Thank you for sending your story (published below). First of all let me say this: You are not crazy, you were simply unlucky to meet and get together with a narcissistic man. Most people who navigate to my website have been or still are in the same situation. It is very helpful to read about the experiences of others who have been through similar issues in life. It helps to know we are not alone and that the fault is not in us. Your story will help others to recognize the warning signs earlier and break free from a narcissistic partner.
Many elements in your story sound very familiar. It is typical for a narcissistic person not to react to tears. That is always a very alarming sign in a relationship. It feels almost impossible for a normal person to comprehend that someone can act so cold when the other person is crying, especially if the person in question is one's partner in life. But then again, there are many things that a narcissistic person is capable of doing that are beyond understanding for a person who is not narcissistic. A narcissistic person does not react to tears (or to any other signs of agony) because a narcissist is unable to understand how the other person is feeling. This is due to the fact that a narcissist is unable to feel empathy, which is one of the basic skills in interpersonal communication.
Depression is something that does not happen overnight. In case of the partners of narcissists, depression is often a result of a long period of constant mental abuse, devaluation and emotional neglect. Often the partner of a narcissist becomes depressed so slowly that he or she does not even understand what is happening until the condition is already severe. A narcissist is unable to help and support the depressed person, but instead is often making the situation worse by continuing mental abuse.
Dear Friend, I am so happy to hear that you have now taken the first steps to free yourself from this person who has made you so unhappy for such a long time. You are doing the right thing. Based on your story it seems very clear that your husband is severely narcissistic, you even have a therapist's diagnosis to support this. What the therapist said is unfortunately true: In most cases a narcissist can not change. The only way to survive is to end the relationship. I am so glad that you are now well on the way towards happier times without this unpleasant, cruel and mean person clouding the sky of your life. Thank you again on behalf of myself and all the visitors of this website for sending your story!
Almost seven years ago I met the perfect person for me. He was attractive, sweet, funny, intelligent and endlessly caring. We always talked about how perfect we were for each other. We were the 7% of people who felt like they had actually met their soul mate. We were inseparable. It didn't matter what we did or where we were. It was always fantastic.
There were signs though, even then, but we only see what we want to. He was divorced and had four children. I knew he had kids. He "disappeared" every other weekend, but would never mention anything about his children. I knew their names and ages because my mom had worked with him, but he never spoke about them until a couple of months into our relationship. It was odd, but I thought maybe he just thought it would scare me off. In reality, I think it was more about him maintaining his image of the fun-loving single young guy.
When we met, he had just broke up with his girlfriend of over three years. He had cheated on his wife with her and left his family to be with her. I know how messy ending relationships like that can be. I told him I was willing to wait a while, until he was sure it was over because I didn't want to be involved in a relationship with him if he still had something going on with her. He assured me that it was over.
When we went on dates, he paid for everything. He tipped ridiculously, sometimes 50 percent of the bill. He planned extravagant getaways. He made me feel special and promised me one night that he would treat me better than anyone had ever treated me. I believed him.
When we discussed his first marriage, he was fairly up front about things. He told me how crazy his ex was. He also admitted that he had cheated on her. That was impossible to deny since he had left her for someone else. He also mentioned that they had gone to marriage counseling as part of the divorce process and that the therapist had told him that he was selfish. That statement would mean so much more to me later in our relationship. He would actually bring this up and tell me that he had told me he was selfish and it was my fault if I didn't heed the warning.
Six months into our relationship, he took a job an hour away from where we were living. I quit my job and moved with him. We got an apartment, I found a new job. Nine months later, I was homesick and wanted to move back. I would mention that I was unhappy, but he would disregard my comments. I started getting to the point that I would cry, he ignored that as well. He never really took my emotions over the situation seriously. Finally, I told him that I wanted to move back. He told me that if could find a job that paid for us to relocate, he would move back and commute. Shortly after that, I received an unexpected call form a former employer who wanted to me to come back to work for them. They were willing to pay for my relocation. It was exactly what I had been waiting for He reluctantly agreed to move back. Later he told me he ignored my feelings because he thought I was overreacting and would get over it.
