I shouldn't still look at my ex's social media, but I do. Mostly, I'm keeping an eye on him because I'm looking to see if he's been partying and drinking too much, which could put our daughter at risk. Usually, he doesn't post anything interesting. But today, he changed his photos to include his stupid girlfriend, and it hit me right in the gut.
In the photos, he slotted her right in where I used to be. Literally. He posted a picture with all of his kids (my stepkids...who are completely alienated and won't talk to me, and the daughter we share who lives with me full time), and the girlfriend and him. A picture of a big, happy family. Like we used to appear to be.
But that's also the thing -- it is all appearances.
I've done a lot of research and learning and reading about narcissistic abuse in the past few years, and it's helped me to heal from my abusive marriage and understand what I see my ex doing. I know that he can't be alone. I know that he jumps from relationship to relationship because he needs the opinion and affection of a partner in order to feel like he matters and like he's a good person (even though he's not). I know he picks partners he thinks he can control, who possess something he feels like he's lacking. With his first wife, she was pretty and spontaneous and had a lot of energy, because she has borderline personality disorder. In her, he got a load of admiration thrown his way, but also a load of chaos. They negatively fed off of each other, until she wasn't getting enough attention so she cheated, and then when he reacted abusively, she filed for divorce. With me, I'm calmer, responsible, have a great education, and I was a steady influence for his kids, especially after they were removed from their mother's care and were sent to live with us full-time. I did all of the household and family work so he felt entitled not to have to. Then when I started putting my foot down and demanding that he help me after spending years asking, I got told, "You're not going to domesticate me. This is who I am. I'm not going to change." And that was the beginning of the end, until I couldn't take the abuse he was heaping at me anymore either and also filed for divorce.
But before I even filed for divorce, he took up with this girlfriend now. She was his high school sweetheart. They broke up after my ex got kicked out of high school for assaulting a kid and putting him in the hospital (my ex thought he was defending the honor of a female friend, based on a rumor). My ex fled to his mom's on the East Coast and got his GED, and the girlfriend decided not to follow, which my ex said broke his heart. By the time my ex moved back a couple of years later, she'd hooked up and gotten engaged to another guy. She spent 20 years married to that guy, tried to divorce him twice, never quite passed the finish line (the case is public record, damn straight I looked her up because she's around my kid, and it appears she's still married), and she called my ex, in the beginning of our relationship over a decade ago, when she found out that her husband had been cheating on her with a 19 year old in Las Vegas. They trauma bonded. I don't know if they ever really stopped talking. But hey, when it looked like my marriage was about done a few years ago, it's clear that they started their "romance" up again.
I have no real evidence to prove my ex cheated as he let our marriage die a horrible death. But the timing matches up. And given what I know about narcissists now, I understand that when they have a new source of "supply" they complete abuse the old source and withdraw. I know the time period when that happened to me. I saw the social media posts about this time last year when they went off on a "romantic weekend" together. It was clearly an anniversary. Which means by now, they'll have been together for 2 years. When he moved out of my house and I filed for divorce less than 2 years ago.
This woman is not everything I'm not. Honestly, she can't hold a candle to me. She's thinner, owns a house because she inherited it outright, and she has my ex's attention, and that's about it. I know I'm a solid person with a lot to offer, and I've made my peace about being abused by the man that new woman now thinks is so great. What I really miss is having access to my stepkids. I miss being their mom. I miss being allowed to celebrate their accomplishments with them, and help and support them when they need it. I miss sharing their lives with them. Those are things I'm not allowed to do anymore because my ex, and the kids, won't let me. It breaks my heart every day.
That's why I hate my ex's new girlfriend. It hurts to see him move on, and to see other people who used to celebrate our relationship, celebrate his new one. But mostly, she has access to my other kids and I don't. She has displayed weak morals and co-dependent tendencies that show she's a weak person for not being able to stand on her own two feet at 45 years old. I don't want that kind of influence in my own daughter's life. But...it's there. At least for now. And she's nice to my kid, so I don't have to go all "mama bear" and into protect mode. But seeing my stepkids cast me off as well, and open up to this woman and her extended family and her 3 kids, rubs salt in that wound.
So I have to sit with that. I have to compartmentalize and rise above and remind myself that their relationship won't last -- because with a narcissist it's always only a matter of time. And I have to pray that the next tramp person he gets together with isn't horrible.
It would also be easier if I'd moved on already, too. But I haven't. I learned to be alone. I have decided to be reasonably picky. I'm a single mom trying to date. It's hard. At the least, I don't have to be in a loveless, abusive marriage any more. I keep repeating to myself that my house smells better (because it does), and I go through paper products at a glacial pace now whereas before it felt like my ex was eating all of the toilet paper and paper towels because they were disappearing so fast. I have more money now, because I'm not having to pay for too much and get too little in reimbursements. I have my friends back. Before, it was hard to have a social life because my ex though he was better than all of my people, except for a few, because our politics differ.
Life for me is better now. I'm not under constant stress. I'm not constantly feeling unsupported. I'm not fighting with anyone on a regular basis, and other than my daughter at home, I don't have anyone else around making messes, not contributing, and then blaming me when things look sloppy.
Divorce saved me. But seeing a woman in the place I used to be, and seeing my ex display what he thinks love and happiness look like, and looking down his nose at me while he does it because I'm still single, is really stinging right now. And that sucks.
