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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

This seems so very small......

129 replies

Esmehansard · 16/02/2011 16:30

compared to what a lot are going though on here but it really bugs me although I am not able to find a way to express what I mean. Will try to keep this short.

My neighbour was burgled a few days ago. I was telling DP about it and what they did to her home, when he interrupted me to say in a very brisk tone "well to be honest, I am not really interested in all that, I am only interested in the safety of OUR kids" with a very serious look on his face.

Now it doesn't sound like much but he ALWAYS does this. Whenever he is talking about something that interests him work, family gossip etc I listen and respond appropriately and with interest, even when I am not that interested. Whenever I am talking he will either show no interest at all or cut me off with some kind of comment that leaves me in no doubt that I am rather shallow and actually a bit dim and not even worth responding to. Somehow I always end up with a bit of churning in my stomach and feeling like a bit of a fool. Do any of you understand what I mean? I am reading that back and still not managing to really say what I mean but I will post it anyway.

OP posts:
Original poster
esmehansard · 17/02/2011 20:16

But I didn't. I still can't stop engaging with his nonsense and trying to get him to see the "real me" not the one he says I am.

Can you tell me a bit more about the traits in co-dependents please? Maybe thats me and thats why I can't stop trying to get him to see reason

OP posts:
AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 20:30

Being with a Narcissist brings out unhealthy tendencies in those close to them. Having to engage in their games warps your world-view, usually exaggerating the weaknesses in your own personality. Understanding what happened to you helps you 'get yourself back' but, even then, can take years. They do deep and lasting harm (and rarely even see that!)

That said, almost everyone who chooses a Narcissist partner has a similarly disordered parent or other influential adult in their past. This is because Ns are so weird, most people avoid getting too close to them. We don't react that way because we are already adapted to weirdness, courtesy of our primary carers.

Co-dependence is an affliction in which you feel it is your duty to 'fix' people. This means you choose partners who need fixing. Strictly speaking, it doesn't apply to relationships with psychiatrically impaired people: it's a negative inter-dependence, for example with an addict, where the co-dependent is invested in keeping their partner addicted (so permanently in need of fixing). The 'fixing addiction' itself, though, is commonly found in partners of Ns. Have you always had a feeling that "He'd be so much happier, if you could just ..."?

AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 20:33

He cannot see the real you, Esme. There are no real humans in his life, not the way you & I mean real and human. He is just a howling, empty void. Other living creatures are two-dimensional, like paper cutouts.

He just doesn't know what "human" feels like :(
He just can't.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 20:35

i'm not a psychotherapist but basically in me it was a neediness / fear of abandonment that meant i would do anything to make it work even though (in hindsight) i was being abused. the problem is the N will never see the real you because for them you are just a mirror to let them see what they want to see (their reflection magnified and glorified). you are applying your logic, as i did, thinking there must be some way of making them see. making them understand. there isn't.

i also did some low grade self harming because i felt so emotionally volatile. (hitting myself on the head), made dramatic comments (i want to die etc) and ended up with clinical depression. at the time i thought this was a reasonable reaction to the situation but now i realise healthy people don't do this.

be prepared that if you do break it off when the N does actually move on it will be very sudden and apparently very easy - again a fact that doesn't reconcile with the grandiose declarations of love made previously.

if you google narcissistic codependent or similar you will probably find a lot of helpful information.

Original poster
esmehansard · 17/02/2011 20:43

It is more that he seems to WANT to see me in a bad light all the time. I do very often think, well I will just do THAT differently next time, I won't respond like that, I won't SAY that next time iyswim? But nothing ever works. Another thing he likes to do is accuse me of something, I will deny it but he will react as though it is totally true and then treat me accordingly do you get what I mean by that? Ok an example is one time we were discussing splitting up and he said he wouldn't pay child support, so I said well I will go through the CSA then and your company will ensure that you pay up because your wages will be stopped at source, he then started screaming at me that I was trying to ruin his job and his life, that people at his company would "sort me out" if I tried to fuck with The Company and so on. At no point had I said anything like that but he was reacting and calling me vicious horrible names and storming around because I had said the thing about child support.

OP posts:
Original poster
esmehansard · 17/02/2011 20:48

Oh and I think it was my Mum who was the disordered one, she was very verbally and physically abusive to me as I was growing up.

OP posts:
PeterAndreForPM · 17/02/2011 20:49

esme, will you please just start making plans to get him the fuck out of your life ?

that is the best way to use your energy right now

imagine if you applied all this mindpower and angst to just getting rid of him ?

you could move a mountain

Original poster
esmehansard · 17/02/2011 20:51

Oh I can get him out alright, I have no concerns about that, it is the keeping him out I am trying to deal with, I need to understand so I don't feel sorry for him and keep thinking it is me. Right now I feel strong and I know what to do but some how he always twists everything to make it all my fault and I want to have everything so clear in my head that he won't be able to sway me and make me feel guilty.

