JANUARY 2009

MY NIGHTMARE Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde gave me 16 years of physical, mental, verbal, psychological, financial, sexual and emotional abuse and cruelty, adultery (he is now living with his affair partner after I finally kicked him out), repeated betrayals, constant lies and deception. A long, painful year after I found out about his affair, he finally realised I had had enough of everything always being about him, him, him, him, him. The mental cruelty escalated beyond belief and he resumed his sleazy little affair, saying that he had only been pretending (for a whole year) to reconcile with me, that I was nothing to him, unlike the other woman who he said was "perfect". Very odd, as just weeks earlier he had been begging and pleading with me not to leave him and had also told my friend privately a few months back, that I was the love of his life and the other woman was just "an embarrassment". The day that I eventually got him out after he assaulted me for the umpteenth time, I had asked him why he hadn't left a year earlier and what the point was of the 12 month false charade. He replied that it was, "because I believe in the sanctity of marriage". ??? He could not see the irony of this or understand why I was so incredulous at being told this by someone who had spent two years committing adultery! I was sick to death of his lies, deception, blame-shifting, cruelty, abuse, denials, changing subjects, twisting things around, bullying, false promises and his constantly trying to control me. It was really hitting home to me just how truly dreadful he is and that he has absolutely no conscience about the pain and destruction he has wreaked. He called me horrible names, told me how worthless I was and repeatedly told me to commit suicide as nobody would care or miss me. He tried to convince me that I am mentally unstable/ crazy /need psychiatric treatment. He slowly isolated me from friends and family. He hid and manipulated finances (he would not tell me the password to our on-line bank account). I had a cash card but had to account for every penny I spent which was almost nothing because it just wasn't worth the trouble whereas he spent freely and I did not dare question it. He kept telling me we were short of money when we were not and lied when we were. He constantly played mind games, trying to make me go insane and accused me of bullying or controlling him if I got upset about his affair or asked him about it. He refused to accept responsibility for his own actions and said EVERYTHING was always my fault, twisted everything I said, contradicted himself, denied saying things he had said, constantly lied to, cheated on and betrayed me but I was not allowed to protest - if I got upset and wept, he said that was me bullying and attacking him! He fools the outside world by pretending to be a good person and a good father. He said I caused HIS behaviour - he never accepted that he was ever wrong. He was nice and very affectionate to me publicly, but not in private.

The physical abuse was at its worse when I was pregnant with our elder son (now 14) and shortly afterwards then again before and after our younger son (now 8) was born. He assaulted me when I was pregnant (I ended up in hospital but I told the police to go away unfortunately) and then kicked me in the stomach when our baby was only days old after I had a Caesarean section. A few weeks later, he actually THREW the baby at me then smashed the phone to pieces so that I could not call for help. He would spit into my face, push his face right up to mine menacingly and walk too close to me in a threatening manner. He was very cold, indifferent and uncaring when I had been ill or just given birth. He was sexually aggressive and raped me at least twice (my mind has buried a lot of things as too traumatic to recall). He said that he was allowed to because I was his wife. He created arguments, and then said I caused them. When confronted with his dishonesty or any criticism, he started talking about other issues, things I was supposed to have done or said to him and when I tried to bring him back to the original issue, he would fly into a rage. He had lost his previous job due to his affair and behaviour at work and during his time not working managed to somehow dispose of around fifty thousand pounds in one year and ran up a 5 figure overdraft despite the fact that we had no mortgage and did have some income. He applied for a loan in my name without telling me (ruining my credit history) and opened secret bank accounts then emptied them all when he realised I was about to abandon him forever. He has hidden money from me, refuses to account for tens of thousands of pounds missing from marital assets, and just before telling me about his affair, manipulated me into surrendering insurance policies saying he would re-invest them - he will not or cannot now account for the money. Despite our high income, I was reduced to buying my own clothes (and even that was very infrequent) from charity shops and cheap plastic shoes that leaked, whilst he would think nothing of spending freely on himself. Life with him was like walking through a minefield. And if he had a bad day, then he made sure everyone in the house did too. His behaviour made me question my own sanity - I was no longer sure what was real or unreal. He accused me of doing or being all the things he actually IS, i.e. bullying, controlling, dishonest, raging, unreasonable, irrational, etc. He drained me of all confidence, self-esteem and vitality until my very soul felt almost empty. When I told him how much he hurt me he did not care. He would get angry and say I was trying to make him feel bad. It was all about HIM and his feelings. Mine never counted. He tried to convince me that showing my hurt and pain at his betrayal, adultery and emotional cruelty was abusive to HIM.

