Am in utter shock

[honeyandbutterontoast]

Will start by saying this is an OW thread. So I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m just in utter utter shock.

Twelve years ago I met someone. We were both married. We fell in love (I thought). My DH was a bad man, I’m not excusing myself but he was. I divorced him, took the bare minimum and waited for OM to do the same.

He didn’t. For years it went on, his excuses, so I wouldn’t see him, he begged me to be patient. I was his soulmate, his best friend, etc etc etc. And I loved him so much.

We bought a house together, he decided on completion day that he couldn’t leave her. I was in a financial mess for years over that.

In Oct 22 I gave him an ultimatum (this date is important), he had to leave her or we couldn’t speak anymore (up till this point we emailed and texted multiple times a day). He said he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t be without his kids. He went away on holiday with them.

Stupidly we stayed in touch “as friends”. Daily he would ask to see me. He would tell me he wanted to be with me, no matter what would make it happen.

(Sorry this is an essay)

Last spring we saw each other for lunch a couple of times. Something was off but I couldn’t work out what, he seemed depressed. I started dating again and told him we could only be friends.

In the summer he sent me a photo and I noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring on! He told me he had “recently” left his wife but didn’t know how to tell me. That he wasn’t sure if we should move in together straight away (!!) or just get to know each other as single people.

We met for lunch a couple of times, he had endless excuses why I couldn’t see his new flat. It all seemed odd but somehow plausible. We last saw each other in October but carried on messaging multiple times a day, chatting about everything. Or so I thought.

He told me he was very depressed and unhappy. Needed time to get used to life alone. I truly believed he was unhappy, possibly even suicidal at times.

This evening I received a message. From his girlfriend. Who he lives with. Who he had told he was separated when he met her 18 months ago. Yep when I gave him the ultimatum, he was with her. They have a whole life together.

She is 20 years younger than he is.

We spoke on the phone and while speaking she was looking through his phone. There are multiple women. All that age. It’s been going on for years with them.

How he has time to run a company I do not know.

So here I am, 12 years on. In utter shock. And that poor girl. I didn’t know what to say to her, I could only assure her there has been nothing intimate between us since before she met him. Unfortunately he has been with others.

i honestly would have told you he was my best friend. His behaviour had been odd yes, but I never thought for a moment it was like this.

His last messages to me were how he had an okay day today, hadn’t done much. They are on holiday!!!

I get that in some ways I deserve this. But she doesn’t. He obviously was putting his wedding ring on to meet me! How messed up is that. Or maybe he wasn’t married then anymore?!

And I’m guessing when we were actually in an intimate relationship he was shagging these other women. I really had no idea. He would beg me not to leave him as he was so unhappy but had no idea how to leave without losing his children/business.

Desperately need to sleep but had to get all that out. It’s like an episode of eastenders.

Nothing could temp me to share a man.

I find it bizzarre.

Likewise if I were a man I would not want to share a woman with another man.

We are clearly all very different.

Well I’m not sure that it’s not degrading. I would certainly feel degraded if someone said women “ think with their vaginas not their brains” or that women “ can’t keep their vaginas in their knickers.” The fact you don’t feel targeted by the comments doesn’t mean men wouldn’t feel them as degrading.

I just think injecting a misogyny debate into this is a distracting overlay that undermines the relative moral fundaments, namely that it isn’t excusable for anyone, male or female, to knowingly behave in a way that is destructive to someone else’s relationship, whether the injured party be male or female and notwithstanding the fact their partner, male or female, does them even greater injury.

Oh come on.
You're reaching majorly by trying to suggest that they might think that's degrading.
Especially seeing as the vast majority of men will say "it was just sex" except for the ones who want to leave to be with the OW.
The very common narrative that "men think with their dicks" works in their favour and you know it. They don't find it degrading.

There was no need for a debate on 'moral fundamentals' in the first place on this thread....so if people want to turn into that, then you can't control where it goes from there, and discussions of misogyny will come into it.

Just because some people offer advice or a kind word to someone who has been part of an affair and has now had a shock doesn't mean that people need to keep bleating on and on and on about morals and the damage affairs cause as if we don't know they cause damage. There is literally no need for it at all except to take a dig at the poster.

I agree about taking a dig at the poster. However I think this particular ( derail) problem came when people passed beyond that to specific exoneration of an OW because they weren’t party to the marriage/relationship. That takes it beyond avoiding a dig at the poster ( see my early posts; I tried to move quickly over that) to positing a moral framework. Thus the call for moral discussions…

I mean fine if you want to call for 'moral discussions' then go ahead but I don't think either side are going to change their mind on it are they? so it's just going to be the same back and forth comments.

I haven't read the whole thread OP, but I think you definitely need to delete all those lovely messages and get rid of other things that relate to the relationship such as cards, gifts, photos*. Because in this case, it was unfortunately all untrue. This man might have thought he loved you, but he clearly did not in the healthy way.

