How likeley is it that my dh is narcissistic ?

[hurtandfoolish]

Am wondering if this is a possibility.We are seperated due to his abusive childish and controlling behaviour. We were meant to be trying to sort things out .Within a few days hes gone from trying to sort things out to being caught with someone else.He is now laughing / bragging about this publicly.
I have not asked for an explanation as i know its futile but he apears to have no conscience despite our dcs being devestated.

In the past he has been impossiblt to talk to , he would fly into a rage at any perceived critisism , force me to do things i did not want to do and pretend to cry , threaten to kill himself , rage and put me down.
He also thrives on sympathy and pity and constantly demands attention like a child.

In the past he has gone from girlfreind to girlfeind , seems anyone would do.

He has also sexually molested me ( he admits this but blames me ?) Constantly sexually harrassed me in a degrading way and generally puts nothing in emotionally but takes everything he can.
This is why were seperated.

After reading lots on narcissm ? i wonder if he has got some sort of personality disorder.
The only thing is , his freinds , family , workmates think he is a great bloke. If he had this disorder , sureley it would be evident to other people ? Wouldnt others also be on the receiving end of his behaviour ?
Or is he just a bully ?

Feel like i am waking up after being asleep for a long long time and am very confused and concerned.

Didn't want your thread to go unanswered.

Not sure about the narcissistic tendencies, I think his problems go waaaaay deeper than that.

Sounds like you've not had the best of times with this person. Doesn't sound at all as if you've had the love and kindness you deserve. Also sounds like he's been a spoilt brat since a child and wants someone who'll condone this behaviour.

I think you've done the totally best thing in separating from him. He obviously has no thoughts for anyone but himself, and it would be nice for your DCs, although devastated at the moment, to be away from someone who behaves like this. If they see that his behaviour gets a reaction, then they'll copy him. Not good.

As for the sexual abuse - nothing can condone this. Abusers will usally try to blame their victim, and that's what you are. He needs psychiatric help if you ask me, and you deserve someone better.

Hope you and yours can move on. x

Hello H and F

There is such a thing as a somatic narcissist. These people are all about sexual gratification...their own!

It is also not uncommon for a N to be utterly charming to the outside world, but a total nightmare at home...my father was like this.

Ns do blame their victims, and they do fly into rages at the tiniest of perceived criticism

What are his family like? People do not usually become Ns if they have no family history of this type of behaviour.

If you want to talk to me off the board you can CAT me if you wish.

Which sites have you been reading? Some are better than others.

If he is an N then the best thing you can do is just cut him out of your life. There is no way on god's earth that you can ever have any sort of relationship with him.

HTH xxx

Funnily enough his father is very similar , he despises everyone and rants incessantly and is a bully ..My dh is afraid of him , although he admits he is too much like him.

Spoke to him today as i feel i deserve an explanation. Upshot is that i wasnt giving him enough love and affection and this woman offers sympathy and companionship! Yes he really said that.
There were various outbursts bordering on hysteria which is not unusual , and accusations that i am going to attack ow.

Pointed out that is not my style and i have no bad feelings towards either of them , after all we are seperated. ( i do really !)
His reply was that maybe i could fight for our marriage but obviously i dont give a toss about him and never did !!

From my point of veiw divorce proceedings now need to take place , he objected to that saying he wasnt yet having a relationship with her and more of the i dont care about him sort of thing.

Am thinking he is seriously unwell. He also hinted at financial disaster , loss of job , suicidal feelings which aparently are all my fault.
Can feel the venom coming off him.
I dont see how someone could behave so normally at work yet launch into this hysteria at the drop of a hat.

The whole conversation swam around him trying to get some sort of emotional feedback from me. He eventually started crying in a hysterical way, again not unusual.
May be being harsh but i suspect i have no use but to feed his emotional needs .
At no point did he ask about me , how i felt or our dcs.