Neither he nor his mistress think they have done anything wrong and don't seem bothered that they have trampled over their spouses and children. They are full of arrogance and self-righteousness - they have no remorse and expect people to be happy for them. They are still idealising each other for now, so that poor woman has no idea what a miserable life she has ahead of her. He destroyed my possessions, (particularly to do with any pastimes I tried to take up) and smashed up things in our home, damaged doors etc. He hated me having any hobbies or interests of my own and constantly undermined anything I did. I was always fixing computers for people (no charge) and creating websites for them but he hated me doing anything like that because it took my attention from him. I trained as a Samaritan and he complained so much about me being out of the house that I gave it up. He resented me helping other people (even his own family) and said so, saying HE should have all my attention. He actually let slip once that he would not help me get over the pain of his betrayal because that would mean he would not be "in control". He refused to take an interest in anything I liked doing but wanted me to be interested in things he liked and was always telling me that we didn't need other people. He constantly played push-me-pull-you with my mind, set me up in no-win situations and was constantly 'moving the goalposts'. He is a reckless, scary driver. I was terrified that he would have an accident with the children in the car as he takes dangerous risks and is very aggressive - when asked not to do it, he did it even more. He thought I would still want to keep him even knowing that he was involved with another woman! When he first told me about the affair, he: 1] Wanted to spend time with her to see if they were compatible and if not he then he would return and he thought this was acceptable 2] Wanted me to tell everyone our marriage break-up was my fault so that people wouldn't think badly of him or dislike his new woman 3] Said that he had hoped that if I kicked him out then it would make him look like the victim not me, especially in our children's eyes He said that he continued to lie to and repeatedly betray me because "I knew I could" and said he knew that I would keep forgiving him. When he thought I was suspicious about his behaviour he would RAGE at me for "spying" and "controlling" and "bullying" him. Then I would later find out that my suspicions had been correct and that he WAS at those points being deceitful. He said he would rather jump over a cliff than be unfaithful or deceitful to me again then two days later was unfaithful and deceitful again. He swore he would make things up to me then let me down. He swore he would be the best husband ever if I forgave him, and then let me down again - repeatedly.

He said he would be the best father ever then let our children down again - repeatedly. As soon as I made it clear that I really did forgive the affair, he immediately resumed it. He cried weird crocodile tears when I said we would have to part, and then carried on texting his mistress behind my back. He wanted to be able to come and go in "his" home whenever he liked after separating and said if I'd had an affair he would have killed me! He tried to convince me in early 2007 (before I knew about the affair) that the boys and I should move to Scotland and he would visit us every other weekend. Before I knew about the affair, he stopped taking our elder son to his after school activities saying he didn't have time or was too busy at work when he was actually seeing his bit on the side. Before I knew about the affair, he took the opportunity to take our children out of their private school that they loved and put them into local state schools. He convinced me that this was the right thing to do and even got me to do all the paperwork for the appeals etc. He did this so that if I divorced him, he would not have to pay the school fees. He told me that his affair partner had influenced this decision. He would often deprive me of sleep and that is classic torture treatment! If we ever had a row in the evening and I went to bed, he would wake me by pulling the duvet off me and then take it downstairs. He likes to get up very early and would kick up a huge fuss because I didn't (he thought 7am was oversleeping). He even used this as one of his justifications for having an affair. He would just keep disturbing me and making as much noise as possible knowing I would give up and get up. However, he couldn't even stand me staying in bed if I was ill, even if I'd just come out of hospital. A few weeks after our first son was born, I had an emergency operation (surgeon later told me I was 6 hours from death due to septicaemia) which left me with a very painful wound and he was very uncaring and hardly let me rest. A few years ago, I had another operation, was very weak when I came out of hospital (had reacted badly to the general anaesthetic) and had been advised to go straight to bed at home for at least a day. He was in a really bad mood about this and completely ignored me for 24 hours, not even bringing me a glass of water let alone anything else. Even when he was at university and I was doing a huge number of hours of overtime every week to support him and keep us afloat financially in addition to doing all the housework and childcare, he would not let me catch up on my sleep. During the same period (when he was at university) I was on crutches for 3 months (operation on sole of my foot), he still expected me to do everything at home even though I couldn't use the stairs and he was annoyed because I couldn't go tramping up and down Kinder Scout with him every weekend! He sent a complete stranger to pick one of our sons up from school and when I was cross about this, he used it as an excuse not to see them whilst he was busy setting up home with the other woman and her kids. He did not bother to contact our children for nearly 3 months despite originally saying he wanted to see them every day. He is pretending that it is due to me being difficult - another lie.

