CHEATING – THE N’S WAY OF LIFE

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self. All sin is easy after that.

Pearl Bailey

I think that’s the problem. That’s why the Ns cheat everyone they can, sooner or later. The Ns have cheated themselves by never looking into their hearts, never confronting their fears, and living the lie of pretending to be something they are not (the “false front of narcissism”). After all of this internal pretense, cheating the rest of us comes easy.
Whatever the reason, the Ns are cheaters. They will lie, cheat, steal and hurt without compunction or conscience. The only times that they do not cheat are when (1) the punishment is significant and likely to be immediate or (2) the other person or entity is of higher status than they are and they want something from that high status person.
You are one of the people that the Ns will cheat.
The N to whom I was married cheated ex-wife #1 out of most of what they had accumulated in their marriage and took great pleasure in bragging about that fact. According to him, she got nothing but dishes and household goods while he got all of the real property. Now that I know who and what he is, I suspect that she, smart lady, simply gave up her interest in the real estate just to get rid of him.
Smart.
The N had a good chuckle a few years later when his ex-wife #1 (I am ex wife #2) called some years after their divorce to accuse him of switching the diamond in the ring he had bought her. During their divorce, he insisted that her diamond ring be appraised. The ring was a gift from him to her and therefore her separate property – he, an attorney, knew this; she, as a non-attorney, apparently did not. The ring had been purchased from a reputable jeweler and thus she had a description of the diamond’s size, color and clarity. Sadly, ex-wife #1 allowed the N to take her ring to a jeweler who was a client of the N’s. Some years later, ex-wife #1 had occasion to have the ring cleaned and appraised again for insurance purposes. The diamond then in her ring did not have the same size, color and clarity as her original diamond. A switcheroo had been made.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
The N thought this was hysterically funny. He claimed that his jeweler must have made the switch, unbeknownst to him, of course. I wondered about this at the time. Now I am confident that the N had the jeweler make the switch in order to cheat ex-wife #1.
If he will cheat her, he’ll cheat you too.
If the N with whom you were or are associated cheats the government, watch out. This can be risky to you. The N to whom I was married was a tax lawyer and took great pride in”handling” our income tax returns. I knew during our marriage that he was “aggressive” in claiming deductions but I assumed that he had not gone too far. After all, he knew well the power of the lRS. When I finally looked at our tax returns during the divorce, I was appalled and more than a little worried. I immediately researched the “innocent spouse doctrine", a rule of law that protects spouses (usually women) who simply sign off on the tax returns that their husbands prepare, as I did. If you filed tax returns with an N, I suggest you look them over and hope that the IRS never targets him or you will spend your days explaining to the IRS that you had nothing to do with the preparation of the tax returns.
There are other, many other, examples of the Ns cheating. Their cheating is part and parcel of their need to feel superior. Because they are superior humans, they are entitled and need not obey the rules that us peons live by. Because they are superior, they are smarter than everyone else and will not get caught.
Or so they believe.
If the N with whom you were associated has an opportunity, he will cheat you notwithstanding his claims of undying love and soul-mateism. The N’s alleged love does not extend to sharing “his” money or property. Your money and property are jointly "ours" to the N while his remains his alone.
Funny how that works.
Watch out if he prepares documents such as trusts or deeds for your signature. Do not under any circumstances rely on his alleged “love” for you in signing such documents.
If at all possible, do not let him treat your contributions to your jointly owned business as less than his. For example, in our first legal corporation, I allowed the N to hold 90% of the stock and I held 10%. Thus, he was entitled to 90% of the profits even though we both devoted full time to our business and did not divide the income by who had earned it. I also allowed him to pay “us” by cutting a check to him. This had the effect of making it seem that he was making all of the money and I was making none. Fortunately, we eventually dissolved this corporation so it had no effect on my eventual divorce entitlement.
A friend of mine did the same thing. She worked full time and was instrumental in “their” business but all paychecks were paid to him. Thus, no payments to her social security fund were made and it looked as if she was not working even though she clearly worked full time.
I look back now at my actions in horror. I am a lawyer who should have known better but made just about no effort to protect herself. I have to ask myself, “What was I thinking?” The answer is that I believed that he loved me. I did not know he was a narcissist. I had no idea that he would cheat me. I had no plans to get a divorce and fully expected that we would live happily every after. So what did it matter who held what number of shares in our professional corporation? What did it matter who got the paycheck? The answer is: it does matter. Only a selfish man who loves only himself would want you to have less than what you are entitled to.
The moral: protect yourself. Watch everything. Get copies of records and keep them at a girl friend’s house. Trust nothing that the N has to say.
If you are separated but not yet divorced, look hard at the money trail. Is money missing? I found out mid divorce that the N to whom I was married had told male clients that when contemplating a divorce, they should put cash in either Swiss accounts or the Caymans. Needless to say, given the fact that some of “our” money seems to have “disappeared”, I suspect that the N to whom I was married has Swiss or Grand Cayman bank accounts.
Another form of cheating is the N’s love life. From a sexual perspective, the N’s seem to come in two flavors: sexless and overly sexual. The overly sexual Ns will, from all reports, cheat on you at every opportunity without any compunction.
One N would wake his wife up at 3:00 a.m. to have sex with her. No foreplay was involved and her pleasure was not relevant. She eventually refused his “advances”. Her refusal was baffling to him.
Other Ns are known for their appalling list of during-the-marriage/relationship “conquests.” They will have sex with anyone they can and will say anything in order to do so. This over-the-top sexuality is part of the Ns view of themselves. The not only think that they are entitled to have sex with anyone they want to as they are, in their view, the best and smartest guy in the universe, but they believe that they are smarter than everyone else so they can get away with it without getting caught. When they do get caught, they are neither apologetic nor regretful. After all, they are simply doing what they are entitled to do, which is any thing they want irrespective of any hurt that their actions might cause you.
The N to whom I was married was of the first variety, sexless. The sex in the first half of my marriage was, after the initial stage, infrequent. However, I was working so hard at that time and was so busy with our two little children whom I was solely responsible for that I was ok with the infrequent sex. After all, I was tired. Make that exhausted.
The sex in the second half of our marriage was non-existent. In fairness to him, at this time the N had a number of physical problems, such as chronic sinus problems and alleged neck pain. Nonetheless, withholding something that the other person wants, especially sex, is a great way to control them and control is always the N’s ultimate goal.
The bottom line here is that the N’s cheat. Their cheating is part of their entitlement, part of their view of themselves as a superior person, part of their pathological lying. The Ns are good at cheating.
We women are not good at protecting ourselves. We need to get better at protecting ourselves, planning for the possible demise of our relationships and thinking through the consequences of buying into whatever that men want. We need to draw boundaries. I did not do this. But then, I am writing this so that you do not make the same mistakes that I did. In the words of Rita Mae Brown, “Good Judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. “
Ain’t it the truth.