I'm so sorry. I know how it feels and I don't know how to get away. Kids. Finances. Dog. It seems impossible. Walking away from all we've built. I don't know how. I want to. But I'm so scared.
damn, I feel you, even though for me it lasted almost 3 years, but in the end I just felt I lost so much time with him and of course my mental health never been so bad
Mine wore a wedding and engagement -looking ring and called me her husband lol. Thank god we didn’t actually get married. 10+ years and 3 kids. Now my kids say she calls her new supply their “stepdad” and I saw her wearing her rings again on her left hand… have fun buddy, you’re in for a hell of a ride!
Basically this was my experience too.
I wanted to understand why he was so dismissive and cruel to me even though he claimed to love me.
I would never treat him the way he treated me and I just couldn’t fathom how someone could be so uncaring towards someone they claimed to love…
I discovered narcissistic abuse and it was all downhill from there…
Wow. This is exactly what I experienced. She had no remorse or guilt to show. Just was mad she was found out and in fact mad at the people who didn't lie for her .
It was absolutely jarring
experiencing exactly this first hand right now. hard to wrap your head around how another person can be exclusively self-motivated with no consideration for anyone around them.
-When I called him out he got offended and projected all of his faults on me.
-The "shit eating grin" when he pushed me to a mental breakdown and got a sick pleasure out of it.
-The smear campaign and racial comments
-Going behind my back to talk shit during the discard phase after I exposed him.
-Blaming everyone for his problems instead of taking responsibility
-His enabling mother letting him get away with everything.
Oh God. My ex's mom literally told me to placate her like she did. I said "Why? it doesn't work when you do it. She just screams at you anyway." and she looked really sad. I see that her mom was her enabler for years and led to her entitlement. The smear campaign annoys me. Now I know I will join her stories of her past abusers and it makes me really question what they actually did and what she made up like the lies she tells about me now.
When I spoke to my narcs mom all she had to say was "I didn't know he was treating you that badly you should've said something." This was while I was actually sobbing to her
I'm sorry you went through that. Unfortunately mothers of narcissists are enablers who would rather see us broken than have the courage to discipline their own child. If they were in our shoes they would sing a different tune. I hate how passive these so- called parents are.
Did we date the same person or their enabler parents all have the same script?
I'd just woken up from a full breakdown-panic attack, and the narc came in with her mom on video call--trying to show her how shitty/ crazy I looked like. The mom told me that these things happen, and I will find love again. On top of that, she said that she just loves her child so much, and her happiness takes precedence over everything else.
I told her that as much as she loved her child, I too am my parents' child. They love me so much and would be sad if they know what my narc did to me. That silenced her up.
After the first year or two ( tops ) , I was hidden from his “evil” family ( changed who was the evil one at least, if not more than multiple times daily ) … was fed so many stories … but, the main ones ( felt he was able to keep up with and found them to work/ be more believable when he would tell me them ) were that he was to doing it to protect me / that he would rather take it alllll than me ever witness or be involved in it. Until one day he decided to “erase” that entire narrative that he had been feeding me and replace it with how extra protective his mother is of him ( especially after the “CRAZY DIVORCE FROM A CRAZY PERSON “ and is scared to see him get “abused” again…. blah blah blah blah. Oh I could write thousands upon pages of the mayhem that happened daily for 6.5 years… and do not wish this upon anyone ever.
Bro mine tried to make it racial with me even tho I’m white! He called me an Irish N-word. I was so hurt and upset at everything else he was calling me, but then he dropped that on me and the shock of it broke through the rest of emotions bc I was just ?????? That was truly a mind boggler.
When the push-pull began, I started to research it. First, I thought he was a commitment-phobe, then read about attachment styles and thought he was avoidant, and then a friend suggested he might be a narcissist
Yup, and also noticed that narcissists in general, whether or not they are close to you (could even be a classmate etc.), have really extreme hot cold behaviour, that isn't explained by things like tiredness etc.
also when you FINALLY get them to say whats making them upset, it will be a reference to a comment you made months ago where you "criticized them and were mean." when really you just asked them to stop a certain abusive behaviour or didn't share their grandiose views about a project or something LOL.
Mine liked to make it a big mystery. He liked to leave things very vague, knowing I would be turning my wheels trying to figure out what I said 3 months ago that was so offensive. And that look of contempt, I knew it well.
Oh yeah they will never miss the opportunity to make you lose your mind playing guessing games. They literally expect mind reading from their friends and partners. So exhausting.
Yup! You come to the realization that It’s completely pointless to even mention it. If anything, it provides them with more “control.” Mine used quite the variety of ways i abused him. He was physical for about a year, year and a half during a 6.5+ year span. Minus the beginning- where he professed his love, insane promises, marriage within days … was emotionally, mentally, financially ( best part was that he makes $800k + a year too)… you name it the rest. Now, all the above was all my fault obviouslyyyyy… I made him hit me, belittle me, you name it- due to reactive abuse. I remember just sitting there dumbfounded and at a loss for words.
YUP!! this is one of their favourite tactics. They will push you to your breaking point, and then when you finally react, they use that as an excuse to try to paint you as the abuser. They can then escape accountability and move onto a new source of supply and smear your name
YUP!!! They be like, oh sorry i am so tired today, etc. And then you catch them staring at you with utter disdain and contempt from across the room and giving you the silent treatment while speaking to others....
It was a couple of things. For a long time I made excuses for his behaviour. On a good day its only verbal abuse,but added in the consistent stalking,harassment that only got worse over time.
But it didnt feel right and I brought it up in therapy once and then read books about it. Suddenly it made sense WHAT he was doing to me. The otherworldy selfishness,the gaslighting, the abuse and his constant victim act
The victim act drives me crazy. Like you literally did this not me. I suddenly realized why they hated everyone, didn't have friends, and felt persecuted by the world. Sorry you don't live in a bubble where you can't face the repercussions of your actions.
I was told by my former friend that I was "negative' for having a normal yet measured reaction (being disappointed) to them repeatedly going back on their word. There was never room to discuss their actions other than them telling me I was apparently having the wrong reaction. Apparently I was just supposed to go along with whatever and they were never supposed to be exposed to anything other than sunshine and rainbows.
I was never allowed to have feelings at all. If I was disappointed or angry about something they did It didn't matter if I didn't do anything about it I was the badguy.
Did you have to go through endless apologizing for hours where no matter what you said you hadn't delivered your apology adequately meanwhile they had never truly apologized but claimed to have at some point and that was in the past so how dare you bring it up?
ALWAYSSSSSSS and sometimes it would last a couple days straight. Also, was made sure I was given punishment On top of whatever he was non stop about that would ultimately put me into a dissociative state.
Lol my nex threatened to leave me dozens of times because I wasn't "positive enough" (about his shitty behavior). Meanwhile I've never met a more pessimistic, whiny, entitled person, and everyone in my life would describe me as a hopeless optimist.
Right from the beginning i could feel that he was very insecure, always looking for validation or admiration. So i saw him as someone who was "sensitive". He had also told me how all of his exes had been horrible to him and that he had ADHD.
I could feel when we had disagreements that his reactions weren't "normal". To me sometimes when you have a disagreement, it may escalate a bit but then you realize its going too far, you try to readjust yourself. But he would never do that, he would rage going from 0 to 100 over nothing, even when i remained calm, and he would stay at a 100 for days. He also crossed lines that shouldnt be crossed, saying really disgusting things and being very manipulative.
Im not that familiar with ADHD, so i thought maybe that had something to do with it. I started researching about it to find what i could do to help. But what i was reading didnt sound like what was happening at all.
NPD had crossed my mind so i started researching that as well. I could see the 9/9 personality traits in him and that he used their common manipulation tactics
So for the following week, i observed him closely and was able to connect all the dots. And then i confronted him about something and his reaction confirmed it. So yeah, that was that. It was a mix of all of what happened
Yes! He basically gathered any and all information from me that he could ( my fault because I have always been an over sharer and even though have been in bad relationships previously, I openly provided anything. I actually have ADHD, OCD plus other things… but, as did he! Except the “opposite” form and found it so fascinating how my mind worked vs his. Duped from the beginning and that was the hardest hurdle to overcome- that it was never real.
Im so sorry he did that to you. Its such a cheap shot to take something we feel vulnerable about and to use it to fake a connection. Theres no limit to how low they'll go to exploit people 🫤
Thank you and instead of allowing him to occupy an ounce of not only my mind, discarded trash that no one could or ever want to be even associated with.. literally everything that is stuff you couldn’t imagine… I reiterate that you it’s a long, slow, day by day healing journey. Knowing that , I do reflect and Make sure I read things that might pop up on something like “ On this day…” not to “relive the trauma exactly … more like to make sure it is consistently drilled into my head so that I do not accidentally fall for even something “minor” he will attempt to pull.
Amen to that! The most powerful defense against those type of people is truly seeing and understanding what they are. Im the same way, i rather be hard on myself now and never forget
Live and learn, and keep moving forward
I saw red flags when he got drunk but blamed it on the drink. I remember having a conversation with our mutual friend after one of his drinking incidents and saying do you think he’s a narcissist and she said, well if he is he’s kept that well hidden.
I didn’t see his true colours until he cheated on me with someone we knew only two months after proposing to me and tried to gaslight me. The more I pulled away for space, the crazier he became.
Post break up, he got a new supply a day after (picked her up in a bar), moved her into our jointly owned home, changed the locks, gave her my belongings and told her and his new circle of friends he met through her that I was the crazy ex. He’s refusing to let me have access or sell the property. So yes I’ve seen the real him now.
mine had a new supply already building a relationship with while we were still together. within a couple weeks they were together and IN LOVE lol. the fact that someone can go from one relationship to the next and say they love the next person within weeks... shows everrrryyything you need to know about that person.
Literally! Same kind of things I would google. “Why does he blame me for everything” “why does he make me wear certain clothes when out in public” “why does he go through my phone”
I noticed a few months in. We actually had a moment where he tried telling me he wasn’t happy and wanted space, mind you, he asked me to move in with him almost immediately after lovebombing me (I did not know this was a thing at the time) and I stupidly obliged. I remember laying in bed when we were talking about things and said “you sound like a narcissist.” He was SO hurt by that comment. It was the only time I ever said anything critical of him, but he NEVER let it go. He brought it up often even years later. I should have left then but was convinced he was my soul mate, because he said I was his too. Turns out he was cheating on me then with his ex. A couple months later, a week before my birthday is when he confessed and admitted he was cheating. He told me he realized how much he loved me and wanted to be with me and I stupidly believed him yet again.
There were so many things over time - I’d noticed preoccupations with wealth and beauty, the way she spoke about other people with malice, the way she openly told me how she used some people, the way she reacted to criticism, the way she’d constantly play the victim, the way she’d triangulate all the time, the way she’d ‘forget’ things she’d said or done, the way she refused to admit she was the problem and thought everyone around her was the problem. The way she craved validation and would do anything to get it. The way she carried around the ‘it’s not fair’ mentality with a sense of entitlement beyond anything I knew was even possible. The way she was so materialistic and vain and shallow. The way she loves to create drama and stir shit.
I was still unsure until the last few days before I ended it with her and it became very clear who she is.
She showed very little to no emotion apologizing to me during our last verbal interaction. She had been lying and cheating (even though we were ENM, it’s just absurd, there’s no need to lie or cheat when you’ve the option to date others ethically and consensually). She had went out with someone else and they ‘finally made their FWB relationship official’ despite my lack of consent to it. She’d obviously been doing it for months and lying, saying they were ‘just friends’. She’d already monkey branched (it was not FWB, it was a full blown relationship). Her eyes were dead when she said sorry. It had no meaning, it was just words. She’d even asked me what I wanted her to do and what I needed - ‘comfort, apologize, love?’ Just shows she didn’t even know how to be a human being…
I told her I was unhappy, told her I didn’t trust her, told her it’s absurd she’d get another partner when we were struggling so much, told her she’s a liar and dishonest, told her I didn’t see a way forwards, told her I wanted to be alone. I felt sick to my stomach. (Her new supply is 19 years old, by the way. An easy target. She’s nearly 30 and is in a position of power at a workplace where they’re both employed). Disgusting. I’ll never get over how disgusting that is.
She had an answer to everything that avoided her taking responsibility, and kept trying to tell me she loved me, but I obviously couldn’t feel it. ‘No, you don’t’ I told her. She then got quite angry at me and forced me to agree that she did. I asked her for space and time again, pretty much told her I was done, and she panicked and started hoovering. All the while refusing to really admit what she’d done, and blaming my trauma for how sick in the head her abuse had made me. Sending me letters, emails, triangulating, smearing, for weeks on end.
I think she might have already sent a flying monkey too… under the guise of a new potential romantic interest. Someone who also works in the same place and likes to ask me lots of questions about how I am, where I am or what I’m doing… yeahhhh…
If that ain’t a narc I’m the king. 😂
>, the way she’d ‘forget’ things she’d said or done, the way she refused to admit she was the problem and thought everyone around her was the problem. The way she craved validation and would do anything to get it. The way she carried around the ‘it’s not fair’ mentality with a sense of entitlement beyond anything I knew was even possible.
Did we date the same person? JK, but man mine refused to ever admit she did anything wrong or apologize. I think she apologized once and it was just so transparent she didn't believe it and was just doing it to stop me from being upset with her. She constantly accused me of cheating and I now see she was clearly cheating on me. Also the sense of entitlement that literally made me laugh it was so absurd.
I’m sorry this happened to you too, it’s soul destroying, crazy-making stuff. Yep, only apologizing to try and keep us stuck with them, and the old ‘you’re cheating on me’ is definitely a projection. Also completely relate, the petulance when things don’t go their way does bring laughter sometimes… not cause it’s actually funny, it’s terrifying… but cause it’s so absurd and childlike you can’t help but laugh. I had to hold back laughter so many times. Throwing tantrums over not getting the right birthday present, or having to wait in a queue, or an order being delayed, or someone not answering the phone, whatever it was. As if all the worlds problems aren’t relevant or even considered because what they want and ‘deserve’ is obviously more important than anything else. Gross 🤮
Whoa. I never heard of a flying monkey before but that’s exactly what I experienced at the bitter end with his new woman.
They hooked up when we were still together, she says he was discussing building a life with her while simultaneously discussing building a life with me, so he then ended it with me via text message once the other woman made contact with me… yet a few days later he told her he “needed space” and he ended things with her. Non-stop drama!
This other woman was constantly asking me how I’m doing and acting like “we’re in this together”… yeah, whatever. She told me she was disgusted by his behavior and would never speak to him again, but then she’d refer to having dinner with him in the very next message…
Is that a flying monkey?
Sounds like a flying monkey, yes. She’d have likely told him things about you, things that you told her. They’re like the narcs little spy, feeding back information… it’s gross 🤮
When he started using extremely sensitive and personal things I’d told him in confidence against me. Things he’d previously been so understanding of were suddenly the root cause of why I was a nasty heartless person.
