Do “narcissistic” type abusers set out to “abuse” and “destroy” or is this just the by product?

[Rainbow03]

When I’ve read in the past about this kind of abuse It often reads that they are monsters seeking out someone to destroy.

In my own experience he seemed clueless to what he was doing. I didn’t feel like he woke up thinking he’d throw something today.

Do they just genuinely believe that their partner is there for their own benefit and have no thoughts or feelings of their own and their purpose is to make them feel good?

@GingerIsBest I sometimes find myself going down that rabbit hole of was it him was it me. But then I look back on my previous relationships and they were normal just outgrew, no shit shows. Look back on his relationships (wish I knew before) all a shit show. Drugs, violence, self harm, drinking all bloody intense and awful.

Oh and all the ladies fault obviously! I mean he had to beat one up because he found out she cheated….

I think it comes naturally and they don’t make an effort to be deliberately abusive while you’re going along with it and letting them get away with it. They just don’t give a shit about you or whether their behaviour is hurting you.

The second you try to push against them, by God it will be deliberate. They’ll step it up to become a sustained attack of targeted abuse until they destroy you.

@Menomeno I agree I think they believe they’ve just met the perfect person who can make all the bad feelings go away until they realise that you are a disgusting piece of work for having your own opinions. They hold the gru

Oppos they hold the grudge of all grudges and never forget anything ever!

The one I know doesn’t set out to abuse or destroy.

i think somewhere in their twisted logic they genuinely think they’re right and doing what’s “best”

the level of entitlement is huge, and it simply doesn’t occur to them that they are trampling all over other people.

they can’t see that their actions are hurting people. They only see their own benefit.

I think I'd like to get this printed on a poster to put on the wall 🙂

Hello OP,
I agree with the views and appreciate the many insightful contributions here and analyses of N type behaviors. It is so helpful to get perspective on this disordered way of thinking. Yes there are as many different ones as there are people but definitely there are many common behaviors. I don't think all of them are intentionally abusive; they are, by default, because they cannot put themselves in other people's shoes, and this makes them egocentric.

They really have an odd way ( maladaptive vision ?) of looking at the world, which is very helpful to understand. They are also human beings and are pretty messed up. I do think they suffer too. They think the world is out to get them ( victim mentality); they think they should get one up on everyone else before they get had; they have very little empathy for others and feel it is perfectly ok to use others to better their positions in life. However the ones I know aren't this way constantly; though they do always come first and are never wrong! As long as you are agreeable to them , everything can be OK.

I have had three close ones in my life, so I learned to people please from a young age. My DM is no longer alive, thank goodness. One less to put up with. The other two actually do have some positive qualities as long as you stay on their good sides.

Maybe I'm screwed up too from being surrounded by them? At any rate, the cost of escape at my age would be too high for me.

@Whataretalkingabout yeah they have some good points but they are transactional I find on whether or not you are behaving how they want. Mine would I say give way to much in the hope he would get back the thing he wanted. But you can never hand over your soul to someone so he was always pissed off he gave you those things. They never give out of love and they ALWAYS expect something back. When I left he forced me to give back the rings and gifts etc.

Some people have behaviours in relationships that narcissists also have but in fact they're just abusive

@Rainbow03 I am glad that you were able to get away. Yes, love does not come naturally for these types by any means. It is so sad.

You must be a very strong person and have fought hard and paid the price.
I hope you are much happier now and are able to put thoughts of him behind you and live a N-free life.

My comments about their 'good points' were only to add a bit of nuance about these people. Nothing is black or white and I feel it is more helpful to recognize that there are many ways of being narcissistic, some much worse than others and it does noone good by demonizing all of them.

I am certainly not perfect myself. Maybe I forgive too much? Maybe I am misguided by my Presbyterian upbringing and enjoy flogging myself??
Maybe I think too much.....

@WalkingaroundJardine yeah I’m unsure about the good points. I don’t believe they have anything worth staying for personally. Yeah it was a long slung out divorce and it cost so much. I had a mental breakdown and ptsd and still suffer with autoimmune conditions. I just wanted to get away from him. I wanted to die tbh because I hated life and myself. But I had a small child so that wasn’t an option. I’m so glad I didn’t do anything stupid because life is so much better now. They are poison on the soul.

Textbook. And very dangerous. A restraining order is the only way to deal with these people

If only however my DH has kids with her so a restraining order would make things difficult for co-parenting.

I advise a very detailed and careful order for child contact. Give these people an inch and they take a mile

I read a book that i unhelpful don’t remember the title of, that said that narcissistic people have a fantasy love story in their head, and they find someone who will ‘host’ their fantasy. So every time their partners real personality shows through it means that the partner is going off script and that behavior needs to be stopped. So a persons authentic self needs to be suppressed in favour of playing out this imaginary romantic script and the narcissist will resort to violence to maintain this illusion

I think this is a very good thread and captures the majority of narcissists who are actually not self-aware and not conscious of how their actions, words and ways of seeing the world hurt other people.

