Learnings over time....

So I am sitting here in a new flat and not telling anyone I don't trust my new address because if it got to my exN I have a feeling he would find a reason to contact me or leave "a message".

It's a bit over a year and looking back there are absolutes that I adhere to now because of my horrible ex.

1. I will speak what is on my mind. Without question my exN entered my life when I was vulnerable and I felt that by contradicting him I would lose him. Time after time he would use what is called negative reinforcement to connect my stating my opinion to his pushing me away. Please understand that he does not have the intelligence to know what he did at the time but the instinctual animal that he is knew how to make it work and it did.

Because of this manipulation I say what is on my mind - as tactfully as I can but I won't be silent when I am degraded, insulted or feel slighted. Never again.

2. I will be friends with whom I choose and they are as important as my partner is when it comes to balance in my life. My exN isolated me from my friends and family. He worked tirelessly to make sure people thought the worst of me or ruin time I spent with my family. He knew what he was doing and it makes me sick to think I was so caught up in his crap that I allowed it.

In my current relationship my partner respects and understands the need for personal time and the need for relationships with people outside the two of us. Bless him for that.

3. I will be more cautious as to whom I trust with my friendship and my heart. Having your life ripped from you and your emotions used against you is the worst betrayal and when it is done by someone who says they love you it makes it that so much worse.

My partner and I have been through similar experiences and we were cautious at first but have since gifted each other with 100% trust. It took work and proof and some stumbles but it is there and gets stronger each day.

4. Forgive but don't forget. This has been the hardest for me as it's been more about forgiving myself and looking in the mirror and knowing I am only human and I make mistakes. We all make mistakes.

I regret ever meeting my exN. I want that time back in my life but I have learned that I cannot dwell on that - to dwell on that is to bring back emotions and anger at the whole situation of his cheating, lying and stealing from me. Instead I work on forgiving myself for wanting to help what appeared to be a person in need and that I should not punish myself for being a good, caring, giving person as I am not the first to be fooled this way. Their facades are well built but horrific when they crack. I would like to say that I pity him but I don't pity the animal that I dated - he isn't human so pity would be wasted.

I will never forget what he did to me but I have learned and, I think, I have learned many lessons to take forward in my life.

5. First impressions are the truest impressions. When I first met with my exN I was not impressed with much more then his physical appearance. I had decided that after our first meeting that I wasn't all that interested but then came the bombardment of texts, calls, emails and compliments. All day and evenings he swept me off my feet so I responded ignoring my first impressions. Never again. Never ever again.

There are many things I have changed since the end of the horror that was this relationship and the fallout from it. Some of it still trickles in and lands on me but I wipe it off and keep walking forward. I have been blessed with a new partner who returns all I give to him with respect and honesty.

As time moves on and I get further and further from the time I spend with my exN I am finding myself getting stronger and knowing that I will never have that man in my life again gives me peace in mind, body, heart, and soul.

Good Days and Bad Days

Today is a good day.

In fact I have had SO SO many good days. I have a good job with a great company, a partner that loves and supports me, and moving to a new flat back with my wonderful friends in my favorite part of the country so it is all good.

But

Some days are bad days.

Days where I rage inside at the poison I let into my life that makes me second guess my own beliefs. Not only beliefs in myself but how I look at and treat others and I HATE that I think like I do.

There are times when I want to hurt the poison that was my ex - I want to do all the things to him he threatened to do to people that he felt wronged him and then see how he feels about it all.

How silly of me....."see how he feels"

That's the most ridiculous thing to say because he DOESN'T FEEL. That's what gets me on the bad days - I know that I have left no lasting impression on my low class uneducated lacking in intelligence ex. I can only guess but I would bet money that he has moved on thinking that he took all my money and all my self esteem and he got away with it. I would bet that he thinks that he won some game when the truth is

I WIN

I don't have a man in my life that belittles me, cheats on me, lies to me, (and everyone else including his family), steals from me, and makes claims of being a real man when there is nothing real about him.

