I am in celebratory mood. Divorce can be a sad and stressful time for may people, but for this particular fruitloop it’s a cause for much celebration.
Hands up anyone who’s tried to divorce a narcissistic psychopath. OK, so in the absence of my being able to actually see you right now, I guess I should give the heads-up for anyone who suspects that they’re married to a narcissistic psycho and wondering how to achieve such a mind-blowing coup.
Rule Number One:
Just remember, you can’t divorce a narcissistic psycho because they won’t let you. Use reverse psychology. Apply for a divorce. Wait about 8 weeks before they slap an anti-suit injunction on you. Haha! that’s a good one, because they don’t want you to divorce them, they have to divorce you.
Rule Number Two:
Be damn sure you have money to burn. I’m talking eye-wateringly, serious amounts of money that could be used for something far more constructive like your children’s education or your shrink bills. You’ll need the best lawyer you can afford. Firstly, because you have to deal with someone who is more cunning than a friggin weasel and has the charm of one of those guys who do tricks with a snake in a basket. You simply must have a lawyer who’s got teeth and balls. Frisk the bugger’s crotch and ask him to open his mouth. I’M SERIOUS. We all know though, that lawyers with a full set of teeth and mammoth balls don’t come cheap.
Secondly, remember… the psycho will always try to out-do you. They simply have to have the best lawyer. It’s a matter of entitlement. So, you can’t be caught with your pants down and relying on the legal skills of a toothless, impotent, eunuch when he wheels in the big guns.
Rule Number Three:
Patience. Be prepared for the longest, most acrimonious, frustrating, expensive, divorce and settlement in f**ing history. The narcissistic psycho will get these expensive lawyers to communicate about all possible minutiae from weekly letters regarding access to the dog, to a spreadsheet showing who owns the contents of the bloody refrigerator. I jest not! Oh, and you’ll need to sort out that anti-suit injunction.
Rule Number Four:
Keep your marbles intact. There will be times when you get to read and respond to their 100th solemnly sworn affidavit, and you’ll wonder if you’ve lost the plot. These things are amazingly convincing works of fiction, and reading them will make you want to vomit…you’ll probably want to slit your wrists too! DON’T. Sure, they’ll contain a grain of truth, but the truth will be so twisted that you’ll doubt your own sanity. Reach for the diary, the photographic evidence, the forensic accounting report and the bloody Valium….but keep your marbles intact.
Rule Number Five:
When the decree absolute comes through, and he sends you a pompous message reading “I find it so very pleasing that I have finally stopped your divorce and divorced you” …….f**ing well CELEBRATE! You will be finally free of the bastard.
Today, I celebrated with a spot of fly posting around the village. This weekend I am having an enormous party.
BECAUSE DIVORCE IS EXPENSIVE….. BUT FREEDOM IS PRICELESS!
It was a beautiful Memorial Day Weekend a few years ago. I had gone with a good friend to the Indianapolis 500. I was very recently divorced and my son, age 8, was with his dad at an amusement park fairly close to our house. I had just returned to the area when my ex-husband called with a pretty horrifying story. His normally tough-as-nails mother had called him, hysterical, saying something about a pool, but he couldn’t make out anything else she was saying. He was on his way back to town, but in the meantime asked me to look for his mom.
So, I did. I think I knew all along what I would find. I knew my brother and sister-in-law were having a pool installed for my niece and nephew, ages 5 and 8. I stopped at a couple of places where I knew they hung out with no luck, so I headed for the hospital.
I went to the ER desk and told them who I was looking for. Just the last name, mind you. Immediately, the front desk person said I could come in the back. I didn’t know that meant really bad news. I said, “No, I can wait out here, no problem,” but she insisted. Into the back I went, and immediately I was confused. There was my mother-in-law, surprisingly calm, or so it seemed. I went to her, and she said it was my niece, it had been the pool where the football cookout had been held, my niece had been missed but there were too many toys in the pool to see her at the bottom.
