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Dear Maria,
i have been in love with a man who i believe has some of the traits corresponding to narcissism. it is hard for me to say this but i believe we are right for each other because i see some of the traits in myself too but he is the "dominant" narcissist as my source of happiness is to be able to change and mold and adapt myself to please him and meet his demands.
I understand very well you description in your wonderful site about the "hooks" that are in me, and that I realized too late what this means for me. I left my husband of 15 years and 4 children because I felt that only he was able to complete me and give me what I needed at the time - he was then my slave and showered incredible levels of attention and love and affection on me, and gave me everything my husband could not - I know it sounds like I must be a horrible person to have done that, but I did. I know it is horrible to think that not even my kids could hold me back from leaving and my husband did everything he could to stop me from going, including counseling, taking me on romantic vacations, gifts and all but it was just no match and I left anyway.
I love and adore this man but I realized some time back that we had some problems in terms of how we interacted. He is terribly jealous and possessive (something I have not experienced with my husband) and on many occasions this has led him to physically abuse me. I have tried to leave him on these occasions but I can't. I blamed myself for inciting him (he tells me that I deliberately do things that upset him even though it should be clear to me, so it is my fault that he has the uncontrollable anger).
I have really learned from these violent episodes all the things that do upset him and avoid them - for example I work and travel on business and he was always afraid if I went out on business dinners or missed his phone calls - so I am very vigilant about the phone and calling him and about who I spend time with etc). But to be honest, he has also been physically violent with me over other things.. so there is a part of me that knows that this is a part of him I have to be careful with that's all and not provoke.
He has all the other "skills" too like selective memory, projection, accusing me of rudeness, inconsideration, heartlessness, hurting him etc over the smallest mistakes I have made and yet not seeing that he does the exact same thing to me. ( Click the link below to read the rest of this story).
>> CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS STORY <<
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The goal of this website is to give support to people who are facing problems in their relationship related to cheating, abuse and narcissism. I am living in Europe and English is not my native language, I wish you will excuse me if I make some grammatical errors. I have a background in neuroscience and behavioral sciences and I am currently doing brain research related to these topics in university in my home country. I decided to write in English because I wish to reach as many people as I can around the world. If you wish to read more about me, please visit page Site Overview.
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Dear Friend,
Thank you for writing to me. I know how you are feeling at this moment. I have been in similar situation. First of all, let me comment on couple points in your email. You wrote:
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I left my husband of 15 years and 4 children because I felt that only he was able to complete me and give me what I needed at the time - he was then my slave and showered incredible levels of attention and love and affection on me, and gave me everything my husband could not - I know it sounds like I must be a horrible person to have done that, but I did.
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 You are NOT a horrible person. However, I do realize what you were thinking when you wrote this. Yes, you did hurt your husband and your children when you left. On the other hand, I have also felt that incredibly strong and powerful "pull" towards narcissist. My narcissistic spouse was like a mental magnet to me. I knew he was not good for me and yet I was pulled towards him so strongly that I had no chances to resist. Please read this thread in discussion forum for more details about my relationship and how I was able to free myself from my narcissistic partner: How I was able to end relationship with my narcissistic spouse. Please read also my posts in this second thread, they point out couple important points regarding narcissists and their behavior: Click to read the thread.
After being together with him for some time my relatives and friends all started telling me he was not compatible with me. They said they could clearly see I was not fully happy with him, and yet I stayed. I simply could not leave him. The pull of the magnet was too strong. If you felt that same kind of pull towards your narcissistic partner in the beginning of your relationship, you would have to be some kind of a superhuman to be able to resist that. So please do not blame yourself. You are only human.
It is possible to learn to control one's emotions in such a way that one can get rid of the mental hooks narcissist had embedded into one's brain. To read more about the ways to control your mind and your emotions, please visit page Recovery After Cheating and Living with Narcissist.
I believe you have been suffering when you left your husband and children for this man. I do not believe you are a heartless person who just did that without blinking an eye, following your own desires, without giving a damn about the well-being of your family. I believe the decision to leave your husband and children was very hard when you made it. You were facing two horrible scenarios and out of them you had to choose. One scenario was that you stayed with your family and suffered being without the man you loved (but your family would have been be happy, so you would have sacrificed your own happiness for the sake of your family). Second scenario was that you left your family and you could live with the man you loved. Your family would be hurt at first, but they would get over it with time.
