What happened to me?!?

I seem to be a moth to psychopathic / narcissistic flames.

In late 2015, early 2016 I reunited with a woman I was friends with for many years. She had the “terrible” ex, or sometimes partner and baby daddy. She reached out one day and said, “hey, I’m single”. We had dated 6 years previously and had an agreement that if we were ever single at the same time, we’d marry and spend our lives… We had a lot in common: large libraries, enjoyed doing research and writing, trips, etc.

It turns out she kept an array of ex-lovers around as “friends” who all swooned over her and hated me – all were “friend zoned”. Hours long discussions to work things out would end up entirely forgotten the next day as if the conversations never happened. And I found out that she was having an affair with her ex fiance, had sold herself for money a few times, and a month before our wedding she bails out, cancelling my trip to NY. Of course the fault was all mine. I was called all the typical names: “controlling”, “needy”, etc.

After her I spoke to a therapist for many months. Got my life back together. Moved on. Dated a while. Thought I was doing pretty well. ..

In late 2017, early 2018, I thought I met the woman of my dreams. She was in the same profession, also enjoyed research and writing, and we spoke for several months for hours a day. It seemed that we had everything in common. She was “her” to me. I was flabbergasted. We enjoyed the same things, liked researching the same topics. We both had done things in the past and both had recently become Christians – or so I thought. We both wanted family and children, both had strong moral values, both conservatives, both more traditional / Christian in our thinking. I bought a ticket out to Maine. We met, had a good time, did some research, and she says “why don’t we elope and we’ll have a ceremony later”. I fell for it.

From there things started coming undone. Turns out she was a former stripper and had done a lot of nude modeling. I’m a public figure, and so within weeks all sorts of people were telling me things about my wife, including sending me nude photos of her and all sorts of other stuff. Ugh. There is so much to this unraveling that it would take me weeks to type it all out. But things she did included offering to put me on her health insurance so that I could get my knee fixed, then delaying for months until it was too late to add me. Then saying things like “I didn’t know our marriage was predicated on my adding you to my insurance!” Months later we had our wedding ceremony. Oddly, not one of her friends showed up. Not one. Red flag! Walking out of the church… one of the oldest in the country, my son slipped and fell on his knee. He had had stitches removed 3 days prior due to racing with his dog and she tripped him and he landed on a brick and split his knee open. At the reception my wife comes over to me, looking beautiful as can be and says “I have a plan. Why don’t you and your family take your son to the hospital to get him stitched up. I’m going to head back to my dad’s to party with my family. You stay with your parents tonight. I don’t know how you’ll get to my dad’s. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. I nearly halted the reception and should have. I spent the next hour or so conversing with her father’s cousin – whom I still talk to. Thankfully my son didn’t need stitches again and we got him well bandaged up.

After the wedding ceremony she didn’t post any wedding photos to her social media …We had a professional photographer and the photos were amazing. She also suddenly didn’t want to change her last name as she said she wanted to. She began doing things in public to tarnish my reputation and would spin things against me. She also delayed for month after month regarding moving together.

One after the other things came undone. After more lies and excuses and God knows what else, 7 weeks after our ceremony I filed an annulment. It turns out that she was having an affair too. 3 months after I filed the annulment she was moving in with her lover – a neo-Nazi to boot. Her father and his cousin apologized to me. But I’m left in the aftermath of this psychopathic narcissist.

I’m dealing with the depression, anxiety and feeling worthless. A couple months ago I saw a YouTube video called “Marrying Medusa” .. the guy has a terrible potty mouth, but the video was good and he recommended a book: Psychopath Free. I just finished it this AM. I’m in shock. In the back of the book there is a test:

It turns out that my first fiance of 2016 scored a 48 of 52 – a psychopath. This last one scored a 44, but was a narcissist. It turns out she’d been mirroring me the whole time. It was like the book was written specifically about both of them.

I’m a very logical person, study and teach logic, do forensic research, I’m intelligent… How did I let this go by? How did this happen to me? TWICE!?!

I just wanted a good Christian wife and family. What happened to me? My morale is gone. I feel like a different person. Several years of my life wasted. It’s as if she cast a terrible spell on me to ruin my morale, company and career – and in many ways she succeeded.

How to crawl out of this nightmare and back to myself?

I feel completely stupid. Unlovable. Ugly. Filled with anxiety and depression. I have seen the Devil in this woman.