May 16, 2023
Domestic Abuse SURVIVOR: An Anonymous Submission (Part 3/3) I Ep. 12
This is part 3 and the conclusion of an anonymous submission previously released on "Another Situation" podcast in October 2021. She never thought it could happen to her, but the author found herself trapped in an abusive relationship filled with unpredictable rages, constant gaslighting, and emotional manipulation. In this powerful and emotional episode, she shares her personal journey and the red flags that were present early on, escalating into a toxic cycle of abuse. The author rev...
This is part 3 and the conclusion of an anonymous submission previously released on "Another Situation" podcast in October 2021.
She never thought it could happen to her, but the author found herself trapped in an abusive relationship filled with unpredictable rages, constant gaslighting, and emotional manipulation. In this powerful and emotional episode, she shares her personal journey and the red flags that were present early on, escalating into a toxic cycle of abuse. The author reveals how she even recorded one of these rages to confront her ex-partner, only to be met with defensiveness and further threats.
This story takes a darker turn as the author discusses surviving a narcissistic relationship and the devastating impact it had on her life. She was made to question her own sanity, her parenting abilities, and even her faith, all while being told that she was the cause of the problems in the relationship. But through seeking help and connecting with others who have been through similar experiences, she found the strength to trust her instincts and recognize when something was off in a relationship.
The road to recovery wasn't easy, but the author shares the steps she took to break free from the emotional roller coaster caused by covert narcissistic abuse. Escaping the control and manipulation of her ex-partner took time, but the resources that helped her heal and move forward are invaluable. By sharing her story, the author hopes to empower others to recognize the signs of an unhealthy relationship and find the strength to leave and rebuild their lives. Join me on this journey of healing and self-discovery, and find hope in knowing that you are not alone.
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
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- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
00:00 - Abusive Relationship Red Flags
11:00 - Surviving a Narcissistic Relationship
23:05 - Escaping Covert Narcissistic Abuse
33:51 - Surviving Narcissistic and Abusive Relationships
WEBVTT
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Hi Warriors, you're listening to 1-3 and I'm your host, ingrid.
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Over the last two weeks I have shared parts 1 and 2 of an anonymous submission.
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The author has taken us along with her description of what seemed to start out as a perfect relationship.
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But nothing is perfect.
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She describes love, bombing and gaslighting behaviors, along with financial, emotional, psychological and reactive abuse.
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If you haven't listened to episodes 10 or 11, i suggest you do so, because today is part 3 and the conclusion.
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Just as a reminder, this is told from a first person point of view.
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So recap red flags were kind of present in the first episode.
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Red flags were clearly present in the second episode And she finds out that he had been cheating and ends with he gave me two STDs.
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So here is part 3.
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He would have rages was unpredictable and I never knew when it would occur.
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I could say something I felt was funny and he would laugh.
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But the next time he may get angry, rage and storm out of the door for the same thing.
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His anger was my fault.
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No one had ever made him this angry before.
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If only I could be a better partner to him, he wouldn't be so angry, he wouldn't need to cheat, he wouldn't feel so alone and need to talk to other women.
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I was walking on eggshells.
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He raged and stormed out of multiple public venues Always my fault for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to him.
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I remember being at Topgolf and one of the lights were out on the sign.
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He said he could hit it that far and make more lights go out.
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One of my kids, in a fun teasing way, said yeah, let's see it.
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He flipped out.
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He started raging at all of us saying you are all making fun of me.
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I'm not dealing with that anymore, especially from little kids.
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And I said lightly we aren't making fun of you.
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Go have fun and hit the ball.
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We are just joking around.
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So he sat back down and pouted like a toddler, crossed arms and everything.
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He said I'm not hitting the ball anymore, i'm not playing anymore.
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I said fine, i'm sorry if anything we said offended you, but none of us meant it that way.
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We were having fun and joking.
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He said he didn't like it and was bothered by it and we should respect that and not joke around like that.
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I responded with okay, i'm sorry you took it that way.
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He got up and started yelling that's not even an apology by saying you took it that way.
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He cussed and screamed and grabbed his kids and stormed out.
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The next day he texted, like always.
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Well, i later brought it up and told him I was concerned with what happened, especially in front of the kids, that it even worried me that his kids just followed him out like it was normal behavior.
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His response was that his kids were obedient and well behaved, so of course they followed him, whereas mine are terrible and disrespectful.
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So of course they would have questioned me.
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If the situation were reversed, sure, he would rage and call me names.
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I was regularly called a retard, a child, a high schooler, a mean girl, a bitch and a cunt.
