore her anytime that I am in close proximity and she typically does the same (only because she can’t understand why I don’t want anything to do with her anymore).  With that said, we have not spoken to one another in just shy of two years, that is until a couple of weeks ago.  Out of the blue, she called my work phone (likely knowing that I wouldn’t know it was her and had to answer) to ask me a stupid question that honestly had no value.  I simply responded with yes/no single word answers and showed no emotion or interest whatsoever resulting in the phone call lasting less than 30 seconds.

With yesterday being my birthday, of course I had thoughts of past birthdays with her as we were always doing something or going somewhere, especially on special days.  Given her recent phone call (hoover?), the first in nearly two years, combined with it being my birthday and it had me wondering if I would get the errant “happy birthday” text message out of nowhere.  Just like the rest of us that have enjoyed the golden period provided by the narcissist, of course there was a part of me that really wanted that text message.  However, like the rest of us that have gone through the absolutely brutal devaluation and discard of the narcissist, I didn’t really want the text and knew for certain that I couldn’t respond to it even if I did get one.

With all of those recent things running through my head all day yesterday, it was no wonder that I had another dream about her.  In fact, as much as I hate it, I have thought about her too much since her recent “no value added” phone call she made to my desk.  Clearly that was a victory for her as I am sure she was hoping that would happen, that I would be forced to think about her whether I wanted to or not.  Thankfully I am smart enough about narcissism now to know that I can’t let her know that I think about her at all.

One last thing before I get to the dream – since she has been gone for over two and a half years now, some of the sting of that final period, both the devaluation and the discard, has numbed.  In the last year or so, I have been able to resume my life and have started doing some things that I like to do rather than being completely and utterly paralyzed like I was for many months.  Oh, there are still activities and places that are off-limits, things that I can’t do simply because the emotions would be too strong, the memories too clear, but I have gotten much better.  Thankfully, the craziness and confusion of how things felt during those final months have become somewhat cloudy.

So with all of those thoughts running through my head yesterday (and recently), yet another dream with her occurs.  Here’s the best part for me – the absolute panic, confusion, and feelings of helplessness that I felt during those final few months with her, they were front and center in that dream and couldn’t have felt more real.  We’ll come back to this though. So in the dream, it was more about her children, and my trying to do everything that I could do to keep her daughter happy.  This is critical in that my relationship with her daughter was her “reason” essentially for leaving the final time.  Yes, she had a different reason each of the four times that she discarded me, but that was the one that ended the marriage (the other 3 times we were not yet married).  So in this dream, I am essentially doing everything and anything that I can do to appease her daughter, and what stands out the most is that I was actually carrying her teenaged daughter around in the entire dream.  I was literally carrying her because she wanted me too.  The interaction with my ex in the dream was very minimal, but it was crystal clear and so very real.

What interaction there was, I can still feel it so clearly this morning.  There were instances where we would pass in the hallway.  She wouldn’t say a word but instead would give me that narcissistic stare as she walked past, that look of “you aren’t doing enough and you will never be able to do enough”.  It felt JUST LIKE it did during that final phase when she was still here, that absolutely confusing, almost debilitating feeling of “what am I supposed to do?”, that feeling of complete helplessness where you have run out of options and have nothing left to give.  Yet, in my mind during the dream, I kept trying to think of different and better ways, things that I might be able to do that would make that love return (that love that never existed in the first place). It was a panicked feeling of having to hurry before she decided to leave, AGAIN.

I awoke after the dream feeling depressed and as if I had gone back in time a couple of years.  No, nothing in my life had actually changed since yesterday, last month, last year, or the last couple of years, but it felt like I was right back in the middle of the crazy narcissistic confusion (before I knew what narcissism was).  What an awesome reminder of just why I don’t want to be back with her again, a reminder of what she would do one more time if given the chance.  Yes, I have those strong remembrances of the good times, the golden period when I was on the pedestal, but I can also remember the brutality of the meetings with attorneys and all the crazy inhuman things she did during the divorce.  This dream was a great reminder that you simply cannot go back, that those horrible feelings at the end of the relationship were indeed real and not imagined, no matter how cloudy they may feel now.

So, another birthday passes by, and no, I never received that happy birthday text from her.  At this point, I am certain that was a blessing as even though I know that I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) respond to it, such a text would have had me thinking about her more for a couple additional weeks and I simply don’t want to think about her at all.  So I’ll just say it to myself – Happy Birthday to me, and I am going to make a wish for no more dreams about my ex for awhile.

Remembering the Bad. It’s Not So Hard.

The Ex-N has been on my mind a little too much lately.  I believe part of it has to do with the time of year given that it’s the holidays and all.  There was and is no better time for the narcissist to be the center of attention so there are a lot of seasonal memories, right?  I think it is also because I have had too many opportunities in the last few weeks to physically be in close proximity to her at work.  No, I haven’t spoken to her or given her any kind of attention whatsoever, so at least that is good news.  I also got a piece of mail the other day from her insurance company saying she had changed her insurance.  Because I am still paying for her car and I am the lien-holder, I continue to get fun little things like that occasionally which forces one to think.

