Hi, new here and need to talk to others that know.

[wanttobefree]

Hello, I am at the stage of realization and acceptance, and find I need an incredible amount of validation. I find myself having to go back almost every day and re-read descriptions of N just to keep myself from thinking the abuse was normal and somehow I really did deserve it. I actually found myself wondering yesterday if in fact there was something wrong with the way I experienced happiness. My own happiness was used against me so often as a validation to him of my general badness. He would tell me that I was only happy because he was being left out of my happy moment, or I was acting immature, or what was making me happy was actually something worthless, therefore I was worthless for taking joy in it. He could never bring himself to participate in anything that I found joyful. That alone was a punishment. I felt trained like a dog, to the most subtle cues of body language, tone of voice, facial expressions. I knew when I was being disapproved of. I would ask what's wrong. He would say nothing is wrong, of course. But I could FEEL it in his withdrawal, or see it on his face. Then he would turn on me with accusations of projecting my fears onto him, and further degrade my self esteem or whatever it was that was being eaten away. I'm not really smart enough to know what was happening, or the words for what was lost.
I know that it was not me, because I like being happy and have never had anyone else accuse me of being happy the wrong way. I've never been afraid to be happy in front of anyone else but him.

He also would claim things as his territory. Ideas, objects, or even colors. I wondered if anyone else has known this tactic. If I mentioned something I was interested in, he would respond with passion immediately how he's ALWAYS wanted to do that thing. After a while I learned that this meant that thing was now in his territory and I was not supposed to speak of it as my interest any longer, much less take any action. If I did, it created an atmosphere of great tension(his specialty) with cold distant looks and thinly veiled hostility. I simply just gave in eventually, listened for the cues, then kept my mouth shut.

He would take things, small things and when I asked where they had gone, he would look me right in the face and say he didn't know. Then they would magically reappear and I would think I was crazy. Until my daughter actually caught him in this game and told me that he was in fact sneaking back up and replacing things. I asked him. He looked me right in the face and said no, he didn't do that, or he put it back a while ago, or some other lie. He lied all the time about little things. He was livid when he suspected anyone else of lying to him. He accused me of lying to him all of the time. Especially about how much I loved him. He would say I was pretending. Fact is, I am not a liar. Never have been. He would tell me stories about his lying problems as a child and how he was so glad he wasn't that horrible, wretched boy anymore. I felt sympathy.

There is so much more. I hope it's o.k. just to get it out here as it comes to mind. There were so many weird mind bending subtle things, I can't believe I actually made it out alive even if my mind is a little bit shattered.

Any similarities of experiences would be so welcome.

Thanks

[wanttobefree]

I'm sorry, I just have to keep going...
He loved conspiracy theories and the subject of mind control to the point of obsession. He had shelves of books and reams of info printed out from the internet on these subjects. Along with alien conspiracies and experiments. he would talk passionately and with much authority about these things for hours if he could get someone cornered for it. My daughter and I were the prime listeners, though anyone would do. Hours of fear talk to the point of being completely drained and vacant. If we cut him off or tried to change the subject he was so insulted and seemed to be ashamed of his own behavior. I felt sympathy for his feelings of shame and somewhat responsible for them for not being able to handle any more of this talk and therefore making him feel bad about himself.

I absolutely abhor any talk of conspiracy theories now, and I've experienced mind control first hand.

He had a mixed reaction to the subject of mental health. He was an authority, while at the same time gave it no credit. I tried to talk of my own struggles as a SA survivor and he would tell me I was perfectly fine, just in victim mode, but yet he would tell me how incredibly messed up in the head I was. Not because of anything, but because I just was somehow inferior, or bad. Shortly after we split, he mentioned that he was thinking of going into mental health. I was delighted, because I thought he was talking about seeking help for himself. In fact, he was talking about as a practitioner. He even added that he didn't feel whole without a dependent. That's when I knew for sure something was really really wrong.

He loved to tell me how mean I was. He felt I was always being mean to him. I would be working out in the garden or something and he would come out to ask me why I was being so mean to him. I would ask for specifics and he would say, "don't play that game with me!, You know what I'm talking about!" I had no idea what he was talking about, but he felt so strongly, that I believed maybe I was doing things I myself was not aware of and that I had some secret mean person inside of me that had brought this down.
He would disrupt the more level times in our relationship with this. Just when things seemed like they might be o.k. for a while, he would come out of nowhere and tell me how wrong I was being. Just plain being wrong. This was so painful and distressing. I would find myself making things up about myself that would justify his anger with me, because it was preferable to the pure nonsensical nature of it. Yes, I am bad in these ways. I would apologize and try harder to be a better person. To love him in just the right way. He hated that about me too. He knew there was no right way, and I was a pitiful creature to even keep trying.

I remember the first time I suspected N as being the issue. I didn't really know what it was. You know, just generally. A friend was over and she brought up the subject of N. He went silent and awkward and just plain weird. He usually dominates the conversation. She kept looking at him and saying, I'm not talking about you, but that just made him weirder. I wondered if in his past, he had been diagnosed, or maybe self discovered through his own research. He researches everything obsessively. That was about six months before I left. I made me wonder if he really did know, and just chose not to tell me because he thought he could manage it.

What made me sure was when I went down for a visit after a few months away. We had agreed to remain friends as we had so many mutual investments and out of respect for the all time and trauma we had both been through together. I believed in this. He started talking about everything as if I had never been there at all. Things that I loved and was responsible for, he had co-opted and now were only part of his experience. It was very hurtful and left me with such a feeling of emptiness. When I left, he said what a great visit it had been because he had been able to control himself. That's when I knew, I was only part of his experiment, not even a real person. Not ME, the one he had just spent ten years with through many life events. It really was now all his own show. I knew then that it had always been that way.

[Lapin]

He would take things, small things and when I asked where they had gone, he would look me right in the face and say he didn't know. Then they would magically reappear and I would think I was crazy. Until my daughter actually caught him in this game and told me that he was in fact sneaking back up and replacing things. I asked him. He looked me right in the face and said no, he didn't do that, or he put it back a while ago, or some other lie. He lied all the time about little things. He was livid when he suspected anyone else of lying to him. He accused me of lying to him all of the time. Especially about how much I loved him. He would say I was pretending. Fact is, I am not a liar. Never have been. He would tell me stories about his lying problems as a child and how he was so glad he wasn't that horrible, wretched boy anymore. I felt sympathy.

There is a movie called Gaslight which describes this exact type of behavior.  When an N does this sort thing, we call it "Gaslighting."

[Cornfield]

Oh, Wattobefree, you really have got my mind going!   I have told these stories before but will post them again just for you because it is gratifying to me to know that I wasn't the only one living with a person like you describe.

Yes, the lies went on for years, but they got worse when we moved into this new, lovely home.  He was so impressed with it, but needed praise for himself and credit for making it so lovely, which was the work I did.
His most famous lie was the one he repeated to me and to everyone about House Beautiful calling on a Sunday morning and wanting to photograph the house for their magazine.   When I showed him on my caller ID that no one had called, he still insisted  that they called, and was still wanting to argue about the matter months later.

