Married to an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath? You will be alone in this marriage.

Like Katherine Hepburn says, Aspies don't want to be alone,
they simply want to be left alone.  (Image: Flickr.com CC)

“I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.”   ― Audrey Hepburn

Note: I jumped ahead to #30 on the list because I went off on a tangent in my last posting about Aspies and their pathological need to be liked.  I decided to cut it out of there and do this post.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are a funny breed.  They want relationships with people that are close and loving.  They really do.  Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are extremely lonely people.  What they don't realize, though, is they bring the loneliness on themselves by being so reclusive and difficult.

Aspies actually prefer to be left alone, but they want you to leave them alone while sitting next to them.  They don't want to talk to you, they don't want you to talk to them, they don't want to touch you, they don't want you to touch them.  They just want you to sit next to them and bask in the glory of their deigning to be present.

During your marriage, you'll be treated as an accessory to their life.  You will be the trophy wife, the maid, the cook, the prostitute, the wage earner, the day care provider, the brood mare for their children they want (but also don't want them to bother them), chauffeur, masseuse, and any other role of slavery you can fathom.  But the one thing you WON'T be is an equal partner in the marriage.  You also won't be cherished, honored, respected, acknowledged or treated as though you matter in any way, shape or form beyond any of the above roles.  The signs of this are early in the marriage, if you're paying attention.

Nope, Aspies have people in their life for one reason and one reason only, and that's to serve them.  This is why they work SO hard to win you over.  You are now their new source of Narcissistic Supply.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths have an UNCANNY ability to spot your weaknesses so they can exploit them.  I made the mistake of telling my STBE before we were married that I came from an alcoholic family and suffered from abandonment and trust issues as a result.  He zeroed in on those almost from the moment we were married.  It took a few months, because they groom you in very subtle ways, before they hop onto the "let's see how much we can run them down" train.  They actually USE these weaknesses in you to build you up during the "love bombing" stage, working to convince you of what a lovely, trustworthy, loyal, honest person they are.  Once you believe that, the reverse starts happening.

I also told my STBE before we married - Don't ever lie to me.  Even if it's something you think will upset me, I need to know I can always count on you to tell the truth.  I'd rather be hurt by the truth than a lie."  Many years later, in marriage counseling, I brought this up.  His response was, "You didn't mean it."  Really?  I didn't mean it?  That's the best you can do?  You profess to be inside my head to know what I meant when I said this?

For me, the "A-ha" moment came when we'd been married about six months.  As I'd said earlier, I'm a pretty good cook (adventurous is really what it should be called) and I was always trying new recipes.  This particular day, I'd made a dinner salad with three or four types of lettuce, strawberries, hand-made vinaigrette dressing, toasted almonds, smoked turkey, etc.  His kids were there for the weekend and I called everyone to dinner.

I set the large salad bowl down in the center of the table and asked everyone what they wanted to drink?  I went to get the drinks and when I came back, the STBE had served the entire salad to him and his kids, leaving my plate empty.  It was entirely gone with none left for me.  His solution, once he saw me sitting in the living room eating a sandwich (FUMING!) was to tell the kids, "Once you've eaten all you want from your plate, give Nancy the rest."  I got the leftovers?  Really?  I MADE the damn thing and I get the leftovers?????  Fuck that.

See how this devalues you as a person?  Now, in the mind of my STBE, the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, I'm nothing more than a cook and slave.  I'm relegated to eating everyone else's leftovers.

Another example from my life of the "devaluing" stage is something that happened not long after the "salad incident".  Mark's ex-wife had signed the kids up for bowling on Saturday mornings.  Mark would take them to bowling, then lunch, and I'd use the time to clean the entire house and this was no mean task.  See, Mark being the "Disney Dad" (AKA Disneyland Dad), the kids were never required to clean up after themselves, help with housework in any way, they scattered their crap all over the place and generally didn't do anything but sit around with Dad while I waited on them all, hand and foot.

One particular Saturday morning, he took the kids to bowling while I cleaned.  I also washed and ironed all his uniforms, did all the dishes, cleaned the kid's bedrooms, made their beds, cleaned up their crap from the floor, etc.  When Mark and the kids came home around 1 o'clock, he walked in and didn't say a thing about my having cleaned the entire two story row home.  BUT - he did look around and all he said was, "You didn't clean the baseboards.  What's planned for dinner?"  And he walked away.

Again, devaluing me as a person.  I've not met his unrealistic expectations.  I cleaned 1500 square feet of living space but what he noticed was -  I didn't clean the baseboards.  So what did I do?  I got down on my hands and knees and cleaned the baseboards.  After so many months of being told by him just how wonderful I was, just how much I fulfilled him, he's now telling me I'm not good enough.

This is where the whole "being alone" kicks in.  No longer are you focused on your expectations of being an equal partner in a good marriage. NOW you're focused on "keeping your man happy" at all costs.  He's unhappy with you so you have to work on this, right?  Because we're all told a good marriage is based on focusing on the needs and the happiness of the other person.  And this IS true.  If you focus on keeping your mate happy, it's like a stone thrown into a pond.  The ripples that come from that spread until it touches every part of your life.

Right?

Not in an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath marriage.  Nope.  As focused as you now are on keeping your man happy, he's that focused on you keeping your man happy.  Now that the devaluing stage has begun, this is where you'll start doing TOO much to keep your man happy and no matter what you do, it won't be enough.  Only NOW, the Aspie will start complaining you're hovering and annoying them with all the attention.  From this point on, the only time your Aspie wants you to pay attention to him is when he's horny or hungry.  Period.  Any other time, they expect you to flit about like a butterfly, attending to their needs, picking up after them, washing their clothes, doing the grocery shopping, keeping the kids out of their hair and generally being the fairy that comes in the middle of the night to take care of the house.

Gone are the late into the night conversations of sharing your future together.  No more pillow talk because once they're done with the sex act, they'll either roll right over and fall asleep or will get up to fastidiously clean themselves as though you have leprosy and they need to get your cooties off of themselves.  No more small talk over dinner because your Aspie will now have become mono-syllabic and will eat as fast as they can so they can go back to their computer/television show/movie, whatever.  Any attempts at conversation over dinner are met with grunts and loud sighs, thereby training you to just sit there, eat your food, and shut the hell up.

They simply want you to leave them ALONE!

Towards the end of my marriage, the STBE started bringing the iPad into the den to "watch television" with me.  However, as soon as he sat down, he'd put the ear buds in and start watching YouTube videos on the thing.  I was ignored.  If I wanted to say something to him, I had to tap his knee.  This was met with a loud sigh, he'd do this whole dramatic thing that involved pausing the video, then taking out his ear buds, then turning to me with another loud sigh and saying, "WHAT?!?!?!"

