Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we’ll call “Nadine.” Read Part 1.
I met my partner’s parents very early on in the relationship.
I was equipped with some knowledge about Narcs due to one of my friends having a Narc ex-mother-in-law. My radar was up, but unfortunately I was looking closely at mother and father instead of him.
I did not know about love bombing, so I had no clue he was even remotely like his parents. I knew she was bad news the day I met her. Father was the silent brooding intimating type. Throughout the relationship I was constantly standing my ground with boundaries that were continuously ignored or disrespected.
As the mask of my Narc started to slip, I blamed his parents for all of his problems. I started to loathe their presence in my life and how they had caused so much pain to the person I was committed to.
Looking back, it is a mystery how the dysfunction operates between my ex and his parents really is in reality. I think information I was being fed was probably inaccurate, and the dysfunction so severe I have no idea if they were co conspirators in trying to harm me or just truly all hate each other. Probably both!
It’s really complex and I don’t know what the truth is.
After I left the house that day he went missing, I eventually received a phone call from one of the detectives. Narc had called them and they had picked him up. He had spent the day hiding out at the river that was nearby our house.
I don’t have a full story from the police, but they dropped him off at the local psychiatric facility. He remained there for just over 2 months.
After I spent a period of time with my family I returned to the house. I was petrified to return, because no one was able to tell me he wasn’t going to be leaving the hospital.
My mother came to live with me after I couldn’t cope with the fear. I had to return to the house to take care of so many things and it was just not possible to do from elsewhere.
When I arrived back in the house it was clear someone had been in my home. It was the parents of course!
They had stolen important documents, my business data from when I had previously worked, plus taken spare keys to the house and car. I changed the locks that day!
I made contact with his parents. I had them visit. They did not know what happened between us, other than the fact we had split and he was in the psych ward and very unwell. This was less than a week after everything had happened.
They sat down on my couch and immediately began talking about money. I told them I was not ready to start sorting out the money. They had a go at me because their son ended up “With no change of clothes, toothbrush and looked like a homeless person when they visited him in hospital.”
I told them the police had advised me to leave town for my own safety.
They pushed the money issue and made polite demands that my family help tidy the house up to get it ready to sell. They informed me that because their son was so unwell they would be getting power of attorney activated to take care of the financial matters.
I told them about what I discovered.
Their faces are still impossible to translate. I don’t know what was going on in their heads. They were silent and then acted confused. But I suspect they know something from his past.
I again told them I wasn’t ready to discuss financial matters. They then asked, “Well what do you want us to do?” I said, “I want you to leave.” I left the room and they stayed for another 15 minutes whilst they drilled my mother about fixing the house up.
After they left, I received a phone call on our landline from an unknown woman.
She was frantic because she hadn’t heard from Narc in a week. She had looked up our landline number, which was under Narc’s name. She had been ringing his mobile with no response.
It was an interesting conversation, some of the lies he had told about me were typical of a Narc. Of course. My favourite is that I had been in a psych ward previously! Kind of ironic ”¦
Sadly, I believe she may still be on his hook despite the fact I told her about the sexual preferences I had discovered and police involvement.
At this point being irate, I rang Narc’s father.
I told him that my parents would not be helping to fix up the house after it had gone into disrepair because their son had been too busy having affairs to maintain it. I told him it was not my fault and that their son had ruined my life.
I asked him repeatedly if he understood what I was saying, three or four times, he was silent. I hung up.
I said to Mum they’re going to call you next.
They called my mother the next morning and tried to manipulate me via my mother. My mother told him that, “she raised her children to make their own decisions and whatever my daughter decides to do we will support that.”
I made an appointment with a family law solicitor and I received a letter from their solicitor very shortly afterwards.
I had no money and they changed the account that my Narc’s next pay was due to be deposited into. The games and bullshit following this has been going for almost a year and we are now in the family law court process.
A few weeks after the police had seized the computers, I received a phone call from detective in charge. They discovered 1000’s of images and 100’s of videos of child abuse material.
They classify it to come up with the severity of the offence. The majority of the material is in the worst two categories. If you want to know what that means, Google how child pornography is classified for the legal system and you will get the idea.
Meanwhile I had the opportunity to investigate his online double life to a further extent.
I discovered a level of perversion that I could not imagine. All sorts of strange sick behaviours. Lots of liaisons with men, affairs with women, some things that felt instinctually quite sexually predatory.
And no, he never tried anything weird on me. Ever.
Then I discovered all the projection, all the things he was doing, he was telling others that I had done. He told one girl he was having an affair with at work that I had been incestuous with my brother.
I have a huge list of lies.
He was also presenting a fake lifestyle, one of owning guns, camping, hunting. All false.
All mutual friends promptly stopped talking to me. Silence.
I didn’t have many friends due to isolation, so I lost pretty much everyone except family.
I also lost my good friend who was there with me when it all happened due to her not being there for me during the long haul.
He was promptly arrested and charged by the police when he was discharged from the psych ward. He made no comment in the interview.
He has successfully had his criminal proceedings held over for one year due to mental health issues. He has not entered a plea and it seems as though his defence is going to be insanity.
You make your own judgments regarding that. I know what I think is going on and the Detective in charge shares the same opinion as me.
Some days I look forward to standing in the witness box and taking back more power, other days I am petrified of seeing him again.
It’s been a year since that dreaded night. I have only just started admitting to the fact that he was abusive.
He didn’t hit or verbally abuse. But emotional manipulation, including gaslighting, was subtle, yet extreme.
Each day lately I remember a new situation where I recognise the manipulation, then I forget it again. I can’t quite keep it with me to recall at will, even though it’s there and yet to be completely processed.
Getting there though. My story. It’s not over, but I got him good.
You are so incredibly strong.
That is horrific. How terrifying. Much worse than what we have known.
My husband is the only ‘sane’ one in his family of all boys. I would say ‘grown men’ but they are not. One of them managed to get a job in our town, right down the street from us, and he and his wife attend a church where they speak in tongues…we are sandwiched in between both of their ‘target points’. They always succeed in one way or another.
They want everything that we have. We totally ignored their daughter’s wedding last weekend. I did send a gift card but no explanation for our absence.
And we did not go to his brother’s mother-in-law’s wake or funeral. I would think they would have ‘caught on’ by now that we want nothing to do with them.
We too, fear for our pets. One night I saw his brother drive by and witnessed his devilish face looking over his shoulder at one of our cats on own lawn. There are a lot of neighbor’s cats as well, and I do not want to put their beloved cats in danger. These psychos are everywhere. I worked with several of them over the years and grew up with a psycho for a friend.
Point of Reference: I have known much longer than my husband who his brothers really are, but he definitely has caught on. He hung up the phone on his brother when said brother called from his new workplace. It is too close for comfort to our home. They are probably waiting for us to sell our house so they can claim it. We would never sell to them.
If they could walk in our shoes, they would. Bummer. This has been going on for decades.