Narcissitic Personality Disorder (Part 2)

[Gettingagrip]

Starting another thread for us survivors.

Which thread is this therealme ?
I know my ex manchild has looked at mumsnet ,aparently he looks at the divorce section cos its really helpfull??
I keep looking out for a thread from a pitifull male claiming hes done everything possible to keep me happy but i am deranged , violent, unstable and always want my own way and boo hoo how awful i am. Oh and everyone thought he was mad for " taking me on " !

Was driving in my car today feeling happy and thought back to the crap ive put up with , and i honestly do not recognise that person i used to be. Towards the end i let him get away with all sorts, mostly to my own depriment, because i wanted to know, and see, who he really was.I did and it was horrifying, literally like a horror film when someone takes their mask off and you see who they are in all their evilness.

Never again will i not take notice when someone tells me who they are. Before we got together i knew he was two faced, a liar and a cheat , yet somehow i overlooked it. A common saying is that these people should be tatooed , when really they dont need to be , they mostly tell us who they are quite early on , with their words , actions and lack of any real depth, we just choose to overlook it.

Also had a fleeting moment today where i felt a pang thinking about him with his new victim. I then recalled what it was what like to be squashed by his stinky bulk and to be groped by him. Actually ended up smiling to myself and cranking my stereo up as i dont have to put up with his letcherous ways anymore. How loveley to lie in my own bed without being groped, letched at or outrightly assaulted. No stinky feet, farts or snoring to contend with either, it gets better and better.

dignified, they do tell us, they do!!

My ex:
"I am who am, I'm not changing for anyone" (Did I ask why anyone might want him to change? Well, guess.)
"You're late! I don't wait for anybody, I'm never arranging a date with you again." (Did I think 'If you don't find me worth waiting for, you're history?' Guess again.)
"I don't like anybody knowing my business." (Including you, he should have added.)
"Nobody understands me like you do." (No comment required. Nobody could understand him!)
"I've never been able to tell anyone else ... " (Because it's so disgusting, most people would run a mile.)
"I've done a lot of bad things." (He had. And continued to do them.)
"I wanted to make the other kids like me ..." (They knew he was scary.)
"... So I stole a motorbike." (??!)
"I can't tell you how I feel, I hardly understand it myself." (So very, very true.)

Uugh. I can't believe I was such a "saver"!
What did yours tell you?

Hehehe. To acheive the most accurate mental image i will accurateley describe him .Short, balding, grossly overweight , looks completeley harmless and dresses like my dad .

Early ones were -
" Im going out tomorrow, meeting up with Jackie, my new girlfreind " ( she didnt exist )
" I made her up because i got sick of people asking why im single " ( liar )
" Your not very houseproud are you " ( cheeky twat )
" Im in debt but its not my fault "
" did your ex ever hit you , have you ever been sexually abused " ( he was checking boundarys )
" I did have an affair with that person, but i was single so i wasnt doing anything wrong, anyway shes a slag "
" Everyone picks on me " ( victim mentality )
" Everyone says this about me cos im so nice " ( wishfull thinking )
" Im a private person "
" I wish everyone would just leave us alone so we can be a proper couple "
"Wasnt that funny when i pointed out that hurtfull observation about you " ( a sign of things to come )
" Even though none of my family or freinds like you i still love you ". ( i hadnt even met them )
" I like to record what people have said for my own protection, you never know when it will come in handy " ( he thought everyone was like him )
" I know i said i was freinds with so and so, but thats only because he had a boat, i dont really like him "
" I once set fire to someones car because i had a grudge ".
" I hate all my ex girlfreinds, they were all dirty slags, not like you dignified ".
" Sorry, i cant help it, im just excited " ( then followed years of premature ejaculation that was so extreme he would do it in his pants )
" Let me hold the keys / money " ( control freak ).
" So what about your parents ect " ( wanted to know everything so he could manipulate me )

The biggest feeling i have about him, is that he needs someone around to pick on, and when i was with him, i was always aware that he was watching or observing me with a critical eye and i dont think i have ever felt comfortable with him on any level, the times ive wanted to go ive felt i owed him something for some reason. Thinking about it, ive never found him physicly attractive either ". In fact hes rather repulsive. And ive always been intimidated by him, even in the very early days. Left alone it would have gone nowhere which is why he was forcefull and pushy , because he knew id go if he didnt tie me down, bully me and break me.