He also says he will divorce me on MY unreasonable behaviour or that we can wait 2 years.
Have read various sites but lots of it doesnt sound like my dh, most of his bad behaviour is focused on me , in fact all of it is.
Maybe its me ?

Its not you!

There are many different types of N, and varying degrees of affliction. Not all of them have to display every single trait.

My parents and my sibling are all different, in lots of ways...but all exactly the same in others. My ex-HN and my ex-devilN are also different but the same!

The crux is that everything is always about them. They suck the very life out of you. They choose a person to be their supply, and they choose very carefully. Of course they don't treat their workmates or pals like they treat you....they are far too clever to do that, and they would probably end up sacked or with a punch on the nose.

The thing is though, the minute you are onto them and they think they are losing you as their supply they will be off trying to find another victim. for the somatic N this involves sex above all. Did he have problems sexually?

The thing about Ns is this....they are pathological liars, they gaslight, and they will eventually send you insane.

How old are your children? Its not uncommon for them to up and off as children start to grow up a bit, and not hero worship them quite so much. they then clear off and have another baby with someone new who isn't onto them yet.

xx

don't analyse him, just divorce him.

There's no need to pin a fashionable label on him. I never heard of a narcissist until recently.

He's just a cunt.

What is a personality disorder?

[from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994, commonly referred to as DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. European countries use the diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization.]

An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment.

A personality disorder is a pattern of deviant or abnormal behavior that the person doesn't change even though it causes emotional upsets and trouble with other people at work and in personal relationships. It is not limited to episodes of mental illness, and it is not caused by drug or alcohol use, head injury, or illness. There are about a dozen different behavior patterns classified as personality disorders by DSM-IV. All the personality disorders show up as deviations from normal in one or more of the following:
(1) cognition -- i.e., perception, thinking, and interpretation of oneself, other people, and events;
(2) affectivity -- i.e., emotional responses (range, intensity, lability, appropriateness);
(3) interpersonal functions;
(4) impulsivity.

Yeah, but he's still a cunt.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.[jma: NPD first appeared in DSM-III in 1980; before that time there had been no formal diagnostic description.

Additionally, there is considerable overlap between personality disorders and clinicians tend to diagnose mixes of two or more. Grandiosity is a special case, but lack of empathy and exploitative interpersonal relations are not unique to NPD, nor is the need to be seen as special or unique. The differential diagnosis of NPD is made on the absence of specific gross behaviors.

Borderline Personality Disorder has several conspicuous similarities to NPD, but BPD is characterized by self-injury and threatened or attempted suicide, whereas narcissists are rarely self-harming in this way. BPD may include psychotic breaks, and these are uncharacteristic of NPD but not unknown. The need for constant attention is also found in Histrionic Personality Disorder, but HPD and BPD are both strongly oriented towards relationships, whereas NPD is characterized by aloofness and avoidance of intimacy. Grandiosity is unique to NPD among personality disorders, but it is found in other psychiatric illnesses.

Psychopaths display pathological narcissism, including grandiosity, but psychopathy is differentiated from NPD by psychopaths' willingness to use physical violence to get what they want, whereas narcissists rarely commit crimes; the narcissists I've known personally are, in fact, averse to physical contact with others, though they will occasionally strike out in an impulse of rage.

It has been found that court-ordered psychotherapy for psychopaths actually increases their recidivism rate; apparently treatment teaches psychopaths new ways to exploit other people. Bipolar illness also contains strong elements of grandiosity.

www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/dsm-iv.html

Desiderata

If I didn't object to the use of that particular word as an insult I would agree with you wholeheartedly.

These people are the devil on earth and their victims need specialised and particular help to recover from their experiences.

Because it is a recognised disorder these people have a vicious but recognisable modus operandi, and so one victim can help another.

HTH xx

I think that finding a label isn't going to make much difference, but it is really really important for you to know and believe that his behaviour is his responsibility, not yours. I would recommend that you get some councelling so as to be able to talk through the last few years and set it behind you. He sounds like a deeply nasty piece of work, and you should be proud of yourself for making the move to walk away. I suspect now you have to figure out the best way of making sure he has as little contact with you whilst enabling your dc to have the contact that they need.

