Three years post-divorce from my Aspie and here's how it's going...

So much seizing the day!

A couple of weeks ago or so was three years since I divorced my ex-Aspie and here's how things are going...

• Bought a small house that's just right for me and a pet. I inherited all three dogs in the divorce, but last month two of them passed away; one from cancer, one from myelitis. The house isn't perfect, but it's mine and no one will ever take it away from me. It will also be paid for in another 90 payments.
• My two kids still aren't talking to me, but that's okay. My youngest did manage to give me some insight as to why - he says I'm "embellishing" the affairs my ex had during our marriage. Given that lie came to light, I have to wonder how many others my ex managed to convince the kids of? But mostly, I feel sorry for my ex. He's such a pathetic loser, such a liar, such a POS, the only way he can live with himself is to work that hard to convince both himself and others he didn't do the things he did to me and the marriage. Frankly, pathetic doesn't even BEGIN to describe him and his lies/delusions.
• I still get triggered pretty easily when someone I'm dating does or says something to remind me of the ex. BUT - I'm also more aware of the narcissism I was subjected to for so long. (Aspies are usually narcissists, too) More than once, I've listened to some guy start to feel me a line of bullshit and I've responded with, "You're gaslighting me." I gotta tell ya, it feels REALLY good to call shenanigans on a narc and know you're right to do so. And trust me, they get really pissed off when you do this, which is another good feeling.
• The ex is STILL playing the victim, which is something Aspies do SO well. He refuses to talk to me still, which really is fine, but I have to send him a reminder email more than once, every year since the divorce, regarding the cost of living raise I'm required to get under our divorce decree as I was given a percentage of his military retirement for life. I'm thinking next January I won't do that - I'll just take him to court for contempt, and while I'm there petition the court to continue the alimony, at least until my house is paid for. See, it wasn't in my pre-divorce planning budget to have a car payment but the ex made sure my car was repossessed (because of his doing, not mine, as the car was paid for) so my finances are a little skewed until the car's paid for.
• From the first day, my friends have all told me I look 20 years younger, and this must be true, because when I told my coworkers I was over 50, none of them believed me and it was a genuine disbelief. I honestly believe I added years to my life by leaving the crazy behind me.

All this being said, I'm still much happier than I've been in a long, long time. I answer to no one, I'm not responsible to anyone but myself, and there's no one to call me names, treat me like garbage, or to work to convince me I'm crazy for the sole reason it makes them feel better about their assortment of mental illnesses. (When I think of my ex, which I rarely do any longer, the phrase, "From soup to nuts" comes to mind, and it makes me laugh a little to myself) I'm not going to lie, it hasn't been a picnic since the divorce, but it's tons better than it was before.

Seriously, leaving the Aspie, NPD, Bipolar Diordered mind of my ex behind me was the best decision I ever made. You should consider doing the same thing.

Marriage to an Aspie - Aspies are abusive

By the time you realize just how abused you've been, it's
become your new "normal".

 Once again, all the websites will say what a wonderfully honest person your Aspie is.  All the reading you do will tell you that with a little bit of understanding and an abundance of love, you and your Aspie can have a blissful co-existence.

This may be true, for some, but the reality is much, much different than anything you'll read elsewhere.  Life with an Aspie spouse is awful, abusive and soul-crushing (and this last one is the one spouses of Aspies will say the most).

The abuse will be incredibly subtle, at first, and you won't even see it.  For me, there were two incidents I can look back on now that set the stage for the following 20 years.

The first one was when I'd made a dinner salad for the STBE ASH and his kids from his first marriage.  I'd spent the entire afternoon making this salad as it wasn't exactly complicated, but it was time-consuming.  When the time came to serve it, I set the salad bowl down on the dinner table, called everyone in, asked them all, "What would you like to drink with dinner?"  Once they all told me, I went back into the kitchen to get them their drinks.  When I came back, all of two minutes later, my STBE ASH had served everyone.  Everyone but me, that is.  Yes, the salad bowl was empty, all their plates were full, mine was empty.  I didn't say anything, just set their drinks down, took mine back into the kitchen with me, made a sandwich and ate it in the living room while I watched television.  Then, it took my STBE about 15 minutes to realize I wasn't sitting at the table with them, noticed what happened and told the kids, "When you've eaten all you're going to eat of the salad, put it all together so Nancy can have some."

Wow, don't I feel special now!

I realize at this stage you're all thinking, "But it was just a salad!"  Yes, it was just a salad, but it was also an indicator of how the rest of my life was going to go.  I was never considered part of "his" family.  I was a servant to him and his kids and nothing more.  And thus went the next 20 years or so.

Another incident (and this happened more than once) came from Saturday mornings.  Every Saturday, his kids went to a bowling league they were in.  The routine became the STBE taking them to bowling while I cleaned the house.  They would be gone for about four hours, if you add in his taking them to lunch afterward.  During that four hours, I'd clean the entire two story row home we lived in on Lowry AFB.  I'd start at the top, tossing things down to the stair landing that belong downstairs, and vice versa when I was cleaning the downstairs.  I did the dishes, swept and mopped all the floors, cleaned the wood floors (every room but the kitchen and bathroom), did all the laundry, ironed his uniforms, got dinner planned and started, vacuumed all the furniture of dog hair.  If I had time, I would go grab some stuff at the grocery store.

From the first time I did this, the first comment the STBE would make when he walked in the door was, "You didn't clean the baseboards".  Forget I'd just cleaned a 1500 square foot home from top to bottom, all he could say was, "You didn't clean the baseboards".  There was no appreciation for what I'd done to make life easier for him and his kids, just a comment on what wasn't being done.