I finally gave up.  And so should you if you ever want to be in a relationship with someone who actually wants you there with them as more than a warm body.

Aspies need to be liked by everyone

Aspies are chameleons, taking on the
personality and persona of the person
they're with or want to attract.
(Image: flickr.com CC)

“Really Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I'm starting to feel more and more I should be using the term "Narcissist" in all of this.  Aspies and Narcissists are extremely similar and Narcissism is one of the main qualities of being an Aspie.

As much as Aspies and the mental health community would have us believe Aspies are warm, fuzzy kittens all the time, they're not.

Aspies need to be liked SO much, they'll run you down in the process.  They simply don't understand people really CAN like more than one person.

Over the years, the STBE would run into people at work who just didn't like him.  There was really no reason for it, they just didn't like him.  We all have people like that in our lives and it's nothing wrong with you OR them.  Some people just don't like you for whatever reason.  I've never been someone bothered by this but the STBE?  Oh, man, this would make him absolutely CRAZY!  He would try to talk to the person to show them what a wonderful person he is.  If they didn't go for it then, he'd start inviting them to lunch, or for a coffee, or whatever, but if someone doesn't like you, nothing you do will change their mind.

I used to tell the STBE, "Oh my gosh, just let it go!  Not everyone has to like you and there really are people out there in the world who will never like you.  It's nothing to do with you and it's really not personal.  There's just something about you they don't like and it could be something personal to them.  That happens in life, some times."

But he could never let it go.  It would actually keep him up at night.  It was maddening to not just him but me, too, because I was the one who was always required to listen to him talk about it endlessly and it wouldn't end until the person either told him, "Okay, FINE, I like you!" or they left the company or moved to another location.

Now that you're in a committed relationship with the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, you become the target for all their hatred and rage.

Now, the average husband will say nice things about his wife.  She's a good cook.  She takes good care of the kids.  She's has a great memory for detail.  She always gets really great gifts for people at Christmas.  She makes a big deal out of everyone's birthdays.

All of these are things my STBE has said to me at one time or another, in his nicer moments (far and few between), so I know he believes them to be true.  But he's always hated me for these things because he wasn't able to incorporate them into his life.  Aspies choose mates who have the character and personality traits they wish they had.  But these very traits become a reason to hate you down the road.

The Aspie husband, though, is bothered by these parts of my personality/character.  Using the above examples, this is how an Aspie husband handles these items:

My wife is a good cook:  For an Aspie, he's more likely to tell people something along the lines of, "My wife makes SUCH fattening foods, I swear she's trying to kill me".  And always with just the right amount of derision (and based on them making this statement, they might actually come to believe you ARE trying to kill them - Aspies are incredibly paranoid).  Now the kids, both his and ours, would tell anyone who would listen I was a good cook.  At least they used to.  Now they say nothing because that's what Dad trained them to do.  This is called "Abuse by Proxy" or "Proxy Recruitment", because they actually teach the kids to become abusive towards you.

My wife takes good care of the children:  For the Aspie, kids take away attention from THEM, so this is a major, major resentment on their part.  Aspies are more likely to start making it look to the kids as though you pay TOO much attention to them. He might start calling you a "helicopter mom" or working to convince them you're invasive in their lives.  After a long enough time, they start to resent your presence in their lives as anything more than a source for money, clothes or whatever...

My wife has a great memory for detail:  This is another source of angst for the Aspie because they can't remember ANYTHING that has to do with anyone but them.  Tell them one of the kids has a special event and they'll forget, forcing you to remind them over and over.  They resent you for this and can be heard saying, "I swear my wife doesn't forget ANYTHING.  It drives me nuts how she's always bringing something up that happened days/weeks/months/years ago."  Aspies tend to forget they have a running list in their heads of everything "horrible" thing you've ever done to them, real or imagined, and they aren't afraid to whip it out in any and all arguments.

My wife always gets great gifts for people at Christmas:  My STBE was one of those people who would save his Christmas shopping for the very last minute.  He gave no thought to it the other 364 days a year, outside of giving people a list of what HE wanted, so he was never very good at gift buying.  I remember one year I got a shower head for Christmas while he got a really nice sweater, something I knew he needed.  The STBE asked me once, "How is it you always get exactly the right gift for all of us every year?"  I told him, "I pay attention to them when they talk."  He never understood this - this whole paying attention to people.

She makes a big deal out of birthdays:  I've always made a huge deal out of birthdays. I feel we live in a cold world, sometimes, and that everyone should be made to feel special on their birthday.  It's their day and I do everything I can to make it thus.  The birthday person gets to choose dinner that night, whether it's dining out or eating in, makes no difference.  They choose their birthday cake, and Elias would always choose that I make his.  I would sit down with him and have him choose the cake he wanted.  Too difficult?  I didn't care.  I made it because it's what he wanted for his birthday.  Aspies tend to not remember birthdays that aren't theirs.  If I had a nickel for every time I had to remind the STBE it was someone's birthday and he needed to call them, I'd be able to buy an island.  My last birthday before I filed for divorce was forgotten by every single person in the family.  And no one could understand why my feelings were so hurt.  Even my STBE stepdaughter went so far as to say, "But it's okay that we forgot her birthday.  We're Dickinson's, after all."  In their mind, being a Dickinson is synonymous with being thoughtless, and they're okay with that.

Now, all this being said...  Aspies need others to dislike you so they can feel better about themselves.  See?  So-and-so doesn't like you at all but they like ME so I must be a better person.  They use this to chip away at your self-esteem (and Narcissists do this, too) and make you feel badly about yourself.  It's a really subtle thing and usually an off-hand remark made after a company dinner or picnic, after a get-together either at your house or someone else's.  Yeah, Aspies need people to hate you, or at least have you think they hate you.

Why do they do this?  Because Aspies have incredibly low self-esteem.  They know they're different, and instead of embracing being different and "quirky", they try to make those around them look bad so they can look good by comparison.

Also, Aspies tend to hide who they are when starting a relationship.  They will take on the personality of the person they're with at the time and become extremely agreeable people.  You'll think you've found the perfect mate when the truth of the matter is, they're extremely chameleon-like, taking on the likes and dislikes of the person they're courting (this is also called love-bombing).  They will inundate you with flattery, gifts, be agreeable to whatever you suggest and will be SO likable AND lovable!  They will be the PERFECT boyfriend.  (And as a side note: my STBE told me not long before I filed for divorce, "I knew I had these problems before we got married, but I never told you because I was afraid you'd leave me" - How nice for him.  He got what he wanted, but he made me and several children miserable in the process, abusing us all.  But wasn't that fun for him?)