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He said I was manipulative, shifty, a liar.
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He would tell me I have so many character flaws.
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Or he would speak to me like a child.
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When I asked him to stop speaking to me like a child, his response would be that he has to speak to me that way because I am a child.
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I started recording conversations and recorded one long rage attack on me.
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I showed it to him and let him listen to it.
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I told him it was abuse and it cannot happen ever again.
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Where I was leaving, he got extremely defensive, saying never to use the word abuse again as it would ruin his career and that if I didn't always make him so mad then he wouldn't need to rage.
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He also added that if I ever brought it up again, he would ruin me for recording the rage in the first place.
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He brought it up over and over again for the next several years, always an example of what I made him do.
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He raged many times after that, but that was the first Years.
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I was just thinking the same thing.
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Once again he said it was always a wrong time to bring things up.
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I couldn't bring them up immediately because I had to ask permission to speak and if I waited it's because I didn't care enough.
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I would try to explain and talk to him, but he wouldn't accept any of my explanations.
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He would call them excuses.
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I tried and tried.
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I journaled, went back to see what I had done wrong, what I could have done better for next time, but the answers were never there.
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It was exhausting Things I laid my heart out about and was vulnerable about, things that hurt me in the past, or my worries and concerns I had, he would seem to support at first, then come back and use against me later.
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I couldn't have my own opinions.
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It wasn't that he actually said that, but when I had my own opinions that differed from his, it would inevitably cause an argument and a fight.
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So I just started keeping my opinions to myself And that turned into him saying that I had nothing of value to add to conversations, that I only spoke on a superficial level, that I was superficial and shallow and not very smart.
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He would say that I have nothing of substance to add to anything.
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I realized it was because when I did add anything or my own opinions, they would be shot down.
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I would be questioned on it.
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He would ask me where I got my information from to form my opinion and then ask me to actually show him where I got it from.
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Like it was a test at school and I had to provide references.
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If I was unable to provide the actual references, he would tell me my thoughts and opinions were not accurate and invalid My gosh.
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But did he provide references for his?
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Nope, he even did this down to my religion.
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My faith and beliefs are very important to me.
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I intend church regularly and, yes, he would go with me sometimes.
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But then he would question me and question things and attack me for having beliefs Like do I really think Noah built an ark?
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Did I really think Moses parted the seas?
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In a very sarcastic, demeaning tone, like I was an idiot for believing that.
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And when I would say yes, he would question me and say just because the Bible says it happened doesn't mean that it did.
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And to show him proof, i would explain there is no proof.
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It's about faith and it's okay if he feels one way and I feel another, but to please not put me down for my own beliefs.
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He questioned me so much I dreaded attending church with him because I would have to deal with his questions afterward.
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It caused stress because a fight would happen and I would find myself scrambling around to defend and explain and essentially plead my case.
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I never told him I didn't want him to come to church, but I did stop going out of my way to overtly ask him to go.
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He turned that on to me, saying if church is so important to me and he is so important to me, then why am I not wanting him there?
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I must not love him.
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It was like the one thing she had left.
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I know That was hers.
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He would block me on Facebook and Instagram.
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I suspect it was one way he picked up women and made himself look single.
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It started at first as him telling me he was going off social media because he was sick of seeing people's negative posts, political posts etc.
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Then it progressed to him going off because he felt hurt that I wasn't posting enough about him or with him.
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I even went through and looked and there was plenty.
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I tried so hard to post enough to make him content and happy and not hurt over feeling left out, but it was never enough.
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He went off again.
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Then I realized he was not going off social media.
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He was blocking me and my friends and my family.
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I approached him about it and he said I had to block you because you were hiding me and it was too painful and my mental health was suffering.
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So again I begged and pleaded for him to unblock me and be my friend again.
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I would do better, i would post more.
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I tried, i posted more and more, yet it was never enough.
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He kept saying he was watching from another account and still didn't feel like a fiancee on Facebook.
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Yep, yeah, he would say.
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How so many women are reaching out to him through Facebook because he appeared single and it was my fault, since I was hiding him on social media.
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I can tell you I never hit him ever.
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He would block and unblock, sometimes, allow me to be his friend all the time.
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All the while I sat there wondering how I could do better yet, knowing in my gut it was fucked up and I was allowing my fiance to do this to me.
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But I didn't want to give up on him, on us, on what once was and what I pictured could still be, if only I tried harder and did things different.
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I go back now and can see it was all part of his control and abuse and gave him an easy way to look single, while placing the blame on me.
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I learned to keep my mouth shut.
