Struggling with life after a narcissitic relationship

[Nursing2029]

hi
My marriage ended 4 years ago, lack of feelings and i jumped straight into a relationship i thought was amazing.
4 years later and the relationship with the narcasstic has destroyed all confidence i have. I have gained weight and have a general fear of life.
I have 2 wonderful kids with my ex husband but I feel so overwhelmed with guilt over the end of the marriage and I have let the narcasstic wear me down so much I am anxious at the thought of a night on my own. Any advice would be appreciated x

Morning @heartlikepaper I felt better last night, I've taken to having a bath each night and the physical symptoms I have in the day aren't as bad or disappear in the evenings so that is easier. I slept better last night about 6.5 hours which is a slight improvement. I woke up feeling less shit this morning too. I'm alone today as kids at their dads so I'm worrying how I will cope

@nativeAustralian, if your waiting for truthful answers, then you will probably be waiting a long time and prolong the pain you are feeling. As I said to Nursing2029, they do it because they can, it makes them feel good to have a power over someone and they like the way you make them feel, be that loved or wanted etc. If you don't have that kind of personality, then it's hard to understand their intentions and you will tie yourself up in knots thinking about it and while your thinking about it, your still in their grips. I have found that I had to stop letting my ex live in my head, if I thought about him or bad memories came up which they did and still do, I have to instantly think of something positive. I replace that thought with good memories since him. I don't want to relive the past, I need to focus on the future. 14 years later and he stills tries to contact me even though our boys are adults now. I just ignor his attempts because if I engage, it just brings up past emotions that I don't need to feel. It is so hard to move on when you have been on that type of relationship roller-coaster that the simplest way is to cut all contact and work on building yourself a better life with a good support network. Never let them back in as they can't change, it's the way they are wired up and it's pointless trying to get closure from them. You should accept what has happened, learn from it and focus on the positives you have.

Oh nice that you have a bath routine thats working for you and I am delighted to hear you are starting to get a bit more sleep. Maybe spend the day on the couch watching reruns of gogglebox in your pjs?! and have nice soup for lunch😋
Im ok. My heart hurts but I read something this morning about hugging your heart and i tried it, its actually really comforting!!
"Put your hands like a cup over and under the breast, he said tactfully. It’s probably easier for a man. Then talk softly, don’t yell. Under your ribs, push a little. When you wake up, you must do this massage. I mean pat, stroke a little, don’t be ashamed. Very likely no one will be watching. Then you must talk to your heart. Say anything, but be respectful...."
My poor battered heart definitely needs a hug. But all I got in reaction to my email was cold rejection - 'please stop contacting me'. He's probably trying to cast me as a stalker now, a good story to fuel his ego🙄

Well done with your results, Heart . If he's anything like mine he will ignore it because it's your good achievement and doesn't boost his ego.

Nursing we split a year ago. I did see him a few times but it wasn't doing me any good so I put a stop to it.

NC is definitely the way to go. It's very difficult to get them out of your head but I think it's important to make the effort to think about other things, nice things, as often as you can. It's important to get outside.

Who makes our skin CRAWL and who you deserve to sweep into the corners and cornices of your past!
I still had Italian food on the brain and read that as pasta . Yes, good one, let the memories of him become covered in dust and cobwebs, eventually to be brushed and shovelled up and out of your life

@dontknowehyidoit
I know you are right! I will stick to no contact from today, which is symbolic as it is a year from first contact. The first text i got was so positive and perfect and full of potential. The last cold, callous and cruel. Thats the way of it I guess, though I wouldve wished it otherwise, ive to accept no closure, no shaking hands on goodbye, no nothing. It just seems so immature. Im so grateful to be able to share this with people who understand, i dont know how Id process the confusion of it otherwise.
X

@heartlikepaper, while we are still raw, is not the time to make sense of what we have been through. I needed time to mentally recover before I tried to look back otherwise I would just been stuck in blaming myself, drowning in the shame and guilt about not being a good mum for letting my kids see what they saw and continued to live in mental anguish. I have had counselling twice, the fist time was 7 years ago and then again 4 years ago. This helped to a point as I was able to talk about my feelings for the first time. I have never been able to properly talk to anyone about the things he did as it just hurt my friends and family to know that these things had happened to me as I hid it as much as I could. The counselor told me to write a book about my experience which filled me with horror as I didn't want my kids to know what I had let happen to me, all I felt was shame. I only got 8 sessions each time and they didn't really touch the surface of what was going on in my head but at least it was an outlet for a time which stopped me bottling it up as both of them times I was feeling under pressure and about to crack. These are the lasting consequences for me, I feel fractured to my core but can get on with life pretty well on a day to day basis. I am happily married to a kind, honest man who has restored my faith in people and I live a life so diffent to back then that its like that was all a bad dream. I wish I had found a forum like this many years ago and I might be further on in my journey of recovery. The black and white of ending the mental pain that you are all talking about is to go NC and do it sooner rather than later as it just causes more damage otherwise.

