Weekends when my SS (15) comes over give me a need to vent and tell my story about my DH's toxic ex-wife. 

So often in society, when a marriage falls apart, people are so quick to look to the man as the source of the problem. What did he do? Was he abusive? Was he a cheater? It is rather a default. 

I was skeptical due to this default perception myself when I first met DH. Having been myself divorced from a man who cheated three times before I finally ended it, I was wary, still struggling with the mentality that all men are the same. I didn't automatically take his side just because he seemed like a genuine, kind, and sincere person. But as time went on and I began to witness certain behaviors and incidents myself, my perception changed. Men are so often portrayed as the ones who are toxic when relationships implode, but in this instance, as in surely many others, sometimes the women are the ones who are toxic and then men are the ones who are victimized. Narcissism, I learned, although more statistically probable in men, is also alive and well in many women. And when this is also mixed up with other co-morbidities of mental illness, it can be very ugly for everyone involved. 

His ex came from a family with a history of schizophrenia passed down through generations. She grew up with a mother who went from being an exotic dancer and a prostitute to suddenly a strange combination of wacked out new age beliefs and extreme christian fundamentalism. She believed aliens were coming after her. Chemtrails in the sky are sent to poison us. She changed her name to something ridiculous like Evenstar Godchild Starflower (not verbatim but along these lines), started a new religion, and claimed she was the high priestess of it. One of her brothers wore this odd robed costume all the time and never bathed and another brother wore his underwear on the outside of his pants. The ex believed that God spoke directly into her mind and told her what people were thinking, their motives, and instructions as to what to do. In the context, if this was all, then it would have all been mild. But this wasn't all. 

The scientific definition of an opportunistic organism signifies species that can quickly take advantage of favorable conditions when they arise. The first man she found to feed off of was a modest day laborer, but he was willing to marry her and support her. They had a daughter. At some point, I suppose, she tired of him and wanted more. Because suddenly, she accused him of being a child molester and claimed she saw him trying to abuse some children at a bus stop. And although there was no evidence and charges were never brought, her accusations alone were enough to turn people against him, including his family. Because why would an innocent, earnest wife and mother say such things if they weren't true? His business was destroyed, his reputation was destroyed, and he eventually just packed up and fled in shame. His departure was, of course, further vindication of her and proof that she was right. His family believed her, and rejected him and kept her. They now provided her with financial support. She packed up and moved across the country in search of a new target.

This is when she met my DH. He lived in an apartment below her and he says, had a very convincing act of being needy, victimized, helpless, with a fatherless daughter, all the while with a charisma and charm that drew him in. DH has always had a need to be needed and believes in traditional values like a man provides while a woman stays home. He was the perfect victim. Soon, he married her. He was on his way up in his career, and soon purchased a nice home in the suburbs and she climbed her way up into a better life. All the charm and charisma fell away as soon as he married her, he told me. She sat home and did no housework, spent at least $500 a month on vitamins, crystals, magical objects. She refused to get any kind of job. Everything, always, was about her needs, never his. So DH had to get extra jobs on top of his primary job. He worked 80+ hours a week, never got to finish his education. She refused to have sex with him except for the time she wanted another baby, which she got (their son). When there came a point when DH was laid off of his primary job that provided the basis for a comfortable living, she became hateful, cruel, and nasty, and she was done with him. This was when she decided (and he agreed) that she wanted a divorce. And I wish I could say that was that. 

Our state has a mandated period of a year of separation before divorce is allowed. During this time, he moved into the basement apartment of the house (a whole separate unit designed as a rental) while she remained in the main part. They agreed that their marriage was over, and they could both start seeing other people. She immediately went out and landed what would be her next biggest catch: a successful doctor she met in the divorce support group of their church. Her new catch himself went to my DH and was honest that they were dating; he just wanted to make that their marriage indeed was over and they were just counting down to when they would file. It was only about six more months. DH assured him this was the case. But his ex threw a screaming, violent fit when DH mentioned this to her, gaslighting and saying it wasn't true.

(**Two months after the divorce had been filed, by the way, she married this doctor. And not just in a let's slip away to the courhouse and elope kind of way. It was a large, elaborate church wedding of the sort that takes months to plan and coordinate. It wasn't spontaneous. DH suspects that she had been working on this new man for quite some time before. But he didn't really care. All that mattered to him was that it was over and they were both moving on. And again... I wish that this were all. But it got much, much worse. **)

With all this being said, DH and I met and started seeing each other when he had about three months to go before the filing. We tried to keep it very quiet and casual until things were all officially said and done. He had waited purposely for her to pick up someone new to feed off of, because this was when he knew it would be okay for him to move on, too. All should have been well. It was over, she was moving on, shouldn't he be able to move on, too? When she found out that he and I were seeing each other, we realized that the answer was emphatically, hell no.

Never mind that she was dating this doctor, and it was no secret. She wanted to do what she wanted to do, she wanted out of the marriage, she had found a new source of supply...and yet, she did not want to relinquish control of DH. She messaged me on social media with rapid fire messages screaming at me in text lies about how they weren't even separated, they were still married, he was a cheater and a liar and i was nothing but a whore and he called me a whore. I didn't respond, nor did I give any credence to these messages. She ran to the church, ran to every member of his family, all of his close friends, and pitched these screaming, crying, dramatic fall in the floor sobbing performance fits that he was cheating on her and she was a victim. Same story as her previous marriage, different day. 

