Hi i have been reading desperately trying to make sense of it all and just wanted to know if i have been dating a narcissist and how do i deal with myself now? I cant stop crying and need to concentrate on my children.
I got with this guy (N) after I split from my husband primarily because ex h had a porn addiction (and didn't tell me ) whilst pretending he had no sex drive.
I have been friends with N for over a decade, good friends I thought.
Much of our relationship we discussed different women he liked,mutual friends, colleagues etc. He was often confused about which woman he's after had a few relationships while i knew him and a few flings that he told me about.
When talking about previous relationships there were a couple of women who i feel were quite vulnerable, he talked about himself as the victim and those (younger) women hoodwinking him into relationships and 'playing' him.
Years ago i was friendly with one of those women and i clearly remember her saying "i'm free" after splitting up with him.
When my ex husband and i split N declared his feelings for me and as we'd always connected and i was in desperate need of some passion i (stupidly) fell straight into an intense relationship with him.
During our long friendship he was preoccupied with having kids, spending time around other people's kids. He said that when i became a mother i really blossomed and that's when he really started to fall in love with me.
Quite early on in our relationship he talked to me about porn, asking me repeatedly: "what would you do if i was addicted? How do you know im not? " it made me uncomfortable, uneasy and scared especially as he knew what i'd been through with my ex. I told him how i felt and he explained it away saying it was just our usual banter and meant nothing. He seemed surprised i was upset but apologised saying he was addicted to porn but no longer needs it as is no longer single and has me. At this point you'll be wondering what on earth kept me friends with him, he never presents this side of himself to friends that i know of, lots of people think hes amazing and i know a LOT of women who are attracted to him, he's the original charismatic, creative, great listener, really insightful and gives great advice, the ideal male best friend, or so he seemed...
Although i knew years ago he smoked dope (we all did back then) it was only recently he told me he was addicted to cannabis and had only stopped very recently but was still spending lots of time around a good friend who is regularly smoking dope around him. N seemed to enjoy showing how controlled he was around his dopey friend.
The next thing which unsettled me was him getting really angry over a discussion over me confiding in a mutual friend, telling me how dangerous her partner is so therefore i shouldn't trust her. I was defensive about my friend and he started to try and scare me talking about things her partner had done and demanding a response from me. I cried and asked him to stop trying to scare me, when he'd stopped he said he'd only been trying to guide me.
During the brief relationship there were a few angry outbursts when he was feeling criticised, questioned or disagreed with, they were so at odds with the friend he was and the lover he'd become, i used to get upset and then he'd beg me not to leave and told me stories about his childhood abandonment issues. Lots of the stuff he told me about his horrible childhood he said he'd never told anybody else before except for his therapist.
Another weird thing that he did when recounting stories about himself he talked about 'this person' or 'that person' instead of saying their names. I told him it was weird and unsettling and then he stopped doing it.
when i was under immense pressure and had asked for some time out from the 'relationship' to sort out my other personal issues, he planned to take another woman out (one of his large posse of women friends). Previously when we were just friends he'd expressed strong feelings for her to me. I got so upset when he told me that he cancelled the date and said it was just as friends, but he didn't mean to distress me.
One day he came to my door, i was upstairs so slow in answering and when i got there he was outside talking to a woman he'd recently met at a staff training event. He'd previously told me about this woman, ridiculing her as a 'dolly bird' and calling her 'blondie'. She was very attractive in a well groomed slim blonde kind of way. They were chatting quite mundane stuff in front of me, then she left and said goodbye, i walked back into the house and as she left i heard her call to him "i will go for THAT coffee with you". He muttered "no you won't" under his breath and i felt he was genuinely shaken by my overhearing her say that. I asked him if he was planning on going for coffee with her and he replied "no!" Quite vehemently, and said he'd i troduced me to her as "the love of his life" i didn't bother saying anything else i just let it fester while i continued to manage other stressors in my life, but i see this woman about 4 times every day in my local area and am often tempted to ask her about the coffee comment and find out how the discussion had come about although i won't gain anything from knowing, it's just tormenting myself.
When we first got together he kept telling me what an amazing body i have (i haven't!) then after we'd been together a while he was casually mentioning a few times about my 'bulk' and talking about me toning up/would love to see me toned up. Very subtle throw-away comments but enough to make me feel belittled. I remember him in a previous relationship when his partner was trying to get pregnant he was saying things about her figure hoping she won't put on more weight after having kids, at the time i was young free and no kids and thought this was just a normal blokey observation.
He also told me that other people were saying there was a violent end to one of his relationships but he told me a completely different story and because he was my friend i believed the story. Another friend recently reminded me of this incident and i've recently noticed he's always changing his story to suit his mood/the circumstances and getting really angry when challenged.
One of his very old, close friends (one of his harem) recently became pregnant. N said to me she is no longer interesting now she's always talking about expecting a baby.