Mostly he bragged about his dog, and the bargains he bought at the grocery, even remarking the bananas to show what a bargain he had purchased.   I found the actual slip in the sack, and his stories were false.  And I could recognize his handwriting on the banana label.  That sent me to the psychiatrist who told me that he had to win in whatever way he could, so he told lies.

His stories were a form of stalking me in the evening, and building up to a story that was incredible, causing me to leave the room, which didn't bother him at all.   He retreated and tried again the next evening.  He couldn't drive down the road without criticizing the neighbors and making fun of their mowing, their flowers, or whatever.  I got angry a couple of times and told him to stop the car so I could get out.  He would stop for a few minutes and then start all over again.  His driving got so bad I refused to ride with him for months.   Sometimes we took separate cars to events so I wouldn't be harrassed or injured with his erratic driving.  

And the taking of my personal things and tools was incessant.  He was hiding them to punish me so I would "straighten up and do what he wanted."   It didn't work on me or the grandchildren.   He took their bikes out of the garage and hid them in the barns because they were in his way when he walked from his truck to the back door.  He thought he should punish them and that would make them put their bikes elsewhere.   I simply told him they couldn't learn anything at all if they couldn't find their bikes, and if he didn't speak to them.   He never would.

He was always taking my clippers, so I bought more and then took them as well.  He had his own pair in his truck, and once he let me borrow them if I would promise to return them immediately.  After he died I found three pair,(it's always three of anything; OCD) stacked in a neat pile in the paint department of the shop.  He would tell me our adult sons took them, and they were seldom on the premises.  They moved out years ago and couldn't possibly have been the culprits.  He made greasy footprints on the carpet and blamed the sons who hadn't visited for months.

His grandmother, who raised him, always told me he never did anything wrong, so he never thought he had to be accountable.  She was born in 1899 and she was the one who taught him to "own his wife like property."   Imagine the life of a farm women in the early 1900's and you will understand how I lived on the farm as his slave in the 1950's.
Once he told me that he promised his grandmother he would always be in charge of me and I would never get to decide anything.   He kept that promise and was very proud of the fact.

He acquired a retarded hired man from a state institution the first month we were married, brought him home unannounced to me, and required that I feed him and do his laundry in addition to my full time job at the time.  He stayed 30 years, and I finally reconciled to the problem shortly before the man died about fifteen years ago.
I complained that my marriage license only said one man.  I always had double the work and was often ill.

Despite all this, I was a very cooperative, but strong-willed woman who had some terrific experiences in my younger adult life, and managed to get out and accomplish quite a lot because I used my capabilities to the fullest.   It was only the last 10 years that really got me down and made me want to leave.  So I went to an attorney.  But I was afraid he would injure me if I left, and I knew he would hunt me down and never leave me alone.

His health declined to the point that he couldn't live alone, but he managed to get in his truck and leave every day until two months before the end, when the cancer wrapped around his spinal court and fractured his vertabrae.  He became paralyzed and died at a Hospice in eight short weeks.  All the while he told his many visitors that he had injured himself in the shop, was having therapy, and would be home soon.  Some of them were too shocked and insulted to come to the funeral, but most revered him anyway, with 600 people coming through the receiving line at the visitation.  

I had a windfall sale of property he owned which helped me to not be left cash poor and no savings for living.  I had social security on his earnings because he would never put me on the payroll when I worked in the businesses.

So life is peaceful and I am learning to rephrase my past when I talk about it, so that I don't look so stupid for having lived with him.  I prefer to believe that I did God's calling by taking care of a mentally damaged man for 50 years, keeping him off the streets, and out of jail.  And I loved him while I was doing that, so I know I had the right attitude.  Some day I will fully explain to the grandchildren why their grandfather acted so strange and why I was so miserable living with him.  They don't seem to miss him, but the grandson did at first.  It didn't last long.  My only grandson knows that I am his advocate for driving and having opportunities his mother declines to approve.  He is water skiing now because I didn't sell the boat we never used while grandpa was alive.  No fun was allowed.

Step by step we can learn to let go of most of our pain and trauma of the past, and slowly we begin to see that because we did the right thing at the time, and held our self respect as much as was possible, we will be just fine in the future.   Good things are sure to come our way.   I have many more blessings than problems now.  It just depends on how you count them.

Your most recent post listed some mental issues that were different than what I experienced, but in principle, we both had similar experiences of mental abuse and demeaning behavior.  My husband was not educated enough to read consipracy theories or get into deep subjects, but he held listeners hostage by his stories about his past adventures, and embroidered them bigger than life if he could hold attention.  He wouldn't stop until I would invite people to go to the ladies room with me.   He loved to mention the Governor in his stories, and prominent developers he had met once or twice.  He made up conversations between himself and well known people so he could brag about himself.   He would read nothing about mental health, but insisted I had mental problems and "we need to get you some help"  

Yes, I think he knew he had compulsive mental problems, but thought he could afford them, and thought he deserved to spend all the money on himself because it was his.  There was never any shame, though, and never any apology.  That was one thing he would not do to me or anyone.  He would threaten to leave me, and I would laugh at him.
Then he would run out the door, jump in his truck and speed away.  Never any discussion.

He was careful to not criticize my capabilities, but wanted me to be mentally off enough so he could put me somewhere.  After 20 years of marriage, he just wanted rid of me.  He started drinking and that was a problem for years, until I threatened him.  Then he would cut down, but continued to drink secretly.  He hid alcohol everywhere.
He ruined his health with alcohol and an eating addiction.  He thought being addiction was just fine because he could afford it.   His educational ability was quite limited and you couldn't teach him anything about health.  He went downhill mentally and physically, but kept up a persona that was smooth, with all his lies.  He got his material from me.

There was never any shame.  That is what was different.  I studied mental health and neurology and realized that his decline was bad, and my doctor thought it was Alzheimer's.  That wasn't quite the right fit, however, but we will never know.  He was an authority about our household expenses, and he didn't see or pay a bill for most of our marriage.
And he didn't care what things cost, nor did he care about seeing that I had funds to pay the household bills.  His CPA had to order him to deposit money in my household account.  He thought of it as my personal money and resented it.

He died totally unrepentent about our relationship, and I think he was glad to be dying and not have to put up with me anymore.  Also he didn't have to take responsibility for wrecking his own health.  The last thing in the world he wanted was to have to go home from the hospital and live another day with me.  He didn't really speak to me for the last couple of months unless he could find a way to throw a tantrum at me for abusing him in the hospital.

This backwards, twisted thinking is what is so puzzling.  It is "I have a problem and it is your fault.  I have no problems at all, but you have mental problems for thinking I need help."   It is total denial.   It is blaming the spouse for their own mistakes and decline.  It is a taking of the mental pain and dumping it on another person to attempt to get rid of it, but it doesn't work, so they do it more and more.  It is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.   It is denial of insecurity and responsibility.   It is a kingship that puts them equal with God.
It is attempted mind control, and it didn't work so he would do it over and over.  It is lying for the fun of lying.   He told me one time that telling lies did no harm because everyone knew the person was telling lies, so it was o.k.  He wanted to play games with the public, but never wanted me to have any fun.  

