There’s an excellent book called ‘The Human Magnet Syndrome” by Ross Rosenberg. It’s excellent, it describes how people’s personalities are on a spectrum at one end there are co-dependent people and at the other narcissistic/ manipulative people, who sub consciously attract each other, and in some ways fill what’s lacking in theirs and their partners personality.
I didn’t realise it at the time, and only after I got out of a 25 year marriage did I realise that I had many co-dependant traits. I would put other people’s happiness over mine, find it hard to say no, poor boundary setting...I could go on.
After the marriage ended I realised my ex had no empathy, after I googled people with a lack of empathy, and found all my answers as to what and who my ex was, and more importantly who I was and what codependency was. I went to counselling and soon after realised what I needed to do to set boundaries, try not to care about what people thought of me quite as much, and that it’s ok to say no!
Normal, healthy people will respect your boundaries, will listen and try and understand what you are saying. Manipulative people will have you head spinning, use word salad, projection, blame and gas lighting to avoid accepting responsibility or losing control.
During our marriage I knew something wasn’t right, I felt somewhat bullied..not psychically but emotionally but could never quite put my finger on it or felt I could tell anyone how I felt without seeming insane. You just learn to put up with it I guess and ‘give in’ and I have no doubt my ex knew this and just kept manipulating everything in a subtle and covert way. Did my ex have a full blown personality disorder, I don’t think so but they were/are manipulative and display some pretty strong narcissistic traits.
Take time to reflect on what you’ve been through, read as much as you can on manipulation and codependency, watch YouTube video (Ross Rosenberg has many on YouTube), work in yourself and learn to set boundaries.
Good luck