NPD / Abusive partner - Recovery thread

[IseeGraceAhead]

These threads were started last year by therealme though I gather there were excellent predecessors.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a diagnosable condition on the continuum of Personality Disorders. Few Narcissists are diagnosed, however: a person must either present themselves for treatment or be sectioned to ensure diagnosis. Narcissists are very clever, they generally avoid compulsory referral. Narcissists believe They Are Right & Everybody Else Is Wrong; they will never seek treatment as they find themselves perfectly fine!

Common misconceptions:

[1] You can't call someone NPD if they haven't a diagnosis. Diagnosis is unlikely for the reasons above. Even Narcissists agree it's reasonable to determine a personality type as NPD (see links in first post). If you are in a relationship with a Narc, you don't need to be a clinician to know.

[2] He's got Aspergers or BPD, or is just a bit shit at dealing with people. Really? The obvious question is: why would you want to devote your life to someone like this? On a more technical note: emerging evidence, via biopsychology, suggests that Asperger and NPD brains exhibit similar differences from the average brain. And BPD is the baseline for all other Personality Disorders.

[3] S/He isn't "bad", they're just very hurt. Yes, they are very hurt. The more insight you gain into this spectrum, the more pain you feel for the sufferer. If you have a Narc parent, it's almost a given that you've gained tremendous insight - it was a necessity for your survival. The important thing is, YOU are not the same or you wouldn't be reading this. And understanding does NOT mean you can fix it.

[4] S/He just needs loving care. Yes, they do. They need it like a junkie needs heroin. You can keep on giving, they'll keep on taking and it will never be enough to satisfy them. Never. They'll suck you dry (emotional 'vampire') and then they'll rip you to shreds, just because you 'ran dry'.

[5] I get that s/he's abusive, but why say they've got a Personality Disorder? There's a spectrum of disorders: some are more 'needy'; some more 'domineering'; some are just fucking strange. At bottom, they're no more or less than deviations from the average. Nobody would choose a disordered realtionship unless they suffer from a need to be their partner's therapist. If this is you, try reading some of the links below.

When i was at counselling last year she asked me if i was single , i said yes. I ended up in mentioning him in relation to something else , and she asked me very directly why i had said i was single when im clearly not.

I explained i was cautious , and considering my ex that would be apropriate. Now im wondering if it was something more , keeping somebody at arms length this long cant be right sureley , maybe i felt something but had no evidence or anything to go on ? Im still really cross at myself for not stamping that out the minuite it started, ( he wouldve stopped immediateley )

Boundarys boundarys boundarys ! And another little test to show im not quite there yet , invaluable !

Are you about Pm ? How are things now ?

Dignified thats what I was going to mention, the warning sign to me was the casual status, and for a year!?
How has he felt about the relationship? You calling yourself single? Does he call himself single? Do you say you love each other?
Is it that this guy is emotionally unavailable, abusive etc or has he been really into you and you've been keeping him at arms length for fear of getting too close to someone.,..? either way, seems there are commitment issues being played out here, maybe on both sides....

For me, its starts with commitmentphobia, emotional unavailibility, then comes emotional abuse, substance abusers, the personality disorders, domentic violence etc...

BUT, i think the reason people like us go for men that can be twats, is becuase we have commitment fears ourselves, (normally becuase we had messed up childhooods, emotionally unavailable parents etc etc blah blah)
So I suppose what I am saying is, no one on here can really judge what this guy 'is'.

I just think we need to be careful, not to push the good guys away for one little mistake cus deep down we are scared of commitment ourselves. However, I'm not saying he's a good guy either....
Sorry probably not being much help! Just giving the other side of things I guess, I think we need to look at ourselves too

I've talked to a couple of close friends in the last couple of days, one of them especially had always had her suspicions about her ex...the DD & DS's still have problems, her sister, a mental health nurse had always maintained that he had a personality disorder.

Anyway this friend has now been in a loving relationship for 3 years with a lovely man, however still to his day she is still very very cautious and does not want to take it to the next level...the feeling that I have is after you have been through something like this...1 - it takes a long time to trust and 2 - you have put so much into the past damaging relationship, that it takes an awful lot to pull it out of the bag again...you're right, very set boundaries are possibly the only answer for the moment,I've also just probably answered my own question from before as well.