Have you taken legal advice? Do you want a fast divorce, or can you wait the two years. It sounds as if you could use unreasonable behaviour as grounds, but you might find a seperation agreement whilst you wait the two years less stressful.

Re the personality thing, some people I think are just damaged. I had someone in my team at work who completely lacked insight. She always felt attacked, and made up the most incredible stories that simply cannot have been true they were so unlikely. She could be totally charming, but put her in a position of any power and she behaved very badly. If you then challenged her she would make out that the other person had attacked her (one girl she said stalked her, another bullied her etc). Thing is she totally talked herself into believeing it was true, to the extent that she took a whole load of time off for stress, and had councelling for the alledged "bullying". Sad really as she obviously had deep and underlying problems that she just would not acknowledge. I wonder if your dh is similar?

Hope this helps????

He's a cunt. It's Anglo-Saxon, and it's easy.

Must we over-analyize a stupid person??

The clinicians at work thought variously that the person I refer to was an alcoholic, bipolar or had a personailty disorder. She certainly was very damaging to those around her, as well, I think to herself.

Actually I think it does help to recognise when a person is really disturbed/doesn't operate by the same rules, because we all have a tendancy to believe that bad things are our own fault. Accepting that they are not is an important part of healing. To be able to say something went wrong, and it wasn't my fault is important (assuming of course that this is true!) I don't think you need a precise label for that, or that you can only do it if the other person has a disorder of sorts, but it can really help.

It does sound like your H could be a narcissist or have one the personality disorders mentioned by GettingaGrip but chances are you will never find out.

I suspect my father of having a personality disorder, probably he is narcissist but we would never get him to see anybody about it. It is all part of him believing that he is never wrong and the rest of the world just doesn't understand how wonderful and intelligent he is and how stupid the rest of us are. All doctors are quacks, know nothing and bury their mistakes so who cares what they say, apparently.

I suspect your DH would be the same so you are never going to know what is wrong with him and you are wasting your time trying to find out. You need to forget about it for your own sake. It will do your head in.

Get away from this man whilst you have the chance. Your children will thank you for it in the long run. He may make you the target of his venom now but if your children are quite young they will be no threat to him at the moment. As they get older they will start to challenge him and his view of the world centred on him, as teenagers do, and he will start to include them in his attacks too.

Seriously, don't waste time trying analyse this man. He isn't worth it.

The point is that the OP was asking if it seemed likely that her husband is a narcissist. From her description, and from her own research it does seem that this may be the case.

I was not trying to be sarcastic or clever in my reply to you desiderata, and am not quite sure why you are so aggressive.

If you have only recently heard of a narcissist for the first time, then it can be assumed that you have had no experience of these people.

I, and others on these boards, have lived my whole life with these people, and that is why we are suicidal and clinically depressed. Not to mention having huge debts due to another of their funny little ways.

If you don't agree with me , or with the entire psychiatric profession, then that's fine....but please don't upset us with your attitude.

Thankyou

Have been crying most of the day but honestly laughed at the " hes a cunt " comments.Sums him up really.

He did have sexual problems , he had extreme premature ejaculation, so much so that things would be over before they had even started.He was also clueless in that way , fumbling about ect.
I often felt he was using me to masturbate.
When gently corrected he would sulk , pout or explode and victimize himself " i cant get anything right can i, im useless, your saying im crap ".

Realise now that over the years this sexual behaviour was deliberate, and it increased to the point that i would gently correct him, he would stop then do it again. I would correct it and he would do it again.There was always a final crecendo, he would do it forcefully and i would honestly have to wrestle him off.He would then explode and play the victim.

When challenged about this recently he admitted it and said it was my fault as i was not very passionate?!
There has also been serious financial issues in that i have had no access to finances , i have always had to ask. Hes never said no but i object to asking for what should be our money.He has also ran up serious debt that he considers is none of my business.