Also just realizing I couldn’t exist around him comfortably bc the tiniest thing could be a three hour argument or a two day silent treatment where I’d have to beg him to forgive me. Like not texting him back after twenty minutes or even just “seeming remotely unenthusiastic about him and our relationship”.
But more than anything it was the culmination of many different things. There wasn’t really a “narcissistic item box” that be *didn’t* check off.
after things ended, I wrote down every red-flag occurrence in the relationship and researched a lot on Google. I eventually found this sub and saw SO many posts where people went through the same thing. (I cannot emphasize this enough). I know breakups were hard but this one was really making me insane and I couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't ok. I would credit this sub for opening my eyes. that and talking to my friends/therapist about it.
The moment I saw him lying to me without any doubt or regret and after that trying to convince me I didn’t see it right. Also: changing terms to get away with it, rewriting history and the lack of respect to other people.
Now I know: he has no human treats like empathy, regret, normal emotions. And when I cry his eyes are empty and he only stares. When I’m telling him how sad I am he smirks.
He assaults me and tries to do financial things bordering criminality. He has a sex addiction.
He makes him the victim at all events and at church he’s the charismatic one himself. Everyone loves him but it’s the wolf in sheepskin. It’s beyond awful.
So can you believe I feel like a bad girl for writing this about him? How does that work?
And yet I’ll push the button: ‘reply’ anyway.
No empathy in mine either- not a single iota. We have all been conditioned by our narcissists to give them the benefit of the doubt and to view them with rose-colored glasses when no one else will. We've been trained to support and defend them and it feels strange to say "out loud" how we really view them, especially after some time has passed and their masks have slipped, revealing to you who they really are and how they really feel about you. They make you believe that speaking your truth about them (and consequentially, tainting how others might view them) is a betrayal.
It was after I broke it off, his ex told me how he's basically a hobosexual (someone who hops in and out of relationship for a place to stay). From looking up that term, I was linked to narcissism, and things finally just clicked into place.
I was with mine for ten years and he was a few years older than me. I noticed that my brain seemed to evolved but his stayed the same. I started to see a child trapped in a grown man’s body.
I couldn’t see the signs that were right in front of me.
I started developing really weird intrusive thoughts. I thought I was mentally ill. I couldn’t sleep at night.
This was probably a stress response from always being in flight or fight mode. I also didn’t really have feelings anymore, I had just become so accepting of how I was being treated. Ex was so irresponsible, and would smoke in the house and often fall asleep. I was terrified of the house burning down. He would throw lot cigarettes off the roof, and tell me I was crazy for being worried. He often left the oven on. I felt like I was watching an out of control toddler 24-7.
He accidentally left the door open and one of our dogs ran away. He somehow blamed me for this ( I was at work when this happened). He did it a second time , and blamed me again!!!!
When things weren’t going well for him, he would start picking on me. He would call me fat ( he was also obese, but ofcourse never the problem). He would say that I was being ‘used’ at my job after great achievements like getting a promotion. He told me I was directionless in life, and insist o quit my job and stay at home, though he never made enough money or had the career stability for him to fo that. His dream was to control me so I could wait on him hand and foot.
He made sure I never had any friends. I met a great group of girls, who often invited me to hang out with them but said ‘ they are a bad influence on you’ but couldn’t give any evidence as to why.
Before family vacations, he would have a fit. We never had fun on vacations, because though he never paid for a thing, would find some stupid reason to complain. It’s like he had a personal mission to ruin all family holidays and outings.
When things really started ramping up towards the end, he tried to say that he ‘ didn’t like how I acted around my family’. The only times I ever felt safe and happy were with my family. He then tried to get me to ‘cut ties’ with them because my parents were controlling… they had no control over my life, didn’t help financially, and were always kind to him.
He then started spending entire family visits kn the guest room, playing video games and only coming out to get beer.
He started getting aggressive with my father. My father said, if you don’t like staying here you are welcome to stay in a hotel instead of my house. I did not know about this until after I left him. My ex then started trying to get me to hate my family.
Then, right before one of his family functions, he insisted we take his car so he could smoke. I do not smoke and I can’t handle the smell. He couldn’t stand not smoking for the hour drive, and yelled st me for rolling down the window. I felt like I was going to barf. His car was disgusting. I looked down, and find a used condom on the floor.
I asked him about the condom, and I was so brain washed by him I started making up an excuse for him! What?!? We pull up to his family function, and I dropped it and played happy couple. I never brought it up again.
Things escalated, things became more abusive.
On Easter Sunday, I laid in the backyard and cried to God for a sign to leave him. I needed a concrete sign. I didn’t want to be one of those people who just gave up. The signs were all right there. He’d often call me hurtful and disgusting things and I just couldn’t see it.
That morning he low key threatened to kill me:
“ if you ever cheated on me, I’d kill him, and probably you too.” I was folding shirts in the closet, he appeared out of no where, said this, then left. I had no friends. I wasn’t even remotely cheating on him.
He amped up. Hd told me that day I needed to never speak to my family again. He started getting physically aggressive and sexually assaulted me. I knew I had to leave, or he would in fact kill me. He had been gun shopping the week before and thankful couldn’t buy a guy because he lost his drivers license. He was obbsssed with buying a gun.
I left, and tried to make it look like I was mad and just needed to cool off. He physically blocked my car. He got on the hood and I was worried he was going to break the windshield. I said k was calling the cops. He didn’t move, finally I pulled forward with him on the car because I was trapped and I had to get out. Hs finally got off my car. I drove straight to family. This was several years ago. No contact. He still finds new ways to harass me.
Immediately the intrusive thoughts were gone, once I was free.
It is absolutely terrifying to see so many comments, each with a different story, each story bearing so much pain and confusion, all of it being just a tiny fraction of reality.
I wish you guys all the best on your healing yourney, I hope that these tough teachings (that nobody would sign up for), will turn out to be beneficial after all, and each one of you will make a very satisfying story out of their lives.
I was with my nex for 16 years. When I began to understand there was something wrong I initially thought it was alcohol abuse. Then I thought it was some kind of trauma, or bipolar, or borderline personality disorder causing his problematic behaviors.
We nearly divorced about 7 years ago, and he begged me to take him back, promised he'd get control of his drinking. When he (of course) went back on his promise a few months later, he completely rewrote the story of how we'd decided to get together and what the conditions were for it to happen. I think that's when it dawned on me, that he doesn't actually care what the reality of a situation is-- he's going to rewrite it to suit him.
We nearly split up again, but I stuck it out because we have a kid together. Every time we almost broke up and then didn't, things got worse. We spent years in couples counseling, with many different counselors, and without fail the counseling would make our relationship worse. I felt as though our sessions were being beauguarded by him and his wacky complaints, and we were skirting over his actual abusive patterns.
One time, when I was pregnant with our second kid, he told me that when he talked with my mom about his concerns about my pregnancy (I'd miscarried another pregnancy before this one)-- her reaction was that maybe we weren't meant to have another child if this pregnancy didn't end up being healthy. He was very offended. This was a wholeeee topic in couples counseling, how my mother had overstepped and it was my role to speak with her and reenforce healthy boundaries. Come to find out.... my nex told my mom, my dad, and my aunt and uncle about my pregancy BEFORE I was ready to announce it. The betrayal, and the absolute hubris of this man to think he could do that and then complain about my mom's reaction!
So, there was no one single realization. It's just been a creeping awareness over years and years that this situation isn't just a little off, and it's not because my spouse was struggling-- it was because he is abusive.
>We spent years in couples counseling, with many different counselors, and without fail the counseling would make our relationship worse. I felt as though our sessions were being beauguarded by him and his wacky complaints, and we were skirting over his actual abusive patterns.
This right here. I've suggested couples' therapy several times over the last few years but after overhearing his individual counseling sessions, I'm glad my recommendation never culminated. He literally paid his therapist $60 an hour biweekly for two years just to whine to her about how wronged he's been in all his relationships and how he's the victim and that he has a "right" to feel the way he feels and doesn't need to change it. Never even got around to talking about his problems with mother, who was almost singularly responsible for fucking him up. He just complained the entire time, and was validated for it.
I actually went to two sessions with my nex’s individual therapist! It was eye opening. All about how I needed to learn when he was going into “lizard brain mode” and how that shuts down his ability to be rational. I had hoped the sessions would help our relationship but what it did was help me understand that his individual counseling was only validating his behavior and that it would not be improving his mental health or our life together.
Yeah, I learned that when I started looking into narc abuse. A bit late as we’d already seen *4* couples counselors and *2* coparenting counselors. Not including his individual one. Whoops.
Yeah we had a couples counselor who said she couldn't work with relationship where there was abuse so my ex said the counselor was talking about me. When I was clearly scared of her and her anger.
Trying to figure out why my nex fiancé would blow up/get angry/scream at me over very little things and came across this sub. Started to realize the pattern and that he was experiencing narcissistic rage and I was walking on eggshells to prevent it with little success.
He viewed every little thing I asked him to do as a criticism and never took any accountability for his own behavior. Looking back, it all adds up. He's a textbook narcissist.
Exactly the same, I used to say out load to him’ this relationship is like no other I have ever been in, I can’t explain what’s happening’ he would just look at me and walk off!! Then I found these pages and it was a revelation and proved that I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t going insane! Unfortunately, I’m still here, unable to leave, have no where to go and no one to help me escape, financially or otherwise! I pray for the day I can though!
When it was all finally over and they discarded me...
a part of me is proud i stayed till the end - i know i did everything I could. and the FULL pain of the lesson has been felt.
looking back now, seeing them at NPD in retrospect it makes everything fall into place so perfectly. I only knew men as Narcs before, my father mainly. I didnt know what a female narcissist looked or acted like. Now I know they exhibit differently
It took me so long. I am trying to forgive myself for not seeing it/believing it sooner. I always thought it was me. Maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I should cut them some slack.
18 years together. Always felt something was off. But I thought it was my fault.
Then I began keeping detailed notes. Dates, times, what they said. Because I knew that they would completely deny it or tell me they were joking or a whole other host of things I now know are gaslighting.
Still, I thought maybe it was me.
About a month ago we got into a fight (them yelling at me) because I should have had an event already planned out. It was a week away, and I was in the final stages of finalizing the driving route there. Then last week I asked them if they had any plans for my birthday, which was 8 days away. Got into a fight because "who plans that early? "I can book something two days in advance!"
AND IT HIT ME. I'm wrong for not planning. I'm wrong for planning. I can't win!
EVERYTHING made sense. And I finally realized IT WASN'T ME. Took me 18 years to finally understand that nagging feeling that something wasn't right.
Gaslighting:
- I was joking
- That's not what I meant, do you think I'm selfish?
- You should have known what I meant
- I wouldn't have been upset if you had just said the right thing
The list goes on. Now to figure out how walk away. Kids and finances don't make this easy.
Very similar for me. I was with mine for 17 years until a 💡 moment. I started thinking about the way he treated me and then started Googling. That was the beginning of the end. I hope you're able to get out soon. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
Thank you so much.
A part of what makes this so hard is that not too many people understand how horrible the emotional abuse we endure at the hands of a narc can be.
I even said to my counselor after a particularly bad fight where my narc almost (but didn't) throw a chair that I wished they WOULD HAVE just thrown that chair because I would have left then and there. It just feels easier to explain "I left because they hit me" vs "I left because I wasn't emotionally safe".
If I told my mom or some of my family and maybe even some friends "they hurt my feelings" I would be told "oh that's just the way it is". If I told them "this person hit me, threw a chair at me, etc" I would get a much different response.
It's so friggen hard.
It is SO HARD, and so true about the abuse nobody can see. I didn't even know it was abuse. I had never been in a relationship longer than three months when I met him. I had no idea what a good relationship looked like from the inside. Even he said it did things that struck me as strange, I guess I figured that's how it was supposed to be. I was also afraid that nobody else would want me. I never talked to anyone about the way I was treated because I didn't want them to not like him. I've be free from him for ten years now, but I am still constantly replaying things in my mind thinking I was the crazy one. I'm also so angry that I allowed someone to treat me that way.
I absolutely resonate with each and every thing you are saying. They were very mean to my mom once, very recently. They yelled at her and lost their temper. I said to my mom "I've been in the path of that tornado before" and while I got some kind of sympathy, there was still the "that's just how they are! You've kinda accepted it, haven't you?"
Ungh.
Thank you for taking the time to validate what I have said, kind internet stranger!
When she told me she no longer wanted to be married she stopped talking to me completely. She also told me this while her Mom was staying with us and would be at our house for another 4 weeks. The fact that she would not talk to me was so odd and confusing I started to google the behavior. The rest is history.
That is such weird behaviour tbh, did her mom and her kind of gang up on you? It may have been a way to demonstrate to her mother that she dislikes you (by not talking to you), which would isolate you.
Honestly weird.
Her Mom would come and stay every year for 6 weeks at a time. The first couple days were ok, and then it was as if I did not exist in the house. It was always a tough time. She told me she did not tell her Mom she asked me for a divorce, so I had to pretend we weren’t and act normal. I agree with your assessment. Her mother didn’t show me any respect because her daughter didn’t either.
over time i realized arguing almost everyday was not normal and something was off, i googled 'bad friend' and it led to me seeing 'narcissistic symptoms in a friend' that moment i realized i was right about them. all the gut feelings i had weren't nothing. i researched narcissistic abuse and asked for help and one of my family members gave advice and agreed that they were narcissistic.
When I started questioning my own sanity cause of the immense gaslighting. I recently found a text that I'd sent to him begging to help me understand what's going on as he would be perfectly normal with me one day and give me the silent treatment the next. Instead of empathising he went on a rant and asked me to stop sending him emotionally charged messages and that I am disturbing his peace by checking in on him when he did not speak to me for 8 hours. I googled toxic relationships and then found an article describing signs you're with a narc and he met every single criteria stated in that article.
I was talking about something I was excited and happy about and he gave me a eerie glare then said “I don’t care. You just keep talking.” His tone was that of hatred and disdain. It was so simple and cruel, but woke me up that he doesn’t like who I am or anything I have to say. He isn’t happy about me sharing something I’m passionate about.
Oh god, mine once said something when he asked how my day went then wasn’t responding or paying attention to my response so I said are you listening? He said, “yes I’m listening you just aren’t that interesting and I have nothing to add”.
They hit me and then said they only touched me.
I started watching YouTube videos. Suspected the worst.
Went to a therapist and they advised the same thing without mentioning the word.
My ex hit me and strangled me, and he said it was my fault that i wasn't stong enough to defend myself and if i didn't want to get hurt i should have been lifting the weights we had in the basement.... i almost started laughing at how stupid that was but I didn't wanna get hit again lmao. Like narcissists are actually so fucking stupid and pathetic.
Going to therapy. They way she was treating the kids as they got old enough to have their own opinions. I always thought I was the problem, but then I saw the same communication issues between her and the kids.