I'm beginning to learn that 'very set' boundaries are actually correct. Not as a temporary self-protection measure, but always. OK, I had NO noticeable boundaries, so I'm coming from a long way off the field and might still be misinterpreting things: I've heard myself say, a few times recently, that I respect someone's firm boundaries but find them a bit too rigid sometimes. Querying myself on that later, they haven't been rigid. They've simply refused to play along with someone else's control games.

Dignified, I think you MUST trust your instincts - and you're probably right about why you kept him at arm's length. Freedomfrom, try to remember there ARE no excuses! I wouldn't act like a wanker towards you however stressed I was, and you shouldn't accept excuses for wankerish behaviour - let alone make them yourself, on behalf of the wanker, iyswim.

ISGA Yes I see what you mean, I am really good at making excuses for the wanker, I've been doing it with the last one 2 years! And yes I wouldnt do that if I was stressed either. Maybe that can be a good question for myself to ask in future, 'Would I act that way in this situation?'

However, I do think that if we are finding the wankers in the 1st place, and seem to keep ending up with them, then its probably cus deep down we are protecting ourselves from getting too close to someone decent. The guys that 'disappear' over night are active commitmentphobes, the people that date them, i.e. me (us on this thread), are passive commitmentphobes.... Just my opinion though.

Hmm, I'd disagree with your theory but glad you agree about wanker excuses! It would be a good idea to think "would I act that way", I reckon. Let us know how you get on with it :)

Wow, reading this has just made me realise that my exh seriously has NPD. He was a cryer, controlling, blamed me for everything e.g. one time he came home with a tummy ache and packed his bags to leave me because apparently I had poisoned him. Just recently he refused to bring my son back home and I had to go to court and guess what he said, ' that when the police came to pick up my son he was embarrassed because his neighbours were looking' and also that I was a drama queen for having gone to court to get my son back. He also secretly recorded me in 1999 and played the recording to our son to show him what a bad mother I was.

He once made me cry when I was pregnant because he refused to give me money for the bus to go to work. He also left me locked in the house without electricity all day until he came back home in the evening, with no food as well. To everyone else he seems like the perfect gentleman but he is truly a Jekyll and Hyde character who is an absolute bully. Since we split he has been controlling me through our son, leaving abusive messages on my phone and blaming me for every single thing. When my son was bullied at school, guess whose fault it was for moving him schools.....mine. He also blames me for being close to our son and claims that it indicates I have fake affection for him. Do you know what, even now when I think about him I am scared of him. He has made me believe that I am a crap mother and that I am selfish. TO this date I always feel that if I do not agree with what someone says then I am being selfish. Throughout the time we were together we broke up so many times and made up and all the time he would sweet talk me, promise he would change, cry his eyes out and I would believe him. He also blamed his father for his inability to communicate or be loving and I fell for it

Even when he refused to bring our DC back home, I convinced myself that I must be awful and that or dc would never come back. Reading this thread has made me realise that what I went through for seven years with my exh was emotional abuse and because I never addressed it, it has affected who I am today. When you see me you think I am confident but inwardly I am so shy, unconfident etc. When my DC was over at his he said that his father even mentioned that I married him so that I could control him as he was able to gain citizenship in the UK because of me. Apparently that was so that I could control him. In addition when we lived together and I was at university he made me feel guilty all the time that I could get a student grant and he couldn't so that justified him not giving me a penny at all because I was getting a grant. I feel so terrible addressing all these wounds I thought I had overcome. I really think I need therapy for all of this.

He made it is issue to tell me that he thought I was no good and that his mum thought the same too. The reason I left him was because when I went on holiday I met a wonderful friend who is now my DH and he showed me a different life. My exh loved for me to wear the dreariest outfits ever, made me feel as if I was the fattest woman alive. When I met my DH he told me that I was sexy, he loved me for who I was and encouraged me to try out new styles. Seriously, I could go on..............Thank you ladies for sharing your stories with me. Hopefully with time I will put this behind me. I just cannot get over the fact that he put my DC through hell by refusing to bring him home just to spite me and be so attention seeking. To top it all he doesnt even see that what he did was wrong. All he thought of was his embarrassment. I posted about exh refusing to bring son back on mn last week. Don't know how to put a link :(

Antalya, your posts and descriptions of your ex's behaviour are really striking a chord with me. The person you describe is my ex to a T.

