Planning his exit?

[everythingbackbutyou]

I left my abusive, covert narcissist stbxh last year after 20 years of increasing misery, anxiety and fear. He painted himself very much the victim, "thought we would grow old together", "you've broken my heart" etc. Now I am out of the situation, I have had a chance to consider a couple of things that make me wonder whether he had actually been planning his own exit for a while. For example, in our last year or so together he had taken to asking whether I found random guys attractive as they looked like my type e.g. someone I got chatting to at the park with the kids one afternoon. On one of our final weekends together he was pushing our youngest in the stroller and said out of the blue something along the lines of "If I was single, I think dd would help me to attract women". Not to mention his flirty text messages with a coworker and feeling the need to send her a picture of him, shirtless, holding our daughter. And in the immediate aftermath of our separation he said on more than one occasion "You shouldn't take this as anything other than me being brokenhearted" (why would he need to say that?). What do you reckon?

I reckon it doesn't even matter and you're just lucky to be rid of him. Don't waste your emotional energy thinking about this.

I reckon he is just a sad, manipulative, abusive sneaky little bully and you don't need to spend anymore precious time and energy giving him headspace. You have shown such great inner strength to move on with your life and leave, try not to look back and try to work out why he behaved like he did.

A hearty well done on getting out.
Ignore all the comments designed to make you doubt yourself or your worth or the fishing for compliments that will boost his ego. You are free, don't look back.
Yes he probably was looking for the out.
All narcs die alone and unloved. They inflict it on themselves. If you want to explore why, look at the web site, Quora, All about narcissists.

@willowmelangell, I have just recently started following about narcs on Quora, and I nod along so vigorously sometimes I think my head is going to fall off. I reckon the only thing that stopped him heading for the hills earlier was knowing how good he actually had it (despite the attitude that suggested his suffering was immeasurable and unrelenting) coupled with keeping his "What a great guy" image so crucial to these guys.