So, how do I keep from going down that path of desire, that good old highway of happy memories?  For sure, there are innumerable good memories on tap.  They pop up out of nowhere all the damn time.  Yes, sadly I allow myself to go down old memory lane far too often.  The result of that is always the same, wondering what the hell happened and why, even though I know the answers to both!  So what do I do about that?  I try to remember the bad things.  That’s right, bring those old painful times back up again.  And yes, there are lots of those bad memories too.  I sometimes even remember things that I had forgotten about.  Why is it so easy to compartmentalize the bad times, to put them away as if they didn’t exist and just remember all the positive things?

What kind of bad things do I recall to re-ground myself?  The answer to that depends on how far back I want to go.  Some of my most favorite (if you can call them that) bad examples include the time about a month after she moved out for the final time when she was supposedly just “thinking about” what she wanted to do with her life, i.e. she was keeping me hanging by a thread.  I had a really bad premonition that she was seeing someone else.  Upset by the thought, I came to her desk and on the verge of tears, I asked her if she was seeing someone else.  WIthout missing a beat and with no longer a delay than it took for her to size me up, she said that she was not.  At the time, I was looking as deep into her eyes as I could trying to get a read on her thoughts, and she just stared right back (with that narcissistic stare).  After several seconds of silence and her unflinching attitude, I told her that I believed her.  She responded with “you should”.  Only later did I find out that was a bold-faced lie (consider at the time I knew nothing about narcissism and the associated craziness and lies).  I can only imagine how much she enjoyed that little interaction, thinking to herself how good she was and what a fool I was for not doubting her whatsoever.

There are lots of other examples where out of the blue she would project whatever she was doing at the time onto me.  Going back several years, I can recall with clarity on two separate occasions how she angrily told me that I was seeing someone else (which I was not doing) and how wrong that was.  Keep in mind, she didn’t want to necessarily stop seeing me because of it (she had to keep all the supply coming that she could after all), but she was pissed and putting me in my place.  Again, after the fact, I determined that in both instances, she had already been seeing someone else and was simply projecting that onto me to relieve herself of any wrongdoing and self-hatred.  I recall pleading with her, telling her that I WASN’T seeing anyone else, essentially begging her to believe me.  Not a chance, as she was convinced that I was seeing someone else.  Again, what a kick she must have gotten out of doing that, knowing that I wasn’t doing anything wrong yet falsely accusing me and watching me grovel at her feet.  In hindsight, it was quite pathetic and makes perfect sense now.

She was even ready to give up her small children which I never asked her to do.  I had gotten a job offer to a southeast US state and asked if she was interested in going.  Of course she was but the thought of warm winters, the ability to wear her tiny bikini nearly all year around and essentially to be on a permanent vacation had her ready t0 leave her children with her ex-husband (number 1 of 4).  Consider this guy had been described as scum of the earth, a lying, cheating, alcoholic, drug abusing jackass.  Now, conveniently, he was the right person for her to leave her kids with and move 600 miles away.  My first thought when she sprung this was WTH?  I was actually frightened by this and thought to myself (for the first time of many) there may be something wrong with this woman.  Of course, the whole thing was short-lived, all of a sudden she found God (this happened at multiple convenient times during our relationships) and He told her that was wrong, and she again accused me of seeing someone else and left soon after (getting married a few months later for the 3rd time).

There are a lot more examples of craziness that are, looking at them from the outside, almost too far-fetched to be believable.  Maybe that is why it is easier to remember the good times versus the bad as the bad times are too over the edge, something that you can only believe if you experienced them.  Sadly, remembering the bad times does make me want her less, but the bad times don’t override or negate the good times.  Yep, the sharp sting of her departure nearly 2.5 years ago is a bit more numb, but the overwhelmingly happy  and joyous thoughts and memories are still there.  Of course, she planned it that way.  All I can take credit for at this point is that I haven’t spoken to her in nearly 2 years.  That’s got to be a tough pill for her to swallow, and I can only hope that it causes her periodic short-lived bouts of internal anger and hatred that she has failed at keeping me on her leash this time.

News Updates on the Ex-Narcissist. You Get Them Whether You Want Them or Not.

I have recently been in a “quiet” period in my post-narcissist life.  This includes a lack of interfacing with my ex-narcissistic wife, and a rather substantial slow-down in dating and trying to move my life forward.  It’s time for an update, whether you want it or not.

First, if you have been following my recent posts, I abruptly ended a 3 month relationship with “Suzy” because I found out from her that she “never said that we were exclusive”.  This was clearly unexpected and a surprise to me after 3 months of non-stop dating.  The only outstanding thing regarding Suzy and I was that she had quite a collection of things that belonged to me, things that I had let her borrow.  These things included items like a power washer, hedge trimmer, tree limb shears, heavy-duty extension cords, and associated equipment to help her renovate a home that she had just purchased (and that I helped her to move into).  Following the unexpected (at least for me) breakup, my first attempt to retrieve my items was unsuccessful because, after I had requested that she simply put these things outside of her garage, she apparently returned them to inside the garage because she “thought it was going to rain”.  Of course, she failed to tell me this, wasn’t home, didn’t answer phone calls or texts, and I made the long drive to her house for nothing.

