Targeted by manipulator while married

I have decided to share my story for the benefit of others like me, who entered an extramarital relationship with a manipulator, but who have been held back from healing and receiving support because of fear of shame and ostracization. My shame kept me tied to my abuser, and that was part of his toolkit of control. I’m pretty sure he isn’t a P, but I do wonder if he’s on the spectrum considering his treatment of me and what I know about his treatment of his ex-wife. It’s those dead eyes that I keep getting hung up on…but for now I will just call him an abuser because the label is less important that what he did.

Since the day it finally ended for good, I have wanted so badly to know I wasn’t the only one to have been manipulated this way; to hear that I wasn’t a miserable excuse for a human because I couldn’t stop it; and to understand what he did to me and that it was wrong. I have been fortunate enough to find a therapist to support me and validate my experience. I know not everyone has access to therapy, and for those folks in particular, and those who may still be doubting themselves, I hope that hearing my story can offer you some beginning toward finding your peace. I hope you can try to forget about what others will think, and to try to trust yourself again, regardless of the circumstances of the abuse you suffered.

I do want to make clear that I’m not trying to take anything away from those who were betrayed by their abusive spouses or partners. My abuser was married while he targeted me, and I know his ex-wife suffered as deeply as any of you have. I carry the burden of that on top of my own suffering, which is another reason I want to share my story. I respect that folks who were betrayed by a spouse or partner might be uncomfortable with my post, but if you continue to read, I hope you can try to understand that anyone – married or not – can be susceptible to manipulation. The truth is that it doesn’t matter if you are married. These abusers see something they want, and they take advantage of people. Period.

When I met my abuser, I loved my husband – and still do – with every molecule of my being. Despite that, my abuser was able to weasel his way into our lives and manipulate me into acting against my best interests. I always considered myself to be a sensitive, compassionate person of strong morals, and never, ever saw myself as someone who would have an affair. My abuser had a strong presence in my day-to-day life and with that access was eventually able to influence me enough to obliterate my ability to think for myself and shatter my moral code.

He targeted me while my husband was working on a project that left us only scant hours together over a period of years. I was lonely and depressed, and that’s when my abuser made his move. He stalked me, but he was clever enough about it that I didn’t see it that way at the time – he was just a creep from work who kept showing up in my life outside of work. Still, over time, he was able to disarm all my warning signals and create a familiarity that became a friendship. He used anything available to represent himself as having only pure motives, including frequent mention and praise of his wife.

He started manipulating me from day one. He used the usual techniques – he insinuated himself into my life, he negged me, he got personal fast, he made me feel special with lots of attention and the idea that “I alone” understood him, he praised me for attributes I didn’t have but wished I had, he blamed me for things he had done, he belittled me and made cruel “jokes” that I always took “too seriously,” and he lied and lied and lied – he gaslit the daylights out of me until I literally did not believe my life was real or that events had happened as I remembered or whether they had happened at all. I apologized to him a lot for little “mistakes” I was making, and I started forgetting things. I was miserable and didn’t understand why. I moved about in a gray fog with a distance between my body and my head, like I was always looking through a tube.

He messed with my brain, and my marital status was not relevant to the ultimate effect of that abuse. The magic of love isn’t an all-powerful elixir against the insidious techniques of a skilled manipulator. I wish it were – oh, how I wish it were! He used against me both my vulnerabilities and my strengths until I was dizzy and helpless with the circles he ran me in. He zeroed in on signs of past trauma and used that to belittle me and make me small, and yet he was able to make me think that he was the only one who cared about me, using my husband’s absence like a weapon. He flooded me with attention, then he’d disappear for a week. When he resurfaced, he was cool toward me, then as soon as I backed away to give him the space it seemed he needed, he flooded me with attention again. At a certain point, he became somewhat paternalistic, correcting my behavior and presentation, and the craziest part is that I started changing to try to meet his nebulous and ever-changing expectations.

He did it all to satisfy his selfish desires, and he did it without remorse. By the time he began making overt sexual propositions, I was so dulled by the constant self-doubt and confusion and lack of self-worth he had mired me in over a long period of time that I actually believed him when he said we wouldn’t be hurting anyone.

My abuser coupled his manipulation with sexual assault** and photographic exploitation, and a dictate of absolute secrecy – I was not allowed to tell a single soul about what was happening, not even my doctor. He got angry when he interpreted even an innocent act as an attempt to sabotage his carefully maintained secret, and I was afraid of him, afraid to “slip up,” even if the rules were never clear, or impossible catch-22s. By these means he was able to maintain control over me for an appalling stretch of time. I did try to leave him several times, and each time he mouthed words of support and acceptance, then would turn right around and force himself on me the next time I saw him. After several attempts I gave up, exhausted.

All this time I still loved my husband, but my abuser had made it clear to me that he would not permit me to be free of his control. There came a time where I thought I wasn’t even allowed to leave him, or refuse him any wish. He also made it clear that he did not love me, that neither of us were to leave our spouses for each other, even while he called sex “making love” and aped the gestures of intimacy when we were together, so that despite his abuse I wondered if I loved him, and if he loved me. While he never respected my attempts to end it, he periodically broke it off only to press himself on me once I had accepted it was over.

The “choices” I made while I was being abused were not choices. They were the options he made available to me under the parameters he set up with his constant psychological warfare. I was not in a state of mind to make informed and deliberative choices. His control over me was so severe that this abuse did not end until his wife caught him with a different woman, and he cut off all contact with me to try eliminate evidence of our relationship, supposedly on the advice of his therapist to “save” his marriage. He disappeared for 2 years before trying to get back into my life (because they all try this), and I was fortunate to be in a place of strength at the time so that I was able to dismiss his attempt.

I blamed myself so many times when I was coming to terms with what had happened to me, wishing I had heeded the warning signs before my mind descended into chaos, wishing I had trusted myself and wondering how on earth things had gone so far. But he was so insidious, I couldn’t possibly have seen what he was doing, particularly after he had gained my trust. Even after accepting that I was targeted by a predator and that blaming myself for his abuse was useless, I battled denial and confusion and still do from time to time. All the while I wanted so badly to see myself in these stories when I was flailing about seeking answers. My story is still developing, but I’m in a good place, and I hope that opening up here can help any of you who have been abused by any sort of manipulator while married.

I wish all of you well.

**I included this because it was present in my case, but physical violence is not a necessary threshold for judging behavior as abusive.