Every once in a while I reply to a comment that I think could benefit more than the person I am replying to. I am going to start sharing these replies in posts more often.
For a few months there is a woman who has been coming here who is hurting and very angry; she wants revenge, she is a woman scorned and she is hell bent on making him pay. Most people deal with the discard of a narcissist by rolling in the fetal position in a corner somewhere and hoping they die but there are others who get so fucking angry they can’t think of anything but making the narcissist pay for what he has done to them. The hatred and venom they spew is palatable and scary to the people who witness it. I know when one of James’s ex’s called spewing venom it actually repelled me and turned me against her. People are very uncomfortable with hatred that intense. And the truth is, it is not hatred, it is pain that the victim doesn’t know how to deal with. It doesn’t make them wrong, but it doesn’t make them any stronger than the woman curled in a ball in the corner. Whether you are spewing hatred and venom and trying to destroy him as retribution for him hurting you or whimpering in a corner or trying to figure out why he would hurt you like this, what did you do to deserve his hatred? you are only hurting yourself. Yes there is a period of analyzing the relationship, reliving the whole relationship in search of answers, trying to figure out WHY? but when you find out he is a narcissist and you fully absorb what he is and how damaged he is, then it is time to stop focusing on him and concentrate on YOU an your healing, time to concentrate on getting well again, learning how to be healthy again (or for the first time). In order to heal you HAVE to stop making him your focus and nurture your soul.
This is the one of the comments made by the woman, and please not she chooses to use her full real name when she posts and I am deleting her name from this post for her own safety and privacy. This is just one small comment made by her, but I think it shows why I responded the way I did. The whole conversation can be found in this post going back a few months
For me Julie … the same stuff with convincing the family how crazy I was/am. They all believe it too! I have therefore played that belief to my own advantage by leaving messages on his VM of how I am coming after him, my weapon of choice, how he best be watching his back because one day I will be there, how it will go down in a murder suicide fashion, how the family members will not be excluded … so yeah .. let them live in fear and maybe just maybe, Mr Cant do no wrong will be seen for the trouble making fool that met someone that was not only not afraid of him but just crazy enough to hurt them too !
My latest reply to her:
You don’t have to justify your actions to me; we are on the same team. When I say it could bite you in the ass, I say it from experience. I learned the hard way that there is no end to the depth these assholes will go to exact revenge or make you look like the psycho, ruin any chance you have of ever having a life after them. You will not always feel this way, the bitterness will leave you if you let it and I would hate to see you paying the price for it years down the road.
The way you talk it is as if you feel somehow you went through worse abuse, suffered more severe deception and gave up so much more than most of the other victims here. Believe me, 90% of victims of a narcissist have lost way more than you and invested as much and lost as much as you, were deceived as much as you.
But we don’t go around announcing to the world that we are going to kill the narc and his whole family. We do not announce to the world that we will simply plead temporary insanity, because THAT would prove premeditated murder.
I have been where you are, thinking I had “given him what he deserved” taught him that he couldn’t mess with me, that I was not the push over he thought I was; and I have paid the price for that for the last 4 years.
I too had realms of evidence of his infidelity, I had read his journals going back 6 years, I too could put all the puzzle pieces together and prove he was seeing 6 women and telling each one that they were the love of his life. He destroyed my business by sabotaging my truck, he tried to kill me by sabotaging my truck, he stole or destroyed everything of value I had. He attempted to destroy my reputation and I felt really cocky about the fact that I led such an exemplary life no one would believe his lies. I was right to a point, no one did believe his lies at first but as time went on I found myself working for someone who didn’t know me, who didn’t know how moral and upright I was and who was susceptible to my ex’s exceptional ability to play the victim. I never imagined having several heart attacks and ending up on welfare and him sabotaging me to the point of being cut off welfare. I never imagined he could be THAT cruel.
What did I do to him that was so bad? I simply refused to lay down and be a doormat any more. I don’t know how I could have done it any other way.
In a nutshell this is the story.
I was able to get cheap car insurance because I was accident free so we always insured the vehicles in my name. When we got back together in 2009 he was an owner/operator out of Alberta and had an Alberta drivers license. When you move to another province you have 30 days to change your driver’s license to the new province. When he moved to BC, unbeknownst to me he never changed his driver’s license to BC and continued to drive on his Alberta DL. I assumed he had gotten his BC license because he was working for a company in BC, living in BC and I assumed the company would have insisted he have a BC DL. It is illegal to drive on a license from another province after 30 days. He was a heavy duty mechanic and driving the semi’s for a BC company on his Alta license for over a year.
He had a buddy in Alberta who he was going to start a business with and was talking about us moving to Alberta for months before we split, then we split in late Nov 2010. He kept saying he was moving to Alberta in the spring. When we split I signed a transfer form putting the car into his name so he could insure it himself (why should I continue to insure his car if we were split) It was when the insurance needed to be renewed in December that I found out he didn’t have a BC DL. BUT again he took me for dinner, told me he loved me yada yada yada and he was moving to Alberta in a few months and asked me nicely to keep the car insured in my name until he left because he was getting a new truck when he got to Alberta and leaving me the car anyway. It made sense to me.
In January he told me he had to fly to Alberta to renew his driver’s license because it had expired in Sept on his birthday. He had been driving for 3 1/2 months without any license! I drove him to the airport and told myself that he was moving there in a couple of months so really what was the harm? and again he said I would be getting the car when he left.
