The Adventures of Dan and Tina
Narcissistic abuse and recovery explored and explained through a true first-person narrative.
Cognitive dissonance is a state of conflicted thoughts, ideas or realities. Or, a confused, frightening mental conflict between evidence of reality and contrary beliefs. It’s a difficult, even traumatizing phenomenon that I believe my subconscious mind was trying to prevent by avoiding information that would bring the dissonance about. Tina had been staying with me at My Mom’s house, with
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I think I was going above and beyond in the patience and understanding departments. I entertained several options to correct the damage done to our relationship by Tina’s imprudent actions. Tina was reluctant to cut ties with Nate. I told her I would never dream of asking her to cut him out of her life forever, but “right now, he’s
Read moreAfter Tina returned from her extended stay at the Nategate Hotel, she told me some things. First, after some tears and apologies for “being away from me” she told me that a big part of the reason she stayed those three nights with Nate was that she was binge drinking and didn’t want me to see it. She said further
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It’s always bothered me how the media just lazily tacks “gate” onto the end of some pertinent word to denote a government scandal. Watergate (the first “gate” scandal) was the name of a hotel. The Nixonian scandal involved a break in at DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel, so it was the “Watergate Scandal.” “gate” has nothing to do with
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| Ghosting, Secondary Supply and Deception by a Narcissist | It was morning the 4th of July and according to what I’d been told, Tina and Nate should have been getting on their way from Amber’s house to the wedding. That wasn’t exactly what was happening, but it’s what I was meant to believe. In truth, Tina had spent the
Read moreJuly 3rd was the day before Tina was supposed to be Nate’s date to his brother’s wedding. I hadn’t realized when I was asked about her going that it would ruin Independence Day for us, but, Nate and Tina would have fewer opportunities to see each other with him in California, so I tried not to let that bother me.
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| The First Big Signs of Trouble | October 11th, 2015 | As my relationship with Tina was rapidly progressing, my ex wife began hassling me incessantly about moving my remaining possessions out of the house that had once been “ours.” I had been staying with my mother, and I wasn’t keen on moving a large volume of my possessions
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