Narsissistic personality disorder

[therealme]

I'm English, living overseas. I'm married for 17 yrs and most of that has been pretty awful. I recently 'came clean' about my abusive relationship with dh on a parenting site where I live and I have had my eyes opened for the first time that maybe it's not all my fault anymore. I have blamed myself for everything that has 'gone wrong' in my marriage - although I have genuinly messsed up on more than one occasion.

I received a lot of support from people but didn't believe I was worthy of it. Then somebody suggested I google Narsissistic Personality Disorder and that is the moment my whole world changed. For the very fist time I began to see that maybe it wasn't ME that might have all the problems. I saw my 'perfect' dh described in black and white and the words 'personality disorder' were attached to his behaviours. To say the ground shifted from under me would be an understatement.

So now I find myself at a turning point in my life. I know I have to end my marriage. It's emotionally, verbally and mentally abusive. I now recognise that I am a shell of the person that I once was, have had the life blood drained out of me, but still have enough of a spark in me to want to fight for some peace of life at 42! I have 3 children whom I love and adore - but who also love their Daddy. I'm living financially independently from my dh who refused to support me financially after ds 2 was born 6 yrs ago. I want him out of the house and out of my life!

I've made my mind up, but I am still so weak when it comes to taking action. I have spent so long living in a confused and guilt-ridden state, does that make sense?
Is there anybody out there who has experience of living with a narsissistic partner? How do you make the break? How do you ever find the strength to stand up to them in order that you might have some quality of life left for yourself? Please advise.....

Just caught up with this thread again.

So many very wise people on this thread. I had a shiver when I read that your x could never run out of anything. M x used to go to costco and fill the cupboards up with bottled water and loo roll. We live 2 minutes from a shop!!

Also, it was very interesting reading all about the family dynamics.

I felt so anxious and tense for weeks after I escaped my x. I had so much adrenalin coursing through my veins. PERMANENT state of anxiety. It's not easy doing school runs and lunches with that level of stress. Post Traumatic stress disorder is right
mx

ps, the poetry!! His poor spirit!!

my x used to give out to me that I 'didn't support' him!!!

I was a dried up husk, turning myself inside out to suit him and support him. There wasn't another gram I could have given. He gave me nothing. He grudged me fresh air. And yet he truly believed I didn't support him.

That's another way that these N's damage us - they drain our self-esteem so that, even when we manage to get away, we feel like we have lost ourselves. Its an effort to even treat ourselves well because we feel we don't deserve it. I feel I don't anyway.

I remember a conversation on MSN I had with Ex-N where he was threatening suicide and I was desperately trying to distract him. I have the transcript of it somewhere, and the conversation afterwards where he said it was unbelievable and that he must have been insane.

He was very, very good at acting depressed and playing on it too. It was also a very good way of completely self-obsessed and not having to take my feelings into consideration.

Mine used to say 'why can't you see my as your ally rather than your enemy?'. He couldn't grasp the fact that somehow he WAS my enemy and I couldn't put my finger on WHY I knew he was my enemy.

After he left and I was going through his stuff I found a diary he had kept from 92 - 94 when he was with another girlfriend (I now realise 'victim') I wish I could publish it - it sums up again and again and again the very essence of what it is like to be an N. It is frightening. It is about his lack of 'connection' - he writes constantly about how he cannot 'connect' with people, how he cannot feel 'intimacy' and about the mind and power games he plays with his girlfriend. It talks about his indolence and lack of responsibility, the fact that he is constantly in a financial mess...that he cannot hold down a job, that he is angry and feels everything is futile, but also feels arrogant. He talks often of 'the hurt little boy inside.'

He craves sexual satisfaction constantly; he masturbates a LOT (his earliest sexual fantasy he says was when he was six )

And then - yes, you guessed - there is the poetry. Tons of it. Most of it pretty grim (I mean about life.) One line that has stuck with me is 'slipping in between two different worlds, who do you think you are?' (referring to himself. Of course)

Ugh. 15 years later, when he abandoned his me and his baby son, NOTHING in him had changed. They CANNOT change even if they KNOW something is seriously wrong with them!

They just move on. Devalue, abandon, wipe out and move on.

In many ways they are to be pitied. They are shits of the highest order..but if we can get through and beyond the hell of them, we can look back and realise they are pitiful. And to be pitied.

Actually that's manifestly not true. He did change. He became much worse. He became much more cruel and reckless. He became a thief and a pervert. he abandoned his own children and stole all their money. He left his wife to fuck whores. Yuk.
He got to the stage when he didn't bother trying to work out what his problem was. He fulfilled his sexual needs with sadistic abandon in bangland and instead of keeping his lies a little hidden he tells them blatantly now.

He has given up even pretending to have a conscience (I don't think they have one but they know that they ought to in the eyes of normal society and do pretend to have.)

So perhaps he is proof that people with N Personality Disorder do deteriorate with age and time. Interestingly he really began to unravel when his father died in 2005. That was the catalyst - the man he feared and loathed (even though he gave a sickly eulogy at the man's funeral he HATED him with a passion) had gone from his life and that somehow unfettered his cravings, his lusts, his cruelty and his self-obsession.

So it's Onwards and upwards for him I guess now... I hear that Thai prisons are a bit smelly.

Mr Nasty/Mr Nice.
Criticises and puts me down on Saturday, sends large bouquet of roses on Monday.

Begs forgiveness for 'neglecting me'.

I won't respond, but I'm feeling suddenly exhausted.
God this is tough.