He got in touch at Christmas to give them some presents but not the items he had promised them months earlier. His salary is in the top 10% of UK salaries but the crap he brought them looked like it came from a car-boot sale and cannot have cost more than a few pounds. Despite his high salary as a Finance Director, he is allowed to pay less than the CSA standard amount of 20% of his net salary to maintain his own children because they have her kids living with them, even though they have two parents of their own to support them (and she works too). He does not support me at all (I had to retire at 40 on medical grounds and have a small ill-health pension and social security benefits) even though his own father said, "but he would be nothing and have got nowhere without you" as I originally worked full time plus constant overtime to support us all when he was at university and later during his professional training, to ensure that he could concentrate on his studies and get a good career. I supported him in every way, not just financially but also by doing everything at home (housework, childcare etc) and also by helping him to study. I have been told that he and the other woman tell other people that I am crazy, referring to me as a "mad cow" and saying that he has never been violent or abusive to me and that it is all in my head. My GP and a psychiatric assessment have both reassured me that I am NOT crazy at all, I do NOT have a personality disorder and that the only thing wrong with me is that I am clinically depressed as a result of extreme cruelty and abuse. I told my GP that I felt like I was "dying inside". She replied, "You are. You ARE dying. He is killing you. And if you don't detach from him, you WILL die. One way or another, he will destroy you". I am on anti-depressants and having counselling (my older son has a counsellor too, at school) and been told that I have many symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. I have panic attacks and I often get up several times in the night to check yet again that all the doors and windows are locked. I am also having very lucid nightmares where I am so terrified of opening my eyes in case HE is stood there or worse, in case his eyes are glaring into my face. A few weeks before I finally kicked him out for good, he not only spat in my face at the dinner table in front of the children, he also screamed at me that I was a "c**t" at the same time. He did this because I quietly asked him as I had done many, many times before, not to address the boys as "stupid" otherwise they would grow up thinking that they ARE stupid. Shortly after we split up I agreed to meet him for coffee so that we could "discuss what to do next". He told me that I didn't need to see a solicitor as we could sort things out ourselves and that he would let me live in our house until the boys were older and that he would be my 'landlord'! When I told him that I would need to seek advice, he obviously couldn't punch me, spit at me or scream foul names at me as we were in a public place, he instead clenched his fists, distorted his face and snarled at me between gritted teeth that if I dared to ask him just once more to be honest and non-secretive, then he "would cause a scene". I suppose I should have called his bluff but I just remember laughing nervously as I got up to leave, at how much he reminded me of the character from Just William who, when she couldn't get her own way threatened to scream and scream until she was sick. It was so pathetic but a reflection of how childish he had been throughout our relationship. He was so nasty, so cruel and so abusive - insulting me, being violent to me, spitting in my face, mocking me when I cried at the way he hurt me, humiliating me, trying to make me think I was

crazy, telling me I was worthless and blaming me for everything, for HIS infidelity, HIS actions, HIS behaviour. And then he would act like nothing had happened. When confronted, he used me as the scapegoat for what HE did, thought and said. He lied and denied and then lied some more. For years, he eroded my confidence, my self-worth and my strength and tried to destroy my mind and my soul. I stupidly continued to support him, protect him, love him in the futile hope that things would change. It was all for nothing. He did not succeed in isolating me from others and I have lots of amazing friends who have been really helpful. I also have a good solicitor, a lovely floating support worker from the local Women's Refuge and a brilliant counsellor who has been helping me out of the fog of pain and confusion. My counsellor said that the incredible number of people who have been so kind and supportive or offered support proves that I can't be as worthless as the monster tried to convince me I was but whilst I hear what she and others say, it is still difficult to let that sink in because his cruelty was so insidious and destructive over such a long time. Every time another obstacle or difficulty appears, it makes me feel like HE made me feel, that everything is my fault even though I wasn't the one who has lied, cheated, been unfaithful and stolen from their own family. When I first met him I was confident, independent, outgoing, full of life, but he destroyed all this then complained that I had no self-esteem, compared to his affair partner, whom he described as pure, honest (despite lying to and cheating on her own husband), open, confident and independent. Eventually, I completely lost sight of who I was, thanks to him. For 18 months until very recently, I wept in anguish every day at the way he betrayed and tormented me. I don't cry anymore but I do laugh occasionally now, at what a stupid, senseless life I lived (or existed) with him. I needed answers and needed to be able to make sense of all the horror, so have also been reading a lot of wonderful books about abuse that have helped enormously. I wish I had read them 18 months ago as they may have helped me gain the strength then to get rid of the person who was trying to destroy me. I had been in such a bad emotional state when he was here that I could not concentrate at all, watch a film, read a book etc (I used to get through ten a week years ago). I have read about forty books so far, about abuse; control and power over others; sociopaths; malignant narcissists etc. I highlight parts of the books that seem to describe my ex and my relationship with him and have found that by the end have often highlighted not just sentences or even whole pages, but whole chapters. They explain everything - how he could be so incredibly brutal; why it is so hard to believe that another human being let alone someone you have lived with for years could be so amoral and so inhuman; why it was that the more forgiving and supportive I was, the crueller and crueller he became; why he blamed me for everything and made me feel so bad and why people like him will often suddenly seem to vanish and behave as though you and your children no longer exist.

