I’m beginning to think there is something strange about my partner!.

[GinIsForBreakfast84]

I have recently come to realise that there is something very ‘off’ about my partner. I genuinely think there may be a underlying personality disorder of some type going on. Can anyone help me understand what might be at play or is he just hard work!! He’s always been like this but I couldn’t see it until after I’d had my daughter and we were at home together a lot.

My friends and family universally dislike him but can’t say why, he makes them all very uncomfortable. He is very very needy for attention and love and will give me the silent treatment for days if he perceives it’s not being met. Historically very controlling, monitoring my phone for how long it takes me to get places etc. Moody if feels he’s not getting what he thinks he deserves. Overly permissive and treats his daughter from previous marriage like his best friend (she’s now 7) whilst putting me down in front of her.

Lied to me about her existence for the first year we were together and then somehow I felt sorry for him about him having to hide it! He did not have to hide it it’s crazy! Also lied about being married and has only ever claimed they ‘drifted apart’ but this seems unlikely when they had a 1 year old together.

However all this goes by the way side compared to the endless low level lying and manipulation of conversations back to how I am the one who wronged him.
I regularly feel like screaming over just extracting basic information.

Example would be - are you in for dinner tonight ?
Answer - well if you don’t want me here, I’ll go out, if it’s too much trouble I’ll just have toast I’m not hungry anyway ahhhhhh all I wanted to know was whether I should cook more sausages ! I can not describe how much I feel I am going mad, can’t get a single straight answer to any question. I’ve totally shut down and try to barely speak

Any insights gratefully received and yes I now see the many red flags, I was totally taken in by his persuasive arguments at the start and now I’m in deep as have a young child.

I would think your family could say exactly why they don’t like him. He’s really unpleasant. I’d be more surprised if they did like him really.

Anyway personality disorder or not doesn’t really matter. It won’t change how he behaves towards you, which is poorly, and you don’t have to tolerate it from someone who has a disorder or someone who doesn’t.

What @HairyFanjoBanjo said

Check out information on narcissists; gaslighting so you start to doubt yourself, modifying your behaviour to appease him, his DD = golden child, you and your DD = scapegoats, alienating your family and friends, love bombing if you try to leave.

A diagnosis doesn’t matter because there’s a tonne of information about people who strongly resemble what you’re posted your DH is like and what kind of ongoing crazy those people can inflict on those around them. Don’t try to find out what to do to change them or try to help them because it’s pointless, they don’t GAF and will happily destroy you to make themselves feel good and being able to see themselves a certain way.

Yes he sounds like he has some serious underlying psychological disorder which makes him an emotional abuser.

It sounds like borderline personality disorder so I would make plans to leave immediately, people like that will drag you down into their black hole and if they’re men they might be very dangerous.

I think you answer your own question perfectly with the paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of your post! Xo

Regardless of the cause of his issues this relationship is not healthy and doesn't work for you. You can give yourself permission to leave. While women get into relationships like this and feel they have the responsibility of fixing them/making them better (sometimes where that is a completely unrealistic expectation) nothing will change. Remember that while the relationship works for the "dysfunctional" partner they have no motivation to improve it or modify their own behaviour.

Example would be - are you in for dinner tonight ?
Answer - well if you don’t want me here, I’ll go out, if it’s too much trouble I’ll just have toast I’m not hungry anyway ahhhhhh all I wanted to know was whether I should cook more sausages ! I can not describe how much I feel I am going mad, can’t get a single straight answer to any question. I’ve totally shut down and try to barely speak

OP I cannot tell you how much this resonated, the example you gave is so similar to many I had with my exH only his response would be, "why do you want to know", as if my perfectly ordinary question was controlling. When I pointed out the absurdity of him making a big deal out of it rather than saying yes or no or I'm no sure I'll text you later he started, passively aggressively, giving me a lengthy description of his days schedule. It was exhausting.

Shutting down and not speaking is simply because you don't have the energy to deal with the bullshit which follows a perfectly ordinary conversation starter.

This man will suck the life out of you and leave you feeling it's your fault. You know it's not you because you can continue to have very normal conversations with everyone else.

Whatever is causing his problem it's not your responsibility to solve. Save your sanity and leave.

He’s abusive.

I can’t begin to get my head around the fact that you had a baby with a man who denied the existence of a child he already had. That’s totally screwed up.

One problem at a time. Get out, document the behaviours in as much detail as you can, resolve your fears about custody when the time comes.

(FWIW a man who hid the existence of a child then treats her 'like a mate' is a horrible dad. I doubt he will be around for the hard yards of early years and then it will be too late.)

@Plinkplonk1234

Why would you settle for that but most importantly why would you let your little daughter be around such a thug?

Why are you victim blaming?

He sounds awful, OP. I would try and leave ASAP. I know it's easier said than done but you can do it.

Have you spoken to your family about it? I know you mentioned they didn't like him but have you said how you are feeling now? I'm sure they would support you if you said you wanted to leave. Could you say with then for a while just so you can be rid of him?

So many typo's, sorry

*Could you stay with them for a while?

Maybe next time talk to your loved ones before having a child with a man everyone hates.

Why are you victim blaming?

No, you don't get to do that. Little kids depend on us to protect them. There are no excuses.