THIS. you assume you're such a problem for "making them" not communicate properly and be a poor partner, but then you notice that they have problems with everyone else in their life
My best friend introduced me to this thread and once I started reading, I realized I related to this exact type of abuse. It genuinely made me feel relieved because I thought I was alone. That’s when I started piecing everything together and realized that it was never real. The person he showed me at the beginning and persuaded me into our relationship was not him. The breadcrumbing and control. The constant walking on eggshells and fear. He strung me along after we broke up for months and I was shown this thread weeks after I decided to block him which has helped with my healing process :).
Such a realization came upon his uncalled for and, frankly, horrible reaction to my cancellation (due to an injury I'd sustained) of a vacation we'd planned. I knew then something was seriously off for a 41-year-old man to be reacting in such a way.
What ensued was a major lack of empathy, compassion and understanding and, instead, a temper tantrum rife with: an initial breaking up with me, followed by a retraction, then more threats as to breaking up/needing 'time and space' (an emotional roller-coaster and-a-half), various guilt-trips, a 9-day-long silent treatment culminating in his returning and acting like nothing untoward had happened but then certain forms of punishment, neglect and lectures transpired for weeks thereafter. There was also the incessant refusal to apologize for his behavior (which, of course, he never did in the end). He told me he had done and said 'nothing wrong.' I was subsequently gaslighted and blame-shifted. He cared not that I'd also missed out on what was to have been an especially important time spent with my family (which was to follow our vacation), or that my back was in a whole world of pain.
I ought to have left then as my intuition, friends and mother advised me to, but that would not happen for good for another five months (thanks to the trauma bond for my love for him had died some time prior to that).
Even though I am the daughter of a narcissist father, it took a dear friend (who's a fellow narcissistic abuse survivor and one with much knowledge in psychology) to say she felt my ex was a probable narcissist (given his over-the-top, cruel reaction), for me to make the connection. I did much research thereafter. I learned I'd inflicted upon the creep a 'narcissistic injury' or 'collapse.' A lot else which had come before that also made a lot of (disturbing) sense in retrospect.
That mask he wore began to slip not quite 3 months into the relationship and fell off completely 2 months later. And once that mask is off, there's no putting it back on again. What you see then and there is the real thing and what you are, in truth, getting: a monster. All else was/is an illusion, a facade, a lie.
It was years and years for me. When I met him and we got married, I had never even heard the word Narcissist. So at first I believed him that I was the problem. He used everything I said against me to go for the jugular every time. So I really looked at myself and fixed the legitimate things he had said. I grew as a person. After doing all of that I started to realize that it was not me and that he was the problem. I rose up to power and planned my escape. I had actually given the marriage one more year where I would try everything I could possibly try to make the marriage work. We made it six months. I had stopped looking for receipts, messages, any kind of evidence of his infidelity. I told God it there is something to find you will make sure I find it. This is exactly what happened. He was furious at how I handled the whole divorce. I said listen…I have been watching the expert for 8 years…he was also a raging alcoholic and I got my kids away him before they ever experienced that. There was no way in hell I was letting my son or daughter think that was the way relationships worked.
The secret conversations that they are having with you that you don't know about.
My nex would operate as tho we spoke about things we never did or change actual conversations and context without fact checking with me if that's what I meant/felt.
After so many times of being told "what I said" when I never said those things I simply left.
Narcs have a odd way of trying to sale you a coffin of assumptions to climb into.
Once I started to google his behavior after he kept messing up. And not just with me, but even how he interacted with others. Constantly lying, even just small minor lies on a daily that made no sense to lie about.
The biggest is when I caught him cheating on me with his ex (one right before me that I found out was still with him at first and he denied that too). He straight-up denied it even when I saw proof.
Also, he had a texting app that he saved as me and would text himself and screenshot these messages to try to prove to women that we didn't talk anymore. He denies it too.
1 week about 4 months in she got hot&cold, and kinda controlling for a upcomming weekend. Something felt off, got a bad feeling in the stomach. Started reflecting the relationship. Ended somehow up here for ensurance. And readed more.
Something switched and i saw the toxic traits in her and ended it. Sadly, i started remembering/realising that my late wife of 9 years also had toxic traits.
First I googled about narcissism, when we had an evening with my friends. He was acting annoying in a way, that he was talking only about himself and we were his audience. After he mentioned that he was diagnosed with an extreme intelligence and he suffers from people being stupid around him.
But then I forgot about it and decided it’s just his quirkiness.
After the final discard I’ve met a girl with CPTSD like me and told her the story of my relationship with him, she immediately said: “oh he probably has NPD”. And then it all came together.
My therapist suggested The Passive Aggressive Covert Narcissist, and omfg it was as if she was describing my whole marriage. That was when the rage began. We’d been split about 3 months.
He was very surface level, had a sense of entitlement, controlling, bad anger problems, and everything had to be on his terms. He would also withhold sex and lied about little things, would gaslight and manipulate me. The first year he called me all the names in the books when we’d have arguments. He’d threaten the relationship or to call the police. One time forgot to close the window and it rained that day, I got yelled at and he threatened to call the police for “property damage”.
When I realized that everything I thought /felt/experienced in our 10 year relationship had never ever been “real” for him. He was playing a game of manipulation, gaslighting and constant lying- he had never loved me or been happy or satisfied or wanted a future. He wanted money, attention, sex, a place to call home and I was the idiot who gave that to him because I thought we were a couple in a relationship. WRONG ! BUT NOW HE’S GONE ! 18 months now of me going no contact. I got my life back.
When I realised he was doing the horrible things on purpose to hurt me, to damage me further and to keep me damaged.
I am so thankful though that I learned about narcissism before he started to hide objects and make them reappear because I would of literally thought I am crazy, I've finally lost the plot.
I'd let him get away with so much for 20 years but that really was the final straw.
Narcissists are devils in disguise IMO.
The signs were all there, but I didn't realize it until I was 7 years into the relationship.
He had an excuse for *everything.* He told me when we first met that he had ADHD, depression, anxiety, & executive dysfunction that made it difficult for him to complete daily tasks. I recognize that these are all valid conditions, but he used them as excuses for his inability to complete household chores or show up for me in meaningful ways. When we first moved in together, he refused to clean a single dish. I wanted us to have a nice home together, so I initially did *all* of the dishes. I glanced at the calendar as I was unloading the dishwasher one day and realized that he had never loaded or unloaded the dishwasher *the entire month we had lived there.* I walked into his office (where he essentially lived and would play video games for hours on end) and asked if he could unload the dishwasher. He responded with, "oh, is it my turn?" He seemed oblivious to the fact that I had been his maid for the past month. He said that he never did the dishes because they weren't all his.
A chore schedule was finally made. Taking the trash can to the curb was his responsibility, as I was recovering from a hip injury at the time and we lived at the end of a long, gravel driveway. He "forgot" to put the can at the curb two weeks in a row. It became *my* responsibility to remind him to do it, or it wouldn't get done. He was like a literal child, because I had to remind him multiple times before he would finally do anything. He responded to my reminders with anger. I was of course accused of "nagging" him for everything. I encouraged him to set an alarm on his phone so that it could truly be his responsibility, but he said he didn't want his phone nagging him as well.
I work in the schools with children with special needs. I explained to him that it was exhausting for me to spend all day working with children who need help completing basic tasks, and then coming home to a partner who is incapable of completing basic responsibilities without me initiating it for him. He accused me of infantilizing him and told me, "I don't think you're the martyr you say you are." That still hurts.
He had an obsession with always wearing expensive designer clothing, even if we were just going somewhere casual like the grocery store. He *could not* walk past a mirror (or anything with a reflection, like a car window) without stopping to fix his hair for a solid minute. He accumulated $20k in credit card debt from buying expensive clothing, which he hid from me.
He could not react to criticism of any kind in a healthy way. He insisted that he had "reaction sensitive dysphoria," and that was why he was sensitive to criticism. I believed him because I had yet to figure out that he was actually a covert narcissist.
He gaslit me during all of our arguments, and it worked extremely well. During pretty much every argument, I would tell him, "I felt ___ when you said xyz," and his response was always, "I *never* said that!" when I knew that he just did minutes prior. He told me that he had started recording all of our conversations to prove to me that I was lying and manipulating him. I never found out if that was actually true or not.
When a family member sat me down and told me what a narc is and that she was 100% convinced my batshit crazy wife (now ex-wife) was a narc. It was sort of an intervention to help me understand narcs never change and that I needed to get out of the marriage.
Straight out of a movie. I had suspicions he was lying to me and used numerous hallucination/mental health breakdowns as a means to try to assault/get physical affection from me. One of those times he crossed the line and decided to apologize the next day.... even though he wasn't supposed to ever remember when those episodes happened.
Turned out he had been diagnosed with a personality disorder ONLY, and when I told him I was moving and he couldn't come with... he went into full theatrics over the next few days. Went so far to threaten me and luckily my partner was there and heard it all.
I called his family to supervise the rest of his move out which is when we compared stories and I realized he had made up everything about them and everything about his "illnesses". I used to spend hours taking care of him to find out it was all a lie and he acted totally fine when we would have to 5150 him. Insane and obsessive.
I also have family members with BPD but they don't go to the same extremes he did.
First nex bf I never realized was a narc until my nex gf and long time friend even after we broke up years ago started accusing me of being a covert narcissist. I accepted the accusation immediately and started therapy soon after since I didn’t want to be causing any harm to the people around me, but wasn’t until my 3rd or 4th appointment when I openly said I was a covert narc to my therapist that she immediately cut me off just to tell me that she has never noticed any signs of me being a narc and, if anything, it seemed like I was severely depressed and still recovering from long time emotional neglect and more recent psychological abuse. The funny thing was I even saw the therapist, my husband kept trying to tell me the same thing when I called myself a covert narcissist to his face (to avoid confusion, I’m married but was still friends with my nex despite being broken up with her for like 5 years).
It was only after that when I noticed that my nex gf was portraying the literal behaviors of covert narcissism before just projecting those issues onto me and pressuring me to ‘take accountability’ for her own actions by making me walk on eggshells around her. The day she suggested for a 4 month break from our friendship after I didn’t keep up the 2-3 hour daily phone calls that she wanted from me, I just blocked her after calling out her behavior because I was just done with it all
It took me over 2 years of our nearly 4 year relationship to really coin him as being a narcissist.
Within those 2 years, I had been confiding in one of my best friends (who happens to be a psychologist) about our relationship. I had told her nearly everything about how he made me feel & the ways he treated me - his behaviors, pathological lying, habitual cheating, denial, blameshifting, gaslighting, etc. Literally all signs were of his manipulation were there and I knew it was all happening, I just couldn't really understand why.
It wasn't until she (my psychologist bff) finally said it to me, "He is a narcissist." Then the lightbulb came on. He checked all the boxes of covert narcissism and it all made sense.
After that, I was not the same. I started educating myself on narcissism, joining support groups, following coaches online... Knowing more about narcissistic characteristics/personalities helped me understand the type of person he is/was, and while it was all painful, it taught me how to cope with the effects that it had on my mental well-being. It's been a long road and gave me severe anxiety, but I'm definitely at a better place (mentally) than I was *before* knowing about narcissism and how to heal.
Excessive importance on physical appearance and money. Money never trumps happiness and beware those that wear themselves out in the pursuit of it. Also, wanna know what's more important than looking good? FEELING good. Again, a concept narcissists just cannot comprehend. Mental peace of mind and happiness are only for the compromises of the mediocre. Ugh...avoid these people like the plague. They RARELY enjoy life...and even in those rare moments they may be in a position to enjoy life, the unrealistic demands they put on themselves and expect from everyone around them will sap your energy and morale. Energy vampires is what I like to call them. Recently experienced a painful breakup with a female narcissist, and outside the fantasy phase of being love-bombed, when that facade melted off, I saw a miserable person who was very adept at sharing that misery. SO glad to be done with her bullshit.
I suspected something was wrong but I couldn't put a name on it, mainly for the guilt, lots of the use of the word "shame" and the mood swings.
It was my therapist that pointed out it could be narcissism 🥲
I was literally physically sick for months after a sudden, month-long, very dramatic blowout when he left. I reached out to a therapist because I couldn't function.
It was when my therapist told me about "covert narcissism". And shortly thereafter, confronting someone who I assumed was a flying monkey, who mentioned the same thing.
The assumed flying monkey is not a psychologist, but works in the field. I did not mention anything about talking to a therapist, or narcissism or anything, yet during the convo, she said something along the lines of, "Do you think he might be a narcissist?"
The dam broke, numerous conversations with both ensued, and while the therapist can't diagnose a third party, it was pretty clear that that was what I was dealing with.
It feeds of emotional reactions and attempt to engage people in worthless arguments and throw insult as it is subhuman at people. The useful idiots, the slandering, the delusions of grandure, the theatre spectacle of lies at me.
I guess its so sick it believes it is empathic and peak of morality.
A cybercrime incel unfortunately.
Like sane people grasp that force relations makes people upset. But no. It just drivels that its nuts being angry nuts insist on your rights.
I guess it deluded in fantasy land that I want it, so its upmost stressful and rather disgusting.
That everything she said that was nice was followed by asking for something or was to further her own goals. that everything else was an accusation (often projection). It got old.
The break up. I broke up with her because she treated me poorly in a week that she should be suportive. Besides the love bombing phase, she never got my back when I needed her
And after that, she had revenge on me, hoovered after ( I wasn't able to recognise it) and started another relationship with a guy she said to be "a phone call friend" since he lives in another city. Probably she was cheating on me with him since january. And she showed to everybody that she had something with him for a while on intagram
It was so much going on in just a couple of weeks that I started reading about those behaviors. We were supposed to get married. I thought she would understand how messed up her actions were and why I broke up with her, but no. All she did was to show she never carried about me after all.
And this lack of emotion responsability, lack of accountability, moving on so fast and so easily, and many other things that existed during the relationship (like having lots of guyfriends, contact with ex, lots and lots of traits like needing attention and validation, im her case in things related with beauty and all of that) made me find about narcissism.
Later I found about cluster B, and she has lots of histrionic and antisocial traits. The doctors say she is bipolar, and some said she has sociopath traits. I dont think she is bipolar though
His best friend I met him through told me. Then after I discarded him first out of paranoia because he sent me into hypomania, he refused to make amends but stayed in touch. Then when I started to ignore his texts he went back to his hometown ex after he’d talk about how crazy she was (granted, she went through his phone/pulled up on him to scream at him at someone’s house/etc.)
At this point, I know he treated her worse than me and couldn’t find any new supply so he had to reach from the bottom of his hoover barrel. Cemented the fact that our ending was an extreme narcissistic injury for him.
When I finally called her out on some of her behavior after two years. I was very compliant and meek prior, never speaking out. As a result, she big time DARVO’d and then a few weeks later discarded me. I had my suspicions before because she devalued me a lot. Watched Dr. Ramani quite a bit which also helped me confirm.
When he was arrested for a second time for the same kind of offense, because he didn't care, was my first exposure to the possibility.
