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Dear Maria, I just wanted to say how wonderful your web site is for us that have suffered at the hands of narcissists. I have had N parents, N brother, N grandmother and N niece. I believe it runs in my family. I was in a 20 year marriage with four kids and left my husband for this Narcissist (who gave me tons of signs). I moved myself 600 mile to be with him and eventually moved my kids as well. We did not live together. He would not even let me spend the night! He had nothing (it was all a sham) and I ended up supporting him with three jobs while he spent money as if he were a millionaire (MY MONEY). He could not focus on anything (as if he had ADD). He would talk in circles and you had no idea what he was talking about. He could never answer direct questions but would loop it back to some thing i did or said (I called it word salad). He was NEVER at fault. He had a thing for very young girls (it was scary to me). He was super lazy and his place looked like a pig sty (still does).
He went through all my savings and still wanted more. He did NOTHING for me. If I asked for anything he would say I was a demanding bitch and it would turn into a fight. He hates women as N's usually do. Could not even check my car and would tell me after sex that I had to leave at 3 AM and go back to my apt. He would clap his hands and tell me I had five minutes to dress and to make sure I would email him when I arrived home so he would know I was safe!!! Had super issues with his mother.
 He also wanted me to sell my home and give him half the money! My father became ill so I did move back to my home (where my {still} husband was living, hoping I would return). After a few months of being away from Narcissist (and clearing my head from the abuse and the fog he had kept me in) I did not want to return back to N and he was very angry but still would not let go of me. He would scream on the phone for four hours a day about me not selling the house and me not returning. I hung up, then he would call back all sweet and make strange child like sounds into the phone.
He would go crazy because he could not control me the way he did when I lived near him. Within a few months I had a breakdown from all the stress (I had already moved to 5 different apts because I could not pay the rent due to trying to support N). This happened over a 6 year period before I moved back to my own home. I have been in a nightmare relationship (if you wish to use that word) with an N for 9 years. We met on the Internet and he was a red flag from the beginning but I ignored all the warnings because I loved him and felt we were meant to be together. He also cheated on me and lied all the time. My question is why are N's addicting to us? I do not have an addictive personality! I am and always was (until this happened) a very pragmatic and calm person. I worked, am educated and raised my family and had a home/ranch as well. l have a husband who loved me (yes we had some issues and some times I do think this drove me to running off with Narcissist). Every time I break it off with N I go through withdrawal (panic) symptoms and call (beg) him back again and again. Nights and mornings are the worse and this is when we do talk on the phone most of the time. I panic when he will not answer the phone but I do not know why!! And I do not want him back. I do not want to have sex with him. He turns my stomach. I do not want to see him and I do not want to even talk to him (all the conversations are about HIM and how poor he is and how he is suffering from lack of a job) and how I should be moving back so we could be "close" again. He will talk for hours about himself until my head hurts and I am so tired of it. We were supposed to see each other and every time it looked like we were he would pull away (I know he was doing it for attention and creating a huge drama. I also think he hates sex and this is a way of avoiding it). He is a cerebral narcissist.  His family has given him tens of thousands of dollars in the last year. His brother has given him a business (which he did nothing with). His landlord is letting him stay rent free (for three years now) and he is trying to move here with me and I will never let that happen. I see what he is and what he has done to me (taking so much money from me that I have almost lost my home). He coaxed me to take out a mortgage so our relationship could be "saved" and I am now paying a 30 year mortgage on a home that I owned and paid for free and clear). This was to save him form all his debt and yet he coaxed me to do it!