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I stopped voicing my opinions and beliefs and stopped bringing up things that bothered me.
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It just wasn't worth the argument.
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He began to attack my parenting and how my children were, how I was too close to them and how they were too wild, and even how that they got along too well and were too close to each other, too dependent on one another, that it wasn't normal or healthy for them to have that close of a relationship that they do Their dad, but their siblings Yeah, oh, and listen, okay Their dad had died.
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That changes family dynamics greatly.
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My kids do get along well and do have a very close relationship.
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Two of them are twins, he told me.
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He told me they were too perfect and that I pushed them too hard and they would be meth addicts by 16 years old.
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Wow, yes, he said meth addicts.
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I gotta say it for families doing so well After their father killed himself, like that's a strong foundation of a family, absolutely Doing something amazingly right, absolutely.
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What a piece of shit.
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Okay, everyone knows.
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I think he's a piece of shit.
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I'll stop saying that.
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Okay, i started reading parenting books, trying to fix my parenting skills Oh gosh, i know Trying to change my identity from mom to wife.
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At his request, i wrote him letters promising to change and fix myself and my kids to be what he wanted and needed.
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I didn't feel like there was an issue, but if the person closest to me is concerned, then there must be.
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It was complete confusion, gaslighting.
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I started questioning myself again.
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Meanwhile they were at school, excelling socially, academically, emotionally.
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All the feedback I got from teachers, coaches and others were excellent reports.
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When my youngest was in the first grade, the first week of school, he stood up for a friend on the playground who had been pushed by another child.
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He told the other child not to do it again or he would beat him up.
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The teacher had to call me to let me know what happened.
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I shared that story with him and he took it and ran with it.
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A couple of weeks later he told me that he met some guy at the gym who told him that my child was a bully and disliked and feared by most of the kids at school, that the teachers hated him as well.
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He was difficult and rude and had a bad reputation.
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I had been a parent at that school at the time for eight straight years And know most of the teachers on a personal friend level.
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I actually started reaching out to his teacher on a weekly basis to check in because he kept feeding me stories of things that had happened as he ran into this guy at the gym and even others in random places.
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He never knew their names, which should have been a clue to me.
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I was so worried about my child.
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The teacher eventually called me and said miss, you need to relax and chill out.
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He's doing amazing.
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There are absolutely no problems with him.
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In fact, he's probably the sweetest and most caring kid in the class.
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That's why he had the issues the first week for caring about his friend.
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I literally thought I was going crazy.
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What a horrible guy.
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Like to bring her child into it, yes.
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And to like make up, oh, i thought.
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And what random stranger would go up to the fiance of a.
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You know like, i know I hate him, but OK, hey, sorry, done Eventually I felt I would do nothing right.
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I was constantly walking on eggshells.
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He was always saying he was hurt and I was always trying to find the answer to fix things.
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Narcissists prey on empathetic people who are compassionate and fixers.
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They manipulate our feelings, knowing we will try to make them better.
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When they claim to be hurt over some slight, they perceive I was always on the alert to how his mood was.
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Would he rage and call me names and cuss me out?
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Would he laugh and love on me?
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I never knew.
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I was always trying to figure out what triggered him, how to do better, so I wouldn't cause him to yell, scream, call names, cheat again.
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I would sit down and try to talk to him when things were calm and it would seem to start off OK, but then would always turn on to me.
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I stopped bringing it up.
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We went to therapy together.
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I was always open and honest at our sessions.
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Afterward he would attack me verbally, saying I was lying to the therapist, that I was a manipulator, that he didn't get hurt.
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I would say later that he didn't believe me or anything I say in therapy.
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Eventually I stopped really opening up, even in therapy.
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Through all the bad things he would always tell me all would be OK if I would just get out of my box, grow and mature, move in with him and get married.
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That he loved me so much that's all he wanted Sounds amazing, right?
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This man loves me so much he is so hurt over the fact I won't marry him or move in with him that he's doing all of these things to abuse me.
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My gut kept screaming no.
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He would tell me how, if we moved in together, i could work part time or not at all.
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But I didn't want that.
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I love my career and my job and wouldn't want it any other way.
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I told him that his kind offer of being lucky enough to work part time or quit altogether slowly turned into him saying I was being selfish by saying I wanted to keep my career and current job, not work less hours.
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That meant I was choosing my job over him.
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That he doesn't want to be with someone who values her career over her husband.
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And if that's what I wanted, maybe we should reconsider the relationship.
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Another aspect of control and coercion, and I'm going to add in isolation, yeah, i agree Making her end up completely dependent on him, mm-hmm, financially too.
