Hes definitely a narc :( now what

[Jfizz]

So I posted a few days ago asking for advice about my boyfriend behaving with zero empathy towards his daughter when her dog died.

Fast forward a couple of days and my son got called for surgery for Saturday morning - me and him hadn’t spoken to each other since Wednesday and giving each other the silent treatment it seemed. I messaged him on Friday evening saying “son has surgery in the morning. Presumably you’re still huffing or whatever but just thought you’d like to know” - he replied very nicely and supportive asking could he come too and not what I expected.

Maybe the days and days of reading about narcissism were wrong after all. I had a little hope.

Saturday he sits in the hospital and I’ve just seen my little son put to sleep on a theatre bed and as soon as I come out he’s trying to get me into the bathroom for sex?? Like what the fuck!
He was so grabby with me and it didn’t feel like normal he was clearly still angry because I had called him a shit dad. It didn’t feel loving.

He was due to go watch the match that night and I was very anxious about this. Nights out for him in the past have resulted in: disappearing, strip clubs, bringing girls home if we have had an argument, lying about where he is, taking drugs, going totally MIA. I told him how I was feeling that it was a conditioned response from his previous behaviour and he asked me what he could do to reassure me when he goes. I said “don’t do those things?” He left me and my son in hospital to go for his night out at 2pm (which is pretty cunty in the first place)

He kept in touch but my anxiety grew. I knew he was getting drunk because his messages became more “soppy”- I’m so lucky to have you babygirl etc. Last message was at 11.30pm and then bang. Gone. Got a message at 6.30am saying “went a bit overboard and trying to get to sleep, can you come to my house and cuddle me when you get up”

I called him and asked had he taken drugs - he started lying and I said - I know you have and he admitted it but played it down. I told him I didn’t want my life to be sitting worried sick that my 40 year old boyfriend is out partying with people half his age and doing god knows what. He was at house parties with the little slutty girls in our city who are well known. I got up and went to his house and he was distant but wanted me just to hop into bed with him. I started crying and asked why he does these things and he said “I needed a blow out” - I said he was wearing me down and making me feel like nothing. I left and didn’t talk to him the rest of the day. He was on snapchat with girls I think before I got there as I took his phone off him and hid in the bathroom. He was pacing outside trying to get in the door and it could have easily become violent. I felt like my rib cage was going to burst and I was crying so hard. I asked why he’d deleted the chats and he said “just”.

He messaged this morning saying that his actions were because of my blaming him on Tuesday about the daughter/dog thing. Basically deflecting. Everything I’ve read and his behaviour has solidified with me he’s a narc. Now what??

I have left him several times before but he chases me back and the hard thing about this is that I actually really love him. Does he love me? Is he capable?

This has just turned my world upside down and I wonder if I’ll ever trust him or feel safe and content 😿 I feel like I’ve been living a lie for 3 years and don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

I’m quite secluded and don’t get out much. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t like clubbing. People scare me. If I leave him I’ll just be alone 🙁 and heartbroken. Do I just shut up and put up??

How can I make him see his behaviour really hurts me ?

Is there something wrong with me? Please help :(

*to be clear I didn’t have sex with him in hospital! I sat outside theatre a nervous wreck with my son inside. And him trying to paw all over me

He knows his behaviour hurts you. He doesn’t care.

Nothing you can say or do will make him care about anyone expect himself.

Either accept this is what your life will be like forever or leave him.

I hope your little boy is making a good recovery from surgery.

OP, didn't you read all the replies to your previous thread? They were unanimous.

I'd forget about labelling his behaviour. Whether he is a narc or not isn't really important. What is important is how how behaviour makes you feel.

It makes you feel shitty.

You deserve more than this.

Why are you still with him?? Why do you care what he thinks? You can't 'make' him see anything. But he KNOWS that he's hurting you! He just doesn't care. Start worrying about what YOU think.

If I leave him I’ll just be alone

OP, I would a million times rather be alone than be with this piece of shit.

All you can change is your behaviour and your actions. He won't change. If you won't think about yourself, think about how his behaviour - and your reactions - affect your dc.

You might love him, but you don't seem to love yourself if your standards are set this low.

He is not going to change and you can't make him "see" that. I personally find it repulsive that he was hassling you for sex outside of your son's operating theatre.

You say you are scared of being alone - is that really worse than being with him?

"He is wearing me down to nothing... I wonder if I could ever trust him or be safe..."

Your words. If a friend said this to you - what would you advise?

You’ve willingly let this horrible man into your son’s life. Get him out, immediately. Before your son starts to think that this is how men should behave.

I hope your little boy is okay and recovering well.

