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Post by trout46 on Jul 25, 2010 16:21:07 GMT -5
This addiction is so intense, that it can conceal, mask, or otherwise hide the true nature of our POAs. (Not the mention the fact that the POA was the POA from the very beginning of the relationship; not something she (in my case) became after we broke up.) I know that many of you know this premice, but I am still very much in the self-discovery phase of my recovery.
If it were not for the help of my closest friends and confidants, God only knows how long the "disguised POA syndrome," would have continued. The wonderful news is that I am really coming to see and understand the true nature of the person the POA in my life. (One thing I started doing recently, without a conscious plan or intention to do so, was to begin to refer to her in the third person. Sure as hell don't want to identify her as "my" or "mine" any longer!)
At some point much earlier in my LRA recovery, I came to understand that the POA had "narcissistic tendencies." That's crap! The woman is a narcissist, and I was the codependent in a classic model of LA. Like so many other things about her--character traits, behavirors, self-image--I am only now coming to see how self-centeed, egocentric, and ego-inflated she is and has been. And worst of all, I bought it all, hook, line and sinker, as REAL. Not only as real, but as excellent attributes about the person I had been married to. Others could always see the narcissism, but not me. I was a hapless, codependent, LRA who, despite a fair degree of educational and professional success, just could not see or understand it.
I really need to share a few scenarios--examples of what I am talking about--so that I can confess to all of you my blindness. And if in doing so you disagree with the analysis that I have come to (i.e., the woman is a narcissist), please do not hesitate to correct me.
The POA and I were married 7 years, and lived together about 9. We were definitely an age heterogomous couple--she is 16 years younger than am I.
During the early months of our relationship, after we moved in together, but had not yet been married, she started to refer to herself as my "trophy" wife. She was definitely younger, and pretty, but "trophy?" I didn't want a trophy. And this from another academic?!
During much of our marriage and relationship, I was the chair of a large academic unit at a university. She was a faculty member in the same department. Shortly after getting married, and without any advance indication, she began to refer to herself--in public acadmic contexts--as the department's "first lady." (I can't begin to tell you what kinds of looks I received from my colleagues!)
When we were breaking up, she reapeatedly accused me of having been in the relationship to "look good" with a young, beautiful, sexy wife.
I could go on. Although bashing her has an appeal to it, I could more properly do that with my best male friend. My real purpose is to underscore my blinders--nay, blindedness--to these comments, and what they could and should have told me about the individual. I not only accepted all of these references and descriptors, I paid homage to them, embraced them, and helped her maintain them.
Shortly after having found the LAA site from which this board migrated, I recall reading about "classic love addicted relationships," and discovered that one of the most common, if not the most common pairing, is that of a love addicted codependent with a narcissist. I knew I was a codependent, and had clearly discovered I was also a LA. However, I dismissed the possibility of that pattern for my situation because the POA was not a narcissist.
That was in mid-April. Since that time I have worked diligently toward recovery. I have had the benefit of a typical summer life for an academic, and instituted hard core N/C the first week of May. Since then I have had no contact with her. Despite the N/C and the hard work, I am only now coming to see and understand what she always was. It truly enlightening. More than enlightening, because I don't like these character traits, and if sane and sober, would never chose them in a partner.
I have the benefit of about another three weeks of N/C, and then will be forced into LC. I really want to be ready to look right through her and past her the first time I see her. That would be ultimate measure of success on my recovery path.
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Post by g on Jul 25, 2010 17:00:35 GMT -5
Great to see that Trout is human like the rest of us. I bashed my narcissistic POA to bits for months. It's good to start seeing them for what they really are, Trout. Knocking mine off his pedestal was the first step to breaking the bondage of addiction and finally seeing that I had turned POA into my HP. No wonder POA could do no wrong in my eyes for a long long time. Even when he did something that everybody who knew about my EMA maintained was cruel and heartless behaviour, I was in total denial and always the one that crawled back to him and asked him for forgiveness. Good for you Trout. The work you do on yourself for the next three weeks will stand you in good stead for LC, I'm sure G
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Post by quinn on Jul 25, 2010 23:33:18 GMT -5
Referring to POA in the third person—that's brilliant Trout! I'm going to join you in that. I stopped calling the POA "H" and "stbx" and now I will officially also stop calling him "mine."
