So sorry. I just can't think of anything other than......"And he says you were the one that was crazy!"

Hope you keep records of all this.

Totally agree with you, Dadda.

Odd statements... what would be really funny (and probably useful) would be to catalogue all the weird and carzy things that come out of an N's mouth!!

Some of the gems I can recall from him:
- "I dont want to have friends because I am too intelligent and complex to connect with average people"
- "I don't want to be a part-time boyfriend" (said after I had been spending 90%+ of my free time with him for 2.5 years, but obviously not enough...)
- "You dont take enough of an interest in the things that interest me." (how much does he know about what interests me?? lol)

The pictures exchange you describe is shocking though. Worse thing is, it is always hard to realise when something really abusive or shocking comes out of their mouth or translates in their behaviour that this is actually bad.... It always hits later, and we feel like fools. I dont know why. Its like one of these animals that inject an anesthetic to their prey before eating them... By the time they have been devoured they just about realised what was happening and its already too late!

My favorite two are

"I can't help it if women fall in love with me" - what he would say after I questioned him about some of his emotional closeness with female friends.

"When I watch the kids my only job is to make sure they still have a pulse when you get home" - he would tell me this when I asked why kids had not been fed all day (he had eaten) or he would even say this to other adults as a "joke" when talking about child care.

and another

when asked how many time I should forgive him for the same act when he showed no signs of change "every time, without question"

OMG the anger I carried around with me for so long not being able to explain to people what it was like dealing with these kinds of comments and behaviors. It feels so odd that a week ago I hadn't connected with any of you, I feel like I found my home planet!
Thanks for this post Dadda. Neodyme the animal analogy is so perfect I don't feel like an idiot anymore knowing other intelligent people have been through this too.

Livelife: haha! There is a "saying" in church that if you are married, you just don't hang out with the opposite sex. But I know there are some people that feel it "necessary" to have opposite sex "friendships" even when they are with someone. Religion aside, I never felt comfortable with that. I have never met a male who REALLY "just wants to be friends".

I keep forgetting how dangerous I am now that I am in the throes of divorce ... again, haha. Just remember to stay away from people's husbands so I don't make enemies.

I used to come home from work and he would be engrossed in conversation with the woman whose daughter came over with ours after school (after I found her wandering around the park with no ride home in kindergarten ... the bus just took off and the driver apparently didn't have a problem with letting 5 year olds wander unattended!). Those "chats" would often go on for an hour and somehow, neither of them ever included me!

I'd be cleaning and getting ready to prepare dinner while he would be kicking back against the kitchen cupboards, either he would call or she would - the wife of a guy from church ... several times a week... they would be laughing and chatting, too and again, no "me inclusion".

When we were divorced, I found out later that he briefly dated a former co-worker AND the director of the summer "day camp" the girls attended. I know THAT was to try to get dirt. His mother wanted to get an Amish girl to move in and I suppose, marry. I think they are possibly more submissive than I am (I read my Bible! And I am not submitting to someone who doesn't even give their own responsibilities "lip service".

Yes, that was another famous saying I forgot: "Submit."

Faithtoday, I feel "idiotic" at times too, but really, the way we are designed, we ARE SUPPOSED TO BE trustworthy and able to trust. They usually aren't blatant, especially at first, otherwise the alarms would ring very loudly. And those first few arguments or problems with anyone ... I think it's hard to tell again, whether a person has a "major problem" unless they are breaking things or hitting or just doing something really "out there".

I know I am "book smart" (so many tests I have had!) but not always the most "street smart". I USED to think I could be devious, but I still can't even fathom some things he has done and things he accuses me of, and things I hear from y'all. It is like they study law to set up an offense and knock you while your head is still spinning. Must be "creep stuff" that jerks discuss, because I never saw him reading any books, except for airplanes, some humor and politics/prophecy (especially New World Order stuff).

Neodyme: yes, shocking ... mostly, though the "humor" stuff was the "lowest" form of humor - stuff about feces, pictures of retarded looking people set up to look stupid, racist. I'm not great at telling jokes or stories, but this stuff they were sharing reminded me of what grade school kids MIGHT find funny. I don't know how many guys do this, but I have met too many who think it's funny as all get out (and somehow, they don't think it affects their attractiveness) to raise their legs, fart loudly and just have a grand old time ...

I still can't even think what goes through the mind of a "father" who is passing around pix to OTHER "fathers" of topless girls looking no older than their own daughters (and knowing there must be some lusting going on ... ). Do they even connect or do they REALLY NOT CARE about the kind of male that would approach their own daughter? How bout one of the guys who is sending the pix round?

There was something else that came into my mind that was classic and slipped away. Hope it comes back.

"when asked how many time I should forgive him for the same act when he showed no signs of change "every time, without question" That is another one, Livelifenow. Again, I go to my Bible, buy psychology will work just as well. People often learn when they are kids that they can get out from punishment by saying the Magic Words: "I'm sorry" even when they are not. Instead of helping kids learn by directing their thoughts into the future (what the consequences could have been) OR what the other person is actually possibly experiencing, it's just the Magic Words.

Even people sincerely WANTING and TRYING to change find it's not as easy as just making the decision - habits are ingrained. And if YOU are watching the person who is trying or pretending to try to change, you might freak when you see them going back to the old way before they catch themself of they get a reminder. But in my case, for example, he wasn't sorry about cheating, he (and she) weren't even sorry about getting caught. In fact, they were just more PO'd about how I screwed up their good time! If they are not trying and they are causing problems, destruction, you can't (and definitely, don't HAVE TO, ever, although ultimately, when you or I have better understanding,it's better to release the anger and all else, for our own sake) forgive .... because "technically" they haven't done anything "wrong"! But, you don't have to accept it or ignore it either ... that would be part of that enabling, anyway and you will just have to do more and more (I put my foot down about going out and working, especially, I was NOT going to drive 40 miles for a job. If he wants me to make more, then he would have had to compromise, change some things so that I wouldn't have all the hardships I did. Guess he figured "this way" is the "easier route" to big money again. Sure hope I am not around to see the ending of it all, having had to deal with my own consequences of "prideful stupidity" in past!)