Bless my current partner - he is a real man - he stands beside me and supports me in my life, my dreams and my needs - together we are a couple not Overseer and slave - emotionally that is.

I WIN because I am myself and I am happy - something that he will never be because all he is is false - he has no sense of self because he has no sense of anything other then the things he owns and the women he mentally, emotionally and fiscally abuses.

Today is a good day because I am centered and focused and doing things for myself.

Today is a good day because I am helping others by writing this blog and hoping other victims of the horror that is NPD.

Today is a good day because my partner called and told me he loves me.

Often I hear people say that I should forgive and forget. I forgive nothing I forget nothing.

I trust that there is a higher power and what goes around will come around.

Today is a good day.

On it goes

So after catching him on singles sites thing kind of reached a strange level of normalcy. There were no huge outbursts but, looking back I can see where I just lost the will to fight back or pull myself together. I noticed how he would text someone but not tell me who it was but I blanked it and he seemed to have these outbursts at the yard of how much he loved and needed me.

Already at this point females had been telling me that Mr. W kept approaching them and one even stated that he had given them his number "in case they needed anything". She was married and a disgusted by the obvious innuendo. I find it interesting that as much as there a lot of women with no morals or ethics there were many who thought I was a nice enough person to tell me what he was doing and to say without using direct words, that he wasn't worth my time and I was better then him. The hard part is he had succeeded in isolating me and he had my mind so confused with his doubletalk and lies that I wasn't sure anymore what the truth was and what the lies were. He went for weeks of being so loving but he would go on and on about his exGF and how "Spunkbucket" was gonna have her life ruined. He focused on his ex saying she was nuts and how she "never let him rest and forced his every night to be physical with him" and that she beat her kids and her horse so he was gonna make sure she was ruined. I watched as he sent photos of her without her walking stick to the Benefits office and called them again and again to make sure they saw her as a benefit thief. Eventually they took her benefits away and she has had to put her horse on loan. Was she really a benefit thief? Did she beat her kids? I don't know but the way he went about things, including his sister in it all, was frightening to watch. Even if she was all he said she was - I felt sorry for her because I was truly seeing how unbalanced he was - it started that little spark in the back of my mind that this man was just not right in the head.

As I said previously. Mr. W's sister fed his addictions - drugs and shopping. Weeks before his 50th birthday she metioned that she found this watch that the character Jack Bauer wore in 24 and showed it to him - of course he wanted it and as he gets everything he wants she bought it for him. It wasn't cheap and he was grateful but like a 15 year old he just accepted it like he deserved it. Meanwhile for his big birthday I had professional portraits done. It cost me a lot of money to not only have the pictures taken but to have them framed and instead of saying that this was lovely all he did was criticize that I should have used the photographer he knew and then stated he would have done them all differently. Further he noticed that we used a local historic hotel and we were in one of its rooms so he intimated that there was more going on then just the photos. In essence he knew better and the photos were horrible and somewhere in there I cheated on him. Mr. W is a mediocre photographer at best and was an ungrateful wretch when it came to what I had done.

As the time passed I noticed that he was chatting with some exes and when I asked him if they knew he had a partner he said no and when I asked why he hadn't told them he said why should he and I said because you are in a relationship and it's wrong he went on about how I am controlling and all about money and food. He always did this - he would turn it around so it was about me being jealous or find fault and twist it so he was never to blame.

When we first me he went on and on about he didn't believe in celebrating birthdays or holidays as he, and his family, gave gifts whenever they felt like it so they didn't need a particularly day to do this. What this really meant was he was a cheap bastard and only gave gifts when he needed to impress or was about to lose his supply. When my birthday came around a month after his I didn't expect anything. After all he had yet to take me on a real date or buy anything significant of quality. In the first few months he bought me a pair of cowboy boots and a riding helmet. Both I needed and were of some expense but after that he spent all his money on himself and bought me cheap tat that seemed nice on the surface but was crap afterwards. Once he bought me a couple of watches that I liked but both fell apart within weeks. Nothing like I would have truly bought for myself. I still have them and wear them now and then but it makes my stomach turn to hold them to be truthful. Like him they were tacky and over the top - no class. For my birthday he actually did buy me a framed wonder woman comic poster. I was taken by surprise especially as it's something that I truly do like - as I am a comic book geek. I only found out much later his sister paid for it. Sigh. So much for putting me first.

