Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we’ll call “Maryjane.”
If your husband, whom you found out had affairs all during your marriage, had a child with his secretary, paid her hush money, came onto your mother, grandmother, and another sister, told you that he had an affair with your sister ”¦ during the time frame that you were readying for divorce, would you believe him? Also, this man gambled away most all the money in the marriage on football and golf betting (at a country club that you were the member of, not him, as he ran up bills) and was an alcoholic ”¦
And at the time, that piece of info about your sister, was just a part of the entire hurtful mess and too much to process ”¦ while he was also telling you that he loves you and will never cheat again ”¦ and of course, you don’t believe him. You were just trying to process the insanity of it all. Then you were both at your parents’ house and you walked into the laundry room to find this husband and that sister, whispering and snuggling ”¦
And you got furious. even screamed. and went in a made a big to do about what you had seen to your parents ”¦ and this sister, the manipulator, liar of the century, said that you were crazy and that she didn’t know what you were talking about and pointed out that you were overly emotional as usual.
During the divorce, you were cleaning out your husband’s dresser drawers and found a nude photo of this sister in the bottom of his ‘junk’ drawer ”¦ taken during the time, (junk alright, huh?), this sister had lived with you in another state, for three months, eight years previously. And the nude photo was taken on her bed at her apartment that was a short distance from where you lived.
The divorce was awarded to you on extreme mentally cruelty in a no fault divorce state ”¦ and you kept the part about ‘your sister’ out of the court proceedings to ‘protect your family’ ”¦ as you were embarrassed to have such immoral, incestuous, crassness in your own family, on top of the obvious embarrassment and hurt of the rest of it.
After the divorce and during a time, you were ready to address it ”¦ you told your parents about it ”¦ and they couldn’t/wouldn’t believe it ”¦
You see, this sister was the mother of their ‘grandchildren,’ and you were a divorced woman going through pain and not much fun to be around ”¦ And your parents were all about drinking and partying and you were dealing with issues and things that they didn’t want to ever think about, much less acknowledge happened in their family ”¦
These parents were both alcoholics and lived in denial about most everything that occurred with their children and in their lives ”¦ as in one sister being on drugs and having manic episodes. When you told them that she was doing drugs, they didn’t believe you then either. Until ”¦ Gee! It was proven to be true ”¦ and after many episodes, she is diagnosed as being bipolar.
So, you were the truth teller, the one in pain ”¦ the one who saw and the one who was crushed under affairs, lying, alcoholism ”¦ and instead of comfort and caring ”¦ you got disbelief and alienation ”¦
And you suffered it all while being sober, because you don’t drink or do drugs.
The sister who you were told had an affair with your husband began to excluded you from family ‘get togethers’ ”¦ as in her children’s birthday parties ”¦ and pretty soon, you weren’t invited to anything ”¦ because you represented something that no one wanted to look at. She needed to keep you away, because she knew that you knew the truth ”¦ so you were dangerous to the facade that she tried so hard to create and to keep intact.
You moved to another state and during this time, this sister had another affair with a married man ”¦ actually, she has had many with married men that you knew about. But this one almost caused her to lose her license, because it went against professional ethics ”¦ even as she took this husband of another woman to ‘church’ with her.
Your father finally told you that he knew you were telling the truth ”¦ but what could he do? That it was between you girls ”¦
And you responded, “So you let her exclude me when she was the one who did this to me and all the while you knew the truth?” And he shrugged as he took another drink of wine ”¦
You see he had affairs on your mother all throughout their marriage, and you even overheard one talking on the phone to your father while you were in high school, telling him that she missed and loved him and calling him by name ”¦
He knew that you overheard and said that it was a wrong number ”¦
But of course, it wasn’t. And he eventually told you that he was thinking about leaving your mother because he loved this woman and he had been unhappy in the marriage for years. And as hurt as you felt, you could kind of understand this, because your mother was given a prefrontal lobotomy when you were two years old and she was not much of a companion on many levels. And because of her lack of affect and diminished capacity, you and she did not get along well at all. Because you are artistic, emotional, strong and outgoing and she was weak, dependant and most times, not even present. You can’t even recall having a real conversation with her. But being true to your mother, you tell your dad, that if he leaves her you will never speak to him again ”¦
After all, was she really insane, or was it post partum depression ”¦ or did your Dad drive her crazy by his criticizing and neglect?
You were angry at both your dad and your mother ”¦ and while needing their love, lost respect for them both as your heart broke into a million pieces. Nothing was as it seemed in your family. It was mostly all façade ”¦
Your dad didn’t leave, but continued his womanizing, while giving the ‘image’ of the ‘good family man’ ”¦ Even your friends at high school knew about it and would make snide remarks ”¦ You withdrew into yourself, your room, your friends and ballet to survive. But your family made fun of you for dancing. They made fun of you for everything you liked and did, especially ‘that’ sister.