Wow! my Nh has said some of the same things, almost verbatim.
There must be some kind of How to be an A@#hole book that
they all study.

I've struggled for many years about the whole apology and now
I'm trying harder thing. In the face of the same cycle being repeated
over and over again, I don't think forgiveness is in order.

I remember my N mother in law pulled some crazy crap on me (she
used to have me cornered at family gatherings and everyone would
pile in on me and tell me what I was doing wrong--lovely) Anyway she
sent me a Disney version of Winnie the Pooh entitled "Forgive and Forget"
It was the weirdest thing as the book was written at a kindergarten level.
But I think in her mind I was clearly in the wrong not to immediately
forgive and FORGET her bullying and I was acting like a child/crazy to be mad.

I think in the N's twisted selfish mind, the justified anger of the abused is
a far worse crime than whatever it is that the N did. They are GOD after all.

betty, Yes, even after bullying the crap out of a person, they somehow always still perceive themselves as the victim in the situation when their victim gets angry and calls them on the carpet. We "lowly" humans are supposed to put up and shut up with any bad behavior that they feel like dishing out. If at anytime you, the normal human, want to discuss their bad behavior, they look at you like you are speaking a foreign language and then proceed to give you a good dose of the silent treatment. I'm so thankful that I no longer have to endure the xNh's emotional BS. Peace is a wonderful thing.

Betty, I got the whole "forgive and forget" (but not the Pooh book) from MY MIL, so I suppose you have hit the nail on the head. There must be a N "finishing school" that runs by correspondence or some such thing ... you know those weird adverts in the backs of magazines and all (How to dazzle them all ... how to get your way ... maybe they get suckered in, who knows, but they obviously buy into it by the time they graduate).

I started taping a lot of our interactions a long time ago. I had this fantasy (as it turns out) that someone would actually DO something, if they could hear what was going on ... yeah, right. It did help me quit reacting to his barbs so much ... I also figured though, if I could identify where the breakdown was occurring ... which just so happened to be wherever I diverged from what I began to identify as "the script". I can still remember my audacity - I would say something he didn't like and all of a sudden, there was this finger pointing directly at me, "YOU ---------" "YOU ----------" I mean all I really remember was his booming out the word YOU, punctuated with his finger and whatever my crimes of the moment were ... the day before he took off with the other woman, we sat in the hospital; I walked into the room, surprised to see the chaplain. The previous weeks had been full of lies and triangulations, which I was not aware of ... I was aware that I was so miserable I was going to look for a new place to live (almost glad he took off because it really would have sucked to have left, THEN found out the truth, because our daughters were up in arms against me, too) ... he had the nerve to BLAME ME for EVERYTHING and said "it's because she takes psychiatric medicine." WOW what a "man" ... he was nearly dead a year before; I've been worried nearly sick ABOUT HIM and this is what I hear told to the chaplain?? Who was originally referred to us because of his violent mood swings (which started about the time he met this nurse he was taking off with, as I realized in retrospect), which I attributed to his medications or depression? The last "peace" I remember for sure was June 1, 2003 after I finally made it back to my apartment with the girls. After getting screamed at, told I had to take the giant dog (which he knew I could not) and having the state police called, because our daughters got so scared they wouldn't leave with me ... after all the crap, I was finally able to sink into bed and not worry about a thing ... for a couple days. Peace is wonderful ... just not common enough.

dadda, unfotunately my Peace died yesterday. For sure, it is not common enough. Just when you think you have made progress of moving forward, letting go, thinking and feeling healthy, then WHAMMO - Another round of crap hits the fan. Will I ever be free from it? God help me.

I'm sorry about that, HealingT, even when the going gets tough, though, there is a part of me that is oh-so-defiant because I NOW KNOW BETTER. I know that those who can only destroy but not do the right thing or be constructive or helpful really aren't much, when it gets down to it. Oh, so you can torture me?? Whoop de do,guess that makes you ... squat, unless you can also do something quite the opposite. I know that may not be the most helpful, but it does help me maintain the more correct perspective on some people's so-called "talents". And maybe why I was able to face the judge in 2003 and get thrown in jail ... rather than give in to fear and ENSURE a continuation of same BS ... day in day out. Maybe the progress you are making just doesn't look the way you expect it to, either. Just keep it in mind, it might or might not be so ...

Everytime mine comes across a woman that says hello to me he grins and says "trailer trash" or "fat ugly cow". I find it awful as just about all my friends are labelled in this way. I often wonder what its all about.

Shrek xxx

Ladies,

Many Ns try to isolate you from your friends. The most direct way to do that is to demean them or say that they are not truly friends. Try not to let him determine who your friends are . . . true friends will stand by you no matter what he says of them or to them.

Although my NH has finally stopped doing this, earlier he was very quick to judge my friends . . . even those he had never met. Just shows his stupidity in that some of them are now his friends too. He has admitted he was wrong about most of my friends who are male, but seems to have more difficult in connecting with the female ones. This is sort of a backhanded complement in that the women he tends to dislike are the stronger ones. His loss. Again, don't allow you N to pick and choose your friends. He is not qualified to identify a true friend if he tripped over one. Hugs.