Mummiehunnie -- another here whose ex is probably closeted. The revelation knocked my socks off when it happened. In the case of my ex, there was a huge amount of inhibition about sex in general, and very little in our relationship (another aspect of his blanking me out), so it was a huge surprise to me to see the double life or the alter ego he had going on in the net, the sites he was visiting (a lot of gay porn and hookup sites as well as hetero porn).

As far as telltale signs right from the start:
Very full-on, early declarations of eternal love, flowers, dates galore he really monopolised me. Before we started dating he was usually surrounded by a bevy of other women; he had nasty things to say to me about each and every one of them, same for the men we both knew. So, capable of being very two faced and actually what might be called a bitch if he was a woman. He has a very superior attitude to himself, criticised those he worked with and could never see their merits. Fussy about rules (and had a religiosity thing going on that had nothing to do with spirituality but was all about being seen to do the right thing as far as the external observations of religious practice went) and punctuality, he was really anal about neatness and tidyness a complete neatfreak. And he told me early on that he had a love/hate relationship with his mother, which was putting it mildly as it turned out. She dominates his life. He hates himself for it but he can't tear himself away emotionally.

Oh and when we split he cried and cried and told me that life wasnt worth living and that if he moved back to his mothers then it would really be over. This time I didnt fall for it. Suprise surprise he then decided to date someone from the same country that I originate from. I always found that weird that he used to slate my country but then decided to date a single mum with a young son just like me.....

My ex was very superior, thought he was better than others, and only certain people would be entertained by him, for education,money,status or looks! He looked down on some of my friends and would prowl around the house like a caged lion until they were out of the house or blank them, where as if he approved he would chat etc to them!

I also remember him having it in for certain people at work, expecially close bosses not overall bosses, and he would destroy them over time to get their jobs! ruthless or what!

I foolishly thought he would never do that to the mother of his children!

I remember two years before he left, he got nasty at me, picked on me for not getting up early enough in the morning, it felt like he had been talking to someone about me and they were judging me and he was taking it out on me, i think now he was having an affair with a woman down the road looking back the flashing in their eyes when they met at parents evening, and the leg banging under the table at someone else's birthday meal with me and her hubby there! I think it came from her! I took two weeks of abuse and told him I was gonig to get a divorce, things then changed magically! later to deteriorate! I remember around that time he told me one night in bed if i left him he would destroy me then made it out to be a joke, I joked back that he had the devil in him and he said he did.... I think about that and shudder now, I kind of knew did not want to accept it and preferred denial!

What I also wanted to add math my ex was a brain rather than looks narc, he said little about ex's skirted over stuff, and was very messy!

mum of three, my confidenc was broken like yours, I think I had little to begin with, all that attention he showed me early on, I have never had that level of attention before or since, it was addictive and lasted until after dd2 was born then slowly dripped away, dd1 had her second birthday soon after dd2 was born and he was still attentive then, it was later that summer that things changed! he seemed unsatisfied by me somehow!

oh wow...

i've just skimmed this thread

i left my ex-p, a classic narc from the sounds of it, 6 months ago. we have 2 dcs aged 3 and 7. he is still controlling and verbally abusing me (though would never admit it), i am finding it so hard to stay strong and not to believe him when he says i am evil and mean and twisted and a bad parent and messing with my children's heads and rubbish at housework and care about my job more than my family and morbidly obese and a rubbish cook and everything else. it just sort of seeps in, as it has been doing for the last 10 years. he genuinely believes he is the victim.
i'm struggling to cope, have minimal support (one friend i can talk to - they don't live nearby - and some very unsupportive family - that's all), am waaay too busy with demanding full time job - just really struggling and feeling very very alone and have no money and don't understand really how i can stop him manipulating and controlling me. he wont agree to a regular contact plan and i never know when he'll see the dcs and i have zero money to pay solicitors, already paid for one mediation session which he wouldn't go to as to him that equals accepting that the relationship is over which he won't do.