This is when everything changed. Apparently, he really resented the fact that we moved back. He immediately started treating me differently. I was a complete 180. He was mean. He lost his temper with me and he basically cut me off from everything. I remember crying almost daily because I would try to talk to him and he didn't want to admit that anything was wrong. He would tell me that I was too needy, and suggested I find my own things to do. He actually said that he just didn't have time for me between everything else in his life. I had to leave work one day because I had a panic attack and was crying uncontrollably. I felt like that in a matter of a couple of months, our perfect relationship was falling apart. I told him about all of this, and it was as though he didn't hear anything I was saying.
During this same time, I realized I was being taken advantage of. I was basically living his life. Every weekend he had something planned that revolved around his family and his life. I was not consulted, I was just expected to do anything and everything to support him and his needs. He had stopped paying for things. I was paying for dinners, using my credit to purchase things for the house. He was constantly over drawing his checking account and then yelling and screaming because the bank must have done something wrong. He hated it, but I would always tell him it wasn't the bank's fault. It was simple math. You don't take out more than you have. Someone else was always responsible for his mistakes. Usually his mom or I would bail him out of whatever situation he got himself into.
I remember finally telling him that I felt like I was being taken advantage of. I was finally asserting myself. I wanted to be nice, but I'm not stupid and I'm not a doormat. Things got much worse from that point. He started losing his temper regularly. He wasn't used to not getting everything he wanted. I wasn't supposed to be like this. I had always been so caring and giving. So when I stopped because I wasn't getting anything back, he was enraged. He got so mad one day, he punched a hole in the kitchen wall. I saw him kick his youngest daughter across the room when she had done something wrong. This was not the person I thought I knew. The moodiness and rage got out of control. The anger was toward everyone close to him, especially me.
He yelled at me one day because I had cleaned the entire house for his family to come over for a party, but didn't vacuum the floor because the vacuum was not working. He took it out the back porch and was yelling at me while he fixed it. He said he supposed he would have to cook dinner for everyone too. I used to stay home every Saturday while he was "out". I stayed home and cleaned. I stopped doing that a while ago. I don't do much at all around the house any more.
Once we were joking around and wrestling and he wrapped his hands around my neck and started strangling me. I couldn't scream. I couldn't breath. He was sitting on my legs. All I could do was grab at his hands and try to get him to stop. When he finally let go, I couldn't stop coughing. I was so scared. I just kept crying. He said he didn't know he was really choking me. He had to have known. I was totally panicked.
One day, I was upstairs looking for something for one of the kids and found an old journal of his a lock box. I shouldn't have, but I opened it. Sometimes you're better off not knowing. The journal had notes on the inside cover about how his ex was the most perfect women in the world and how he was completely in love with her. I told myself that it was ok because that was in the past. I didn't read anything prior to the day we started dating. I was shocked to find out that there was very little in the journal about me.
The book graphically detailed all of the sexual encounters he had with women. About the women he slept with while out of town for work. Everything they did. Fantasies he had about them. The language was beyond vulgar. It as utterly disgusting. He had lied to them about his age, what he did for a living, about his children.
As I kept reading, I realized that he had still been sleeping with his ex when we started dating. He actually wrote that he would come over to my house after sleeping with her and he was afraid that I would taste her on him and know he had been with her. I was completely devastated. I called him and told him I had found it. He told me none of it was true and that he was writing a book. It was all just things that he had made up. Of course, I didn't believe him. He didn't come home as I had asked. He stayed away until he was ready to come home. He finally admitted that he had been sleeping with her. He apologized and cried and of course I stayed with him.
After this incident, it got even worse. According to him, since this happened, he felt like I had the control. He thought that because he had made this mistake that I would always have the upper hand and he started punishing me for it. He was determined to get the control back. The relationship was one big mind game. He constantly tried to manipulate and "get control".
We had been talking about marriage and he was ready to buy me a ring at Christmas that year. He bought me suitcase and put a note inside saying to pack the suitcase and get ready for a surprise trip. We were leaving in two days to go to Miami to get a ring. I was happy and excited and thought the way things had been since we moved back was just temporary and that it would get better and go back to the way things were. So I went to Miami and we picked out a ring. He payed for the hotel, but had no other money. I paid for everything else. When we found a ring and he tried to pay for it, his credit card was denied. We left without the ring and he said when we got home, he would get his finances figured out and have the ring shipped. We spent time on the beach and he never really proposed. He casually asked things like, "so you're going to marry me?" but he never really "proposed". Once we got back home, he ordered the ring and when it came in the mail, he handed it to me while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth.
