How to Cope with a Narcissist

|2009-10-19 00:16:08 Shirley

I have difficulty living with this Narcissistic mental abuser, but
we are still married, 31 years. I am a teacher, and have big bouts of depression sometimes. Any help you can send will be appreciated.
I of course had to "get my life back" but, as you know, it is still very difficult.
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|2009-10-19 00:17:09 Shirley

Any comments on living with Narcissist abusers are appreciated much.
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|2010-07-16 08:13:55 thumbelina - clarification

Could you tell me what you mean by mental abuser? Is he activally abusing, or is he just being himself, a typical narcist? To live with a narcisist is painful, you feel deprived, and alone. They have no regard and apreciation for who you really are. My husband makes me very angry and I feel miserable, depressed, lonely and unhappy.But I cannot call him an abuser just because he does not fullfill my basic needs and I am in constant pain.
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|2009-10-22 01:06:38 Dina

I would also like to know, it is not easy to get out of such relationship with 3 boys.
I also would love to know how to live in peace with a
Narcissist?
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|2009-10-23 16:37:30 Maria

The only way to live in "peace" with a narcissist is to accept the fact that a narcissist is in fact a mentally "sick" person. In some ways a narcissist does not mean to harm you when a narcissist is mistreating you, he or she is simply lacking the necessary mental tools and hence cannot feel any empathy. In other words, a narcissist does not realize how horrible his or her actions can make the other person feel.

A person who does not feel empathy (ie. pity) towards others, is generally considered to be cruel and unpleasant by the rest of the society. Narcissists are usually not sadistic, however seeing that you are hurt makes a narcissist feel secure and powerful (obs. this is different thing than feeling pleasure when someone is in pain, as sadists do). The feeling of being in control is crucial for a narcissists, who have an extremely fragile and low self-esteem buried under their huge ego.

The only way one can live in a relative "peace" with a narcissist is to consider him or her being a big child who is emotionally immature and not to take his bullying personally... This is of course extremely difficult, if someone is mean to us it is natural that as a consequence we feel hurt and unhappy. That is why many people cannot live with a narcissist, they become more and more depressed until they finally realize that a narcissist is not going to change and that the only way is out.

In the end we all must make our own decisions. But whatever we decide, it is good if the decisions are based on facts and actual knowledge of the nature of narcissism and not on a false hope that a narcissist might change, or even worse false hope that WE might be able to change a narcissist.
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|2010-03-08 19:02:12 Shannon - How to leave

I have been married for 22 years to a husband that suffers from NPD. I recently learned this when my husband made me go to marriage counseling in an attempt to fix me. I have since moved out of our house, and am trying to learn how to take responsibility for my own life. We have 3 children together, our 2 girls are off at college; our son is still in high school. My husband travels frequently so when he is gone, I stay in the house with our son. I also work at the high school so I see him every day. My problem is that my husband harasses me endlessly. He refuses to give me any space. I have to interact with him because of our shared responsibilities to our son, so I can't just cut him out of my life. He calls, emails, shows up at my work, finds me when I am outside running. He demands to know why I am doing this to him, why I am destroying our family, how I can ruin our son’s life, why I am all of a sudden being so selfish. Of course I have offered plenty of insight to my frustrations throughout our marriage and gone over the reasons in therapy, but he still won’t stop. He cries to all of our friends (in a small town), so now the town wants to know why I can’t just work on our marriage, why I am hurting him. He cries to our son (the girls are sensitive to his plight but not as eager to empathize). I just start to feel some peace and he finds another crisis, or reason that he has to see me and talk to me, which is just an excuse to try and talk some sense into me. I don’t know how to create boundaries with him; obviously that has been one of my problems for years. He has dictated everything in my life, which I allowed, in an effort to have some peace in our house. I find myself thinking about moving back into the house because I desperately want him to stop. That is always what I have done – given into him because he makes my life miserable if I don’t. How do I hold my ground? How can I take responsibility for my own actions/life without continually being sucked back in to his drama?
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|2010-03-29 22:09:27 Anonymous

You (and kids) are worth the effort. In the long run you will find what your seek. You grow stronger over time with concious, know yourself, don't let other people tell you what you feel, or what you think. Self confidence is gold, mean people drive on control and emotions are great tools to play around with, don't buy it. Listen to what is said, perception depends on the view. Believe in yourself, you're stronger then you think, make the best descions for yourself !!
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|2010-03-30 00:21:15 Mario - Narcissistic GF