But when it’s good it’s really good and I feel so loved :( he tells me he loves me all the time and shows it quite often. It’s just in times like these he’s never accountable for his actions. It’s like he can’t see his own behaviour and how it affects me.

The narc thing really upset me because it says they dont actually love. So is everything he’s ever said to me a lie?

bringing girls home if we have had an argument this isn’t normal behaviour.

If he’s a narc, then he is incapable of of truly loving you. He can mimic what he sees and what he thinks loving someone is, but can never truly love someone.

You can’t make him see that his behaviour is hurting you because he already knows it hurts you. It’s all part of the fucked-up-ness of a narcs personality. All the insecurities you have, he knows about and that’s why he does what he does because he thinks you’ll never leave him. It’s all part of the devaluation stage where he makes you feel worthless and feeling you can’t cope with being alone, can’t manage life in your own and no one will want you. He may not say these things overtly but covertly the things they say have a life draining effect on you.

Is there anything wrong with you? Only a trained professional could tell you that. For me I discovered that I displayed quite a few codependent traits, I was a people pleaser, hated arguments, gained approval and validation from others rather than just doing what I wanted and not worrying about what other people thought of me. My therapist said that she didn’t know who my ex was and whether they were a full blown narc, but that narcs often instinctively know how to manipulate a person who co dependent traits and poor boundaries.

When my ex cheated on me it was the final straw. I left and we are now divorced. It was tough and took 4 stressful years to get through it all, but I did it. I read all I could about narcs, watched videos on you tube, joined forums.

Judging by what you have written he sounds like he ticks many of the narc boxes, but I’m no professional. It sounds like you need to get out of the relationship and find true happiness with someone who respects you.

OMG! Who knows if everything is a lie? We're not inside this bloke's head.

And if abusers were horrible all the time, nobody would stay with them. Being nice is part of their pattern. They're nice to make you love them, then they're naty because they hate you. And the cycle continues.

Telling you he loves you is easy. But look at his actions. He doesn't love you.

He does know how his behaviour affects you. He just doesn't care.

Oh my love. Hard truths now.

Yes - he is a narc

No - he doesn't love you. He cannot because he has no empathy

He will, I guarantee, keep on making your life an utter misery. The good times as you describe are brief snatches of the golden time. Then he reverts to type.

Go over to narcsite.com and read HG Tudor. He will explain it all, far better than I can. You are his Intimate Partner Primary Source (IPPS). He will continue to devalue you if you let him.

If you truly believe he is a narc (and all signs point to this) then Get Out and Stay Out (GOSO). Then it's the full No Contact (NC).

HG can help with this, as can I.

And because you have been through so much.

The behaviour you describe is seriously abusive. No, he doesn't love you. And he won't change.

You can't change him but you can change yourself. While you carry on putting up with his vile treatment of you, you will carry on being miserable. It's no life. So you need to start thinking about your boundaries.

And you need to start thinking about leaving this relationship. You may not be up to leaving immediately but you need to work towards a life apart. Life's too short to live the way you are.

What was your childhood like? How did your DF treat your DM? Think about the assumptions you make about love and relationships, because to an outsider it's really obvious that you're accepting terrible treatment because you believe if you say "I love him" that means you'll put up with any crap.

Try the Freedom Programme, which is for women affected by abusive relationships. You can do it online if attending a course is too difficult.

The incident in the hospital is horrific. He's disgusting, and it's really serious abuse. You deserve so much better.

It's not love that you feel. Think of yourself as addicted to him, instead. You crave him in the way a heroin addict craves a hit. Afterwards they wish they hadn't done it, and that's what happens to you, too. Every time he's nice to you, it's like a little hit of something that's really, really bad for you. The only thing to do is to go cold turkey and have nothing to do with him again. You won't be able to do that if you call it love, though.

What difference dies a label make?

He treats you like shit and you think a few spoken words make it ok. Pick your self esteem up off the floor and get some professional help.

Fanny: I’m sorry you went through that :( he went to therapy the last time I walked out on him - but he came back to me with things “the therapist” had said - that I was controlling etc. I really don’t feel that I am. But I don’t trust him at all and I’ve tried so hard but he makes it impossible.

Thelastgoldeneagle - yesterday when I was crying sore he seemed to get upset and started crying himself, then he was nearly sick. It’s like for a moment he could see and feel what he was doing to me. I keep wrestling with staying or going. Thinking that if I leave I’ll have regrets like I didn’t try enough or be enough. He has told people when we broke up that I am emotionally abusive and it just totally fucks with my head :(

Renard - thanks I’ll look at that now xx

There is no love for you here. None. Sex isn't love

Do so, OP. HG saved me. Honestly x

Prawnofthepatriarchy - my childhood was terrible. Both my mother and father were extremely abusive emotionally, physically, mentally. You name it. It was a living hell and they used to beat each other senseless. I have toured with the idea that I have some kind of borderline personality disorder but I can’t afford therapy unfortunately.

