Dear Mrs. Bluth,
OMG! I can’t believe what I have read in your column! It was about the guy who destroyed a writer’s life, the narcissist who came in and out of her life over the course of many years! Are his initials S.B.? Because if they are than he could well be the animal that destroyed my own life!
I married late in life to a widower and it was never really a good marriage. He was unable to accept me in the spiritual sense saying he still belonged to his deceased wife, so it was a very cold and lonely union. We had a number of children who grew up in that, cold and sterile environment. I was very unhappy as time went by and envied couples I knew who had loving, warm relationships with their spouses and I guess I didn’t realize how deep these feelings ran.
Several years ago, while attending a friend’s son’s wedding, I was sitting by myself in a corner of the hall’s lobby, when a gentleman asked if he could sit in the adjacent chair. We started talking and he said he was here alone and that he hoped he wasn’t interrupting me. Something about him was so sincere and flattering, I hadn’t had that kind of attention ever, I was actually happy to have such company. He told me he was in a horrible marriage, his wife controlled every aspect of his life and the only reason he was here alone was because she was sick. We spoke for almost an hour before the chuppah and I must have divulged to him that my marriage was no bed of roses either somewhere along the way.
After the chuppah, at the dinner, when my table cleared out to the dance floor, I sat alone and felt flushed to recall the compliments and attention I’d received, I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was Sir Lancelot saying it wasn’t wise to be speaking in public and perhaps, if I was open to it, we could meet somewhere for coffee and we exchanged phone numbers. That night was magic for me and it lead to our getting deeper and deeper involved. I was like a young schoolgirl experiencing love for the first time. But one day, several months after he promised to divorce his wife and I had already asked my husband for a get and divorce which he gave me and my children went with him, Mr. Wonderful told me he couldn’t see me anymore, that he had met someone else who was better suited to him, then turned around and walked away.
For many months I was suicidal and in a deep depression. I had lost everything and everyone and now found myself totally alone. So I took a mouthful of pills and washed it down with alcohol and waited for death to take me. How I ended up in the hospital and who brought me there is still a mystery to me but the wonderful people who brought me back to life are by my side to this day and have shown me how good life can be with genuine love, care and understanding.
I have not looked back on the ugly part of my life for nine years and have been married to my loving, devoted husband for the past five of them and he knows about my past but loves me unconditionally. So when my beloved read your column and knew what demons it would awaken, he tried to hide it from me, but I came across it at work. That night I hugged him and loved him for trying to protect me and spare me hurt. I told him that he is all I need to make me happy and feel safe and beautiful. For all intents and purposes the other guy is dead and buried and can’t hurt me anymore.
I thank you for being brave and caring enough to print letters on controversial subject matter, because that kind of pain, misery and doubt is one’s reason for living, could very well save a life. I know it would have and has, many times thereafter, saved mine.
Dear Friend,
I chose to print your letter because there are many other ‘Mr. Wonderfuls’ around who prey on vulnerable, weak and attention-deficient girls and women in our society. It is sad to see how little self-worth, unappreciative and devalued many women come to feel over time, in long standing marriages and bad marriages, and how easily that marriage can be threatened. The body may age, the hair may turn gray but the heart grows wings when a compliments is given. It’s like a morsel of sweets to a starving person!
As women, how we age is up to us. We need to know that a woman’s beauty broadens and grows with maturity. Her strength, resilience and confidence that she is more than just a pallet for cosmetics, stronger in intelligence and wiser in experience than she was in her youth, and far more valuable and desirable because of it by any measure of human worth. Then there would not be a chance for low-lives to be able to grow their egos at your expense.
It makes me so happy you were able to overcome the horrible torture that creep put you through and that you found true love, albeit by default, in the process. I applaud you to have killed and buried the creep in your mind and in your heart. In truth, I don’t even think the Grim Reaper wants anything to do with a narcissist!
I wish you a happy and healthy life, at last, and do take that article and bury it so you never have to think of it again!