I will tell you, attempt #2 was successful, and I was able to collect my things.  When I arrived, my things were outside the garage as I requested.  With that said, all of the family vehicles were in the driveway, the blinds were open, it was broad daylight and there was no interface with anyone.  I didn’t really expect to see or talk to anyone, but I guess there was a part of me that, once again, expected some kind of apology or closure, but as was the case with my ex-wife, I received no such closure.  Once again, I really have no idea or understanding of why the relationship ended.  I will add that there was a weird twist to it though.  Suzy and I hadn’t talked in approximately a week and a half prior to the material pickup.  No calls, no texts, no nothing.  When I did get home from picking up my items, the FIRST thing that I noticed was that Suzy had been online and had viewed my online dating profile!

Why would she do that?  Was it to maintain a spot on my radar screen?  Was it an attempt to get me to reach out and ask her why she needed to look at my profile since she already knew just about everything there was to know about me from 3 continuous months of dating?  Was it her trying to figure out if she had made the right decision to cut me loose?  I don’t know, I didn’t ask, and there has been NO interface or communication since then.  Yet another unanswered question.

Speaking of ex’s, I was also provided an unsolicited update from a mutual friend/co-worker this week.  Again, I get periodic updates on my ex-wife who was a narcissist whether I want them or not as we both work at the same facility.  I had recently posted that she moved back to her “hometown” approximately 40 miles away.  This is after moving out of her new supplies house that was about 3 miles away from “our” (now my) home.  This guy was who she was seeing before she moved out and divorced me, and she so easily slid into his life and home even though he didn’t appear to have that much to offer.  Anyway, she moved out of his house a few weeks ago, which I was informed of right away by her minions, but I was also informed that her and the supply that lived near me (Bill) were “still seeing each other and continued to be a couple”.  I called BS on that immediately, knowing that she wouldn’t move without having new supply immediately available.

As expected, the new information that I received this week confirmed that my ex and “Bill”, the supply that she was living with, are no longer seeing each other.  She also made it clear to her minions to communicate that he just wasn’t the right one for her, that she had done it wrong and shouldn’t have went directly from “our” relationship right into another one, and that she needed “time for her”.  What a bunch of CRAP!!!  First of all, she was with him because he was convenient and offered her both supply and a place to land.  Secondly, she has NEVER been alone.  I have said this before, I was in between ALL 4 of her marriages (ours being the fourth), i.e. I was her supply in between husband #1, husband #2, and husband #3, ultimately becoming husband #4.  She is a narcissist and CANNOT be alone.  Regardless, I have pretty much been spot on with everything that she has done since leaving me and I was not surprised by this latest development.

Because I have been in between all of her relationships, that means that I “am up” once again.  No, she has not contacted me, and I honestly hope that she doesn’t, but the timing is right.  I also suspect the most recent relationship didn’t last longer than 3 years because he simply was not as satisfactory at being supply and providing her with everything that she needed like I did.  I am certain of this.  Sadly, yes I still miss her and think about her far too often, but I also am knowledgeable enough to know I must steer clear of her.  I must…

So here I sit, still wondering why I’m no longer with Suzy, and hoping like hell that my ex-wife doesn’t reach out to me.  I guess that will likely depend on the quality of her current supply that no one yet knows about but that is clearly there behind the scenes.  Once sufficient time has elapsed to where she will “appear” to have been alone, she can introduce him to the world as the next greatest thing ever.  I should know, as I have been that guy too many times. I really don’t want to know anymore, but I guess I don’t have a choice.

Fear. Why Do We Feel It When There is NO Reason?

There are certain days that, as soon as I wake up, they simply feel… different.  I can’t explain why it occurs, but I can tell you that I don’t like it.  It is one of the most uncomfortable feelings there is, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t tend to shake it as the day progresses.

Today happens to be one of those days.  Actually, I can at least partially explain this particular example of why I am feeling a gnawing, empty, relentless fear.  Yesterday afternoon and evening, we had a baby shower/party at my house for my oldest daughter and her husband.  It was really well attended with somewhere around 70 to 80 people, including almost my entire family.  Keep in mind that I have been alone in this house for 27 months now in the wake of my narcissistic ex-wife abruptly leaving for the last time.  Also consider there has never been that number of people in the house at one time.  Yes, I’ve had summertime gatherings since my house is on a lake, but those are typically 10 to 15 people maximum.

On top of the mass of people and all the activities, my youngest daughter came in from out-of-town to assist my oldest daughter with things and the two of them actually spent the night here Friday night which was nice.  I actually got to spend a little over an entire day with the two of them which is something that I haven’t done in a long time. It was fun and refreshing at the same time.

This morning and continuing through the day, everyone is gone. To go from that level of activity to absolute nothingness is brutal.  It leaves a lot of empty time to do nothing but think.  Of course, anytime I have that much time to think, my thoughts tend to go to what I don’t have, what is missing from my life.  I have a lot of things to be thankful for and I am fully aware of that, but when I’m alone, my thoughts gravitate to what I don’t have, and more specifically, to trying to figure how I got to this point, and how those that have negatively impacted me “think”, how they are able to do the things they do (or don’t do).

Because I did purchase the home that I am in with my narcissistic ex (when things were going well obviously), I do miss things that we did together and can easily imagine how things would have been if she would have been here for the party yesterday.  It really is as if a piece of me is still missing.  That her and I don’t even acknowledge each other anymore (me because I don’t want to give her supply, and her because I am just mean for not paying attention to her) makes it that much more difficult.  Again, I ask myself how I got to this place that I am in and, yes, it is because she is a narcissist.  But sadly, that doesn’t make it any easier.