They NEED you to like them to prove to themselves they ARE likable, conveniently forgetting it's them changing into what the other person might need or want, rather than being who they are.  When dating, you ask:

You: Do you feel like a movie tonight?
Him: Sure, that sounds good.
You: What would you like to see?
Him: You pick one.  I want to see whatever you want to see.  OR I don't care, so long as I'm with you.

So you pick something.  What they never tell you afterward is, they never wanted to see that movie and they hated every minute of it.  And so the resentment towards you starts.  Only they'll never TELL you they resent you for this, at least not for a long time.  They're still in the "love bombing" stage, winning you over.

But once you're in a committed relationship with them, it all stops.  They've won you over so there's no need to continue with being "the chameleon".

I can remember the first thing my STBE said to me the moment we were married (literally - the moment we were married).  He turned to me, held my hands in his, looked at me with a tremendous amount of excitement in his eyes and said, "I'm SO glad I married you!" (and right about then in my head, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what a wonderful thing to say!") but then he followed it up with, "I now have a hot wife!"

Talk about popping your balloon, right?

Nope, once they have you, they have you, and they're not letting go easily.  And so begins life with an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath.

The process of love bombing me, getting me to like him, is now over.

Good luck with the rest of your life with them because it's all downhill from here.

Aspies will use the children against you

Before reading this, read up on Parental Alienation Syndrome.

During my marriage to my sociopathic Aspie (and most Aspies ARE sociopaths, due to their lack of empathy.  Testing was done using brain scans of Aspies and known sociopaths and there wasn't a whole lot of differences between the two) he would use our youngest son, Elias, as his therapist and sounding board for ranting about just what a horrible person I am.

It's not that I'm truly a horrible person, it's that to an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, anything you do that's different from them (and let's just say it - EVERYTHING you do is different from them) is "abuse".  When it comes to parenting, they are the ultimate and forever "Disney Dad".  No discipline, no rules and the times you DO make them take part in being "the bad guy", it rocks their whole world.

I can remember one time, my youngest had disappeared with one of his friends.  He was under 10 at the time and neither I nor the other kid's parents could find them.  We were all, every one of us, terrified something had happened to them.  They finally appeared but it was after a pretty rough couple of hours and we were on the verge of calling the police (and the father of the other child WAS a police officer).

The STBE Aspie/Sociopath/Narcissist was out of town for this event and after talking to him about it over the phone, we decided to offer Elias a choice of punishments - either he lose his XBox for a week or he get one spanking with the belt.  I also talked it over with my son's psychiatrist and we gave Elias the time to decide which one he wanted, by telling him he had until his dad came home from his trip to make up his mind, which was four days hence.

When the STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist came home, Elias decided he wanted one spanking with the belt so I made the STBE do it since I'd already dealt with all the other crap while he was gone.  The STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist went upstairs, gave Elias one crack with the belt and came downstairs BAWLING HIS EYES OUT! 

Why was he crying?  I asked him and he told me, "It just hurt me SO much to do that" and he went on bawling.  Long, heart-wrenching, blubbering bawling.  No mention of Elias and his pain both physical and emotional.  Nothing.  Elias was completely removed from his mind so focused on his own pain was he.  I even asked him, "Is Elias okay?"  His response was, "I don't know.  I just came downstairs right way so he wouldn't see me crying."  I don't know??????  This is your kid.  You just cracked him with a belt and you don't know??????  There should have been some discussion after this with the child.  There should have been some soothing of hurt feelings.  Something.  Anything, other than, "I don't know."

Turns out Elias was barely fazed by this.  He took his spanking and went on with his life.  But this stayed with the STBE for months!  He would break out in tears at odd and random times, such as if we were at an amusement park with our son.  We'd be standing in line at a ride and he would just stare at Elias and suddenly start crying over the heartache he still suffered over having to spank Elias that day.  Aspies/sociopaths/narcissist are SO afraid of one of the kids disliking them for even a nanosecond, they make for lousy parents.  Kids are often ambivalent about their parents.  This is a fact of life.  It doesn't mean they don't love you.  It just means they're your kids.  The STBE simply couldn't bear the thought of being anything less than perfect in the eyes of the kids, even if it meant them hating me pretty much 24/7 and he encouraged that, the hating me.

And that was about the same time he started his campaign of hatred against me with the kids, both Elias and my son from my first marriage.  He started undermining me with the kids 100% and suffered no angst in doing it.

See, Aspies/sociopaths/narcissists have such a great need to be liked, they can't even stand it when they have to be anything but the "fun time" parent with the kids.  There's absolutely no support as a parent from these people because that gets in the way of, "The kids HAVE to like me more than they like HER!"  Because of this, the kids WILL have a definite preference for Good Ole Dad before it's all over and you...  Well, you will be the abusive monster.

Whenever I tried to punish one of the kids for something (again, both Elias and my son from my first marriage), he'd go behind me to "talk" to them.  There was a rolling of the eyes.  There would be statements made like, "You know how your mom is...!" or "Yeah, I agree.  She's being unreasonable.  But what can you do?" with a huge shrug of the shoulders.  Everything he would say to them at these times was to reinforce to them he was the good guy, I was the monster.  He'd then promise them he's "talk to me" about it all, which translated to, "Nancy, you need to change your mind."

He was so good at this, it took me a while to figure out just what it was he was doing.  A lot of times I'd cave because of his working so hard to convince me of just what a horrible parent I was for expecting the kids to be punished for such a "minor" infraction.

And this is an example of what he considered to be a "minor" infraction (and I'll have a couple more.  This was just a big one) - New Year's Eve, 1999-2000 - My son from my first marriage wanted to go to a friend's house for a party.  He was 17 at the time.  I was pretty sick with the flu and running a fever so he had to wake me up to ask me.  I'm not usually my best after being awakened suddenly like that.  Add to that a fever and you've got a recipe for disaster.  I agreed to let my son go to this party with the proviso he come home at midnight.  He argued he wanted to stay out later due to midnight being "the best part".  Okay then, one o'clock.  I also told him I wanted the kid's phone number and address so I could get hold of him for any reason.  I then fell back asleep.

Around three in the morning, I woke up for some reason and my son wasn't home.  However, the STBE WAS on the computer surfing his porn and engaging in his online affairs and spanking off to "chat sex".

The conversation went like this:

Me: Where's Billy?

Him: I don't know.

Me:  Did he call?

Him: I don't know.

Me: Did he come home and leave again?

Him: I don't know.

Me (now frantic): Do you fucking know ANYTHING????

Him: I know he's not here. (See the disconnect from the reality of what was happening?)

So now it's on...

