I was married to a chameleon

[Unbroken1]

I have been puzzling over the weird and bizarre behaviors and thought processes that my uNPD ex engaged in while we were married. The first time I experienced this was early in the relationship when she changed personalities in real time as she got ready for a business event we were attending together. In that instance I was taken aback and was alarmed when she changed so suddenly and radically. It was as if there was no integration of the personality that I knew, with the one she was trying to project. In time, I came to understand that it was a complete acting job and would not be limited to business occasions over the duration of our 23-year relationship.

Seven years after the divorce, I still find myself wondering who she really was and feel like a complete tool for allowing myself to be conned into a LTR with someone whom I now consider an impostor. If she hadn't taken the low road during the divorce (she initiated it), I may never have had the insight into this other, malevolent entity that emerged from behind the mask. What effort it must have taken to hide the monster that she became. Well, monster with a small M. She just didn't have a grand retaliatory vision and went with whatever came to mind as she carried out the punishment of me during the discard phase.

Other weird behaviors: my ex had been gifted $30k by her elderly parents for helping them out over the years when her father had Parkinson's. Background: her mother also most likely malignant uNPD, father emotionally terrorized by his wife, and impotent against his wife's cruelty towards his only daughter. two older twin brothers, both overt uNPD, and the oldest, a quiet perfectionist who threw away a promising musical career because he was refused admittance to Juilliard as a classical musician. When her 3 older brothers were told about the monetary gift  by their mother (triangulation, anyone?), they all were very resentful despite the fact that the reward was for all the time and energy she spent looking after their parents. My ex ate it up and relished their fury for all the times she ended up being last during their childhoods.

Fast forward to my ex's divorce demands: she conveniently claimed I "owed" her the same exact amount - $30k - that she had been given by her folks because it was all used up during the times when I couldn't quite cover the mortgage and needed her help (we were both self-employed from home). When we met with our "arbitrating" attorney who conveniently was a friend of hers from church, I raised the issue of having paid $60k out of pocket for half the down payment on the house, she just flat out-and-out lied and stated that she always intended to pay me back. In the 15 years we owned the house, She never so much as once mentioned that.

I'm now NC for about 4 years with her and her clan, and have moved 3000 miles away to try and recover in a place that offers a possibility of un-learning to be in a hypervigilant state. But I feel like a complete fool for allowing myself to become ensnared by an emotional impostor. What's more, I now have major trust issues that are getting in the way of forming new healthy relationships since the first group of friends I made in my new location all eventually proved to be the fire that I jumped into after escaping the narcissistic frying pan, so to speak. It's been illuminating to be able to better see who these disordered individuals are, now that my discernment skills are finely honed (my internal "narcdar').

[moglow]

Okay I'll play - how does accepting her at face value and going with what you knew of her, make you any kind of fool? You failed to read her mind? You didnt see ehat she was hiding from you? Let's face it, she'd had much more experience "hiding" than you could possibly have uncovering all that.


How does your (to me) overly harsh criticism and judgment of yourself help? I'm sure you made mistakes and misread things at times, likely completely missed others. Welcome to the human race! Celebrate and embrace the the fact that however it may have been forced on you, your eyes are open now. You can't unsee it.

HOWEVER, consider this with me. What if we all exist on a continuum where there are most assuredly extremes on either end, but many shades of gray between? What you're seeing within this group of friends could well be scattered behaviors you experienced with the X, but does that make them all bad? Are you all bad because you do this or that to an extreme, even occasionally? Does it make you all bad, that this is what you see? No.

What I'm saying is, when all I have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. If my primary bad experience is with PD behavior,  it's mighty easy to tar a lot more people with that brush - including myself. So instead of giving myself or anyone else a break, I just write us all off as lost causes and shut down.

I'm thinking you may need to give yourself and others some grace, is what I'm saying. Few are all good or all bad, or we'd have nothing to do with anyone and it would all implode.

Just my $.04 for now. Just think about it.