Ashamed to admit it but its only since hes been gone that ive started to see this behaviour for what it is.
My children are teenagers . I recently went to counselling but really didnt get anything out of it as she basicly sat and nodded.
I sound like a doormat and i cant beleive ive been one for so long.

He has never been violent to me and always nice to the children.He constantly contradicts himself , often in the same sentance.Has seriously suggested to me that if i cared about our mariage i would confront the ow and as i havent i obviously dont care about him!

He resents people who are better than him and bitches and whines constantly about them.Has spent years cruelly telling me that someone in his office said such and such a thing about me , and then comforting me when i became upset .
I feel bereaved. I have wasted all these years , my confidence has took a battering and worse i have covered up for him and excused his behaviour.Eventually i took it all on board and started to beleive i was a crap mum , no one likes me , if only i was a better wife ect.
. I used to dress very feminine but ended up slobbing around in jeans as i did not want to attract sexual comments from him.

Last year i started to stand up for myself and insisted that things change or i would divorce him. He then set about a campaighn of revenge including publicly humiliating me , financial wrongdoings and keeping a diary about me.

Despite this i wouldve stayed married to him had he changed. He will not accept unreasonable behaviour on his part and suggests that i should , which i wont.

While i accept i have not been all i could be as a wife , i am not to blame for this and if this happened at work i would consider it to be constructive dismissal.
Am waffling, am very confused.

hurtandfoolish please don't beat yourself up! You'd be surprised at the number of otherwise strong people who have been caught up in similar circumstances, and had their confidence and judgement eaten away over the years. What is past is past. When you are feeling stronger you may find it helpful to think about what went wong and why, but for now you need to focus on the future. The one you are going to make for yourself that will be good, and full of positive things. You have brought up two I am sure lovely teenagers, so hang on to that as a positive outcome of your marriage. Now think what you want to acheive next, and how to do that, and plan ahead.

I thought that most people had an element of Narcissism in them. Generally speaking, the element is so small that it's not worth mentioning.

If you have heard the saying, no use crying over spilt milk, then you can apply the concept to your situation.

The bloke is playing a game with you and your feelings. He does things to get attention. The attention he gets is for his mask, but he enjoys the attention. If you sit and think about really knowing him, you are likely to find that you know very little about the real him and a lot about the person he wants to be - if you can pin that down.

The sex point. No one can tell him anything so when you try to correct him or give him some guidance, he doesn't see that as helpful, he sees it as you telling him what to do, so he "fights" against it. Premature ejaculation to him tells him that he ejaculated quickly and you must be something special. You are a bigger loss to him than you realise.

The nastiness now is an attempt to get you to give in and allow him back into your life. So you think that's it's easier to give in than stay the way you are.

If the bloke visits your house, try to move away from that. If the bloke emails you, it's not ideal, but you need some communication, so email tends to be a good idea. Email is recordable and referenced. Phone calls are going to put you in a position to get abuse and make him angry from time to time. If you limit the amount of exposure he has to you, you become less pronounced in his mind and his attention should start to move elsewhere.

To this man. If he gets one good success, he makes a big issue about it. There are plenty of claims about being able to do it again but nothing materialises. Talk is cheap, it's better to say nothing than say the wrong thing. With this bloke, he needs to get feedback, usually seeing a reaction and hearing a response. The less he sees, the harder he tries, when he sees to little reaction, the amount of effort involved is more than the reaction he gets to see and getting someone else to react is easier.

Would I be right if I guess that you are slightly older than he is? Perhaps better educated and have more useful skills and better life experience. Perhaps you have a driving licence and he doesn't? The bloke has to rely on you more than you rely on him?

I'm with desi

Don't waste any more of your emotional energy trying to understand

You never will and it feeds his attention-seeking bollocks. The only explanantion you need is that you have realised his inadequacy is bringing you down. Better late than never, don't blame yourself for hanging on to your marriage, I'm sure he manipulated you mercilessly. Don't let him do that any more.