I called the number my son had left me.  It was a fictitious number.  It went no where and was a disconnected number.  I drove to the address he gave me.  It was an empty lot.  I now had absolutely NO idea where my kid was and the STBE couldn't have cared less.  God knows a missing teenager can't get in between him and his porn/jacking off/affairs.

The Burger King my son worked at with this kid finally opened at 6AM and as soon as the manager unlocked the doors, I was in there like a bull in a china shop demanding contact information for this kid.  After the manager put me through some general douchbaggery, telling me what a horrible mother I was for not knowing where my kid was, he finally gave me the information and I think I drove about 100 miles an hour getting there - TWO COUNTIES AWAY!!!!!

We finally found the house with the help of a deputy we came across.  Turns out, this house was a major drug house and it was supposed to be raided on New Year's Eve but my son turning up in the mix prevented that because they were trying to find out what major drug lord this was showing up like this.

We get Billy in the car and he REEKS of alcohol.  REEKS!  It's coming out of his pores, he's had so much of it.  I ask him if he's been drinking and he denies it.  I tell him I can smell it coming off of him and if he's not going to admit to it, I'm happy to take him to a police station to have a breathalyzer done.  He admits it.  He also admits he was passed out when he was supposed to be coming home.

When we got home, I sat a chair in the middle of the living room floor and told him to sit in it until I let him out of it.  I then told him, "I'm sick with the flu and instead of sleeping I was out looking for you.  Now you can sit there and watch me sleep while you think about what you did."

I took him to work that afternoon, after a good nap, and when I picked him up at the end of his shift, we sat down and talked.  I told him he was grounded.  He asked me for how long.  I told him, "Until I get over it."

Over the next four months, the STBE did his damnedest to convince me I was being "unreasonable" and "outrageous".  I refused to budge on this one.  I finally let Billy off his grounding but the STBE worked me the entire time.  To him, this was a matter of "Boys will be boys".

Another time, this same son, on home for leave from the Army for Christmas, wanted to use our car for a date.  He told us, "I'll wash it, I'll fill it before I give it back you."  Oh, okay, that sounds fine.

He came to us about an hour before he was supposed to pick up his date:  Mom, Mark, can I borrow about $100 for my date and to put gas in the car?

I told him not only could he NOT have the $100 but because he came to us under false pretenses with no intention of paying for the gas he was going to fill up the car with, he couldn't use the car, either.  This was such total BS I can't even say it was funny.  Not now. Not then.  I went upstairs to take a shower and watch some television, considering the matter closed.  When I came back down, the car was gone.  The STBE was, again, sitting at the computer involved in his porn/jacking off/affairs and this is how the conversation went:

Me: Mark, where's your car (already knowing the answer)?

Him: I let Billy use it.

Me:  I thought I told him he couldn't.

Him: I know, but I thought you were being unreasonable so I let him take it.  It IS my car, after all.

Me: I thought he didn't have any money?

Him: I gave him $150.

See?  See how they do this?  Turn the kids against you?  Not only did he openly defy my wishes when he should have been backing me up, he gave Billy MORE than he'd asked for, thus solidifying in my son's mind what a "cool" stepfather HE is and what a total bitch I am.

This went on for years.  Me being the hard-ass parent, him being the one they all went to because Mom was "unreasonable".  The culmination of it for me was when Billy wanted to use my car (after he'd gotten out of the Army and came to live with us) and I wouldn't let him because a couple months earlier, he'd wrecked it by backing into something and didn't tell me.  He looked me square in the eye and said, "I'll just ask Mark.  HE'LL say yes".  

Also in this time frame, he'd become pretty abusive to Elias because of jealousy or because he's also a sociopath, who knows.  His father raised him to hate me, too - Billy screaming at me once, when he was about 9 years old - "Dad's RIGHT!  You're nothing but a total fucking cunt!"

By this time, Elias was pretty scared of Billy and wasn't afraid to tell me so.  I went to Mark that night and told him, "You've undermined me so much with Billy he has no respect for me at all.  He's also gotten so abusive to Elias, he's afraid to sleep alone at night.  I don't care what you and Billy do, but Elias and I are moving out at the end of the month." (And as a side note, this was in October of that year.  Since this was also the month my mother passed away a few years earlier, Mark declared to all and sundry I was simply being "emotional and unreasonable" due to the anniversary of my mother's death approaching)

The result of this was, Mark finally told Billy he was out of it and that all decisions regarding him were mine to make.  This angered Billy so much (following so many years of running the household and manipulating everyone), after a couple months of him trying to get Mark to be his buddy again and keep me in line so he could do whatever the fuck he wished, he attacked me and hurt me pretty badly.

Billy was kicked out of the house and I got an order of protection.  I haven't seen him since and, frankly, I don't miss him because he's become so abusive and threatening I worry he'd try to kill me, given the opportunity.  Even Elias' therapist told me he grown fearful Billy was going to harm Elias and he was on the verge of calling Children's Protective Services about having Elias removed from the house if Billy wouldn't leave.

This is what having an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist in the house does to your family.  They create SO much chaos with their line of BS and then like to stand back to watch their work in action, all the while demanding all the chaos go away because it's just TOO much for them, blaming it on the target parent.

This was about four years ago.  Fast forward to now.  Mark turned on Elias and started targeting HIM with all his hatred of me now that Billy was no longer there to manipulate.  He would drive Elias to school every morning and spend the entire half-hour ranting about what a horrible and abusive person I was/am, even if he had to make it up.  I had no idea this was going on until Elias spilled it to his therapist when he was about 16 or so.  The therapist saw it for what it was, emotional abuse, and called Mark in for a private appointment; just him and the therapist.  I don't know what was said that day, but Mark was put on notice if the therapist ever heard of it happening again, he was going to call CPS and turn him in for being abusive. (He should have done it then, and I should have insisted on it but hindsight being what it is...)

It never happened again, that I know of, but Elias also told me his dad told him, "If you ever tell anyone again I'm doing this, the state will take you away and you'll never see me or your mom again."  With an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, everyone's fair game for abuse.  It's all about them being able to do/say whatever they wish, no matter how horrible or abusive, and everyone is just supposed to say, "Well, that's Mark!"  The need to be the favored person is SO deeply ingrained in them, they don't care who they hurt in order to have the admiration of others.  They will use people like you might use a box of Kleenex during a cold.  And they don't care.  They have absolutely NO empathy at all for anyone else.  This is also the mark of a sociopath and why they are so similar personality-wise.

Mark kept up his tirades against me, planting the seeds of hate in the kids, to the extent none of them are talking to me now since I filed for divorce.  Elias, whom I was once so close to and who could/would talk to me about anything and everything, told me in our last conversation I was an abusive bitch and "You need to just kill yourself and put me and Dad out of our misery".

Now who does that sound like?