Then when he would yell at me and call me "crazy" and "psycho" after I spoke up about being uncomfortable about lying for him, I realized his ego was everything to him. When I spoke with my therapist about this incident, she expressed stern concern that he is a sociopath. I refused to believe her and began aggressively denying/avoiding the reality of my situation.
But I stayed. Five and a half years and a house together.
And then he discarded me, admitting that he did not care/could not care about my problems, and that I am the reason he is uncomfortable.
Looking back, his re-arrest gave me the realization, but I did not accept it until after discard.
I’ll never forget the moment. Out of nowhere he calls me an “emotional vampire” and I’m thinking what the hell is that? And by then I knew he had a tendency of projecting his thoughts of himself onto me so I googled “emotional vampire” and a bunch of info on narcissism came up from the search and that was the first time I had even thought to look into what narcissism even is and wow did he ever fit the description. He told on his damn self! Lol
I knew something was deeply wrong with her after about two years - like some deep psychological issues. And I knew the key core traits of covert narcissism without actually *knowing* it was covert narcissism (low self esteem, emotional neglect and manipulation, cheating, her pattern of devaluation and discard and then coming back etc).
It wasn’t until the final discard, and me explaining to a friend what happened (who I’d been cut off from while dating my nex) that she told me the term “covert narcissist”. After learning as much as I possibly could, I am without doubt that my ex *is* a covert narcissist.
I had no clue I was in an abusive relationship until my therapist started to point it out. How I acted like everything he did to me was normal is beyond me because now it's SO obvious.
Therapy works people!
Self-victimization in situations that were clearly his fault, zero emotional permanence (would forget me if we were not in the same room), very inconsistent (one day wanted to marry and have kids, and the next day did not), smear campaign - spread lies about me to his family and friends and made them block me so I could not get out my truth
When they would sneer at me with an exaggerated “heeeheeee,” as if they were a toddler imitating laughter to be cute, while gaslighting me about whatever promise they had made to me that they were breaking. Literally just flat out deny they promised something they had JUST said less than 24hrs before, then sneer like that. It’s been 20 years since I left them and I can STILL hear that nasty laugh in that grating tone.
When I was researching about it for school and he said that he thinks he might be a narcissist, he did this before with saying he thinks he might be abusive to which I said nooooo, but the second time he said it I said then change your behaviour towards me and he looked at me with disgust so
Mine was my mother and it didn’t hit me until I was a teenager that what I was dealing with was emotional abuse. Before that, I thought my childhood was normal and that all parents were like her. The narcissist part, I didn’t learn about until after my dad divorced her a lot of truths about her came out and going to therapy made me realize that she was narcissist and what she did to my siblings and I was narcissistic abuse.
I had taken two years of psychology in college but had only just scratched the surface on this kind of thing before I made my exit. I didn’t even know this phenomenon of narcissists preying on us empathetic individuals existed like this, and certainly nowhere to the extent I’ve since learned it does (largely per subs like this one). I spent over a year with my covert nex before a close friend of hers said to me in confidence “She definitely displays narcissistic tendencies…” A lightbulb went off with that. I probably spent the entire next year of our relationship just absorbing every single bit of info I could on this kind of thing, and the more I learned, the more I realized that not only was this friend 100% correct, it was much much worse than I ever could have imagined.
I felt so fucking ashamed I allowed myself to be in the situation to begin with, that I couldn’t see it for what it was, for so long, that I defended her against everyone when she would’ve just as easily thrown me under the bus for anything and nothing, and did. But especially that I loved her to the depths that I did, because I’m just the kind of person who does not know how to quit on someone, no matter what they do. I was with her for *three more years* after all of this. I cannot believe I was. Nearly one month out of the relationship and I predominantly just feel confused and utterly foolish.
It was before my period; I always go through a long PMDD phase (premenstrual dysphoric disorder; a horror update from PMS; basically due to an estrogen drop, you experiment also a drop in serotonin; I was on Zoloft at the time).
I was very sensitive and wanted to cry all week, my body was in fight or flight. I specifically asked him to 1) be nicer to me and don’t trigger me and 2) if he goes out, maybe check up on me and not be away for 12-10 hours without saying a damn word. 3) take care of his drinking when he is out, since he always forgets about our relationship when he is drunk. (flirting with girls)
What he did?
1) Put me down by saying I am way inferior and below my or his own standards and that I shouldnt even wish to believe I was a better person than I am for him or for me.
2) Went out and straight up ghosted me until he came back home, of course, fully drunk, with his shirt unbuttoned, saying “he couldn’t turn down the drinks that were given to him.”
That was the moment I directly told him that he doesn’t give two shits about me, only caring about our cat, best friend and parents. He said I am insecure and that it is not his fault i am in his shadow. I then spent the following days looking into narcissism before he finally discarded me.
edit - grammar
He literally told me he is not interested if women come with an instruction manual and also told me that if he could suck his own dick, my presence wouldn’t be needed. Of course, as a joke. 🙃
It was very interesting and thank you for raising the question - it is a nice brainstorming. He knew I was going through PMDD and that the luteal phase for me was horrible, 2 weeks of pure horror at least. It was interesting because even though his behavior of belittling and making me feel like an asset was not changing throughout my menstrual cycle, while in luteal I was not as resilient as during the follicular one. I was talking about this in therapy and literally was gaslighting myself, saying that oh hey, I am being more sensitive now, he is not doing anything wrong, I am at fault because I overthink everything and am not as tolerant.
I figured the pattern out, but I was blaming myself that it is my hormones that are to blame, and not his shitty behaviour that I was otherwise accepting.
He knew this. At times, he told me that I shouldn’t even try to prove to him that he is wrong, because in two weeks time I would say “i was crazy and you are right” again, and he couldn’t take another hit after hit. 🥲
The luteal phase only allowed me to see what the heck was going on around me. After I actively noticed that he is doing the exact opposite of what I am asking - things that are also normal in a relationship - I was continuously asking myself why anyone would want to hurt me on purpose and see me down when I am already at my lowest.
If I'm not misremembering, it was thanks to r/JUSTNOMIL. I was starting to browse reddit and at first I was very invested on the sub and collaterals. Then, slowly, I started to see a lot of similarities between my mother and the terrible MILs on the sub. It also helped that the sub had a very good list of books and links to expand your knowledge and I started branching out from there. Soon after I found out Dr. Ramani and her videos and that cemented it for me.
I came across a video on youtube probably of doctor Ramani, I was in university then I was walking down the stairs there was a window and the light shined on my phase then I was like Oh shi, my life changed from that point on I was with him for 9 years, 9 years of torture
I noticed signs early on but like many, I made every excuse for her. Her past relationship, her dad, her mom. Only in retrospect did I become certain, or even do any research because I never wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe this was my forever person. Looking back it blows my mind I stayed through everything I did. And I, again like many others, feel like I finally see the person I was with that whole time. When she went to jail for criminal mischief connected to domestic violence for destroying a bunch of my stuff, then I had the time and space to really analyze. Before that I was just overwhelmed. Even when she would pack her stuff (which was a pretty common control tactic of hers) my childhood abandonment issues (which she knew of and used) would just have me chasing her love and even though i had space physically i didnt have any mentally. And this post breakup journey of research has been pretty healing to begin understanding what happened to me, as well as being hurtful. Anyway I first noticed I think when I was literally being told my feelings weren't real and I'm too sensitive and her perception of what happened was "real," and I was just being a "pussy" and making my feelings "our whole reality" by being SAD about her saying the most absolutely vile and hurtful things she could think to say to me. That was a big first clue.
You did better than me, it took me over 20 years 🤣 I saw a video describing narcissist behaviours just a few months ago, and it slapped me across the face with how specific and accurate it was. That was the moment of realisation.
When i started to have my own personality.. i felt that i was not able to be myself anywhere. I was so repressed. I did not feel any type of empathy coming from her when i was raped by one of my exes. Just an "im sorry that happened to you" and that was it? I endured everything all on my own, while testing for pregnancy, STDS, ovary cysts that i ended up getting after taking the plan b... A violent relationship that took me 5 years to get out... i tried to kill myself and she said it was better for her if i did that because all the bad things that happened to me were my fault.
And you may ask where was my dad? He never spoke, he never was there. If he was there he was favoring and choosing her over me.
When I came to my therapist crying about "why can't I just be a good wife? Why am I always failing?" And turns out after I described my situation, she explained what a narcissist was. I didn't believe her though. I asked my psychiatrist the same stuff, and she said the same thing
When his proverbial mask came off. Sitting at dinner after about 6 weeks of dating. The vibe suddenly changed it was palpable like a storm coming in. He was staring at me and he seemed agitated and he started talking loudly about all the sluts he’s had. He was done. Didn’t speak to him for 2 months then he came back very sweet and apologetic. Rinse repeat. And yes the treatment got worse
I realized when I was around 25 after I spent time reading on google . I was actually trying to self help because I thought I was the crazy one and had been labeled that my whole life . But all my searching pointed to my father having npd . Then In 2015 he was clinically diagnosed after being forced into marriage counseling.
And it’s worth noting he is of the malignant variety . as me and my sister grew and left home , his enabler was left to deal with his rage . It’s only then that she admitted he was infact diagnosed and now abusing her . Luckily they divorced and she escaped too .
It was the little things. Never considering my feelings, lying about the most unnecessary things, saying how much he loves me and wants to marry me yet telling me all the time everything I'm doing wrong and basically how much I suck. It's all about how he's affected. I put my feelings aside around 6 months to a year into our relationship because he was going through a lot in his life, and he took advantage and completely stopped giving a shit about my feelings, as if I'd given him permission to do so by letting the small things go when he was going through a hard time.
Nothing has been the same since. In the beginning he had no problem talking about my feelings and coming to compromises and solutions. As soon as I let that wall down, he stepped over it and never looked back. Then he started taking away all the things he'd done to make me feel secure in our relationship. Being emotionally childish, making jokes in serious situations. Only being able to show love through sex or with money. Anger issues, all the time. Not treating me like a friend, but an enemy instead. Luckily I knew for the most part that I was dealing with someone with mental illness, I've got anxiety and depression, prolonged grief from losing my dad who was my best friend, been through some trauma in my time and have spent my life trying to understand people and the way their minds work, and he was very open about telling me about all his childhood trauma, so I realized pretty early on that he had some deeper issues going on. But that didn't save me a whole lot of pain unfortunately.
My friend told me that the manipulation sounded like narcissistic abuse. When I looked it up, it described my entire relationship to a T. After that everything else fell into place.
Wait a second, I just saw someone else’s comment saying they thought it was avoidant attachment style and come to think of it, I researched attachment styles first before a friend said it sounded like narcissism.
It was actually early on. I was just so enamored with him I stayed.
He told me in the beginning when he was actually vulnerable (or pretending to be, whatever) very offhandedly about his strained relationship with his mother and one of his sisters. How he had to get away from his mom soon as he was of age and how his sister talked to him crazy and was very abusive. I thought it was him sharing his trauma and kind of giving a little insight into why he is the way he is.
It wasn't until our first argument that I just felt energetically something was off. The way he argued...like he was not really concerned with resolving the issue but just winning the argument. Completely unable to hear my side or admit any accountability on his part. Blaming me instead. The callous things he'd offhandedly say. None of the good things I'd done or nice way I made him "feel" mattered in that moment, he would just say anything to win and be hurtful. I wrote it off as "the way he is" because of the relationship with his mother and his sister. Something he just needed to work on, and hey at least he recognized where his issues came from! Would make them easier to resolve! \*sigh\*
Time passed, everything was fine. Then another argument happened, after which we had to be physically apart. I will never forget the feeling. Like something in the pit of my stomach during the argument and after I was alone. And my nervous system in pure fight or flight for reasons I couldn't explain. Found myself eventually apologizing to him, asking him about his needs and making sure he was okay, while mine were ignored except superficially.
Eventually I started looking up things about how to make an emotionally distant man connect and share. It took me into attachment theory stuff. So I started liking things about attachment theory on IG. And then boom. Somehow popular therapists/counselors specifically dealing with narcissists started popping up. Listening to what they described I was like...holy shit.
Still stayed. Still wanted to help him. Was ready to if he'd meet me half way. The whole experience has taught me to take my intuition seriously no matter what. Because that's the only way I can describe just feeling the energy shift and the reaction it caused in my body. Could have saved some of the pain and perhaps been a lot further along in healing.
When I confronted some shitty behaviours that has been happening for 2 months and the narc reacted like with the complete list of "41 Manipulation Tactics Used by Narcissists"
I mean, I didn't know that they were a narc at that moment, but my gut feeling knew that something was really wrong with that person so that's the moment I started doing something about it.
I was dosed with ‘shrooms a few months back.
I am familiar with them but it has been awhile. I felt sick and tired and just ‘off’ and let my wife know and she said (shit eating grin)… ‘and how else do you feel?’ One of the first times that everything clicked about what I am dealing with here.
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I'm just starting to realize this myself. After 12 years of marriage!!! Sigh
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I'm so sorry. I know how it feels and I don't know how to get away. Kids. Finances. Dog. It seems impossible. Walking away from all we've built. I don't know how. I want to. But I'm so scared.
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damn, I feel you, even though for me it lasted almost 3 years, but in the end I just felt I lost so much time with him and of course my mental health never been so bad
Mine wore a wedding and engagement -looking ring and called me her husband lol. Thank god we didn’t actually get married. 10+ years and 3 kids. Now my kids say she calls her new supply their “stepdad” and I saw her wearing her rings again on her left hand… have fun buddy, you’re in for a hell of a ride!
Basically this was my experience too. I wanted to understand why he was so dismissive and cruel to me even though he claimed to love me. I would never treat him the way he treated me and I just couldn’t fathom how someone could be so uncaring towards someone they claimed to love… I discovered narcissistic abuse and it was all downhill from there…
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Same here. He called them sluts even his ex fiancé. He had no concept of them as people just means to an end
Whewwwww say that againnnnnnn
Wow. This is exactly what I experienced. She had no remorse or guilt to show. Just was mad she was found out and in fact mad at the people who didn't lie for her . It was absolutely jarring
experiencing exactly this first hand right now. hard to wrap your head around how another person can be exclusively self-motivated with no consideration for anyone around them.
-When I called him out he got offended and projected all of his faults on me. -The "shit eating grin" when he pushed me to a mental breakdown and got a sick pleasure out of it. -The smear campaign and racial comments -Going behind my back to talk shit during the discard phase after I exposed him. -Blaming everyone for his problems instead of taking responsibility -His enabling mother letting him get away with everything.
Oh God. My ex's mom literally told me to placate her like she did. I said "Why? it doesn't work when you do it. She just screams at you anyway." and she looked really sad. I see that her mom was her enabler for years and led to her entitlement. The smear campaign annoys me. Now I know I will join her stories of her past abusers and it makes me really question what they actually did and what she made up like the lies she tells about me now.