To make matters worse, there is the recent abrupt end to a 3 month relationship with “Suzy”, an end that I simply didn’t see coming.  It does feel very similar to a miniature version of my marriage to my narcissistic ex-wife.  There really was no valid reason for things to end.  No, I have NOT reached out to Suzy since attempting to pick up my things from her earlier in the week.  Even worse, she has not made ANY attempt to contact me in any way.  I WOULD NOT have imagined she could simply disappear like that with no concern, apparently not bothered in any way by no longer seeing me or communicating with me whatsoever.  I do realize now that she is not what I need or really want, but dang, did it have to be so similar to my last relationship that didn’t work, even if it is a mini version?

So here I sit, contemplating where I am and how I am ever going to be successful in moving forward.  With that comes the fear, not only of the unknown, but of the potential to keep experiencing these short-term relationships, to the possibility of continuing to wake up in this beautiful house with the beautiful views by myself every morning.  Yes, I know the empty feeling that I have right now will subside.  I also realize that I am being a little bit selfish too, as clearly with all of those people here yesterday including my family, there are people that do love me (and like me too).  I guess it’s just that I never expected to find myself in this position, at least not for this long with no real prospects.

Fear.  Feeling it doesn’t change anything.  It doesn’t bring someone into my life.  It doesn’t erase the undesirable things that have happened in my life.  It doesn’t do anything for me in this instance (or most others) and isn’t helping at all.  It will go away, but it will be back too.  It is a good indication that we really aren’t in control of anything.  That, I AM getting used to.

Doubt. The Narcissists Most Powerful Tool.

When I find myself alone with nothing but my thoughts, they typically end up down good old Doubt Avenue.  I have been doing better in moving on from my narcissistic ex-wife, but on occasion, I still find myself going down the path of wondering how I got here and wondering how I am going to get on.

There are many facets to my dance with doubt.  Of course, the first shadow is cast on how things got here.  She did a wonderful job of projecting all of her lack, anger, inability to love, and never-ending needs onto me.  She is gone because I simply didn’t measure up.  I just wasn’t good enough.  If I was, she would still be here.  With that said, I now do know enough about Narcissistic Personality Disorder to understand those thoughts are not the truth and are in fact the picture of her.  I realize it wouldn’t have mattered how much I did or didn’t do, she was ultimately going to leave, and this last time that she left (which was the 4th time), she walked away with a lot.  She walked away with a pretty substantial wad of cash, but worse, she also walked away with my heart, my dignity, my self-esteem, and my sanity.  Yep, she did a real nice job.

Since then, I have come to realize that she was only able to take those things because I willingly gave them up.  I have repossessed those human attributes that she tried to steal, although they are a little less than they were before her.  The doubt though, the doubt continues.

It has been just a few weeks shy of 2 years since she left for the last time.  In an attempt to move on, I have tried the online dating thing for the last year or so, but it hasn’t really worked out.  Every time it doesn’t go positively (and I had a date scheduled for this afternoon that decided at the last minute the distance was too far), it casts that shadow of doubt yet again.  Her leaving me was one thing.  Me still being alone 2 years later is another.

I realize there are reasons that I am still alone.  There are apparently things that I still have to learn, but the doubt lingers.  That she has moved on so effortlessly just adds to the questions in my mind as to what’s wrong with me.  Yes, I realize she is doing what all narcissists do, simply moving from one supply to the next and that soon enough he will be wondering what happened too, but I tend to over analyze what is happening.  What am I doing wrong?  There must be something.  Doubt.

After this long, the doubt is hanging there pretty much most of the time.  I know, 2 years isn’t that long in the big scheme of things, but it has resulted in a vastly different and empty lifestyle for me.  All the physical and visual things are still here, I feel very blessed and have every material thing that I could ever want, but my life just isn’t the same and the doubt makes me wonder if it ever will be again.  It leaves me wondering if it ever will have substance to it again, with future activities that I can look forward to instead of wondering what I am going to do tomorrow, or even today for that matter.  I am a planner, and it’s tough to continue to plan doing things alone.  It just lacks a certain dimension to life, and it seems bent on continuing for some unknown extended period of time.  Doubt, again.

I guess that my ability to recognize the doubt is a good thing.  At least I can do something about it since I can see that it continues to linger, and that it isn’t helping me in any way.  I just have to wrestle it to the ground and choke it out of my life.  I’m pretty sure I can do it.  Pretty sure?  There’s that damn doubt again.

Leaving the Past in the Past. Why is it so Hard?

 

I recently published a post describing how hard it has been for me to discard objects in my house that have a connection to my narcissistic ex-wife.  She left for the last time just shy of two years ago and there are several places in the house that I simply avoid because there are remnants of her still there.