The abuse and the horrible things he has said to me have been shocking. I have no idea why I have even accepted any of it (we did fight all the time). It has been a nightmare. Yet I seem to keep going back in the same old cycle of calling him and talking to him. I have moved away (600 miles) yet he calls three times a day and expects me to call at specific times (I am tired of all this phone garbage ). He does not want to see me (only if I pay) and I will not pay any more. He tells me he cannot spend energy to see me as his life must be focused on him (a true Narcissist!). And until things are where he wants them I must wait (which I am not doing). He is very possessive and jealous and would become very angry if I went shopping all day. The truth is I do not want to be with him. I do see how he is. I know what he is. When I first moved back to my home I cried and missed him terribly (I even went back to see him three times and drove a total of 4000 miles at my expense). Now I can hardly stand to speak with him and i am trying to cut the phone calls or any further plans of seeing him (I almost did meet him in Vegas and I backed out of it because he wanted me to pay again). I have now stopped calling and he will not call me because he said that is my ""punishment" for not behaving and causing all the problems. I do know what he is. Yet I am going though terrible anxiety. Why is this?? I do have abandonment issues, I was raised in an abusive home by a very abusive father. My Mother was a N as well and did not care anything for any of us. Thought you might like to know that I am also a psychologist. So I saw the signs and fell into the pit as well. It can happen to any of us.
Thank you for your great site. If there is anything I can do to help you with your site, please feel free to let me know. I have much experience. As I have said I was raised by N's.
Blue __________ 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.
__________ Dear Blue, Thank you for your email. I am glad you have found my website. You have been through so much during your relationship with this man. He has been taking advantage of you in so many ways, and yet you are suffering when you think you would never again be with him. You are calling him and begging to get back together.  Dear Friend, I know exactly how you are feeling when you are calling him, trying to get back together even after everything he has done to you. I did exactly the same thing in my relationship. Even tho I knew I should not try to get back together with my narcissistic spouse I still called him, asking him to continue our relationship. Couple times he refused to do so and I could hear the joy in his voice when he felt he was using his power over me. He got his pleasure out of the feeling of being in control. Please read my posts in this thread, they deal with this same topic and point out couple very important points regarding narcissists and their behavior in this kinds of situations: Click to read the thread.
When he felt he was in total control of the situation, he could afford to behave in a nasty way towards me. I told him I felt miserable due to his coldness, cruel words and insults, but it was like talking to a stone wall. Any normal human being would have the decency to at list be polite in that kind of situation. If I see that someone is hurting, it would not come to my mind to do things which I KNOW will hurt the person more. It was the opposite with my narcissistic spouse. He was blind to the suffering of others around him. He simply could not put himself into other person's shoes. He was incapable in that regard. It sounds like you are dealing with same kind of person. Please read this article of How to Leave a Narcissist, it gives some insights regarding the detachment process from a narcissist. I also recommend you to read this article of Controlling The Emotions. You said that when you talk on the phone with this man, it is all about him and his life, for hours. It was exactly the same with my previous partner. He would always talk about his own life and his own achievements and dreams. He almost never asked how I was doing or what I had been up to. In addition, what was amazing to me was that he was often talking about how much people around him appreciated him. It almost sounded like a scene from a comedy: A guy with a fragile self-esteem is trying to convince himself that people around him like him. I believe that was the reason for his behavior: Extremely low self-esteem.  When I analyze my feelings towards him, I find them to be a strange mixture of pity, loathing, love and caring. In a way he is like a big child, trying to survive in this world the best he can. Teenagers can sometimes be (totally unintentionally) extremely cruel towards their parents as they are growing up and searching for their own place in this world. In same fashion narcissists are behaving in some ways like overgrown kids who do not yet have a fully matured emotional capabilities. That is why narcissists often end up hurting people around them. It is very difficult to get mentally rid of a narcissist. If you wish to read about the methods I used to teach my brain and my mind to let go of my addiction to my narcissistic spouse, please visit page Recovery After Cheating and Living with a Narcissist.
