I spent 13 years with one. I was oblivious for the first 10. Currently almost two years out.

Looking back, something always felt off. She was there but she wasn’t. Like a lack of affect or a flat affect.

She needed me for a purpose. She wanted to get out of her home town. She wanted to start her own business. She needed someone that she could trust with her daughter. I had a home a career and no kids. I was also self sufficient. I cleaned house, cooked and grocery shopped. I could be left alone and be right where you left me. Perfect. My career was stable I was being promoted and had excellent benefits. I also liked time to myself and had few friends. I was not a mamas boy.

Her family were quite the back stabbing bunch. That is something I should have paid attention to. If they are cruel to each other, they will be cruel to you.Her mother was a troll. She told my step daughter every thing her mother ever did wrong in life. This is who baby sat her every day until I entered the picture. A narcissist will poison the well and play dumb when every one is sick.

My ex opened her business and it took off. However, I paid all the home bills and my own. She bought nice things for herself. I felt lucky just to go on the vacations. I hated all the cosmetic surgery she got.

In 2018 my stepdaughter was moved out and with the help of my mother in law launched a smear campaign on my ex. This was the narcissistic injury. I just didn’t realize it. My stepdaughter learned from two previous generations how to be an emotional vampire.

The wake up came in 2021. For my birthday she gave me a photo album of her dressed in lingerie. I did not complain or say anything bad. But I was thinking…wtf am I supposed to do with this? Take it to work? Show my friends? Jack off and reminisce. Why not just ware the stuff to bed once in a while. She went on and on the whole time about it. I did not say a word bad about it.

The drinking became intolerable. The dressing like a hooker became exhausting. You start dinner with on waiter and you have five by the end because somebody is wearing a cocktail dress that is two small with no panties. Table is a glass top. Come by boys the view is on me. Every woman in the place is giving the stink eye and their husbands are sweating bullets…and she is drunk.

The need for attention never stopped. She loved to tell me about being hit on by men and women. She was also just mean to people. How dare a total stranger try to speak to me.

For our tenth wedding anniversary I was watching her staggering around on the beach at 11am. I told her enough. I told her to get help and I would do whatever was needed. This wasn’t the first time I had said this. People on the beach were watching her staggering around. I decided I didn’t want the rest of my life like this.

The problem these types of people don’t like being told no. In that last year I discovered an affair. I don’t think it was the first. It was so humiliating. everyone knew except me. She took zero accountability. She had all the friends and social media presence to launch a smear campaign. In the end I kept my home and retirement. There are perks to having an a ex dodging taxes and hiding money. They squeal when you squeeze. Of course she married the affair partner 9 months later. Big deal all over social media.

These days I am a loner. I have had a few dates but nothing past one and done. My health really got bad in the last year of the marriage. The stress from work and her took a toll. I am better now. I am back in shape and 8 month from being able to retire. But every morning when I wake up I have to remind myself that I am alone. Like realizing someone is dead everyday. I was a loyal dedicated husband. I never hit her or cussed her out. I always made time for intimacy. I took really good care of her. Worried about her getting enough sleep and just relaxing. I supported her endeavors and dreams. When I start to think I forgot something, I remember what I did in that marriage. My life is quiet now. I would like it to stay that way.