Both of these events happened in the first few months of our marriage.  I should have walked away then, but I was already pregnant with our youngest son and we'd been married less than two years.  I was able to convince myself he was suffering from the stress of a baby on the way.  And so the abuse begins.

Again in our first year of marriage, we were in the midst of an argument that was getting pretty heated.  I've always been one to try to keep a cool head in an argument, feeling a hot argument is pointless because both people are defensive.  One way of cooling down for me is to get in the car, turn up the stereo on full blast and just drive country roads.  It lets me focus on something besides the argument, it allows me to gain some clarity and it's a really soothing thing for me to do.  On this particular day, the STBE decided I was going to stay there and argue and he refused to allow me to leave the house.  If I tried to open the door, he slammed it shut and pushed me away from it.  If I went into the bedroom to separate myself from the argument, he followed me in there, continuing to berate me, demanding of me that I remain engaged in the argument.  No matter what I did to get away from the argument, he kept at me to stay with it.

Finally, I was feeling desperate and trapped.  I was feeling incredibly trapped and it was causing me huge confusion and distress.  (Remember, I was pregnant with my youngest son at this time)  My fight or flight was kicking in and I knew if that happened, things would really get out of hand.  I had no choice but to call the military police to help me out of this.  He heard me doing this and immediately went into "I'm the calm, rational one" mode (and this is something you'll see hundreds of times during your marriage).  By the time they got there, I was still crying and I was begging them to get me out of there.  He started in with, "She's pregnant and emotional."  They fell for it and so began the extreme abuse.  The name-calling, the hitting, the gas lighting, all of it.

The military police did tell him to let me leave the house that day, if that's what I wanted to do, which I did.  I was gone for several hours, having driven up into the Rocky Mountains to an A&W Root Beer stand in Idaho Springs, for no other reason than it wasn't home where the arguing was going on.  By the time I came home, he was an emotional wreck.  He was afraid I wasn't coming back (this is the push me-pull me prevalent with Aspies, those with Bipolar Disorder and those with Borderline Personality Disorder)  He was incredibly apologetic, promising me he would never do this again and he felt awful he'd treated me so badly!  This was the first of many, many apologies for bad and abusive behavior.

Most abusers are also narcissists
#11-sympathy can also be empathy

As time went on, the abuse got worse and worse.  I was in and out of therapy so much because of his abuses of me and the kids.  Why was I in therapy and not him?  Because part of the abuse is being convinced it's YOU who is the problem, not them.  And the times we went to marriage counseling, it generally didn't take the therapist more than three or four sessions to zero in on the STBE abusing me emotionally, verbally, mentally and physically and they'd try to focus on that.  That was the exact moment the STBE was done with marriage counseling.  At least until the next time.  The times we lasted the longest in marriage counseling were the times he was able to gas light the counselor the most.  We'd had a counselor through the Air Force when we were stationed in Biloxi and he had her COMPLETELY fooled.  He really liked this therapist because she ate up whatever he told her and she did everything she could to take his side.  Her extreme preference for the STBE was so obvious, I had to file a complaint against her with her commander.  No matter what he did, she took his side.  Once, I'd reported he'd hit me and her response was, "What did you do that made him want to do that?"

Which brings me to Abuse By Proxy - This is an insidious form of abuse because now it's not just your abuser but everyone around you.  This form of abuse generally begins once you start to wake up to what's going on, but with my STBE, he did this for the duration of our marriage.  Abuse by proxy is the abuser enlisting others to abuse you, too.  They won't believe you when you try to tell them you're being abused (AKA The Cassandra Syndrome)

He received no chastisement over hitting me.  There were no consequences for his hitting me.  I was the one raked over the coals by her for "making him do it".  He and this therapist even cooked up between them that I'd threatened the STBE with a shotgun - the same shotgun I had no keys to (for the trigger lock), no ammunition for and no understanding of since I really hated guns at that time and refused to handle them.  To this day I'm still not 100% it was all as innocent as they made it seem.  For a therapist to become SO loyal and slanted towards a patient, losing her objectivity like this one did, there was more there than I was allowed to see or know.  A few months later, this therapist left the military to go into private practice (so she could ruin more marriages and families on a larger scale) and she contacted my therapist at the time to have him ask me to recant my complaint against her as it was affecting her finding a job.  I refused to do so and actually resented her using her professional relationship with my therapist to cover up just how bad she was as a therapist.  I kind of resented, too, that he even came to me with the request.  He should have flat out told her "No, I won't do that".

I tell people now, though, if only he'd kept it to hitting, his abuses of me, I might heal from that more quickly.  It's the verbal, emotional and mental abuse that stays with you for so long and taints your entire life.  He'd run me down physically, telling me once, "You're so fat, it makes me nauseous to see you without clothes on" or the much more subtle skill of telling me just how wrong I am all the time, thus bringing me to believe I'm stupid or not able to trust my judgment.  It's a calculated thing they do so THEY can feel good about themselves.

I'll end this posting with some resources for people who read this - so you can get help to not just get away but to begin the process of healing.  You WILL need help getting your abuser out of your life.  All abusers are reluctant to let go of their current "person to abuse".  I've seen this phrase in several places in my Asperger's Spouse world - All parasites need a host to survive.