Whether he's a narc or not is irrelevant. He treats you like crap. Get rid and then do the freedom programme.

Hollowtalk - that’s a good analogy. I do feel like that... when I leave him the heartache just consumes me and I regret it so much. It’s like I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Part of me wishes I’d never met him 😔

Stop now. Leave him.

Re your comment:-

"I have left him several times before but he chases me back and the hard thing about this is that I actually really love him. Does he love me? Is he capable?"

You are probably confusing love with codependency. No he does not love you and no he is not capable to love.

"This has just turned my world upside down and I wonder if I’ll ever trust him or feel safe and content 😿 I feel like I’ve been living a lie for 3 years and don’t know what’s real and what’s not".

Spaghetti head is par for the course with such abusive men and your last three years with him have been based on a lie. If there is no trust anyway there is no relationship.

"I’m quite secluded and don’t get out much. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t like clubbing. People scare me. If I leave him I’ll just be alone 🙁 and heartbroken. Do I just shut up and put up??"

Being isolated socially made it that much easier for you to be targeted by such a predator as well. Better to be on your own (and you are not on your own really because you have your son) than to be so badly accompanied. Your son also needs to see a far better example of a male figure as well.

"How can I make him see his behaviour really hurts me ?"

You will not succeed with him in making him see this. He knows and he does not care at all. You are but a mere possession to him to use and abuse as he sees fit.

Part of me also wishes you had never met him either but you did and now you need to get him out of yours and your son's life permanently.
Abusers like this will not let go of you easily because he also likes the power and control he has over you.

Narcissists idolise, devalue and then discard.

He targeted you and otherwise latched onto you deliberately partly because of your own abusive childhood; that made it so much more easy for him to target you. Your abusive childhood was not your fault but it left you with damaged boundaries, this enabled him to inveigle his way into your life and promise you the moon on a stick. He smelt your desperation for a normal life and relationship a mile off and exploited you accordingly.

Please do the Freedom programme asap in person and employ all necessary means to get this abusive man out of your lives.

We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents, look at what yours taught you.

JFizz, you say your childhood was terrible but then you say:

It was a living hell and they used to beat each other senseless. I have toured with the idea that I have some kind of borderline personality disorder but I can’t afford therapy unfortunately.

That's not what I was suggesting. I don't think you have a personality disorder. I think you learned totally unhealthy lessons about how couples treat each other as a child and it's left you with some very toxic beliefs.

You may not even consciously be aware of the lessons you learned as a child, but they underlie your acceptance of your partner's truly dreadful treatment of you.

You may not be able to afford therapy, but you can do the Freedom Programme online or by attending sessions and it's FREE.

Jfizz

re your comment:-
"Fanny: I’m sorry you went through that he went to therapy the last time I walked out on him - but he came back to me with things “the therapist” had said - that I was controlling etc"

More projection of his own self onto you. His tears were all done out of manipulation as well.

I put it to you he did not infact attend therapy at all (narcissists do not do well in therapy in any case because they feel they have done nothing wrong here). He would need years of therapy in any case and that is not going to happen either.

Abusers are not nasty all the time but their nice/nasty cycle is a continuous one.

I also think you are a people pleaser, codependent in relationships and someone with exceedingly poor boundaries all as a result of childhood abuse. You were ideal fodder therefore for someone like this man to get his claws into and tear you (and in turn your son) apart.

Abusers are not nasty all the time but their nice/nasty cycle is a continuous one.

You can rebuild your life from the ground up but you are going to have to put a lot of hard work into doing so. Its not going to happen overnight.

Jfizz, re-read your description of your childhood and have a long hard think about what you're doing to your poor little boy.

Because you are responsible for your son. He can't get away on his own, can he? And although it's your DP who's the abusive one, by staying with him and allowing him to treat you so badly you're actively harming your son.

who cares what you label him, you say he brings women home after youve had an argument, and you've let him get away with this shit?

you can call him any label you like- he doesnt care, he does what he wants. And you allow your kids near this dickhead

Get some pride in yourself or at least get rid of him for the sake of your poor kids

How bad does this have to get for you to leave him?
Surely feeling alone is far far better than all the stress and anxiety he causes?
When it's good surely you know the bad is only around the corner?
You can't live for snippets of fake happiness that he throws your way to keep you on-side.
His sorrow and crying is'nt real and isn't from the heart. It's pure selfish. It's to control you and keep you complacent.
Your children are witnessing this whether you try to keep it secret or not they will pick up on your emotions and anxieties.