*Or put messages etc. onto a memory stick in case you or the girlfriend(s) should need them in the future as evidence, but that you keep away from your main phone and computers.

I usually just read stuff here, but having gone half way through this thread I felt the need to register and post. Sorry for the length.

First of all - for all those commenting - who have been lucky never to come across an individual as OP’s man - you can NOT fully comprehend this, and the length the predators like this will go to keep you in the web. You are dealing with a personality disorder here, not some average bloke cheating on his wife.

I have spent 5 years with a Covert Narcissist/Psychopath. I am a grown up, educated woman, successful in my own right. In 5 years that I have known him I went from being a happy, confident person to feeling completely disorientated and questioning reality. Another thing to note - he was NOT married. I was not interested in relationship, he spent an incredible amount of time and effort getting to me.

It starts with love bombing ( on a different scale), and playing into your empathy ( he often ‘needed me’, portrayed himself as vulnerable etc) By the time you start noticing things that are off you are already deeply emotionally involved ( while this was happening he has been ‘stress testing you’, I see that now; through small things and small pushes on boundaries, and taking notes). When inconsistencies start to get obvious, you are gaslighted to death and because you can’t reconcile the inconsistency with what you have been seeing in ‘initial’ phase ( talking years here) you default to believing whatever lie has been served, as the track record shows otherwise or at least you think it does. Then you get more love bombing only to reinforce that. It’s a cycle. Problem is the frequency and intensity revs up, things get crazier, lies get bigger, but by this point you have been gaslighted, manipulated, triangulated, DARVOed and all else so much that you literally don’t know what is real what is not. You are broken. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

The person I was in relationship with did all that OP mentions and worse, far worse stuff.
Whilst still together I started digging up, finding information, connecting the dots, and what I found out was far more shocking than I could have imagined in my worst scenarios.
When you confront this kind of people full on and they realise the gig is off the mask falls off and what you see on the other side is - pure evil. I am not saying this lightly.
I pulled the last bits of sanity and strength I had, to leave and cut contact from my side. Meanwhile my heart and soul, health were shattered.

Healing from something like this is hard but possible. OP you need to educate yourself on ‘trauma bonding’ - it literally plays havoc with dopamine, chemistry in your brain and completely disregulates your nervous system. It takes time, consistent work, therapy, and support to get back from this. Read, educate yourself, find way to access therapy - it’s a must.

You will ruminate, have flashbacks, odd memories of situations, details will pop up that you will only be able to contextualise and make sense off once you have some distance. Going through something like this is so crazy making that when you look back it is almost impossible to put things on a timeline.
Another reason why it takes time is that what you know now is only probably a tip of an iceberg. Once leave you might find yourself learning that there even more things, even more women etc. You will try to make sense of it but at some point you will realise that you will never be able to and you’ll have to find a way to accept that and move on.

It has been over a year since I left. Meanwhile he is doing the same to other women, some are new, some have been around for years just like I have.
He knows what he is doing, he knows what he did to me, he knows I am gone - yet, throughout of this past year - he regularly messages me, sometimes weekly sometimes multiple times a week. I have NEVER replied or acknowledged any of his messages, yet he is still going.

Men like this are dangerous. Their behaviour is criminal. Unfortunately in our world the emotional and psychological abuse is not something you can criminally prosecute, even though it is often equally if not more damaging and eroding.

And just to highlight - He was NOT married. ( so all you focusing on OP and her damaging his relationship/wife/ etc - irrelevant - they already are, would have been, and will continue to be damaged just by being related to him and in his proximity.

OP, I wish you all the best and I wish you find strength to cut this person off completely, focus on yourself and healing.

Thank you.
For now I am keeping some messages/emails because I think at some point I may need to prove what had happened to others.

From what I have pieced together he was always dating other women the whole time he was married.
He did not have depression, he was probably tired out from juggling it all though.
He did not tell me about his gf because he wanted to keep me in his life, as a friend he talked to daily, as someone he could meet up with who was nice to him and made him feel good about himself, he had always had multiple women in his life and doesn’t know how to just have one.

I had the place of someone he had known the longest and could discuss grown up things with. Other women fitted other roles. I honestly believe that if things hadn’t worked out with his gf, or he had got a bit bored then he would have just turned the heat back up with me for a while until the next conquest came along.

Im pretty sure his wife found out and threw him out, or maybe the attraction of starting a sparkly new life was enough for him to leave. I think buying a house with me was so if she ever found out about us he had somewhere to go.

After a lot of thought and talking to friends etc, I can see that so much time went past because fundamentally I didn’t actually want more from him at the time. My life was full and busy and stressful, while I was happy to sit chatting about my day to him online, I didn’t have the energy to spend much time in real life with him. Because real life time with him was exhausting in a weird way, I felt drained when we met. Part of the reason I stopped the sex side of things, apart from my guilt (which I had tons of actually, but he was very good in telling me why I didn’t need to feel guilty), is because it had a weird dynamic where if I asked to see him more often or at a time that suited me, or in any way asked for something I wanted in bed, he would not see me for a month or would spend the next week sending non affectionate messages because he was “hurt” that I wasn’t happy with him. I expect during that time he would have been seeing other women to boost his confidence.

