Declaring his love for old girlfriend on Facebook

[Areuth]

So my spouse, we aren't divorced yet and we've been married 46 years, posted on an old girlfriends facebook oage.  He dated her a few months when he was 14.  I have listen to him mention her all the years we've been married.  He has narcissistic traits and Obsessive compulsive traits.  This post he did was "accidently" made public.  My children and friends and family saw it.  He professed his love for her and how he felt they had a connection that went into last lives and will go into future lives.  He has never felt anything like this with any other women which I'm guessing includes me.  He said he wished he was the father of her children.  How do you think our four adult children felt.  That he sees his memories of her as of more value than his own children.  I think he posted it publically to get a reaction out of everyone and conjour up some supply.

[GettingOOTF]

I’m sorry. This is very hurtful for you and the children. 

I blocked my ex on all social media. If you can’t block him because it would put you in an unsafe position or negatively impact your divorce, FB offers a Mute option which hides posts so you don’t see them.

They say alcoholics only  reach the level of emotional maturity they reached when they starred drinking.  I think it’s the same with PDs. Almost all PD behavior is very child like. My observation has been that PDs don’t emotionally mature beyond a certain age. I think this has a lot to do with people hanging on to their “first love” in this way. People change and mature and with that maturity comes the ability to look back on things in a detached way, not carrying it around our entire lives. I personally would be horrified if some guy i dated at 14 contacted me as an adult and declared his “love” for me in this way.

It is very common among cheaters to reconnect with their childhood crushes. I think this ties in with the sense of entitlement that goes along with cheating as well as the emotional maturity issue. The site Chump Lady has a lot of info on the mindset of people who cheat on their spouses.

My ex also held a torch for some one from his youth. I wish I’d seen it for the red flag it so clearly was.

There has actually been a lot written about this if you Google, but at some point I decided to stop trying to understand my ex and instead focus on what was best for me.

[Areuth]

Yes, you are exactly right about trying to stop thinking about my ex and work on carving out my own future. I seem to feel like I am on that track and then he's involved in something crazy like this. It's not really surprising.  The biggest problem right now is that we still live in the same house. It's more like a duplex except I live upstairs and he lives downstairs, separate entrances, separate kitchens, separate bathrooms, and his mother who is very supportive of me, lives across the street. We own the house outright together and right now there's no other financial early feasible way that selling the house with help at all. We are retired so we have very limited income we have a little camper that was going to be our way to get away and enjoy the outdoors and we went three times and he was an ogre each time. After all of the pain he's caused me and my kids I think it would be totally fair if he would just take the camper and the van to pull it and trade me for the house and just get on the road and keep on going. It's just so frustrating to not even be able to have some sort of adult conversation. He has no remorse and although he does try to reverse some of the stupid things he does I think it's just all to get attention and a reaction. Every word I say becomes something to use as a weapon against me. I think that I just need to purge myself of all the awful things he has done so that I can leave them behind me in a dumpster but I've come to realize that I may wake up everyday with some pain and a tear or two in my eye because of the loss of the togetherness of our family. Besides the terrible strange relationship he has caused with everyone that has had further reaching effects of causing problems between our children so even for the four of them to get together with their kids, our grandchildren no longer happens. Five years ago for Thanksgiving we were all together for a wonderful dinner and everything was good. But it was like everyone was sitting on a powder keg.  It's a great memory that I have that I had no idea that was the last time we would all be together like that. He always told me how much he wanted to have a family and he was a good dad and husband and so many ways but he just deteriorated and couldn't control his choices and chipped away at what we were so hard for. Now that's another thing he adds to the reasons he can't stand me as that I turned our children against him. That's the farthest from the truth. I actually protected him from them and then from him and every other combination. I like to do in so many ways to try to keep things okay and also the worst thing I could do. I just don't think there's a right answer with a narcissist. Once they get you past the love bombing and get you under their control without even know how you might as well be wrapped and barbed wire.....

[Frankie14]

An acquaintance of mine was cheating on her husband, he found out, they went to marriage counseling, she refused to end the affair. 

Within months of filing for divorce; the woman was posting on Facebook weekly, monthly about she was in love for the first time in her life at 46 years old.  Forget she had 3 children with her husband that had to see this..and the ex's family, etc..it was absolutely a bizarre declaration of stupidity and immaturity..for 20 years and 3 kids she never loved her husband and suddenly with a proper stranger in months is 'in love for the first time in her life.'

From those of us on the outside; I thought, wow this woman is insane...so I am sure your friends, kids and family can see your ex is the nutty one..

[1footouttadefog]

My spouse fell in live with a woman he never dated. Devided they had always been meant to be together etc.

She lived down the street when he was a kid. She would go woth two other girls to tue high school gym to watch the giys do ball practice.  1962-65 era

I married him in mid 80's and we moved i to the house he grew upin for a couole years.

He never once spike of her or visited her etc aside from saying that the woman in tha thouse used to watch the guys play basketball. She went with such and such.

Fast forward to 2015. He was visoting the old neighborhood and ran into this woman at another house he visited. She was in the yard chatting with residents.

They caught up and sue told him sue actually did not attend the same HS he did. He was shocked.  She said ahe jist went becaise she thought he and two other guys were cute and to hang out with uer gorlfriends.

This triggered a manic episode and he became obsessed with the idea they had always been in love. He started sending cards and gift cards etc.  She unfortunately is an unethical woman with poor morals and actually led him on and happily recieved financial gifts etc from a married man.  This whole love affair took place long distance via mail and phone.

I suspect your spouse may be dealing with more than a pd.  I would be concerned with FTD or bipolar or something else being in the mix if I were him.

I hope you are able to live in peace while in the split residence.

[WinterStar]

Areuth,

Your ex's behavior is eerily similar to how my Ndad acted after he left my mom. He took up with his first and "only" love. He gave my brother and myself the whole dramatic song and dance about how they dated in high school and my dad thought about her every day during the 25 years he was married to my mom. Which is super creepy and clearly untrue.

He ended up marrying a different woman, and they had a story about how she saw him on TV, so they were always destined to be together. In reality, he caught a foul ball at a baseball game when I was a kid. In their twisted version of it, she was convinced she had seen him (not one of the other hundreds of foul ball retrievers) on tv decades before and was attracted to him. It's so "romantic" save for the fact that he was at the game with his wife and kids.

He since divorced baseball lady and is back with the high school girlfriend. It's clear to me that both of these women have some issues and these stories my dad came up with are fantasy that he uses to justify leaving my mom. I mean, if he wasn't MEANT to be with my mom, then he really HAD to leave.