Ahh, the gaslighting of the narcissist. I know it well.
It took a while for the rose colored glasses to come off and to see my ex as he truly was. Which is not to say it invalidates all of the marriage - I truly believe I got the best years of him, feel kinda sorry for his new young wife who is getting a shell of the man that I had.
But that being said, it's clear to me now that the man I THOUGHT I was married to, was not the same as the man I WAS married to. His inner life contained many more doubts about the marriage, earlier, than I ever would have imagined. And I look back on certain events or things he said and realize he probably cheated more than I ever suspected. It was disturbing to figure out and it does leave you with the unsettled feeling of "how much of our relationship was real?".
(One example - he told me once how, on a business trip, a woman knocked on his door - a hooker who was sent to the wrong room. He claimed he let her in and spoke to her for a bit (let her use the phone? I can't remember the excuse). Treated it as an odd occurrence at the time, but now of course I wonder if he was trying to secretly "tell me" he had sex with a hooker? I feel like anything is possible.
Certainly in the couple of years leading up to his final departure, he was all over me to return to work - even though we had an unstable teenage child at home and even though his excellent income was plenty for us to live on. I realize now that his push to get me back to work was all about paying less in alimony when he left.
I'd also wonder about this Alaskan OW your H is involved with. I know you didn't think he had an OW before, but is it possible that she was the OW before? And this is just a resumption (or continuation?) of the affair?
If it's at all possible to get a lump sum settlement in lieu of alimony, I would take it. My ex has to pay me alimony for 10 years (only a couple left) but I found out last year that because he's bad at math and taxes, he mistakenly thought he was paying me 40% of his income instead of 11% of his take home. This resulted in a lot of financially passive-aggressive behavior on his part over the years. We didn't have enough liquid assets for him to buy me out of the alimony initially, but many times I have regretted that we didn't - it would have been done and over and I think alleviated a lot of the strain with him. Also it protects you against him becoming disabled and not being able to pay.
BTW, I love the idea of you traveling to teach overseas. I've often thought when I retire I might like to live in a foreign country for a while, although not sure where right now.
I'd also love to see you become a famous standup comic. Must be tons of material from these boards!
