Hi Maria,

I was overjoyed when I found your web page! How educating to find facts about narcissism. I have been blaming myself for my rocky marriage for years and though I left a month ago I still find myself questioning who of us, my husband or I, were in the wrong. I'm really confused. As I admitted in the headline already I cheated on my husband. I admit this and there is no excuse for such a thing. It was stupid, inconsiderate and very immature. I feel bad about it and I don't expect my husband to forgive me. In fact, I would understand if he never did.

There is a story leading up to the cheating though (gosh, maybe I'm a narcissist myself!). My husband was the kindest person I had ever met, when I met him in my home country 10 years ago. I had just gotten out of a relationship with a man who was most certainly a narcissist and along came this quiet, gentle man, who just seemed to want to take care of me. Though he lived in a different country, he would visit me every other weekend. He would simply hop on a plane and come.

He seemed to be so much in love. He cried every time he told me, how much he loved me and it didn't take me long to fall for him. He took me on trips, bought me things I needed, left money when he went home because I was a student at the time. He praised me through the roof 'you're so beautiful', you're so good with people' and so on. Everything he did was so amazing I had never tried anything like that. A year and a half after meeting I graduated from university and moved countries. We're both from Europe, but still our languages are worlds apart and so are our cultures. Everything went really well. I did notice that he seemed to believe I was faking it if I cried when we argued. I also noticed that I mysteriously always ended up apologizing, whether I had had a valid point in the discussion or not. This did not discourage me though. After every argument I sided with him. Sure, I had had a point, but the way I said it or how angry I had gotten sure wasn't ok. So I apologized. Time and time again.

Things didn't get really bad till we got married though -- and then not until I brought up children. We have an age difference of more than a decade and from the beginning I had made it clear to him that I might want children one day and that he would have to either be ok with it, or we weren't right for each other. He always agreed that of course I should have children if I wanted to. Then the day came and I wanted a child. At first he said yes. Reluctantly but he said ok to one child. Shortly after he took it back. He never wanted anymore children (he has a daughter from a previous marriage) because it would kill him, as he so dramatically put it. I decided to try and live with that and got him to agree to buy a house and a dog. The idea of children never left my mind though and I became afraid of making such a life decision. So I talked to him about it again, and simply told him that I don't know if I can live with such a decision and that I have to think.

This changed everything from one day to the next. He stopped touching me completely. If I would hug him, he would stand with his arms down his sides and do nothing. If I would kiss him he would reluctantly allow me. If I would suggest we go out for dinner he never wanted to. He started doing long hours at work and then the verbal abuse began. He made sure to verbally abuse me when his daughter was around mostly. In these situations I didn't say anything because I didn't want to upset her. His verbal abuse was always subtle enough that I couldn't put a finger on it. For instance, he needn't say anything. He would just show me his thoughts and if I'd ask him about it he would get very disappointed and I would have to apologize.

Once I bought a new dress and put it on to show him. His daughter was visiting with us. I was proud because it was beautiful and I got it at a reasonable price. He didn't utter a word. He just made a little sniffing sound and laughed a bit. I know it was small, but that was what hurt. If he had called me ugly, I would have called him an ass -- that's honest. I felt manipulated and asked him why he laughed -- with tears in my eyes. He got very upset with me that I could even suggest such a crazy thing. He just wondered where I would wear such a dress. So I apologized for misunderstanding. This continued. He was cold as ice, and if I would ask for affection he would tell me the 'mood' made him not want to. Mood meaning that I had failed to do something or done something which didn't qualify for affection.

He criticized the work I did around our home. I didn't do enough or well enough. I didn't pay enough, and so on. Then he started criticizing my appearances more. Told me it was disgusting I hadn't shaved my legs. That my new hair-do made me look like a teenager 'should he find someone older'. All of this in front of other people so that I couldn't respond. I thought about leaving lots. I just did not have the power. I wanted our marriage to work so bad, but no matter what I did it didn't help. We went to a couple's counselor and that had no effect. He went to a psychologist but quit two months in, because 'he had to teach the psychologist how to talk and he anyways gave him wrong advice'.

Then I went on a trip with my wonderful girlfriend. And... I met a guy who thought I was great. We just chatted about all and nothing and he held me. Things I had missed for so long. We kept contact when I came home and I decided to leave my husband. Not because of the man I had met, but because I felt like myself for a moment while away. It cleared my clouded mind.