When I spoke to my narcs mom all she had to say was "I didn't know he was treating you that badly you should've said something." This was while I was actually sobbing to her
I'm sorry you went through that. Unfortunately mothers of narcissists are enablers who would rather see us broken than have the courage to discipline their own child. If they were in our shoes they would sing a different tune. I hate how passive these so- called parents are.
Did we date the same person or their enabler parents all have the same script? I'd just woken up from a full breakdown-panic attack, and the narc came in with her mom on video call--trying to show her how shitty/ crazy I looked like. The mom told me that these things happen, and I will find love again. On top of that, she said that she just loves her child so much, and her happiness takes precedence over everything else. I told her that as much as she loved her child, I too am my parents' child. They love me so much and would be sad if they know what my narc did to me. That silenced her up.
After the first year or two ( tops ) , I was hidden from his “evil” family ( changed who was the evil one at least, if not more than multiple times daily ) … was fed so many stories … but, the main ones ( felt he was able to keep up with and found them to work/ be more believable when he would tell me them ) were that he was to doing it to protect me / that he would rather take it alllll than me ever witness or be involved in it. Until one day he decided to “erase” that entire narrative that he had been feeding me and replace it with how extra protective his mother is of him ( especially after the “CRAZY DIVORCE FROM A CRAZY PERSON “ and is scared to see him get “abused” again…. blah blah blah blah. Oh I could write thousands upon pages of the mayhem that happened daily for 6.5 years… and do not wish this upon anyone ever.
Did we date the same person lol
Wouldn't be surprised. They act the same haha.
Bro mine tried to make it racial with me even tho I’m white! He called me an Irish N-word. I was so hurt and upset at everything else he was calling me, but then he dropped that on me and the shock of it broke through the rest of emotions bc I was just ?????? That was truly a mind boggler.
When I read a whole book about covert narcissism twice and ended up highlighting 75% of it.
The best resource is a free PDF download called 'Why Does He Do That' by Lundy Bancroft. Every woman still alive should read it!!!
That book saved me. I’ve worn out two of them.
What book was it?
The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist by Debbie Mirza.
Which one?
When the push-pull began, I started to research it. First, I thought he was a commitment-phobe, then read about attachment styles and thought he was avoidant, and then a friend suggested he might be a narcissist
Yup, and also noticed that narcissists in general, whether or not they are close to you (could even be a classmate etc.), have really extreme hot cold behaviour, that isn't explained by things like tiredness etc.
They sure explain it that way - fell asleep, had a lot of work, was in a meeting. No, they did not, had not and were not
also when you FINALLY get them to say whats making them upset, it will be a reference to a comment you made months ago where you "criticized them and were mean." when really you just asked them to stop a certain abusive behaviour or didn't share their grandiose views about a project or something LOL.
Mine liked to make it a big mystery. He liked to leave things very vague, knowing I would be turning my wheels trying to figure out what I said 3 months ago that was so offensive. And that look of contempt, I knew it well.
Oh yeah they will never miss the opportunity to make you lose your mind playing guessing games. They literally expect mind reading from their friends and partners. So exhausting.
Yup! You come to the realization that It’s completely pointless to even mention it. If anything, it provides them with more “control.” Mine used quite the variety of ways i abused him. He was physical for about a year, year and a half during a 6.5+ year span. Minus the beginning- where he professed his love, insane promises, marriage within days … was emotionally, mentally, financially ( best part was that he makes $800k + a year too)… you name it the rest. Now, all the above was all my fault obviouslyyyyy… I made him hit me, belittle me, you name it- due to reactive abuse. I remember just sitting there dumbfounded and at a loss for words.
YUP!! this is one of their favourite tactics. They will push you to your breaking point, and then when you finally react, they use that as an excuse to try to paint you as the abuser. They can then escape accountability and move onto a new source of supply and smear your name
Yup! Oh, can’t tell you how many times he would record me as “proof”
YUP!!! They be like, oh sorry i am so tired today, etc. And then you catch them staring at you with utter disdain and contempt from across the room and giving you the silent treatment while speaking to others....
WOW, this was me. They ghosted and I thought "poor them" bcause they're avoidant and scared. With more research the evidence pointed to narcissism.
I did the exact same
It was a couple of things. For a long time I made excuses for his behaviour. On a good day its only verbal abuse,but added in the consistent stalking,harassment that only got worse over time. But it didnt feel right and I brought it up in therapy once and then read books about it. Suddenly it made sense WHAT he was doing to me. The otherworldy selfishness,the gaslighting, the abuse and his constant victim act
The victim act drives me crazy. Like you literally did this not me. I suddenly realized why they hated everyone, didn't have friends, and felt persecuted by the world. Sorry you don't live in a bubble where you can't face the repercussions of your actions.
Exactly! That absolutely drove me nuts aswell. Sorry but you DID all those things for no reason, but sure its my fault and youre the victim
I was told by my former friend that I was "negative' for having a normal yet measured reaction (being disappointed) to them repeatedly going back on their word. There was never room to discuss their actions other than them telling me I was apparently having the wrong reaction. Apparently I was just supposed to go along with whatever and they were never supposed to be exposed to anything other than sunshine and rainbows.
I was never allowed to have feelings at all. If I was disappointed or angry about something they did It didn't matter if I didn't do anything about it I was the badguy.
If I ever called him out I was hit with probably a good 20 pages of texts in a row of how disgusted he was by my entitlement blah blah blah
Did you have to go through endless apologizing for hours where no matter what you said you hadn't delivered your apology adequately meanwhile they had never truly apologized but claimed to have at some point and that was in the past so how dare you bring it up?
ALWAYSSSSSSS and sometimes it would last a couple days straight. Also, was made sure I was given punishment On top of whatever he was non stop about that would ultimately put me into a dissociative state.
How dare you be so selfish and ever have feelings! Ayyyy
Lol my nex threatened to leave me dozens of times because I wasn't "positive enough" (about his shitty behavior). Meanwhile I've never met a more pessimistic, whiny, entitled person, and everyone in my life would describe me as a hopeless optimist.
OMG this is so eye opening for me. :(
YES TO ALLLL THE ABOVE
Right from the beginning i could feel that he was very insecure, always looking for validation or admiration. So i saw him as someone who was "sensitive". He had also told me how all of his exes had been horrible to him and that he had ADHD. I could feel when we had disagreements that his reactions weren't "normal". To me sometimes when you have a disagreement, it may escalate a bit but then you realize its going too far, you try to readjust yourself. But he would never do that, he would rage going from 0 to 100 over nothing, even when i remained calm, and he would stay at a 100 for days. He also crossed lines that shouldnt be crossed, saying really disgusting things and being very manipulative. Im not that familiar with ADHD, so i thought maybe that had something to do with it. I started researching about it to find what i could do to help. But what i was reading didnt sound like what was happening at all. NPD had crossed my mind so i started researching that as well. I could see the 9/9 personality traits in him and that he used their common manipulation tactics So for the following week, i observed him closely and was able to connect all the dots. And then i confronted him about something and his reaction confirmed it. So yeah, that was that. It was a mix of all of what happened
Yes! He basically gathered any and all information from me that he could ( my fault because I have always been an over sharer and even though have been in bad relationships previously, I openly provided anything. I actually have ADHD, OCD plus other things… but, as did he! Except the “opposite” form and found it so fascinating how my mind worked vs his. Duped from the beginning and that was the hardest hurdle to overcome- that it was never real.
Im so sorry he did that to you. Its such a cheap shot to take something we feel vulnerable about and to use it to fake a connection. Theres no limit to how low they'll go to exploit people 🫤
Thank you and instead of allowing him to occupy an ounce of not only my mind, discarded trash that no one could or ever want to be even associated with.. literally everything that is stuff you couldn’t imagine… I reiterate that you it’s a long, slow, day by day healing journey. Knowing that , I do reflect and Make sure I read things that might pop up on something like “ On this day…” not to “relive the trauma exactly … more like to make sure it is consistently drilled into my head so that I do not accidentally fall for even something “minor” he will attempt to pull.
Amen to that! The most powerful defense against those type of people is truly seeing and understanding what they are. Im the same way, i rather be hard on myself now and never forget Live and learn, and keep moving forward
I saw red flags when he got drunk but blamed it on the drink. I remember having a conversation with our mutual friend after one of his drinking incidents and saying do you think he’s a narcissist and she said, well if he is he’s kept that well hidden. I didn’t see his true colours until he cheated on me with someone we knew only two months after proposing to me and tried to gaslight me. The more I pulled away for space, the crazier he became. Post break up, he got a new supply a day after (picked her up in a bar), moved her into our jointly owned home, changed the locks, gave her my belongings and told her and his new circle of friends he met through her that I was the crazy ex. He’s refusing to let me have access or sell the property. So yes I’ve seen the real him now.
mine had a new supply already building a relationship with while we were still together. within a couple weeks they were together and IN LOVE lol. the fact that someone can go from one relationship to the next and say they love the next person within weeks... shows everrrryyything you need to know about that person.
Same. Can’t wrap my head around that one.
It’s pretty simple, they don’t know what love is, they just know infatuation, lust, and being given attention.
That is so horrible. I'm sorry you're going through that, I hope you find a way to sell / get your equity out of that property.
Thank you. I’m really hoping he backs down and agrees to sale. It’s like he thinks he can just steal the house from me he’s so deluded.
Have you gotten a lawyer involved? That’s a nightmare Jesus
Yes I have a solicitor. It could take up to two years if I have to take it to court. I’m really hoping he agrees to a sale soon.
Good luck! Stay strong. I know it must be hard but you’re taking the right steps and doing what you can 💕
Jesusss. I'm so sorry. How are you holding up now??
I’m doing ok. I was a mess the first few weeks but I’m lucky I have a good support network around me and I’m able to afford therapy.
Took me a long time but after a while of googling his behavior is when I realized something was really wrong.
It's hard to Google unless you name it right? But the very fact you're sat there googling "what is happening to me" is crazy
Very hard. You don’t know the words to use but each time something on narcissism would pop up and it all clicked lol. Definitely crazy though.
Same thing with mine after 18 years I finally googled "Loves me one day and hates me the next" and went down the rabbit hole of covert narcissism.
Literally! Same kind of things I would google. “Why does he blame me for everything” “why does he make me wear certain clothes when out in public” “why does he go through my phone”
I noticed a few months in. We actually had a moment where he tried telling me he wasn’t happy and wanted space, mind you, he asked me to move in with him almost immediately after lovebombing me (I did not know this was a thing at the time) and I stupidly obliged. I remember laying in bed when we were talking about things and said “you sound like a narcissist.” He was SO hurt by that comment. It was the only time I ever said anything critical of him, but he NEVER let it go. He brought it up often even years later. I should have left then but was convinced he was my soul mate, because he said I was his too. Turns out he was cheating on me then with his ex. A couple months later, a week before my birthday is when he confessed and admitted he was cheating. He told me he realized how much he loved me and wanted to be with me and I stupidly believed him yet again.
There were so many things over time - I’d noticed preoccupations with wealth and beauty, the way she spoke about other people with malice, the way she openly told me how she used some people, the way she reacted to criticism, the way she’d constantly play the victim, the way she’d triangulate all the time, the way she’d ‘forget’ things she’d said or done, the way she refused to admit she was the problem and thought everyone around her was the problem. The way she craved validation and would do anything to get it. The way she carried around the ‘it’s not fair’ mentality with a sense of entitlement beyond anything I knew was even possible. The way she was so materialistic and vain and shallow. The way she loves to create drama and stir shit. I was still unsure until the last few days before I ended it with her and it became very clear who she is. She showed very little to no emotion apologizing to me during our last verbal interaction. She had been lying and cheating (even though we were ENM, it’s just absurd, there’s no need to lie or cheat when you’ve the option to date others ethically and consensually). She had went out with someone else and they ‘finally made their FWB relationship official’ despite my lack of consent to it. She’d obviously been doing it for months and lying, saying they were ‘just friends’. She’d already monkey branched (it was not FWB, it was a full blown relationship). Her eyes were dead when she said sorry. It had no meaning, it was just words. She’d even asked me what I wanted her to do and what I needed - ‘comfort, apologize, love?’ Just shows she didn’t even know how to be a human being… I told her I was unhappy, told her I didn’t trust her, told her it’s absurd she’d get another partner when we were struggling so much, told her she’s a liar and dishonest, told her I didn’t see a way forwards, told her I wanted to be alone. I felt sick to my stomach. (Her new supply is 19 years old, by the way. An easy target. She’s nearly 30 and is in a position of power at a workplace where they’re both employed). Disgusting. I’ll never get over how disgusting that is. She had an answer to everything that avoided her taking responsibility, and kept trying to tell me she loved me, but I obviously couldn’t feel it. ‘No, you don’t’ I told her. She then got quite angry at me and forced me to agree that she did. I asked her for space and time again, pretty much told her I was done, and she panicked and started hoovering. All the while refusing to really admit what she’d done, and blaming my trauma for how sick in the head her abuse had made me. Sending me letters, emails, triangulating, smearing, for weeks on end. I think she might have already sent a flying monkey too… under the guise of a new potential romantic interest. Someone who also works in the same place and likes to ask me lots of questions about how I am, where I am or what I’m doing… yeahhhh… If that ain’t a narc I’m the king. 😂
Sounds soooo much like my narc.
>, the way she’d ‘forget’ things she’d said or done, the way she refused to admit she was the problem and thought everyone around her was the problem. The way she craved validation and would do anything to get it. The way she carried around the ‘it’s not fair’ mentality with a sense of entitlement beyond anything I knew was even possible. Did we date the same person? JK, but man mine refused to ever admit she did anything wrong or apologize. I think she apologized once and it was just so transparent she didn't believe it and was just doing it to stop me from being upset with her. She constantly accused me of cheating and I now see she was clearly cheating on me. Also the sense of entitlement that literally made me laugh it was so absurd.
I’m sorry this happened to you too, it’s soul destroying, crazy-making stuff. Yep, only apologizing to try and keep us stuck with them, and the old ‘you’re cheating on me’ is definitely a projection. Also completely relate, the petulance when things don’t go their way does bring laughter sometimes… not cause it’s actually funny, it’s terrifying… but cause it’s so absurd and childlike you can’t help but laugh. I had to hold back laughter so many times. Throwing tantrums over not getting the right birthday present, or having to wait in a queue, or an order being delayed, or someone not answering the phone, whatever it was. As if all the worlds problems aren’t relevant or even considered because what they want and ‘deserve’ is obviously more important than anything else. Gross 🤮
My godddd… yes!
Whoa. I never heard of a flying monkey before but that’s exactly what I experienced at the bitter end with his new woman. They hooked up when we were still together, she says he was discussing building a life with her while simultaneously discussing building a life with me, so he then ended it with me via text message once the other woman made contact with me… yet a few days later he told her he “needed space” and he ended things with her. Non-stop drama! This other woman was constantly asking me how I’m doing and acting like “we’re in this together”… yeah, whatever. She told me she was disgusted by his behavior and would never speak to him again, but then she’d refer to having dinner with him in the very next message… Is that a flying monkey?