Feb rolls around and the insurance needs to be renewed again and he is still in BC, he asks me to insure it one more time for 3 months, for sure he will be gone before that and I would be getting the car when he left. So I did.
He took me for dinner, told me he loved me etc and against my better judgement I had “hope” again, that is until the police called to ask me if I knew where my car was. They told me where it was parked and that they had seen it there many nights (I believe the husband of the married woman he was screwing found out about the affair and thought if I knew it would put an end to it and had someone call me saying they were the cops). I caught him at the woman’s house, he did break it off with her that day and that night he moved in with a different woman, the love of his life and took great pleasure in rubbing my nose in his happiness. She was wonderful, he didn’t have to lie to her, she was calm and rational, nothing like me; she was the love of his life and I should kill myself because no man would ever want a psycho, demanding, ungrateful bitch like me anyway. I had made his life hell for 10 years.
Well, I was indignant, he could just get his new woman to insure his car if I was such a bitch, why should I take the chance of him having an accident and it ruining MY good standing. He refused and laughed at me. He kept losing the transfer forms I kept signing. I threatened to report it stolen and he laughed at me. I tried to cancel the insurance on the car and couldn’t without the license plates. I tried to report it stolen and was told by the cops “possession is 9/10th of the law” and if I went and got the car I would be charged with theft. Then the insurance ran out and he was driving it without insurance, refusing to take it out of my name and still did not have a legal driver’s license in BC. He was obviously never moving to Alberta and if he had an accident in that car while it was in my name I would be liable, he had the power to destroy me. It went on for 6 months, my hands were tied and he was just laughing.
Well, I was not as stupid as he thought I was. I had taken photocopies of his Alberta DL and his BC DL months before we split, just in case and tucked it away.
I wrote a long letter to the insurance company of BC and one to the Alberta Driver’s services explaining that he was and had been living in BC for over 2 years and driving commercially in BC on an Alberta license (VERY illegal) I was able to provide the photo copies and I told them that I wanted my name off that car, that they were enabling him to continue to control and abuse me and it was totally unfair. If something was not done immediately I would begin legal proceeding against him and ICBC.
Take that James! I tried to be fair, I tried to be reasonable and he forced me to take drastic steps, I felt totally justified and I admit quite smug. I was not the push over he thought I was!!
Within a week Alberta had pulled his DL, he had to pay $20,000 in fines before he could get his BC driver’s license and he lost his job because he didn’t have a driver’s license. Not my problem, right? he is the one who broke the law, I gave him plenty of chances to do the right thing. No one told him it was me who ratted him out, he was told it was an anonymous tip, but he figured it was me.
Wouldn’t you know, his new sweetie paid his fines for him; some how I was the unreasonable vindictive bitch in the whole thing.
I thought it was over.
How naive I was!!
He has made it his mission in life to destroy every job I get, has made anonymous complaints against me to bosses, landlords, the people who held my mortgage. For almost 5 years he has done everything within his power to destroy any hope of me ever having a job or a place to live. Filed anonymous complaints with welfare so I can not even get that. He will not be happy until I am living under a bridge. He has put tracking devices on my vehicles, I have had a drone outside my window, tapped my phone, hacked my email, and the stress of it all brought on my heart condition.
I am SO over him, my broken heart is healed, I truly do not give a shit what he is doing, who he is doing, or what he did to me. I just want to get on with my life, but I live in constant fear of what he will do next. And he is smart, there is no way I can prove what he is doing, it is his word against mine and he has told everyone what a psycho vindictive bitch I am.
That is why I am advising you to stop advertising that you are going to “make him pay” and focus on getting well yourself. You will not win with a psychopath/narcissist and why would you want to? NO you can not just let him break the law, and you have to protect your best interest but you do not have to go for blood. You do not have to prove yourself to be a psycho bitch out to make him pay. He is loving the attention, you keep showing him how much he hurt you, how he had the power to get to you. If you truly want to make him “pay” the best way to do that is to take control of YOUR life and flourish! Succeed without him, without giving one shit who he is with or what he is doing. You are strong, amazing, and very able to be happy, successful and respected in the business world without his sorry ass. THAT is all you have to prove, let him hang himself, he will, without any help from you. In fact he is much more likely to show his true colors if he thinks you aren’t looking. As long as you are trying to “out him” he has to keep acting like the nice guy and playing the victim. You are enabling him to continue with his lies and false image.
I know you want revenge but believe me, it offers only a fleeting feeling of self satisfaction and redemption and then the hatred and heart ache creeps back in. There are people who cling to their pain like a life preserver, they want to stay a victim, a long as they are the victim they are still part of the narcissist’s life. The pain becomes who they are and they don’t know how to act or who they are without the pain. One of James’s ex’s went to her grave a sad, angry, bitter lonely victim hell bent on destroying every relationship he ever had. She called me and I had never heard anyone so full of hatred and vindictiveness. Even though we were split at the time and everything she said I knew to be true; I felt sorry for him. I thought if that was what he had to deal with it was no wonder he was the way he was. She actually pushed me into his arms and proved what he had always told me about her; that she was a vindictive drunk who made his life hell.
I am not against you, I am trying to help you. The bitterness will destroy you, not him; you will destroy yourself.