I enjoy receiving comments and feedback on my posts.  They usually contain some nugget of information that provides additional insight or maybe a different perspective.  I received just such a comment in response to the recent post described above (titled “It’s the Unanswered Questions”).  That comment challenged me with several questions to consider relating to the difficulty of getting rid of those things tied to my ex-wife.  I will admit, I am a bit overwhelmed even considering some of the answers to those questions, but I felt it might be insightful and even therapeutic to attempt to answer them, so here I go:

Question 1 – What is the best thing that might happen if I release those objects?  My answer to this is initially that maybe NOTHING good might happen, and I suppose that is why I keep them around.  Being more honest about it, I suspect it may help me to move past my past, to STOP remembering what I no longer have, especially since the evidence is so close at hand and easy to see and touch (not that I have done that). I think the alternate question, question 2, provides more compelling information.

Question 2 – What is the worst thing that might happen if I release those objects?  This one makes me feel very, very uneasy.  I have a lot of possible answers to this one, including:

1. I may lose touch with my past, as if it never happened.  Yes, I realize that I have all of the good memories (and the bad), but eliminating the proof of it is a really scary thing to me.  There was so much that felt good for so long that I still struggle with what happened, despite my recent understanding of Narcissism.  Additionally, I struggle with the fact that my ex-wife took every photograph there was of us with her when she left (including two wedding albums).  I am talking hundreds if not thousands of photos.  I do have some on an old cell phone (and yes, I have kept that too), but they are very limited.  I often wonder if she has destroyed those photos since I never saw any from her 3 marriages before me.  It really doesn’t matter.

2. I feel that if I were to discard those objects, I am essentially doing the same thing that she did to me, e.g. I am simply throwing HER away, that the entire relationship and everything associated with it can simply be tossed into a trash can, never to be thought of again.  For whatever reason, there is a big part of me that recognizes how much I enjoyed the first 6-7 years of our relationship (before the quick and particularly painful devaluing and discarding).  I appear to be attempting to hold onto that somehow.  If I open up the bathroom cabinet and don’t see her shampoo in there, then the relationship never really happened.  I am feeling very emotional right now as much as I don’t want to admit that.  She was real to me, even though it was all an act.  Those “things” feel like they are a part of my life, just like she was.  I guess they are all that I have left.

Question 3 – What am I afraid of?  To be honest, I am afraid of just about everything.  I am afraid of what I do have (I essentially retained ALL of the assets we had accumulated) as that is a constant reminder that she isn’t here, that she is the missing piece.  I am also afraid of what I won’t have, of what might happen after those things are gone.  Once they are gone, there is no getting them back, even though they hold no value other than being present during the “good times” (and the bad too).  I guess it is that sense of finality that I am afraid of if I discard them.  Again, I also understand that they don’t matter, but that sense of fear is still there.

Question 4 – Is there a hidden place in my soul that secretly wants her back?  This is an easy one and also a very disturbing one.  Absolutely yes, but with many asterisks.  I only want the love bombing version, but it has to be a “transformed” version of her, e.g. one in which she is no longer racked with the disorder.  I know, this is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, meaning it simply isn’t going to happen.  With that said, I have many, many times prayed for a miracle where she simply wakes up one day and functions normally, with empathy, and emotions, and a real and true ability to love.  Her acting skills and her ability to create the image of the person that I longed for (not to mention being physically perfect to my eyes) has left an indelible impression that is really hard for me to leave in the past.  However, I do know the things that I need to throw away ARE NOT her, but they were a part of her.  Am I stuck here?  Yes and no in that I long for someone who I can feel the way I did with her, but I also absolutely known that without that miracle happening, it can NEVER be her.

Question 5 – Am I afraid that I will pick out another NARC to date?  This one I can quickly and firmly answer with a NO.  That does not worry me whatsoever at this point.  I have learned a lot and have a pretty keen eye regarding narcissistic traits.  However, the dating thing has been very difficult in that I am essentially trying to find the “good” parts of my ex, and “those parts” were simply an image, they were not real.  The image that she created was so perfect that no normal woman can likely approach it.  As a result, I tend to quickly move from one to the next, continuing my search for what may very well be unobtainable.  I keep telling myself that I will not settle, and while that is a noble challenge, it is very likely limiting my chances for success.

Anyway, those are my initial answers to the questions that were posed to me (thank you Leah).  I suspect I could elaborate further on each one, but I think there is a common thread that is pretty apparent.  I simply haven’t given her up completely and continue to reminisce about the good old days, minimizing the bad old days.  Who wants to give up the good times?  Hence the difficulty of letting those objects go.

I was able to throw away ALL of the stuff she had in the freezer recently, so that is a start.  And I survived too.  It’s tough to let go of that 6 or 7 years of relentless activity, acquisition, and memory making.  I just have to remember, she is gone, brutally so and of HER choice completely.  I’m getting there, but I do have work to do.

It Takes Effort to Get Past a Narcissist…

It has been over two weeks since my last post, and that is a record for me.  I generally use my blog as an outlet for my feelings, a way of letting off steam and trying to get rid of what or how I am feeling.  There is something to the fact that I haven’t felt compelled to write a post, although I am not sure what that something is.

Over the last month or so, I have received some really insightful comments concerning getting past my narcissistic ex-wife.  That ability to get past her has definitely been an incredible struggle for me.  I took those comments to heart and decided I really needed to “try” to not think about her, to divert my thoughts anytime something came up associated with her.  Historically, whenever I would have a memory pop up, I would allow my mind to go straight back to that point resulting in the standard painful realization that whatever that was, whatever that memory stood for, that it  is gone and I can never go there or experience it again (at least not with her).  Once I hit that point of understanding, the sorrow and sadness would kick in and there I would be, in that same crappy place that I seemed to spend a lot of my time.  Remembering and wondering, it has been a place that I visit frequently, although the results are always the same – not good.