in the meantime my name is on the mortgage of the flat he lives in, so i am ineligible for any benefits etc, and he is demanding half the mortgage payments which i can't afford

sorry this was meant to be a short post - i just wondered if anyone has any ideas for how to cope with one of these men post-split or not

i will go back and read the thread all the way through when i am less wound up

thanks to everyone who has posted here, i wish i knew you all in RL

Oh MH, yes, mine was nothing to write home about looks-wise, very much into his own intellect although I still wonder if he is/was anorexic as he had a thing about his physique and eating -- to be fair he was and is very bright, but missed the essential point about many things to do with language. He could do maths at a very advanced level (or at least that was how it looked to me, sadly deficient in that area as I am) but when it came to translation of terms from another language he could manage the literal translation but the deeper meaning, or the meaning in the context it was used in a text, escaped him. And he couldn't spell to save his life. But he loved using three long words where one nice short one would do.

Freedom , the commitment thing is me im afraid , this is going to sound awful , but i dont want a full time relationship , i tend to see him on my terms and when it suits me to do so . He has mentioned this and he would like to be official ect , but i just dont want to. Not yet , not with anybody.

Also , i know this sounds a bit me me ect , but i dont see why i should HAVE to , theres this big emphasis on relationships , ie you have to do them a certain way. Why ? I dont want to cook his tea or wash his dirty socks and i like the option of being able to come away at any time , and i like my own time , going out ect and dossing on mumsnet ! I think i also fear that if it had of become official he would start the typical expectations , be round here all the time ect.

I can see why hes pissed off , but to be fair he knew the deal , ive been very clear about it. Re " Would i have behaved that way " , No, i wouldnt. Id have said id had a shit day and had a whinge , not big myself up by being a bully. Thinking about it a while ago i bumped into a colleauge of his who made a referance in passing that showed his aware of us seeing each other . I wasnt happy about this and mentioned it. Blokey made the excuse that " he had seen us together and saw enough to know ".

Bollocks , he had seen us talking , once. Big mouth blokey had obviously openly told him. Im aware this could sound tight , but i live in a small village , im not yet divorced ( ex would make my life unbearable ) , i dont want my kids to know as i feel its my business and doesnt affect them . He knew how strongly i felt about it and obviously disregarded that , along with how my dcs might feel too. So thats two things. Seems like hes bullying to take it further really which has had the opposite effect.

Mumofthree , they love to record people , mine has thousands of recordings of myself and various bosses that he hated. And the dreary clothes , ive just bought my first ever pair of sandals ( im 30 odd ffs ) after years of wearing trainers ect because of my supposedly " grotesque size 4 feet ". I even wore jeans trainers and a hoody on hols because i was convinced i was a bloater who was going to explode at any moment. Im a size 12.

Re the accusations of selfish , fake affection , crap mother , he is putting all his negatives onto you , have you heard of projection ? They are the masters of it. My counseler asked me to write a list of all the things that he called me then tick of all those that applied to him. There was nothing left !

The saddest thing is the tyears we spent beleiving the shit stuff these idiots said to us , that always riles me.

Dignified No you dont have to be in a relationship at all if you dont want. I went through a period of that a few years back, just dating people casually and it felt great to be honest as I'd never managed to be with a guy without falling head over heals kinda thing.
I dont excuse his behaviour at all, but I'm just wondering if his motivation behind his comment was more, why are you only coming round here then when you could come round other times poss with kids, or invite me round when they are there, i.e. he want to get more serious?
Have you spoken to him of your fear of the traditional expectations if you got more serious?

I think its understandable your scared, its amazing how these men (your X) can continue to have this affect on us so long after we split up!