I still feel absolutely blindsided by this. There are so many lies. In some way I would like to contact his wife because I have reason to suspect he is screwing her over in the divorce and obviously she would have a good case with full knowledge. But I’m also aware that it looks very much like I’m just bitter he didn’t “pick me”. (I’m actually relieved) However he was continually putting her health at risk and I’m sure messing with her head. And in some ways I would like to make sure there are no further revelations that I have to deal with down the line.

I have had journalists contact me (because he is actually a big deal in his world), and it’s seriously tempting but whilst my anonymity would apparently be guaranteed, it is his wife and kids that would bear the brunt. I did a terrible thing to her, I can’t let them have to deal with that too.

My friends have been absolutely amazing, I’ve been so supported and that is helping so much. I’m still barely sleeping or eating and just cry most of the day but I think that’s still the shock. I hope today will be a bit better day.

thank you all again for the help.

Read the whole thing and CANNOT understand why you aren’t completely furious.

@BitsOfStuff
thank you so much for all you said. You get it, you know what it’s like (I’m crying again now!). He did those things, the twisting things around. That’s what it was like.

I didn’t ever believe a person who looked and acted like a normal person could be so evil (I don’t say that lightly).

OP I understand exactly where you are. I am sorry.

Just wanted to add a few things having read what you just wrote.

You mentioned feeling drained after spending time with him. I felt like that too. It is because they literally do that - drain you, you are just a supply source for them. But over time they drain you completely, you don’t have much left to give - that is when they discard you, or park you and add another supply source or turn to an old one that has been on a shelf waiting.

Someone mentioned before, how it is strange that the GF found the messages. Yes, there is a high chance that he wanted her to find them, and that he orchestrated it so he can use her to discard of you. I was a GF ( well, one of in one instance ) in this scenario. It is a classic narcissistic triangulation.

Also, men like this never end things, relationships completely. There is never a clear cut break or closure. They always keep a wedge in the door no matter how small, so that they can come back in, in case they need/want to.
Meanwhile they will, from time to time, just pop in to ‘check’ if you’re still there.
Please understand they don’t care about you, they are users and abusers. Protect yourself and don’t engage, no matter what.

The only way you win here is by walking away and completely disengaging.
You win yourself back, your peace and your life.

It will get better OP.
If there is any way he still has money tied up in your property tread carefully.
Avoid the media and his wife. If he’s getting divorced they will be splitting assets.

He sounds quite narcissistic. When he was being off with you those months sounds like a punishment for narcissistic injury. Also they like having multiple partners on standby. Keen on future faking. Very draining. There are some good resources online that explain why they are like that. Helps you understand how he could seem normal when they are anything but.

One day at a time! Be kind to yourself.
💐

Bore off with the faux sympathy for his wife, you carried on with him for years clearly not caring about her or their children so coming off with "he's harming her health and messing with her head, he's going to screw her over" is bullshit. Block him, his girlfriend and delete the emails, texts, carrier pigeon notes etc etc (prove what happened to who? Seriously?!) and just move on

OP, I too was in a situationship with a narcissist, it was a casual sex no strings where he would come to my place once a week for a couple of hours then leave. He was very handsome and great in bed but a total narcissist, so besides our fuck buddy arrangement I had no wish to upgrade him: he was good in bed but NOT relationship material. I would have never dated this man or make him my boyfriend. This is how I liked it. It sounds like your situation was similar: you enjoyed his online attention but had no wish to be with him IRL as he was too “intense and draining” your life was stressful already, so you stayed in this situationship for a long time. Sounds like you really never wanted to be with this man IRL, he was like a penpal who gave you that needed attention without the messy live in together. I think more than him you deceived yourself thinking you wanted a real relationship with this man: you didn’t.

@beatrix1234 Yes, dramatic when looking from a perspective of a ‘normal’ person. For cluster B this is just another day in life…and the show goes on.
This is why unless you have been involved with and sucked into the fckd up world of someone like that, you’ll struggle to comprehend.

How do journalists know who he is when you haven't given identifiable information?

I don't understand why journalists would have your details

You sound like you're doing OK op. If he is that high profile and you've got journalists pestering you then you might want to get this thread deleted.

What you are feeling is a normal response to trauma. If you get counselling, look into betrayal trauma. These experiences can cause complex PTSD.

You will get through this but it'll take some time. Glad you've got good friends. It makes so much difference.

I had 2 journalists contact me on here.

And no they don’t know who he is as I haven’t told them. I’m also not going to say on here just to prove it! And yes when I met him he wasn’t as well known. 12 years is a long time, people’s careers progress.