And fair warning - your abuser will replace you very, very quickly so be prepared for the heartache.  The truth is, your Aspie/abuser never really loved you not did they care about you at all as anything more than a whipping post and victim.  Aspies can't love anyone but themselves.  Once you leave your abuser, you'll hope they love you enough to want to change, thus keeping you in their life.  But the reality is, when it comes to abusers, the moment you've figured them out, they're done with you so they can move on to abuse the next unwitting victim.

Aspies/abusers NEED someone to abuse like you need oxygen to breathe.  So, yes, they will move on to another very quickly.  BUT - they will first try to bring you back to them.  It's easier to keep the old victim than it is to train a new one.  Stand your ground.  You've heard it all before, the promises to change, the promises to get help, the apologies, all of it.  Ask yourself how many times you've heard this before?  Too many times to count.

Don't fall for it.  Love and respect yourself more than that.

Places to go for help escaping your abuser:

• Find a therapist who specializes in trauma, PTSD 
• Contact a domestic violence hotline - The national hotline linked here isn't the most responsive one, but they have some good tips on getting out.  And domestic violence and abuse isn't just physical abuse.  Mental, emotional and verbal abuse are abuse, too.  Do a search for a hotline specific to your state.  Try Googling "Fill in state here Domestic Violence help" and odds are great there's a statewide hotline where you can talk to someone.  They can also give you resources local to you.  I've called my state's hotline and they've given me SO much support!  The people you'll be talking to are people who have been through it, too.
• Stop hiding in shame - be vocal about the abuse to friends and family.  These are your best resources for help in getting out.  Once you do, you'll be surprised at how much they've actually seen, in spite of your silence, and you'll learn they really DO want to help you in any way they can.

Excerpted from the National Domestic Violence Hotline page is some excellent advice for maintaining your control over your life once you've left the abusive relationship:

Why is moving on after abuse so difficult? Abuse is rooted in power and control, and an abusive partner holds that power by minimizing their victim’s self-esteem and breaking their spirit. If you’re leaving an abusive relationship, rebuilding your life can be a hard process, but with time and space, finding closure and peace is possible. A violence-free life is waiting, and you are so very worth it.

1.  Cut off contact with your ex - During the healing process, you may feel the need to offer forgiveness, help your abusive partner through the break up, or show them how you’re better off. However, it’s difficult to really get closure without severing all ties with your ex.  

Try different methods to avoid contacting your former partner. Delete their phone number and            change yours. If you're picking up the phone to call, put the phone in a different room and walk          away — or call the hotline instead.

 Resist the urge to look them up on social media. Unfriend or block them, and if pictures or news         keep popping up, it could be helpful to remove mutual friends as well.

Try writing a letter with all the things you want to say to your ex and don’t send it — or, if                   you're in counseling, send it to your therapist instead.

2.  Surround yourself with support -After an abusive relationship, allow yourself to get help and support from others. Spend time with friends and family who care about you. Tell them what you need from them, whether that’s someone to talk to about what you went through, or someone to keep you from answering phone calls from your ex, stop you from texting them back, etc.

If your abusive partner isolated you from friends and family, you may find that you no longer have that support network — but there are always people who want to help. Consider finding a counselor to talk with one-on-one, or join a support group. If you call the hotline, one of our advocates can connect you to services in your area.  - A note from me - It was difficult, but I contacted my family to let them know what's been going on all these years.  They were remarkably supportive of me and my divorce.  Never underestimate the love they have for you.  And if they're anything less than supportive, walk away from them until you're in a better place emotionally to deal with them and set your boundaries.  Don't exchange one abusive relationship for another.

3.  Take care of yourself - Taking care of yourself is such an important part of the healing process, and that begins with understanding that the abuse that happened wasn’t your fault.

Find things that make you happy. Rediscovering what hobbies you enjoy can be a learning process, but that’s half of the fun. Join clubs or try activities like a group fitness class to meet new people.

If you have children, find ways to make time for yourself. Some gyms offer free childcare while you work out, and different domestic violence centers provide childcare while you’re attending support groups.

Praise yourself for accomplishments, little or big, and counter any negative self-talk with positive mantras or affirmations. Becoming aware of what you think and say about yourself can help shift negative thoughts.

4.  Remember that you’ll get better with time - The old saying that “time heals all wounds” can be incredibly frustrating, but there is truth in it. Recovery does take time and space. Give yourself as much time as you need to heal.

Recovery looks different for everyone, and each person has to find what works for them.  Note from me:  You'll hear from nearly everyone, "But you're out of it now!  You'll find someone new!"  Don't fall into this trap of believing you need to get into another one before getting over the last one.  Find out who you are, fix what's broken in you, before you bring another person into the equation that's outside your normal circle of support and friends.  It might take weeks, months or even years.  But #3 is the most important one in all of this.  Take care of you, first.  If you have kids with your abuser, take care of them, too, to help them work through the abuse and divorce/breakup.

5.  Consider counseling - If you feel that therapy might be helpful, sooner is always better. Therapy can be beneficial for everyone because it’s a place where you can learn increased self-awareness, clarify your goals and look at the choices in front of you.

Counseling sessions provide a safe and confidential environment for survivors to express their feelings, thoughts and fears. Counselors are nonjudgmental third-party advisors who listen and can help survivors work through the things that they are experiencing.

Entering counseling does not necessarily mean that you are mentally ill or can’t cope on your own. Therapy is about how much you’re putting in place to support yourself in healing and succeeding.

Speaking with a trauma specialist can help survivors to deal with their remaining anxiety and find ways to relieve that stress. These specialists can help to process traumatic memories or experiences so that it is possible to move on. They can also aid survivors in learning to regulate their strong emotions like fear and anger.