I really recommend these books, 'He's scared, she's scared, the underlying fears that sabatage our relationships' and 'Getting to commitment' both are by Stephen carter I think. I think for when your ready for more a commitment these will be great, and help you in the meantime overcome your fears.

mumofthree Funny, my XP used to tell me I was trying to feed him moldy bread. I think he had some kind of OCD to do with food actually. It was the cause of a lot of arguements, his silent mood and him walking out for punishment if I tried cooking for him, (it was never good enough).
My XP also had sexual stuff going on in the fact it used to take him ages to ahem 'finish'... sometimes he wouldnt. I put it down to the weed smoking but now I dont know, cus it used to change through out the relationship but he couldnt maintain an erection. He also accused his X's parents of sexually abusing their DS. Which now I can see could be a load of BS to be honest. There wasnt much eveidence, just him reading into a couple of incidents. So not for me to judge, but knowing what he fantasy (strange) mind is like, I wouldnt put it past him.

He was always going on about the ability to listen in with mobile phones even when they are not on, to people, they can be used as a microphone aparently. And it was strange as he would sometimes seem to know or mention things I'd been talking to other people about. Also, I know he was going in my emails / facebook towards the end too. so changed my passwords.

superfrenchie1
My XP wont agree to regular contact, but as far as I am concerned it goes in my favour if we ever get to court. If hee is still harrassing you you can get something called a non-molestation order, and also there is an order to stop him coming into your home, (if you have a problem with that.) Some other people on this thread can advise you better on the legal side as I am still learning. I am worried with mine of him wanting overnights with his DS as he smokes drugs in his house and I'm worried of what he is going to tell him about woman etc, (as I've seen him do to his other DS).
He surely cant demand half the mortgage payments if you not living their? Maybe so. But why dont you decide to sell the flat?

I think (like me) you need to get some free legal advice. Tell them all and see what they say. I'm sure if you decide to sell your part of the house there is something you can do.
There is a thread on here (I think by mumofthreesweeties) who went through to the court herself as she didnt have the money.

I don't know if I'm a fraud for being on here, reading through many of the latest post's my ex really wasn't like that at all. We don't have any children together so maybe that puts a slightly different slant on things?

I feel really worn out with it all today, really down, perhaps not helped with forgetting to take my ADs for two days, and just questioning everything, maybe I've just got this all wrong, I've been very careful to be 100% accurate about what I've wrote about, but rather than the out-pourings that others seem to have experience, my ex was extremely repressed with his emotions.

hey Antalya1 mine was repressed with his emotions too, he would never talk about anything, would just close up. I didnt have any crying (apart from when we split up the 1st time over the phone, while telling me how evil I was).
Emotional abuse and NPD dont necessarily go hand in hand, for those with npd they normally will be emotionally abusive, sometimes worse, but for those that are emotionally abusive, it doesnt mean they automatically have npD.
I'm not sure my xp had NPD, but he had traits oF npD - no compassion or empathy, was very selfish etc. However, with my XP the abuse was must more stelth, you wouldnt be sure, there would be nothing too direct, it would be suggested comments, looks, moods, walking out. He rarely shouted, rarely called me bad names etc. Wasnt overdramatic. etc. Google emotional abuse and look at the symptoms. From what you've wrote, you were DEFINATELY with an emotional abuser. But I understand what your going thorugh, we all go through the 'I'm not sure anymore' stage. Like we're are making it all up or exaggerating. But alot of that comes from what our XP's have told us. Mine started saying I was the one who was emotionally abusive becuase I actually wanted to talk about the problems in our relationship.

Trust me, you are in the wright place.
Another great book is 'The emotionally abusive relationship' by Beverly Engel. This was the one that woke me up to it

Thanks FF that matches, yes my ex did have a more 'stealth' approach and perhaps the reason why I bought into it so much was that I did/do question things and perhaps still in the mind-set of doubt and perhaps it really was me.

On the many break-ups he would give the reason as not sure what it was that he wanted.

I am frightened of seeing him again more because of the hold that I know he still has on me. I am feeling tearful today, but I'm beginning to see a bit of a pattern, some days I'm strong and others come crashing down.

It's so hard to express in words what happened over the last years. I returned to his country with two small children and although I worked I never got onto the property ladder and so have always privately rented. My ex said from he start that he had more than enough for both of us. After a couple of years he bought a house that needed a lot of work, but was going to be this all singing huge place that others would aspire to live in. The problem was that he did this even though I didn't want to live there, it was out of he area, I would have difficulty getting DS's to school and back and they would be isolated from their friends. I did try and explain this, but he was annoyed as he was giving me and my ds's a lovely house to live in and we should be grateful. When I said that perhaps we could buy a nice 3 bedroomed semi locally, I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about. The house that he bought was entirely in his name. I could never understand why we couldn't chose something together.