A lot of the aftermath is a blur now. I went to my brother and sister-in-law, who were holding my niece’s body. She looked perfect and beautiful, but blue. I remember my sister-in-law looking at her almost reverently. I remember sitting on the curb outside the ER, waiting for my ex-husband to get there so I could tell him. I remember my son’s horrified face as he saw her as it sunk in that he would never argue with her again over who got the middle part of the back seat. And I remember the feeling of absolute hopelessness that I couldn’t protect him from that, or from the other ugly things in life.
That night, something broke inside me. I went to bed that night knowing things would not be better in the morning. My sister-in-law’s wails echoing in my ears.
It’s been years now. My sister and brother-in-law are doing as well as I think anyone could and I was diagnosed with PTSD. I thought I had a good handle on it, but I got a comment from someone that brought it all back. This person told me she hoped someone in my family, like my child, got sick so I could understand why she missed a ton of work.
For the last five years, I’ve been lying to everyone; my parents, my children, social services, but most of all, myself.
My “courtship” with my husband lasted just three months before we became engaged. A year and a month after we met, I married him. I blindly ignored the warnings from my parents, my loved ones, and my own eyes. I thought I could change him. He would be better after the wedding, when all the stress was gone.
How wrong was I?
Within months of our marriage, what I saw scared me, but I decided to stay, thinking, “I can still change him. I can make him better!” I was so arrogant!
We had just conceived our first child when he sprained my arm. I told myself that it was an accident and justified it to everyone else.
His sister assaulted me when I was pregnant. He put me down in front of his parents. His mother assaulted me many times. They told me it was my fault. It was all my fault. Everything was always my fault.
What’s worse is that I genuinely believed them!
They threatened to take my baby away from me if I left. I was so scared of them, I stayed.
Now that WAS my fault! I should have left, but I didn’t!
He raped me the first time when our daughter was just five days old. I can still remember the searing agony that tore through my whole body as he did it! The tears and cuts burning with fire, my screams mingling with those of our daughter who was in the same room as us! That was my fault too apparently. After that, I had to have treatment for an erosion in the womb. That was also entirely my fault.
He was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Now he had something else to justify his treatment of me. He “needed” round the clock care, an excuse to stop me from working.
He moved me away from my parents to an isolated town and wouldn’t let me visit them. My parents still blame me for that, as if I had a choice!
After our second child was born, the abuse got worse and worse. I confided in my midwife about him raping me when our daughter was five days old. She and all the other midwives we saw made a point of reminding him that sex wasn’t allowed before my six week check. Normally a woman is signed off by the midwife within days of giving birth. They visited me for over a month to protect me. As soon as my six week check was over, the rape began again. This time almost every night and sometimes while I was asleep.
I haven’t slept for almost two years! I began to crave the oblivion of deep sleep, but I couldn’t because of the fear of what he would do to me while I slept. Twice he raped me anally because I had a period. If he wasn’t doing that, he would say things like, “I was hoping to have sex with you, but I can’t because you’re bleeding,” as if it were somehow my fault for being a woman.
That wasn’t the end of the emotional abuse. There was always shouting and yelling. The police were called. Social services were called twice. He isolated me more and more from our friends and would only let me go out with one of the children at a time.
He’d lock me in the house and “forget” to leave my key behind. Sometimes, he would move my keys, and when I wasn’t looking, would put them somewhere I’d already looked. I thought I was going mad!
When our son was five months old, we went on holiday with his family. While we were there, he dragged me out of the room by my legs in front of our daughter and threw me out into the rain with no shoes and no coat. When he finally let me in half an hour later, I had to sit in my wet clothes feeding our son, while his mother lectured me on how the whole thing was my fault.
A week later, I was rushed into hospital with chest pains. Everyone noticed the bruises and three people made separate calls to social services on my behalf. They sent two police officers out that night to check on the children and me. It was so humiliating! He would never let me speak to men because as far as he was concerned, I was cheating on him with every single man I spoke to.
While I was visiting my parents, he kissed another woman. I wish I’d left him then! But I listened to his sob story about how he was really going to change this time! He did change …for the worse.