OP posts:
AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 20:53

He's not seeing YOU in a bad light, Esme, it's more that you're in a suitable position to take the blame for whatever's wrong in his life. This is nearly everything: it's not very nice being a howling void. Also, he tries to fill the inner emptiness by making things up. For him, the only world is the one in his head. He has no grasp of what you or I might call common sense (reality).

Sorry to hear about your mum. It does explain how you got into this predicament. Would it be too cruel to point out the likely consequences for your DCs, if you carry on giving them a 'disordered' childhood?

Original poster
esmehansard · 17/02/2011 20:54

No, it wouldn't Grace. I know, I just want to keep on knowing once I am away from MN iyswim? He is very clever and so sure of his rightness. Called defining reality I think.

OP posts:
AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 21:00

YUP! I'm still getting rid of the hooks XH had in me. Threads in here help tremendously. An informed & sympathetic counsellor is handy, too, if you can find one.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 21:26

ooh he sounds horrible esmehansard. don't think it is you at all. well part of it is you in that there is a part of you that makes you crumble and doubt and feel hopeless. maybe that was because of the way your mum was when you were young? i had / have a very difficult mum also who could/can be very verbally abusive and childish.

i've never done any therapy for this (well a few nhs counselling sessions when i was depressed but nothing discussed about personality disorders etc). i'm coming to think i might do some. i'm probably at my healthiest / happiest but i still feel there is stuff under there that needs sorting. i'd like to have a friendship circle and i don't (well not really). there's no one i call just to have a chat. in many ways i've trained myself to manage without but i don't think it's good. we have people we see as a couple and people i know and see 'around' i have a couple of closer friends i see but i've pushed them to arms length trained them not to call me / expect much.

sorry, didn't mean to make it all about me. your situation may well be quite different.

PeterAndreForPM · 17/02/2011 21:30

SNM...are you still with your narcissist bloke ?

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 21:51

no i'm not. (was a woman not a bloke actually). but do sometimes have dramatic rows with my current husband (who is not perfect but not a narcissist). usually i end up under the duvet wishing the world would go away and still sometimes end up shrieking dramatic things like wanting to die or punching myself.

PeterAndreForPM · 17/02/2011 21:58

sorry, it was just the way you said "we"

my mistake

you sound like you still not in a great place, though

but I do find myself nodding along in perfect agreement with your assessments of such fucked-up relationships Sad

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 22:06

i can see that was an easy mistake to make.

life is actually okay in that there are no big crises (for once). maybe that's why i have time to reflect now and think i need to work out how to become more balanced / healthy...before a crisis hits. it's that moment when you realise your own reactions aren't necessarily normal but damaged and that is what makes you vulnerable. i think i don't really quite know what a normal relationship reaction is or how people actually have normal friendships etc. i feel like those templates just weren't in my sphere growing up.

PeterAndreForPM · 17/02/2011 22:14

I am so sorry, SNM

Have you had any counselling ? You speak with clarity about the abstract, but maybe not so clear in your own life ? About what is the "damaged" you and a perfectly normal reaction to a normal argument that we all have with our partners at some point?

WannabeaShootingStar · 17/02/2011 22:18

My husband does this it is vv annoying. Earlier I mentioned to him twice I have posted his daughter a b'day card for next week.

Two hours later he told me it's her b'day next week.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh Angry

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 22:24

the abstract is so much easier to deal with than own life. i had six nhs counselling sessions about 8 years ago after splitting with the N and having become depressed. but no other counselling. i'm trying to self-counsel (not sure how effective that is).

i think the damaged me is the me that is absolutely terrified of being abandonned / rejected. i'm not scared of confrontation and i'm not a people pleaser (other than maybe the need to cling to partner and overly rely on them for emotional security). i think there is probably a link between my serial intense relationships and my inability to nurture friendships. i'm a loner / clinger. or maybe i'm just an antisocial bastard. problem is i actually function quite adequately in this state. or at least part of me convinces me that i do. i have a series of complicated excuses as to why my mobile call list is virtually empty.

outwardly i come across as confident and quite successful. perhaps i am scared of letting this mask slip.

dittany · 17/02/2011 22:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 22:26

next time we have a dramatic row i will come here for some analysis. i'm hoping mindfulness will minimise the chances.....

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 17/02/2011 22:29

thanks dittany. i think i might have read that when i was with ex. or something similar.

i came across a book called 'the high conflict couple'. reviews on amazon look interesting. i might give it a go.

PeterAndreForPM · 17/02/2011 22:30

you do that, SNM

I think your clarity will help others in the meantime though

AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 22:34

SNM, I'm still struggling with fear. The book that's making the most difference to my thoughts/feelings/life/self at the moment is Paul Gilbert's The Compassionate Mind. It's an odd mixture of science and Zen (I know!!) but, if that doesn't sound too very strange to you, might be worth a look. It explains why - and why his approach should help. Think you can 'look inside' on Amazon :)

AgeingGrace · 17/02/2011 22:43

Oh, Esme, I keep forgetting my hint! You know about mirroring and projection, yes? From now on, reverse the pronouns in his criticisms and see what they tell you about how he really looks at things. Depending on DC's ages, can also be a valuable exercise for them.

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