Morning. Everyone

@Lochie662
Morning
Hope you slept well.

@TimelyManor
He does make my skin crawl. Going to go non contact, block and i am coming on social media for a bit. Need to get this guy and his seedy habits out my life.

I'm having a strange issue with this thread, it's just disappeared for me of of "I'm on". And off of relationships. It doesn't exist. I advanced searched for nursing and found it but I don't know why I don't have it anymore....I signed out and can see it, it comes back.

It's very strange .

Anyway....@heartlikepaper

I am so sorry that he responded like that. What you did was a natural thing to do and I bet over 90% of people in your position would have done the same thing. And over 90% of exes would have responded kindly or said nothing at all! What a prick!

There's something I've read and I've seen it with my ex. I'm not saying it's the same with every narcissist because I'm not. But narcissists won't respond well if you're the first one to contact them. They are sitting waiting for the attention of your contact ( oh, they really are), but when they get it they are disdainful. I never contacted my ex even when we were in the dance if the neverending breakup because I KNEW he would tell me not to contact him.

It's fucked up.

But it doesn't stop them from contacting you further down the line

The last time I was contacted in this way it was to ask if he should get back one of his exes lmao. "I know you've moved in, but I haven't and I think xxxxx would take me back.... What do you think? Would that work?"

No you fucking freak! Because NONE of your relationships will work!!!! Because you're a bloody narc! (I didn't say this, I wasn't trying to poke the bear at this time lol)

Sorry. I digress.... But honestly, that reaction he gave isn't due to you... It's all him and who he is. Please don't take it personally.

@lochie662
Im glad you found your way back to us because your humour is much needed "No you fucking freak! Because NONE of your relationships will work!!!! Because you're a bloody narc! (I didn't say this, I wasn't trying to poke the bear at this time lol)" LMAO!!
Like you Ive worked in social services for years as well and am now conditioned to be way too considerate, so even when faced with this appalling treatment my response is 'empathise, be understanding' but actually id love to say something like above.
And yes I agree, he definitely just wants to keep his foot on my neck to keep me quiet on his terms. Ive seen him do it before when he's fucked up something, he'll disengage completely until he has his own reason to return, and hope everyone pretends like nothing ever happened. It is maddening, and so childish.
I had a nice funereal burning of the correspondance today - that was therapeutic :)

Yeah!!!!! I'm back, I thought I had broken the thread by talking about running in the nude!!! But it turns out you can hide threads, who knew? And I hid it from myself.

That could be a story... I'd call it "the hidden thread", a masterpiece of technological idiocy, wide eyed confusion and the sheer relief of finding the customise button to restore everything to how it should always have been....

Yeah, i am going crazy today.

I wish I was at your funeral today @heartlikepaper, it sounds cathartic as hell. Did you reread everything or just get rid? How do you feel now? Does it feel better?

I used to keep Scrabble/yahtzee/boggle scores/words and I have to say.... (He wasn't the brightest). My son beats me more than he did...

I reread then all before getting rid... Just shaking my head at it all. He hated getting beaten as well...... Very competitive. But I didn't play to lose buddy.

I might be a teeny bit competitive too.

My ex is very funny and clever, we had great fun with words. It was very sad to burn. I read a bit of it again, it is so devastating to realise it all was lies. But another step forward letting go. Im not great today, crying a lot, cursing his cold heart.
You ok aside from the craziness?😂😂
I get giddy days like that sometimes, its fun to let the silly out!!👍😊

@heartlikepaper

Oh I'm so sorry you're struggling today , crying is good though it really is. And I curse his cold heart too XXX

You're funny and clever and the next man you will be with will also be funny and clever but without the side dish of a personality disorder that will destroy you. It's so hard, but it gets easier. I promise it does. You're doing amazing, you really are.

Fucking bastard that he is , he can take his "please stop contacting me" reply and shove it up his cold arse.

Initially I thought my ex was a genius with the written word, I felt very much like I wasn't good enough and was really trying to up my game.

And then I recognised a lyric for a song I like and when I checked retrospectively EVERYTHING, every witty line, lyric, poem or story was from something else. It was very much a Homer Simpson "DOH" moment.

Not because I judged him, because I didn't actually, I still appreciated the effort, but I thought he was so much better than I was, I felt like I could never be good enough.

He only did it during lovebombing anyway....I'm not getting that back anytime soon ( ever)

He does make my skin crawl. Going to go non contact, block and i am coming on social media for a bit. Need to get this guy and his seedy habits out my life.