In November 2012, his brother assaulted me. I had to go to hospital and was on crutches for six weeks because my sciatic nerve had gone into spasm. I lied in the hospital and said that I’d fallen in the kitchen. I was so scared that my children would be taken from me this time.Do you know how much sex hurts when you have sciatica? Especially when it’s rape.
In May 2013, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. The doctor believes there is a link between Fibromyalgia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That was another excuse to isolate me further from everyone. I wasn’t allowed to do housework because I was “too ill.” I’d given up fighting him. I was so far into my shell, I couldn’t even care for our children.
He slowly crushed me to the point that I didn’t know any different.
We had a visit from our new health visitor. He told her that he was afraid of bathing our daughter because he was afraid of having sexual feelings for her. I was shocked and scared, but I didn’t know what to do! I should have left him there and then, but I couldn’t! I was paralyzed by five years of emotional, financial, and sexual abuse. He’d groomed me for this very eventuality so that I wouldn’t leave him!
The next day a social worker turned up with two police officers who seized all of our computer equipment. They told me that I needed to get the children out of the house. I replied that if they were going, I would be going too. They agreed.
My children have been protected by social services for three months now. I’ve ended the relationship and am seeking help for the abuse. Social services are being as helpful as they can be, but the health visitor thinks I should have left and should not have my children back. She thinks I’m a failure as a mother.
Maybe I am. I should have left. I should have sought help sooner. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I obviously don’t deserve my children. Obviously love isn’t enough!
I’m having some kind of weird mid-life crisis, though I don’t know if being just shy of thirty counts as “mid.” Either way, my main problem is that I just want to be left the hell alone. Of course, wanting to be left alone and actually being left alone are two completely different things, and the sad truth is that I will never be left alone.
It’s not due to the bipolar depression, although I know damn well it’s a contributing factor on my worse days; it’s simply because I’m tired. I’m tired of going through the motions of my daily life, getting up early to tend to all manner of things. I’m tired of everyone in my household demanding something from me at all times, whether it’s my daughters, who want/need all of my attention since they are both so young, or my husband wanting to constantly have sex, or even the damn cat for bitching about not having food even though his food bowl is completely full. (The cat is an idiot).
I have no friends – all of them live in a different state because we moved away 2 years ago in order for my husband to pursue a new job opportunity in the northwest. We have family not too far from where we are, but we barely see them as it is, so they wouldn’t dare step in and watch the kids in order for me to get the hell away for a little while.
A few days ago, one of my friends told me to come visit her so we could go on a bender, and to be honest, I would fucking LOVE to! It would be an opportunity to get away and have some fun for once, since all of my hobbies have gone to shit since becoming a stay at home mum 5 years ago. However, even if we still lived close by, that bender would never happen because my husband, while a great guy, is insecure as fuck, and at times errs on the possessive side of things. He would be paranoid about me cheating on him even though I’ve been a million percent faithful.
Pretty much all of my time I try to reach some semblance of reprieve by burying myself in my laptop: reading the news, blogs, messaging friends or (my secret shame) reading and writing fan fiction. (Now The Band knows my horrible secret!) Sometimes I listen to music. Music is a major way for me to unwind, and the advent of Spotify has been very useful since I can listen to stuff that I’m too cheap to purchase via iTunes. My husband thinks that I have some kind of bizarre internet addiction, but that’s so far from the truth. I know this is a form of escapism.
This is my dilemma. I just want my family to back the shit off, but at the same time, it makes me feel like a terrible person. I don’t want to play with the kids. I don’t want to engage in “sexy time.” I don’t want to do the goddamn laundry or feed the goddamn cat.
I’m grumpy, I’m exhausted, and I’m just flat-out sick of everything!
Hi, Gen here, again. In my last post, I gave you all the details about the cycles I’ve been through, the HUGE number of procedures I’ve had done to my body and my quest to have both my first and my next child. I wrote that post as I was looking down the barrel of another Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET).
We had miscarried with my last try. It had been a fresh cycle which meant tons of shots taken both in my belly, (self-administered) and then in my backside (given to me by Sam, my husband.).