Since Elias left for the Air Force, we got along pretty well for the first year or so.  At least until about eight months ago.  He started getting extremely angry and hostile towards me (and I found notes Mark had been making beginning about the same time - this past July - that he had begun making plans to divorce me.  This explains why Elias' personality and love for me changed so radically and so quickly) and had cut me off from him then.  His campaign to hurt me using the kids went into effect LONG before he left, LONG before I had him kicked out.

If you were to ask Elias today if there were any good qualities to me at all, he couldn't come up with a single one.  A few months ago, he told me he KNEW he could always count on me to be there for him, while knowing he couldn't count on his dad to have his back.  Now, he'll tell you the opposite, along with about a dozen other horrible things about me.  Not long before he cut me off, he'd also stopped telling me he loved me.

Parental Alienation, anyone?

Note: I'll be honest - I can look through the list of PAS symptoms and see where I'd done things like this to my son.  One item that stands out, #8, is - I refused contact with my family for several years.  This was following a long campaign by the STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist to convince me my family was awful, his family was wonderful.  He also outright lied to me at times about it - such as when I was in the hospital following major surgery.  I'd asked him to call my siblings (my parents were gone by this time) and a few other people to let them know I was there.  He even had a list and took my cell phone with him to call them so he could have their numbers.  He was gone about an hour and came back to report to me none of them cared.  He told me my siblings all took the stance, "I don't care.  And please tell Nancy to stop calling me".  Seems they'd also tried to call the house to talk to me and he would tell them, "Nancy doesn't want to talk to you".

I was LIVID at all my family once Mark reported this back to me and I wrote them all a pretty scathing letter about staying out of my life.  It wasn't until three years later my oldest sister had the courage to call and she got me on the phone (right after Mark had been kicked out of the house).

So, yeah, taken out of context, it would look like I'm guilty of PAS by the simple fact I prevented Elias from having anything to do with them.  Which is exactly what Mark wanted.  I'm working on fixing things with my siblings but the nephew I helped raise still refuses contact with me as do a couple other people.  When you divorce an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, they spread it around.  MY family heard from him about the divorce before his OWN family had.  They want everyone to hate you as much as they do.

Parental Alienation Syndrome and the child(ren) involved - Even adult children

Emotional vampires will leave you exhausted following an
interaction with them.  Sadly, by the time you realize you're
in the presence of an emotional vampire, it's too late.

Today's posting is for something funny and SO indicative of an Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer.  In addition, I'm going to be explaining in detail just what the Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer will do to hurt you in the divorce.

If you've been following this blog at all, you already know my story: I'm divorcing an Aspie/Narcissist/diagnosed Bipolar Disorder sufferer.  Any one of these is pretty damaging to the emotional/mental well-being of any spouse to them.  I got the trifecta of abusive personality disorders when I married my STBE.  And more than once, it's driven me to the point of thinking the only way out of this marriage was through suicide.  Thank God, those thoughts are behind me, now, and I embrace the wonder of life and look forward to having one without the abusive Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer in it.

The back story:

I've been working to maintain no contact with my STBE because he's so abusive in nature.  He managed to trick me into contact recently, and I'm now back to no contact after the hurricane/tsunami/tornado/earthquake that came with him and am improving again.  However, I've been getting messages from people over the last week from people who know my youngest son and they're worried about him a great deal.

As I've mentioned previously, when you're divorcing an Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer, they'll use the kids to hurt you - and not just a little bit.  For the above personality disorders, in any divorce, it's a "Win at all costs" attitude.  Since these people have absolutely no empathy, using the kids is just another gun in their arsenal, even if it's so bad for them it means decades of therapy, if not a few suicide attempts, for the kids.  They simply don't care.  It's not about what's best for everyone, it's about what's best for THEM.  Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers are emotional vampires.  They will suck the life out of you faster than a speeding bullet and once they've depleted your supply, they'll move onto the next person, and the next, and the next.  So long as there are gullible people in the world who are willing to fall for the charms of the emotional vampire, so shall the narcissist abuse.

Because my son has me blocked on Facebook, I have an account neither he nor my STBE know about and I logged into it to see just what it was my son was saying that had everyone so alarmed.  On the page, I saw my son talking about how depressed he is.  The STBE responded to him with (and it pains me to have to look at the posting again to put this here, but it illustrates the Aspie mind so well):

As I well know, depression is no joke.  People who don't own the black dog can't really understand, although some will genuinely try to help.  Since they usually don't get it they often miss the mark.  Don't discount well-meaning friends.  They won't understand when it seems like you're blowing them off.  Allow people to drag you off to the gym or to get some Chinese food.  Those things will actually help and you find out who your friends are.  Acceptance is great, just don't stop there.Take action.  You know what to do.  Call me anytime you need to.  I'm there for you 24/7.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out just how my STBE was alienating my son from me (See Parental Alienation Syndrome), and after seeing this post, it all became clear to me.  In order to help you see just how Aspies work (and this is a form of gas lighting, altering the reality of the victim, in this case, my son), I'll break this paragraph of my STBE line-by-line to help you understand it better.

First, let me state, my son has suffered from some form of depression for quite some time.  I took him to two different counselors, who seemed to be helping him.  It was during his stint with one of these counselors it came out that my STBE was using that half-hour in the morning and half-hour in the afternoon, the times he drove our son to and from school, to do nothing but rant about what an awful person I am.  My son was an emotional wreck and told his therapist he was beginning to feel as though he was the only one who could fix our marriage.  In short, my son was being used by the STBE by forcing him to become his therapist.  My son was only 15 at the time.  Rather than actually SEE a therapist, the STBE was forcing others into the role.  He'd done this to me for years and I'd put a stop to it by telling him I couldn't do it any longer and he needed to find an actual therapist.  He refused to do so, saying he didn't need one, and turned it onto my son.

