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.

Really struggling with everything life-related today...feel up to my neck in responsibility and chores...no mental space...no sleep...house filthy and chaotic..just about ready to cry all day..

But what has struck me like thunder this evening is how AWFUL it would be if I had to factor xp into this in any way....

It would be so much worse it just doesn't bear thinking about.

This has to be a light-bulb moment ,a turning point...

I have known this intellectually all along.The dc and I have noticed things before now and laughed and been relieved .

But I do feel so crappy and stressed at the moment.No me time.Exhausted.Overwhelmed.All due to entirely understandable life factors - 4 dc and new bay,term starting,ds off school and at home,no sleep,mother phoning too often,rain,too many jobs and only me to do them....etc...

He would push me over the edge.

I just can't connect with the "missing him" part of me that has predominated my thoughts since dd born.

I really think that my spending yesterday evening posting/reading on this thread has a huge part to play in this shift - too knackered to work out why/how....it's so validating in a way that RL can't be.
I feel emotional towards everyone who posts on here - and anyone lurking....

Thanks everyone.Please keep posting.

Sorry youve not had a good day Pinemartina , i remember your story and i think your totally amazing to have got here.
I also remember ( and still smile ) about graces cheerleading song !

Hopefully tomorrow will be better for you. How about a day ignoring the housework / phone ect and snuggling up with that gorgeous baby of yours ?

That's brilliant, pm!
Anyone would feel stressed by all the stuff you have to cope with. But you are not completely overwhelmed if you have the clarity to notice and appreciate that change in the middle of all your busyness.
Well done for achieving that change, for noticing it and for getting away.

Why do I keep thinking if I am reasonable and fair and explain stuff sensibly he will take it on board??

As you can see, some stuff is wrecking my head which is why I am on here at frigging five in the farking morning.

Possibly because you're not dealing with a sane, rational human being - and it's painful to get your head around the fact that the man you fell in love with doesn't exist :(

Cut yourself some slack. If you can manage to regret that he's incapable of understanding ordinary human life, you might find it less agonising.

I'm in Insomnia Central, too! Going to see if I can sleep now (I should have been a vampire.)

pm, it probably doesn't feel like it, but you are heading towards freedom and stability quite fast. Well done you!
Good luck to us all, eh? x

Just saw this thread and want to thank Grace for putting together such a great library. Hello to all I've 'met' before here.

Hope you 5am girls got to sleep.

Janos, I've worked it out. Our exes aren't actually real human beings, they were cloned in some weird science experiment gone wrong. It's the only possible explanation.

Thanks to everyone who talked about how they deal with the parenting side of things. I hope I raise my dd with the emotional intelligence of quiddity's dd...

I think of them like that too Nickname .

They look like ordnary people but theyre not.( far from it ) Theyre referred to as Dark Hearts , controllers , Emotional Vampires , Life suckers ect. They literally feed off you until theres nothing left. Some say they have no soul, so they steal yours, its a fight to get it back , some never do.

There is something terribly wrong with these people , all the things that make a normal human are missing. Either these things werent formed properly in the first place or they were damaged in some way.

Botty, have you read Controlling People by Patricia Evans ? It explains what causes these controlling behaviours , its a fantastic book and really uplifting too.

That's really sad and scary.

Dignified - no will look for that one

My friend just lent me Invisible Wounds by Kay Douglas - I should be cleaning, but I'm reading it in tears.

Haven't got past the introduction and almost everything she says is what was done to me.

From what I can see, my ex was brought up in a house where I believe his mother was a control freak - I vividly remember not long after we were married asking him to tell her to stop doing something and that she couldn't do that -he could not believe that I was saying such a thing

"No one ever tells my mother no"

He was brought up on a pedestal, and expected me to do the same - it wasn't an equal relationship from the very start but I was too young and too guilt ridden over being pregnant (like I did that all by myself you see) that I couldn't or wouldn't see it.

Oh, I've had the being awake at 5am before. It's not nice is it - hope you all got some rest.