Sadly hes had two girlfreinds who have been seriously abused, and i can imagine him sat nodding sympatheticly while he takes mental notes of what he considers to be their weaknesses. When i feel like dating again, even in something quite serious, i dont think i would tell any man that i have been abused.

Hehe Autumn light, i was useless and boring in bed too aparently . Cheeky twats. Im going to say something thats a big thing to say , or type.
Here goes. I suspect that the reason he thought i was boring in bed is because i am a human and not an animal, the preferance being for dogs closely followed by horses. Sadly im not joking.

I dont know if he had ever actually done this, but he had stacks of animal porn and would spend the bulk of his time watching it.
He actually once suggested to me how much it would turn him on to see me with a dog.
Thank fuck weve never had a bitch. He also had quite an interest in porn that showed women umm, soiling themselves, skat, i beleive its called and its very unpleasant.

The attraction in these two areas i think is to do with humiliating and degrading something or someone, certainly he gets pleasure by watching these degrading acts.I am fairly open minded towards everyones sexuality but im not sure what to think about this, whether it is a kink, or something more sinister.

Anyway, there you go.I was shit and boring because im not into degradation , and nor do i have a tail !

Thank you mathanxiety for your response.
I have been doing so well the last couple of weeks with detaching myslef but seems to have steped back to my old routine the last two days.

He is sweet and pays attention when i am quite and reserved(which is not me) and when i lighten up he goes back to acting like shit.
Its like a game, game that i am tired of playing, i know it wont cost him anything as i know he is unable to feel any emotion, i so feel cheated in this relationship, led to belive that he loves me and still does which i have 100% doubt in.

He has never been emotionally there for me in my time of need,i dont know why i am here, seriously i think i am addicted to this drama

Dignified, I agree with you. That is the valuable lesson I've taken from it all as well "never again will I not listen when somebody is telling me who they are".

Sweetexpectation remember, nice nasty nice nasty nice nasty. What always always comes after nice class? [grin} The olive branch you feel you can't ignore is a NETTLE with these NPDs. Toughen up. It's your right to reject a nettle. It's a nettle dipped in saccharine. Visualise the next 'olive branch' as that.

dignified just read what you typed, the big thing to type. Wow. Speechless. although, maybe I shouldn't be. A counsellor once told me it was more common than we think,

dignified how bloody horrible for you. But yes your counsellor was right. They are nasty perverts and it's shocking.

My exH had ghastly sex fetishes with hookers and whores, little girls and possibly animals too.

I didn't know any of this until he had Run Away though and I found it all on our home laptop. Yuk yuk yuk. The thought of our 'lovemaking' now makes me feel ill as god only knows what was going on in his screwed up head during it. It has put be off sex utterly and completely, so my sex-drive, is another thing he has stolen from me.

Hoping I will get over this eventually and be able to watch a kiss on the telly say without feeling sick!

The sex thing is something that I haven't discovered yet.

He stopped wanting sex with me very early on. It has always been a problem. Now, he either has no sexuality, or he's getting his needs met elsewhere.

After reading other's experiences I do not wish to know.

The only time there has been ok sex was when he was drunk.

He uses the word "slag" a lot.

He had a catholic upbringing...always bad.

My first husband had a porn problem. He was also obsessed with bottoms and poo. Oh, and humiliation. Lovely aren't they? Maybe back to the gay thing again, which has been mentioned before.

It's almost as thought they are "playing a part".

Nothing is real, it's a performance.