You know what you need to do OP and from the sounds of it you have plenty RL resource in your friends and family to help you do that. Go and talk to them and get a plan going.

Example would be - are you in for dinner tonight ? Answer - well if you don’t want me here, I’ll go out, if it’s too much trouble I’ll just have toast I’m not hungry anyway ahhhhhh all I wanted to know was whether I should cook more sausages ! I can not describe how much I feel I am going mad, can’t get a single straight answer to any question. I’ve totally shut down and try to barely speak

I completely relate to this. I am ending my relationship

Why are you victim blaming?

No, you don't get to do that. Little kids depend on us to protect them. There are no excuses.

Do what exactly? So you think its acceptable for people to come on here and make the OP feel as shit as possible when she is clearly in an abusive relationship with a horribly manipulative person? It's not always easy to see what someone is doing and how abusive they are because they are...manipulating and gaslighting you.

The OP has realised what is going on here now and is looking for support and people are shutting her down saying things like why would you ever get with someone like that? Why would you want your child to be around such a thug?

Is that not victim blaming?

When all of your family and friends dislike someone that should be a massive red flag. Now you must get your poor child away from him and fight tooth and nail to only have supervised contact. Take a long time to have counselling before you start another relationship, you need to understand why you ignored all the warning signs.

@GinIsForBreakfast84 This is one of the most disturbing posts I've seen on MN - I'm worried that you have asked for "insights" but I wonder why you can't just see the importance of all the points you made in your original post - I don't think you need any outside input - isn't it obvious that your so called "partner" is not normal, clearly has some kind of issues and that this is not a normal or healthy relationship for you or for your child - especially a child - you are responsible for them - imagine them at 16 or 18 after years of living in this environment? An adult, even a parent who calls a 7 year old their best friend is seriously immature - to be an adult you make difficult decisions and do things that are difficult because you have the self awareness to think about the future and other people and to factor in the consequences or either doing something or not doing something even if it's something that makes life difficult or is emotionally or practically hard - anyone who thinks purely about their own immediate, short term interests and doesn't factor in the future, anyone who avoids hard decisions and actions is not an adult - they are still a child - so what are you? An adult or a child? Think about the future - think about your child and then think about yourself.

If there is a future for him in your life you won't be reducing the chances of him growing, facing up and possibly overcoming some of his very odd behaviour - if anything - it should be a wake up call to him that his behaviours and attitudes need to change.

A better future definitely exists for you - stop dithering and have the guts to make your mind up to go after it - the decision really isn't the hard part - it's what you do after you make the decision to make things work out that is the hard and important part but a better life is there for you and your daughter... if you want it enough.. or do you just want to carry on putting up with this - this is not normal or healthy, far from it. Good luck.

@Shedmistress , what a nasty pointless post.

It reads as though your partner has narcissistic personality disorder. I was raised by a person like this.
The situation with his daughter is parentification. It's all fairly textbook.

Nb. This is not the same as someone who is "a bit narcy"

There are plenty of resources available online about this, if you want to psychoanalyse the situation. But the crux of it is this: it is not possible to have a relationship with someone that has narcissistic personality disorder.

Don't let yourself feel bad for missing the "red flags", people with NPD are very convincing.

If you try to leave, he will cycle through anger, guilting and love bombing. The most effective way to get out is to let others know about what he is like and ask them to not let you stay. Because he will make you want to stay. See also: the narcissist's FOG (fear obligation and guilt)

Narcissists need supply and if you cut the supply, he will eventually look elsewhere. But in order for this to happen you must absolutely cut it dead.

On some level, he's a wounded animal. Something in his formative experiences made him like this - in order to survive. But with NPD, you can't help. So just leave. You'll be happier out of there.

Don't let him find this thread, for god's sake. Get the fuck out.

This is abuse. Get out!

You've totally shut down and barely speak.

This reason alone you need to leave to show your child life is more than this.

He sounds awful.

Hopefully one of your family can put you up whilst you sort this out I am sure they will be more than happy to.

Leave now before you get to "settled in school status"

@CheekyHobson

Sounds like some variety of narcissist to me. But in complete seriousness... unless you are aiming to get a psychology qualification and become his (free) therapist, don't bother trying to figure him out.

With a great deal of reading, you can probably learn to understand quite well why he does what he does (bad childhood is usually the short answer), but once you grasp the scale of his issues, you will almost certainly decide a relationship with him is not worth your time and effort.

You already know he is hard work, lies, can't communicate well and doesn't trust anyone. Those are HIS problems, NOT your problems to solve or accommodate.

Your problem is that you didn't immediately walk away from this relationship:

• as soon as you realised he had a habit of giving you the silent treatment
• the first time you realised he monitored your phone to see how long it took you to get somewhere
• when he insulted you in front of his daughter
• when he blamed you for something you knew was really his fault
• when you realised he had a pattern of lying

You think you put up with all these things because relationships take work and tolerance but actually you put up with them all because you have unrecognised self-esteem or codependency issues. (I've been there and done that.)

Don't spend a second more trying to figure out HIS problems or fix them for him. Figure out your own problems and fix them for YOU. The first step is leaving a relationship where you are treated with continual disrespect.

This. Spot on.

I was already at the LTB stage after reading the first paragraph