Nicknametaken - I think you are right. isn't it awful. With my XP the reason for it is I think damage inflicted in childhood which has never been properly dealt with.

Dignified - this bit of your post is so true: "They literally feed off you until theres nothing left. Some say they have no soul, so they steal yours, its a fight to get it back , some never do"

Mine caused me to have what I suppose you would describe as a breakdown with his cruel behaviour before I managed to 'break free'with a lot of support from my family.

Quiddity - I echo others and can only hope to do the same for my DS.

'No one ever tells my mother no' sums up the life of my exH. The woman could spout the most insane rubbish and no one would dare contradict her -- adults some of whom have three degrees in areas across the board all sitting there with their mouths glued shut.

Quiddity -- It can get very rough and very bad for the children when they fall from the pedestal. Mine are now in open rebellion against the visitation schedule.

DS (17), who has never given one little bit of teenage trouble in his life has now been put on a very short rein by his dad, as has DD2 (15), another good and responsible teenager. They were given phones by their dad a while back and he has now activated the locator feature of the phone plan so that he can pinpoint their locations when they're out with friends or wherever. They are bristling with rage about it. DS wonders what he has done to be punished like this and is counting down the weeks until he turns 18 and will be finished with his dad forever.

DD1 hasn't spoken to her father since she was 15. Recently he emailed her and asked her to spend a week with him and the other DCs visiting his parents, one of whom is slipping fast into dementia. DD1 thought it sounded serious and agreed, gave up a weeks work and the wages she really needs, and packed a bag. They arrived at the gps' house, spent one night and then went on to another holiday location for two days, leaving the gps behind turned out that exMIL was having a lump biopsied then returned to gps' house for a night, then back. All told they spent 3 days out of 6 in two separate cars and saw the gps for 1.5 days. DD1 now thinks her presence was used by exH to demonstrate to the ILs that some sort of forgive and forget had taken place between DD1 and her dad.

DD1 texted from the car outside exH's flat and asked me to drive her back to her own place in the city as it was late and she had work the next day. ExH saw my car draw up and shouted at us both, then when DD1 ignored his orders to come up with him to his flat and kept on putting her things into my car, he jumped into the backseat and screamed at us both, threatening to call the police there and then, and threatening court action against DD1 and me, telling his own daughter to get herself a lawyer; apparently she hadn't been warm enough to everyone at the gps' house and she was poisoning the minds of the other DCs against him. When he jumped into the car I phoned the police and held my phone in my lap for the duration of the tirade. The emergency operator heard everything, including the almighty whack of the slamming door when he left the car. Big surprise when the police drew up.. They couldn't take the other DCs away from the flat, but DD1 who is over 18 was of course free to leave whenever she wished.

I think the rage and the insanity of the accusations stem from the surprise of his mother's health situation. She is truly the only woman in his life. Their relationship is really unhealthy, and I think as she deteriorates I can expect more OTT incidents and irrationality and anger.

We have heard nothing further about the courts, but he has already cited me for contempt of court once so far this year, and threatened me a few days before Christmas in 2008 because he completely misread the temporary visitation schedule we had in place at that time.

It has been very hard for DD1 to spend the past few years without her father in her life. There are a lot of big events when you leave school and go off to college that she and her father have not shared and the contrast with her friends' families has been very obvious. He is completely sure that he has done nothing to deserve 'the treatment she has meted out to him' and will never make any move to apologise for the awful way he treated her at the time of the split (he hit her and threatened to pull the plug on the computer and ruin a whole weekend's chemistry homework, then accused her of hitting him).

Ns are capable of really hating their own children, at any age, for reasons that make sense to them alone. They do not see the damage they do and they do not care.

God, Math. That's horrendous :(

mathanxiety, how awful for you and your children. My experience has been a walk in the park by comparison. Do they have to wait until they are 18 before they can choose not to see their "father"? (Not in UK & haven't had to resort to lawyers so not familiar with the law.)