Another point why I was questioning if I was a fraud to be on here was that he still had a close relationship with his ex-wife, he seemed to know alot about what was going in her life, un-naturally so. She had an affair and went off with his man. I'm not a jealous person, but he seemed to know so much, but always maintained that she knew little about his life, he seemed to have difficulty in letting go of that relationship, but always mantained that he would never go back.

Thank you I will read through some more on emotional abuse.

I was fascinated by what you said about using a mobile as a roving microphone, freedom, so I looked it up. It's true. The FBI used it to gather evidence on a big-time gangster. I found quite a few downloads of the software available very cheaply. Someone would only need to get their hands on your phone for ten minutes to install it. If you thought someone was doing this you would have to take the battery out of your phone (or leave it in another room) when you wished to keep a conversation private.

It's worth pointing out how insanely possessive someone would have to be, to do this to their partner! All they're going to hear is random daily chitchat, so there's no real purpose to it - it's just, well, mad.

Antalya, there's quite a bit of "not that bad"-ism going on in this forum just now. It's very harmful imo: it implies you have to pass some sort of abuse test before you're allowed to feel bad about it. This is exactly what abusers do, to put you in the wrong and make you carry on trying to "be better"

Like you, I have no children so my abusers are all completely out of my life now (except my mother). I know just what you mean about the continuous self-questioning, though. The whole purpose of bullying is to undermine your self-belief to the extent where you don't beleive your own feelings. when you think about it, that is a shocking thing to do. It is total destruction of the self.

Your feelings are valid. Of course your feelings are real! They're feelings: they can't be right; they can't be wrong. They are part of you. Even if someone is 'over-sensitive' - that is a reason to take their hurt feelings more into consideration, not slap them down! A partner who loves you cares about your feelings.

Have another read of heartless-bitches.com.

I've re-read heartless-bitches again this afternoon and yes, still can really identify with a vast majority of it...so yes something was definitely going on there. I still find it all incomprehensible....but it fit's.

I was always made to feel so unreasonable about everything, especially the house move, the final straw though was his utter selfishness with money, although he earned more than double me, when he moved in with me, he maintained that all of his money was needed for the restoration and so I paid all bills, food etc. no money for luxuries, although he couldn't understand why I would be upset that he could afford holidays abroad, regular nights etc. Even I knew that wasn't reasonable, but tried to "reason"...and I thought he just didn't get it..he must have done. One conversation I remember when once again I tried to approach the subject of fairness with bills...and his words to me were..'so you want me to support you financially'!!! all I was asking for was fairness..all along I thought that he was just really tight...but it was just another form of control.

oh damm it I know look like a right nutter to someone, talk about kicking myself!

someone I know on fb, she started up a jewelery making thing... how to explain this...

Narc ex last oct sent dd a card from moonpig with a picture of her in a bin, he amended the speech bubble and put in nasty things and mentioned her name. Inside it was printed as from him. Then in Dec he sent various things one was a box with some paperwork in the box was a silver necklace, the necklace was referred to as a carma necklace on the paperwork. Do you get what sending those gifts to dd was all about?

So friend on fb sends me a link a week ago to this company that does jewelery, i looked at link and got a shock, it was same design and name as one from ex.

She lives near ex's mil...

I asked her about it, she now thinks I am barmey as she says she only started selling it two months ago, although her link says a year ago...

how do you keep safe and your children safe and stop being hypervigilant...????

He sent DD a nasty card. Then he sent her a karma necklace. Now you find your friend made the necklace - but she says she didn't?

She could have licensed the design from another company (so other people are making it, too) ... If it's her own design, she's lying and she's not your friend.

It keeps on coming, doesn't it?!

Mine always had money for holidays without me (and endless expensive nights out), too, Antalya, though he was always broke. It was a game to him

mh, there are loads of these on the internet. Is it the same one?