A good match between therapist and client is one of the most powerful healing factors in a therapeutic relationship. Look for someone who makes you feel heard, understood, safe and comfortable.  Note from me:  I entered counseling the same day I filed for divorce from my abuser.  I ended up finding another therapist when the first one didn't seem to work for me.  If you find you're not comfortable or getting out of the therapy/counseling what you feel you should be getting, move on to another therapist; and even another one, and another one, until you find one that works for you.  And again, find one that specializes in trauma and PTSD.  For survivors of abuse (and that's what you are!  A survivor!) we can have what's called Complex Post Traumatic Stress, which is long-term exposure to trauma (the abuse) and the inability to escape it.  Defined from the link given here:

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological injury that results from prolonged exposure to social or interpersonal trauma, disempowerment, captivity or entrapment, with lack or loss of a viable escape route for the victim.

 And with this, I'll bid you adieu.  I'm meeting with a new attorney today to help shield me from my abusive STBE husband and his bat-shit crazy attorney.

Marriage to an Aspie - Aspies WILL lie to you

Everything you read online about Asperger's is they're the single most honest people you'll ever meet - bar none.  In fact, they tell themselves and everyone else, it's their honest that gets them into the most trouble - yes, dear, those jeans DO make your butt look fat!

This is BULLSHIT!

Every single Aspie spouse I've talked to (again, dozens, if not hundreds) has shared their Aspie husbands are the biggest liars, and not just about big things.  One of the comments I'd made so many times to people about my STBE was - he'd lie even if the truth wouldn't hurt him.  And I've heard the same from other Aspie wives.  Things like - Who turned down the thermostat to 45 degrees?  Let's say it's just you and the Aspie living in the house.  Your Aspie will look at you and say, "It wasn't me.  It must have been you."

Now, you KNOW you didn't do it.  Surely you'd have remembered that, right?  It HAD to have been the Aspie.  And, really, let's just say it; it's really not THAT big a deal.  You were really just wondering, that's all.  It doesn't matter to the Aspie.  They imagine all sorts of scenarios and every single one of them ends with you being a massive bitch.  Because of this, they'll say nothing and make it your fault for not knowing just "why" they're upset with you, thus refuse to simply say, "Oh, yeah, it was me sweetheart!  I brought home a side of beef and wanted the house to be cold enough to preserve it while I cut it up for storage."

Oh, okay.  I get it now.  Moving on...

Aspies are also pretty creative when it comes to their lies, too.  As an example, let me use my own STBE and an event from our lives several years ago:

My STBE has had four separate affairs (and every single one of them believed him when he told them they were the only time he'd ever done that - HA!  Stupid fat cow bitches.  That graphic designer who was screwing him while my dad was dying?  He was seeing two other people while he had her believing "she" was the only one - honey, here's a tip...  If he's cheating on his wife, he'll cheat on you.  Seriously, get some common sense, pride and dignity) Anyway...  With that graphic designer, Fat Cow Slut Pam, I'd been telling him for a year I knew he was cheating on me with someone at work.  For months, here's how the conversation went, every time.

Me: STBE, I'm looking at your pay statement here and I'm not seeing anything about the overtime you told me you'd worked a couple days ago.

STBE Aspie: Oh, yeah, it'll be on my next check.

Me (two weeks later): I thought you told me that overtime you worked a couple weeks ago would be on this check?

STBE Aspie: No, I didn't.  And I didn't work any overtime.

Me: Yes, you did, it was on (insert date here).  STBE, I know you worked overtime!  You didn't get home on... until nearly 8 o'clock that evening.  Are you cheating on me with someone at work?

STBE Aspie: No, baby (he called us all baby - makes it easier to not yell out the wrong name while in the throes of screwing any slut with a vagina) I'm not cheating on you with anyone at work.  I SWEAR!  On a BIBLE!

Fast forward to about six months later when I started getting calls from a couple of angry husbands (he liked cheating with people who were ALSO cheating.  It added to the thrill, I suppose) I confront him with it and say, "How in the WORLD were you able to look me in the eye and lie to me about cheating on me with someone at work?"

His response?  "That's not what you asked me.  I never cheated with her at work.  We always went somewhere else."

Oh, okay, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Every Aspie Spouse I've interacted with tells me their Aspies cheated on them, too. Either with a regular person or with prostitutes.  Every. Single. One.  Didn't even matter if they were male or female. They ALL cheated.  More than once.

Every one of these affairs - he was caught with the goods.  An email, a text message, phone calls, instant messaging transcripts, you name it, he was caught every single time. Each and every time he was confronted with the evidence of this cheating, he'd get this sly smile and deny to my face, even with printouts of emails, screenshots of text messages, that I was taking "Can we meet at such-and-such hotel?" out of context and it wasn't what I thought it was.  That CLEARLY I was the person in the wrong, accusing him of something he wasn't doing and, by God, I needed to apologize to him!  He would always say this with just the right amount of righteous indignation, so that I understood he meant business!

Then there are the lies of omission.  My STBE Aspie would tell people the most horrible things about me, such as, "She's always going through my computer, tablet and cell phone looking for something".  But he wouldn't tell them he cheated like a card counter in Vegas, necessitating my snooping so much.  He would tell people I threw a glass at him, leaving out the part where I was walking to the door to see what one of the dogs was barking at with a glass in my hand, that the dog jumped up on me, knocking it out of my hand and sending it sailing about three feet, where it crashed on the floor and his foot.  He would tell people how I tried to hit him with the car, leaving out the part where I was backing out of the driveway with just my car keys, so I could get to a safe place to get away from one of his beatings and he threw himself on the hood to stop me from leaving.  He would tell people I refused to buy him cereal, conveniently leaving out the part where I'd just bought four boxes of cereal a week earlier and he ate them all in the first five days they were in the house.