He kept offering to do various chores to help me out as i was juggling so many things, he got cross and irritated a couple of times then said he was struggling to keep up the being nice and kind, trying to prove he was better than my ex. It was around this time that i started to feel that he was acting out a charade and hiding behind a facade.
The sex also took a darker turn but as i have always been 'adventurous' it didn't really add up until after that he was the one instigating the change of tone because after we'd had more dark sex he said it was worrying him the turn things were taking and he didn't want to lose the tenderness and romance. He said he'd never done some of the things before and was just being led by me but his performance was very authentic and it felt to me like it was very natural to him.
I also found out since we split that he kept dating profile open although he doesnt appear to have logged on for a while.
In between al this madness we did have an amazing time, doing fun stuff, going to beautiful places but i felt increasingly that he was only happy as long as i was adoring and not challenging.
I dont really know why i'm writing here, i just feel really stupid, foolish, angry with myself and depressed that while i thought i was getting some hot sex and passion as well as romance he was most likely just using me and possibly lining up other women behind my back.
It's hard to talk about in real life because friends and family just thought it was rebound and that i was jumping in too soon, nobody seems in the slightest bit interested in my pain now, it really hurts so soon after a divorce and i wish i'd never given him head/heart space.
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Relationships
What have i done?! Have I been dating a narcissist?
slimedagain · 01/08/2014 22:25
You've been emotionally conned. Of course it hurts, a lot, you'd be weird if it didn't 
It's important to realise that:
- You didn't do it to yourself, you were targeted;
- Your warning system & defences could be better.
The Freedom Programme will definitely help with that - congrats on signing up so promptly! Meanwhile, have a look at this (pdf) to improve your shark cage.
There are at least a dozen red flags in your OP, most of which I'm sure you've now afforded more significance. For what it's worth, this one stood out to me: said he was struggling to keep up the being nice and kind. Twat!
Look after yourself. You're worth good care :)
its kind of better the devil you know
I agree, with major reservations. Actually "knowing the devil" is more a matter of gaining absolute clarity on their faults, then choosing whether to smile & nod for the sake of having some family, or dump the barmy fuckers. Some people's families, on examination, prove so irretrievably insane that even limited contact would be damaging.
The relevance of this is that we learn all the basics about relationships from our families. When people I loved as an adult - friends and partners - showed me who they really were, I did notice. The wise voice in the back of my head would issue a silent riposte: "Then I don't want you in my life" but my familial conditioning would instantly override that, ignoring the evidence or explaining it away, blaming some fault in myself, even having a row about it but knowing I'd patch it over.
My shark cage is 70% about respecting my wiser, inner voice, and 30% filling in gaps by learning about healthy, well-balanced relationships. I'm a work in progress. Your percentages will be different, but the processes will be the same. Luckily for us there is now a mass of internet resources to help us with this. And Mumsnet 
Maybe there just is mo reason to him and i should stop fixating on him and work on my own shiz...
Yeah, that sums it up
I'm learning that I made the right decision
Indeed you did!!
Both my XHs used to rehearse for a situation by telling the story as if it had already happened. "I said to him ... then I did XYZ ..." For the first few years with H1, I assumed the thing had already happened and it was very confusing when the same thing kept on happening 
Eventually figured out what was going on, but had a massive sinking moment when I realised H2 did the same thing.
Both were rampant liars, whose realities differed significantly from everyone else's.
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Following on from your reply to orange - of course the thing is to fix your confidence, repair your boundaries and rebuild your future. For me, though, as with most other survivors of freakish relationships (technical term), identifying & naming the behaviours is a big part of that. If we just go "well, that didn't work out", we've not really learned very much so may be sentencing ourselves to repetitions.
Some people see learning about various styles of dysfunctional thinking & relationships as 'ruminating' or dwelling on past harms. I suspect those people already have great shark cages; they don't understand that people like me need to identify what really happened to us. Perhaps it's obvious to them. Perhaps they can't imagine that a confident, intelligent, successful businesswoman would simply accept her partner's right to treat her like a servant, cheat on her and rape her - but I did. With such crappy boundaries, I couldn't label the XHs' behaviours as 100% unacceptable until I learned how and why this is abnormal.
My mother invested a great deal in teaching me to "understand" my dad, who was a sadistic bully. Some therapists have misread my need to properly understand as an extension of this - when my mum said 'understand', she meant 'excuse, put up with it, forgive'. I don't mean that. I mean 'identify patterns of behaviour, name them, reject them, and know what I want instead'.
This looks a bit rambly to me 
I hope it makes at least some sense to you and orange.
often when i do challenge its met with derision or ignored completely
Last post for now, I promise The thing here is that you're expecting them to hear what you're saying and change something because you're upset. They can't. Reasonable, sane, rational people are willing & able to take on board a differing point of view, and adjust to it. Others are simply unable to do that; they feel as if they'll collapse & disappear or something!
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