My H was often wonderful with the kids, but it was almost as though it was a show put on for them, something undefinable missing. Like there was between us too. It was never right, and it's only now that I am starting to get some kind of inkling as to why it wasn't. You never REALLY engage them do you?

My H has a tiny existence, his circle of people is tiny. There is no one....apart from me, who is there for any other reason than what they get from him...he has given them work, or enabled them in some way.

Beyond the work thing there is absolutely nobody at all. And now he has lost his work.......

He has chosen to leave me and the kids, he said yesterday via email, that he was preparing to lose dd emotionally and physically. He has stopped tellinh her that he loves her which is distressing he deeply.

I want to scream, how can he do that to his own daughter....but I know the answer. I's here, it's horrid, but this is what it is.

Sorry, me again.

When he was a child, he was entered into all kinds of talent shows, some on the telly.

It makes me wonder if that conditionality of approval and love......being a performing monkey almost, to save his parents from their lives, is what has caused him to be the way he is? I wonder.

Didn't do Lena Zavaroni much good either did it?

In fact...come to think of it, I am convinced that h has a quite serious eating disorder too. That's one thing I do not miss at all....the trauma of mealtimes.

Dignified - sex with my H has really only taken place when he is drunk (which he is every night and weekend as he is an alcoholic). So, for me, it has been like having a 'stinky lump' dumped on top of me. Also, the penny finally dropped that I felt humiliated by someone who did not treat me like a human being the rest of the time, and would just saunter up to bed very late, drunk, and the accepted behaviour was for him to get his leg over after waking me up. I do not like having sex with very drunk, smelly men (an H in my case) I decided. Unfortunately he is in the 'marital' bed now again.

Saddest - sex has always been a huge weapon used against me by my H. At the start of our relationship he was gagging for it (I realise of course this is normal in any relationship when two people are strongly attracted to each other and fall in love), but, it was then used as a tool - either to 'punish' me (in the past - rape - he has stopped crossing that boundary now), or used, permanently throughout the marriage to undermine me verbally - 'you're too old, too fat, too wrinkly, saggy t...,' etc etc or - that I am a nymphomaniac and 'all' I think about is sex (I have never had an ongoing fulfilling, nice sex life with him - well you don't with someone abusive), as I have 'needs' and he would love being able to deny me any of the nice things that go with marriage - companionship, affection, love, friendliness, warmth, physical relationship etc., and he has always told me that sex is not important and I am too obsessed with it. I can't say I have ever had a consistent sex life with him and it was on his terms and used as a punishment or to assert control over me.

I now realise that he crushed me even in intimacy as you are not your real self under those terms, and anyway he destroyed my self-confidence by all the insults about my body and how boring and rubbish I was at sex.

ItsGraceAgain - two of my H's favourite sayings are and always have been:-
'I am the way I am. I will not change for anyone.' (No, he didn't - and there are warning signs as to the personality right from the start but you do not see them, and the really bad traits emerge more and more as the time goes on).
'I do not like anyone knowing my business' - yes, this is so true. My H, from the start, wanted to know, and questioned me, about every single thing and detail of my business, but, as I have posted before - if I asked him a question, the answer would be 'that's a long story' so I never got an answer to anything. He liked me to be open and honest but of course he never was or is. I have been told constantly over the years that everything has got 'f... all to do with me. It got to the stage where several years back he refused to even tell me which of two towns he was going to spend the day working in (consultancy business).

He has also filmed secret evidence of me as another poster said to use against me that I was always the abuser and he was the victim for when this marriage ends.

Saddest - yes, there is something 'missing' with their link with their children. There is sometimes an 'overdisplay/exagerated display of love' towards our dc. It has taken me a long time to notice this one. But he uses a display of love (like he did with me) as a sort of tool to temporarily 'win someone over'. But it is not consistent and is just a tap which is switched abruptly off again. But they are too young to understand this, and, I only took it on board a while back.