It was soon after this that the walls of our relationship began to fall. We were in a tack shop when I heard his phone go and went to stand with him and saw a female had texted him. I waited till we were in the car and asked him who that was and he lied to my face and said it was a male friend. I watched him as he looked me in the eye and lied to me. We got back to his flat and he put his smartphone on charge. I asked to look at it as I had never used one. Subconsciously I think I wanted to see this text but I didn't think about that at first. He actually said it was ok to look at his phone. I pressed every symbol to see what they all did and I touched the envelope and up popped the message "Hey gorgeous your text almost got me in trouble will text later" - I just about lost it. He bullshit his way through it and then told me who it was. It was the married with kids ex that had been texting him 8 months before with the good morning good night messages that I asked him to cut off because that is not appropriate. He said he had but the truth is he lied and hid her from me. To top it off he had lunch with her and didn't tell me. I knew then and there I had to get out but didn't know how....

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder really?

I thought is best that somewhere I post what is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I am going to cut and paste from another website - I will sight it when I remember where I got it from - this is the best I could find in plain language. I hope it helps people understand.

This is something posted by a woman on a forum I am on for victims of Narcissists. Sadly as you further and further into this it is EXACTLY what has happened to me. I know I will move on but seeing it in black and white sadly really hits home. If you can read it all the way through you may understand a bit of what myself, and many others have been through.

In normal relationships partners are able to genuinely appreciate the others separateness having mutual regard for each others boundaries, feelings and needs. Hotchkiss explains the "Fusion Delusion" that occurs in relationships with Narcissists. When "two such lovers connect, the goal for one - and often enough for the other as well - is complete and total merger, the obliteration of one partner's autonomy in the service of the other's narcissism." (pg. 122) A power struggle ensues to see which one can bend the other to meet their needs.

Narcissists can be experts in manipulation and seduction of the opposite sex. Lowen defines seduction as a "false statement or promise to get another person to do what he or she would not otherwise do. The promise can be explicitly stated, or it can be implied. Psychopathic swindlers openly promise something they have no intention of giving. But most seductive ploys involve promises that are not clearly stated." For a Narcissist seducing someone in to having sex with them reinforces their view of themselves as special and powerful - they have won control over the "object".

He explains that "Narcissists use sex as a substitute for love and intimacy". Some are very good at knowing how to pleasure their partner e.g. being able to maintain an erection for as long as is required for their partner to orgasm. They've spent time learning the techniques they use because the better they get the more narcissistic supplies they are bound to secure, the more powerful they feel.

Narcissists tend to make poor lovers long term. To them it is a mechanical act; it doesn't really require true intimacy just physical closeness. Usually in order for a partner to experience "mind blowing" orgasms they need to feel connected to their lovers own sexual excitement and feelings of love. Narcissist's don't have these passionate feelings they've spent so much effort repressing them. They essentially masturbate with the "object's" body. A Narcissists orgasms are not intense as a result. Some even prefer pornography and masturbation to sex.

To Narcissists commitment is akin to castration. They don't want intimacy because that leads to people knowing their faults and insecurities. On the other hand they will be keen to show that they are capable of living a normal life and having a relationship with someone but this will depend on the person. "His own self-image requires that other people also see the love object in an idealized way. Toward that end, he must select someone who is beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, or otherwise widely recognized as exceptional. The Narcissist hopes to commandeer those admirable qualities that he or she lacks, acquiring "guilt" by association." Hotchkiss (pg. 124)

Narcissists demand adulation and respect from their partner. They have a belief in their absolute uniqueness and as such they want to be the only important thing to the person they "love". Even if they have had children Narcissists often expect their partners to choose them above their offspring. They can be extremely competitive with their children who they see as challengers for their partner's attention.