I would bring up the fact that he never proposed to me, and he would get mad and swear that he did, but he didn't. I always thought it was funny that somehow in his mind, he imagined that he did. I later found out that he had to borrow the money for the ring off of my step dad.
The wedding was all about him, and I accommodated his wants. We were married at his karate school by his karate teacher, in a Buddhist ceremony. Despite everything, I was still happy when we got married.
The topic of children was something we rarely talked about. When we started dating, we briefly discussed it. I really wanted kids. He had a vasectomy, but was willing to have it reversed to have kids. Any other time I brought up the subject, he would clam up and not want to talk about it. After we got married, I remember being upset about it and I asked him to honestly tell me if he wanted to have children. He look at me right in the eyes and said no. It hurt me more than anything. It meant so much to me to have kids. I would cry a lot about this. Later he would say that he just said that because he thought I was talking about it too much and that he didn't really mean it. That's something that's really hard to take back once you say it. Who wants to have a child with someone who doesn't want one?
Later I was very thankful that we didn't have children together. I saw the relationship he had with his own children and with me. A child would have been just one more way for him to try to control me. On a later occasion when we talked about kids, I asked what we should do if for some reason the vasectomy reversal didn't work. He actually said that he thought there was more of a chance that I wouldn't be able to have kids than the reversal not working. He said that if it didn't work, he would rather just adopt than to let me have one of my own. He would rather it not be either of ours biologically than for me to carry my own. I thought that was incredibly selfish.
I slowly started separating my life from his. I started spending less time with him. I stopped offering to pay for things for him. I did things other than what he expected me to do. He would get very jealous and ask a lot of questions anytime I did anything other than what he was used to me doing. Which was basically nothing. He had always known where I was and what I was doing at all times. When he didn't have that comfort anymore, he got angry. He would tell me that I was selfish and controlling and too independent. I asked him if he was mad because he felt like I tried to control him or myself. He said both. He felt like I tried to be independent just to make him mad. Maybe it was true.
In the midst of all of this was the lying. He lied about so many things. Constantly kept things from me. Anytime I caught him lying, he would always try to justify it. There's no good reason to lie to someone in my opinion. I didn't do it to him and I expected the same. Once again, I was asking for too much.
He had a girl from karate he lied to me about. He met her once to train and lied about it. He fought with me for almost two hours denying it before he finally came clean. He went to camping trip for karate with his kids and slept in the same tent as this woman and her brother. His kids slept in a tent with my step dad. He emailed and texted this same woman. Over 50 times in a two day period once. He told me I was too jealous and they were just friends. When he went Japan, I asked him not to stay in the same hotel room with her. I didn't feel comfortable with it. After the scheduled clinic, he took a side trip with her and her brother. They went to stay at someone's house in Tokyo and he neglected to tell me. He avoided telling me by just not calling me.
In August, I found out he had signed up for the Ashley Madison website. It's an online site for married people who want to have affairs. He said he didn't do anything when I caught him, He was just looking for a "plan B" in case anything happened to us.
The fact is that he will do whatever he wants to whenever he wants to no matter how irresponsible or inconsiderate.
Finances were also an interesting part of our relationship. His credit was so bad, that everything we had was in my name. Our house, our boat, our camper, our furniture. I paid for everything. He would pay me back when he could. Currently, he owes me almost two-thousand dollars.
At the end of October this year, I got a letter in the mail from the mortgage company, I had given him half of the money to pay the mortgage for the month and he wrote a check. The check bounced. He apparently didn't notice because he spent the money. Now October and November mortgage needed to be paid and he was broke. We had an $800 insurance check we had been hanging onto for a while, and I suggested he cash that and we could use it toward the mortgage. He informed me that he had already cashed and spent that as well.
When I asked him what he was going to pay for everything, he yelled at me. He never apologized and I ended up covering the mortgage like an idiot. I had to in order to protect my credit.