For a while I would make idiotic replies to his crazy accusations in the form of a sarcastic joke and it would throw him completely off, because he couldn't switch thinking into my fun mode.  The last few years he had no idea what I was talking about most of the time, so he avoided me.   He was like an animal living in his house, always looking for food.
Food was the only thing that mattered, besides alcohol, which I kept out of the house.  I had to hide baked goods or take it to the children's homes to keep him from devouring it.  He would eat an entire beef roast for dinneer.   He would purchase a pizza, eat all but two small slices, and leave the rest for me.  I quit eating pizza.   Daughter wouldn't eat with him at all because she couldn't stand to watch him stuff his mouth and talk while chewing.

Let's face it, we lived with very mentally damaged men, whatever the mental behaviors or causes.  I made list after list and compared my diagnoses.  It was too much for me, and it would have been impossible for a psychiatrist, if you could ever get him to see one.  We conspired to get him evaluated, and once succeeded, but he conned the doctor into allowing him to be dismissed and got out of the hospital before the psychologist called me on the phone.  I confirmed that his evaluation was a lie, but the man said there was nothing he could do because the doctor signed the release, not even dreaming that there could be a serious reason to hold him.  I begged the social service people at the hospital when he was admitted several times, and said he couldn't come home in his condition.  He would slide right out of that hospital by telling lies.  He finally resorted to signing the admissions form and saying that he was married but living separately.  One doctor said there was no evidence Husband had a wife.   What a cruel thing to do.

He gave the wrong address for sending his medical bills and the hospital didn't get their money for a year.  He thought he would get out of paying the bills if we didn't receive them.  He gave the wrong insurance company just before he had surgery and those bills were refused by the company.  The man had no valid insurance with that company.

He ordered Daughter to carry petitions for him to run for office after the doctors had told him several times that he would die very soon.   He had no discussion with me about the estate and took me off his POA.  Total denial.

It took an expensive attorney to get the estate matters taken care of , and fixing the problems he caused by his refusal to accept me as his legal wife and partner.  He wanted so badly to cut me off financially.  

Whatever you see in this picture and whatever you can learn to help you to understand and let go is important.  I had to have understanding before I could begin to heal.   It has been a great help to me to be able to say in honesty, "my husband was a pathological liar and he died a psychopath."   I have learned to understand it and deal with it.   Most of my relatives do not accept this reality so I am avoiding my sister and sister-in-law now.  My niece is avoiding me because she is hurt that I consider my relationship with her mother hopeless.  So I have cancelled the annual huge family dinner at my house for next Christmas.    I am really letting go!  I'd rather feed the homeless.

I am learning to look at a growing flower and study the beauty in it.   I am learning to enjoy the sunset.   I amd really enjoying the quiet times in my empty house and anticipating the return of my grandchildren when they are busy.
I lived as a spouse for fifty years and never really had a husband with a commitment.  And he abused me.  I learned from it and am very nice to everyone.  No one comes in my house and is nasty to me.  It is better than the past.

I am old but it is getting better every year.  My body is declining but I am finding simple joy.  I certainly wouldn't want to have another man around at my age because I am not able to push a wheelchair.  I must take care of myself.  I can barely get out of the bathtub when I soak.  I read when I am bored.  I continue to learn.

All this helps to heal the pain so I can look forward to new experiences and new friends.  Time is short.  I am happy.
The financial security helps a little but really isn't the whole answer.  I have a home I can't sell.   I put that worry off for sometime in the future.   My daughter told the insurance man that if the house burned down, we wouldn't be replacing it.   All I will need in a small place.  I have done huge.  I can still see and hear.  Life is good on the farm.

I hope my healing ideas help in some small way.   Everyone is different, of course.  Keep writing.

Cornfield

[Cornfield]

Wanttobefree, I'll get your name right one of these days.   There is one more story which points out the fact that they are incapable of loving or committing to a human being.  Remember that his mother rejected him and he always said that he never loved or hated his mother.   He said he didn't feel anything at all.

When we had been married a few years, he spent one Sunday washing and lining up all his various field tractors in a slanted row across the widest part of the driveway.   I couldn't imaging what it was all about.  Finally he took a photo of all the tractors, which wasn't very good, and put all the tractors away.   I thought nothing of it.

Later in life I noticed that in the evening he made lists of his tractors and equipment on the back of envelopes and I would find them lying about the house.  Sometimes he put his estimated value beside the items.  I knew he was crazy about going to auctions to buy bargains, and was proud of his mechanical abilities.

It was after we forced him to clean out his junk when we moved here that the purchasing and rebuilding of old tractors began in earnest.   He built one, two, then three barns to hold his restored gems, but I noticed that there was no logical reason for what he chose, such as age, or value on the market.   I just thought they were bargains.
Finally he explained that he wanted to fill the barns with a copy of every model that he had ever farmed with, and that was his criteria for his choices.  He was reliving his young adult years when he built up the operation.
It was costly to develop this hobby but he loved to show them off to visitors.   He lied about every purchase, cost, and overvalued everything.  He made signs for the equipment, like a museum piece.   I began to worry about money to live on, as we never had discussions of any meaning about plans or budgeting for wants or needs.

When he finally decided to have a discussion in the hospital as he lay dying, he invited everyone but me to assemble in the room.  I was preparing to leave, and DIL said we were to stay for a meeting.  He gave a long, theatrical speech as though he was reading an oral will while DIL began to take notes on paper.   I was terrified.

Finally he broke down and sobbed uncontrollably, which I thought was the most normal behavior I had seen in years.
After calming down, he said "the thing that bothers me the most that I can hardly bear, is to have to leave those tractors because they mean more to me than anything else in the world."   And he cried some more.

There sat his adored sons, his daughter who managed his business because he didn't, and I, with my eyes staring on the tops of my shoes.   We had no value to him at all, only his tractors.  He told his sons to take care of their mother and see that she had what she needed, which was a laugh because they weren't inheriting, I was, and he remarked sadly, with a dropped voice "she's been a pretty good wife."   He was obviously disappointed in me.

The meeting broke up and I held back on my anger at DIL with her book of notes, which were useless, as I had no intention of carrying out any of his wishes, whatever they were.  And deathbed speeches are not legal in court.
DIL is not happy with the family these days, but that is another story.  The rest of us are united and friendly.

Imagine!    The most important thing in his life was those antique tractors!    They were appraised at much less than the inflated value he always assigned to them.  And he left them to his second son.   The attorney soon showed son the wisdom of denying accepting the tractors because half of them legally belonged to me, I stored them, and I paid the insurance on them.   I donated the tractors to the family trust, a legal maneuver which allowed us to sell some of them and share the money in the family.  Everyone seems happy except DIL.  I don't know what happened to her notes but the attorney said they were of no value at all.  I make the decisions in my estate.

I manage to joke that I have less value to my husband than an old tractor, but I am much more useful.  It is beginning to be funny to me now.   It has been almost three years.   

Have you ever studied obsessive disorders?   I found it to be very helpful, even for myself and my friends.  I really believe we are suffering from the complexity of overlapping disorders, and don't know where to begin to understand.

Cornfield

[mamolie]

hi, wanttobefree
I am new here but not to the complete devastation of an NPD relationship.I have been where you are right now.  I want you to know that all the feelings all the confusion and feeling crazy are "normal" for what you have gone through.