You have done so much work on POA over the summer that I can completely imagine you getting through the transition to LC okay. But I worry a bit about you hoping for an "ultimate measure of success." If you only get to, say, 70% success I think that would still be really really good for your first contact and something to be proud of.
As for the POA being a narcissist that you didn't recognize, boy do I understand that. Every time he does some new really sh*tty, self-absorbed thing, I am shocked and amazed. And then I remember—oh yeah, he did that because he's a narcissist. That's what they DO.
Let us know as the day approaches for LC. I definitely want to be thinking of you and sending you strength that day.
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Post by iwillsurvive on Jul 26, 2010 1:09:20 GMT -5
Trout,
You mean a woman who describes herself as a beautiful, sexy, trophy wife, first lady is a narcissist? Really? Thought that just meant she had confidence. Haha. Had to laugh, especially at the "first lady" label.
My latest narc/POA said he was so handsome that people would just sit and stare at him. Really. Seriously.
You are doing well and getting ready for the mental battle that is to come when you see or hear about the POA as the fall semester begins. Remember that narcs don't like it when they lose a worshipper/devotee (also known as narcissistic supply) so she will probably try to get your attention. You've seen through her narc persona and now I truly hope you can look through her like she's just not there. Or, if you happen to see her, I hope you see her for the narc she truly is.
Happy for you. Glad you posted about your discoveries. Praying for strength and a shield to deflect any negative projections POA sends your way.
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Post by g on Jul 26, 2010 1:18:36 GMT -5
Brilliant idea IWS! I'm not into cartoons but I'm visualising Trout going back to work, a Superhero with a mission. And carrying a magical deflecting shield to protect him from Narka's poisoned arrows.
Sorry, being silly. G
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Post by quinn on Jul 26, 2010 9:42:15 GMT -5
iwillsurvive, Your post made me think about the many narcissists I have known and how they react when their supply is taken away. I realized that about half of them got seductive again and tried to lure me back into giving them attention that way, but the other half just got very very angry. As if they were furious that I thought I was a separate person who could just choose to leave them.
The angry ones were actually more successful at getting me back than the seductive ones because their anger was so out of proportion to my actions I got confused and thought I must have done something terrible—even though I didn't really know what it was (other than trying to save myself.) I started to believe that saving myself was selfish of me and that I should devote myself to saving the narcissist. Then she/he would be happy and I would have a purpose in life and not be a bad person.
It 's all so crazy but when I was in it, it seemed completely logical. The POA I am currently dealing with is behaving in the MOST horrible way right now. I see it very clearly and think of him as having become is worst self because of the divorce. But is that really true? I'm considering the possibility that he was really this bad the whole time and I never recognized it because I saw all negative things in him as him being "hurt" and needing my help. I was so good at making sure all his needs were met (especially his need to be left alone) that I rarely saw the side of him that explodes when he's not getting what he wants.
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Post by g on Jul 26, 2010 9:57:16 GMT -5
Oh my goodness Quinn, I could have written your first two paragraphs myself. My experience exactly.
My POA's wrath was the scariest thing I have every experienced. Words on a page that would have me reeling, heart pounding and my legs giving way. I came out in a cold sweat every time I tried to end it when I felt unbearably guilty about cheating on my h or lying to absolutely everybody I loved.
He made me feel like the cruellest, most selfish person in the world for pushing him out of my life and that accusation itself hooked me from the beginning, more than anything else.
G
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Post by CJ on Jul 26, 2010 10:32:50 GMT -5
Hi Trout - I understand what you are saying. I ignored an army of Red Flags going into and remaining in the relationship with Poa. I also ignored an army of friends and family pointing to those Red Flags screaming "Don't do it". I think we LA's want the good bits so badly we don't recognize they are just crumbs.