After all, it is not like you killed somebody, you simply followed your heart. People do that all the time all around the world. If the truth was that you did not love your husband as much as you loved this other man, you would have made your husband unhappy if you stayed with him. In a long run your children would be happier having a mother who is not living with them but who is happy rather than having a mother who is living with them but who is unhappy. Children have extremely keen instincts regarding these matters.
Having said that, now please let me comment on the parts of your email regarding your narcissistic partner. You wrote:
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He tells me that I deliberately do things that upset him even though it should be clear to me, so it is my fault that he has the uncontrollable anger
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I heard EXACTLY the same sentence from my narcissistic spouse countless of times. Whenever he would get upset and started shouting and criticizing me, after he calmed down he would say this same thing. He always claimed it was my fault that he was behaving with me the way he was. He said I triggered his behavior by being the way I was. However, I had never faced similar problems in my earlier relationships so I believe the way I behaved was not the core of the problem. Based on your email you seem to have realized that it is not due to your behavior that your spouse is being for example violent. It is great that you realize you are not to blame of it. Nothing justifies violence.
 It is interesting that you are saying you feel you are in a way "feeding on each other". I believe you are right. It is important to realize that there is a bit of narcissism in all of us. If you imagine there are such things as 100% narcissism and 0% narcissism, most of us are somewhere in between, some being a bit more bent to narcissistic side, others bent to the opposite side. It is healthy and beneficial for an individual to guard his or her interests and be a bit selfish (or "narcissistic" if you will) in certain situations. Throughout the evolution it has been crucial for the survival of the individuals and hence species to look after one's own interest. This is the reason there is narcissism in our population in a first place.
If narcissism would not be somehow beneficial it would have disappeared from our population long time ago. However, luckily only very few of us are so-called malignant narcissists. You say you have some narcissistic features in you. You may be correct but based on your email I do not believe you are anywhere near being a malignant narcissist. Instead, your partner seems to be more bent to that direction. His behavior towards you is cruel, cold and heartless. Physical violence is always wrong, nothing justifies that. The fact that he is acting violent towards you is already giving him huge amount of negative points. Other things you mention in your email about his behavior are supporting my view that he is severely narcissistic person.
I think you are going through the same phase I went through during my relationship with narcissist. During the last years of my relationship I gradually started to resent my narcissistic spouse more and more. I still felt I loved him (that is why I could not leave him) but due to his cruel and uncaring behavior towards me I started to have other feelings too. I felt time to time deep resentment and anger towards him. I started to despise him due to his bad behavior. Most importantly, I started to see him for what he truly was. (Click the link below to read the rest of this reply).
>> CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS REPLY <<
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Dear Friend, you deserve so much better than this life you are now living. But I know how hard it is to leave when you feel you love the other person. It can be that you will stay with him for some time, even couple more years. But eventually I believe you will find the strength to break free. It took time for me too to gather my strength. The moment will come when you feel you have reached the limit of your endurance and then you will leave. When that moment comes, please do not hesitate to write to me.
Please remember that you can write to me anytime you feel like it, regardless of whether you have left him or not. I know how hard it is to leave. I am not judging you for staying. I am here for you to support you and help you the best I can. But if you decide to leave, I will support you every step of the way. It helps when you can share those first difficult months ofter separation with somebody who has been through the same. Please do not hesitate to write. I am here for you. Together we will get you through this.
My thoughts are with you.
Warm hug,
- Maria
Ps. I strongly recommend you to learn more about the mind control methods described on the page Recovery After Cheating and Living with a Narcissist.
If you wish to submit your own story and get feedback and support for your situation or if you wish to contact me for any other reason, send me email to
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Stories - Narcissism 
I write you as I sit here so scared so unsure of what to do...where to go from here.
My husband of 19 years is very much Narcissist-our counselor actually called him a Narcissist Bully.....which explains why I am where I am.
