So the title of this blog, in fact the whole reason I started this blog is a long and complicated story. Given that this is my blog that’s kind of, you know, the point to tell stories. Apparently the more long and complicated the better according to some metrics.
So yeah…rebirth.
I used to be a polygamist. Not in a scary, religious way. I was just in love with two people. That started a long time ago. We were friends first, while in the military. They were dating each other and I was their best friend. Then I started dating someone and were because four best friends. Then they got married. I was the maid of honor in their wedding. Then I got married and they were both in my wedding. Then we left the military. We eventually all moved to the same town and for a while that was good, but not for long. A large part of that was my own insanity in the literal sense. I’ve had some issues and as a result of them and other things my two best friends and I lost contact. .
And then my marriage ended. That, as it turns out, was a good thing for a lot of reasons. I learned about myself. I grew as a person. I got a hell of a lot more responsible. He’s not a bad person. We just weren’t good together.
Then the people who were my best friends? We reconnected.
Yeah so that’s the background; the shortish to mid-length version of “How I Became a Polygamist.”
The very short version is; because I loved them, both of them. It worked for six years. I mean, it didn’t work well but it did work. We were committed to each other as a family, at least that what I thought.
As it turns out, former Mrs. IdB was a narcissist. He wasn’t diagnosed or anything but if you read the list of narcissistic characteristics he had all of them. It’s like they came to our house, observed him for a while and then made their list of characteristics. See?
1. Self-centered. His needs are paramount.
2. No remorse for mistakes or misdeeds.
3. Unreliable, undependable.
4. Does not care about the consequences of his actions.
5. Projects faults on to others. High blaming behavior; never his fault.
.6. Insensitive to needs and feelings of others.
7. Has a good front (persona) to impress and exploit others.
8. Low stress tolerance. Easy to anger and rage.
9. People are to be manipulated for his needs.
10. Rationalizes easily. Twists conversation to his gain at other’s expense. If trapped, keeps justifying, changes the subject or gets angry.
11. Pathological lying.
12. Tremendous need to control situations, conversations, others.
13. No real values. Mostly situational.
14. Uses sex to control
15. Does not share ideas, feelings, emotions.
16. Conversation controller. Must have the first and last word.
17. Secret life. Hides money, friends, activities.
18. Likes annoying others. Likes to create chaos and disrupt for no reason.
19. Seldom expresses appreciation.
20. Grandiose. Convinced he knows more than others and is correct in all he does.
21. Sabotages partner. Wants her to be happy only through him and to have few or no outside interests and acquaintances.
22. Is not interested in problem-solving.
We lived with all of these things. All of them.
Mrs. IdB lived with it for twelve fucking years. I lived with it for six.
Then suddenly, we were done. And now life is all shiny and new.
The how we were done process is probably a longer story than I can fit in one blog post so I might go over that later.
But here’s the thing about my break-up. It really had nothing to do with polygamy.
Polygamy makes the relationship more complicated, natch, but the problem wasn’t the polygamy. The problem was the husband with a personality disorder. The fact that there were three of us made his gaslighting easier. And he had built in Madonna-whore players right in the house which was nice for him but three in a bed didn't destroy us. He did.
.
We fought our asses off for that relationship, but that fight was predicated on the assumption that there were three people who were relatively sane and all interested in making the others happy. That can't happen with a narcissist.
So we left. And things got way better. That’s what I’m going to try to blog about. And I'll talk some about knitting. But this isn’t going ot be the story of how knitting has helped me overcome the pain of my break-up because Crazy Aunt Purl has already done that.
Also, she’s funnier than I am.
But I’m still going to talk about knitting sometimes.
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