That's good, Nursing, you'll feel much better for it. It can take a little willpower not to look at stuff but it's worth it

Lochie this thread is on my 'I'm watching' list and it wasn't there yesterday. I looked twice and I'm convinced it wasn't there but when I looked some time later it was there. It could well have been me but I'm going to make like a narc and not admit to anything!

Mine wouldn't answer his phone for a long time if I was trying to get him but when he did he would never say anything bad because he has such a good reputation to uphold. His abuse was SO subtle and insidious, so easily deniable (he thought) unless he lost it and there was no denying what he did and said then.

@TimelyManor

Mine would try and say stuff insidiously and that was ultimately deniable but he wasn't that good at it tbh. There was a lot of feigned innocent looks to accompany the exclamations of purity and vulnerability that he professed he was.

I remember for a while knowing that he was being a cruel bastard but "pretending" that his version was the real one. It's hard to put into words, and if I did people probably wouldn't understand...

Like I have an issue with abandonment , and he would say stuff about how when he's done with people they might as well be dead to him... A lot of comments to make a point. I would say "will that be me one day" and he would go off on an hour long rant how he couldn't say anything...., I was controlling...., trying to force him to be someone different...., What the fuck was my problem? And I'd just be sitting waiting for it to end not saying a word.

That's probably a poor example....

I think it's so much harder when it's hard to pinpoint, you don't know how to describe the abuse, you don't know if it's all you and you're going crazy and you don't know how to ask for support.

So I'm sorry. It sounds like a nightmare .

But blocking is an excellent choice. I can highly recommend it. I'm on day 14 and I feel so much better.

Come in down......

To the blocking room. It's an amazing place to be.

The air is so fresh in the blocking room

I hear you, Lochie. I used to sit and listen for hours, literally, to him wanging on about how awful I made his life, how difficult it was for him to live with me. And the tears! Fuck sake, the poor fucker must have seriously dehydrated himself.

I had all the projecting towards the end - I was controlling, he was walking on eggshells, I denied him sex (I had come to the conclusion he was gay it was so infrequent), I stopped him from having his friends round (he never asked). The list went on.

Yes, they do this caring thing at the beginning and you share everything with them, then they use it against you time and time again. I once mentioned a previous incident that most women will have experienced and he said "Why did all these things happen to you?". He wouldn't accept it ever happened to anyone else, only me. Even when I sent him links on the internet he would never admit he was wrong. So I stopped talking about these things and when we were splitting up he said "You don't even tell me about previous abuse incidents". True story! But it just goes to show how trueit is, that they keep these things in their shitty little minds to use against you.

@TimelyManor
Interesting, why did hiu think he was gay?
I had that suspicion about mine too.

Oh my god, he makes me feel ill just thinking about it, those comments that he makes indicate that he thinks you were somehow to blame. You weren't, you absolutely weren't, and he's saying that you were different to others somehow. He's really, really awful @TimelyManor

They make us not trust them and then blame us for not trusting them! You couldn't make it up.

With my ex there was this thing... To me this is one of the cruel things he did , but it was so deniable.... years ago someone I was really close to died under pretty horrible circumstances. The last conversation we had was an argument and the last words I said to them was a variation of " just go and leave me alone".

Anyway I told my ex about it , and every single time he wanted to twist the knife he would say the exact same words as that conversation. They weren't a totally commonplace thing to say, so I knew be was doing it on purpose. I would EXPLODE every time he did it, and then I would get upset and I would explain to him AGAIN why it upset me. And all the time he was getting off on it.

They take your insecurities and they twist the knife into you with it. We deserve so much better.

So true Lochie, they really are utter shits. The "You don't even trust me!" was thrown at me time and time again.

Nursing, it was because the sex was so infrequent and if I tried to initiate anything, or even cuddle up to him, he'd turn his back on me. I gave up trying. When he was leaving I was accused of constantly rejecting him.

Morning everyone, just want to say, every day all of us are getting up, getting on, dealing with our children, going to work, doing gardening etc and that's amazing. We are strong women. Well done everyone 💪🏻💕

@wanttofeelsafe
Well said :)
While I am here I need help ladies.
I have managed to slip back into a relationship with him, totally on his terms. Me doing all the running, him getting his alone time and who knows what he could be up to.
I hate myself just now.

Oh Nursing, don't hate yourself. I don't know what to say. Are you safe? That's the main thing.

@TimelyManor
Hi
I am safe.
Just drained, now I need to go through it all again.
As in the break up, there is no future. I don't even want there to be, I was trying to ease the pain a bit but this is worse.

Was it you who said a counsellor had said it was too early for you to have sessions? I think if you find the right one they'd be able to help, no matter what stage you're at

@TimelyManor
No it wasn't me. I had some counselling last year. I think this time its like we are in half a relationship all his way and his is still vile.
Time to walk and block straight away.
Thanks for listening, always feel better after venting on here.