I was determined to change that and for the last couple of weeks I have done really, really well with it.  Anytime a thought would pop into my head, and they certainly did, I would remember the person that I made that incredible memory with is the same one that backed a moving truck up to the house and took everything out, never giving me any inclination that it was coming.  I would accept that she has a disorder (and that I chased after it with my own co-dependence), that she will NEVER stop doing what she is doing, EVER.  I would simply replace that delightful memory with something unbelievably evil that she did (and sadly I have an incredibly deep pool of evil things to choose from).  It even got to the point that I could divert my thoughts away from the memories, knowing they were coming, and focus on something else before they kicked in.  It was a fairly level couple of weeks for me, although I hesitate to call them “normal” as it did require a fair amount of effort to ward off those thoughts.

With that said, I will admit that I am struggling a little bit today.  It is an absolutely beautiful spring day out and it is also  Easter.  The milestone days are tough to be alone on and this is one of those, as are most holidays.  I have been outside picking up tree branches under the sun and it is a really, really painful reminder that this is something that we would normally do together.  I know, this is the second such holiday that I have been without her, and yes, the sting of sorrow isn’t quite as painful, but it is still a struggle that I wish I wasn’t still dealing with.  In this case, I am finding it nearly impossible to stop the thoughts of her and as a result, I am now inside typing this post.  I do accept and acknowledge that she is somewhere with her new supply (I honestly hate calling him that, but it is what he is) and again, that takes some of the desire away, but my version of her still exists in my mind and that is what I fight with myself about.  There is the her that I never would have imagined could do what she has done and continues to do, and then there is the her that is with another guy just a few miles away.  They ARE the same person and I am slowly but surely coming to accept that.

One more pathetic thing – I find myself avoiding places where people are together and are happy simply because it reminds me of how alone I continue to be.  Yes, I have had a couple of dates recently that have actually gone pretty well, and I am proud of myself for not simply settling so I can be with someone (anyone), but I am more than ready after nearly two years of being alone to be moving along to the next phase of my life that hopefully will include someone else.  That I have gotten to the point where I realize that my ex was and is bad for me (and anyone else that she ever pretends to care about) is truly helpful, and I have also gotten to where I am comfortable being alone (and actually enjoy it at times), I truly believe I am in a much better spot than I was just a couple of months ago.  I actually feel encouraged quite often, something that I couldn’t have said a short time ago.

Here’s the thing – I am looking forward to the time where I can devote the level of effort that I did on my ex to someone who will actually appreciate it.  Having an outstanding relationship takes a lot of effort and work (and rightly so).  Sadly, so does getting over a relationship with a narcissist.  I will gladly trade in the old for the new and am feverishly looking forward to that next period in my life.

Loving Something That Never Existed

I have some really good things in my life and I have a lot to be thankful for.  I am able to get up in the morning, look out over the lake, turn on my fancy Bose stereo, put in some soothing “spa” style music, and relax in my Lay-Z-Boy chair.  I have every material thing I have ever wanted.  What I want the most, I don’t have.

When I wake up in the morning, I pray that today isn’t like yesterday, which was like the day before which was like the day before that.  It has been 19 months now that I have been living alone, since my now ex-wife who is a narcissist discarded me for the last time.  I have never lived alone, ever, during my adult life and it has been and continues to be such a foreign, difficult concept for me.  As a result, my loneliness seems to be my focus  pretty much everyday.

You may ask, “why don’t you start dating” and the answer is, I have.  I have had a date with over 20 women and every time that I do, it makes me that much more sure that dating is not the answer.  The dating just adds to the loss, reminding me that this IS NOT what I want to be doing.  In addition to not connecting in the way that I want to, I have found that many women in the dating world treat it as nothing more than a popularity contest, an extension of Facebook where they can add yet another friend to their list, or in this case, another phone number to their directory.  There is plenty of rejection to go around too, with ghosting (them just disappearing for no apparent reason) occurring far too frequently.  Just what the ex of a narcissist needs, more rejection (whether real or implied).

I have accepted that I will never be with my ex again.  I even imagine her reaching out to me in public and me telling her to “go to hell, I have nothing to say to you”.  That in itself presents a dilemma for me as that is not how I really feel, and it also isn’t how we are supposed to treat other people.  At the same time, I know that I can’t engage her in ANY kind of communication or anything else as it will just be another opportunity for her to take advantage of me yet again and, after being discarded 4 times , with each being worse than the one before, I know where it will end up.  It’s such a confusing place to be, where you can’t do what you want in either direction, unable to be with them while also trying to be a decent human being (something they are incapable of), it just leaves one in a conflicting place.  Sadly, this conflict extends from one day to the next, with seemingly no end in sight.