Now, let's break down the Facebook posting- and some of this will make me look paranoid to the nth degree, but after 21 years of living with my STBE, I've seen this all to much.  A great deal of their mental/emotional abuse is subtle):

1. As I well know, depression is no joke.  People who don't own the black dog can't really understand, although some will genuinely try to help.  - "I'm the only one who understands you.  Others might try.  Others might say they do.  But I'm the only one who truly does."  This is his way of letting my son know it's "I" who doesn't get it since I don't suffer from depression.  Never have, probably never will, outside of this marriage.  I was a happy, optimistic person before I married the STBE and I shall be again, post-divorce.
2. Since they usually don't get it they often miss the mark.  Don't discount well-meaning friends.  They won't understand when it seems like you're blowing them off. - This is an extension of #1.  Now my son's being told it's not just me who doesn't get it, but neither does anyone else, even well-meaning friends.  This is a reinforcement of the STBE being the only one who understands him, thus he is the superior parent and human being.  They are both now precious snowflakes and no one gets them BUT each other.
3. Allow people to drag you off to the gym or to get some Chinese food.  Those things will actually help and you find out who your friends are. - On the surface, this all sounds like good advice, right?  For a mentally healthy person going through a normal, average dose of depression, it is.  For a narcissist like my STBE, this is a calculated statement/move.  This is a form of alienation, a common tactic used by Narcissists/abusers.  Now the STBE has my son judging his friends based on the amount of support they give.  No one will be able to measure up to the standards a depressed person will actually have.  And, let's just say it, unless you DO suffer from depression or are a therapist, you'll never truly understand it, therefore will ALWAYS fall short of the mark.  And, people being people, the more my son blows them off, the less likely they become to ask him to go anywhere with him.  The less they come around, the more depressed he becomes.  The more depressed he becomes, the less likely they are to want to be around him at all, because who wants to spend all their time with a person who refuses to have fun or laugh nor do anything to change work towards changing it?  The idea being planted in the mind of my son is: his father is the ONLY person who truly gets him, thus creating a bond of trust that supersedes all other relationships in his life.  His father is now grooming him to be further abused, all in the interest of feeding the need of the STBE to have a narcissistic supply.
4. Acceptance is great, just don't stop there. Take action.  You know what to do. - They now have a secret language that only the two of them understand.  The words used here are cryptic and insinuate to the rest of the world they are conjoined and alone in this, therefore, there's no need to interfere because Dad's got it handled, right?  Wrong.  For a narcissist, there's no greater joy than taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable person, as my son is due to the divorce.  This is rocking his world and nothing makes sense any more.  What the STBE is spoon-feeding him is something to latch onto so he can have just ONE thing that makes sense.  The parental alienation is almost complete and the real abuse is about to begin.  I watched this happen with his two kids from his first marriage and they STILL hate their mother, 22 years after the divorce, both of them adults aged 30 and over.
5. Call me anytime you need to.  I'm there for you 24/7. - This is the big one.  Note there's no mention in any of this to see a therapist or medical doctor.  There's no mention of seeking help in any way, shape or form, outside of "Call me!"  This is the reinforcement to my son that the STBE is the ONLY person he should contact, as he's the ONLY person who can help him.  And that 24/7?  Nope, he turns the ringer off on his phone at night.  The precious snowflake that is my STBE simply CAN'T have his sleep disturbed at all.  People who suffer from depression that lasts longer than what's ordinary or average, more than a few days or weeks, SHOULD see a medical doctor or therapist.  For someone to suggest anything else is thoughtless, uncaring, unsympathetic and, let's just say it, dangerous.  People who have been depressed for a long time are more prone to suicide than anyone else.  If you know ANYONE who could be clinically depressed, encourage them to seek professional help - ALWAYS!

Now that this has all been explained for you, this leads me to Parental Alienation Syndrome, which Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers WILL do!  Like they need oxygen, they need the constant and firm adoration of those around them, even if it means they are psychologically damaging others.  Remember, they have no empathy.  The people in their life - their wife, their children, their "friends" - are all there to serve a purpose known only to the Narcissist.  Also, the people in their life are easily replaced once that narcissistic supply runs dry, generally by the parasitic host figuring out what's going on.

Parental Alienation is insidious.  How can you figure out it's happening to you?  Research, research, research.

These alienating strategies worked together to give the child the following three-part message: (this is excerpted from Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome)

• The alienating parent is the only parent who cares,
• the alienating parent is needed in order for the child to feel safe and good about him- or herself,
• the targeted parent -- who is dangerous and does not love the child anyway -- must be disavowed in order to maintain the love and approval of the alienating parent. 
• Boldly stated this way, the message resembles the message cult leaders convey to cult members.

 Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is such a damaging emotional assault on a child (even adult children), it's described in this way:  Alienated children are no less damaged than other child victims of extreme conflict, such as child soldiers and other abducted children, who identify with their tormentors to avoid pain and maintain a relationship with them, however abusive that relationship may be. (For the complete article, see here)

The article goes on to say - For the child, parental alienation is a serious mental condition, based on a false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous and unworthy parent. The severe effects of parental alienation on children are well-documented; low self esteem and self-hatred, lack of trust, depression, and substance abuse and other forms of addiction are widespread, as children lose the capacity to give and accept love from a parent. Self-hatred is particularly disturbing among affected children, as children internalize the hatred targeted toward the alienated parent, are led to believe that the alienated parent did not love or want them, and experience severe guilt related to betraying the alienated parent. Their depression is rooted is feelings of being unloved by one of their parents, and from separation from that parent, while being denied the opportunity to mourn the loss of the parent, or to even talk about the parent. 

Okay, I think I've given you enough to chew on for now.  But in the beginning of this post, I'd mentioned something funny.  Here it is:

What is it that makes this so funny?  The Facebook account he's referring to?  The one I've apparently trashed with "pretty psycho" stuff?  It's been shut down since he left in November and I've never "done" anything to it at all.

Like abusers need to abuse, so shall narcissists tell huge lies about you in the interest of discrediting you to the rest of the world (meaning, the source of their narcissistic supply).  And if I WERE to post anything on his former account, it would have simply been the truth.  If the truth makes him look bad, then it's HE with the problem, not me.  Oh, and this "make new friends"?  He's trolling for his next parasitic host.  And don't believe for a moment he didn't try to go to the page to see what was on there (nothing, because the account was deactivated).  Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers lie even when the truth won't hurt them.  It's like breathing to them.

I'm so glad I'm out of this farce of a marriage.  After finding copies of his medical records a couple weeks ago and learning he'd been taking medication "off and on" since 1993 for Bipolar Disorder (something he'd never told me), I can safely say, our entire marriage was based on his lies.

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.

Aspies are the most literal people you'll ever meet

Flickr Creative Commons: Annie_Belle1

My STBE Aspie husband had several affairs while he was married to me.  Some were online, a couple were live and in color with co-workers (and both of them thought they were the only one.  How cute is that?) and he also dabbled (at least I think he dabbled, it could have been a raging thing with him) in going into those chat rooms where people chat each other through masturbation.  Now, my STBE SWEARS he never masturbated through those conversations.  He would have been the only one, I'm sure.  And if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

It's this black-and-white thinking that will drive you right over the edge, mentally and emotionally.

Once my STBE's affairs with co-workers came to light, once I got phone calls from some very angry husbands, I said to him, "I've been asking you for over a year, accusing you really, about having an affair with someone at work.  You've always told me you're completely honest with me, yet you looked me in the eye and told me you weren't".

His response?  And hold on to your seat...