If you're in love with a Narcissist you might have heard them say "You don't really love me" and on some level they're right because THE PERSON YOU FEEL IN LOVE WITH IS A FALSE SELF. NOT REAL. To love them would mean you have to love all of them good and bad. To love them is to accept that the Narcissist does NOT know the meaning of love which comes as a result of not being loved by their parents for who they truly are. For this reason they don't know how to receive love or how to give love - they MERELY act it out to get the narcissistic supplies they need. They see love as twisted and they don't want it from you, they want your admiration and respect. Their relationships are filled with conflicts as a result. No, they can not love.

Nobody likes to think they give love to receive love but for a person to be in love with a Narcissist it is necessary to deny their own feelings and to accept that they can never have that which they defiantly seek to give the Narcissist - love. Denial of feeling is the road to insanity.

What feelings do they have?

Shame - for their weaknesses. When their weaknesses are brought to their attention it shatters their grand illusions of themselves. Sometimes they rage when exposed.

Envy - for others who have what they don't, who are skilled at what they are not, who can feel what they don't, who are happy just being themselves.

Entitlement - to special treatment and having all their needs and wants met at the instant they need them to be met.

Any good feelings they have are linked to how others perceive them. Without an audience to play to they can become bored and despondent. It's almost as if they cannot bear to spend time on their own for fear of their own thoughts betraying their omnipotence.

What does the false self look like in action?

Narcissistic people will do whatever they can to ensure people see them as they see themselves i.e. special. Some focus on materialistic things ensuring they are seen in the best clothes at the right places and driving new or expensive cars etc. even if they can't afford to live that way. Some Narcissists in particular will focus on the perfection of their bodies.They will want to impress others with stories of their accomplishments; new jobs, wage rises, expensive holidays, their sexual conquests etc. (Sometimes it may be apparent that these accomplishments are not as substantial as they have been made out to be or are not attributable to their own efforts. Lies and distortions of the truth are not unusual from the lips of a Narcissist.)

On a personal interaction level they may offer to put themselves out to help you in your work, treat you like a Princess/Prince, taking you out and buying you gifts, complimenting you, making seemingly creative one off gestures to show they care or have thought about what you would like, treating you as a valued friend, spending lots of time with you etc. They make you feel special and at this point you are special to them, not for who you are but because they see you as an extension of themselves. This view of you is known as "Inflation". (On the part of the Narcissist all these lovely gestures are usually undertaken on a shallow level and if you are emotionally invested it is unlikely that you are going to notice until it's too late - even if they have given you good warning that they're not always this nice).

Narcissistic people do not make these gestures selflessly; they behave this way to feel good about themselves which is accomplished through how you feel about them. The positive feelings (and at times negative ones) that they are in essence trying to extract from you are a bid to confirm that they are important or special. These feelings they extract from you are known as narcissistic supplies. A source of these narcissistic supplies termed a "Narcissistic Supply Source" (NSS).

The Narcissist doesn't have the emotional reserves to pull off this facade indefinitely - it is hard work.

What happens when the false self starts to crack?

A Narcissists charming behaviour lasts as long as they get what they want from you i.e. that you provide evidence to confirm their view of themselves as special. In any relationship where people spend a lot of time together it is normal for the parties involved to notice the others bad habits and behaviours. To some degree it is normal behaviour for people to point these bad habits and behaviours out to the other person in order to try and improve the relationship. Narcissists do not react kindly to this, they see it as an attack on their perfection. As a result of this their behaviour starts to change. The lovely person you know will start to disappear as the damaged part of them emerges, the things they do to impress you will become fewer and farther between, you will start to feel less and less special to them as they start to treat you badly and show their frustrations (overtly or covertly) at your inability to meet their needs more frequently. This is known as your "Devaluation".

During periods of frustration which are brought about as a result of their needs not being met narcissistic people will certainly make you aware of your inability to meet these needs. They will either do so overtly; raging, abandoning, publicly humiliating you, belittling your abilities and possibly becoming abusive. Or they will do it covertly; giving you the silent treatment, sulking, discussing things that they know will upset you or behaving in ways they know you find hurtful regardless of if they are related to the frustration you have "caused" or not.