Yes, Aspies are liars, through and through.

But wait, there's more!

Which brings me to gas-lighting, an aspect of this whole lying thing.  I won't go too much into it since there's a great deal about it available online (and I'll include some links), but I will say, it's the part of his lying that brought me to the brink of suicide.  It had me telling our marriage counselor, "I really think I need to be admitted to the hospital for delusions." 

And I was serious.

The term "gas lighting" is a fairly new psychological term, borrowed from the 1944 Ingrid Bergman movie "Gaslight".  In this movie, a young woman moves into her deceased aunt's home following her marriage.  She's young and in love but her husband has married her for the sole purpose of taking from her the estate she'd inherited from her aunt years earlier, including the house.  To do this, he works a plan to drive her to insanity through manipulation.  He would turn down the gas lights in the house, then when she asked about them being turned down, would tell her she'd done it and didn't remember.  He would move furniture and when she inquired, again, as to it being moved, would tell her she'd done it.  She'd protest at not remembering it, he would then work to convince her she had.  The movie goes on like this until a family friend...  Well, I won't tell you the ending.  Find it on Netflix or Amazon and watch this frightening psychological thriller. 

Gas lighting is one of the more damaging aspects of being with an Aspie.  The reason this ties into the lying is this:  Your Aspie will say or do something that's hurtful and/or abusive.  When you call them on it, as in bring up to them this being a problem in the relationship, they'll deny ever saying or doing whatever "it" was.  You will, of course, tell them you distinctly remember them saying or doing this, to which they'll work to convince you otherwise.  They'll even go so far as to tell you, "You're delusional." or "You're just too sensitive" or (following their being just a little too rough with their horseplay, which they do quite a bit) "I was only kidding.  What's wrong with you?" Aspies need to alter your reality to fit theirs so they can go on abusing you.  This is a defense mechanism of theirs in order to protect their confusing and disjointed world.  And they need you to believe everything they say, even if it means going insane yourself.

When an Aspie is gas lighting you, it's not about them being right or wrong, it's about you agreeing with them, even if it's a lie.  They do this to aid in their showing the rest of the world you're the crazy one and they're perfectly normal.

There is a book I read, once an acquaintance told me what this was - what to call it - that opened my eyes so completely I read it in one day.  I simply couldn't put it down.  This book, written by Dr. Robin Stern, is one of the BEST books you'll ever read if you're in an abusive relationship, "The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life".  Seriously, read it.  It will open your eyes like they've never been opened before.  Finally, Gas Lighters are predators, pure and simple.  They need you to be confused and off-balance.  They WANT you to be this way so they can go on abusing you.  This is part of the process of separating you from your loved ones - the very people who are in the best position to help you the most - so you're basically trapped with them, to go on being abused.

Are you being Gaslighted?

(Excerpted from Power in Relationships: Are you being Gas Lighted? - PsychologyToday.com

How do you know if you are being gaslighted? If any of the following warning signs ring true, you may be dancing the Gaslight Tango. Take care of yourself by taking another look at your relationship, talking to a trusted friend; and, begin to think about changing the dynamic of your relationship . Here are the signs: 

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.

3. You often feel confused and even crazy... when talking to your gaslighter.

4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend,, boss.

5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.

6. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.

7. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.

8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.

9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists. 

10. You have trouble making simple decisions.

11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.

12. You feel hopeless and joyless.

13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/ wife/employee/ friend; daughter.

This post has actually gone on longer than it probably should have, but the lies and gas lighting will do you in fast than anything else will.  Trust me on this one. If you even see a little bit of yourself in any of this, get out.  Get out of the relationship just as fast as you can extricate yourself safely.

Your Aspie, your narcissist - Aspies will always make it about them

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”  - Oscar Wilde

From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my son, I never made it a secret - NO EPIDURAL!  I told my STBE, I told my doctor, I told the nurses, I'd tell total strangers in an elevator.  I was dead serious about this.  I knew I was being irrational, but there ARE side effects to these and I just really didn't want to risk suffering one of them.  Fast forward to his day of birth.  It was in a military hospital in Aurora, CO, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.  My water broke in the elevator after my seven month checkup and I was whisked into labor & delivery.  I was doing great for the first few hours (the doctor had given me pitocin to get my labor going, due to the water breaking like that and me not being in labor at all) and we played Trivial Pursuit while I went through this.  The doctors and nurses were telling me how amazing it was I was able to not only do that but win!  The STBE started stewing.  Where was HIS atta-boy?  Where were the people to tell HIM how wonderful he was doing?

Then, my labor started getting serious and I was in a lot of pain.  I'd made sure the doctor on duty, the obstetrician taking care of me, knew I didn't want an epidural, but I was really okay with morphine.  (REALLY OKAY!)  But, he went off duty and another doctor came on, a real asshole (probably an Aspie or Narcissist, too, since he felt HE knew better what was good for me than I, the patient).  He kept demanding I get an epidural, in spite of the fact my records PLAINLY said I didn't want it.  I kept refusing to sign the form and he kept getting angrier and angrier at me.  So what'd he do?  He went to my STBE and told him I was too doped up on morphine to make a clear decision about it so the STBE signed the form for me to get an epidural, knowing full good and well this went completely against my wishes!  When I asked him later why he did that, he told me, "You were in so much pain I couldn't take it any more."