This behaviour was acted out early on in our relationship. It confused me even at the start but I didn't take it on board, of course. He would be over the top 'in love' with me, and then I wouldn't hear from hear for a few days and he would just switch off, I realise now, from me - which he can do easily from our dc.

This really confused me for years.

Sorry....I seem to be on a roll this morning.

Another thing that has ALWAYS srtuck me as odd is the way he works. We are both musicians.

I have never for the life of me been able to work out, until now, why as MD he hired players that were only ok, never the really top class brilliant ones. The ones that raised the hairs on the back of the neck. No, always the adequate plodders. It was of course to keep him in his position of authority.

And that's why he has had so many fall out's with the special ones!

That's why he has never raised the hairs on the back of my neck on the rare occasions when we worked together live!

Maybe that's why he wouldn't ever record my stuff! We have a recording studio ( now empty) in our garden, and in seven years together, I have managed to record one and a half songs. The last one caused a major meltdown, because I went and finished it somewhere else. That is abusive apparently.

He's the only one allowed to have an impotant career. Mine is stupid, we are all shrieking hags, we are all slags, and I hate ALL other girl singers....even the ones who are my friends. Well thanks for that H, I (or is that you)didn't realise how I really felt.

Nob.

He is not a dementor this morning....he is the wizard of oz. A funny little man hiding behind a curtain, trying to be all powerful, and failing badly.

I have just thought of a funny remark my H said the other day - well it made me laugh which was the best way I could react to it for the hypocrisy of it.

"I am not giving you a divorce because I have invested TOO MUCH EMOTION in this marriage"[hmmm]

There is a book called "The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists", excellent, available on Amazon.

I know this thread is about N husbands, I switched to this from Stately Homes becuse I was having trouble reading the child abuse accounts...anyway I did escape marrying a NPD when I was 22. When I finally broke up with him after 3 1/2 years, he wanted my bc pills because "he couldn't stand the thought of me being with someone else"...he didn't get them, but I blurted out "I'd rather be alone!" which seemed to shock him. So many memories of that relationship are coming back-all the times I felt frustrated by him, awkward things, mind games and the beginnings of physical abuse, too (pinching).

I was engaged to him, but in my heart knew it would end in divorce (lie, cheat, steal- I was already witness to). My phrase of strength was "Skip the divorce, don't marry him in the first place".

Even so the damage was done. Self-doubt: he would always ask, "Are you sure?" My son started that and I laid into him with no uncertain terms that he had to STOP IT! (He did .)

The low self-esteem was a nail in the coffin of my career. Office politics ground me to dust. I didn't have the bitchy personality (I don't really mean that in a bad way, iykwim) to survive anyway. Being ACOA was the foundation of all this.

I am married to the best man I have ever met. He has his faults (we are human), but his heart is pure and kind. He finally, last night, admitted that he was never comfortable around my N Middle Sister. I asked him if he knew anyone else like her and he said "no, but the world is full of them-that's why things are so fucked up". He said she is living a miserable life (although she is a successful corporate executive-'has money') and needs to use others to try to prove otherwise to herself (maybe codependent rather than npd?). Money is a tool for her, her position is fodder for her superiority complex. I said maybe she is superior (my doubt , and he was adamant-no she is not if she has to degrade people.

My dh was taken in by Middle Sister's "generosity" of car loads of gifts for the dc and being the second coming of Santa at Christmas. (She always had to provide the biggest gift-out do me to my own dc). But I think he sees now that it isn't worth it, even though he has not been a target of fodder for her superiority complex, yet.

I have not seen her since Christmas '07.
I feel like I am progressing to a new stage of healing from her (and my challenged history in general). It does take time. The oil lease thing is a reminder that she will not change. It seems a divine intervention because I was leaning towards trying to test my detachment and have more contact with her.

Sorry this is so long-the subtleties are tricky.

The phoenix analogy is inspiring, but instead of reinventing myself, I feel like I've just been parked in the back of the shed and am now being uncovered as a discovered treasure that was there all the time.

