Casablanca as time goes by I

Casablanca as time goes by

I wish i had discovered this a few years ago, i might have been able to save myself some pain. I work in the mental health field and feel i should have been better equipped to spot him. I was swept off my feet in a whirlwind romance which resulted in a quick marriage. It was all so romantic and wonderful as everyone has recounted. He was so good at faking feelings and compassion etc. It was my second marriage, i had really taken my time after my first marriage to recover and not rush in to any relationships as i had two daughters to protect. The mask first slipped on our wedding night when he was verbally vicious to me i woke up next morning in tears thinking i had made the worst mistake of my life i had!!, but of course he persuaded me otherwise, explaining away his actions etc and of course i was madly in love. Over the course of that first year there were some indications of possible dishonesty and things that didnt quite add up in his story but nothing too big. Then after about 8-9 months he seemed to become distant and depressed. Of course i made all sorts of excuses for him. Eventually i began to believe something else was going on. I did some snooping and discovered a love letter from his ex girlfriend he hadnt been with her when we got together!. I was gutted but i didnt confront him i was afraid he would walk out! After a couple of weeks of strange behaviour he disappeared for a few days claiming he had gone hill walking. No contact, not answering his phone etc i was frantic with worry as he was a type 2 diabetic, i thought he was lying ill some where. I was on the verge of calling the police. Then it dawned on me that he might be with her so i phoned her daughter and made up a story within an hour he phoned pretending he was up in the mountains and had signal problems with his phone! I became a detective and found out where he had been the first of many times i developed my detective skills. When confronted he denied everything usual story i remember telling a friend that i felt i was in a movie called Gaslight i have since discovered this expression used in relation to NPD behaviour and as people have said over and over on this site i loved him and wanted the relationship to work. Its the same familiar story. I tried to rebuild my trust but i kept stumbling over information he would leave things lying where i might find them he insisted that the relationship with his ex was just friendship and that i was being paranoid and nasty. I tried to rebuild things he of course expected me to be over it immediately, we tried couple counselling after i threatened to leave but the counsellor wasnt very skilled and of course he was very charming and i ended up coming across as a bitch. He persuaded me to work towards buying a house and moving to the country for a fresh start. Just as i was beginning to feel better more lies emerged i accidently discovered some things he told me before we married were lies and of course when i confronted him he flew in to a rage. Everyone here knows the pattern, the story varies only in some of the detail. I turned in to a suspicious, paranoid angry woman. I was preoccupied, not concentrating on my kids or my career. I stopped knowing what was normal behaviour in a relationship. He showed no interest in my well-being. The rows were awful, he turned everything in to my fault. Once i crashed and wrote off my car i could have been killed or badly injured he was appalling, didnt even bring me a cup of tea in bed, never mind flowers, when i was recovering. Eventually i got a job in the country which was part of our plan he was supposed to be looking for one but didnt bother, it became obvious he had changed his mind. Well it was obvious to other people. I was under huge pressure commuting huge distances and coping with a new job with no support. I started to drink more than was good for me and put on weight he started to criticize me more and more it dawned on me that he was back with her and i started checking emails, texts etc. This time i decided to employ a private detective so i wouldnt be talked out of things by him sure enough i was right. I confronted him still hoping he would choose me what a mug! But it turned out he had long since been making his arrangements, i had simply hastened things. He was still insisting that he was just friends with her. Anyway i ended up alone, living a couple of hundred miles from my friends and children because i was following this dream we supposedly had now on my own.