So, what is it that I want the most, what is it that I long to have back?  My sanity.  I so badly want some sense of normalcy back in my life.  That doesn’t necessarily entail a new partner or companion but rather an ability to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day, to having joy and some level of happiness, consistently.  I do experience a level of contentment with my life at times, but sadly it is fleeting.  I do believe that God knows where I am and what I am going through and has a plan for me, but I struggle to have the patience to wait for it to unfold.  The clock is ticking and I keep trying to do the right things, to have a positive attitude, to look for the good in my life and be thankful, but with each day that passes it gets just a little bit tougher.

I am a sentimental person and that adds to the difficulty of trying to do things or go places that my ex and I used to go.  With spring and summer approaching, it gets that much more difficult.  I do know that things are going to get better and, despite my apparent sadness sometimes, my demeanor has improved considerably over the last year.  I miss what I had and, worse than that, I cannot seem to come to grips with the fact that I loved something that never existed.  That just doesn’t compute in the psyche of a “normal” person (well, semi anyway).

My ex, while real to me, was a false image, an actress that only wanted to act for a little while, until the act was over and the real her surfaced.  The life that we lived, while real to me, was simply a means to an end for her, an end that she has now moved on to someone else to repeat yet again.  At the time, it was awesome and yes, it will always be special to me.  But it does leave me not wanting to ever go through it again, another fear that I will need to break.

Normalcy, even with its not so good days, is all that I want.  To be in love with a real, honest, truly caring person and to have some routine and normalcy in my life is my true desire.  Funny, all I used to want was to have my ex back.  See, I am making progress, able to see through the smoke screen of the narcissist and discern the good from the bad.  Poor thing, she will never get to experience real love.  Even after all I have experienced, I do still care about her.  Real love…

What Is REALLY Happening? What’s Missing?

In the last 18 months since my now ex-wife moved out for the final time, I have made considerable progress in moving my life forward.  Since I discovered that Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a real thing (found well after she left the last time) and that she exhibits most of the characteristics and traits of a narcissist, it has made some of the craziness at least understandable.

Even with all of my newfound understanding and knowledge, even with my improved outlook, I still feel somewhat “stuck”, for lack of a better term, as if I am surrounded by some unknown energy field, locked into a space that I can’t escape from.  I have pondered why, tried to figure out what the issue is, why I can’t seem to escape from this undesirable place that I live in everyday.  I have finally reached an answer, at least a partial answer, that may explain why I continue to long for a life, a situation that in reality, is not a desirable place to be, a place that I was actually lucky to escape from.  What is it you may ask?

Love.  Rather, perceived love and then lost self-love.  I know, you are confused, right?  So was I.  Let me explain.  When I was with my narcissistic ex-wife, at least the several year period of idealization (yes several years which should indicate how badly she wanted to control me), I was in bliss.  Yep, she was physically appealing, nearly exactly what I would build if I could have built her myself, we were always on the go, seemed to enjoy the same things, my life essentially felt complete.

Here’s where things go off the normal path a bit.  We know the narcissist isn’t capable of love, at least not in a normal sense.  So what am I talking about when I say the issue that I am struggling with is love?  When I was with my ex, everything felt as it “should” feel.  She seemingly adored me, she found me physically appealing, we were very affectionate all the time (in hindsight, that was more me than her, but…), and the sex was non-stop.  Looking from the outside in, things could not have been much better.  For the first time in my life, I actually loved myself, I loved me!

At that point in time, why wouldn’t I love myself.  I had the woman of my dreams and I was MORE than acceptable to her.  What flaws I thought that I had didn’t seem to matter anymore, to me or to her.  Everything that I did, she wanted to do.  Everything that I enjoyed, she enjoyed.  Together, we purchased what amounted to my dream home.  We seemed to share everything and I didn’t want it to be any other way.  Everything just seemed to be going in the right direction for the first time, and it felt amazing.  How nice it finally was to be desired, to be actively chased and longed for, to be told that I was missed when I wasn’t near, to be reached out to continuously.

I finally felt not only good enough, but beyond good enough.  I honestly believe that other women found me more attractive during this period because my confidence was so much higher, my self-image was so much more considerable, and it showed in how I carried and presented myself.  There may have also been some truth to the myth that even if you are unattractive (which I don’t think I am BTW), being with someone very attractive makes you seem more desirable.  I don’t really know what aspect it was, but I did get more compliments and admiring glances when my ex and I were together than anytime prior in my life and, sadly, anytime since.

In the last couple of years, since my ex began the real discarding and ultimately left, my self-love has done the exact same thing – it has left.  I have lost that “I am desired” feeling, replaced instead with not being good enough, not being what I thought I was, and a fear of never being there again.  Of course, that she moved on so quickly and I am still here fully a year and a half later, completely alone, doesn’t help matters.  Yes, I can tell myself that I am being particular and not jumping into something just for the sake of not being alone, but that doesn’t do much to improve my own self-image.   I do feel that my lack of confidence at this point may be noticeable too, not aiding me in finding a new relationship.  It does appear to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. you sink to the level where you feel you belong.

It all happened so fast.  Walking around today and every other day in “my” dream house, which I was able to keep, I am surrounded by memories of what it felt like when I was in love with not only her, but with myself.  It was a really nice place to be.  Now, things are a bit different.  Physically, everything is the same, I am still here, the house is still amazing, the stuff all remains, but I don’t seem to love me very much.  As much as I have thought about it and tried, I can’t seem to once again attain that level of self-acceptance and love that I felt for those many (yet not enough) years.  I really don’t want to have to rely on others for me to be able to love myself, but it’s hard to see it any other way when things ended so brutally, when that love was stripped away.  I know it’s in me, I have felt it before, so I know it’s there.  It’s finding it again that is proving elusive.

