@EarthSight
Was it that unusual? Maybe you lost hair because of having to live with your husband.
Oh, I meant 'unusual' in the sense of 'more than the usual number of strands falling out' but no, you're right, it was to do with the stress of living with him. I also developed an autoimmune condition due to the stress (now in remission).
If you were so lowbrow for him, why was he with you?? Sex? Someone to be sneery at?
Whew, good question. Even the sex stopped eventually because it became awful and he refused to discuss it, making out (like always) that the problem was me.
When you've been told for years that you're the one causing problems, that you have unrealistic expectations of relationships and your partner, that you're impossible to please, that you're controlling – basically broken down through devaluation and criticism – you lose your sense of 'self' – who you really are.
It becomes hard to know if your internal feelings and thoughts that there's something terribly wrong with your partner are correct, or if in fact you're the person there's something terribly wrong with. It doesn't help that narcissists lie well and often. If you are basically an honest person, it can be really hard to wrap your head around the idea that someone you love is lying confidently, remorselessly and regularly to your face.
Again, the irony is that there's nothing lowbrow about my tastes and I'm actually more intelligent, educated and generally more culturally literate than my ex, but he had a few areas of very specific interest and considered anything outside of them to be 'poor taste'.
The real reason he was with me (I eventually came to realise and accept) was money (that I had earned and invested well, and the money I will eventually inherit), maintaining the appearance of being a well-rounded 'family man' and the fact that he liked the lifestyle that I lived (I cook well, my job means I'm quite well-connected, I like to have a clean house).
Again, ironically, narcissists covet what others have, but even if they manage to acquire what others have by proxy, it's not enough for them – they actually feel compelled to undermine those things.
So my ex hid his earnings from me and spent it on frivolous things while I put every cent I earned into our family account, he complained about how much I worked and demanded that I use my skills to bolster his own business ("It's our family business now") and he refused to do an equal amount of childcare, meaning that my own professional influence waned as I had less time for my own work and eventually our finances became quite tenuous.
He was very fussy about food, and catering to his tastes (he would comment or sulk if he didn't like something I made) meant that cooking, which I previously loved to do, became a massive chore, and while he would contribute to housework if specific chores were set for him and followed up on, he would always put in the minimum effort necessary and no more, and complain that he was being 'nagged' if he neglected to do anything, or I pointed out additional things that needed to be done (which he would never notice himself and do proactively).
Writing all this down in a block makes it seem like the behaviour was unmissable and extreme, but it all occurs as a slow drip-drip-drip over time (after an initial phase of extreme lovebombing, when the narcissist acts like the perfect man), so you don't really see it until after many years of gradual and subtle undermining as the 'perfect man' mask slowly slips away.
Eventually, if you're lucky, you wake up and realise that the life you are living is an incredibly long way away from the life you once had, the 'you' you once were, and even the life that your ex promised you that you would have together.