Cut him out of your life. Any contact with kids, do through a 3rd party. Divorce him on grounds of unreasonable behaviour.

Good luck with the rest of your life, it can start today.

We do all have an element of narcissism within us...HEALTHY narcissism. The difference is with people with NPD that they become stuck at this developmental stage, and this, combined with adult reponses to perceived attacks on this reality, reults in behaviours that are highly destructive, but prectictable.

Everyone goes through a narcissistic stage at around two years old. This is essential in creating our sense of self. If, however, our surroundings and reality are so terrible that they are impossible to cope with, the child creates its own reality, as a protective mechanism. This person is then stuck at two years old. many of their responses to their victims can be likened to those of a toddler. This occurs in many if not all of the personality disorders....borderline, shizoid and so on.

This reality is set within this person, and if they carry this on into adulthood, they can develop into pathological narcissists, who can never see any other reality but their own.

It is debatable whether all narcissists are psychopaths...certainly all psychopaths are narcissists.

This is not some mumbo-jumbo, made up nasty-person-syndrome. This is a cognitive developmental disorder, and it is argued that it is impossible to 'cure' due to its very nature.

These people are evil. It is estimated that 2% of the population have this disorder, but no-one will ever know for sure, because people are only ever diagnosed in their absence. They manipulate therapists and so are almost impossible to deal with in this way.

This is not all my personal opinion, this is fact.

Please excuse the terrible spelling etc. Mornings are difficult for me as I don't sleep due to severe depression, and my ADs mean that I don't really function until around noon.

It is helpful to know what you have been dealing with over the years. When I discovered what my entire family are, and all my partners have been it was the biggest sense of relief. These people due truly send you insane...and they also feed off their children. To be the child of an N is a terrible thing. If you don't end up as one yourself, you end up insane like me.

They should be branded on their foreheads, they wreak terrible damage.

H&F - how are you today? I hope you are OK.
Please don't let this man confuse you. You haven't done anything wrong - he wouldn't have been any different if you had behaved differently.

I am torn by these discussions. As the daughter of a narcissist I know what damage they can do but I felt from quite an early age (late teens) that he was my father was mentally ill, even if I didn't have a label for it, and so he lost some of his power to wound me. All the things he used to say I knew nobody else would agree with and although they used to make me cross and frustrated they couldn't harm the essence of me, ifswim. So from that point of view I can understand why you want to put a label on your H and why it would be useful.

But I still stand by what I said earlier and what Desi and Anyfucker have said, if a little more forcefully than me - you are never going to know for sure. He will never agree to go and see a doctor about this because he doesn't, can't even, believe there is anything wrong with him so you will never get a diagnosis. So from that point of view I think you need to just walk away and leave him to it. It will eat you up if you let it. Let him go, let his words go over your head. Get your children away from this man and don't let them be duped into thinking that he needs them and that they need to stay with him to look after him. Remember that he will always be their father and they can't get away from that as easily as you can get away from being his wife. They need you to support them even if you think he is being a good father. I bet if you think about it, he manipulates them too, even if he is apparently kind. He is not fixable so don't waste any more time on him.

NI - Interesting you that assume the OP's H is younger and less well educated. I definitely started to bear the brunt of my father narcissistic tendencies the higher up I went up the educational ladder. And of course I wasn't like him in one key area - I am female and he isn't (obviously) so that one fact alone means I am never going to be good enough. Misogyny is in-built with these men I think.

My father has narcissism (he's actually a bit better now with age). It was so difficult growing up with a narcissistic father, particularly when you are a teenager. All his children are still having to deal with the aftermath of this and it has affected all our relationships.

It is really important to recognise this type of behaviour and know how to deal with it. Unfortunately my mother came from the "doormat" generation of women who put up with everything and anything that was dished out to them. I think she felt she had no other choice, financially, emotionally etc plus in those days divorce was still socially quite a stigma. Thank God things have changed now.