My ex-wife, as much as I love her (the image of her at least), took far too many things from me for no good reason other than she has a disorder.  In reality, the stuff, the money, the photos (all of them), all the other material things that she took don’t really matter.  My self-love on the other hand, does matter.  I refuse to let her take that too.  It’s still here, and I will find it again.

The Benefits of Keeping a Journal.

I woke up this morning in one of those moods.  You know the one, where you feel as if your life is stuck in some limbo state, unsure how to make that state change, and missing your “old life”.  I admit it, I allow myself to go there, tending to recycle too many of the good memories and discounting all the crap that occurs after being married to and subsequently divorced from a narcissist.

I was dragging for a bit, but decided I really didn’t want to stay in that mode all freaking day.  I thought, “I’ll go read a bit from my journal.  That will get me out of this funk”, and oh brother, did it ever!  I am not kidding, it is so easy to forget about the absolute craziness and the sheer confusion that one goes through with a narcissist, especially during the discard phase, but looking back in time as it was aptly recorded then, it all comes rushing back.  The best part is that early on when I started keeping a journal of things that were happening, I had NO CLUE what Narcissistic Personality Disorder was or that such a thing even existed.  Going back, my comments read like a textbook description of narcissism, what with the questions I was asking, the behaviors my ex-wife was displaying, I mean it couldn’t be any clearer.

I will provide a lengthy paragraph from my journal, but first let me setup the scenario.  What I recorded in my journal occurred the day after my ex had told me in the craziest and meanest way possible that she was going to divorce me.  The day prior to her grand announcement, she was as nice as could be and I mean appearing as if things were all good, leading me to believe we were going to reconcile.  Instead, she simply had been to her attorney that day and was feeling powerful and in control, knowing what she had done (filed), and knowing that I was still loving, wanting, and pining over her, despite all the unseemly things she had done to me up to that point.  I mean up until then, it didn’t matter what she did, I still loved her, and she must have been feeling incredibly powerful and full up on supply.  Regarding her announcement the next day, she ended up telling me in public, in one of our favorite restaurants, at which I walked out of and got into my car.  Here is what I  wrote about that experience:

“She didn’t think that she did anything wrong.  I got up and walked out.  We then spent 2 hours in my car while I again and as usual expressed my undying love for her while she told me how bad I was, how broken she was, how horrible I was to her children, how hard it has been for her to revamp her rental house, and with no remorse or acceptance of any level of blame on the part of her or her children, EVER.  I got home at about 1030 pm and did not go to sleep all night”.

But wait, it gets better.  Keep in mind that at that time, we worked in the same location literally 30 feet apart from one another.  Here is what occurred the next morning, and this just drips with narcissistic ego (and keep in mind that I am absolutely devastated at this point):

“At about 1 pm as I was walking past her office, she kind of called out twice to get my attention, to which I turned around, looked, and just kept walking.  A few minutes later, she sat down in my office to remind me of my haircut appointment at 6:15 pm, and to tell me that the hair lady may say something about shampoo and conditioner for her to which I said nothing in reply.  She then asked me if I was doing okay, and I replied that was a loaded question.  I said the short answer was no, but yes.  I then asked her if there was anything else, to which she responded in a “put off” way and I just turned around and resumed working before she got up.  A couple of minutes later I get a text that asks if I have changed my stance about my undying love to her.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  What does she expect from me?  She moves out, she rejects me completely, she rips my heart out unexpectedly at a special place of ours in public, basically tells me how bad I suck, and then wants me to bend over backwards to accommodate her.”

Wow!  What a reminder of the absolute sense of entitlement, that no matter how she treated me, what she said to me, or how badly she screwed me over, I was supposed to accept that it was okay simply because it was her.  As I read through, skipping pages here and there (I have several hundred pages that I documented), it was the same thing over and over.  Nothing but her continuing to act like nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed and I was still hers to do whatever she wanted with, but at the same time, she was trying to take the house, my retirement, and whatever else she could get her hands on, all while smiling with the bloody knife still in her hand.  At the time, I also didn’t know that she was already in a relationship with someone new.  Looking back, it is all so easy to see what she was, and what she was doing.

I do still love her, at least the fake her that I knew, the one that existed prior to all the devaluing and discarding crap.  Why wouldn’t I, as she made herself into the perfect partner, just like I am sure she is doing with the new guy.  I am able to temper that love by knowing it wasn’t as it appeared, and luckily, I can also temper it with a personal record of the BS that happened, stuff that I would likely have deleted from my memory banks if I hadn’t written it down.  It really does help having my journal to make sense of something so senseless.

I still record new entries in my journal.  At this stage, it is more about my thoughts than anything else since I don’t really have any contact with my ex anymore, and it is even more rare that I would see her somewhere (and I am thankful for that).  I will be honest – I am looking forward to the time where I don’t feel the need to record my thoughts anymore, a time where my thoughts are on the present and the future and not on the past.  That time is getting closer, I can feel it.