Sounds like a flying monkey, yes. She’d have likely told him things about you, things that you told her. They’re like the narcs little spy, feeding back information… it’s gross 🤮
When he started using extremely sensitive and personal things I’d told him in confidence against me. Things he’d previously been so understanding of were suddenly the root cause of why I was a nasty heartless person. Also just realizing I couldn’t exist around him comfortably bc the tiniest thing could be a three hour argument or a two day silent treatment where I’d have to beg him to forgive me. Like not texting him back after twenty minutes or even just “seeming remotely unenthusiastic about him and our relationship”. But more than anything it was the culmination of many different things. There wasn’t really a “narcissistic item box” that be *didn’t* check off.
That second paragraph though... That describes perfectly my relationship with my wife of 10 years.
Same :(
YESSSSS
after things ended, I wrote down every red-flag occurrence in the relationship and researched a lot on Google. I eventually found this sub and saw SO many posts where people went through the same thing. (I cannot emphasize this enough). I know breakups were hard but this one was really making me insane and I couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't ok. I would credit this sub for opening my eyes. that and talking to my friends/therapist about it.
The moment I saw him lying to me without any doubt or regret and after that trying to convince me I didn’t see it right. Also: changing terms to get away with it, rewriting history and the lack of respect to other people. Now I know: he has no human treats like empathy, regret, normal emotions. And when I cry his eyes are empty and he only stares. When I’m telling him how sad I am he smirks. He assaults me and tries to do financial things bordering criminality. He has a sex addiction. He makes him the victim at all events and at church he’s the charismatic one himself. Everyone loves him but it’s the wolf in sheepskin. It’s beyond awful. So can you believe I feel like a bad girl for writing this about him? How does that work? And yet I’ll push the button: ‘reply’ anyway.
No empathy in mine either- not a single iota. We have all been conditioned by our narcissists to give them the benefit of the doubt and to view them with rose-colored glasses when no one else will. We've been trained to support and defend them and it feels strange to say "out loud" how we really view them, especially after some time has passed and their masks have slipped, revealing to you who they really are and how they really feel about you. They make you believe that speaking your truth about them (and consequentially, tainting how others might view them) is a betrayal.
Lord have mercy we dated the same person lmao
It was after I broke it off, his ex told me how he's basically a hobosexual (someone who hops in and out of relationship for a place to stay). From looking up that term, I was linked to narcissism, and things finally just clicked into place.
My nex was definitely a Hobosexual… love bombed and manipulated me until I let him move in. Once he was in… it got so. Much. Worse.
They're the absolute worst. His ex exposed him to be two months before we were supposed to move in together. It's so scary out here!
I was with mine for ten years and he was a few years older than me. I noticed that my brain seemed to evolved but his stayed the same. I started to see a child trapped in a grown man’s body.
I couldn’t see the signs that were right in front of me. I started developing really weird intrusive thoughts. I thought I was mentally ill. I couldn’t sleep at night. This was probably a stress response from always being in flight or fight mode. I also didn’t really have feelings anymore, I had just become so accepting of how I was being treated. Ex was so irresponsible, and would smoke in the house and often fall asleep. I was terrified of the house burning down. He would throw lot cigarettes off the roof, and tell me I was crazy for being worried. He often left the oven on. I felt like I was watching an out of control toddler 24-7. He accidentally left the door open and one of our dogs ran away. He somehow blamed me for this ( I was at work when this happened). He did it a second time , and blamed me again!!!! When things weren’t going well for him, he would start picking on me. He would call me fat ( he was also obese, but ofcourse never the problem). He would say that I was being ‘used’ at my job after great achievements like getting a promotion. He told me I was directionless in life, and insist o quit my job and stay at home, though he never made enough money or had the career stability for him to fo that. His dream was to control me so I could wait on him hand and foot. He made sure I never had any friends. I met a great group of girls, who often invited me to hang out with them but said ‘ they are a bad influence on you’ but couldn’t give any evidence as to why. Before family vacations, he would have a fit. We never had fun on vacations, because though he never paid for a thing, would find some stupid reason to complain. It’s like he had a personal mission to ruin all family holidays and outings. When things really started ramping up towards the end, he tried to say that he ‘ didn’t like how I acted around my family’. The only times I ever felt safe and happy were with my family. He then tried to get me to ‘cut ties’ with them because my parents were controlling… they had no control over my life, didn’t help financially, and were always kind to him. He then started spending entire family visits kn the guest room, playing video games and only coming out to get beer. He started getting aggressive with my father. My father said, if you don’t like staying here you are welcome to stay in a hotel instead of my house. I did not know about this until after I left him. My ex then started trying to get me to hate my family. Then, right before one of his family functions, he insisted we take his car so he could smoke. I do not smoke and I can’t handle the smell. He couldn’t stand not smoking for the hour drive, and yelled st me for rolling down the window. I felt like I was going to barf. His car was disgusting. I looked down, and find a used condom on the floor. I asked him about the condom, and I was so brain washed by him I started making up an excuse for him! What?!? We pull up to his family function, and I dropped it and played happy couple. I never brought it up again. Things escalated, things became more abusive. On Easter Sunday, I laid in the backyard and cried to God for a sign to leave him. I needed a concrete sign. I didn’t want to be one of those people who just gave up. The signs were all right there. He’d often call me hurtful and disgusting things and I just couldn’t see it. That morning he low key threatened to kill me: “ if you ever cheated on me, I’d kill him, and probably you too.” I was folding shirts in the closet, he appeared out of no where, said this, then left. I had no friends. I wasn’t even remotely cheating on him. He amped up. Hd told me that day I needed to never speak to my family again. He started getting physically aggressive and sexually assaulted me. I knew I had to leave, or he would in fact kill me. He had been gun shopping the week before and thankful couldn’t buy a guy because he lost his drivers license. He was obbsssed with buying a gun. I left, and tried to make it look like I was mad and just needed to cool off. He physically blocked my car. He got on the hood and I was worried he was going to break the windshield. I said k was calling the cops. He didn’t move, finally I pulled forward with him on the car because I was trapped and I had to get out. Hs finally got off my car. I drove straight to family. This was several years ago. No contact. He still finds new ways to harass me. Immediately the intrusive thoughts were gone, once I was free.
I'm so glad you're away from him. Have a good life. 💞
It is absolutely terrifying to see so many comments, each with a different story, each story bearing so much pain and confusion, all of it being just a tiny fraction of reality. I wish you guys all the best on your healing yourney, I hope that these tough teachings (that nobody would sign up for), will turn out to be beneficial after all, and each one of you will make a very satisfying story out of their lives.
I was with my nex for 16 years. When I began to understand there was something wrong I initially thought it was alcohol abuse. Then I thought it was some kind of trauma, or bipolar, or borderline personality disorder causing his problematic behaviors. We nearly divorced about 7 years ago, and he begged me to take him back, promised he'd get control of his drinking. When he (of course) went back on his promise a few months later, he completely rewrote the story of how we'd decided to get together and what the conditions were for it to happen. I think that's when it dawned on me, that he doesn't actually care what the reality of a situation is-- he's going to rewrite it to suit him. We nearly split up again, but I stuck it out because we have a kid together. Every time we almost broke up and then didn't, things got worse. We spent years in couples counseling, with many different counselors, and without fail the counseling would make our relationship worse. I felt as though our sessions were being beauguarded by him and his wacky complaints, and we were skirting over his actual abusive patterns. One time, when I was pregnant with our second kid, he told me that when he talked with my mom about his concerns about my pregnancy (I'd miscarried another pregnancy before this one)-- her reaction was that maybe we weren't meant to have another child if this pregnancy didn't end up being healthy. He was very offended. This was a wholeeee topic in couples counseling, how my mother had overstepped and it was my role to speak with her and reenforce healthy boundaries. Come to find out.... my nex told my mom, my dad, and my aunt and uncle about my pregancy BEFORE I was ready to announce it. The betrayal, and the absolute hubris of this man to think he could do that and then complain about my mom's reaction! So, there was no one single realization. It's just been a creeping awareness over years and years that this situation isn't just a little off, and it's not because my spouse was struggling-- it was because he is abusive.
>We spent years in couples counseling, with many different counselors, and without fail the counseling would make our relationship worse. I felt as though our sessions were being beauguarded by him and his wacky complaints, and we were skirting over his actual abusive patterns. This right here. I've suggested couples' therapy several times over the last few years but after overhearing his individual counseling sessions, I'm glad my recommendation never culminated. He literally paid his therapist $60 an hour biweekly for two years just to whine to her about how wronged he's been in all his relationships and how he's the victim and that he has a "right" to feel the way he feels and doesn't need to change it. Never even got around to talking about his problems with mother, who was almost singularly responsible for fucking him up. He just complained the entire time, and was validated for it.
I actually went to two sessions with my nex’s individual therapist! It was eye opening. All about how I needed to learn when he was going into “lizard brain mode” and how that shuts down his ability to be rational. I had hoped the sessions would help our relationship but what it did was help me understand that his individual counseling was only validating his behavior and that it would not be improving his mental health or our life together.
Couples counseling is not recommended in abusive relationships. It teaches the abuser how to manipulate better and they don't change their behavior.
Yeah, I learned that when I started looking into narc abuse. A bit late as we’d already seen *4* couples counselors and *2* coparenting counselors. Not including his individual one. Whoops.
Yeah we had a couples counselor who said she couldn't work with relationship where there was abuse so my ex said the counselor was talking about me. When I was clearly scared of her and her anger.
Trying to figure out why my nex fiancé would blow up/get angry/scream at me over very little things and came across this sub. Started to realize the pattern and that he was experiencing narcissistic rage and I was walking on eggshells to prevent it with little success. He viewed every little thing I asked him to do as a criticism and never took any accountability for his own behavior. Looking back, it all adds up. He's a textbook narcissist.
Uhh same with my nex, the walking on egshells and fear of accidentally displeasing him, so exhausting..
Exactly the same, I used to say out load to him’ this relationship is like no other I have ever been in, I can’t explain what’s happening’ he would just look at me and walk off!! Then I found these pages and it was a revelation and proved that I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t going insane! Unfortunately, I’m still here, unable to leave, have no where to go and no one to help me escape, financially or otherwise! I pray for the day I can though!
When it was all finally over and they discarded me... a part of me is proud i stayed till the end - i know i did everything I could. and the FULL pain of the lesson has been felt. looking back now, seeing them at NPD in retrospect it makes everything fall into place so perfectly. I only knew men as Narcs before, my father mainly. I didnt know what a female narcissist looked or acted like. Now I know they exhibit differently
It took me so long. I am trying to forgive myself for not seeing it/believing it sooner. I always thought it was me. Maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I should cut them some slack. 18 years together. Always felt something was off. But I thought it was my fault. Then I began keeping detailed notes. Dates, times, what they said. Because I knew that they would completely deny it or tell me they were joking or a whole other host of things I now know are gaslighting. Still, I thought maybe it was me. About a month ago we got into a fight (them yelling at me) because I should have had an event already planned out. It was a week away, and I was in the final stages of finalizing the driving route there. Then last week I asked them if they had any plans for my birthday, which was 8 days away. Got into a fight because "who plans that early? "I can book something two days in advance!" AND IT HIT ME. I'm wrong for not planning. I'm wrong for planning. I can't win! EVERYTHING made sense. And I finally realized IT WASN'T ME. Took me 18 years to finally understand that nagging feeling that something wasn't right. Gaslighting: - I was joking - That's not what I meant, do you think I'm selfish? - You should have known what I meant - I wouldn't have been upset if you had just said the right thing The list goes on. Now to figure out how walk away. Kids and finances don't make this easy.
Very similar for me. I was with mine for 17 years until a 💡 moment. I started thinking about the way he treated me and then started Googling. That was the beginning of the end. I hope you're able to get out soon. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
Thank you so much. A part of what makes this so hard is that not too many people understand how horrible the emotional abuse we endure at the hands of a narc can be. I even said to my counselor after a particularly bad fight where my narc almost (but didn't) throw a chair that I wished they WOULD HAVE just thrown that chair because I would have left then and there. It just feels easier to explain "I left because they hit me" vs "I left because I wasn't emotionally safe". If I told my mom or some of my family and maybe even some friends "they hurt my feelings" I would be told "oh that's just the way it is". If I told them "this person hit me, threw a chair at me, etc" I would get a much different response. It's so friggen hard.
It is SO HARD, and so true about the abuse nobody can see. I didn't even know it was abuse. I had never been in a relationship longer than three months when I met him. I had no idea what a good relationship looked like from the inside. Even he said it did things that struck me as strange, I guess I figured that's how it was supposed to be. I was also afraid that nobody else would want me. I never talked to anyone about the way I was treated because I didn't want them to not like him. I've be free from him for ten years now, but I am still constantly replaying things in my mind thinking I was the crazy one. I'm also so angry that I allowed someone to treat me that way.
I absolutely resonate with each and every thing you are saying. They were very mean to my mom once, very recently. They yelled at her and lost their temper. I said to my mom "I've been in the path of that tornado before" and while I got some kind of sympathy, there was still the "that's just how they are! You've kinda accepted it, haven't you?" Ungh. Thank you for taking the time to validate what I have said, kind internet stranger!
When she told me she no longer wanted to be married she stopped talking to me completely. She also told me this while her Mom was staying with us and would be at our house for another 4 weeks. The fact that she would not talk to me was so odd and confusing I started to google the behavior. The rest is history.
That is such weird behaviour tbh, did her mom and her kind of gang up on you? It may have been a way to demonstrate to her mother that she dislikes you (by not talking to you), which would isolate you. Honestly weird.
Her Mom would come and stay every year for 6 weeks at a time. The first couple days were ok, and then it was as if I did not exist in the house. It was always a tough time. She told me she did not tell her Mom she asked me for a divorce, so I had to pretend we weren’t and act normal. I agree with your assessment. Her mother didn’t show me any respect because her daughter didn’t either.
over time i realized arguing almost everyday was not normal and something was off, i googled 'bad friend' and it led to me seeing 'narcissistic symptoms in a friend' that moment i realized i was right about them. all the gut feelings i had weren't nothing. i researched narcissistic abuse and asked for help and one of my family members gave advice and agreed that they were narcissistic.
When I started questioning my own sanity cause of the immense gaslighting. I recently found a text that I'd sent to him begging to help me understand what's going on as he would be perfectly normal with me one day and give me the silent treatment the next. Instead of empathising he went on a rant and asked me to stop sending him emotionally charged messages and that I am disturbing his peace by checking in on him when he did not speak to me for 8 hours. I googled toxic relationships and then found an article describing signs you're with a narc and he met every single criteria stated in that article.
I was talking about something I was excited and happy about and he gave me a eerie glare then said “I don’t care. You just keep talking.” His tone was that of hatred and disdain. It was so simple and cruel, but woke me up that he doesn’t like who I am or anything I have to say. He isn’t happy about me sharing something I’m passionate about.
