My two pennyworth, incl' briefly on the IG/BW dynamic. And yes, I am #teamIG. (After the girls & Emma.)
Following this shitstorm is an emotional roller coaster. The many thoughtful & intelligent posts have challenged me & made me examine my
feelings, to the point I can understand some others POV even if I don't always agree 100%. When it comes to Alice however, once I discovered
who she really was & always has been behind the sympathetic headlines, I remain steadfast. I have zero sympathy for her. She's a horrible nasty
Narc. The way she treated IG over the years & since he left was & is disgusting as are the constant lies, personal abuse, hate & her treatment & parental alienation of the girls is unforgivable IMO. I have experienced a dysfunctional (albeit loving) relationship with a parent from a similar age to Ella, was used as an emotional crutch, a confidante, made to feel responsible for that parents emotional well being, etc it was a very heavy load to carry & left me damaged (I had decades of it) & it took a lot of years (as a much older adult) to come to terms with the dynamics & my parent wasn't an abusive Narc like Alice. So I feel enormous sympathy/empathy for the girls & what they're going through as from personal experience I doubt they will emerge from this unscathed.
I have also experienced being played/manipulated & then thrown under a bus by a Narc & a person I trusted, until my guts warned me otherwise.
So I also have a lot of sympathy/empathy for IG. By all accounts that we have seen here, he comes across as a very nice guy, a bit vain, a private
man, a loving dad & by his own admission, trusting & naive, character traits I don't believe people lose. That there are some who revel in taking
advantage of people, well that is all on them, not the ones they go on to abuse. IMO I don't think he truly understood who he was dealing with for a long time. I didn't. Why would he? I'm not claiming he's perfect, but I do think he's a basically decent person & again from personal experience people who don't abuse & manipulate others can't always see the evil that is going on right under their nose as it's so far removed from their own
nature. By the time the light bulb comes on it's too late as the damage has already been done.
The chat show interview where he recalls his marriage proposal after being given an ultimatum (after dating 7 years) was revealing & more than
a little sad as her behaviour even then had red flags flying, yet he seemed to find it an amusing, almost endearing, anecdote.
I understand that naivety, the believing in giving people the benefit of the doubt, the trust, the not seeing, then the not wanting to believe they really are that nasty even as your guts are finally screaming at you that yes they are! I know mine were & yet at the same time I was also ashamed & felt enormous guilt to be having such awful thoughts & doubts, even as I knew I was right. It's a hellish emotional turmoil. I can only wonder at how he felt being married for so long, her being the mother of his beloved children, I can believe it took him a long time to come to terms with who she was & then more time to gather the courage to finally leave & save himself. I have experience of that too & it's a horrible headspace to be in. The extra turmoil he must have felt at leaving his children but needing to escape her to save himself would have been enormous & not something undertaken lightly.
As for BW? We'll probably never know the real timeline of when/how they became involved but to me it's irrelevant. BW isn't responsible for him
leaving Alice. It's just a lot easier for Alice to blame BW than it is to examine her own nasty hateful behaviour over the years & the chances he gave her (by her own admission) to change that behaviour. And I say that as someone who has been betrayed badly.
I have kind of mixed feelings about BW. She seems nice enough & I have a lot of sympathy for her over the vile attacks made on her by Alice. So on the one hand I'm glad she's with him in LA to give him emotional support (& vice versa) & be a welcome distraction from the hate spewed by Alice.
On the other hand I think of the girls & the poison Alice is undoubtedly feeding them, incl' all this manipulative garbage about how she's IG's new wife, FFS, how she wants to be their new mummy, steal their home, etc this is so evil & manipulative. These are innocent children she is playing with & damaging in the process & all to hurt their daddy for daring to leave her.
His heart must be breaking at the damage she has already caused & I can only hope someday he can get back the loving relationships it was clear
he had with his daughters. I also don't think IG should have to hide away from Alice but then it comes back to the girls again & how they must be
feeling? Yet so far IG has been quietly & discreetly working hard behind the scenes & moving ahead regarding the divorce, custody, etc & doing it
the right (& legal) way & I really can't see that changing, esp' where his beloved girls are concerned. (But if he does try introducing BW to them too soon I would be disappointed as I don't think she should be in the picture for quite some time as he needs to have quality time alone with them & try to heal his his relationship with them.
The girls aside, one thing that does worry me is him going from a long term toxic relationship/marriage straight into another relationship. I think
he would have been (& still is) extremely damaged psychologically & emotionally by Alice & I can't help but wonder if it would have been better for him to stay unattached & nurture himself. Concentrate on getting decent therapy. Give himself time to find & rediscover himself again. Learn about
how to spot red flags & how to build strong healthy boundaries. Discover what he wants from life & what he doesn't. Give himself time just to breathe.
Being under long term stress can cause long term health issues. I know again from personal experience & it can take years to emotionally heal &
recover. (Physically some never do. I have had constant health issues & still do.) I hope for his sake he hasn't rushed into this relationship but
if & when love comes along you have to grab it as you only live once! I hope he finds happiness & peace as that in turn will be good for the girls.
But I sadly suspect Alice will always make things difficult for him. As she said of herself when threatening some guy on twitter she didn't even know
who pissed her off just by blocking her - she is relentless & she will not stop. Those 8 words speak volumes about her mindset.
@CookieMonsta did a brief but brilliant post (can't find it, sorry) about Narcs that was spot on. The gist of it was that you cannot apply normal parameters when looking at Alice or judging her as she is a Narc.