We were approaching our 12-year anniversary, had two beautiful children and were living completely parallel lives.  He was never home.  I tended to the kids, and the home, the finances, and making sure everything was as it should be so he, and we, had a comfortable life.

I got in trouble when he took the kids for an hour or so on the weekends because I “was not participating” in family time; yet, it was the only one or two hours of time a week I ever had to myself.  I resented the weekends when he was home.  I worked hard all week being a mom, and rather than look forward to the weekends with him being there to help and us work together as a couple and a team, I instead gained a third child who needed to rest, be served meals, watch golf and relax from “his busy week at work.”  He worked hard too, I knew that, but so did I.  My “work” just didn’t count.

The light bulb in my life was slowly starting to illuminate at that time.  I had no relationship with my husband and after being at home with my kids for so many years I had no idea who I was any more as a person.  I was a great mom.  I loved being a mom.  But what else was there about me?  What defined me besides being a mom and homemaker?  At that time, there was not much else.

I had been to three secret counseling sessions throughout the years, each with a different random counselor I found in the Yellow Pages, and each when I was at a point of desperation needing to talk with someone.  I knew before scheduling each of these sessions that I had hit my threshold with the N-Ex, and was on the verge of self-imploding.  We didn’t talk much at all and I was at a loss for where to turn.  The one-time sessions seemed to help.

I didn’t ever tell the N-Ex I went to these counseling sessions.  I knew he would be very angry and grill me with questions about why I went. All I remember from each session was me, sitting on three different sofas in three different offices, and crying.  I cried each entire hour I was telling my story.  The sessions were always over way too quickly.  I walked out of each time feeling like I had said what I needed to say to get things off of my mind enough to proceed on with my same controlled life the very next day.

It took something as simple as a phone call from an old friend who was contacting me about planning our high school reunion to make me realize something very substantial in my life at that point:  I never laughed anymore.  And I never smiled.

I was a very outgoing and social person my whole life; what had so drastically changed that I was no longer that person?  My marriage.  My life with him of being ignored, not included, expected to do whatever he wanted me to do, and never speaking up about what I wanted in order to avoid the consequences of, well, him.

Do I take some ownership in this transformation of me?  You bet.  But when you get to the point that you so cautiously preface almost every sentence to your husband with a “Please don’t say No yet, but I was thinking about doing X…” because you have already spent so many years being told No every time you opened your mouth, you naturally start to transform.  Sadly, it's easy to morph into the meek, agreeable, non-confrontational, non-opinionated, shell of a person that a narcissist can so easily turn you in to.

It was early spring, and although that light bulb of realization was starting to slightly illuminate, I had no idea of the land-mine I was about to step into when I scheduled my first “real” counseling appointment and told the Ex-N about it.

His reaction?

“Well, counseling equals divorce, so we already know where this brilliant idea of yours is headed…”

In the weeks ahead I filed for divorce. Twice.  I stepped into a land-mine along side a raging narcissist that was bigger than I would ever have known.  But in doing so, I took the very first step in finding “me” again too.  It’s been a very long and challenging six-year road, still going strong.  It’s been worth every evolving step along the way.