I can take the question of visitation back to mediation, which is the way we arrived at the schedule we have in the first place. Right now I'm compiling my list of things the DCs shouldn't have to put up with.

So sorry that your DCs have to deal with this, math.

You said: "Ns are capable of really hating their own children, at any age, for reasons that make sense to them alone. They do not see the damage they do and they do not care." It's true and it scares me. Before the split, my ex twice said in front of our DD (who at the time was around 1yr old) that he wished she would die in an accident, so he would be free to tell the world what an evil person I am. I told him he could never, never say such a thing in front of her (how devastating would that be to a child?), but he completely refused to accept that it was wrong. As far as he is concerned, he never has to moderate his behaviour, other people just have to moderate their responses to it.

So I'm very, very nervous of the future, and I'm not sure how to mitigate the potential harm.

I think you just have to be straight and state that what they did or said wasnt ok , or if theyre older , that it is abusive behaviour and they have a right to come away from it if they want to.

When mine were having contact with him and it wasnt going well i attempted to discuss it with him. He wouldnt hear of it and denied anything i raised. The soliciter wrote to him that contact would stop if he didnt stop being abusive. Again he denied it.

He actually arrived here to collect them one day and said to me " Are you aware of their behaviour towards me lateley ect ect ", he actually couldnt grasp that I had sent the soliciters letters , and he expected me to support him in this idea the kids were " picking on him "!!

These stories are awful.
Reinforcing for me that I have had a lucky escape.I am recalling conversations with xp about his grown up dc in a totally different light,stuff about when they were small and he was married to their mother,and also recently,since meeting me....

I wonder if anyone could advise me on how to talk to dd about her dad,as she starts to need me to?

I was with xp for just 3 or so years.I think I managed to get away before things got really bad,although they were bad enough!
But I am in no doubt that he would have run true to type and am sure his ex wife had hell from him.

The thing is,my 4 dc have lovely memories of him.They still miss him and talk about him a lot.I have always taken lots of photos and we have loads with him in,playing and having fun with them.
He was around at birthdays,Christmas,holidays and treats and trips.He carried on like Father Christmas, or the most energetic and charismatic youth leader imaginable.

They do realise that he could also be moody and unreasonable,especially at the end,but our relationship grew mostly when they were with their fathers.He hadn't had much chance to really get stuck into them,although the signs were there.

He has made no attempt to see dd.But I fear he will appear at some point with his plan all firmed up ,and allies galore.I could be wrong,but I can't imagine him missing the opportunity to control,charm and manipulate her - once she is out of nappies is my guess.

Either way,How can I help her with the family history.Her Daddy has been a positive part of her brother and sisters lives.They were very fond of him,and delighted when they found out she was on the way - as he told them he was.He actually announced to us all during several Sunday lunches ,and at Christmas lunch,that he would never let us down ,never see us a single parent family again and would love his baby as much as he did them.He did a similar big speech the day we were back with her from hospital - in front of my parents.He told the dc's fathers the same nonsense.

Yet he left when she was a week old and dropped them without a word.

This has ,and still does ,hurt and confuse my dc.But what about baby dd?
What do I say? Her brother and sisters will tell her things anyway.Although they understand about not running one anothers' Dad down.They are furious with him.Middle and youngest dd would be very sad and jealous if he were to come and see baby and not them.

Ds is really struggling with how he "wishes his own father could be more like xp".He misses going fishing and helping with car/diy stuff.His father is very passive and inactive and doesn't like sport or handy stuff and ds has been shouting at him and calling him "useless" and "not a man".

Xp talked about at least 3 neighbours from his past,who he had taken to court over boundary issues.He sued various ex employers.His divorce went on for years.He was always asking to see managers and taking down names in shops etc.

I am starting to wake up from "missing him".
I am fearful about what lies ahead.

What about simple things like photo albums and memories...if he never saw dd again,I imagine her pain at seeing pictures of Daddy with her sisters and brother and wondering what was wrong with her for him to go just after she arrived.
But hiding it all would be worse,and would hurt her more ,one day when she found out.

