The uncharitable part of me wonders if Malice put on weight deliberately when she entered the narc discard phase with IG towards the end of their marriage.
As we know, narcs have specific stages in relationships that they follow unerringly - they don’t deviate from the formula. 1. The lovebombing phase: the narc sets their sights on a new supply source and showers the victim with compliments, praise, romantic gestures, declarations of love - anything to imbalance them. At this point, the victim doesn’t know whether up is down or left is Tuesday. This phase can last several years, during which the narc begins to subtly press on/erode boundaries and makes themselves indispensable. 2. The pedestal phase. The victim can do no wrong. The narc idealises the victim, while seeking new sources of supply via risky affairs and casual liaisons. The narc represents the victim as perfect to all those whom they know. They erode boundaries further, though, and reveal intimate secrets to their friends and acquaintances. 3. The toppling. The narc seizes upon one minute thing when their supply is no longer fresh and uses it to devalue them. It could be something as simple as an error quoted as fact. The narc begins to erode the victim’s confidence as well as the remainder of their boundaries, and begins to show contempt. This contempt grows deeper over time. The narc will frequently switch between lovebombing and devaluation, to ensure that their supply does not run away before it has been sucked dry. Affairs become more overt, as does the narc’s flagrant breaking of laws, rules, social norms and boundaries of polite society/supply. At this point, they are seeking out new sources of supply, but are not quite done with the victim yet. The cycle of devaluation can be interrupted for several years or even a decade if there is something a narc really wants - a family, for example. To ensure the supply is linked to them forever (and thus available for ego-boosting/torturing - delete as appropriate) the narc yearns to create their own image, their own literal extension of self. The tedious part of child rearing - cleaning it, feeding it, soothing it - is left to others. During this period as the children grow up, the narc forms them in their own image through devaluing the victim and showing them contempt, encouraging the children to show the victim contempt and manipulate/humiliate them and assigns roles to the offspring: golden child, black sheep and silent child. 4. Discard. The narc steps up the abuse. They coerce, gaslight, humiliate, betray, bully, belittle, threaten and often show physical violence to the victim - and encourage the constant supply, the children, to do the same. This is part of the dramatic buildup to the dumping of the victim and the capture of new supply (‘I’m going to get you a new Daddy’). The children are pitted against the victim, and woe betide them if they support him/her. Lastly, after having mentally, emotionally, physically and psychologically exhausted the victim into a state of mental collapse, the narc moves on and repeats the cycle. They frequently ‘hoover’ the ex-victim as a way to secure yet more supply, even though they have fresh prey.
Ioan pulled away too soon.
Alice let herself go. She became fat, indolent, obsessive, abusive to strangers, apparently ‘unwell’ with 101 mysterious ailments, and pitted the children against her victim. She let herself become the most unattractive version of herself because for once, she recognised that the - let’s face it, he’s an actor - image-driven IG would be repelled by her sloth, lack of hygiene, day-drinking, online ‘flirtations’, health ‘emergencies’ and verbal abuse. Thus she could claim to be HIS victim as a kind of insurance, the poor middle-aged woman dumped by her husband who let herself go out of misery at being discarded. She played her discard hand too early, however, when she a) forced him back from Australia and b) passed out on the kitchen floor after physically attacking him in front of the children.
Make no mistake, though: she had to be the one to do the dumping and tell the story of the demise of their marriage in a way that cast HER as sympathetic - and pathetic - victim. He was only supposed to leave once she had ruthlessly excised him from her life. And she’ll never forgive him for it.
That’s what this is all really about - she lost control of IG and the situation. No-one can do that to a narcissist. If they’re pipped at the post, they’ll wreak merry, merciless hell on the victim as long as they’re alive. This won’t ever be over. Not even if IG begged for mercy. Alice is a woman scorned.
ETA: coo! Sorry for the essay!!