Was It That Bad?
I am about three months separated from my soon to be nEx, and our divorce will be final in a couple of weeks. Kids (3, 5, and 8) are doing great with a 50/50 split, and I’m thrilled with my independence, however, reasonably stressed with navigating adult/mom-of-three life and selling/buying of real estate without a partner. At any rate—
nEx was always the covert, Jekyll and Hyde type. Generally uptight and a dick around new people, then eventually adored by the few he chose to befriend. In the same vein, our dating life was in a vacuum, not at all social, and he roped me in good. Told me his first wife ‘abandoned’ him in favor of a life teaching yoga on the beach. He didn’t have any friends—told me they were all hers (they relocated together to her home state) and she got them in the split. There were a handful of meltdowns and overreactions that I attributed to abandonment trauma and some emotional immaturity, but I decided he was overall dreamy with a couple flaws, and I plowed the path to a wedding within a couple of years.
Then came the occasional ‘below the belt’ insults. The emotional manipulation and cruelty in conflict. The verbal assault. The guilt-laden prioritization of his needs and preferences over mine. The beratement out of nowhere. With a few intense trauma bond cycles a year, three kids, and two demanding careers (with his requiring frequent travel), I became mostly numb and silent in our 9 year marriage. But at the time, I genuinely thought that was how all tired moms/wives had to operate. I thought our marriage was fairly normal and my exhaustion was my own problem.
Finally got to a point of conflict wherein HE told ME divorce was our best option. I didn’t love him enough. I never showed appreciation or affection. And my eye rolling and resistance to and dismissal of those claims was, for him, death by a thousand cuts. We were young enough to go out and find someone to fill our respective needs, he said. Let’s pull the ripcord, he said. I didn’t want to. I wanted to dig deep and revive the healthy love we once had. I still wanted a happy life with him. “Can’t we do counseling??” He refused. He was above it.
Then after I vented to some girlfriends, one of them (at the start of her own divorce) clued me in: “This is not right. This is not how genuine trust and partnership works. This is not standard conflict that all marriages endure. This is toxic. This is a pattern. And I bet he’s having an affair.” “AN AFFAIR?! No way. Not him. He can be mean, but he’s the most loyal guy on Earth.” Right??
I googled a term she used—manipulative distortion—and … cue my plunge into the rabbit hole of covert narcissism. Cue my SHOCK in learning about the pathology that described my husband to a tee. Cue the horror of feeling duped and used and abused for 9 years and not knowing it.
I was onto him. The conflict continued, and I watched him play every card in the covert narc book. I resisted his manipulations, and he was surprised and confused: why isn’t she playing the game anymore?? I was angry and tough and resistant, and he didn’t know how to handle it. He quickly pivoted back to asserting our marriage needed to end, and he let me down in a loving, gentle, award-winning performance of care and empathy.
And then my suspicions bubbled over the surface. The smell of deception was too thick. An alarm in my nervous system was triggered. And I asked to see his phone.
The Recently Deleted Photos folder was locked. And he refused to unlock it. And when I briefly left the room, he permanently deleted its contents. He claimed no affair. No girl or girls on the side. No cheating. Finally, the next morning, he admitted: porn. Penises, in fact. He’d gotten into porn, and ejaculating penises were his fetish. “Well are you gay???” “No, I’m not gay! I don’t like guys! I guess I just like penises, and I was ashamed of it.” I was relieved. Ok, some truth. I can handle this truth. But wait—why were there selfies in his camera roll? I asked to see his phone again. Hmmm. Why are the selfies gone now? After a few hours, he finally admitted: he got on an app. A sex app (Feeld). To meet men. To see if he liked them. “But I only talked to one! I couldn’t do it. I was disgusted. It totally confirmed I’m not gay. Anyway, WHEW I’m so relieved. And I think we can work through this. I think we should.”
He didn’t know it at the time, and I couldn’t confirm it because I knew I was in shock, but I was done. Never in a million years did I think his emotional immaturity, his covert narcissistic tendencies, could result in lies and infidelity. This was the end. The final scene implosion.
Fast forward to my learning that he downloaded the app six months prior and was still taking selfies when I busted him. Fast forward to, upon realizing I was now ready for divorce, him blaming me for it all—for withholding love, affection, and sex and driving him to question his own value and identity. Fast forward to, a couple months later, my receiving a goodnight text from his ex-wife’s iCloud account, quickly unsent. A message FROM HIM with his ex-wife’s account as the sender. Was he toggling between accounts? Using his ex-wife’s for his porn and app activity?? I don’t know. I’ll never know. Finally, fast forward to my calling his ex-wife, whom I’d never seen or met in any capacity, and learning that she didn’t ‘get into yoga.’ She left a manipulative, abusive, and toxic marriage. Despite agonizing confusion and fear, she chose to escape it.
And so have I. But the reason I’m writing/posting this is to ask: What do you all make of what happened? Of what I went through. Was it that bad? Was it truly a crazy, traumatic mind fuck, or was it just a complex situation? I am not having second thoughts or feeling regret, but I do lose sight of the objective reality of it all, and I definitely find myself making that mental check frequently: I HAD to end it, right? There was no way I could have ever gotten to a place of love and respect ever again, right? I had to turn my kids’ and my own life upside down because there was no other way to move forward, right? I will in fact be better off and safer and healthier without him. Right??