The term growing apart could not have defined us any better. I slowly went through the process quietly of ending our relationship alone while still together. I was devastated, then angry, then rebuilt my independence and eventually didn't care anymore. I knew that our relationship was over. In the beginning of the relationship, I fought very hard to make things better. I tried to make him see that some of the things he did were very inconsiderate. I begged and pleaded for us to talk because I knew things were going bad very quickly. He always told me I was just overreacting. I started viewing him as being a very bad person down to the core. He would "punish" me for things and not talk to me for days. Most of the time, I didn't even really know why he wouldn't talk to me. He even got mad at me because he would do things to try to make me jealous and to get a reaction out of me. When I didn't respond the way he wanted, he said it was just because I didn't care about him. He was right.
When it was too late, he started to try to make things better. He just couldn't understand why when he was ready to "make our relationship work", I wasn't really interested anymore. He had really hurt me too much for it to ever be fixed.
For a while, he would try. He would be nice for a month and then have an episode and we would fight again. Usually because things were not getting better at the rate he thought they should be. So we would fight and then start back at square one. It was a ridiculously predictable cycle. The period of the good times would always get shorter each time. Each time, my faith in the relationship actually getting any better diminished until I stopped taking the reconciliations seriously. I knew within a few days, he would fly off the handle and lose it again and tell me how much he hated our relationship.
At one point, we tried marriage counseling. That's when I finally knew I wasn't just crazy (as he always told me I was). Within the first session, the therapist was asking him if he was an only child and about the relationship with his mom. He told my husband he was trying to figure out where his "sense of entitlement" came from. He said my husband was selfish and narcissistic. My husband agreed that he was sometimes selfish. The therapist acted surprised that my husband agreed and told him that most of the time "people like my husband" didn't admit they have done anything wrong. The therapist also said that that my husband would never be able to change. He could only learn to control his behavior. He said that when my husband's tolerance got low, like when he was hungry or tired, that his behavior would get worse because he was less able to control himself. My husband countered by saying he couldn't be that selfish because he liked to help people. Which is somewhat true. The therapist pointed out that he only wanted to help people he considered to be weaker than himself. This was startlingly true. The therapist came to these conclusions as I sat quiet and let my husband do all of the talking. I didn't need to say a word. He was transparent.
This was the confirmation I needed. It seemed like every time my husband did something crazy, I was always the one who was blamed. I was always crazy. Even when I asked for the most basic things from him, I was always asking for too much.
A few months ago, his 16 year old daughter got into a fight with her mom and wanted to come live with us. Instead of talking to me abut this major decision, he asked me while he was on the phone with her, "You don't care if she comes and lives with us, right?" I wasn't happy that he neglected to talk to me about this. It also prompted one of his "big ideas". He convinced himself somehow that the kids mother was not fit to raise them. This didn't sit well with me because she had been raising them by herself for along time. He cheated on her repeatedly with countless women while they were married. His own kids even knew about it. Their mom caught him with another woman while the was pregnant with one of them.
My husband was very angry with me because I wasn't supportive of his decision to try to get custody of his kids. He wouldn't even talk to me about it. He actually called child services on his ex for ridiculous reasons. They told him there was nothing they could do if there was no evidence of neglect or abuse. They told him to get a lawyer. He has since dropped the issue.
The best of big ideas of being a hero was this Christmas. Last Friday morning, he told me that had no money and wasn't sure how he was going to buy his kids presents. Later in the day, he must have come up with a plan to look good and not have to buy his kids presents. Friday night the kids asked me if I heard what they were doing for Christmas this year. I said no because he had said nothing to me about it. Instead of buying presents for the kids, he told them he was going to buy presents for needy kids. He had typed up fliers at work saying that Santa's Helpers wanted to bring families presents on Christmas Eve. He had this phone number on the bottom so people could rip off the numbers and call him. He went into town and actually hung the fliers up. He didn't have enough money to buy his own kids presents. I was amazed. I tried to talk to him about it and asked him to contact the church or go to the store and get one of the angels off a tree for a family, but he insisted on delivering the presents himself.
I realize that when I'm away, I don't think about him. The feelings I have left are more like questions of if he can change. I find myself wanting to take the blame, but I won't. I went to a lawyer to start the divorce two weeks ago. I've been staying with my mom and avoiding contact with him. It feels great.
In the beginning when we separated previously, I would always call him or message him. I hoped that he would see how badly he had been treating me and apologize, but that never will happen. He just gets angry and continues to blame me.