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Yep, every discussion turned into a circular conversation.
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If you have ever had one, you know what it is.
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If you haven't, you probably have no clue.
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They even exist.
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The round and round bringing stuff up from every old argument, never finding resolution, going on for hours or days and could have been started by something as simple as forgetting to flush the toilet.
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I could say you forgot to flush a toilet, and he would say back that it was the wrong time, in the wrong tone, or even why don't you just flush it?
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Then it turns into how I handled it and in the end it all ends up being my fault.
00:16:37.667 --> 00:16:41.364
I was always trying to think one step ahead to prevent it.
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It was exhausting, but in the end it is always a losing battle.
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No matter what I said or how I said it, it would be picked apart and thrown back at me.
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If I disagreed, i was told I was wrong.
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If I agreed, i was told I was being passive aggressive.
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In the end it was just exhausting.
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He was jealous of anyone I spent time with besides him, even my own kids.
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He controlled me and trained in covert ways to stop spending time with my friends and family.
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That I didn't even realize it happened.
00:17:14.664 --> 00:17:21.695
By the end he had pulled me away from most of my friends and family, and he had reasons he hated each and every one of them.
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He had told me over and over why they all were terrible people, not good for me, not supportive of me and obviously don't love me, and how he was the only one who would always truly be there for me and love me.
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I finally walked away after five and a half years when I found out from a mutual friend that he had attended a party with a woman to celebrate her and her dad's birthday.
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What's funny, or not so funny, is that the morning after the party, he told me he had to block me on Facebook after he realized that months earlier I had been flirting with another man on Facebook and it was so hurtful for him to see I had not been flirting.
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I had been discussing saving money on gas for my car.
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A few days later, despite being blocked, i saw the pictures posted on Facebook of him and her at the party.
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When the mutual friend sent them to me, his sudden need to block me for something that happened months earlier and was not even what he perceived it to be now made sense.
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He found a way to blame me for blocking, for him blocking me because he didn't want her or I to realize the other one existed.
00:18:30.487 --> 00:18:37.204
In typical narcissist fashion, he continued to reach out to me for months saying how he really loved me.
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I was still his soulmate, he still hoped to marry me, wanted to be with me, wanted to get together and always added that all he wanted was me, but that I didn't want him and couldn't partner with him how he wanted me to, how he wished.
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I would have chosen him, but wouldn't.
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He never took any accountability for anything he had ever done to tarnish the relationship.
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Months later I realized how damaging this contact was to my own healing.
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I was in weekly therapy and struggling with depression, anxiety and panic attacks and was actually needing medication.
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I also realized how terrible it was for me to be talking to him behind the new girlfriend's back.
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Even if he cheated on me with her in the first place, it was still not fair to her.
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I reached out to her to let her know what was going on and sent her a few of his messages to me.
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I told her I was so sorry to do this, but going forward was blocking him and would not take part in the discussions again.
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I'm not sure what I expected to happen, but she continued the relationship with him.
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I have also had to learn that I can't save everyone.
00:19:45.694 --> 00:19:51.567
Everyone has to walk their own journey and experience life in their own time.
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Will he change?
00:19:52.659 --> 00:20:02.731
for her, unlikely, but I hope and pray that she sees the red flags before I did and gets out sooner and doesn't have the experience and the pain that I did.
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No one should.
00:20:03.694 --> 00:20:10.582
I am still in weekly therapy, taking medication, attending church regularly and working on myself and healing.
00:20:10.582 --> 00:20:16.694
I've put my boys through a lot, but so far they have all used what they have seen and experienced in a positive way.
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I could go on and on with the stories.
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There are many, but the common theme is that out of control, manipulation, gaslighting, projection, abuse.
00:20:25.694 --> 00:20:31.694
I spent several years always thinking it was me, seeking out therapy and even medications to fix me.
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I just wanted to be fixed.
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If I could be fixed, then I could make him happy.
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I thought I was crazy, that I was broken.
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I was called terrible names.
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I felt like I could never make him happy.
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Yet he was so happy and perfect for everyone else.
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I was asked why does he treat me this way?
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It must be me And he was so happy and perfect at the beginning I was everything he wanted.
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I just wanted those first couple years to come back to me, to us.
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I wanted to be what it was.
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I hoped and prayed it would.
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If only I.
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Then he would be happy And there would be times when he would be happy and life would be perfect.
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Then would crash down and come smack me out of nowhere.
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The happy times became less and less and the anger and bad times became more and more.
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I never knew when the mood would turn and it would all crash down and hit hard, not physically but mentally.
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