 It is amazing how they project all their ugliness and misery on to you and get you to believe you have all the problems, not them. They get you to the point where you no longer know what is up, what is down, what is real,what is not, who you are , HOW or WHAT you SHOULD be feeling. I was never right about anything I did or felt so I thought my feelings about it all had to be wrong too.  Although very uncomfortable, feeling every emotions there is all at the same time, is normal when you realize what has happend to you.

I printed out stacks of info on NPD I found on line, as I read it, I underlined so many parts that described my relationship, drew circles around paragraphs, wrote notes and I read them over and over, to validate my life and my experience, I was not crazy after all. It was not me. I ordered books, they are all a mess, turned down pages, stickie notes, underlined, comments, food, coffee and tear stained, I was still married, I had to keep reading over and over to fight for my sanity and reality. I kept them by my side for months, they were my most valuable possesion at the time.

No one in my real life could get or believe that something was wrong with my H, Mr. Wonderful to everyone in the outside world.  I found a forum where I was finally understood and validated and my journey to recover began. I didn't even realize how crazy it was till I started typing my story, feelings and thoughts and saw them in print to read over. I thought it amazing that a stranger could print words on a page, that described me, my life, that I had not yet found in my mind to express.

 This is stunning, unbelievable,you can't explain this to those who have not experienced it. You'll find the help, support and validation you need here. Keep talking, reading and asking questions, you can and will recover. You are not alone in this.
 My heart and hugs go out to you.                                         mamolie

[wanttobefree]

Thank you all so much for sharing a part of your stories with me. The similarities are just well, weird. I've felt so alone and isolated for so long, I can't hardly believe I'm siting here right now openly writing about these things. That people believe what I'm saying and I don't sound like a total ex bashing bitter psycho. Maybe I am. I still think that sometimes. Like I'm just making it all up or exaggerating. Then I remember things that happened like his total freakishness about illness.

 Once my daughter had a stomach flu and was in need of hydrating, which of course would make her sick again later, but I knew that even if a little stayed in that was good. He told me to stop giving her water and I told him that I had even spoken with a nurse friend who said the opposite. He kept getting agitated as the evening went on until he was laying in bed beside us yelling at me through his gritted teeth, if that makes sense, to stop giving her water. I refused to do as he said. He started hitting me in the back (not REALLY hard, but enough to be shocking) with my ill daughter laying beside me, saying furiously to stop. I told him that if he didn't stop hitting me in the back I would get up and leave. He replied with disgust, "I didn't "hit" you!" This was early in the relationship.
 Or the time when I had an A. I was scared, but sure I could not go through with the alternative. He drove me up to the clinic in angry silence, I mean not one word. That went on for two days. I was so frightened and sad about the whole situation, there was the opposite of love or compassion, support. I felt so confused, I had no idea why he was icing me on such an important day. I felt so utterly abandoned. After, I was slightly drugged and traumatized, he wanted to get food. We went to a Denny's and I kept nodding off at the table. He was thrusting his finger at me and yelling in his quiet gritted teeth way to "Pick your head up! Pick your head up!" I remember not quite knowing what was happening in the haze, but being broken apart inside. It was so the opposite of what I thought would happen that day. Years later it came out that all this time he's held it against me that I would have a kid with my exH, but not with him. He always talked about how he never wanted children. That was until he was around my daughter and discovered what a malleable resource they could be to him. He is very easily insulted by children, to the point of being paranoid about their character. He likes them now though, a lot, because he learned with my daughter how to shame them into submission or elicit their admiration. He did that to us both. He even said occasionally that I should feel ashamed of myself. I didn't even know what for, but I still felt the shame, just from the suggestion.
He also never asked for forgiveness, but did sometimes demand it.
I once got a stick jab in the eye, and a piece of it broke off under my eyelid. I asked him to look in there and see if he could find it. He said he didn't see anything in there. Three days went by of excruciating pain and sleep deprivation. He was so freaking mean to me during that time. Scoffing at me like I was playing it up. I could have just crumbled into a pile of nothing. And I did, just sit and cry my eyes out in bed in the middle of the night. He was so ANGRY! Well, the tears washed the piece out from under my eyelid, and I showed it to him. He says all innocently, Oh, I didn't think it would be under the eyelid. After I kept saying, "It's under my eyelid"! Whenever I was Ill he would give me the silent treatment or just be mean. Even my daughter asked why he was so weird when I got sick. I didn't have an answer.
Or the time when I had been vomiting all night with a flu. In the morning I woke him up and said, "Hey honey, your gonna have to help me get daughter to school, I'm really sick" He yelled at me "I'm going to have to!?" and rolled back over and went to sleep. Needless to say, I never used those words again. And I became very nervous about asking him for help with things. That whole deal just escalated. He constantly felt put upon, though he positioned himself in the center of our universe.

But he just "doesn't feel whole without a dependent". What the freak does that mean? Is it his way of admitting what he is?

These things are in absolute opposition to the persona we were all expected to uphold for him, in private and public. It was cruelty, that could not be acknowledged, ever. And if I did get brave enough to mention, I was just in my fundamentally **** up way, not able to forgive him his transgressions.

Just picking over the bones I guess...

[honeybearII]

but he felt so strongly, that I believed maybe I was doing things I myself was not aware of and that I had some secret mean person inside of me that had brought this down.

WF, this is exactly what an N does to us.  Because they are incredibly emotionally abusive, and because it starts so subtly and is so underhanded, we begin to believe that there is something horribly wrong with US.  I remember the relief of finally getting into therapy and realizing that IT WAS NOT ABOUT ME.  I had internalized all the things he told me about myself and had come to believe all of it.  He told me I was, "cold, judgmental, secretive and didn't love him".  Sound familiar?   Fact is, no one who knows me would ever, in this lifetime, describe me with those adjectives - except him.  But he actually had me questioning if I WAS those things and I felt like who I was inside was so different from how he perceived me, that I must be mentally ill, LOL.

I am glad you feel free to come here and write all this mess out.  It feels SO GOOD to put it all down, doesn't it?  And I can guarantee you that as you work through this process, more and more "vignettes" of his abusive behavior will start coming into your mind.  I was astounded, as I allowed myself to really dredge up those kinds of events, that I had not put the pieces of the puzzle together so much earlier and accepted that HE WAS A JERK.  period.  No matter how he presented himself to the rest of the world, no matter how much other people just LUHVED him, to me and to his own children he was a total jerk and mean spirited to boot. 

So keep putting it all down, dear new friend.  You will find yourself on the other side, and now you really SEE him for who he is, you can begin to get mad - REALLY angry - at how he treated you.  And then you will begin to heal.
Hugs,
Honey

[Cornfield]

You were his possession, and you were not allowed to be ill, ever.   It was considered a sign of moral weakness in my Husband's family.   You were supposed to stay on your feet and keep working, no matter what.   When I broke my ankle, the next morning I crawled to the stairs on the floor, slid down the stairs and fixed breakfast.  As I was sitting on the floor after crawling back upstairs to wash and dress, Husband decided he had better take me to the doctor.  His exact words:   "you might not be able to make lunch."  He ran over my leg with the disc in the garden, almost chopping off my foot.   He offered to drop me off at the hospital while he went to check on one of his jobs that evening.   He said he would be back to pick me up.    This is a man who went on squad runs for the volunteer fire department for many years and was a trained EMT.  