I am going to post on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder after I have a chance to do some research. I had become convinced that my Poa was NPD, but later concluded she was BPD. In either case, the impact on the partner in such a relationship is unimaginable and the process of leaving the relationship is devastating.
CJ
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Post by iwillsurvive on Jul 26, 2010 11:10:34 GMT -5
Thanks greta for the credit, but YOU came up with that cartoon visualization. Very cool. I was thinking that when a narcissist projects all their negative stuff on us that if we held up a shield it would bounce right back to them (where it belongs). Wouldn't it be good if the positive stuff we project on them bounced back to us and we didn't narc out on it but instead had healthy self-esteem? Just dreaming.
Quinn, excellent observation about the narcs who seduce and the narcs who get furious when you break up with them. Some may even go back and forth in order to retrieve their narcissistic supply. Interesting how you see your narc/POA now. Eyes wide open. Very good.
Greta, you also brought up how the POA's anger really hooked you in (like it did for quinn). Oh how manipulative these narcs are. If they would just put that energy into recovery, they wouldn't be narcs anymore. Still, their problems belong to them, not us. We have our hands full.
CJ, like you I ignored warnings from family and friends and paid the price for it. Not anymore. I check things out with friends and family and invite their input. In addition to wanting the "good bits so badly" as you wrote, we want these POAs to fulfill our unmet childhood needs. That requires us to project a lot of goodness onto them. Very self-defeating.
Great thread trout!
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Post by trout46 on Jul 26, 2010 14:14:50 GMT -5
Thank you all so very much for your responses to my discovery on my path toward rediscovering myself. Greta. IWS, Quinn, and CJ—you’re posts are so very on point that in reading them I just found myself physically rocking to one side and then the other, as if I were being slapped one way, then the other. But these were slaps of awareness, insight—penetrating insight—and truth. Thank you!
Iwill: You have no idea how correct you were in warning me that the POA would continue to try and get my attention. I just returned from campus, including a visit with the two secretaries in our main office. One of them had sent me a cryptic e-mail on Friday indicating that she had been talking with the POA, and that she thought there was something the POA wanted her to share with me.
My visit with them continued and furthered my course toward enlightenment. (It would be easy to think they were members of our fellowship!) The information that was shared was that POA was taking a trip to Paris, France (a place we had wonderful trips visiting) with a new group of gay friends. (WTF?! I need to know this??) Additionally, she went skydiving (something I knew she had wanted to do the last couple of years we were together). Again, though, who in God’s universe cares?
That morphed into a discussion of my “enlightenment” about her and about my recovery. They were soooo very happy to learn that I was planting a stake in reality. The one secretary—who had served as my personal assistant when I chaired the department, and who I have been very close to—told me that she tried to warn me 10 years ago that the POA was going to be nothing but trouble for me, but that I just wouldn’t hear it. Of course not. I was already in her grip. The spell had been cast. I had morphed into an automaton, and believed I was “happy,” and worse, that I was very, very LUCKY! Really hit pay dirt with this one!
When I shared with them my discovery that POA is a narcissist, they laughed. No shit! They added considerable more to my many examples of her self-centered, self-absorbed, ego inflated, selfish…getting my point?
Quinn: I very much appreciate your observation about the two paths that a narcissist might use following the separation. The POA I am writing about uses them both. She is obviously trying the attention-grabbing approach with the info from the secretaries. (But they aren’t stupid. They saw through her completely in her efforts to get the information to me.) Since I have held true and fast to the hard core version of N/C I began in early May, she used the secretaries to get my attention.
Although I didn’t see it today, I know the POA well enough to know that she bashes me mercilessly to anyone that will listen. It’s just part and parcel of her makeup. I spent more time during our marriage listening to her dump on our colleagues than any other activity we engaged in, including sleeping. And yes, it all seemed relatively normal when we were together, before the protracted breakup unfolded. As I noted earlier, I was damn lucky to have found such a beautiful, perfect Goddess! (Which reminds me that when she saw a therapist three a few years ago, she came home after the last visit and proudly announced, “It’s just what I thought. There isn’t a thing wrong with me!”) OMG! Give me a breakl As far as I can tell, the POA is presently deeply committed to, and invested in, a course of acting out. Men are in this as well, but she didn’t share that part with the secretaries.
