The Narcissist’s Double Life: Pathological Cheating, Hiding and Lying – The Psychology

2 Responses to The Narcissist’s Double Life: Pathological Cheating, Hiding and Lying – The Psychology

1. 

   I am one month no contact. The narc I was with was living a double life. We were in a long distance relationship. He proposed to me and I said yes. We were together for 8 years. I found out about a month ago that he was married. He denied it when I confronted him but then admitted to me that he married her after we met. I really believed that he loves me and I am completely devastated. Please help me Angie….thank you!!

   Kelly Garcia    November 28, 2017 at 10:47 pm
2. 

   After a 31-year relationship with a covert NPD who had been leading – double (secret) and stealthy life behind my back, I’m starting to understand better what this type of 100% betrayal means and how easy it was for him to have that secret life. It is absolutely a 100% betrayal of our lives together. He never allowed his secret life to merge with his work life. I, however, was in the middle of that Venn diagram for him. I was his “normal life” he could come home to every day/night. He traveled a lot, so was able to live his secret life away from work colleagues, using excuses like “I’m tired of hanging around my work friends, so I went out to eat alone”, or “I rented a car and just drove up the road to find someplace to hang out alone because all my work colleagues talk about is work and I want to get away” or “The hotel upgraded me to a bungalow, so I’m not where the (work) other guys are staying. It’s kinda nice”, whenever he’d call me. He’d ALWAYS call me before he went to bed (?) to let me know what he was doing so he’d think I’d believe him, that the trust he’d instilled in me was still there. And it was. He told great lie that he thought I’d believe. Most of the time, I did! I trusted him. He’d always tell me how much he “liked being married” so he could use that excuse if younger attractive girls hung around when he was doing a TV shoot for his ads. In reality, that’s why those girls hooked up with him. They thought they’d found their “security” and that wow, look at how “committed and loyal” he’s been, so his wife must be a cold fish or a bitch or a psycho – whatever he’d told them, I’m sure they believed. In reality, he never once initiated any intimacy or sexual activity with me. I was always the initiator and that didn’t last long. He’d never hold my hand or out his arm around me, unless he was in public for a photo so he could look like a doting husband. He bullied and manipulated me to the point where I’d was constantly questioning myself. He’d ask me to make final decisions on everything from buying a nice knife for cooking to buying a house. Now, since he abandoned us a year ago, he uses that against me, saying I’m a “control freak” and “always had to make the decisions”. He uses everything nice, kind, supoorting, caring, and loving I did for both him and us against me. I followed his career, giving up mine for his, because he was the higher wage earner and never expecting to be so fully betrayed. I followed him, supported and encouraged him out of pure unconditional love for him, believing that he and I were going to live out our vows. Now, when I try to explain why I’m so angry that he betrayed me and I have no career because of my giving it up for him, he tells me I shouldn’t have done that or that when “we” made the decision (remember, I’m the one who had to give the final “yes”), he spits it back at me, telling me I “agreed to his moving to wherever” and it was a “mutual decision”. He hides everything from me still. Still has a secret life, even though he’s been living in an apartment for a year. He still surrounds himself with ONLY very young (20-somethings) Black girls. ONLY. He’s Caucasian and 60. He has absolutely no make friends, Black, Caucasian, or other. He confides in these young girls. Texts I’ve since discovered to many prostitutes (he texted them all at the same time and day, along with his 2 flying monkeys and “girlfriend”, and ME) have all appeared to have him act like he’s their savior (except for me). He tells them he “wishes they were lying next to him in his hotel room bed”, blows emoji kisses at all of them, asks one if she’s okay and she says “well, you didn’t kill me, so there’s that” emoji blowing a kiss and wink to her and her blowing the same one back to him. He tells another that he’d have “driven up to help her” when her car broke down on the highway. All words. He tells another that she’s “beatous” (his soelling). That he “doesn’t know why” but he “seems to care about her”, to which she replies “I can see that”. He maintains he hasn’t slept with anyone for 28 of our 31 years except for the one girl I’d caught him having an affair with. He denies invoices and receipts that have his signature on them, saying he “must’ve been hacked”. Or he “doesn’t think he was there”. An expensive hotel? He even tipped the valet! He’s a pathological liar, says he’s been “celibate” for 28 years, denies everything I encounter that indicates his having a multitude of affairs, denies that he’s slept with his latest 21-yo girl he hooked up with while on a shoot in St Petersburg, FL, who he talks to every