Unfortunately for her, unlike her previous situation, people knew she had moved on well before he had. Even in their conservative church, people were confused and skeptical...it's okay for you to move on, but not him? She ended up being the one alienated, to the point that other women straight up told her to stop or leave the table when she came over putting on her show. His family flatly told her, he is our son, our brother....you are about to be divorced, you already have a new boyfriend, what is the problem? It's over, you're moving on, so what? Her lack of ability to manipulate others proved to be gasoline doused on a fire that nearly rose up and consumed DH's life. 

What happened at this juncture is, in clinical terms, a narcissistic injury, which occurs "when narcissists react negatively to perceived or real criticism or judgment, boundaries placed on them, and/or attempts to hold them accountable for harmful behavior. It also occurs when a person does not accommodate a narcissist’s insatiable need for admiration, special privileges, praise, etc. The 'injury' also shows up when the narcissist over-amplifies and personalizes benign interpersonal interactions. The 'injury' is often followed by the narcissist’s loss of control over his or her emotional equanimity, and a subsequent burst of passive or overtly aggressive vindictive responses (psychcentral.com). It had all backfired. And she had only one card left to play.

Remember what happened with her first ex-husband? When all else had failed, she then accused DH of being a child molester, claiming he molested her biological daughter he adopted and had raised as his own, who was now a middle schooler. All hell really broke loose. He was arrested, questioned, accused, automatically assumed to be some kind of monster by authorities. But he held his ground. He had never, ever done anything of the sort. Their church stood by him. They had known DH all his life, because he grew up in this church, and what they knew of her was that she had already tried and failed to drag him through the mud and now she had clearly upped her ante. His family also stood by him, and when she went simpering to them like she had her former family pushing for them to reject him and embrace her, they told her to shove off, because he was their's, she wasn't, and they knew he wasn't capable of any such a thing.  

She tried to mentally break her daughter down and make her believe that something had happened that hadn't. When the daughter was horrified and said that this didn't happen, her mother told her that she had just erased it from her mind because the trauma was too severe. She was pushed into a therapist's office with specific instructions as to what to say so that they would put DH in jail, but fortunately, the child broke down sobbing and admitted that this never happened, that her mother was trying convince her that it did, and she was terrified and confused at her mother's suggestion that her mind was lying to her. CPS and other authorities very quickly saw right through her mother.

DH was released from any suspicion, and the focus shifted onto the mother for what were clearly some seriously damaging mental health issues. At this, she sent the child back into the therapist, to CPS, to completely recant anything that had been said before and for the child to claim she had mental illnesses and couldn't tell what reality was. The ex then quickly signed the divorce papers as soon as they became available to sign, and within a few months, married her new doctor, and now lives in a million dollar masion with him by a lake...of course, sitting at home and doing nothing. 

The aftermath of this for DH is really sad. Since this happened, his daughter was so thoroughly traumatized that she has cut off all contact with the man that raised her from birth and gave her his last name. She refuses to come over to our home or have anything to do with him...unless, of course, it is holiday or birthday time and she stands to get presents or money, because she is her mother's daughter in that way. But she has vowed she will never, ever meet me, or my daughters. This has broken his heart, because he is guilty of nothing more than adopting a child whose mother drove her biological father completely out of her life, who now psychologically has managed to do the same thing, again. 

And the ex always held fast to the fact that I was some whore that came in and broke up their marriage, despite the fact that they were already into their last six months of separation and she was already deeply involved with another man whom she would marry not two months after the final divorce. She has made sure that both children they share are aware of this distorted reality she holds to.

DH and I dated for two years after their divorce, because after what he had been through, he needed to take things really slowly and get to know me to make sure that I wasn't going to be another one. When she heard that we finally married, apparently, she threw the biggest fit in history. Screaming, tearing out her hair, bashing her head into the wall, throwing things, sobbing, swearing...in front of both children, who were then 14 and 20. Her new husband actually called DH asking if he had ever seen anything like this before from her, what to do, and if he needed to take her to the hospital. Her new husband said she kept screaming things like, "Not her, not her, anyone but her, that fucking whore... she makes him happy. he doesn't deserve to be happy. she loves him. he doesn't deserve to be loved." She didn't win. Her tricks didn't work. He escaped. And she was fucking furious. 

After the years went by and DH and I had decided to marry, this is when I met his son. He is shy, sensitive, in this state of always seeming to be walking on eggshells in fear of saying or doing the wrong thing in setting his mother off. He took to me, warmed to me, immediately, and quickly recognized that I was someone who expected nothing from him and wanted nothing more than to simply take care of him. He made the mistake of going home and mentioning to his mother that he met his dad's new fiancee and he really liked me, though I was nice and fun. This was enough to send her into another one of her screaming, breaking things, sobbing tantrums, right in front of him, with claims that he was going to like me more, she could tell, that I was going to replace her. It was a scene and is messed him up really bad. He told his dad about it. So for his own emotional safety, he can't have any kind of relationship with me. When he is here, he barely says hello or goodbye and focuses only on his dad. I know it isn't his fault. So I just try to support them where they are. 

Things could have ended up so, so much worse for my DH. And even though they aren't perfect now, there is still damage done where his kids are concerned, it is at least minimized as much as it can be. DH and I have a reciprocal relationship. We support each other, our give and take is balanced. And he is finally able now to finish a degree in what he has always wanted to pursue, education. He is finally able to have space in his relationship to explore what he enjoys, take the time that he needs. He has been able to pursue healing from the initial co-dependency that made him a target in the first place. We are doing okay, and the past is behind us. But never, ever underestimate the malovelent power of sick people in the grips of personality disorders that cause them to not even see you as people, but as tools to use to get whatever they are after. If it serves their purpose, they will crush you, and consider it nothing more than business as usual.