I told my husband that I was leaving and he took it very calmly. All of a sudden he told me he loved me again -- he hadn't done that for years. I was determined though. I didn't want to tell him about cheating but I knew I couldn't stay. I knew I cheated because I had felt so unloved for so long and I knew I couldn't do it anymore. I forgot my cell phone at home one day when I went apartment hunting and he found the messages from the other guy. They were loving messages and my husband was right to feel hurt. And he did. Three days later he served me with the divorce papers and here we are then. I apologized and cried and explained but to no avail. He called me a lying cheating bitch and that was it. I apologized more, but he would just get increasingly nasty.

Now I live alone and have little contact with my husband. The man I cheated with is not physically in my life -- we send emails but have no affair. Now I sit here in my apartment and on one hand, I'm so satisfied. No one criticizes me publicly or in private, no one makes sure to not touch me and respond to my kisses just enough that I know he doesn't want to be near me and is only kissing me for my sake. No husband here to sleep so far on the other side of the bed that he almost falls down. No husband here to deny me affection. No husband here who leaves the room if I cry. Just me and the dog and it's peaceful. No one hugs me but then again, there's no one here to hug me so I don't feel the same need.

On the other hand I feel I should still apologize for the awful thing I did. I feel it won't help, but still some part of me hopes I can save my marriage. I never meant to hurt my husband, but at the same time, he hurt me so much and he never seemed to care. It didn't matter how I begged he just got worse.

Maria what do you think? Did my husband display narcissistic behavior or am I nuts? Should I just apologize again though he won't probably even want to listen to me?

Thank you for your informative web site. It helped a lot!

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear you are hurting. You said it has been a month since you separated with your husband. The first couple months after the separation are the most painful ones. After that things start to get gradually better (if you are able to maintain No Contact). It is natural to miss your husband after being together several years and especially after you have invested so much into this relationship both emotionally and otherwise. You moved to another country for the sake of this man. From your email I get a feeling that you have been strongly in love with your husband. All these things make it very painful for you to accept that the relationship did not work out.

Cheating is always wrong, however there are some circumstances that can make it easier to understand why a person ended up having an extra-marital affair. In your situation it seems clear that your marriage was not satisfying, your husband treated you with disrespect and was generally unpleasant towards you for a prolonged period of time. As I said, this does not justify cheating, but it makes it easier to understand what was going through your mind when you had your brief encounter with this man abroad.

For a long time you had been missing the warmth, closeness and the feeling that someone cares for you, and this foreign man was suddenly there, providing you with these things. We are all only humans. It is easy for an outsider to judge person without knowing the details of a given situation, however it is impossible for anyone to know how one would behave in such circumstances if one has been deprived of love and affection for years.

You wrote: "I cheated on my husband. I admit this and there is no excuse for such a thing. It was stupid, inconsiderate and very immature". Dear Friend, this is the best possible approach you can have after the actual event has already occurred. Your attitude is very adult. You know you did wrong and you are not trying to defend yourself, instead you take full responsibility of your actions. 

Those who have never encountered serious problems in their relationship find it often difficult to understand how a person in your situation ends up having an affair instead of simply walking out of the unsatisfying relationship. Often only those who have experienced mental neglect and abuse in their relationship can understand how difficult it can be to leave one's partner even if the relationship is clearly not working. If one's spouse is treating one in a cold and uncaring manner and then someone approaches one offering warmth, physical closeness and understanding, it is no wonder that one might get sucked into a secret relationship.

What matters is what happens after the affair has become a reality. It is very unwise and morally questionable to continue secret relationship for a long period of time behind the back of one's partner. Yes, it is hard to leave and end the marriage, but the fact that it is "hard" should not prevent one from doing the right thing. If the secret relationship continues for a long time, it requires constant lying to one's partner, and people who lie constantly even when they know they have an option to do otherwise (walk away from the relationship that is not working and stop lying and misleading their partner) are only rarely warm-hearted and considerate human beings. If a person gets into problems in his or her relationship due to constant and prolonged lying and hiding things, it is time to look into a mirror and admit that there is something wrong in one's behavior. 

Dear Friend, in my opinion your situation is very different from the one I described above. Based on your email I got a feeling that you did not keep a secret relationship going on behind your husband's back for a long period of time, lying to him about it. You had a holiday crush after being neglected by your husband for years. After that you decided to leave your husband. You wrote: "I knew I cheated because I had felt so unloved for so long and I knew I couldn't do it anymore". This is very adult approach. You realized you did something that is not right when you cheated and you did not try to justify it to yourself, instead you analyzed the situation realistically and understood the reasons why you ended up having your brief holiday affair. The decision of leaving your husband after that experience was a correct one and shows you were willing and able to do the right thing, instead of choosing the "easy" path (staying with your husband and simply letting things go on, avoiding the pain of separation).

