My wife has left, again. Personality disorder?

[Neveragainagain]

Together for 4 years it really was a relationship of two halves. Up until our marriage 2 years ago, (Her 3rd marriage, my first) my wife was amazing. I was everything she ever wanted, we were twin flames and I was the love of her life. Our sex life was off the scale. She wanted to be with me all the time. I adored her and was head over heels. Part of me still is. The attraction to her was / is magnetic.

Once married though, she literally changed overnight. Everything she loved about me she started to dislike. She withdrew her attention and affection, making me work harder and harder for crumbs of love.

6 months into the relationship she walked out, returning a few weeks later after a holiday abroad with her adult daughters. She told me I needed to change. Her attitude towards me fluctuated with her mood or whether she needed me to do something or not. She would make me feel really loved for short periods of time and then withdraw and criticise to make the discard more effective. Whenever I tried to discuss things she would flip and walk out for hours or days (to talk about me with her daughters) or deny everything saying I was 'over sensitive'. I had stopped spending time with my own daughter, my friends and family by now. Everything revolved around her and how my actions / words would affect her mood.

Earlier this year she inherited a large amount of money and the day the cheque cleared she told me she wasn't in love with me and that she had been 'going through the motions' and she was leaving, but could she stay until her new house was ready!? I'm ashamed to say I let her. She told me she was leaving but didn't want to lose me, so I agreed to keep trying once she had left. We dated every week and had two weekends away together (in the UK) before she eventually started to cut off again following another luxury holiday abroad with her daughters.

I confronted her last weekend and she told me she loves me as friend but has no other feelings for me. Simple as that. She had not been dating me, she had just been hanging out and leaving me hanging on. This despite texting me every day to say she loves me.

She came to collect the rest of her things yesterday. I said, 'I didn't think this would happen to us' and all she said was 'can I take the microwave if you don't use it'. Then she was gone. Four years of my life spent trying to please someone who could not be pleased, fix someone who could not be fixed, even though we both knew where her inability to love herself or others comes from. I am grieving for a woman I possibly never knew. I am in love with someone who doesn't exist and who in the end took everything I had to give, emotionally, practically and financially and she left wanting just one more thing...

The shock of how I let her treat me is mixed with the massive loss I feel as I loved this woman with all my heart. A real paradox.

Does anyone understand or have any advice? Thank you.

[Mr. Lucky]

Does anyone understand or have any advice? Thank you.

 

I think most of the input you'll receive will fall in the category of 20/20 hindsight.

 

Did she fulfill any immediate needs by marrying you? Visa? Citizenship? Financial for her and her daughters?

 

Have you met husbands 1 or 2 or have any insight into those marriages beyond what she's told you?

 

Three failed marriages would indicate she's not long-term material. Probably hard for you to accept, but you're better off with her gone. Lesson learned...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Downtown]

Never, you seem to be describing strong warning signs (i.e., symptoms) for narcissism. Whether they are so strong and persistent as to constitute full-blown NPD is something that only a professional can determine. Spotting strong occurrences of the symptoms, however, should be easy after being with the woman for 4 years.

[Neveragainagain]

Hello, her relationship history is a long one with stories of disaster and ill treatment. She has kept one bloke hanging on for 30 years with an on/off relationship over all that time. (If a narcissist I guess he's been a great supply). She always made me feel bad if I questioned her past and accused me of being judgemental, but her own family have told me to run and not look back because this is the pattern of her life. She puts people under a spell and then leaves but wants to keep you dangling, they said. So many red flags but she only told me her history in bits and pieces. I didn't know most if it until I'd proposed to her and sold my house. As soon as we were married and living together her true colours started to show, especially after my savings ran out...I can't believe I fell for it all. I feel pretty empty right now.

[Mr. Lucky]

I can't believe I fell for it all. I feel pretty empty right now.

 

Since you're already beating yourself up pretty good, I'll just observe you missed a lot of red flags, stop signs and outright alarms. Accordingly, I'd worry less about her narcissistic tendencies and focus more on understanding how to have healthy boundaries in any future relationships.

 

Do you still have the funds from the sale of your house? I'm wondering who paid for all those "luxury holidays abroad with her daughters"?

 

Mr. Lucky

[Art_Critic]

of course all states and countries have differing laws but in my state buying a house with an inheritance is commingling the money and makes her untouchable inheritance marital assets and as such she would give up half of that value to the other spouse..

 

Here inheritances are protected but you cannot buy something like a house while married and keep the protection.

 

It sounds to me that she just doesn't want to be married anymore..

 

Give her what she is looking for

[Neveragainagain]

Hello Mr Lucky,

You're right - there are thigs I need to look at about myself and I have started counselling to do this. My wife obviously fulfilled a need in me at first, showing me more love in a year than I'd had in a lifetime...I was so desperate to hang on to that feeling I denied / ignored the red flags and all of the hurt that followed for a tiny bit of that love and affection.

 

Art-critic, my wife is renting and the money is in the bank I guess. I now own 'our' house outright. I think she realises that if she pushed for any money from this house I would push for a share of the inheritance. When we bought this house, I paid for the deposit and all of the repairs so really she only contributed a few £100 over the year and a half we lived together. I spent £1000s. I guess this imbalance allowed her to pay for those holidays whilst I made sure the house was paid for. Silly moi!

 

 

She is incapable of long term relationships - her family have confirmed this now and have told me to let her go and not look back or she will try to keep me dangling...I am one more broken heart in a long trail behind her.