night for 2 hours and who hounds him with phone calls from morning till the wee huts of the morning. He denies everything for no reason because we’re not going to court, we’re in agreement with mediation and I’m moving forward with a divorce, so he doesn’t HAVE to hide anything. But he does. And he always will. He’s a predator. He is a sec addict. He is a porn addict. He has so many issues that he refuses to deal with. He knows about most of them, but doesn’t want to feel the pain when he’s required to work on them, so he doesn’t go to a therapist. He said he just complains about me when he tried to go to Therapy for a couple of months. I’m sure she was getting to the root of his issues very carefully (she’s a sex therapist), so that’s why he quit going. He learned that he is emotionally stunted (as in a teenage boy who was the Golden Boy). He’s learned that he was emasculating himself. He’s learned that he’s got Intimacy Anorexia and is in love with the euphoria of feeling “in love”. He knows he likes to be the center of attention. He knows he’s had a secret life, but insists he doesn’t have one now. He still keeps me posted on what he’s doing at work because I’m really the only woman he knows who understands what he does at his work. The others are either uneducated or studying something at college that doesn’t have anything to do with what he does in advertising. He still comes over to our house because, even thought I live here, we still own it together due to finances. He says to “throw everything that’s been packed up in the trash or give it to Goodwill”. He discounts our being together as a “joke because we only knew each other for 6 months before we got married”. He was 29. I was 35. He says he was “too young” to have gotten married. The harsh thing and most painful thing besides knowing about his betrayal is this. I still love him because I wasn’t “too young”. I knew I loved him and he was the love of my life and will probably be for the rest of my shortened life. I know some of that is trauma bonding, but most of it is real, unconditional love a human has for another, let alone for one’s husband of 30+ years. I miss him every day, even though when he is here, he continues to say hurtful things to try to punish me for his behavior, bullies me, and tries to manipulate me (but that doesn’t work anymore). He is pure evil. I must have lived in a bubble, accepting evil as my norm throughout my past 31 years with him. I guess “evil” became my comfort zone. I am devastated beyond repair. I know I will collapse when I go to court – by myself because I’m the plaintiff and he doesn’t have to be there – and the divorce is finally decreed. I’m worried I will want to commit suicide because of the pain being too great, I’m even planning on it a year from now. I’m starting to give my stuff away. I won’t need it. I don’t intend to remain here while he flaunts his latest 20-something girlfriend in my face, which he will try to do. I don’t intend to be around when he finally decides to have a family when he’s in his 60s with his teenager girlfriend or if he marries her, his newest wife. I won’t be able to process that because he’s always told me he never wanted children, so we never had any. I tried to both have children (I couldn’t) and adopt (he said he thought it was like “buying a kid”) so we didn’t do that either. I’d always wanted to have children and a family. So … there’s more to this story, but that’s the gist of it. I’ll be 66 years old in a few months, have no more career, am on disability for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (which I’ve been told began when the relationship became intensely toxic), and so my time for happiness and/joy is running out. I was the happiest person I knew before I met him. I loved who I was. I had a great career, loved doing a number of SoCal things, still have a lot of great friends I’ve known for 50+ years and keep in touch with them regularly. I have a sister who is my best friend. I sang in big city choirs with the symphony, which I’m doing again. I play women’s league tennis. I work 4 hours a day at a little shop to keep my mind occupied and not think about what’s happened to me. I do brain exercises, mindfulness exercises, yoga, and crossword puzzles. I write in my journals. I write stories and am writing a book. I do everything I used to do and more. I do everything therapists and others tell me I should do. But I’m still beyond depressed. I don’t have a purpose. Nor do I see a purpose in life. Not anymore. This is the face of a full-blown Narcissitically Abused woman. I’m not a victim. I won’t be a victim. I’ve allowed myself to be fully abused in every way possible: physically, sexually (sexual abandonment), and emotionally without even knowing it as it was done so very stealthily. And although I’ve gone to a therapist for 2 years, I still don’t see a purpose. That’s what a secret, covert NPD can do to someone. He CAN destroy you and compartmentalize you. Simply walk away from you like you never existed. So I’ve decided to not exist anymore in a year, after I change my beneficiaries and hand off my things to my friends and family. I’m tired of the battle and the pain and him.
   – Shoshanna

   Shoshanna    April 27, 2018 at 9:21 pm