My husband who is so handsome –so outgoing- so Mr. “All Around” in everybody’s eyes –is sometimes nothing shy of a monster. I have spent the better part of the last five years doing everything I could to be what he wanted…what he needed… every second of the day. I am exhausted to say the least.
We have two beautiful boys 17 and 14 that are watching and seeing how a husband behaves and treats wife. This makes me sick just to think about it-I don’t want my boys to think what we have is “normal”-and they don’t even see half of what goes on.
He really didn’t get to this level until about 4 years ago. He had always been somewhat of one but not like he is now. He is SOOO jealous, SOOO paranoid, SOOO controlling and so verbally and physically abusive – I can’t go an hour without letting him know where I am or what I am doing- even if I am at home. I finally gave up going to the gym back in February because he was so afraid of what I might do while I was there and raised constant hell . That was my only outlet and relief. Since then I have just given up pretty much everything to try and convince him of my loyalty, my love, my commitment to this marriage. Now I think every move I made like this actually fed his sickness and made him hold on even more tightly. All the time I thought I was proving myself by not going places he didn’t want me to go-not wearing clothes he didn’t want me to wear-not seeing people he didn’t want me to see – I was actually giving him more and more control instead of convincing him of how committed I was to our relationship. He has made the comment several times that he wished he could move us where there would be nobody around but US!! Thank goodness he can’t!
About three years ago I found out he was texting a woman who was a mutual friend and even car pooled the kids to school. Her daughter and our son are very good friends. We were always around her and her husband-anyway- my husband and my youngest son had gone to Cooperstown to play baseball and our oldest son didn’t want to go. At my husband’s suggestion, my friend and her son went to the beach with me and my son while they were gone. He was fine the first couple of days when they were so busy-but as soon as things slowed down he started in on me and never let up until we got home. Making wild accusations and being so verbally abusive I could hardly bare it.
A few days after we got home I opened the phone bill and saw where he had been sending me all those ungodly text while I was at the beach and also noticed there was another number he was texting at the very same time. 50 plus texts a day to this lady and the whole time letting me have it -calling me terrible names I can’t even repeat on here. I was begging him to stop and swearing to god I wasn’t doing anything wrong and all along he was talking to her. As I got to looking I realized that this had been going on for some time…months even-close to a year. I called him and freaked out of course and then called her. She acted as if I had lost my mind and told me they were best friends!!! Another woman…best friends with MY husband??? I don’t think so!! Anyway she said it would stop and she had no idea I didn’t know…whatever, right? Since then it has happened four more times but with someone different each time. He is on the road a good bit and says he is just bored and it is nothing to worry about. This coming from a man that doesn’t really even like for me to go to Kroger!!! Last spring when I found out he was doing it again I left and went out of town for two nights and wouldn’t answer my phone….I paid dearly for that and ended up being the one to apologize.
This last time which was two weeks ago….it was with an 18 year old girl- he is 43!!! Sick huh? Of course he had an excuse and said he was only trying to help her get a job. I just couldn’t believe it…I don’t know why…but I couldn’t. I left and went to my mom’s for two nights and he took my cell phone and my car away and cut all money off. So…I had no choice but to come back. He promised me the world and said it would never happen again. It wasn’t even a week later and I looked at his phone and he had been sending his brother messages and having him forward them to her. It was 5
I have never ever cheated nor have I given him a reason to be jealous but that makes no difference. He has made my life a living hell and for absolutely no reason.
On the flip side, there have been good times…many in fact.. and as long as I do exactly as he says-things always are pretty good. He is a great father and we want for nothing-but that doesn’t equal happiness…for me anyway.
Can they change?? Can this doctor help him? He says he can and that he wants to change and will do whatever he has to do to be able to stay. The doctor wants us to go on a retreat but I don’t even want to talk to him right now… much less go somewhere with him.
How can I know if it’s worth saving? I have truly done everything I can to try and make him happy…to be whatever he wants me to be-I have given it everything I have-for my children sake- to try and make this work. But…I’m still not enough to make him NOT want to talk to other women. As far as I know…he has never been with any of them. I have talk to most of them and it seems it’s just friendly conversation…. Nevertheless, I don’t like it and have asked him to stop several times. I feel like it’s the least he can do for all I put up with.
Sorry this is so long…..