My ex was very much in this camp. He simply doesn't register the feelings and needs of others, doesn't feel other people's opinions and perspectives are valid if they differ from his, and is impervious to logic and reason if it conflicts with his feelings. He also seems to have a memory like Swiss cheese, and frequently claims to have no recollection of promises he's made, things he's said or done, or how things happened (I realise he may simply be lying). He has a tendency to rewrite history to cover these gaps and to seem flabbergasted when you can provide hard evidence that his version of history is fictionalised.

He also has a tendency to be passive-aggressively punitive when he feels aggrieved, though of course the things he does always have a degree of plausible deniability about them, so it's impossible to know whether his behaviour is genuinely subconscious or whether he has some level of awareness that he's being punitive.

It makes him immensely frustrating to deal with. There's also no way to truly know if his claims of lack of bad intent and memory loss etc are true, and if any suggestion is made that he did or should have had some kind of awareness of how his words or actions would affect others, he will become deeply indignant and act like a victim.

My ex definitely lies to cover his tracks a lot, but I often think that the first person he lies to is himself. He convinces himself that his actions are perfectly justified and the only fair way that he can get what he wants. He understands well enough that other people will see things differently, so when he lies to them to cover up what he's done/doing, he feels he "has to" do so because he's convinced himself that their perspective is invalid, even if it's backed up by something as substantial as the law. He just does mental gymnastics to explain why the law is stupid and wrong or 'most people are just over-sensitive' or everyone else is just understanding the situation wrong and his position is perfectly fair.

It's exhausting. I just deal with him as little as possible now (we have children together so it can't be avoided entirely for a few more years), which he massively resents as he cannot grasp why I don't like him and feels the fact that I don't want to be friends with him is an outrageous insult.

You are spot on @CheekyHobson! And yes, they are immensely frustrating and exhausting to deal with. So glad you were able to get away.

What amazes me is how these people can be soooo much alike in so many dysfunctional ways and yet have never met? Did they go to the same international school of obnoxiousness? These are acquired traits, surely? Or are they hard-wired?

I find they're very dangerous around gift giving. They may give you a gift and then secretly fume that you've taken advantage of them. If you refuse it you're ungrateful, if you give something of a lesser monetary value there's a shitstorm. I've circumvented it now by saying oh we all have so much, let's not add to more stuff and bowed out of any form of giving and receiving. I also very very politely refuse all offers of anything. I've seen and heard how others who have made the mistake of accepting are treated and talked about. They never feel people are grateful enough.

And deeply deeply resent anything anyone else has.

And fume about taxes 🤣 the undeserving poor, benefit 'cheats', 'nutters', 'migrants'. How their taxes are supporting lazy feckless undeserving people, who should just be issued basic food rations.

But that's the point. While very few narcissists are actually diagnosed, we have very clear markers and indicators for narcissistic behaviour. Things that they do because their brains literally do not work the same way most people's do.

yeah hardly any are diagnosed because why would you seek help when there is nothing wrong. I can’t wrap my head around it. The state of my ex’s past relationships you’d think he might for minute think perhaps I’m the problem but nope. He is like a tornado ripping through his relationships, they all end in disaster but it’s the women’s fault. They apparently just can’t handle his passion or are mentally unwell….well they are afterwards that’s for sure! Never dawns on him why? I found that incredibly hard to get over.

They only get found out because the victim goes to therapy and the therapist says you’re dealing with a narcissistic person.

She definitely has narcissistic traits. She made the calls anonymously. We haven't confronted her about them because there's no point and she's just deny it was her. The same the the photos and messages sent to her boyfriend wife. She did it from a fake profile and claims it wasn't her and someone else stole her photos.

She cannot handle the fact that my DH has moved on since she always told him he was nothing without her and no one would want a guy with 3 kids. Forgetting she also has kids. Even after he felt she was telling people they were still together and he was just working away to build their business up. When the news came out that he was dating me 8 months later she told everyone he had been leading her on to think they would get back together and he'd ripped her heart out etc etc. At this point the family house had been sold, she was blocked on everything except email.

She threatened me at my DSDs Xmas concert and when DH told her never to approach me again and if she had anything to say to either say it to him or contact his lawyer. She denied approaching me, said she's been nothing but nice to me and it was always me who was hostile towards her.

We have so many boundaries up to protect us as much as possible. Communication is limited to the bare minimum. We avoid her as much as possible. But she continues to do things from a distance like the malicious calls and the social media smear campaign. She'll tell people that she just wants to happily co-parent with us being we are the high conflict ones making it difficult.

She is delusional. She can never be wrong and she's is always the victim.

What you say rings so true for me. I was his longest relationship in a long line of women. He's now early 60s, I'm a few years younger. We were together for 5.5 years and he discarded me like a piece of dirt in the end, telling me he'd never loved me. During the relationship he was often critical of my home, car, cooking etc. Spoke over me a lot, everything he had or did was better.

I was having such a hard time getting over it I spoke to a therapist and she suggested narcissism. I wasn't sure but think now she's right.

I'm a people pleaser- but am working on that now- and he's someone who can't show emotion. I ignored a lot of red flags though.