What my last post didn’t describe to you was the emotional roller coaster the past 3 1/2 years have been.
The hormones are a bitch. I didn’t react well to the estrogen but I had no choice but to continue to self-administer this excruciating medication. It killed me. Every swallow, every suppository, every injection ate away at me. And broke me down.
With my first child, I had to take a break after several unsuccessful cycles.
I sought out massage and acupuncture. I increased my cardio work-outs. I did more yoga. And I found my sanity.
The next cycle we got pregnant and stayed pregnant. It was a dream come true.
When Chloe was 10 months old, we started again.
We blew through our frozen embryos. My doctor recommended that I be sterilized in order to protect future embryos from the caustic fluid in my fallopian tubes.
We then did another fresh cycle. And we were pregnant! But I wasn’t in a good place. Sam and I had been arguing. The money we had been shelling out to build our family was taking a toll on us. My emotional instability was wearing us both down.
When we went for our first ultrasound the doctor didn’t see a heart beat. He assured us it wasn’t unusual at this point, only 5weeks, 4days.
We went for another ultrasound. Heartbeat! But the baby wasn’t as large as it should be. And the damn nurse practitioner had NO bedside manner and did NOTHING to assure us of anything, did not tell us be prepared for this pregnancy to be rough. Nothing. She didn’t offer to answer questions, her face stern and uninviting.
I hated her.
A third ultrasound showed that the baby was growing well, so that was a positive. At 8 weeks, my doctor released me to my OBGYN.
Sigh of relief.
Surprisingly, I was able to get into to see my OB the next week. We joked, it was good to see each other again. I made my usual inappropriate jokes about a dildo cam.
We were both still laughing when the image of our baby came on the screen.
And there was no heartbeat.
I was in shock.
The D&C was scheduled four days later.
I didn’t cry for three weeks.
Three months later it was time to try again. I had started working out again. Sam and I had been working on the house together and had found a new sitter who relieved a TON of stress we’d been suffering.
Life was good.
As I started meds, a friend recommended that I write a post for Band Back Together.
It scared me. I was afraid to feel this all over again. I was afraid it would wreck the fragile self I was holding on to so tightly.
But I did it. I was careful, I didn’t fall apart and I didn’t write from my heart.
We did the implant, we tested ten days later and had good numbers, we were pregnant.
And the real waiting game began. The mental challenge was laid before me, “hold it together for another two weeks.” Two days ago I asked Aunt Becky if I could write this post because I was a neurotic mess.
I took a home pregnancy test and was such a nervous wreck I did it wrong and invalidated it. I took another. It was positive but took SO long and how could I trust it?
I was wigging out!
Sam kept telling me to calm down. He asked, “What is it going to take for you to relax? One good ultrasound? Two? Another trimester?”
I said I didn’t know. The last pregnancy ruined me.
Every once in a great while my job requires me to go out of town, fine and dandy… extra money and all that jazz. Today I had to go to Cedar Rapids. Good enough…Today I’m driving… listening to my favorite morning radio talk show, laughing my ass off… Then I look over I see a sign.
Iowa City 40 Miles.
I stop laughing.
My chest tightens.
I can’t breathe.
My mind turns off.
I no longer hear the banter of the D.J.
I’m back there.
It’s the 4th of July and I’m back to the back seat of my mom’s Kia. My step dad is driving, my younger brother next to me, my mom in front… 85 miles an hour. I see that sign… Iowa City 40 Miles… There is no way we can beat the helicopter…We are all blank. Dead inside. They have my bubba… My sweet baby brother. We speed up. Hoping there are no cops… maybe hoping there are so we can drive faster.
My mom’s phone rings. It’s the hospital… They need a recorded permission to take him to surgery… My mother speaks with the courage of a thousand Roman soldiers. I hear the wavering in her voice. She’s not crying though. She can’t… None of us can. The Doctor. or whoever was on the other end of the phone asks for the details… What happened? We don’t know… He fell of course… how do you not know???? Everybody must know by now….How far??? We don’t know 50 – 75 feet maybe further, maybe not as far… The Doctor tells her nothing.