CJ: Talk about an “army of red flags!” Every single person that has meaning to me in my life—from my twin sons and very best friend, to extended family members, colleagues that I am close to, our secretaries—EVERYONE, has told me, in no uncertain terms, that they have always disliked the POA. Warning signs were everywhere. I have already posted some of the outrageous things she would say about herself, but there is soooo much more. Things that everyone has seen. Any reasonably minded person (like the tort standard of the reasonable man or ordinary prudence that CJ can related to) would have seen these behaviors, comments, events…and ran like hell. Not me! Hell, I was the luckiest man I knew! (I did have a trophy, after all!)
I’ve gone on enough. I can’t thank you enough. I pray with gratitude to my HP for the insights I have come to, and for the fellowship of wonderful, genuine, caring people it has been my good fortune to have found here at LRAA. Thank you!
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Post by knowlove on Jul 27, 2010 16:30:11 GMT -5
Trout so glad you are moving forward in your recovery and finding out exactly what your POA is (with the rose colored glasses off). I think being an LA, we make excuses for their behavior or like things we normally would not because we do not want to really see those red flags. If you think back to your dating years, can you see times or remember anything where you had a "feeling" or "niggling" but you put it away very quickly? The fact that you now see her for what she is and are ready for her plots is great! Why she feels you finding out she is going somewhere with a bunch of gay people would affect you is beyond me. I wouldn't be surprised that now the veil has lifted you find seeing her a bad taste in your mouth. Once you see a person, clearly see them without the glasses on, all of a sudden they no longer interest you and you find yourself looking at all their actions and asking yourself why the heck you didnt see it sooner? You have come such a long way in such a short time and am so happy for you that you continue improving and learning. Your ex sounds like she has some major isecurity issues!
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Post by trout46 on Jul 27, 2010 19:12:53 GMT -5
AMEN!
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Post by miztex on Jul 27, 2010 23:30:33 GMT -5
The scorpion walked over to the frog and asked for a ride across the river on the frogs' back. The frog said "But you might sting me." The scorpion replied "I wouldn't do that. I need to get across the river too much. So the frog said "o.k." and the scorpion jumped on his back. They got halfway across the river when the scorpion stung the frog. As he was dying he exclaimed "Why did you sting me? Now we will both die!" The scorpion said "Hey, I'm a scorpion. It's what I do."
We LA's involved with Narcissists are taking the risk when we contact our scorpion POA. They promise the moon, but words whisper, actions scream. We let ourselves be stung over and over again because we like the fantasy of crossing all the way across the river for ONCE! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! NC!
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Post by g on Jul 28, 2010 1:44:50 GMT -5
My POA told me in one of his first emails that he was bad news. ( me: I can fix that)
That he had made a lot of mistakes (me: I can fix that)
That he had always been unfaithful (me: I can fix that)
That he had lost his faith (me: I can fix that)
and on and on and on.....
I ended up making a lot of mistakes, being unfaithful, losing my faith and on and on and on...
My Scorpion was a Scorpion through and through. When I was really desperate ( I was for most of the 16 months we were involved) he said 'I warned you last year that you could end up getting hurt by becoming too emotionally involved. I told you you'd get burned, you should have listened to me.'
Thanks McC. You did warn me. Just that my addict wouldn't listen and ended up getting badly burned. 3rd degree+ burns on 100% of my body and soul.
Thank you God I found You again and that You took me back. G
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Post by CJ on Jul 28, 2010 9:17:16 GMT -5
Trout - Let's leave the reasonable man out of this; he is not permitted to make decisions in the dysfunctional relationship derby. Another approach: Any good trial lawyer (your addict) has no difficulty convincing a hapless jury (you) to ignore all that reason and rely exclusively on its feelings. The result is a foregone conclusion, but now you have served your sentence and are a free man. CJ
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