I like the discovered treasure idea....brill.

Do any of your N's remember their childhood?

Saddest,
It is shocking that he'd detach completely from your dd. But 'seen in a prudential light' (sorry Jane Austen fan) it is probably the best for your dd in the long run.

The thought of the animal stuff is always shocking to me, too. Sheltered life and all that-at times I am thankful for it-just don't want to know.

My N H told me a few resentments about his childhood when we first met and has slagged off his parents to me, but now he denies ever saying anything bad about them - as usual, I imagined the few things he told me. But I have not forgot what he said and they involved feeling not very cared for (emotionally) and not having his achievements acknowledged by them (as if they themselves could be rather cold and neglectful emotionally). This may explain something?

But, he only talked about his family initially when I first got together with him - as with most things, my H became very uncommunicative and I have never got any personal feelings from him about his thoughts on personal things.

I never got around to thinking much about my ex'x relationship with our dc. The last few months have been mainly spent detangling the 'What was really going on' story behind my marriage as opposed to what I was led to believe it was all about.

When I was still married my ex did two things with the dc - offer to kick a ball on the road with them (although we live opposite a green??) or put a dvd on whilst in his usual reclining position on the bed.
If we went anywhere for the day, say to the beach, he usually sat away from them and ignored.

At present he rarely sees the 3 dc together. He says it is because they want to spend time alone with him. When he was allowed access to them in my house he reclined on the sofa and the dc just got on with whatever; went out to play or into their rooms. Now he is not entering the house they are taken to the cinema a lot or to his mothers house where the grandmother would be the main entertainer. It is almost as though he doesn't actually know what to do with his kids. I know what I do - I read to them, build lego creations, do art and crafts, play with the dolls house etc etc. Do Dads not do this sort of thing generally? Can someone with a 'normal' h and Dad fill me in?

I'm beginning to think that my ex is slowly cutting out ds 1. The eldest says he loves his Dad, but doesn't like him. I'm sure there is a distance opening up between them now and my ex is doing nothing to repair it. He never encourages ds 1 to go on access visits and doesn't seem bothered that he is spending virtually no time at all with him now.

Ds 2 has always been given priority treatment. My ex said he had 'middle child syndrome' and as a result all of his whims were pandered to. No matter how unfeasible, if ds was upset over something then ex h would react to it and try to please him. He seems to have singled out this ds particularly and become insistent on meeting his needs. Ds 2 is 6; I wonder if ex h is seeing his own traits in him? Is he meeting the needs of a 6 yo because he can associate himself with a 6 yo needs?

The youngest dc is 4 and so is happy to tag along. She still idolises Daddy - I need say no more.

Of course, my ex's latest scheme to become a foster parent will push all his dc into second place. His out of the blue 'permission to leave the country' letter also tells me his willing to put a sea between himself and his dc, and there is probably a plan fermenting somewhere in the back of his twisted mind that is telling him life would be more convenient if they weren't around.

Except it was more bullshit wasn't it.

He came to see her today. He sat in the dining room for ages, I know he knew that it was distressing me, which of course was why he did it.

He was super nice to the kids, and refused to even make eye contact or speak to me.

It's hard to be so hated when I haven't done anything wrong.

I was feeling so strong this morning and now I am sick and shaky again.

If it were not for here and certain clued up friends I would be suicidal. Because I KNOW what he is doing and that it is all done on purpose, it serves only to turn that "love" I had for him into hate, and eventually into nothing.

Feel like shit.

I read something today about them behaving like six year olds. They really do don't they?

That playground stuff is it. We're not friends with you anymore....you smell and everyone hates you. It's that. That's what this 49 year old man has just done to me.

And it hurts just the same way as it did in the playground when I was six. Except then, it only lasted for five minutes and it was all forgotten.

He really hates me.

And I saw him parked around the cornere waiting for me to leave for the school run...that gives him a good half hour to root around.

Getting more legal advice on that soon.