HI.
I have just finished a 18 months relation w a gf that has all the tracvts of a NPD.
Well...
For a lucky combination I have found a website talking about Domestic Abuse, and from there i have started looking others websites.. and I am almost certainly sure that my gf has NPD.
Well,, you cannot imagine the shock in to think that the sweetest girl that I have met in my life was exactly the opposite. I hade to call the police once... Even now I am still loving "her".
But i went through a strong emotional breakdown...
Now thanks to the informations I have found on internet I feel a lot better..
And I am wondering in to seriously close this one-way "relation"
Cheers
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|2010-04-07 11:58:49 confused - Unbearable

If anyone has any suggestions they would be appreciated... I realized my husband was a narcisisstic about 4 years ago. Each year he seems to become more and more chronic. He leaves each morning at 80 am after he takes the children to school and I leave at 70 so we do not get to speak each day. He does not return to home until 120 am the next day
(7 days per week) so he does not spend any time with me or the children. He does not ever call, If I call him he does not want to hear about me but wants to rant on about his success with his job. He thinks that me sharing about my day at work is just me complaining and nagging and he does not want to hear about it... I can go on and on. At this point I don't know what to do. Should I leave or should I stay? The only thing that has kept me with hims is that fact that my children adore him (they don't understand his narcissism any why he never wants to spend time with them.. .
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|2010-07-16 07:58:00 thumbelina

Unfortunatly narcisistic men seem incapable of relating to our core selves. The concept of the "Deficit of Self" to describe a narcisist helped me understand my husband. The narcisist can not relate to his true self because he does not know his own true self. He cannot relate to your anxieties, fears, and needs, because he is blind to those feelings within himself. He is in a state of "denial of feelings", so when you bring up your feelings to him, instead of having him indentify with them, empathize with you, and support you, as a normal human being would do, he interpretes those feelings as being a weakness, and an attempt of your part to manipulate him and drag him down. So he runs away and leaves you alone. It's important that you find a support system so you can keep yourself intact! Good luck! PS> I am no expert in this matters, it's just my very humble opinion
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|2010-07-16 07:16:33 thumbelina - drained

I think I live with a narcisist. He never asks me a question. He makes me feel that I have nothing to offer. When we are out with other people he takes over the whole social space, asserting himself as the expert, the smarter, the only one worth listening to. People relate to him by asking him questions (he is a professor) When I try to have my own voice heard, he never validates what I say. The opposite, he either corrects me or acts as if I am not talking. Afterwards he complains that I had interrupted him a lot. He is so smart and successful, why is he compelled to dominate a conversation about my own country, carrots or toilet paper? I feel drained, angry and depressed.
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|2010-07-16 14:34:39 RM - drained response

I left my Narcisstic husband in March and filed for divorce after 9 years of marriage. He did the same thing - NEVER asking me what I want to do for the weekend..I was just TOLD what we were doing..with who, etc. He also would butt in to my conversations...finish the jokes I started...and what really got me was when he would embarrass me by interupting me and correcting me in a JOKE I was telling...saying that I always "get it wrong"...he would always cut in to my conversation and tell me I was "too loud" when HIS VOICE IS LIKE A GRIZZLY BEAR. Also, when I was asked about my children or my family..he would IMMEDIATLEY cut them off and start a completely different coversation...IT ALL HAD TO BE ABOUT HIM. HE COULDN'T STAND IT IF I WAS GETTING PLEASURE TALKING ABOUT MY LIFE TO SOMEONE ELSE. I am glad I finally left him...but it took finding out about a 5 year affair and the LAST of 5 beating me up ..when I finally called 911 and had him arrested. I know I am doing the right thing and it's been 4 months since I moved out...but I am still struggling..still reading all about narcissism..and still grieving about the husband and marriage that was all a lie. All I can say is that we need to stay strong and move on to a life that we know we deserve and NOT go back to the hell we've been living...that is all that keeps me strong.
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|2010-07-16 16:35:36 thumbelina - RM thank you for being an inspiration!

You are an inspiration! It's hard for me to imagine what must have been like living with a violent narcissist, suffering not only emotional abandonment but also the physical abuse!
It's very hard to leave because one feels so weak...and belittled...so you did the harder part!
Hang on there!!!

