Exactly. Reinventing. Cutting losses. Moving on. No idea who he really is...I can say all the same things. I didn't see through him to start with, no. I couldn't believe my luck that I found someone so profoundly 'right' - same sort of social background, same education, same degree, same career-ish, so kind and thoughtful, highly intelligent blah blah. It is called reflecting. They find a victim then reflect back at them an image of themselves....so the wonderful things he saw in you really DID and DO exist. They did not exist in him...he just copied you. When he couldn't copy anymore and discarded you you are the one left feeling like shit and stupid to boot.
To be honest, there were alarm bells after 6 months with him - this is the average time before they start showing small cracks. He told me one warm afternoon in a lovely pub garden that 'he had something to say'. I was terrified - but he told me in a sorry-for-himself way that he had county court judgements against him for non payment of bills and mortgage with his ex. I was relieved. I said 'of course you have paid them off now'. He said No. I asked why not seeing as he had inherited 135k from his father. He said 'why should I give the taxman money?' I pointed out that it could bugger his credit record...of course it already had shot his record to bits. He wasn't even allowed a cheque book let alone and overdraft. And he had been buying 80 quid bottles of wine, armani suits, he drove a big car...yet he earned 16k at his crappy little regional journalism job. I had all this to find out. They hook you in, then they drip-feed you the reality and make it all sound so feasible. How he was beaten by his father and how his ex 'beat him up for sex'...the poor little me number he did was very impressive and I believed it all. Because I am nice. Naive, daft and nice. Now I am no longer the first two. I am only the last.
I got him onto my account a few years later as he NEVER had any money and I was ALWAYS paying for evertything.... and that is the account he raided when he flew off to shagland. Thanks husband.
There were many other signals. But I had no idea about personality disorders back then. The black silences, the disappearing acts. The inability to discuss things, the hatred he had for his ex (she was an abomination, but he really wanted her dead. He would fantasise about her death.)
When I conceived - by some miracle as I was 43 at the time - I was totally overjoyed. I rang him to tell him (he was away) He sent me a text saying this:
'Congratulations. You are going to have a baby.'
Like I had wona volvo.
So yes, I am middle class and well educated, had a brilliant job and a good career, I am sensible, practical, experienced, have lots of friends and have seen and done a lot with my life. But these chameleons are BLOODY good at acting, fakery, manipulation, deceit and dissembling. He did the proper number on me.
Only towards the end when he began to seriously unravel (after the death of his father) did I think that he had a serious mental problem (and yes he will be telling anyone who asks now that I was the one with mental problems, just as he told me that his ex had mental problems and the ex before that....just as your h is saying you do. You don't. He does. End of)
He went really weird. He devalued me and in June finally discarded me (and his baby boy). I had sussed him. He knew I had sussed him. His cover was blown. I couldn't see him for dust.