I'm sorry but... WHAT?

It was my labor & delivery but my STBE made it about him, even when it meant going against my medical wishes.  For the duration of the rest of our marriage, I refused to give him my medical power of attorney and it infuriated him.  He refused to accept he'd made such a fundamental error and violated my trust at it's most basic level, my trust that he would do what was right and best for me.  I told a marriage counselor once I truly believed were I in the hospital and unable to make decisions for myself, he would order them to pull the plug, even if it wasn't warranted.

A few weeks after my youngest was born, I was exhausted.  As easy as it was with my oldest son in his first few weeks, it was that difficult in the first few weeks of my youngest sons young life.  My oldest son did everything as though he was following a set of rules in a textbook.  He slept extremely well, he ate well, he reached every milestone pretty much on the day he was supposed to do so.  But my youngest son, WOW!  He slept two hours, was awake two hours, slept to hours, was awake two hours...  He did this 24/7 and I was completely exhausted.  My STBE slept through it all, every night, and though he did take leave when my youngest was born, he did nothing to help me get some sleep, demanding I take care of the baby because he was always "busy" with something else. (And this became a pattern with him throughout our life together)

By the time I was at my six-week postpartum check up, almost as soon as I walked in the door of the doctor's office, she could tell I was wiped out and why.  Apparently, she'd seen more than one apathetic father.  She sent me to the psychiatrist immediately because I was starting to show signs of psychosis from lack of sleep and was worried about me.  I went to see the psychiatrist and told him everything, with my STBE sitting right there next to me.  He prescribed me ONE halcyon and told my STBE he had a choice; he could take about three day's leave so I could sleep after taking the halcyon, he could do nothing and let me go on being sleep deprived to the extent it was dangerous, he could take care of the baby by himself while I was in the hospital for three days or he could answer to his commander as to just why he was being so abusive to his wife.  My STBE chose to take leave.  I slept the entire three days, with only brief wake-ups to eat or go to the bathroom.

At my follow up appointment with the psychiatrist, he was asking me if I'd gotten any sleep, how I was doing, how my son was sleeping, if the STBE was taking more of an active role in parenting, etc.  After about five minutes of this, the STBE apparently couldn't take any more of the focus being on me and blurted out, "I've been thinking of killing myself!"  From that point on, I was ignored.  See, I wasn't thinking of killing myself so I didn't matter any longer.

And thus went the rest of my life with him and when my youngest was born, we'd only been married 19 months.

For years it went on like this, my being relegated to admiring fan, maid, cook, chauffeur, nanny and prostitute in his life.  About three or four years ago, his oldest son came to spend Christmas with us bringing with him his wife and three kids.  They're truly a lovely family and I adore them all so much, but the week or so they were here completely wiped me out and I ended up spending two days in bed in the midst of an RA flare up so bad I was running a fever and was incredibly sick.  I'm going to guess my stepson and his wife saw what was going on because at the end of that two days, they'd cleaned the entire house and did all the cooking.  See, what was going on was this - cooking and cleaning for eight people was rough on me.  Every time I'd ask the STBE for help with anything at all, he'd swoop up one of the kids and say, "I'm with the grandbaby!" and walk away.  He absolutely refused to help me with anything at all.  I wasn't able to sleep for much more than three or four hours a night because of all the cleaning I had to do, including laundry that had somehow piled up in the laundry room and the STBE was peacefully sleeping each night while I did this.  As the week wore on, I grew more and more resentful and I was angry.  It completely ruined Christmas for me, which was probably his goal, since he hated any holiday and Christmas was a particular dislike of his, but more on that in another post.

However, a good illustrative part of our marriage was probably one you've seen in your marriage or relationship and this one will have you nodding in agreement - the circuitous arguing, somehow managing to make it all about them.

This particular point was made to me by our marriage counselor, who brought it up in a session with him.  My guess is, he put up with it for as long as he could and finally began this particular session with this, "Mark, one thing I've noticed in all this is: when you share with Nancy something she's done that upsets you, she acknowledges it, restates it so you know she understands what it is you're saying, then has a discussion with you regarding how she can work to improve on that, thus reducing the chance of it happening again.  However, when she shares with you something you do that upsets her, you respond with how that affects you and your feelings related to her concern.  When do we address Nancy's concerns and feelings?"

Our "homework" related to that was that I would tell him a concern of mine, he was required to address what I'd said in the form of restating it and then he was to work with me on a solution that was JUST about my feelings.  When he'd respond with his feelings about what I'd just said, how much it upset him to hear it and how it affected him, I was to say, "I understand you have feelings related to this, but before we get to those, can we please address mine and come to a resolution first?"

The STBE simply couldn't do it.  He would sit there with his head in his hands, pace, stammer, you name it.  I could almost see the wheels in his head turning, his eyes nearly spinning in his head.  He simply couldn't address anyone's feelings but his own.  The more I tried to keep him on point, the worse he got.  It usually resulted in a blow up on his part, with him accusing me of being a selfish bitch with no consideration of anyone but myself.  (This would be called "projection", something Aspies do this a great deal.)

Now, I can't say it was always like this.  There was a time when I could go to the STBE with a concern of mine, he'd go on a rant about how I was such a thoughtless, selfish bitch, and then a couple of hours to a couple of days later, he'd come to me and apologize, telling me I was right and he'd work more on that.  The rant part came to be called, "Mark the asshole".  I used to beg him to bypass the asshole part of it and let us get to meaningful and healing discussion first.  That was another thing he couldn't do, bypass the asshole part.  If I had a nickel for every time he came back to me later to tell he finally thought about what I'd said and was ready to be more rational about it, I'd be a wealthy, wealthy person.