When he picked me up after gall bladder surgery, he decided to run some errands in the pickup truck on the way home, delaying getting me any food.  I was to fix myself something whenever I got home.   And so it went.

I think your husband's anger toward you was worse than mine in the beginning.  We had two children who would have told relatives if they heard such terrible talk in our home.   My husband didn't not reveal  himself so openly.
I kept working every minute and that is what saved me from his anger most of the time.  

Have you thought about his family members and how they acted?  I feel quite strongly that a person's culture and childhood behavior of family rules and behavior is the main source of this disordered bahavior.   Most N's have never seen much pleasant behavior to know how to act in adult relationships.   My husband's entire family was disordered from their training at an early age.   The stories of his great grandfather were horrible but the family laughed because the man was wealthy and powerful while his wife and children worked liked slaves.  He used a buggy whip on his favorite daughter to make her obey his orders.  That is 1900 culture on the farm.  These people never grew up, used alcohol for self medication until they were addicted, and avoided doctors until they were old.

The more we tell the stories, the more the public can become aware, without laughing.  People think this stuff is cute or funny, or that we are embellishing old tales for entertainment.  I feel we have a new mission now.   This behavior does not occur in my home or in my presence anymore.  And I am most pleasant to others, as it is the real person that I have always been.  Most old friends don't call or come around.  Sometimes I think they feel a little shame over their past acceptance of my husband, and aren't willing to admit it.  Some of them know that they have failed me, or they just don't really care.    At least now I know where they stand.

Cornfield

[wanttobefree]

cold, judgmental, secretive and didn't love him
Yep, totally familiar. I was always so wicked, and he was a moral saint. He even compared himself to Jesus sometimes. Would talk about his persecution by the world. He even wanted to put a little icon on his website of himself posed as Jesus so that people could grab it with their curser and pin it on a cross. That's too funny, and totally sick, and I can't believe I stayed with that kind of person for so long. That was also early on.
You know, now that I think on it, I was totally in love with the him that everyone else got. But I didn't get that one. I got the bad one because I deserved the bad one. That's how I felt when he would show such compassion and kindness to others. I felt taunted with the veneer, 'you could have this too if you weren't so messed up'
Yes it is good to get it all out. More comes to light that I just accepted as normal or o.k. somehow. I NEVER would have used the term abuse. Even now, I can hear his voice in my head and see his cold evil face accusing me of trashing him, and how messed up that is, and how I should feel ashamed of myself.
I still have to retrieve the vestiges of my life from our place. I can't wait till it's all for real over. He will be away so I won't have to interact with him.

Cornfield, what a life you have endured. I take a lot of inspiration from your endurance and ability to reclaim simple joys. Sounds like you really know who you are and what you want your life to be. I am looking forward to getting to that place in myself.
Yes, his entire family if incredibly messed up. People in town sometimes said it was like a special club that no one was allowed into. They don't know how right they were. The NClub for sure. Pop ran for mayor while his wife was struggling with cancer. I didn't know her for too long before she died but she showed cruelty to me right off the bat. Pop abused her during the time she was wheelchair bound and dying. He was an extreme alcoholic 24/7 while in sole care of this dying woman. He refused help. I saw him hit her myself a couple of times. She begged hospice when they finally came to take her away from this evil man so she could die in a home. Everyone called her delusional. No one did anything. After she died and someone came over to write the Eulogy, he went on for hours with his own stories about his career and the life he had lived. He didn't mention her. It was freakish and uncomfortable for everyone around the table. We all assumed he was in shock. He continued to manipulate and lie to everyone around him and sink further into alcoholism over the years, until now he is completely alone and miserable and has one neighbor that feels sorry for the old man and will go to the store for him. He could go for himself, but he just decided one day to stop doing anything at all for himself. He also will lie about anything, any time, for any reason.
The description of your husband sounded so much like him.
They were awful people. Broken people. I hope I get a chance to find out what a loving, healthy relationship is one day. Well, I have that with my daughter so I don't need to doubt myown capacity to love. I do need to question my own attraction to the N type.

[wanttobefree]

Just got an interesting perspective of my own family from my daughter that helps to explain a lot for me. She's 15. She was just on a 10 day trip to see my parents, cousins etc... She called from the airport just now and went on for a long time about how messed up and casually and sometimes pointedly cruel and selfish they all are to each other. She said she was really sorry that I had to grow up with them. Hearing that from my own kid was, I don't know, amazing really. She could see the cruelty so clearly and spoke with such integrity and dignity about her own feelings of violation. I was proud of her to say the least and extremely relieved that she could RECOGNIZE it for what it is! There is so much hope in that for her future as a woman.
It helps me start coming to terms with why I seek these kinds of relationships. It helps to see them stuck in the patterns, still the same people they were 10, 20, 30 years ago, distilled into some characters of themselves and proud of it. It helps me to see my own future and what I DO NOT want for myself. I am up for the pain of transformation if that is what it takes to save me from this fate. I will stick my head into the mouth of that lion, and hear the voice of Thalia singing of joy, abundance, and love.

[honeybearII]

Isn't it an amazing thing to see our children, especially our daughters, growing up to be not only beautiful and smart but WISE.  While I can see and regret the great harm they suffered growing up with an N-father, I also see how it has, in so many ways, made them wiser than I was at that age.  They do not have to stupid illusions I had that people I loved also loved me, and that they would live with my best interests at heart.  There is a kind of cynicism in them that I never had in my 30s, and it was that vulnerability that led me into the N's web.

Most likely, it is your daughter's knowledge that not all people are basically good at heart that will help her survive and THRIVE as she keeps maturing.  And you know what?  She gets that from YOU.  So hold your head up high, and keep resolving, every day, to grow wiser, kinder, but always with eyes wide open.

Hoeny

[wanttobefree]

Once again, I am so grateful to be able to come here and just purge myself of all of this.
Yes Honey, everyday I amazed at my daughter and her wisdom for her age. She does have very specific issues to overcome as a result of all of this, but we are working through it together. We have agreed to make our new home a safe place of healing and personal growth. A place where we can both exist as ourselves without fear of judgment, a place of light, honesty and love.
Food was used as a manipulation often, again so very subtle, but to the point she does not feel authorized to help herself to anything, and often just says that she is not hungry, too often. Grocery shopping has been an interesting exercise in reprogramming. I find myself standing there devoid of desire for anything. I really have a hard time remembering what I even like to eat. I still fall back on the usual items that were preferred by N, but I am working on it little by little. I never cook anymore. Before N, I relished the opportunity to create a meal or bake goodies. I loved cooking and eating. Now, that seems a distant memory. There was a lot of pressure and symbolic significance to cooking and food for N, that it was of course transferred to our lives. My daughter's new task is to just once, whenever she feels ready, to help herself to something from the kitchen without consulting anyone. She'll get there. She has made progress in the grocery store. She still asks, but she can now point out the things things that she would enjoy eating. But there is still the guilt attached to it, and I hope she can overcome the feeling of not being authorized to have preferences all her own.