You were wondering in your email why we are addicted to our narcissistic spouses even tho they are hurting us so much. That is a very good question. There are several possible explanations. Some of us might be co-dependent and when put together with a narcissist, we become addicted to their presence very fast. But there are so many people out there who have no history of co-dependency, addictive behavior or anything like that, and yet they can become very strongly addicted to a narcissists. Why is that? I think the reason for this can be found in our physiology and by considering certain evolutionary factors. We are reacting to certain stimuli when we are choosing our partner. Self-esteem, intelligence, energy, stamina, creativity etc are traits which are usually being highly valued in a prospective partner. Narcissist is extremely capable of fooling us to believe he or she actually has there traits. Narcissists can be so charming in the beginning of the relationship that it would be impossible to think that fantastic person could ever be cruel towards someone. Narcissist is also often very romantic in the beginning of the relationship, praising his or her love towards us, making us to fall even more strongly in love with narcissist. When you think of a person who is not narcissistic, the behavior of that kind of person is more down-to-earth in every aspect, even if the person is "madly in love" with us. Narcissist is exaggerating everything. As biological creatures we are reacting to those exaggerated signals very strongly. That is why the mental hooks are being buried so deep into our mind. When this happens, even a person who never showed addictive behavior before, becomes "addicted" to narcissist and starts to behave in a surprising ways.To read more about addiction to narcissist, visit page Detaching From a Narcissist.  You said in your email that you cannot understand how you have been able to stand his horrible behavior and abuse for so long. If the change to worse happens very slowly, people adapt to it. Human being can adapt to almost anything. If you would live a happy life and then suddenly you would be thrown into a relationship with a narcissist (you would have to face all the worst parts of it) you would RUN screaming, never looking back. But because things turn worse so slowly, you adapt little by little to the miserable circumstances. You keep the memories of you love at the beginning of the relationship alive and they give you strength to survive everyday life with a narcissist. Narcissist is being charming every now and then and this reminds you of the person you fell in love with. That memory is keeping you in your mental prison.
It is very natural to fall for a narcissist. Very few of us can resist their mental pull. If a charming person approaches us and tells he or she loves us it is natural that we start to like the person and with time we start to love the person back. So please do not blame yourself for falling for narcissist or staying in your relationship for too long. You were simply unlucky. It is not your fault. What happened to you could happen to anybody. It happened to me. 9 years is a long time to be with a narcissist. But you can still have a wonderful life ahead of you. It is hard to break free but if I was able to do it, I believe you can do it too. I will help you every step of the way. Please keep writing to me and let me know how you are doing. You are not alone. Warm thoughts, - Maria 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, click
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Stories - Narcissism 
I also fear he won't let me go, and I fear he will erase me from his mind, too. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
You said to to Blue "...If the change to worse happens very slowly, people adapt to it. Human being can adapt to almost anything...because things turn worse so slowly, you adapt little by little to the miserable circumstances. You keep the memories of your love at the beginning of the relationship alive and they give you strength to survive everyday life with a narcissist... Narcissist is being charming every now and then and this reminds you of the person you fell in love with."
I can relate to this very much, and it reminded me that less than a year ago after a horrible fight my husband asked what I wanted of him...and I said that I wanted the real him back, the wonderful happy, energetic, anything-is-possible man I had married. It's just as you said, we "N-junkies" hold on to that past, to the person (who wasn't real at all, we now learn)we fell so madly and deeply in love with.
I've been reading many many of the email-comments from other readers, and my mind is so full of things to say - warnings, red-flags, experiences, mistakes, ways I gave up myself, that my thoughts run, gallop and race ahead so fast they tumble over each other. One day I would like to write my story and send it to you. I am finally after 35 years of marriage, and 5 years of courtship (on and off again)leaving my husband. We are still living separately together because we've sold our house and are just waiting for it to close. And, at last all the recriminations from him have stopped and he is starting to hover over me, to smile, invite me out to eat, ask why I'm staying in our area while he is moving to another state, and how wonderful this other place is, etc. I don't think he believes I'll be gone. And, while I know there are hard times ahead, I still get these wonderful feelings of freedom, of being me again, and finally doing the things I love.
Also, in another comment on another of your pages I asked if you could address the rage, abuse etc. more, because there was so much about sexual cheating, which has not been a problem in our marriage, the way the demeaning and rage have been.
But, it also occurred to me that in a sense that is cheating, too. In our marriage vows we not only promise to remain sexually faithful to our spouse, but we also promise to "love, honor and protect" (or cherish, or respect, etc.)and the abusive actions of the N-mate are just as much betrayals of those vows as sexual cheating is.
Thank you for your site; and thank you to all your readers who share their stories and experiences...it is so very very valuable to all of us!
XXX San