Divorcing a Narcissist Executive Psychopath With Anger Issues

(This is part of a series. You are invited to read the other stories as well.)

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The phone call alerted me the papers were served. In his hands, he was holding the divorce papers that were 24 years and 68 days coming, the very papers that notified him I was officially filing for divorce.

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The text immediately followed: “Will u please call me? This is not what I want.”

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I can’t breathe. The very air that is supposed to provide me with life now morphs into a growing, living being that is suffocating my airways.

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Breaths come fast and short. My head becomes light and dizzy. My body temperature rises. I can’t tell if my heart rate has become too fast or too slow, but it just feels like it has completely stopped from one or the other.

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What’s going to happen? Fear mounts. Will he keep calling? Will he come to South Carolina and try to find me? Will he contact the children? Will he go to my mom’s and upset my mentally challenged sister and disabled mother?

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What is he doing? We made sure all my children would be gone when he was served - just in case. He might not be able to control his first reaction, and that reaction would potentially be volatile.

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Is he already in his van driving this way? Will he drive safely, if so? Is he knocking holes in the walls? Is he throwing and breaking furniture? Is he hurting himself?

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Concern for everyone reaches an insurmountable level. How are the children? What are they feeling? I just wish so much I could make everything better.

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Fear of the unknown grips me and squeezes the breath out of me.

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Then silence.

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That was it.

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I thought he would at least fake wanting me back . I knew he didn’t love me, but for the sake of appearances, I thought he would pretend, so that he could convince people he was grieving and a victim. He is a minister, after all. He does direct a marriage retreat. His teachings highly discourage divorce.

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But he did not. The pretense was over.

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I stay in South Carolina as long as my youngest child is still there visiting her friends. I am not there for recreation, but I am also afraid to do anything because I don’t want to be in the middle of something or too far away just in case she calls and wants to talk. I also know that if I even do something as innocuous as go sit at the beach while I wait, it would eventually be used as a manipulation tool by my husband to say that I only went to South Carolina to go to the beach.

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So I just sit in my van, going from parking lot to parking, waiting, hoping, praying, she will respond.

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The first night I stay with my older daughter and her family, but I don’t go there until later in the evening, and I leave early in the morning. I want my younger daughter to feel comfortable enough to be with her older sister if she wants to be with family, and I knew she would not go there if I was there. I stay away the rest of the day and night, in order to allow her the opportunity to be with her sister. She chose to stay away from both of us.

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I continue going from parking lot to parking lot, waiting. I go in one restaurant for a meal, and I eventually go to see a movie. It’s a very hot July! I was roasting and needed to cool off!

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I sleep in my van that night, still hoping, still waiting.

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Nothing.