I remember someone posting Alice's tweet where she is kind of snarky about Ioan telling her that "the woman I love" does not do this and this and behave like that (some nasty Alice's behaviours, online quarreling etc) and Alice makes fun of it without realising how badly it reflects on her and that Ioan is endlessly patient but seems to be at the end of his tether and is profoundly unhappy with Alice. And yet attempts to be gentle and polite with her. She was too obtuse to understand it.
For a long time she pretended to be Ioan's dream girl (narcs are good at it). It must have hurt Ioan very deeply when he finally saw her clearly and realised that the woman he loved (and believed her to be) does not exist and has never existed...
Oh I hadn’t thought of it in that way before. I suppose because we’ve seen the narc behaviour we forget that narcs are sweetness personified until they’re not. By that time he’d have felt obligated towards her. I wonder if she managed to keep it under wraps till after the wedding, remembering the insane engagement story, I doubt it. I think the addition of having ivf exacerbated it further. He’d have had her on a pedestal and she believed her own hype.
She was attractive to him for whatever reason, I feel so sorry for him and what he’s been through.
It’s very difficult having to maintain a somewhat distanced (and in this case dvro’d) relationship when children are involved.