Another one of his "quirks" was he refused to listen to me when I talked.  I would try to address with him a problem in our marriage and he would go off on one of his rambling speeches about it all.  If I tried to interject anything into the conversation, he'd either talk over me or interrupt me until I'd just give up in frustration.  I started saying to him, "Well, I wasn't done talking but, yeah, you're right, your thoughts and opinions are the only ones that matter."  (And I'd only started doing this in the last couple of years or so...) He would call this "abusive" and it would send him into a tailspin, having him rushing to the internet to share with his fellow Aspies just how abusive I was.  He'd do that for a couple days to a couple weeks, then he'd be okay until the next time.

We were never able to resolve any of our problems, not in 21 years, because he simply wasn't willing to take part in the give and take, the compromise, that goes along with being married to someone who wasn't exactly like him in every way, shape and form.  I honestly think he WANTED to be able to do that, he just isn't able to.  He's so married to the idea that he's the only one with anything worth saying, he simply can't grasp that there are other opinions and ideas that might actually work.  Because of an Aspie's linear, black and white thinking, subtlety and nuance eludes them completely.  With an Aspie, there's no such thing as a "suggestion".  In addition, even were you to say outright, "I feel as though this might work..." they'll disagree with you without giving it any thought at all.  I used to tell people all the time, "If you want my husband to do something for you, tell me, I'll ask him to do the opposite and it'll be done in record time."

Briefly - the circuitous arguing is part of this.  What I'm talking about it your attempt to discuss something with your Aspie and they go round and round with you until they've brought you back to an argument you'd had a few days ago, a few weeks ago, even a few months ago.  They manage to always bring it back to their hurt feelings, their feeling slighted, they're accusing you of "something" you'd LONG forgotten about, if you'd even done it at all.  They will send you down so many rabbit holes in the argument until they've successfully gotten you off them and the discussion (to the point you're thinking to yourself, "I'd only told him I didn't like that he would toss my clean clothes on the bathroom floor.  How did we get to the time I wrecked his car seven years ago, leaving him without a car for four days?")  This circuitous arguing is a tactic of theirs to put you on the defensive, thus you find yourself defending yourself rather than talking about the issue you'd originally come to them with.  You'll know it's happening when you suddenly realize you've gotten light years away from what the original discussion was about, if you can remember what it was you'd come to them with in the first place, and are having the same argument with them you'd had already, many times over.  You'll also be incredibly confused at the end of it.

I guess to round this post out, to bring it down to the brass tacks of the Aspie and the future of your relationship with them is this:  You will never matter to them.  Not your thoughts, not your opinions, not your solutions, not the sound of your voice - nothing.  They will always find a way to make it about them, no matter what the subject.  By the time you realize this is going on, you're already well on your way to being an accessory to their life.  You're the cook, the maid, the taxi/chauffeur to the kids, the personal assistant (pick up/drop off my dry cleaning, etc.), the prostitute (who doesn't get paid because, HEY, I MAKE MORE THAN YOU!) but in none of this will you EVER be an equal partner.

Update: I found a link that explains what life's been like with me.  See, it was so hard to pin "Narcissist" on my STBE because he was always SO self deprecating, SO passive, SO full of, "I don't deserve this".  Even when he was sick, we had to do this dance.  The page's title is "The Covert Narcissist" and it explains my life to a T.

This past July, he told me at the end of the day his heart seemed to be giving him problems and that it had been going on ALL DAY!  I won't go into the explanation here but he was having tachycardia and his blood pressure was through the roof.  It took me two hours to convince him to go to the Emergency Room (it was a Sunday and even were it not, he waited to tell me until after any chance of seeing his primary care physician were out the window.  For two hours, I'm telling him, "C'mon.  Let's get you to the ER."  He would always respond with something along the lines of, "I'll be fine.  It's no big deal. We all have to die sometime."  You get the point.

What finally got him there was me sitting on the bathroom floor, crying, begging him to go, saying things like, "You're SO important to the family!  We LOVE you!  We NEED you!" More crying, more begging.

And THIS was the game to him.  He was putting me in the position of being his ego.  He didn't need an ego or self-esteem himself (and he DOES suffer from extremely low self-esteem) because he was able to manipulate ME into doing it for him.  This was the first time I'd realized this dance we'd been doing for over two decades.  After this, I stopped doing it.

He would tell me he was having a tachycardia problem and I'd say, "Perhaps you should call Dr. Coghlan and see if you can get in today?"

He'd then kick into his, "Oh, I'll be fine.  I'm 53 and this is to be expected at my age.  We all have to die sometime.  When your number's up, your number's up."

I started responding with, "Okay.  You're an adult and it's your choice."  I'd then go on with my day.

This must have infuriated him because I found notes and memos of his that showed this is when he started planning to divorce me.  In preparation for moving, I've been packing and cleaning out closets.  I've found SO many notes he made to himself, all entitled, "Reasons to hate Nancy".

Each one of them was the same, same line items, same reasons, but occasionally he'd add a new one to the list.  Number 1 was always the same, though, always in large block letters - NEVER FORGET REASONS TO DIVORCE NANCY!  (I also found a journal of his that he must have forgotten about.  It took me nearly a month to read it all because it was filled with some sick, sick stuff.  I always wondered why he and his sister seemed to have this bizarre, co-dependent relationship.  Now I know why, and it's not good at all.)