Everything was infused by N with symbolic significance actually. EVERYTHING! Every word, every action, every moment of every day.

So, you could just imagine what our sex life was like. I tried everything humanly possible to express my genuine love and affection. There was always a reason why he found me unattractive. I was being too submissive, I was being too aggressive, my favorite- I felt bad about myself and that was a turn off. He would complain about not having sex enough but yet find all of these reasons to spurn me. I would approach with an open heart, he would be awkward and rejecting. He never approached me. I felt ultimately rejected and unlovable. He did however have a porn addiction. I was really surprised when I learned this about him. But I did think, oh, o.k., maybe I could get into something like that, what's it about? He would not let me into that part of his life at all. He had a completely separate love life with himself that was sacred and not even to be mentioned, though he would lock himself away multiple times a day with his porn. His father also had a porn addiction. There was a time we were living with Pop and during the night I would get up to go to the bathroom and pass either one or the other of them engaged in cyber sex. It was weird to say the least. He would always tell me how our sex life was abnormal, because his parents had a healthy sex life and they continued to have sex for 35 years everyday, but then he would reject me. Sometimes physically pushing me away in disgust. He would say I was just using him, then at other times make grand suggestions that, "here he was waiting, why don't I just use him!?" Messed up. Truth is he masturbated compulsively, and simply had no desire to share true loving intimacy.
He complained to his brother apparently about his lack of satisfying sex. His N brother suggested he have affairs and not tell me about it. He told me this himself, maybe as a covert threat.
He talked to said brother every single day for years on the phone for hours sometimes. EVERY DAY! Sometimes more than once a day. Usually at dinner time, when we were getting ready to sit and eat. He would call then exN would leave the room and my daughter and I would eat together. I asked him to talk to him at a time that was not dinner. He was livid, yelling and ugly, and accusing me of being jealous of his relationship with his brother. He told me a story of how his brother played mind games with people when he was younger by asking them if they weren't feeling well, then watch them become ill.

All so messed up. So much to purge. So much to heal. I am just shocked really that he has taken all of this right into the life of another woman. I'm sure he is thinking he has this god like control of himself and these issues won't come up again. What a way to start their new relationship, from a totally self centered place. The fact that he started a new relationship so soon is in its self, ultimately selfish. She already has been put into a sub category of his needs and fulfillment. So sad. My heart goes out to her.

Thanks for just letting me go on and on... I really am finding this so helpful.

[CZBZ]

"I'm sure he is thinking he has this god like control of himself and these issues won't come up again." ~wanttobefree

DSM IV-TR criteria

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

has a grandiose sense of self-importance

is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love (megalomania)

believes that he or she is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, people (or institutions) who are also "special" or of high status.

requires excessive admiration

has a sense of entitlement

is interpersonally exploitative

lacks empathy

is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her

shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes


One of the criteria for NPD is a belief in 'ideal love'. What could be more ideal than infatuation?  Thankfully, most people move through this initial craziness in their relationship and begin to create 'real love' with a partner that is always fallible, always making mistakes, always falling short of the ideal. thank goodness. If I ever met a perfect man, I'd be terrified because I know for a fact that perfect I'm not. But I guess narcissists feel like they deserve perfection, ha...unfortunately, ideal love only exists in someone's brain so that means they'll be chasing rainbows for the rest of their lives (and always doomed to disappointment). I'm assuming most people are surprised to discover how transient and shallow infatuation was but only IF they were able to grow into a deep and abiding love for another person. If someone can't do that, if they can't mature beyond a romantic fantasy, then the only thing they know of love is that it's an 'escape' from reality. In truth, Love is kinda boring and always demanding. 

Narcissists don't always chase new lovers because there's usually a social cost they're unwilling to pay. In this day and age however, people are less likely to judge someone for having an affair which may be one reason why Ns are quick to abandon one woman for another.

It sounds like your X has a fair amount of paranoia. At least that's what I'm reading in your messages. He may be studying 'mind control' (NLP??) to protect himself or perhaps he's learning how to control people because his distrust is so high. If he lacks emotional intelligence and can't quite manage his life relationships, he may resort to cognitive control. Narcissists tend to live in their heads because they do not trust their feelings (if they are aware of their feelings, that is.) The more he understands how 'normal' people react to persuasion, the safer and more superior he feels. He sounds kinda dangerous---at least to people who are psychologically naive about their normal reactions. They won't have a clue as to how he's manipulating them and yes, manipulation is what Narcissists do to get through life.

Hugs,
CZBZ

[NewWings4MeNow]

Wanna,

Greetings and welcome to reality and brutal, wonderful truth.

Here are a couple of tidbits where I've shared some of your experiences:

• Food:  XNH has been obsessive with d about food since the first days he left.  He's an exercise nut and comes from a foodie family where only organic is acceptable.  He'd call d and have her list every item of food she'd eaten all day while with me.  Eventually she stopped eating and said things like, "Every part of me is too fat but my head."  "I'm too fat; I have to stop eating."  D is now below normal weight, a lithe girl who's inherited XNH's family's body type which is more slender than mine.  BFD.  I have to encourage her to eat more.  Even currently she's told me he demands that she's allowed to eat a candy bar only up to a certain ounce weight.
• Sex:  In our 12 years together XNH only told me I had "pretty eyes" -- the man never said one syllable to me about my physical body.  Ever.  Since we split I've discovered, for the first time in other relationships, how men behave who are really physically attracted to me.  It's SO different and was quite satisfying.
• Family:  XNH's relationship with his FOO always came first.  He defended XNMIL against me consistently.  She inserted herself into our marriage, even when we lived cross-country from them, calling him constantly.  When it became an issue that sent us to therapy, she got around it by calling him at work instead of at home.  D told me that, until this year, she's continued to call him daily.  Recently d's said that XNH has noticed XNMIL morphing into her own mother, a bile-filled woman -- this is ironic to me because I saw it happening before we even split, but he accused ME of being responsible for "creating WWIII" with his family whenever I raised my voice or said that anything, anything was less than wonderful about any of them.  I was so sick of not being protected/defended.

• Projection:  XNH went midlife during repeated tech unemployment (layoffs then being fired for attitude).  I was to blame for the house, for his work, for the time he couldn't spend doing exactly what he wanted.  One year he reproposed to me with a new diamond and request for 40 more years together; a year later he was gone and I had "no reason for living," I "contributed nothing," "sucked as a dependent," was "useless, valueless" and was the "boat anchor" around his neck.  Directly from the mouth of XNMIL ....  At our split it alarmed me that he was blaming me for things I'd had no involvement in at all.  For five years post-D he e-mailed me endlessly with blame for every topic having to do with d; he kept threatening more psych evals, going back for full custody whenever I disagreed with him over small topics like tennis lessons for d -- his threats were endless, his entitlement/godlike grandiosity seemingly without bounds.  I went from being a w to being a toaster.
• Illness:  XNH had lifelong allergy problems -- daily shots and he was debilitated.  He also got sick a lot, as did I.  Before d was born he had appendectomy that went bad and almost died; I cared for him for weeks.  Through time I had various accidents, casts/crutches etc., day surgeries after which neighbors had to drive me home because XNH traveled on business.  A freak skiing accident with a stretched MCL.  Stuff.  At the end he claimed that I got injured whenever we did sports.  He'd been a marathoner, a centurion bike racer, but assured me that our life wasn't "an endurance test".  In the end, it was.  And since our split I haven't been sick one single day.  By his definition I should have dumped him for having appendicitis.  I've warned that his NW only will have value as long as she can work and remain healthy.  As soon as he has to actually take care of her or she's not bringing in a paycheck, she'll be no good to him.  Directly from the mouth of XNMIL ....