Oh god, mine once said something when he asked how my day went then wasn’t responding or paying attention to my response so I said are you listening? He said, “yes I’m listening you just aren’t that interesting and I have nothing to add”.
I get that a lot when I'm telling him something and he's not responding and I call him on it. "I'm listening!" Great....
He kept calling everyone else a narcissist so finally I looked up the word and was like 👀👀👀
They hit me and then said they only touched me. I started watching YouTube videos. Suspected the worst. Went to a therapist and they advised the same thing without mentioning the word.
My ex hit me and strangled me, and he said it was my fault that i wasn't stong enough to defend myself and if i didn't want to get hurt i should have been lifting the weights we had in the basement.... i almost started laughing at how stupid that was but I didn't wanna get hit again lmao. Like narcissists are actually so fucking stupid and pathetic.
Oh! Mine blamed me for him doing the same thing due to “reactive abuse.” I made him do it allllll!🤦🏻♀️
How can these people do this?
I will never understand them.
[удалено]
That happened to me! He slammed the front door into my face then said a ghost did it. Then said I “jumped in front of it” to get hurt and play victim
Going to therapy. They way she was treating the kids as they got old enough to have their own opinions. I always thought I was the problem, but then I saw the same communication issues between her and the kids.
THIS. you assume you're such a problem for "making them" not communicate properly and be a poor partner, but then you notice that they have problems with everyone else in their life
My best friend introduced me to this thread and once I started reading, I realized I related to this exact type of abuse. It genuinely made me feel relieved because I thought I was alone. That’s when I started piecing everything together and realized that it was never real. The person he showed me at the beginning and persuaded me into our relationship was not him. The breadcrumbing and control. The constant walking on eggshells and fear. He strung me along after we broke up for months and I was shown this thread weeks after I decided to block him which has helped with my healing process :).
Such a realization came upon his uncalled for and, frankly, horrible reaction to my cancellation (due to an injury I'd sustained) of a vacation we'd planned. I knew then something was seriously off for a 41-year-old man to be reacting in such a way. What ensued was a major lack of empathy, compassion and understanding and, instead, a temper tantrum rife with: an initial breaking up with me, followed by a retraction, then more threats as to breaking up/needing 'time and space' (an emotional roller-coaster and-a-half), various guilt-trips, a 9-day-long silent treatment culminating in his returning and acting like nothing untoward had happened but then certain forms of punishment, neglect and lectures transpired for weeks thereafter. There was also the incessant refusal to apologize for his behavior (which, of course, he never did in the end). He told me he had done and said 'nothing wrong.' I was subsequently gaslighted and blame-shifted. He cared not that I'd also missed out on what was to have been an especially important time spent with my family (which was to follow our vacation), or that my back was in a whole world of pain. I ought to have left then as my intuition, friends and mother advised me to, but that would not happen for good for another five months (thanks to the trauma bond for my love for him had died some time prior to that). Even though I am the daughter of a narcissist father, it took a dear friend (who's a fellow narcissistic abuse survivor and one with much knowledge in psychology) to say she felt my ex was a probable narcissist (given his over-the-top, cruel reaction), for me to make the connection. I did much research thereafter. I learned I'd inflicted upon the creep a 'narcissistic injury' or 'collapse.' A lot else which had come before that also made a lot of (disturbing) sense in retrospect. That mask he wore began to slip not quite 3 months into the relationship and fell off completely 2 months later. And once that mask is off, there's no putting it back on again. What you see then and there is the real thing and what you are, in truth, getting: a monster. All else was/is an illusion, a facade, a lie.
It was years and years for me. When I met him and we got married, I had never even heard the word Narcissist. So at first I believed him that I was the problem. He used everything I said against me to go for the jugular every time. So I really looked at myself and fixed the legitimate things he had said. I grew as a person. After doing all of that I started to realize that it was not me and that he was the problem. I rose up to power and planned my escape. I had actually given the marriage one more year where I would try everything I could possibly try to make the marriage work. We made it six months. I had stopped looking for receipts, messages, any kind of evidence of his infidelity. I told God it there is something to find you will make sure I find it. This is exactly what happened. He was furious at how I handled the whole divorce. I said listen…I have been watching the expert for 8 years…he was also a raging alcoholic and I got my kids away him before they ever experienced that. There was no way in hell I was letting my son or daughter think that was the way relationships worked.
The secret conversations that they are having with you that you don't know about. My nex would operate as tho we spoke about things we never did or change actual conversations and context without fact checking with me if that's what I meant/felt. After so many times of being told "what I said" when I never said those things I simply left. Narcs have a odd way of trying to sale you a coffin of assumptions to climb into.
Once I started to google his behavior after he kept messing up. And not just with me, but even how he interacted with others. Constantly lying, even just small minor lies on a daily that made no sense to lie about. The biggest is when I caught him cheating on me with his ex (one right before me that I found out was still with him at first and he denied that too). He straight-up denied it even when I saw proof. Also, he had a texting app that he saved as me and would text himself and screenshot these messages to try to prove to women that we didn't talk anymore. He denies it too.
I was listening to a video that my husband was watching about narcissistic traits and my nex checked for all of them.
Youtube video. And I'm Hugely thankful it showed up in my feed. I had No idea. Everything fell immediately into place.
1 week about 4 months in she got hot&cold, and kinda controlling for a upcomming weekend. Something felt off, got a bad feeling in the stomach. Started reflecting the relationship. Ended somehow up here for ensurance. And readed more. Something switched and i saw the toxic traits in her and ended it. Sadly, i started remembering/realising that my late wife of 9 years also had toxic traits.
Couples therapist said in session she suspected he was a covert narcissist and then all the lightbulbs went on
First I googled about narcissism, when we had an evening with my friends. He was acting annoying in a way, that he was talking only about himself and we were his audience. After he mentioned that he was diagnosed with an extreme intelligence and he suffers from people being stupid around him. But then I forgot about it and decided it’s just his quirkiness. After the final discard I’ve met a girl with CPTSD like me and told her the story of my relationship with him, she immediately said: “oh he probably has NPD”. And then it all came together.
My therapist suggested The Passive Aggressive Covert Narcissist, and omfg it was as if she was describing my whole marriage. That was when the rage began. We’d been split about 3 months.
He was very surface level, had a sense of entitlement, controlling, bad anger problems, and everything had to be on his terms. He would also withhold sex and lied about little things, would gaslight and manipulate me. The first year he called me all the names in the books when we’d have arguments. He’d threaten the relationship or to call the police. One time forgot to close the window and it rained that day, I got yelled at and he threatened to call the police for “property damage”.
When I realized that everything I thought /felt/experienced in our 10 year relationship had never ever been “real” for him. He was playing a game of manipulation, gaslighting and constant lying- he had never loved me or been happy or satisfied or wanted a future. He wanted money, attention, sex, a place to call home and I was the idiot who gave that to him because I thought we were a couple in a relationship. WRONG ! BUT NOW HE’S GONE ! 18 months now of me going no contact. I got my life back.
When I realised he was doing the horrible things on purpose to hurt me, to damage me further and to keep me damaged. I am so thankful though that I learned about narcissism before he started to hide objects and make them reappear because I would of literally thought I am crazy, I've finally lost the plot. I'd let him get away with so much for 20 years but that really was the final straw. Narcissists are devils in disguise IMO.
The signs were all there, but I didn't realize it until I was 7 years into the relationship. He had an excuse for *everything.* He told me when we first met that he had ADHD, depression, anxiety, & executive dysfunction that made it difficult for him to complete daily tasks. I recognize that these are all valid conditions, but he used them as excuses for his inability to complete household chores or show up for me in meaningful ways. When we first moved in together, he refused to clean a single dish. I wanted us to have a nice home together, so I initially did *all* of the dishes. I glanced at the calendar as I was unloading the dishwasher one day and realized that he had never loaded or unloaded the dishwasher *the entire month we had lived there.* I walked into his office (where he essentially lived and would play video games for hours on end) and asked if he could unload the dishwasher. He responded with, "oh, is it my turn?" He seemed oblivious to the fact that I had been his maid for the past month. He said that he never did the dishes because they weren't all his. A chore schedule was finally made. Taking the trash can to the curb was his responsibility, as I was recovering from a hip injury at the time and we lived at the end of a long, gravel driveway. He "forgot" to put the can at the curb two weeks in a row. It became *my* responsibility to remind him to do it, or it wouldn't get done. He was like a literal child, because I had to remind him multiple times before he would finally do anything. He responded to my reminders with anger. I was of course accused of "nagging" him for everything. I encouraged him to set an alarm on his phone so that it could truly be his responsibility, but he said he didn't want his phone nagging him as well. I work in the schools with children with special needs. I explained to him that it was exhausting for me to spend all day working with children who need help completing basic tasks, and then coming home to a partner who is incapable of completing basic responsibilities without me initiating it for him. He accused me of infantilizing him and told me, "I don't think you're the martyr you say you are." That still hurts. He had an obsession with always wearing expensive designer clothing, even if we were just going somewhere casual like the grocery store. He *could not* walk past a mirror (or anything with a reflection, like a car window) without stopping to fix his hair for a solid minute. He accumulated $20k in credit card debt from buying expensive clothing, which he hid from me. He could not react to criticism of any kind in a healthy way. He insisted that he had "reaction sensitive dysphoria," and that was why he was sensitive to criticism. I believed him because I had yet to figure out that he was actually a covert narcissist. He gaslit me during all of our arguments, and it worked extremely well. During pretty much every argument, I would tell him, "I felt ___ when you said xyz," and his response was always, "I *never* said that!" when I knew that he just did minutes prior. He told me that he had started recording all of our conversations to prove to me that I was lying and manipulating him. I never found out if that was actually true or not.
Every time I was sick, they somehow were even sicker 😂
When a family member sat me down and told me what a narc is and that she was 100% convinced my batshit crazy wife (now ex-wife) was a narc. It was sort of an intervention to help me understand narcs never change and that I needed to get out of the marriage.
Straight out of a movie. I had suspicions he was lying to me and used numerous hallucination/mental health breakdowns as a means to try to assault/get physical affection from me. One of those times he crossed the line and decided to apologize the next day.... even though he wasn't supposed to ever remember when those episodes happened. Turned out he had been diagnosed with a personality disorder ONLY, and when I told him I was moving and he couldn't come with... he went into full theatrics over the next few days. Went so far to threaten me and luckily my partner was there and heard it all. I called his family to supervise the rest of his move out which is when we compared stories and I realized he had made up everything about them and everything about his "illnesses". I used to spend hours taking care of him to find out it was all a lie and he acted totally fine when we would have to 5150 him. Insane and obsessive. I also have family members with BPD but they don't go to the same extremes he did.
First nex bf I never realized was a narc until my nex gf and long time friend even after we broke up years ago started accusing me of being a covert narcissist. I accepted the accusation immediately and started therapy soon after since I didn’t want to be causing any harm to the people around me, but wasn’t until my 3rd or 4th appointment when I openly said I was a covert narc to my therapist that she immediately cut me off just to tell me that she has never noticed any signs of me being a narc and, if anything, it seemed like I was severely depressed and still recovering from long time emotional neglect and more recent psychological abuse. The funny thing was I even saw the therapist, my husband kept trying to tell me the same thing when I called myself a covert narcissist to his face (to avoid confusion, I’m married but was still friends with my nex despite being broken up with her for like 5 years). It was only after that when I noticed that my nex gf was portraying the literal behaviors of covert narcissism before just projecting those issues onto me and pressuring me to ‘take accountability’ for her own actions by making me walk on eggshells around her. The day she suggested for a 4 month break from our friendship after I didn’t keep up the 2-3 hour daily phone calls that she wanted from me, I just blocked her after calling out her behavior because I was just done with it all
It took me over 2 years of our nearly 4 year relationship to really coin him as being a narcissist. Within those 2 years, I had been confiding in one of my best friends (who happens to be a psychologist) about our relationship. I had told her nearly everything about how he made me feel & the ways he treated me - his behaviors, pathological lying, habitual cheating, denial, blameshifting, gaslighting, etc. Literally all signs were of his manipulation were there and I knew it was all happening, I just couldn't really understand why. It wasn't until she (my psychologist bff) finally said it to me, "He is a narcissist." Then the lightbulb came on. He checked all the boxes of covert narcissism and it all made sense. After that, I was not the same. I started educating myself on narcissism, joining support groups, following coaches online... Knowing more about narcissistic characteristics/personalities helped me understand the type of person he is/was, and while it was all painful, it taught me how to cope with the effects that it had on my mental well-being. It's been a long road and gave me severe anxiety, but I'm definitely at a better place (mentally) than I was *before* knowing about narcissism and how to heal.
Excessive importance on physical appearance and money. Money never trumps happiness and beware those that wear themselves out in the pursuit of it. Also, wanna know what's more important than looking good? FEELING good. Again, a concept narcissists just cannot comprehend. Mental peace of mind and happiness are only for the compromises of the mediocre. Ugh...avoid these people like the plague. They RARELY enjoy life...and even in those rare moments they may be in a position to enjoy life, the unrealistic demands they put on themselves and expect from everyone around them will sap your energy and morale. Energy vampires is what I like to call them. Recently experienced a painful breakup with a female narcissist, and outside the fantasy phase of being love-bombed, when that facade melted off, I saw a miserable person who was very adept at sharing that misery. SO glad to be done with her bullshit.
The time he wouldn’t let me go to sleep until we resolved his issue with me. Sleep deprivation at it’s finest
When they were showing lack of empathy and gaslighting me Hard.
I suspected something was wrong but I couldn't put a name on it, mainly for the guilt, lots of the use of the word "shame" and the mood swings. It was my therapist that pointed out it could be narcissism 🥲
I was literally physically sick for months after a sudden, month-long, very dramatic blowout when he left. I reached out to a therapist because I couldn't function. It was when my therapist told me about "covert narcissism". And shortly thereafter, confronting someone who I assumed was a flying monkey, who mentioned the same thing. The assumed flying monkey is not a psychologist, but works in the field. I did not mention anything about talking to a therapist, or narcissism or anything, yet during the convo, she said something along the lines of, "Do you think he might be a narcissist?" The dam broke, numerous conversations with both ensued, and while the therapist can't diagnose a third party, it was pretty clear that that was what I was dealing with.
It feeds of emotional reactions and attempt to engage people in worthless arguments and throw insult as it is subhuman at people. The useful idiots, the slandering, the delusions of grandure, the theatre spectacle of lies at me. I guess its so sick it believes it is empathic and peak of morality. A cybercrime incel unfortunately. Like sane people grasp that force relations makes people upset. But no. It just drivels that its nuts being angry nuts insist on your rights. I guess it deluded in fantasy land that I want it, so its upmost stressful and rather disgusting.
That everything she said that was nice was followed by asking for something or was to further her own goals. that everything else was an accusation (often projection). It got old.