For about 30 years, you are excluded from most all ‘family things’ led by this sister ”¦ who now wore a mantel of a ‘church woman,’ letting her hair go gray and becoming fatter and uglier by the year, and claimed her ‘best friend’ was a shriveled-up old Bishop ”¦ who hung around your family like some kind of a leech ”¦ Your father befriends this old Bishop and took him on extravagant trips.
And during this time, your father on several occasions told you that there is a part of him that wished he had left your mother when she had her breakdown and taken you with him, and that he wished you were his only child.
That he knew that sister had always treated you with hate and animosity, and had done everything she could to harm your life. He called her a big dumbass broad ”¦ which both made you chuckle and cringe at how cruel, duplicitous and sordid your father was.
After your mother died, your father had affair, after affair, after affair, with women young enough to be his daughters, while he claimed this Bishop was his ‘spiritual advisor.’ All of these women were golddiggers, whorish types, and you told him so. And he got angry at you for telling him the truth ”¦ said that you were always causing problems. You only saw your father on occasion, because you couldn’t stand being around these women, the drinking, and the squandering of money, but your sisters participated in it all. At ‘that’ sister’s son’s wedding you weren’t included, but the current golddigger in your Father’s life was. But then after he realized what the women were, he admonished, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and he dumped them.
Your Dad is dead now ”¦ and in his later years, because of ill health, he stopped so much with the drinking, but after a lifetime of it, was a dry drunk. He would tell you on occasion how much you meant to him, and that you were always right and always told the truth, and you heard back from others that he thought you his most beautiful, brightest, deserving and moral child”¦
Your sisters ignored you, were hateful to you, or many times, actually cruel, especially the one who had an affair with your first husband ”¦ They claimed that they don’t know what’s wrong with you when you got angry, and said you were emotional and always played the victim.
What would you do and what would you think?
Are you saying my dad created the envy issue between us girls on purpose.. like divide and conquor? He did go from one to another.. one was in favor, one out of favor, then the one out of favor in favor.. back and forth.. I didn’t stay in favor for long because I told him the truth and didn’t drink with him. I felt at times he evvied me. But what my soul? Like wheh I was just happy for being happy.. he would ask “Why are ‘you’ so happy?’ like it angred him that I was.. so I learned to act sad around him. That sister watches me.. I turned at the funeral severl times and she was lookng me up and down.. I don’t just me like we all look at one another I mean like she was sizing me up. She is the creepiest person. A friend of mine said that he has never seen such a evil woman and she manipulates like it’s just part of her being.
maryjane: You dad could very well have been playing on the envy issue between you and your sisters. My parents were always comparing my two sisters and me and trying to get us to compete. And my dad alternated playing favorites between my two older sisters. He tried to get me into the game, but I told him he was an asshole and he didn’t treat us like we ought to be treated.
So he ignored me. Literally. If he wasn’t abusing me, he was ignoring me. Yet my sisters spent their time trying to get his approval and if one did something he didn’t like, he switched to other. Even though he was a completely abusive alcoholic. Very unhealthy. They were like his surrogate wives, especially after my mother left. And even as adults they were trying to gain his approval. I always wondered about that because, frankly, I couldn’t imagine wanting the approval of someone as sick as he was.
But it sounds like your dad was a master manipulator and doing the same. It’s all a power game.
Luz Blanca
So , I was getting my truck washed the other day and I notice this guy walking from the street, he looks out of place, kinda leary..he made eye contact with me…so I look away.. There are prolly 5 or 6 people sitting outside waiting on their vehicles… this guy zeros in on me and get’s in my face and ask if I will be a good samaritan because he is trying to get his granddaughter to the next town and needs gas money. I almost reached in my pocket and gave him a few bucks but I stop and think…why me of all the people sitting out here..am I that obvious of a shmuck? I said ” I am really sorry your having bad luck but I really cant spare any money today ” well he walks around and never ask anybody else…he finally left…so now I am thinking I should of given him a dollar or 2..it wouldnt of hurt nothin…
Yes, MJ,
he would not be the first to do so.
Spaths are very sensitive to the emotions of envy and rivalry. Everything is a contest to them. They must create games and contests so they can win. This is because life has no meaning for them that is deeper than SCORING! This meaninglessness in life makes them look for meaning in the shallow material world of possessions. But even possessions are meaningless unless someone else wants them. Otherwise, how will a spath know that it’s something valuable? Spaths have NO VALUES. Only by the look on YOUR face when you gain or lose the possession can they know. They borrow OUR VALUES. So in essence, spaths are all about facial expressions.