The books use many of the words and phrases I had used myself in trying to describe what he put me through. There is a line in one of them which states,"...with hatred in his eyes...he said...that I was worthless and useless and that I should just commit suicide". That is exactly what he said (repeatedly) to me until the day I almost did commit suicide until a dear friend stopped me and said that I shouldn't, not only because it was wrong and because of the boys but also because it was exactly what he wanted me to do. He wanted to murder me but without physically getting blood on his own hands, therefore he wanted to me to murder myself so that he could continue to blame me and it would confirm that I was as crazy as he claimed. They also explain the dynamics of such relationships, why it is so hard for people to understand the vileness of it all and why you cannot "just get over it" and get on with your life. They also explain why it is even more difficult for people who have not gone through such horror to understand why anyone puts up with such abuse and why it is so hard to leave. My two boys at home with me, who are my priority, even though they are not HIS priority, seem far happier and more relaxed now their father is not around and I just want to protect them now and bring them up the right way without their main male role model having a bad influence on them. Whatever he and his infatuated mistress have materially, I know that I have riches that he will NEVER have such as the ability to feel love and compassion for others. Best of all, I have my lovely children and they are priceless.

AUGUST 2009
I started this and my two other blogs with the intention that they would be personal journals of my attempt to make sense of the horror that was my marriage. However, I ended up just using what other people had written because the pain of my own situation was just so overwhelming. I have reached the stage now where I feel able to start writing my own thoughts and feelings on the subjects that I have been posting. I can't even remember how I came across it the concept of NPD. All I know is that for about 18 months now (starting before I kicked the monster out at last), I spent 80% of every waking moment finding out everything I possibly could, trying to make sense of my husband's behaviour and how I came to be part of such a hideous nightmare. I read articles that made my jaw drop with recognition as he fitted the profiles so well. I bought many books on the subject and nodded in agreement throughout them. I had numerous "light bulb" moments before and after he left. I've had enormous support from friends, family, doctors, counsellors etc who all reassure me that it is NOT ME, it is HIM. Rationality, sense and logic tell me what he is. Yet for a long time I found myself sometimes doubting, questioning, wondering, sometimes even in my head making excuses for him again and thinking, "Was it me? Maybe it WAS me; maybe I DID make him like that?" I was still on a roller coaster, pinching myself to see if I could wake up from the bad dream.

The good news is that the roller coaster of nauseating sickness, confusion and gut-wrenching pain DOES slowly but surely slow down and eventually judder towards a halt. My estranged (soon-to-be-divorced thank God) husband spun my reality for 17 years. And as my counsellor and other support kept reminding me, I was grieving, not for what actually WAS but for what SHOULD HAVE BEEN, which makes the grief so excruciating. Throughout the years with him I always sensed that although I loved him he didn't really love me, even when he was in Dr Jekyll mode. Actually finding out I was right was almost unbearable. Whilst our heads tell us the truth, our hearts find it nearly impossible to accept all those "wasted" years of anguish that pushed us to the edge of insanity. So we look for answers to make sense of the madness and even when we find them we want to reject those answers because they are like salt on our wounds - it stops the infection from spreading and saves our life but it is agonisingly painful. I would love to say I am past all the agony and the impossibility of properly communicating with a narcissistic abuser but I am unable to cut off contact completely because we have two children. However, I now try to cope with his blind, infuriating behaviour by repeatedly telling myself that its not personal. His continuing attempts to control me, his rages, denials, secrets & lies, excuses, threats, abuse, blame-shifting, evasion, twisting, gas lighting, crazy-making, bullying, projection, inability to empathise or feel compassion, manipulation, sabotage, inability to understand the concept of cause & effect, his not seeing that bad behaviour has negative consequences, etc etc is not about me. It was never about me. It will never be about me. It is still all about him.