Through our marriage XNMIL saw how we lived, bigger/nicer homes with each move, I was a SAHM.  She was JEALOUS.  ENVIOUS.  Actually said in one living room that we didn't need a house like that -- that SHE deserved a house like that.  In the end/after the fact, *I* was the one who, personally/physically, improved each house so they appreciated $,'000s in value so XNH made money.  *I*, the one who contributed nothing.  Family/cultural background, a tendency toward cruel treatment -- if these things show early they've been there for decades already.  When XNH and I were first married we were independent; through time he allowed XNMIL ever closer in and her influence on him grew to the point of pushing me out of their tribe.  She's a therapist who tried to have me lose custody, after calling me a "good mother".  She failed.  She was the one who declared that me being "judgmental" was a negative because their family was intellectual former hippies who did drugs.  Judgmental was GOOD -- it's what got me out of there as I finally said no to their ever-increasingly abusive treatment even in my own home.

I will never again live/deal with an intimate relationship where cruelty is enjoyed.

CZ found me on the midlifecrisisforum and advised that what I was describing belonged on an N/P forum.  I discovered Sam Vaknin's writings, highlighted/dogearred the book, and read, read and read.  These folks really KNOW what the lies are like.  They KNOW how the off mind wiring works.  They KNOW that yes, it can get that bad.  They are not afraid.  They live with courage as wartime survivors.

You've come to a good place.  The principal way to get out from under "god" is to simply cut off interacting/communicating with him and with all those who are part of his sphere.  Anything else will slow your healing.  It's a LOT of loss to bear, but the taking/shredding of  your soul and value is a loss so much huger.  I'm sure you can do it if you've already come this far.

Good luck,

NewWings4MeNow

[Julia]

Wantobefree,

Emotional abuse is a draining and confusing experience. I can remember all the craziness and self-doubt I felt after my soon to be XNHs NPD diagnosis. I feel it still after confusing interactions with him.  One rock of reality I hold onto today when I start to doubt my experience is the time NHs psychiatrist pulled me aside to tell me I had been emotionally abused. He knew I might not realize it,  or accept it, and so he made sure he told me....... I think that he broke several ethical rules,  (laws?), to tell me, and I am grateful to him. I was very lucky that my NH was diagnosed since so few are. Even so I had a couple of YEARS of intense self doubt that hinged on whether he really could be as cold, and exploitative as I was coming to realize. My denial and the love I had for him during 14 years of marriage were VERY big barriers to my growth.

I want to affirm you so that you have your own ROCK to hold onto when you can hardly tell which way is up and you feel the self-doubts that threaten to knock your growth back.

Wantobefree, I am here to tell you that what you describe is ABSOLUTELY emotional abuse, SEVERE emotional abuse. Nearly constant stealth emotional abuse from the sound of it. That was what I experienced as well (there were no good times or good days, no "charm" for me). But the degree you describe is worse than what I experienced with my NH who has an official diagnosis from Menningers 2 month inpatient mental health program, confirmation from another 2 month inpatient program, and further confirmation of the diagnosis from two psychologists who have had extensive interactions with him (our childrens therapist and a co-parenting counselor).

  Let all of the posts here be a bedrock affirmation that you can hold onto during this roller coaster of realization, acceptance and self-doubt.  I want to encourage you to vent it all out. Tell all the outrageous stories, more memories will surface and be processed. Once I broke out of denial and found a good counselor (and this site) I was able to look at my life with him in new ways. Developing boundaries was the first step in what has been a solid year now of growth and recovery. Welcome here and thank you for sharing your story.

Julia

[wanttobefree]

Thanks so much for the awesome support! The encouragement and stories are really helping so much. I don't know how many of you experienced dissociative disorders as a result of these abusive relationships, but that is one of the effects it has had on me. I am discovering that I actually have different 'sets' of memories, different 'sets' of feelings about all of it. I can feel the pictures are starting to merge, it's weird, but ooooh so hopeful. I am finding that the 'good' times I think I miss are more like pictures placed in front of the truth. The truth being a constant state of anxiety, concern, confusion, even when we were doing something 'fun'. I feel like...what just happened?
I made my rent! Yay! This is my first month of true independence in ten years. I had a moment today where I felt relaxed, secure and pleased to be in my new place. Relaxed because there was no one around to judge, look at me weird, pawn off their own discomfort on me, berate me, shame me, ice me, yell at me, accuse me, unlove me. Secure because I was in MY house, my rent money is in the bank, my business is going well. Pleased because I could feel these things for the first time in many years. I wasn't sure that I could ever feel them again. I lay back for a moment and just relished those feelings, good feelings, knowing no one would walk through the door and ruin it, I didn't have to be listening for his footsteps, I didn't have to make sure I could arrange myself in time for his entrance. I WAS RELAXED! That hasn't happened for SOOOO long! YaY! I'm not ruined beyond repair! I can still feel!

Tomorrow, my daughter and I go for our things and our dogs. He is not going to be there, though he knows we are coming. This is the final physical separation from his twisted world. I am so excited to be at this point. This point where it is really over and I can walk away with the remnants of my life and keep moving farther away from him and all the wasted years. I can feel that my life will never be the same. I have learned some really tough lessons with all of this and almost feel like the whole ten years was an internal stasis. Though all of these crazy, intense, emotionally charged events happened, I feel like I was stopped somewhere inside, frozen and now I'm thawing and coming to life again. Picking up where I left off ten years ago. It's bizarre.

I keep processing, and reminding myself of where I am. I dream about him now, and I never did before. Sometimes I 'come to' and I've been back there in my head, and I have to remind myself of where I am, that it is really over. A part of me is terrified and doesn't believe it is really over. I have to tell myself , out loud, "It is over, you are safe, he is not here" Then I feel better. What's weird, is I would not use the word terrifying to describe him, but when I think of him, I feel it and cower. I think this is one of the split parts. A fear carrier they call them.

I watched a video someone made of an interview with him talking about his work. He seems SO different to me now. To hear him speak just made me queasy knowing how carefully each word was chosen to convey or elicit. I could hear it so plainly and recognized it intimately, but I just never had a clue what it was that was wrong! I couldn't watch the whole thing, because it just seemed like such bull-**** the same script with slight variations, every conversation. A repertoire of fakery. I've heard it over and over and over so many times, I just simply felt like I'd had enough. Finally.

HeeHee, I'm going to REALLY be free tomorrow!!!!!!!! Now I can concentrate on fixing my brain, ( I have an awesome therapist). No contact is my policy from here on out. There is no need for it, and I'm sure he's so caught up in weaving his new web, I won't have to worry about him contacting me. Yay!!

I'm OUT! I never thought I would be, but I'm OUT!