I love the poetry, MadameOvary. Were you tempted to respond:

"you are a tool
who I had mistaken for a human being.
Fuck off tossface"

(not sure poetry is really 'my thing').

therealme, it's no wonder you are feeling exhausted. You are being subjected to psychological warfare. And as UA says, he is your enemy. The enemy of happiness, security, self-esteem.

Realme, flowers and necklaces don't do it. They are the easy financial ways of apparently achieving something, for them, that they have NO IDEA how to achieve. Which is get back to where you were/show you their 'love' (which is shallow or non-existent as we understand it)

He will give up through exhaustion before you will my love. He will be Mr Nasty again when he sees you are not responding to his pathetic attempts at being Nice.

How did he get the flowers to you?

Hi therealme,
Did you donate the flowers to the nearest nursing home/retirement center, asap?
Just forward them on, as you know deep inside that they really are not for you ...they are for xh's power play and nothing else.

So tantrum is up next in the rotation?

Yes the presents are for him, not for you.
Get shot of them, otherwise it looks like tacit acceptance that he is Right again.

tribpot!
PMSL
Thanks so much that has given me my first belly laugh in ages!
Oh when that book was printed I thought he was a genius, God I was SO taken in.

Now I just read it and think WTF???

He has been texting me hoping I will see him as his wife is unable to have sex with him
I cant even bear to look at photos of him (have just deleted all the pics of him and DD on my Facebook)

For the last two weeks he has been supposed to come and pick DD up and take her out...and for the last two weeks he has made excuses.
Makes perfect sense as he will get no Supply - I wont be around for the handover and DD is only 17 months so too young for a decent source of supply.

Wondering what this week's excuse will be...

TheRealMe, no wonder you are exhausted
Keep posting, we will do our best to help you stay strong

I feel for you. At this point in my 'recovery', post-escape, I had my parents to shield me from nasty/nice/nasty/nice - the flowers and chocolates one day to the nasty texts and phone calls at 3 am the next day.

Stay strong. Don't engage. NOT engaging is the best way to speed up this process really.

MadameOvary I can feel another poem coming on now:

You have a wife who won't shag you
Who can blame her
You have an ex who won't shag you either
Fuck off tossface

(I would call this particular collection of work "Fuck off tossface" although not sure that would put it on the bestseller list).

So about your dd.

Another thing to watch out for might be "crises". I saw several "emergencies" suddenly arise, which apparently could only be sorted out by the N's former partner, including suicide threats. She eventually told him if there was any more talk of suicide she would phone an ambulance for him, so that called his bluff...

Well surprise surprise, he rang about an hour after the flowers did. Said he was just 'linking in'

I said nothing about flowers. He asked to speak to dc and of course dd who is 4 gabbled away about the 'big yellow ribbon' on the offending article!

He still didn't ask me if I got them, I still didn't refer to them. Think my neighbour will get a nice surprise when she gets home from work and finds them in her porch with a note from me.

I hope to god he doesn't write me a poem next...!

Sorry if I am being thick therealme but what happens now?
You have this court summons. Is that a divorce hearing or something else? Has he moved out temporarily or permanently?

Katisha, I applied to the courts for a Safety Order and Barring Order, hearing on 8th Oct. In the meantime they set a protection order. This means he can stay in the house until the hearing, but can be arrested and removed if he abuses.
He chose to move out immediately thinking that he had to, and also assumed I would get the Barring Orer, which is unlikely (no physical abuse)

Either way, I have his keys. His stuff (and there was a lot of it) has gone. I don't think he will attempt to move back in, it's rented accommodation, but if he dared to then I would move myself and the dc out.

Thanks.

Poetry Corner
(tribute to tribpot - great idea!)

Oh dear
Nobody understands
Me
I
Am alone in
My
suffering
Wispy trickles of clouds flit across the sky
And overwhelm
Me
With their dark
Forbodings

Flowers didn't cut it.
Why my love, oh triple why?
I put my
heart
and
My
soul into those petrol station
flowers
I am numb to the death of reality
and how it twists the nether me
and my underpants
inside my outerpants

Why oh why
did I bother
with that esso garage
when Morrisons was closer
I am a tossface.

UA and tribpot - you are both stars!
Ex-N is a publisher, maybe you should join his Facebook, introduce yourselves and put your work forward for consideration

While the relationship was still the ideal phase, I got pg to ex-N. Shortly afterwards his behaviour became so extreme, and my own circumstances so dire that I had a termination.
It was very traumatic and he was against it and did his best to manipulate and control me throughout.
In the book he writes

"When you killed our child
You pushed a spear into my side
To make sure I was really gone"

He would frequently refer to this in arguments as well of course, saying the most hurtful things he could.

But still I loved him, and wanted a child with him (I know...but by this time we were living seperately and a part of me knew I might bring DD up on my own) but throughout this pregnancy he would be looking for ways to abuse me and say things like "Well you can always get another abortion" and "How do I know its my baby?"

FFS - he was the lying cheating scumbag, not me. But I guess he was projecting, as all N's do.

Oh and the masturbating - yes, he told me he had once stayed in bed all day masturbating, so much that he needed to change the sheets so he could start over again.

I mean where are the words....?

I swear if I met someone like this now I would make my excuses.

MadameOvary so sorry to hear about your situation You paint such an attractive picture of him that I now truly know toss face is the right name for him . What on earth were you meant to say to that particular revelation? "Oh well done you, if only there were Oscars for spanking the monkey"?

UA inspired work as always.