My spath worked for a billionaire for a while. It just so happened that I went to highschool with one of his twin daughters, but we didn’t travel in the same circles — she was one of the popular girls.
Spath cultivated relationshits with wealthy people and could get under their skin and learn all about them. He told me that G, the billionaire had TWO daughters, twins who hated each other so much that they wouldn’t even go to the same high school. The twins became polar opposites because the father made them into rivals. He is a cutthroat CEO who will take what he wants from anyone.
All this is according to my spath. But then one day on G’s birthday, we went to his mansion to say Happy Bday and his daughter was there — the one I went to highschool with. Spath started joking with her, saying terrible things about her dad about how harsh and terrible he was. To my SHOCK, she agreed! She started saying that it was all true and he was terribly selfish. WTF? We immediately laughed and said, “No! we were kidding! we love your dad!” She continued to be apologetic and admit that her dad could be very ruthless.
Spath had set the whole thing up. He had learned all this from G’s wife, whom he conned by helping her quit smoking (something she could never do on her own). He set the daughter up to agree, just for the fun of it or I don’t know WHAT or WHY.
Suffice it to say, it was a lesson in how some parents set up sibling rivalries. I later noticed that my parents did the same thing.
Hens,
no you did the right thing. He was sizing up your boundaries. You have that look on your face too. It says, I’m a nice guy with a conscience.
Yes, my Dad loved the rivalry.. I just never really looked at it that way.. and the way that he left his Will and estate has set up more rivalry.. This is going to sound sick but a psycholgist I went to once stated this.. your Dad can’t really screw you so he is doing it everyway that he can.
Maryjane,
It might have been the sister who was envious, but from what you told us your dad loved that and just added oil to the fire.
My father’s sister is a narcissist… always was, since ever she and my grandmother were on their own at the start of WWII and my grandfather was a POW and labouring as a POW in Germany. She was born without the father around, and my grandmother was overprotective of her. When my granfather returned he was the odd one in the house, both his wife and daughter ostracising him for being a rugged male. By the end of the war my dad was born: and my aunt envied him like no other. My aunt was the ‘golden child’, my dad was the hyperactive pest. Many of his childhood stories are about being locked up in the shed for punishment every day.
Anyway, my aunt went on to marry and have a child with another narcissist and was heading for divorce by the time my parents met and married. As a typical N she of course caused a whole attention seeking scene of being the damsel in distress (the bad marriage) at the wedding day of my parents, so that my grandparents were all absorbed with her, and even my dad was all about ‘saving’ her (he expressed guilt about that to me when telling me that story)… and my mom watched the whole sick twisted narc game of her from afar. That’s when my mom gave my dad an objective view on the disfuntionality of his family. He started to take distance from her and his parents… at least he never joined the pity party for his sister anymore.
The envy of my aunt extended so far, that while my 13-year old cousin was welcome to sit in my grandmother’s lap, I as a toddler wasn’t when my aunt and/or cousin was around. She’d knit sweaters for my cousin, never for me. My aunt was a 40-yr old woman envious of a 3 yr old toddler just because, and my 13 yr old cousin was envious of me for having parents with a good marriage. My father became useful to my grandparents because he knew finances and helped my grandfather to invest. My aunt was always paranoid of that, whispering that my father was doing it to enrich himself. He never did. And when my cousin pestered or harrangued me, my grandfather would scold her and protect me.
Until my grandmother’s death we always regarded my grandfather as the ‘just’ one. He could be strict and harsh, but he seemed to be a victim along with my dad (and us as extended family) of this matriarchal scheme of grandmother – aunt – cousin trio, with my aunt as the truly disfunctional one, and my grandmother having foolishly pampered it.
However, in a way, my aunt was also the victim of my grandmother who clung to her at the start of WWI. Her narcissism was either created or made worse by my grandmother’s unhealthy bonding and lavishing her daughter, while ousting her husband when he came home from the POW camp.
But when my grandmother died, things got a very strange twist. My grandfather became extremely manipulative and controlling towards my dad and basically gave him the message that if my dad didn’t cater his wants and needs, he’d side with my aunt (what my dad had helped to invest, and my aunt had always been paranoid about, had suddenly disappeared out of the vault). My dad refused to play that game and went NC with my grandfather; he preferred to love in peace and love with my mom and me and my mom’s family for family. Both my grandfather and aunt had smearcampaigned my dad and us so much that not even the notary nor the hospital notified any of us that my grandfather had died 3 months after his death. When my father learned he was dead, they had to go down to the national registry to ask for a death certificate on when he had died exactly. We all thought maybe a week. Turned out it was 3 months.
