Arsehole or narcissist?

[Lockcodger]

I've read so many threads on here tonight that I thought I would post up some if the things I've learned recently about narcissism, as so many people seem to be going through this at the moment.

I've recently just escaped from my 3rd relationship with a narc and I'm still processing alot of it but much of what I say below is available on YouTube.

In the beginning

1. He showered you with excessive gifts, compliments, favours etc that sometimes made you feel uncomfortable? Particularly if he said he had never met anyone like you before, you are his soulmate.

1. The relationship progressed very quickly and he said I love you very early on, talked about marriage, children, moving in together way too early.

1. Your gut told you something wasnt right but you ignored it at the time

1. It feels too good to be true, you were swept off your feet etc

1. Played the victim, had many "crazy exes" who cheated on him treated him terribly and his family and life in general was out to get him but he cannot see the role he played in the demise of his life.

1. Unable to keep down a job, lives an unstable lifestyle (homeless, jobless, living with parents or a string of short term partners)

1. You were vulnerable at the time e.g. very young, just left another abusive relationship or breakup, you have had a difficult childhood, lost a job etc.

This is the idealisation phase of the abuse cycle (idealise, devalue discard). The next phase is devalue and then discard.

1. Devalue: Constant little digs sometimes disguised as jokes, putdowns, sarcasm, criticism or outright calling you names

1. Projection: Accusing you of things you haven't done (cheating, lying etc.) They are projecting the things that THEY have done to you, onto you. Jealousy is a huge red flag!

1. Lying and gas lighting. If you catch them out in a lie, they will give you 100 bulshit reasons why it wasnt a lie and then turn it back around on you and say you are abusive and controlling for daring to ask them to explain themselves and why they lied. This is gas lighting, making you doubt your own reality and feel crazy (which they know they are making you crazy so call you crazy to gaslight more).

1. Triangulation. This may start with comparing you to other women or exes by pointing out your flaws, slagging off all of their exes to you so you never find out what really happened between them (most likely he was abusive). This then leads to cheating, which has 3 goals. One to punish you for whatever perceived terrible thing the narc thinks you've done, to make you feel like shit and want to compete with the other woman and also for additional narcissistic supply.

1. Entitlement and irresponsibility. Lazy, selfish, nothing is ever good enough, parasitoc lifestyle rely on you financially or ask to borrow money and don't pay you back or you have to ask them to pay, live with you but doesnt pull their weight with housework, bills and childcare. Comes across as helpless, is bad with money, has been homeless or lived with a string of short term relationships, has drug or alcohol dependency, doesnt see his children or pay child support, can't hold down a job.

1. Fragile ego when they feel they are criticised they hugely overreact like a toddler stomping their feet. Immaturity, tantrum throwing, silent treatment, stonewalling (ignore you for hours/days), threatens to leave, threatens to expose something private about you (secrets/pictures), throwing things, punching walls, physical or sexual violence.

1. Lack of empathy. You feel like they don't care about your feelings because they don't!

1. Cheating. Nearly all narcissists cheat. They like to line up new narcissistic supply for your discard phase (this is why they appear to move on so quickly when a relationship ends but really they were lined up all along)

1. Recruit flying monkeys. Spread rumours and lies about you to tarnish your name while they play victim. You may see your own friends turning against you if they believe the narcs version of events.

10. They have a history of domestic violence, say their ex was violent to them, say their ex made false allegations of abuse against them to turn their children against them. 99% of the time, believe the woman, not the narc.

11. Hoovering. After discard they will get back in contact to test the waters, promising they have changed, quit drinking/drugs, they NEED you, life is so horrible etc.

If you take them back after the Hoover stage, you re-enter the idealise, devalue discard abuse cycles only the cycles will get shorter each time you go back.

The best thing to do if you identify a narc in your life is to run, go no contact and block them from everything. If you have children with the narc, you could try low contact method.

Theres so much more but this post is becoming really long. I hope it helps some people reading this

Oh also should say he doesn't give up trying it on for sex. I just give in eventually as he'll keep nagging. Is that not just a male thing in general?
Plus another thing to do with presents - said no ones bought him a present before but got arsey over the Fitbit I bought him much like a PP above...

So much resonates - going through divorce now, it’s awful.