Do I say "Daddy was ill and had couldn't carry on being here,but he loves you very much"

I know if/when he sees her,his version will be about blaming me.He has told his eldest dd that I won't allow him near us,and he is protecting baby from provoking my unhinged,wild temper by keeping a distance.She believes this and thinks I am mentally ill and have tried to "trap" her father with a baby - her own sister - she won't speak to me.

I don't care - trying not to - what his friends and family think of me,but if he were to have contact with dd,she would get all that too.But I can't act - or prove it - until it happens.

PM, has his eldest daughter taken on his qualities? If she's become "his creation", I shouldn't think your baby will be missing out if she never sees her grown-up sister. But what's her mum's take on all of this?

I'm terribly sorry your other DCs have bought the fake XP - it must be painful for you. You handle it incredibly well. What horrid things for DS to say to his father! Did he learn that from XP? They were present at XP's "final display", remember, and when they're older they'll be better equipped to put 2+2 together correctly.

Wrt baby D, there are ways to illustrate that some people are very harmful even if they seem really nice. They have to learn this quite young anyway, with stranger danger warnings. The natural world is full of metaphors: pretty flowers that are deadly poisonous; beautiful leopards that may eat you; inviting rivers with a murderous current.
I think you'll muddle through just fine :)

mh, your description of a trip in grandma's car was hilarious! I think I've been stuck behind her & her brakes a few times I love what your DCs said about seat belts - I'm the same in my mum's car! Driving - and road accidents - is a theme with my family. I've been writing down some observations (I fear one of my brothers is scripted to die in a crash at 69 ) but I'm going to have to space this stuff out: I can't sleep for a couple of days after I've written it!!

I'm following your lead, somewhat, in 'training' my mother. As I haven't got DCs to worry about, though, I'm mainly working on increasing the 'distance' between us. Wish I could translate it into a physical distance - she's only 5 miles away. No longer "popping in" on a daily basis, though

Post to mummiehunnie should have been on other thread. Oops.

Xp used to say that his happiest memories were of looking after his d when she was tiny.His "princess".......Later he,was proud of teaching her to be wilful and to stick up for herself...he describes her as just like him....

However,he also "insightfully" spoke - with regret! -about how moody and controlling he was when married - he had his own bathroom,office and summer house,no one else was allowed in - ever....
But ,of,course,according to him,it was all her fault - moody,unstable,violent temper etc....

His wife left him for a man they had known at church for years,as soon as their youngest graduated.They married as soon as the divorce came through.

DD is now senior in work with violent offenders .......and married to a 6ft 5 body builder who refuses to see xp - according to him,he bent over backwards to be welcoming when they met ,but this man is just thick and unreasonable...and had a fight with xp - unprovoked ..outside his xwifes house when xp calmly knocked on the door asking to see his grand daughter... he had not been informed she had been born....

So,due to this sil,allegedly,his dd "can only" meet xp a couple of times a year,for an hour or so,in a macdonalds,when she is on her way home from visiting her mother (although she often would visit and not tell him until afterwards)He accept this as down to secrecy from dd's husband.He has therefore met his gd and gs about 5 times,ever.

But his dd would ring up and talk very sickly luvooDaddy stuff to him,ask for money,and then he would send her whatever she wanted- £20,000 for her wedding,then they had it in secret and didn't tell him til after....Other times,she would avoid his calls and leave him voicemails or tx in the night "because of her h".....

The month baby d was born,his dd had moved into a house - he paid the deposit -in the same village as her m.Not far from here - relocated 200 miles.

He was hoping they would be seeing lots more of each other.....

I phoned his Aunt and found out what he'd told her ,and dd about me.She asked me not to ring again.I have no contact details for his x wife.

He carries a letter his dd wrote him aged 13 in his wallet.The night baby dd was born,she rang him ,he played it on loudspeaker and she was crying and shouting at him for being a selfish bastard,how could he be having a baby at his age,she was his little baby.
She is 32.