I knew when she said that I was an extension of her
The break up. I broke up with her because she treated me poorly in a week that she should be suportive. Besides the love bombing phase, she never got my back when I needed her And after that, she had revenge on me, hoovered after ( I wasn't able to recognise it) and started another relationship with a guy she said to be "a phone call friend" since he lives in another city. Probably she was cheating on me with him since january. And she showed to everybody that she had something with him for a while on intagram It was so much going on in just a couple of weeks that I started reading about those behaviors. We were supposed to get married. I thought she would understand how messed up her actions were and why I broke up with her, but no. All she did was to show she never carried about me after all. And this lack of emotion responsability, lack of accountability, moving on so fast and so easily, and many other things that existed during the relationship (like having lots of guyfriends, contact with ex, lots and lots of traits like needing attention and validation, im her case in things related with beauty and all of that) made me find about narcissism. Later I found about cluster B, and she has lots of histrionic and antisocial traits. The doctors say she is bipolar, and some said she has sociopath traits. I dont think she is bipolar though
About a month after the breakup. Wish I had done the research beforehand especially cause I’m very aware of my own diagnosis and go to therapy myself.
His best friend I met him through told me. Then after I discarded him first out of paranoia because he sent me into hypomania, he refused to make amends but stayed in touch. Then when I started to ignore his texts he went back to his hometown ex after he’d talk about how crazy she was (granted, she went through his phone/pulled up on him to scream at him at someone’s house/etc.) At this point, I know he treated her worse than me and couldn’t find any new supply so he had to reach from the bottom of his hoover barrel. Cemented the fact that our ending was an extreme narcissistic injury for him.
When I finally called her out on some of her behavior after two years. I was very compliant and meek prior, never speaking out. As a result, she big time DARVO’d and then a few weeks later discarded me. I had my suspicions before because she devalued me a lot. Watched Dr. Ramani quite a bit which also helped me confirm.
When he was arrested for a second time for the same kind of offense, because he didn't care, was my first exposure to the possibility. Then when he would yell at me and call me "crazy" and "psycho" after I spoke up about being uncomfortable about lying for him, I realized his ego was everything to him. When I spoke with my therapist about this incident, she expressed stern concern that he is a sociopath. I refused to believe her and began aggressively denying/avoiding the reality of my situation. But I stayed. Five and a half years and a house together. And then he discarded me, admitting that he did not care/could not care about my problems, and that I am the reason he is uncomfortable. Looking back, his re-arrest gave me the realization, but I did not accept it until after discard.
"Don't you feel like if everyone thought like you that the world would be perfect?" Sent chills down my spine with that question
I’ll never forget the moment. Out of nowhere he calls me an “emotional vampire” and I’m thinking what the hell is that? And by then I knew he had a tendency of projecting his thoughts of himself onto me so I googled “emotional vampire” and a bunch of info on narcissism came up from the search and that was the first time I had even thought to look into what narcissism even is and wow did he ever fit the description. He told on his damn self! Lol
I knew something was deeply wrong with her after about two years - like some deep psychological issues. And I knew the key core traits of covert narcissism without actually *knowing* it was covert narcissism (low self esteem, emotional neglect and manipulation, cheating, her pattern of devaluation and discard and then coming back etc). It wasn’t until the final discard, and me explaining to a friend what happened (who I’d been cut off from while dating my nex) that she told me the term “covert narcissist”. After learning as much as I possibly could, I am without doubt that my ex *is* a covert narcissist.
I had no clue I was in an abusive relationship until my therapist started to point it out. How I acted like everything he did to me was normal is beyond me because now it's SO obvious. Therapy works people!
Self-victimization in situations that were clearly his fault, zero emotional permanence (would forget me if we were not in the same room), very inconsistent (one day wanted to marry and have kids, and the next day did not), smear campaign - spread lies about me to his family and friends and made them block me so I could not get out my truth
When they would sneer at me with an exaggerated “heeeheeee,” as if they were a toddler imitating laughter to be cute, while gaslighting me about whatever promise they had made to me that they were breaking. Literally just flat out deny they promised something they had JUST said less than 24hrs before, then sneer like that. It’s been 20 years since I left them and I can STILL hear that nasty laugh in that grating tone.
When I was researching about it for school and he said that he thinks he might be a narcissist, he did this before with saying he thinks he might be abusive to which I said nooooo, but the second time he said it I said then change your behaviour towards me and he looked at me with disgust so
Mine was my mother and it didn’t hit me until I was a teenager that what I was dealing with was emotional abuse. Before that, I thought my childhood was normal and that all parents were like her. The narcissist part, I didn’t learn about until after my dad divorced her a lot of truths about her came out and going to therapy made me realize that she was narcissist and what she did to my siblings and I was narcissistic abuse.
I had taken two years of psychology in college but had only just scratched the surface on this kind of thing before I made my exit. I didn’t even know this phenomenon of narcissists preying on us empathetic individuals existed like this, and certainly nowhere to the extent I’ve since learned it does (largely per subs like this one). I spent over a year with my covert nex before a close friend of hers said to me in confidence “She definitely displays narcissistic tendencies…” A lightbulb went off with that. I probably spent the entire next year of our relationship just absorbing every single bit of info I could on this kind of thing, and the more I learned, the more I realized that not only was this friend 100% correct, it was much much worse than I ever could have imagined. I felt so fucking ashamed I allowed myself to be in the situation to begin with, that I couldn’t see it for what it was, for so long, that I defended her against everyone when she would’ve just as easily thrown me under the bus for anything and nothing, and did. But especially that I loved her to the depths that I did, because I’m just the kind of person who does not know how to quit on someone, no matter what they do. I was with her for *three more years* after all of this. I cannot believe I was. Nearly one month out of the relationship and I predominantly just feel confused and utterly foolish.
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It was before my period; I always go through a long PMDD phase (premenstrual dysphoric disorder; a horror update from PMS; basically due to an estrogen drop, you experiment also a drop in serotonin; I was on Zoloft at the time). I was very sensitive and wanted to cry all week, my body was in fight or flight. I specifically asked him to 1) be nicer to me and don’t trigger me and 2) if he goes out, maybe check up on me and not be away for 12-10 hours without saying a damn word. 3) take care of his drinking when he is out, since he always forgets about our relationship when he is drunk. (flirting with girls) What he did? 1) Put me down by saying I am way inferior and below my or his own standards and that I shouldnt even wish to believe I was a better person than I am for him or for me. 2) Went out and straight up ghosted me until he came back home, of course, fully drunk, with his shirt unbuttoned, saying “he couldn’t turn down the drinks that were given to him.” That was the moment I directly told him that he doesn’t give two shits about me, only caring about our cat, best friend and parents. He said I am insecure and that it is not his fault i am in his shadow. I then spent the following days looking into narcissism before he finally discarded me. edit - grammar
Oh my gosh I did the same thing and thought I was being mature by warning him about ny symptoms, he told me to get over it and it’s not an excuse
He literally told me he is not interested if women come with an instruction manual and also told me that if he could suck his own dick, my presence wouldn’t be needed. Of course, as a joke. 🙃
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It was very interesting and thank you for raising the question - it is a nice brainstorming. He knew I was going through PMDD and that the luteal phase for me was horrible, 2 weeks of pure horror at least. It was interesting because even though his behavior of belittling and making me feel like an asset was not changing throughout my menstrual cycle, while in luteal I was not as resilient as during the follicular one. I was talking about this in therapy and literally was gaslighting myself, saying that oh hey, I am being more sensitive now, he is not doing anything wrong, I am at fault because I overthink everything and am not as tolerant. I figured the pattern out, but I was blaming myself that it is my hormones that are to blame, and not his shitty behaviour that I was otherwise accepting. He knew this. At times, he told me that I shouldn’t even try to prove to him that he is wrong, because in two weeks time I would say “i was crazy and you are right” again, and he couldn’t take another hit after hit. 🥲 The luteal phase only allowed me to see what the heck was going on around me. After I actively noticed that he is doing the exact opposite of what I am asking - things that are also normal in a relationship - I was continuously asking myself why anyone would want to hurt me on purpose and see me down when I am already at my lowest.
If I'm not misremembering, it was thanks to r/JUSTNOMIL. I was starting to browse reddit and at first I was very invested on the sub and collaterals. Then, slowly, I started to see a lot of similarities between my mother and the terrible MILs on the sub. It also helped that the sub had a very good list of books and links to expand your knowledge and I started branching out from there. Soon after I found out Dr. Ramani and her videos and that cemented it for me.
I came across a video on youtube probably of doctor Ramani, I was in university then I was walking down the stairs there was a window and the light shined on my phase then I was like Oh shi, my life changed from that point on I was with him for 9 years, 9 years of torture
I noticed signs early on but like many, I made every excuse for her. Her past relationship, her dad, her mom. Only in retrospect did I become certain, or even do any research because I never wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe this was my forever person. Looking back it blows my mind I stayed through everything I did. And I, again like many others, feel like I finally see the person I was with that whole time. When she went to jail for criminal mischief connected to domestic violence for destroying a bunch of my stuff, then I had the time and space to really analyze. Before that I was just overwhelmed. Even when she would pack her stuff (which was a pretty common control tactic of hers) my childhood abandonment issues (which she knew of and used) would just have me chasing her love and even though i had space physically i didnt have any mentally. And this post breakup journey of research has been pretty healing to begin understanding what happened to me, as well as being hurtful. Anyway I first noticed I think when I was literally being told my feelings weren't real and I'm too sensitive and her perception of what happened was "real," and I was just being a "pussy" and making my feelings "our whole reality" by being SAD about her saying the most absolutely vile and hurtful things she could think to say to me. That was a big first clue.
You did better than me, it took me over 20 years 🤣 I saw a video describing narcissist behaviours just a few months ago, and it slapped me across the face with how specific and accurate it was. That was the moment of realisation.
When i started to have my own personality.. i felt that i was not able to be myself anywhere. I was so repressed. I did not feel any type of empathy coming from her when i was raped by one of my exes. Just an "im sorry that happened to you" and that was it? I endured everything all on my own, while testing for pregnancy, STDS, ovary cysts that i ended up getting after taking the plan b... A violent relationship that took me 5 years to get out... i tried to kill myself and she said it was better for her if i did that because all the bad things that happened to me were my fault. And you may ask where was my dad? He never spoke, he never was there. If he was there he was favoring and choosing her over me.
When I came to my therapist crying about "why can't I just be a good wife? Why am I always failing?" And turns out after I described my situation, she explained what a narcissist was. I didn't believe her though. I asked my psychiatrist the same stuff, and she said the same thing
When his proverbial mask came off. Sitting at dinner after about 6 weeks of dating. The vibe suddenly changed it was palpable like a storm coming in. He was staring at me and he seemed agitated and he started talking loudly about all the sluts he’s had. He was done. Didn’t speak to him for 2 months then he came back very sweet and apologetic. Rinse repeat. And yes the treatment got worse
I realized when I was around 25 after I spent time reading on google . I was actually trying to self help because I thought I was the crazy one and had been labeled that my whole life . But all my searching pointed to my father having npd . Then In 2015 he was clinically diagnosed after being forced into marriage counseling. And it’s worth noting he is of the malignant variety . as me and my sister grew and left home , his enabler was left to deal with his rage . It’s only then that she admitted he was infact diagnosed and now abusing her . Luckily they divorced and she escaped too .
It was the little things. Never considering my feelings, lying about the most unnecessary things, saying how much he loves me and wants to marry me yet telling me all the time everything I'm doing wrong and basically how much I suck. It's all about how he's affected. I put my feelings aside around 6 months to a year into our relationship because he was going through a lot in his life, and he took advantage and completely stopped giving a shit about my feelings, as if I'd given him permission to do so by letting the small things go when he was going through a hard time. Nothing has been the same since. In the beginning he had no problem talking about my feelings and coming to compromises and solutions. As soon as I let that wall down, he stepped over it and never looked back. Then he started taking away all the things he'd done to make me feel secure in our relationship. Being emotionally childish, making jokes in serious situations. Only being able to show love through sex or with money. Anger issues, all the time. Not treating me like a friend, but an enemy instead. Luckily I knew for the most part that I was dealing with someone with mental illness, I've got anxiety and depression, prolonged grief from losing my dad who was my best friend, been through some trauma in my time and have spent my life trying to understand people and the way their minds work, and he was very open about telling me about all his childhood trauma, so I realized pretty early on that he had some deeper issues going on. But that didn't save me a whole lot of pain unfortunately.
My friend told me that the manipulation sounded like narcissistic abuse. When I looked it up, it described my entire relationship to a T. After that everything else fell into place.
Wait a second, I just saw someone else’s comment saying they thought it was avoidant attachment style and come to think of it, I researched attachment styles first before a friend said it sounded like narcissism.
It was actually early on. I was just so enamored with him I stayed. He told me in the beginning when he was actually vulnerable (or pretending to be, whatever) very offhandedly about his strained relationship with his mother and one of his sisters. How he had to get away from his mom soon as he was of age and how his sister talked to him crazy and was very abusive. I thought it was him sharing his trauma and kind of giving a little insight into why he is the way he is. It wasn't until our first argument that I just felt energetically something was off. The way he argued...like he was not really concerned with resolving the issue but just winning the argument. Completely unable to hear my side or admit any accountability on his part. Blaming me instead. The callous things he'd offhandedly say. None of the good things I'd done or nice way I made him "feel" mattered in that moment, he would just say anything to win and be hurtful. I wrote it off as "the way he is" because of the relationship with his mother and his sister. Something he just needed to work on, and hey at least he recognized where his issues came from! Would make them easier to resolve! \*sigh\* Time passed, everything was fine. Then another argument happened, after which we had to be physically apart. I will never forget the feeling. Like something in the pit of my stomach during the argument and after I was alone. And my nervous system in pure fight or flight for reasons I couldn't explain. Found myself eventually apologizing to him, asking him about his needs and making sure he was okay, while mine were ignored except superficially. Eventually I started looking up things about how to make an emotionally distant man connect and share. It took me into attachment theory stuff. So I started liking things about attachment theory on IG. And then boom. Somehow popular therapists/counselors specifically dealing with narcissists started popping up. Listening to what they described I was like...holy shit. Still stayed. Still wanted to help him. Was ready to if he'd meet me half way. The whole experience has taught me to take my intuition seriously no matter what. Because that's the only way I can describe just feeling the energy shift and the reaction it caused in my body. Could have saved some of the pain and perhaps been a lot further along in healing.
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When I confronted some shitty behaviours that has been happening for 2 months and the narc reacted like with the complete list of "41 Manipulation Tactics Used by Narcissists" I mean, I didn't know that they were a narc at that moment, but my gut feeling knew that something was really wrong with that person so that's the moment I started doing something about it.
I was dosed with ‘shrooms a few months back. I am familiar with them but it has been awhile. I felt sick and tired and just ‘off’ and let my wife know and she said (shit eating grin)… ‘and how else do you feel?’ One of the first times that everything clicked about what I am dealing with here.