"That's not what you asked me.  We never did anything at work."

To an NT, this is a lie - a lie of omission.  I won't even touch on the lies of commission, knowingly telling a lie or embellishing the facts, because Aspies tend to not do that.  This is how they convince themselves they are SO honest!  To an Aspie, he WAS completely honest with you.  100%.  He answered the question you asked, not seeing any of the subtleties NTs see on a regular basis.  They do this to confuse you, really.  Leading you into a false sense of security that they really are "honest" people.  They work to make you believe it's not they who lied (a lie of omission is still a lie), but simply you who misunderstood what it was you were asking.

“Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” ― Criss Jami

The Bible doesn't address lies of omission, but to lie is a sin.  My STBE would hold himself up as a paragon of virtue, using the bible to back him up with this assertion, since he is the son and stepson of two Episcopalian priests.  He presents himself very, very well to the outside world using this as his bedrock.

However, he's broken so many commandments, I wondered if he ever read them.  He not only cheated on me but his first wife.  But with an Aspie, they can make it all sound very correct and proper, thus the fault of their spouse.  They leave out the part where it's they who was neglecting their spouse, staying glued to the television, probably drinking to excess or using drugs as a buffer between them and the insanity that goes on inside their heads. There were red flags with the STBE while we were still dating, but I chose to overlook them.  One of the big ones was, whenever I'd ask him if he saw a certain movie, he'd tell me, "I think I did watch it at some point, but I was drunk and don't remember it."  The lie of omission takes place here.  They skew the reality of it all to make you believe they are the victim in this scenario.

But to him, and his "morality" of being the perfect Christian, he's honest, thus there was no lie, because he believes what he told me is the truth.

Here's a tip - most abusers of alcohol and/or drugs do so because of the "voices in their head".  I don't mean the voices a person might hear if they're delusional, like the Son of Sam telling people his neighbor's dog made him do it.  I mean their internal monologue that most of us have going on in our minds day-to-day.  This is the internal monologue where we work to solve problems, plan our day or evening, what to make for dinner, etc.  For most of us, we can shut this down and go on with our day.  For someone with Asperger's, Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder (which my therapist tells me is primarily women) they simply can't shut it down.

They'll take a minor event in your life together, one that drives them completely nuts every single time you do it, such as sweeping the kitchen floor every night before you go to bed.  They won't say a word to you about it, but they WILL let it fester in their head for days, weeks or months; in my STBE's case, it would be for years and decades - he only just told me about a week and a half ago how much he hated it when I would call him and ask him if he'd like to meet me for lunch while I was in town.  This is something I'd been doing for the duration of our marriage.  He literally kept it inside for over 21 years.  I even did this when we were dating!  This, to me, is a lie of omission, or sorts.  He hid from me his dislike of this rather than tell me I was doing something that bothered him.  He then made it my fault for not telling me.  In his head, he built it up to, "She'll just get pissed off at me if I tell her I don't like it and I don't want that argument".

But who's to say it would have been an argument?  I heard from him so many times, following his being caught in his latest lie of omission, "I didn't say anything because I didn't want the argument."  I would tell him, every time he would say this to me, "But how do you even KNOW it would have been an argument if you didn't give me the opportunity to address it when I first did it?"  His response was always the same, "Because I know you."

And it might seem as though I'm drifting here (and I probably am) but the basis of all this ranting is: by not telling me I was doing something that upset him, he was lying to me.  He allowed me to go on for months at a time thinking everything was okay, when the truth of the matter is, it wasn't.  He just wasn't telling me.  After several months of "not telling me", he would explode into a rant that would, at times, leave me fearing for my safety.  So now, not only am I dealing with his laundry list of complaints, I'm feeling defensive because I'm feeling as though I'm being attacked from all sides.  (I call this "Pulling the rug out from under me", something else Aspies like to do, in order to keep you off-balance and walking on eggshells waiting for when the next rant or explosion will come)  And this is his own self-fulfilling prophecy because not only am I mad that he's kept from me about 100 things I've done that upset him, I'm now being attacked (from my point of view) and defending myself.  This is all compounded with the anger I'm feeling over having the rug pulled out from under me, too.  I'm so totally confused at this point, I don't know which end is up.

Using the "fight or flight" impulse all humans have, I was in a no-win situation, too.  Were I to stand there and defend myself, I was being abusive (translation: to ALL Aspies, standing up for yourself and not giving them tacit agreement on just what a piece of shit you really are is "abuse"), if I left the scene of the crime, walked away to avoid the argument, I was being selfish and narcissistic, not caring about his feelings at all.  If I sat there and said nothing at all, agreeing with him every step of the way, the abuse would continue and only get worse as time passed, thus enabling him even more.

But to the Aspie, not telling the whole story is not a lie of omission, nor is it a lie at all.  They take no responsibility for their actions, placing the blame squarely on your shoulders.  By the time they get around to telling you the whole truth, they've already convinced themselves it was entirely your fault, forcing them to be less than completely honest.  Certainly, they'd have been a much more honest person were it not for you being SUCH an unreasonable person, not because of anything you said or did, but because of what they THOUGHT you said or did.  His rambling mind got me in more trouble with him than anything I could have done on my own.

Taking a break from the "lessons" and sharing a bit of my life

In looking at the nearly 100 posts on this blog over the past weeks/months/years, I realize I've not really shared much of my life with you.  I looked back at some older posts, sporadically put here over the time I've lived in Arizona, averaging two or three a year.  I look at the posts and see the timeline that's been my life with an Aspie.

This is me now.  Also, being a little
goofy for my friends

Back when this all started, in November 2004, about a month after I moved to Arizona - there's a photo of me in this post.  I've got a newer one now.  This was taken just a couple of weeks ago right before I had all my hair cut off, had it dyed and picked up some highlights along the way.  I've also lost a great deal of weight since this divorce started over two months ago - about 40 pounds.

Then there are two more postings about some animals we had here on the soon-to-be former homestead.  Some goats, some chickens, all gone once Mark realized owning them meant work.  I then see some posts about blue skies, rainbows and hot air balloons; pretty pictures that don't tell the whole story.

Then I see some posts about news stories and some rants of mine related to them.  Then, in 2007, I complain a bit about my high school reunion and mention 2012's reunion to plan.  2012 went off without a hitch and I don't think there's a single person who didn't have a great time!  Currently, we planning a 50th birthday party that will include a 5k to commemorate a classmate of ours who passed away from the effects of Muscular Dystrophy.  There are some more ramblings, then a posting to remember my father.  I still miss him everyday.  I still have the coonhound, Daisy, who was bitten by a rattlesnake.  She's now nearly seven years old, she hasn't been bitten by anymore rattlesnakes and she's definitely wiser.  More postings, my crazy mom manifesto and then I move on again.