If you have been with them long term and, seen their mask slip and are on to their game (and they know it), they will let the mask fall off completely and not try to hide it anymore. Remember, that's who they were all along (most of them can only keep the nice act up for a few months in the beginning, maximum a couple of years). The niceness was an act and what you are left with is an empty bag of shit with nothing but hate and poison to spread. This is exactly right

Oh Cyril, I'm so sorry you are in this situation. The warning signs are all definitely there and the fact that you think it's your fault is a classic sign you are suffering from narcissistic abuse.

Here's a text word for word from my last narc when I started to pull him up on his lies about being abusive to exes

"The answer to your question “every relationship has been marred with violence” after self internalisation I’ve discovered one thing..All of them share one or two things in common , there are all ..(single mums , gone through domestic violence or witnessed it, claims of sexual assaults,stalked,daddy issues,struggling raising there kids , they all hate there baby fathers , don’t want there baby dads spending time with their kids, hate their lives, hate their jobs hate some of their friends all “in my case” have had mental issues, spends more time complaining about past relationships with new partners the list goes on..so where does this place me??
Answer is simple really..I’m a product of the same woman in some ways I guess and I’m not talking about my biological mum but women in these situations in the community etc..You and I were never meant to be in a relationship especially with the baggages we carry..if we had kept it simple and kept the emotions out of it then there would of been no drama.. I wanna be in your life as a friend “a friend in need is a friend indeed “ you helped me out in my time of need and let me return the favour only as a friend x"

Notice how he takes absolutely NO responsibility for his own part in the relationship and can only focus on the characteristics that were similar between his exes (he is unable to self reflect). Ask your partner if he could improve something about himself, what would it be? or what part he played in the demise of his previous relationships and what he would do differently. His answer will be very telling and will most likely be blaming someone or something else for all the problems and a sob story of how hard his life is/has been.

If you identify with alot if things from this thread, he is very likely to be the problem and not you. It will not get better if you stay

And no, it is not a male thing to not take no for an answer when it comes to sex (or anything really). If someone is willing to have sex with you only because you eventually "gave in", they are a selfish, creepy, entitled abusive twat. They are disrespecting your boundaries. If you feel icky during/after sex it is very telling as they often have little emotional connection during sex.

Wow that's one hell of a text you received there! The thing is he has so much stress gong on in his life (I won't go into it as it would be outing) that it's hard not to put it down to that. And he does have really good points too. I'd really miss him and would hate the thought of him with someone else. My head is such a mess

For every bad thing I always convince myself it's me that's provoke it or I'm just being needy etc so I'm always the one that ends up apologising

Lockcodger.
I'm starting to wonder if this is the Truman show and I'm Truman. This is all just just too fucking accurate...

Most would rather shit in their hands and clap than pay a penny in child support
🤣🤣🤣

Cyril it doesnt matter what stress he is going through, it's no excuse to be abusive to you. It also doesnt matter what you did to "provoke him" (which is most likely you reacting to being gaslit, projected onto, lied to etc) , he is responsible for his own actions and chooses how he responds.

When you say he is still angry for rejecting him in the beginning (causing the most severe narc injury) I have heard that some narcs o ly get back with you to punish you for leaving. You will never win with this man, nothing will ever be good enough and everything will always be your fault.

If you decide to stay in the relationship, I beg you to not have children with him. I and I'm sure many women on this thread can attest to that. They will ruin yours and your children's lives. Mine all need trauma counselling and play therapy because of their father which makes me feel so incredibly guilty for bringing them into the situation

I have a DS7 from my previous marriage. We've discussed children in the future and I even went to the GP about reducing my antidepressants in preparation. I take them for anxiety and I've really struggled in the last few weeks with the reduction from 40mg to 30mg. So naturally I blame myself for the arguments due to anxiety. When I said I'd had a bad week with the arguments and anxiety and could do with seeing him tonight he just said I should go back to the GP and still chose the pub instead. I know he's had a REALLY stressful week at work but could of done with a hug. But is that too needy?!

Very sorry everyone for hijacking the thread!

This is so true, I actually think you are writing about my ex, I am tempted to message you just to check it's not!

Pics and galaxy it's really sad when you realise how predictable they all are, so much so that we all feel like with have the same ex! 😂

Cyril you are not needy, you are in an abusive relationship and trying to soothe your pain bu turning to your abuser for comfort. Please get your 7 year old away from this piece of crap. I promise you if you stay and your child has issues because of it, the guilt will far outweigh the immediate pain of leaving this shit!!