But we’re closer now…. Iowa City 27 Miles…
My mother is pleading with the surgeon to please not take him back yet. Let us see him… Let her see him… Before the surgery… It’s brain surgery for crying out loud… Just 27 miles… We’re almost there just please wait another 27 miles. They can’t. They have to take him back now…My step-dad drives faster…. We’re not going to make it in time. We all know it’s a waste of energy to try to make it there before they have to take him back… We still drive faster.
Iowa City 6 Miles…. 6 MILES we’re only 6 miles away from where he is… From where the doctors are performing miracles.. We are too late to see him. He’s already in surgery. We know this… We still drive faster… We’re there… FINALLY we’re there… We can’t find the entrance… There’s no “Panicking People To the Left” sign… There should be… (remind me to put that in the suggestion box). We go in… We can’t see… Still blank… It smells like sick people. Like fake real flowers and wax… There is a player piano… (I will later find this very disturbing and somewhat humorous.) Elevator… up… Okay, waiting room… We sit… and wait. The lady at the desk is clearly ready for her shift to be over. She tells us the surgery will last up to 4 hours…
4 hours… OK… 4 hours… How do you function for 4 hours while an 11 year old is having brain surgery??? We pace… We get a Pepsi… It has no taste… I think we talked about who was going to drive what car when this was all over… I don’t think we knew if this was going to be all over. Then my husband was there. The one who saved him, the one who scaled almost 45 feet down a bluff without shoes to save him. Blood stained and covered in mosquito bites. Blood. So much blood….
Then over the P.A. system my mothers is called to the triage desk. He’s done… He’s in post-op… He’s okay… or at least will be.. They won’t be able to tell until the next day or so if he has any brain damage, but the outlook is good. Over 200 stitches. I’m terrified to see his face. His sweet cherubic face cannot be tarnished. Post-op… The second worse place in the entire world. (Only to be outdone by the children’s cancer ward in Peoria… story for another day.) It’s sterile and cold. Dead. It smells worse than the lobby. Like saline and metal. They try to make it pretty with florals and leafy shit. It doesn’t work..
They let us see him, my mom first. He doesn’t say anything. Then me… Bandages cover his head. His face is swollen. He has a drainage tube coming from his head. It’s so cold. I lean down to kiss him, his warmth radiates through my entire body. My sweet bubba. He says nothing… He can’t; the drugs are still doing their job. Then my husband… He comes out crying. My brother told him thank you… The first words he managed were to tell him thank you. That still radiates deep. It was then I knew he would be OK. My bubba…
It all came back to me. In a red hot flash… Like a ton of bricks…The day my little brother fell 45 feet from a look out point at a park in a nearby town, while at a family reunion picnic. Thank God for my husband who scaled the bluff to try to rescue him and for my son who alerted us and for the amazing rescue team who was able to get him out. It was straight out of a Rescue 911 episode. Except real… and not re-enacted for your viewing pleasure.
I wasn’t afraid to drive to Iowa City. In fact the thought never had crossed my mind that it would sneak up and haunt me. But it did. I don’t do that. I don’t freak out. I deal well with most things. I cope well with most things. I think what scared me most was how it took me off guard. Then it was over as quickly as it started. The rest of my drive was fairly uneventful. Maybe this was my mourning. Maybe this was my way of closure and coping. I really don’t know. But now… He sleeps. On my couch. I had to go pick him up… I had to be with him tonight.
His face isn’t tarnished, except for a small Harry Potter-esqe scar on his forehead. His back is still sensitive. He did suffer a compression fracture to his spine after all… But HE his fine. He is still my sweet amazing cocky little brother. He still gets in trouble at school and gets mouthy with my mom. We are so lucky to have him. I could not imagine my life with out him. I thank the good Lord every day for that. My sweet bubba.
It was a beautiful Memorial Day Weekend a few years ago. I had gone with a good friend to the Indianapolis 500. I was very recently 