Hope you all are doing o.k. Thanks for sharing your stories with me. What a nightmare these N relationships, I had no freakin idea what was happening to me...

J

[Cornfield]

Two things continue to amaze me:  one, that we have had such similar experiences over long periods of time, and two, that the psychiatrists diagnose the same disorder that we suspect with the person we have lived with!

I am satisfied that we are on the same track and are capable of honest thinking about the subject.  This is really an enlightening group of friends, I must say!

We have become our own research group.

Cornfield

[honeybearII]

Wanttobefree?  Now you are.  God bless and let your REAL life begin from this time on.
Hugs,
Honey

[cheriblossom12]

similarities??

oh YES... so so many....

hi.. i am cheri.. and i have been on this and other forums for about 5 years??? hard to remember... but... my heart goes out to you honey.... as this struck me hard as if it were my own thoughts so long ago..

i know you have received so much advise already... and since i am at work... i have no time to read too much...

but i want to say... that emotional abuse from an N is so deep and pervasive and very tricky business... we are turned upside down and inside out.. we don't know which way is up or even who we are
anymore.. as we have been demolished.

when i first found out about NPD i had never heard of a narcissist... and was blown away by the information i was reading.. but it took me the longest time to actually digest it and finally to know that
it was NOT ME....

want you to know one thing.. that is that you WILL RECOVER... time and work.. knowlege and help from the wonderful souls here will get you through...

validation... it is NOT YOU  NOT YOU  NOT YOU..... 

xoxo cheri

[takingtime]

i just want to say to cornfield that your life sounds alot like my life a few years ago.
i was married to a similar man for almost 25 years.
he died of a drug overdose four years ago.
it's been the last 18 months that ive been involved with a narcissist. i see the similarities although the latest was a true narcissist. my husband was a rage narcissist. he would rage at me often for minor issues. like the way i put pegs on the washing line. then he would forget months later that he even cared about the pegs!
crazy things like that happened all the time.
these past years since his death i have had extreme guilt over the instant relief i felt after he died.
i still struggle with it every day.
but the thing is since my experience with this latest narcissist i understand my marriage and my husband and the kind of person and problems that he had. and it really isnt my fault.
there really wasnt anything i could do to save him.
and now there is nothing i can do to save the latest narcissist i got involved with.
i have to now save myself

[takingtime]

im thinking now that i was more drawn to the narcissist than he was to me
i think i knew from the start that he was a damaged soul
it was like i wanted to fix him because i couldn't fix my late husband?
i put myself through all that grief and anguish to force myself to grieve for my husband.
i have to find a reason for all that madness


one thing i did have to help me was his little comments about his ex girlfriends
one he said he was still in love with and wanted her back even though she was married and had a new baby

his last ex was an older lady like me and i knew that he was being heartless to her
he was with me andshe kept on texting him and going to his house asking why he doesn't want to see her anymore

one conversation at the start i asked him what attracted him to her? and he said 'her power'!
ok red flag number 1 - ignored
then i asked is there anything about her that you miss? he stared into space for a while and said 'nope can't think of anything' - they'd been together for three years
he said after three months he wanted to break up but she kept crying and begging for him not to leave so he didn't

yes red flag no. 2, 3, ....

all sorts of little things i look back on and realise how little i meant to him once i was in that devaluing discarding stage
and you never go back to the idealising stage

so i did have some inside information to work with when i'd ask certain questions and he'd reply
it's difficult to say now what was true and what was lies

oh and that's another reason why i couldn't be bothered any more
i just couldn't believe anything he told me
he chopped and changed around so much

that's what stops me from contacting even though it's agonising not to sometimes
i just don't see the point because it would most probably be lies and how would i ever know the truth?

all the talk about projection is so true
so much of what he said about not trusting me and not being the person he thought i was, how he just wants the truth.
he was talking about himself not me

it's always about him - always

[wanttobefree]

Gosh ya'll, every time I read peoples accounts and responses I'm just blown away, like, 'did i write that?'
Well, I made it down to get all the rest of my stuff! Yay! And my dogs! Double YAY! It is so good to have the dogs here with us, like we have a family again. The dogs are way happy to be off farm duty indefinitely, especially the old girl. Four of my neighbors showed up to help me pack and haul, they brought burritos and watermelon. I was so touched, and thankful. I felt like i was just disappearing you know, like I had never even been there, he so dominated everything that I was just a shadow in the background and no one would notice that I was gone. I will miss them so much. The f***er had bought new bedding and such to impress his 'new soul mate', left everything all made up nicely, with a neat pile of used condoms on the shelf beside the bed. Disgusting first off, because he was to be away for a week, second, just a mean little twist of the knife. Pitiful really, that he just had to leave some kind of marker to show that he still felt himself f*** worthy. Sorry for the cussing. You probably know how it is. He thinks of himself as this moral, upstanding and good natured person, yet he would do something like that, after giving his whole spiel about wanting to stay in touch, and how he knew it sounded crazy but he still loved me and would never want to do anything to hurt me, blah blah blah.  It just drove it home for me and fueled my drive for packing and getting the hell out of there. He is a sick sick sick man and I hope to never have to interact with him again.
Soul sucking black hole.
I am on the mend. Good days, some bad days, but overall, SO HAPPY TO BE FREE!!!!! I find myself feeling at ease more and more, coming back to myself incrementally. I am so glad for this site, it has really helped me to gain perspective and feel a little less lonely with it all. Though I did discover a good friend has been through something similar, and even shares a child with one, it is very difficult for her to navigate. She has been a tremendous support, well really we have for each other, as he still torments her at every opportunity using their child. She can finish my sentences when I'm describing a situation or behavior with my ex. I thought about sending her here to this site as I think she could really use the support.
My daughter's dad (first ex) is also n-like, he told her recently that she had to buy her own school supplies this year, ha! As he plugs in his latest computer gadget and sips his import beer. ARRGGGG!!! WHY do I keep choosing selfish losers!!!!!????? Men who I revere as my intellectual superior, and who fancy themselves as such, until I show my smarts and they feel threatened and go into punishment mode. What does it feel like to be with someone NOT this way? Do any of you know? How could I even recognize a healthy relationship at this point?
I don't want to be alone forever, but I don't want to deal with BS anymore either and cut off pieces of myself to become more acceptable. O.k. enough whining for now, ha! I might be back in moments, it's been like that the last couple of days...
Thanks for reading and responding to my other posts, I just get so overwhelmed I can't reply individually. I wish everyone the best of luck and lots of love in their futures without Ns!

[wanttobefree]

all the talk about projection is so true
so much of what he said about not trusting me and not being the person he thought i was, how he just wants the truth.
he was talking about himself not me

it's always about him - always

I really did just read that and wondered if it was part of my last post,lol! Oh my god, I just can't believe it all can you? Did they pass out a script to these guys for this somewhere?

[takingtime]

was that what i wrote?

i had to get alot out and wrote a heap of stuff
i was feeling quite good for a while there but now am feeling kind of lost again
reading rangers post about hers getting in touch by email made me feel jealous
like why hasn't mine done that this time?
he did all other times
this is so embarrassing and ridiculous to write but i have to write it
i feel so stupid and stupid