Abusive Ex: Blame it on him, not mental illness

I previously wrote about this here, here, here and here.  New information has come to light to explain a few mysteries.  I intend to put the contents of this post at the end of the “Epilogue” chapter in my college memoirs.

If you’ve read the previous posts, you can skip the next few paragraphs.

In summary:

My abusive ex Phil–who manipulated, controlled, emotionally and sexually abused, and sexually assaulted me back in college–has mental illness.

I was his first wife, not legally but spiritually; this only lasted for several months, until he tired of me, having blamed me for his behaviors.  Because it was not legal, he had no trouble breaking it off and then moving on to someone else immediately.  (We’re talking maybe a week later.)

Then his next, legal marriage, only lasted for about ten years, ending 12 years ago.  In all those years since, he has not remarried–but was about to in July of 2018.  In those years since, we also became somewhat friendly again, with apologies exchanged, and communication via social media.  So I learned about his new fiancée through his Facebook.

But the following August, she revealed that Phil is severely mentally ill.  She said he has Bipolar II, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and other disorders which she did not name.

Her description of him as “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” and her friends’ descriptions of him as this wonderful human being, threw me for a loop because of how he treated me.  But she was beginning to see that “other Phil” that I had known–and said the illnesses were to blame.

They broke up; she said it was a combination of her not wanting to be treated the way the “other Phil” treated her, and him wanting to deal with his mental illnesses on his own.  She said he was on suicide watch.  She was supposed to be there as his friend, but then he “ghosted” her and she felt hurt.

New information:

Well, now she has revealed something else.  I’m not sure when she found out about it (November?), but recently she began posting memes about narcissism, liars, and the kind of man who has a string of “soulmates” who they wooed in the same ways with the same words–then tossed aside when they got bored.

(Some time ago, she re-posted a Facebook post he made about her: He listed all the things he loved about her.  The wording was the same as a list he made of all the things he loved about me.)

As she put it, he “checked out” months before August 2018, with “promiscuity” that put her “health at risk.”

So he cheated on her.  (I wonder if he still believes birth control is evil?)  Even this one, could not tame his inner beast.  Even this one, he tired of and threw away.  If she could not, then no one could.  She no longer speaks of his mental illnesses being to blame for his bad behavior.

And I can’t say I’m overly surprised: This same guy told me he wouldn’t be able to control himself over the summer if I went back home without him, which is one reason why I wanted him to stay with me at my parents’ house.  This guy would praise the physical attributes of every girl he saw out of the house, and every woman he saw on TV inside the house, and say he wanted to take them into the back of his van–then call me possessive or jealous for being upset.  This guy would tell me he wanted a harem, and which girls he wanted in it (including his brother’s fiancée), and then call me jealous.  But when I found myself falling for a nice guy in my friend-group, Phil became enraged with jealousy and then tried to force me into confessing my little crush to the guy.

If even Doris was not enough for him, then nobody can be.  If even she no longer excuses his behavior because of mental illness, then I have no reason to.  Earlier I wondered if a person with Bipolar and FAS can be excused for abusing and otherwise mistreating another, because that “isn’t really him.”  But it was really him.  It’s not just an illness, but Phil’s character.  Phil is a narcissist and to blame for what he did to me.

It also says that I am not to blame.  I still get little “time bombs” going off in my head when I hear or read something that reminds me of Phil saying I did something bad.  I start thinking, Was I really the one in the wrong?  But this tells me there’s no way I could have brought better treatment on myself from him.  Now there is somebody else, without my input, coming to the conclusion that he is a narcissist.  He hurt somebody else even while she still thought he was wonderful.