My husband is not violent at all. I think he is also Asperger's... What makes it really hard to sort things out. He looks so good from the outside. He is charismatic and brillhant...however all the positive feedback he gets does not seem to satisfy him. He has to have total control over everything, every situation, every conversation....AS I said before I don't exist in his presence. The worst thing is that my son treats me the same way. He never asks me a question or my opinions, and only talks to Dad. Even if I am present, any conversation is only between him and his father. If I try to participate, my son tells me to be quite. I worry about is emotional growth, and how he will relate to women. My interpretation of my son's behavior (he is 13) is that he is going through a healthy separation from mom, but at the same time he has an overidentification with all mighty dad! So I am sorry to see him so extreme in his dissociation from "the Weaker person". My son only talks to me if dad is not present! I think he understands that that would not "aprove" of him catering to a "weaker" person
If I divorced,my son would be devasted! I suffered terribly when my parents divorced.
owever I am so fed up that my only relief is to fantasize that I am leaving him!
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|2010-08-06 06:52:31 Anonymous

@RM It hurts so badly when you have to accept that the years spent was a total lie. My Nar husband spent a lot of time lying and down sizing me to his family. I gave him all of me and all I had. I too made excuses for him. I tried to give him the love and support that he didn't have as a child or young adult. No matter how hard I tried he always found something to yell about. We could be watching a movie and all cuddled up the without warning he would just go into a rage which would end with him destroying the mood or destroying the property. I felt sorry for him at first and puzzled at why he felt he didn't deserve to be happy or that he didn't feel worthy but it didn't matter because he only was concern at how many hearts he win and how many times he could be right. He hated being wrong and always had to prove everyone else wrong. It became so sickening. I was so angry. I was filled with hurt and disgust. But being the enabler was my fault and I owned it. Even though I thought I was being the wife that he deserved but instead he sucked the energy from me like a parasite. ALWAYS complained about me but never tried to leave and refuses to leave. So for those out there that Nar left honey please RUN in the opposite direction. Because life with a person with NDP is not healthy and I would not wish that life on my worst enemy.
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|2010-09-01 14:21:02 sandra - agree

i can't agree more. run from your npd relationship as fast as you can. i've been in this hell for 16 years and am finally getting out with the support of my friends and some counseling. life is to short...not that this is easy.just finding who i am is hard,but i'm doing it.wish you all the luck in the world.
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|2010-09-01 17:26:59 cherbear52 - I am sick

My NAR husband is both emotionally and physically abusive and a very bad alcoholic. I like to have my few drinks too after working a long day and relaxing in my garden or finishing up a project, but my husband starts drinking before he goes to work in the morning and starts the minute he heads home. The rest of the evening is spent on the couch getting drunk and then it seems like he can't wait for me to get home to start yelling at me about whatever it is he feels he has to yell at me for that day. The reasons are endless. I cannot please him. We have not even been married two years yet and I have called the police once because he threated me with a loaded pistol and another time for busting my nose (3rd time he did this before I finally called) and of course, it is my fault now he has to pay fines and go for 26 weeks of counseling. I had hoped this would wake him up and somehow help him see who he is and what he is doing to our relationship. Of course, the year we dated had I realized who he really was I would have never married him. Now I sold all my household goods and we combined our two homes into one which makes me hate to give up but it is easier to replace material things than my sanity. Just not sure whether to ride out the storm while he goes through counseling and hope it helps somehow to get the man that I loved back or give up and move on. Right now I am hoping to try a different approach. I was an independent woman and raised my daughter alone for 15 years and he is trying desparately to take my independence away and gets so angry when I won't let him control me. He is angry if I take 5 minutes "too" long to get home from work, or if I stop at my mother's first, or I want to work in my garden, or if I talk to my girlfriend at work (can't bring her name up at home now or he gets really mad). I have told him he needs to stop his control freak behavior but it goes in one ear and out the other. I don't think he really hears anything I say. And then I feel like I am going nuts. He then tries putting me down like he wants to convince me I have something wrong with me and no one would want something like me. I am 52, smart, slender, a hard worker. Maybe I am not 25 but men still look not that I would want another one after this trip. But if he thinks I am so horrible why does he want to stay with me? I want to become stronger in dealing with his control and stop allowing him to control me and would like suggestions on how to react to these situations. sometimes I get so upset at his accusations that I blow up and this is not me! I feel I am losing my self control and that is not me! How do I remain calm when he is backing me in a corner. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. God bless!
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