My aunt even had put our names on the death letters as mourning family, as us inviting everyone else to come to the burrial. While we didn’t even know.
My mom used to think my grandfather fell prey to my aunt’s conniving, but I’ve made her see that maybe it had been my grandfather’s doing all along. My grandfather and aunt had envied each other for my grandmother’s attention, and were each other’s enemies as long as my grandmother lived. Once, she was dead though, my grandfather wanted my dad and my aunt to fight for his approval and attention. My father made a wise desicion though: he would never have won my grandfather’s approval. When he was a child, my grandfather would play the big generous dad in front of a crowd, but as soon as they walked home would tell him, “Surely, you don’t believe a word of what I said in there. Of course you’re not getting x or y.” And my father moved out at 19 to study, work and live on his own, after a huge beating of my grandfather… though he visited daily bcause my grandmother would cook for him.
When I think of these three, my grandmother eventually turned out to be the most just of all. The last decade of her life, she was always grateful for the time she had with me. It felt like she was trying to make up for keeping me at bay when I was a toddler. When she learned how I’d love a knitted sweater by her she made one for me though she was half blind and couldn’t knit straight anymore. And when my cousin and aunt had taken stuff out of their homes when they moved to a senior home, she was the one demanding a fair, open and honest listing of stuff and things and fair division.
I conclude, my granfather is very much like the Daniel Day Lewis Character in There Will Be Blood… high in spath traits. Never cheated on my grandmother as far as I know and always a hard working man. But he was cold inside, and loved to play the fair and just man, which he wasn’t at all.
As for my aunt’s narcissism… she’s really a sick person. She got 2/3 of the inheritance and tried to get more, by making some sort of bill that included the fact that my father had cost my grandparents when he had TBC at 18. She was jealous still almost 50 years later of the one year of attention he ever got, because he was afflicted with a possible deadly disease. Even her own laywer looked ashamed when she brought that up.
I don’t regret for the past five years that the whole family chapter of my father’s side is over and done with.
Darwinsmom, umm well, families sure are a mess and what may appear one way isn’t that at all. I am the scapegoat. I live away and I have pulled away. I have had little to no interaction with my sisters for 25 years and that is how I want it. I saw how sick the while thing is.. My Dad seemed to hold me out special, and in his few last months he called me lots to tell me that he loved me. Now that he is dead. I am looking at him even more differently than I did. HE was an internally weak man and his bigger than life exterior was all BS. He was a kind man but he was also very very cruel. I wanted to think of him as my protector on some levels but he wasn’t, he was my destroyer. I guess I was in denial and his death has awakened me.. to more of the truth. I can’t be around my sisters ever. I will go back.. I think to get what I want out of the house and that is it. They are soo disordered, it is like some kind of a distorted hell looking into some fun house mirror that makes no sense and you can never get away from. I can’t have a consersation with any of them. Their children are wierd and cold just like they are. I have tried through the years to reach out and it always hurt me and I am done..
They all hide from the truth … people at the country club laugh at him and his women.. it was like that old man and Anna Nicole Snith.. vile and pathetic. My mother was mentally ill, both alchoholics and my dad a big narcissist.. I could see this side to him that was lonely and kind but he was cold.. my friends mentioned how cold he was. He always talked about himself and cared about himself. He even has in his Will if anyone claims he is not of sound mind or questions him that they are cut out. He loves playing the controlled. I don’ tlove him any longer .. I have love as that he was my father. But otherwise I have no love or respect. He had so much and he squarndered, abused and destroyed his family. In the end he told me that he wanted his family back together. He couldn’t see that he was the one who destroyed it. His arrogance and not dealing with what was really going on in his family. He was a cheater and a drinker and he preferred whores. And i am none of those things.. I feel sorry for my sisters and myself. But I have no family. I had a nightmare to walk through. Dad once told me that I was the best of he and mother. But awas anything he ever said true or what he really felt. Did he even know what he really felt? This world is insane. I rewards things that don’t matter and those who try to live right as in with morals, no addictions and to see the truth are beat the hell up.
that sister who had affairs with married men met and married a stripper.. Dad gave him a job in his company then of course, they divorced. Her sons are the biggest messes you can imagine. Their father never saw them and she had my father be their father.. sick sick sick.. the boys sqandered their inheritaance and one lost a million of our families money.. got a girl pregnant, married her and divorced in a year.. all a mess.. and this sister ‘acts’ like she is the poster child for mental health wellness.. she is a psycholgist. It’s all so sick and twisted.. I need to process it out. just interacting with this sister at Dad’s funeral makes me feel physically ill. It’s like evil seeps in and possesses me for awhile. I truly think she is evil.
@caringaunt
If you’re still around following this thread; I got Donna’s note. Looking forward to hearing from you.