[Visioneer]

This is a rather long post, sorry :P

I broke up with my X-fiance in 2001. Two years ago (2006) this month, my X-fiance's now wife (I'll call her Jane for the purpose of anonymity) called my parents looking for me. She told my father that she felt she had been lied to by everyone about what he was really like. She said that she wanted to talk to me, and had also been in contact with other women he had been involved with, some at the same time, unbeknownst to some of us.

Some back-story; we lived in a dumpy trailer out in the country. We were totally isolated. I'll write later some of the things he did during our relationship. The straw that broke the camel's back (after two years of emotional and mental abuse at the hands of what I now know as a "Malignant Narcissist")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_narcissism
was when he started a relationship online with a woman from the United States (we are from Canada). He would spend hours talking to her online, forget to pick me up from work (or just say he forgot), chat with her into the night when he couldn't keep his eyes open to talk to me at that hour. He sent her pictures of himself and neglected to mention that his fiance had taken them. She was a stripper, and around this time he decided he was going to open a strip club, going as far as registering a business name. When I finally realized what was going on, I moved back in with my parents hoping that we could start from a clean slate. At that point he broke off our engagement. I was completely destroyed by his rejection, after all I had been through. I got very, very drunk and stayed that way for a long time. Soon after we broke up, his parents called my house asking if I knew his whereabouts, as he had been inexplicably missing from work for two weeks and no one could find him. Though I was extremely worried by this, I did not return their call. A few months later I found out through a mutual acquaintance that he had been down in the USA with the stripper he began a relationship with while we were still together. He was trying to bring her to Canada and marry her. After a few more heavily drunken months on my part, he popped back into my life, showing up at the restaurant where I worked. I was so scared that it made me physically ill. He showed up numerous times and I ignored him, until I finally left the kitchen to find out what he wanted. Secretly I hoped that he would want me back, as I was still unhealthily in love with him. He also owed me about a thousand dollars at that time (which he still has not payed back), so I was hoping he would make some restitution. Against my better judgment, and the wishes of my parents, our relationship began again. His behaviour then only cemented what I already knew deep inside; he was no good for me, or anyone. He had a fit of road rage in which we chased another car for miles. He once prevented a van from passing us on a country road by speeding up and refusing to let them back into the lane. He had fits of temper at small things. He went from showering me with attention to ignoring every effort I made to share my self with him. Jane would later tell me that he was still carrying on relationships with her self as well the stripper during this period. I smartened up and broke it off. This only served as a catalyst for his temper. He began staking out my workplace and home. I spent nights in the apartment above the restaurant so that I wouldn't have to go outside. The other staff of the restaurant would tell him I was not there. He would sit in his car in the parking lot and rev the engine, and drive mad circles around the building so that I couldn't leave without facing him. One night he showed up drunk at my parents' house, drove up on the neighbour's front lawn, and when my brother opened the door he pushed his way past him and into the living room mumbling about velcro and glue, likening our time together to glue as opposed to velcro meaning that we should stay together. Then he laid down and went to sleep on the living room floor. After a short while my brother roused him and kicked him out. Thankfully I had chosen to stay at the restaurant that night and wasn't home. After avoiding him for a while and ignoring what he did, he left me alone. Time passed and I heard that he had married another woman he met online, Jane, who had a five year old girl from a previous relationship, and that they were expecting twins. One night a few months later, he showed up at the restaurant again, this time with the little girl in tow. One of the servers came back to the kitchen to warn me that he was there, as was standard practice. Most of the staff knew he was an alcoholic, and soon cut him off. I felt so sorry for that little girl. After sharing emails with Jane I learned that this was supposed to be a father-daughter night out, and this was how he had chosen to spend it, getting drunk in plain view of me. That was the last time I saw or heard from him.

I continued to drink heavily in the following years to block out everything that had happened. I would have nightmares and flashbacks. I was afraid I would see him everywhere. I watched constantly for his car, fearing that he would show up wherever I was. I remained single for most of the intervening years, except for brief stints with people that would never have worked out, including another narcissist who reminded me a lot of X, which made it really easy to fall back into the old patterns. I smartened up once again and went through another faze of stalking behaviour, ignoring it until it went away.

Back to two years ago; My father gave Jane my cell number (something I never would have agreed to) and she proceeded to call me numerous times, and I refused to answer. I wanted nothing to do with her or my X. She gave my father her email address, and he passed it on to me. After some deliberation I made a throw-away email address and wrote her asking what she wanted. She told me some disturbing things.