Which brings us to now...

Just so you know I'm not just talking off the cuff, I've been living with the man I'm describing to you for the last 21+ years.  It's been an incredibly difficult 21+ years dealing with the baggage that comes with being married to an Aspie/narcissist.  My life has been a roller coaster of emotions, up and down, round and round in circles, advancing, retreating, hurting, loving, crying alone in the shower on the bad days, laughing aloud on the good days, and in general, just pretty confusing.

But, like Daisy, I'm no longer being bitten by a rattlesnake.  When Daisy sees a rattlesnake in the yard, now, she barks at it from a safe distance.  When I see my rattlesnake coming, I don't bark, but I do prepare myself for a possible strike.  I assume my rattlesnake is already coiled up and ready to strike.  That way, there are no surprises.

This past week was an odd one, but no surprise.  Out of the blue, Mark came to me with the suggestion we do a legal separation rather than a divorce. Seems he wants to keep me on Tricare so he doesn't have to pay for health insurance for me.  And, oh, by the way, how about we keep reconciliation on the table for some point in the future?  I won't bore you with a lot of the talk that went on between us over the week but I was wary.  I'd been so beaten down by this guy over two decades.  His lies, manipulations, half-truths, cheating, hitting, stealing money from the household funds; you name it, he did it.

What I ended up telling him was, reconciliation isn't off the table, but not now.  When, then?  I don't know.  I need some therapy and so does he.  And I would never consider reconciling if it meant things being the way they were before.  I was in desperate need of some "me time".  This was a couple Thursdays ago.  He didn't even make it a week before reverting back to his passive-aggressive, abusive self.  By this past Wednesday, he responded to a text from me with, "I'm in my cave" (which is his code for needing to be alone with his thoughts)  The following morning, he was back to his "I'm mad at you for no reason other than what I've developed in my head and I'm ignoring you again." Well, that and his attorney talked him out of being "friendly" during this divorce or legal separation or whatever it is (in my mind, a divorce).  Mark's need, though, for a narcissistic host means he'll go on paying her for so long as she'll let him, since she feeds his ego.  And so long as his dad has a pen, a checkbook and a way to mail money to Mark, she'll let him.  So long as she goes on telling him just how wonderful and right he is, he's glad to do it.  She needs hours to bill and he needs someone to tell him what an amazing, wonderful person he truly is.  All parasites need a host and I'm glad they found each other.  We'll file that one under, "Not my problem anymore".

I just shook my head when I got his nasty email.  Same shit, different day.  And I moved on.  One thing to mention is: I did let my attorney go after the first hearing after she did pretty much nothing at all.  I might as well have driven down the street tossing $2,000.00 out the car window for all the good it did me in hiring this attorney.  Just for fun, I started sending emails requesting discovery from his attorney.  She's been denying me access to Mark's financial records but she's never "said" she's denying it.  She's just not doing it. (And here's a tip - the more they want to hide something, the more you want to see it - especially if it relates to the finance)  Up until yesterday, there was really nothing that could be done.  BUT - in the flurry of emails yesterday, mine requesting discovery, hers getting longer and longer, all filled with her narcissistic rage she finally said something that the Arizona Bar is VERY interested in seeing - her telling me IN WRITING that she didn't consider his financial records to be relevant to the proceedings.  As soon as I got that one, I called the people at the Arizona Bar and they asked me to email them everything.  This is an ethics violation and it involves hiding financial resources, something they take very seriously ever since another attorney in another part of Arizona helped a client hide a great deal of money in a divorce proceeding.  He got seven years in prison.

I'm seeing two attorneys next week and one of them comes highly recommended as the one to have since Mark's attorney has the reputation of being one of the most unstable, mentally disturbed attorneys in the county.  So I guess she and Mark deserve each other.

As far as how I'm doing: I'm healing.  I guess there was some residual guilt left over from caring for a mentally/emotionally disturbed person for 21+ years.  I think that's what last week was about.  I'm here to tell you all, anyone reading this, expect the guilt.  Expect them to come back during it all.  Expect it all to fall apart very quickly again.  Again, same shit, different day.  So long as you EXPECT them to be capricious, vile, mean, apathetic, manipulative and abusive, all will be well.  Which is why I never completely let down my guard, even when he was discussing with me the possibility of his quitting his job to go back to school.  I was actually starting to fall for it a little bit; I guess old habits die hard. However, it didn't take me long to snap out of it once his true colors came out again.

This is me now, 40 lbs lighter
and looking pretty amazing!
I'm trying to figure out how to
take a selfie w/o looking like
I'm not taking a selfie!

But, I'm still healing.  I didn't get the house I wanted in my hometown that went up for auction today.  But that's okay.  It just wasn't meant to be or it would have been.  But, I'm still healing and will continue to heal with each day that the sun rises on a new one.

For anyone contemplating leaving their Aspie, it really will be okay.  Whether the relationship is a shorter one or a longer one, it will be devastating, at first.  These guys work on us DAILY to convince us we're nothing w/o them.  I can remember my STBE husband would tell anyone who would listen he couldn't possibly become an Episcopalian priest because I was such a bad person with a bad background.  I come from an incredible family who worked hard for everything we have.  My grandparents were both farmers, my mother and father were both well-educated (but didn't have any degrees) and set an excellent example for me and my siblings.  They remained married for 53 years, only ending it on the day my father died.  His family, though...  Well, that should be another blog post some day.  Trust me when I tell you - they have issues and always will because they refuse to see it's they who are nuts.  They are enablers, co-dependent, mentally ill and refuse to medicate because "Jesus will heal me".

I'm not going to lie - there were days I was positive I wouldn't be able to take the heart ache anymore.  But I got up the next morning and found I could make it through another day.  I don't know just when I stopped thinking about the pain in my heart on a continual basis but I did.  And before I knew it, I lost the "whatever" in the pit of my stomach that was omnipresent.  I was laughing again with people and looking forward to a future by myself.  I started visiting Pinterest to look for decor I liked that I could do in my new home, where ever that might be.  I'm seeing just what life CAN be like w/o having someone peering over my shoulder constantly to tell me how I'm scrambling the wrong egg.  I'm enjoying NOT hearing someone tell me just how wrong I am all the time, not correcting me in front of other people, not telling me how I've become so unattractive over the years.\If I had a nickel for each time someone told me just how beautiful I am...

Yes, that first step is scary - but, trust me, it's worth it.  And you'll come out of it okay.  I promise.

And if you need some inspiration, to know you CAN get through it, try reading One Mom's Battle Divorcing a Narcissist.  I know, I know, we're all talking about Aspies here, but Aspies are also narcissists.