If their frustration stems from their own inability to meet their wants and needs e.g. not getting a promotion, loosing at sport, receiving criticism for work they have done etc. the frustration is usually transferred onto the people they interact with (often their nearest and dearest) or it is channeled into harmful activities such as excessive drinking, drugs, gambling, driving fast etc. In "transference" what the Narcissist is in effect doing is taking their feelings of "I'm bad/inadequate/guilty" and passing them on to you because they don't want to cope with anything that shatters their good image.

Maybe at this point you will try to work harder to make them happier; you will start to question the things that you have done wrong to bring this change about and try and make amends. Maybe they will start to manipulate your emotions to extract more narcissistic supplies from you even if that's through intimidation and fear. They may even tell you the truth, tell you that they are no good for you and how badly they behave. Maybe you'll jump to their defence telling them they are valuable with renewed hope that there is something alive/good inside them. Before long you won't know what's real/the truth and what's not. Years may pass and you will wonder when the person you first met is going to come back. If you are prone to loosing yourself in relationships it's likely that by the time you've decided you've had enough (or you've been dumped by the Narcissist as a NSS) you will already have lost sight of the best parts of yourself and taken on a few of their more interesting character traits.

When the end comes it doesn't arrive quickly. The Narcissist may come back for more when other NSSs aren't in ready supply or not doing their jobs properly. They may even enlist the aid of their friends to bring you back to the fold or intimidate you. Or maybe you will try to go back to them because you miss their presence in your life (which is usually the result of a loss of adrenaline that was previously generated by the highs and lows that interactions with Narcissists bring). You're unlikely to get any closure on the basis that you to and fro or because there isn't going to be a happy ending where you're going to get the answers you need to feel happy about what happened in order to be able to put a lid on it.

There are a few things you can console yourself with, firstly, and most importantly you will have people you can turn to. Your friends, your family (if they're not part of the reason that you've accepted this type of Narcissistic behaviour for so long) and your Doctor or a Counsellor. Even people who cry in the street are asked "Are you ok?" if they stand still for long enough, I've seen it (not that I suggest you trust any stranger you meet - choose your confidants wisely -- I made a mistake or two myself).

Secondly, the Narcissist isn't going to be spending time worrying about how you're feeling or analysing their part in what went wrong in your "relationship". This is because they won't think they've done anything wrong and they don't like to dwell on any negative emotions. In fact it's likely they will feel a sense of relief that they no longer have to work so hard at keeping up appearances. They'll just go and find another NSS to replace you, if they're good looking or successful it won't take them long so rest easy for them. Talk about it out loud, analyse it till you're blue in the face, anything that helps you to process what's happened and learn from it.

So try not to be too hard on yourself if you've taken all you can stand.

Finally, things will get better. It may not be quick in fact it may be hell on earth for some time but like any loss or death of a loved one it will get easier for you to cope and you'll start to feel good about yourself again.

His Sister

Hmmmm - where to begin. Mr. Wonderful has a sister. Though he is the oldest she is the one that actually understands the meaning of responsibility and, in her own way, respect and loyalty.

We became friends during the first couple of weeks of mine and her brother's relationship. Mr. W had the first of two surgeries on his leg after we met and I had taken time off for a year so I visited him each day in the hospital. She was about my height, 5' 7", but an average sized woman. Mr. W used to tell me she needed at least an hour and a half before leaving the house as she was so concerned by her looks. I saw a bleached blonde woman with way too much makeup on but she obviously loved her brother and appeared somewhat level headed.

She expressed to me that I was the first "normal" female her brother had dated in decades as well as probably the best looking. It became an almost daily occurence that she and I would talk on the phone for a few minutes or an hour. It seemed that she lived her life via the telephone or Facebook.