I was on sertraline up until a few months ago and I was a nervous wreck with anxiety. I've realised to only reason I have anxiety I the first place was because I was being narcisitiaclly abused.

Instead of only looking at how he behaves, try looking at your symptoms of abuse. Can you identify any of these symptoms in yourself?

blogs.psychcentral.com/recovering-narcissist/2017/08/11-signs-youre-the-victim-of-narcissistic-abuse/

Thank you for the link I'll take a look now. Did you find the withdrawal from the AD's hard going?

I'm cool as a cucumber. Now. With him I was nuts. Except I wasn't nuts, I was the human equivalent of a rescue dog, shivering and afraid of everything. I had become the scapegoat on which he poured all his anxieties and self hatred until I internalised them and became what he felt on the inside. Just how he liked it.

When he left, all that fear and self hatred he had poured into me with just drained right out. 3 months after I dropped contact to bare minimum, I was normal again.

Meanwhile, he's angry as fuck.
Imagine that.

🙇🏼‍♀️

This thread has resonated with me so much that I've had the courage to say no. Regardless how much I love you, I won't put up with this any longer. I fell in love with the person and the image you knew I wanted you to be but you fucking snatched it all away from me. In fact, you didn't snatch it, you just stole little bits, every fucking day and you replaced it with what I began to think was normal. And it was. And, given a good chance, it still would be. But you're not that person you led me to believe in. You're a fucking monster. You're the worst kind of abusive cunt there is because I believed you. I believed you weren't like all the fucking rest. I hate you, you narcisstic, gaslighting fuck. So why do I feel it's all my fault.

to everyone going through this

cyrilted, what you said about sex rang so many alarm bells. Giving into sex and consenting to sex are very different things. My ex raped me again and again and again. I wanted to believe him that it was 'his way of showing affection'. It wasn't. The police called it rape. I was never safe with him. Nor were some of my friends. Rape in an abusive relationship is very common almost to the point of being normal although it is illegal. It is hard to prove unless your house is kitted out with cameras and even if a case goes to trial rape myths abound.

There wasn't enough evidence for the CPS in my ex's case. However the police did tell him to leave the family home or be arrested if he caused more problems. I know what and who he is. Given the horrors that I have endured I think it is unlikely that the other women he has assaulted and raped will come forward. It's not nice raking over ashes and I have lost friends because of his behaviour.

What, my heart really goes out to you. Your ex sounds horrendous and I'm sorry the police were not able to prosecute.

One thing my ex-H used to do was have sex with me when I was asleep (when I was absolutely exhausted with a new baby and taking care of two young children). I didn't think it was rape at the time but I can see very clearly now that any time they coerce (e.g by nagging, sulking, threatening to cheat if you don't give in), force or have sex with you without your explicit consent (I.e. it is clear to them that YOU want to have sex) is rape.

Kitty, I'm so glad this thread has helped you to recognise you are being abused. Are you still in the relationship or have you left already?

How is everyone else doing today?

Another thing I forgot to mention is that many of these guys will be on multiple dating sites (usually throughout your relationship). I have completely been put off online dating because theres such a high concentration of narcs on there.

Still here just now Lock, packing up my clothes as I type. No idea where I'm going. Family are hundreds of miles away, no friends, a bit of cash and a car.

Kitty are you able to contact a womens shelter to try and find somewhere to stay until you can figure out your next move? Please be very careful, leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time so you may wish to contact the womens centre or call the national domestic helpline for some advice.

Are your family aware of the situation and are you able to reach out to them for support? Alot of women feel embarrassed to tell people what has happened but you will be surprised how understanding and caring people can be.

For anyone still in doubt as to whether they are in an abusive relationship 💐

@KittyVonCatsworth, fingers crossed for you. As scary as it is the it can’t be as bad as staying. Like @Lockcodger said get in contact with Women’s Aid.

The acting like his mum should have been a big red flag in my situation. And also how he treated his mum I.e. calling her a squaw, kicking his dirty washing out on the landing for her to pick up, she’d make his lunches too.

Kitty, please let the police know what you are doing. It really is a dangerous time. Dial 101 and ask to speak to the domestic abuse team.

Oh yes, lock codger, those times when he would start having sex when I was asleep. Yuck yuck yuck. The endless excuses. I told him how much I hated it. Of course it was my fault.