He still had every poem and piece of correspondence, some of them of an extremely personal nature, that had ever passed between us, and kept them spread out around their house, refusing to put them away. He kept racy photos of me out for all to see. He kept the mail that continued to come for me after I moved out. From her conversations with the stripper, Jane learned that he had vilified me during their relationship, while to Jane he made me out to be angelic, that I could do no wrong. He compared us sexually, saying that he favoured me because of my petite frame (she is larger). He insisted at times on calling out my name during their sexual encounters. My parents had been receiving late-night hang-up phone calls for the past few years, and she confirmed that he had been calling their house looking for me, she had checked their phone records to find this out. He told her of fantasies of them having sex in the restaurant parking lot for my "benefit". She told me that X had concurrently carried on relationships with all three of us, Jane and the stripper both from the USA, and possibly a fourth in British Columbia, during the brief period when we got back together. I asked her if he knew where I worked or lived, if she knew of his following me or anything I should be aware of. She said he might know where I work, but that was all. She said that there had been police involvement in their relationship, though she didn't specify what happened (I assume it was for domestic disputes), and that she had been in hospital several times for stress because of his abusive behaviour. Fearing for her safety, I recommended some local shelters that have a low profile (are disguised as regular houses) which could care for her and her children in case of an emergency. I sent links to websites about narcissism and abuse, and assured her she was not crazy, he was abusive. The hardest part about emotional abuse is that it leaves no marks. It makes it very hard to leave.

I always told my self that if he hit me, I would leave him. Thinking that Jane may need information as an example for police or a child custody hearing, I told her some of the things that X had done during our relationship. On the short list would be going through my personal belongings and accusing me of hiding things, going though my journal and accusing me of lying, throwing the journal at me, making me burn all of my journals so that we wouldn't have a repeat episode, writing snide poetry and stabbing a pen through it into the bed, getting drunk and ignoring me for days, being cold and refusing me affection, refusing to hold my hand or be affectionate with me in front of others, would use music as a weapon by selecting songs that he knew would fit the situation and carry his message, and then blasting them for hours, believed he was superior to most people, ignored my needs and accomplishments, having fits of anger and punching things, calling me and making mistrustful accusations when I went to see friends, finally disallowing me to have contact with my friends, belittling my beliefs, drinking too much and landing in the hospital after being rude to my friends and storming out, ruining my birthday by being rude to my family, then storming out carrying a large knife and ending up cutting himself with it so I had to find us a ride to the hospital, once when I was begging for affection he basically raped me, saying in a snarling voice right in my face, "Is this what you wanted? Huh?", ignoring me any time I was sad, the night my grandfather died he refused to comfort me, ignored me and then went to sleep so that he wouldn't have to deal with me, refusing to attend my grandfather's funeral with me and my family and then calling me at my family's home to accuse me of abandoning him, threatening suicide when I tried to break up with him, shoving me during a minor disagreement, purposely damaging or being careless with my belongings, being extremely defensive during any discussion, every serious talk ended in a fight, some nights I was afraid to come home from work because he had a habit of springing fights on me when I walked in the door... I could probably go on. I would lie in bed and cry every night. During our relationship I tried very hard to excuse him of these behaviours because his adoptive father had been an abusive alcoholic and he had had a hard life, getting in trouble at school, being homeless for a period after he was kicked out by his parents. After I told her all of this, she said she wanted to meet with me and tell me her story, even inviting me over to their house while he was at work. I refused, saying that I had already had more involvement in the situation than I was comfortable with. She emailed me a couple more times, and then I got rid of the email address and haven't checked it since. The last I heard from them is when Jane messaged me on Facebook to say that things were "different now", I don't know exactly how, and I don't want to know. I never replied.

After I broke up with him I used to have flashbacks and would literally see him in front of me, see where we used to live and feel like I was back there. I have to look at my surroundings very quickly and remind my self of where I am and that I'm ok now. I have several times broken down in thankfulness that it is over, once finding my self sitting in the linen closet :P I had dreams over and over that I was back there with him, that I had never left. I would dream about him breaking up with me over and over. I drank my self to the point of passing out every night because it prevented me from dreaming. When sober, I had a recurring dream where I would suddenly be transported into the trailer where he and his wife and children lay sleeping, and have to tiptoe out. Then the dream would begin again, every time getting closer and closer to daybreak, hearing them stir, trying to get out before I was caught in their home. Then he would chase me. I started OCD behaviours, which I still have; if I even think X's name, I have to repeat my current boyfriend's name over and over until I forget what I thought. I do this to block out any thought of that time. This is the first time I have actively tried to think about all of this since my correspondence with Jane two years ago, after which I finally got rid of everything that could possibly remind me of him, even clothes I had worn at the time when we were together, pictures, trinkets, gifts he had given me; I attempted to erase it all from my life as though it had never happened. Lately I have not been able to stop the thoughts, which is why I am writing this, to get it out.

I am still afraid of him.

Thankfully I am in a relationship with a person who is nothing like X, and I'm very happy, I just wish I could let the past go.

[Visioneer]

I forgot to mention that X also told Jane that he and I were still in contact and that he could have me back any time he wanted, which I assured her was a lie.