I found out that even though she was a trained beautician and assisted her husband, now and then, on his rounds as a medical professional, she rarely left the house and lived on the phone and on Facebook. Her entire life revolved around the false personas and stories she created with her bizarre friends on FB. She collected bodybuilders as friends on FB and then would spend hours on the phone with any number of these men no matter where they were in the world.

On a daily basis we would chat about her weird goings on on FB and about her brother's habits and the things he did that she seemed to feel were normal and acceptable. I soon realised that the reason she found his abusive and manipulative behaviour acceptable is because she herself had been a victim of a long term abusive relationship with a man that used to be best friends with her brother. I always found it interesting that Mr. W wanted to "kill" this ex of hers when he found out he hit her but when hearing the mental and emotional crap he did Mr. W never saw anything wrong with it. The fact that Mr. W was good friends with this man and used to swap women with him suddenly made sense. In fact Mr. W would repeat the behaviour and comment on his sister under the guise of "just being honest"

That phrase just killed me - "I'm just being honest" was used to cover the fact that he was about to or had just made a comment that was belittling, horrible, cruel or rascist. It made me sick actually. The sister validated and enabled Mr. W's behaviours and she herself exhibited alot of the same traits.

His sister truly believed that Mr. W and I were meant to be together forever. She worked hard to bring us back together over and over again when he would mess up with his trolling single sites, lying to females, having cybersex with one of her friends. She would say things like "Oh you know how he is" to me so many times that I wanted to slap her. I would scream back "THIS IS NOT NORMAL" and she would agree that it was abusive but she would enable him and support him in his lying/cheating/stealing ways. She would often talk about how they were raised differently then other people because they lived their lives in pubs and clubs that their parents owned so what was normal for others wasn't the same for them. I had never realised that honesty, trust, paying people back and being a responsible adult were for everyone else. I lost count of how many times he would omit details when telling her of incidents between himself and I so he appeared the angel and I appeared nuts - when I would finally point out the missing "bits" she would just get quiet and still take his side.

The sister would provide him with drugs when he ran out of his codeine because of his prescription drug addiction and would give him money when he had overspent on crap he never used. If you her husband ever knew how much of his salary went into the pocket of his brother in law he would have blown up. The truth is without the brother-in-law the entire family would fall apart and it took Mr. W reminding his sister of this fact before she stopped having an emotional affairs with other men.

It is through his sister that I learned about his seven previous engagements; it is through his sister that I learned about how he treated women; it is through his sister that I pieced together that everytime Mr. W messed up as a child and caused havoc where they lived their parents would up sticks and move to another pub. Apparently a woman called up and accused Mr. W of being the father of her daughter's child so their mum said that wasn't possible and then promptly moved home and changed numbers so they could never be found. When I asked Mr. W about this he honestly didn't know or care about the fact that he may have a child in the world. After all he has proudly slept with hundreds of women without a care or a condom.

What always intrigued me was his sister's desperate need to be someone else. She created "false" pages on FB so she could dirty flirt with complete strangers and no one in her husband's extended family would see this. She called these pages her "fun" pages. I called them sad attempts to escape a life she no longer has.The low self esteem and self worth due to her age and that when she was younger she was often mistaken for Claudia Schiffer but now she rarely leaves her home and never puts real pictures of herself on her web pages. Time and again she uses pictures from 20 - 25 years ago but that doesn't surprise me as one of her closest, low class friends doesn't even use pictures of herself - she just puts her face on other, much more attractive women's bodies and then puts them up as if they were pics of herself. Of course this tactic, for both women works to attract men that they lie to about themselves, their interests, and their daily lives and exploits. I pitied the men on the other end.. Meanwhile at home her husband wouldn't sleep with her or didn't want to so she would have emotional affairs calling men as far as Canada to have phone sex while he was out doing his job. I came to realise that she saw this as ok and was in denial that this was cheating on her husband. I began to understand why whatever her brother told her about relationships and the women in his life she would believe without question - it was all about the make believe. I truly believe that she would rather live in a world where her brother was perfect and her marriage was wonderful - in her head - then face the fact the her brother was an addict, a liar, an abuser and a thief and her marriage was falling apart. I truly believe she knew her husband was her meal ticket and without him she would have to go out into the world and get a real job - something she was obviously loathe to do.