Oh, and something else I found in all the paperwork in the closet?  Copies of his medical records.  In these medical records was proof he'd been having this "heart problem" since 1998, not long before he retired from the Air Force.  Just as he'd never told me of his diagnosis early in our marriage of his Bipolar Disorder, he didn't tell me he had a heart issue.

Why was it such a big deal now?  Because I'd been making plans to leave him.  I'd seen an attorney.  I'd started hiding money.  I'd started telling a couple of close friends I thought I'd reached the end of my time with him.  I started making plans to move back home.  How did he know all this?  He had a keystroke logger on my laptop.

He needed me to stay, not because he didn't want a divorce but because HE wanted to leave ME!  So he finally pulled this rabbit out of his hat, the rabbit that had been sitting there, festering, waiting to be pulled out for just such an occasion.  He needed to stall me and he knew, with me being an empathetic and caring person, that I'd stay if he fell ill and needed taking care of.

Narcissists need to be the one to leave.  Always.  To them, it's the ultimate in "Winning".  To leave a narcissist is the ultimate narcissistic injury, in their mind.  Doing this will subject you to all sorts of abuse you never dreamed imaginable.

Leaving any marriage is never easy.  Leaving a narcissist is down-right impossible.

Yet another slow news day...

I have been scouring the Internet for the last two hours, searching for a news item to write about, to no avail. All I've seen is a regurgitation of the same stuff, just told about ten different ways.

Something that has been in my mind though was something I witnessed yesterday that blew me away. I was driving into town and as I approached a stoplight, on a service road next to me, was a man beating on his wife (?) and kids. Yes, you read correctly, on the side of the road, this guy actually pulled over to a service road, got out of his truck and made a thought out decision to beat on his family!

I pulled over to call for help, another car in the lane next to me blew the red light, probably out of shock, and the guy saw me pull in, cell phone to my ear, and didn't slow down at all. While on the phone with the 911 operator I pulled away to go to a safer location, my thinking being if he'd do this to his family, certainly a stranger was no problem, and he started in on one of his kids!

The sheriff caught up to them with my help. Before they could get there, he pulled away but I followed until they pulled him over. He, of course, denied everything. However, the sheriff shared with me this guy had a history with them and he wasn't buying it for a second. So now, this guy's on their radar even more and hopefully something will come of it.

What a crazy world we live in, that someone like this walks the streets and thinks it's a good thing to pull onto the side of the road and beat on his family.

Anyway, that's about all that's on my mind at the moment, not finding any news stories to talk about.

Our schools are out of control...

Again, no link to an article in the headline but I have two articles here to further illustrate my point, that our schools are spiraling out of control, with no one but the administration to blame.

In South Carolina, a 49-year-old teacher, Karen Robbins, had sex with a 15-year-old student. The link for the article is on CNN.

In Tampa Bay, FL, a teacher in a classroom had problems with some disruptive students, culminating in "...one of them directed an offensive remark at a teacher, bringing her to tears."

The teacher left the room and another teacher came in, with two older kids in tow, to being the room under control. What follows is nothing short of abuse towards children, not just by the children but by the adults involved as well. Read about it here.

As the mother to a child who has been bullied pretty much non-stop since we moved to Arizona three years ago, I feel this is why our schools are out of control; the teachers don't want to teach, they want to be "friends" with their students. There are no boundaries any longer between the adults and the children they are responsible for.

In the teacher sex scandal in South Carolina, there is mention in the link provided of another teacher, this time a woman named Wendie Ann Schweikert, an elementary school teacher, had sex with an 11-year-old boy. This one sickens me to no end. How does anyone look at children and think, "Oh, yeah, I gotta have me some of that."

Today's world seems to be failing our children. They are not giving them the once proud educations of our forefathers, where a child could do algebra, and beyond, by the age of ten. We were once a country filled with accountability, where one was expected to take responsibility for their actions, and said actions were required to be the example for future generations. Now we are a country of "not me" and all we are teaching our children is that enough money and perseverance can keep you out of jail.

Over the last twenty years or so, psychologists have led us to believe that our actions are not our actions, but the result of someone else's mistreatment or abuse. We are now permitted to define ourselves by what has been heaped upon us in the past.

Example: I am the adult child of an alcoholic. My father was a horribly abusive alcoholic who hit me several times a week. My mother was powerless to stop it given the financial circumstances in their marriage and she was being abused as well. When I was in my early thirty's, I decided to go to an Al-Anon meeting for adult children of alcoholics. I went once and never went back. I heard so many people whining about how the alcoholic shaped their life and how it had repetitive repercussions on their present. "My father's being so abusive towards me now has me choosing relationships that are abusive." "My mother and her emotionally distancing me from her has me doing the same to my husband and children." Nowhere was anyone saying they were taking responsibility for their emotional problems. As long as we have someone to blame, we don't have to blame ourselves. These people are permitting the abusers to control their lives still by failing to shed the adjectives and move on.

I am an adult child of an alcoholic. It's not who I am, it's what I am, and even then, it's not a very big part of me either. I'm sure, when it's all said and done, these teachers are going to play some kind of pity card, giving mitigating circumstances related to the abuse of these students. I'm sure it'll play out in the courts as, "I was abused as a child and I can't recognize anything else as normal." Boo-hoo, cry me a river. Whomever abused you in the past, if it even happened, wasn't there to prompt you to commit the heinous acts you committed. They didn't hold a gun to your head and MAKE you abuse someone else.

These people make me sick and I believe they should all be locked away, in a dark room that has no key.

But who I am to judge? That's just my two cents.