Like her brother she left school at 14/15 but she went on to beauty school and, through her modeling, got some semblence of grace and poise. She was fairly literate on the computer and seemed to be able to reason things out well but her life revolved around the dramas of FB.

I have to say there is nothing sadder then someone who tries to fill their life with a life that is all made up and as Mr. W made up his entire personality to cover his emptiness, loneliness and insecurities it was no wonder she did the same.

In the end she took everything we talked about and told her brother - she believed everything and anything he said to her as long as it kept him in that bubble labeled "my perfect big brother" so the knife in my back went pretty deep......

Continuing...

So I got  back from that horrific holiday with my family. The one ruined by Mr. Wonderful because he kept accusing me of having cheated on him with my friend of 25 years - yet he is allowed to flirt with an ex from 20 years ago even though she is married with children and obviously unhappy in her relationship. There is no logic in a Narcissist's world - there is only his views, his life, his needs, his wants and what he believes. He may disguise it a putting you first but in the end it is all about how he can manipulate it so that it is all about him.

I get back and he has made me feel as if I had cheated on him. Just to remind you he found an email I wrote to my friend telling him that I just didn't want to tell Mr. W. because of his unbalanced view of males in my life and the fact that he was african american. Mr. W. broke up with me and announced it across FB but then got back with me after making me feel like I had actually done something when I had done NOTHING. The cracks in his facade were showing and I was beginning to see what a liar and selfish ass he was.

So through all this I am still financially supporting him in many ways. I have already given him money to cover his mortgage three times, covered expenses for feeding his horse and have paid to have the horse shod. As time goes by he keeps referring to me as his "soon to be Mrs." and that we will move in together and that when that happens he will pay for the mortgage and utilities because he owes me so much monetarily it will make him feel better because real men don't take money from women. I guess that doesn't apply to me or to his sister. (His sister I will discuss in another post).

Over and over again he would tell me how he loves me and that the past is the past. In my mind there was no past other then his temper tantrums, his over dosing on his pain meds, his taking of my money (when I earn half of what he does)  and his childish silent treatments. His constant need for attention was wearing thin and then there was a day when, looking back, I know I was completely under his control.

At his house he had his laptop open all the time. I noticed now and then he would get emails from single sites but, like me, you can get spammed as your address can be added to any number of mailing lists. I asked to look on his computer at a site selling horses as I was always looking but could not afford to buy and he said sure. I went in to type in the URL and in the drop down of sites he had already visited up comes a URL of a singles site he was still active on with horses in the name. I found it and found he had been talking with a female in the US and that he had told her he had not found anyone yet and he was still looking. That she was gorgeous (not) and just his type (anything with a heartbeat). I showed him what I found and HE accused me of snooping. I then realised that all those emails were NOT spam but he was still active on all these sites. I told him if he didn't take down his pages I was gone. He dropped to his knees and begged me. Somehow he managed few tears to add to the effect and I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. I know I am the fool but he had me wrapped around his finger. Completely.

Over the next few weeks I watched him delete no less then four different pages across singles sites. I made me sick. My insecurities hit an all time high. I treated this man like gold and he was still looking - did that mean I was useless and horrible? Not good enough? Ugly? Fat? Stupid? That is how all this made me feel. It blew everything up into huge proportions. Top that with the fact that his mobile was always on silent and he would text someone without telling me so I knew I had to work harder.

I know reading this back some may think that I should have just walked away but an emotionally abusive relationship is like no other. It is under your skin and tears you apart from the inside. Though Mr. W was uneducated he was smart in knowing how to twist the hearts and minds of the women in his life. As educated and self aware as I was, and am, it's women like myself that attract men like this. They hunt us like prey because we have what they don't - smarts, ambition, success, happiness - things they will never realise or achieve. We supply them with what they themselves are unable to find and when they begin to face this they devalue and discard us. Mr. W wasn't done with me yet so we continued on.