Those who blame you for having an affair should look into mirror and ask themselves how can they know they would not do the same thing after experiencing prolonged coldness, neglect, degrading comments and emotional abandonment in their marriage. Ideally, you should have left your husband long time ago, when the signs of his true personality started to emerge. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world where it is often very difficult to leave a narcissistic person.

I do not know if your husband is narcissist or not, it is not possible to make such judgments without knowing the person. However, in the end of the day it does not matter if he is narcissistic or not. It is clear that your husband has been behaving in a cold and unpleasant way towards you. A narcissist or not, it seems clear is that you cannot find your happiness with this man. You have already tried for so many years. Dear Friend, please do not waste next couple years of your life grieving and feeling sorry about the way things ended between you and your husband. Yes, it is sad that things did not work out, but sometimes life goes like that. Do not blame yourself for this and let these events cloud your life for years to come.

You wrote: "I did notice that he seemed to believe I was faking it if I cried when we argued". It is always very alarming sign if one's spouse is ignorant and cold when it is clear that one is hurting. If your husband was serious about what he said (that he believed you were "faking" it when you were crying), that is very serious warning sign, showing your husband is incapable of recognizing some of the most common emotional states. One typical feature of a psychopath is that such person cannot recognize normal emotions in themselves or in others. Dear Friend, I want to be very clear about this: I am absolutely NOT suggesting your husband might be a psychopath. However it can be that he has some traits in him which are also found in people who have been diagnosed as psychopaths.

It is important to keep in mind that there is no such thing as "100% normal" person. Each person is a unique combination of several different kinds of personality traits, some stronger than others. For example, some of us are very emotional while others are not. Some are very pragmatic and rational, while others are not. Some may not recognize different emotional states easily, while others do. Having one or two "negative" personality traits is not enough to meet the criteria for a psychopath or a narcissist, one has to have several traits that are considered typical for such people (read more about recognizing a narcissist from page Narcissistic Personality Disorder). I am mentioning these things because I wish it helps you to put things into right perspective and to see that you were not to blame. If your husband truly could not recognize these very basic emotions in you (genuine grief, indicated by crying), you never had a real chance to make the relationship work in a "normal" way. The only way it could have worked was if you would have totally succumbed to his will and moods, which is the kind of life I am not recommending to anyone.

You also wrote: "Then he started criticizing my appearances more. Told me it was disgusting I hadn't shaved my legs. That my new hair-do made me look like a teenager 'should he find someone older'. All of this in front of other people so that I couldn't respond". Dear Friend, there is no doubt this separation was for the best. A loving husband does not treat his wife this way. NO ONE deserves to be treated this way. Your husband was slowly destroying your self-esteem and turning you into a depressed, sad woman. Leaving was definitely the right decision.

You also wrote that your husband first promised you he would have children with you (knowing that this was very important for you) but then took his words back. This is another indicator of a person who clearly does not have a very pleasant personality. He made a promise to you, a very important promise, he knew how important this thing is for you (in fact you said to him you cannot be with him if he does not want children one day) and then he betrayed you by taking his words back, even though he must have known how much that hurts you. If he really, truly loved you as much as you loved him, I do not believe he could have done that kind of a thing for you, knowing the pain it will cause you. Also many other things in your story indicate this person has some serious issues, whether they are related to narcissism or not is not important, the important thing is that his issues interfered with your life and have made your life miserable.

You wrote: "No husband here to deny me affection. No husband here who leaves the room if I cry. Just me and the dog and it's peaceful". Dear Friend, I know how sad and lonely you must feel staying alone in your new apartment, thinking about all these matters. But there is also another side in the situation, as you said yourself: You are now in peace, finally.

The quietness of the apartment is not your enemy, it is your friend. Absorb the peace and quiet around you, let it calm your stressed nerves. You are now free. You have your dog who you love and who loves you, unconditionally. That is pure love. Your dog would never try to manipulate you to make you feel bad, even if it knew how to do it. There would be no reason for your dog to do it. The world of animals is straightforward and beautiful in its simplicity. They either love someone or then they don't. If they love, they show it openly, they do not play games. Let the love of your animal friend help you in your healing process.

You wrote: "Should I just apologize again though he won't probably even want to listen to me?". Dear Friend, based on your email I feel you have done enough apologizing. Your husband has not shown signs of improvement regarding his behavior during last several years. You are still a young woman. It is time to move on. It is painful to let go of the person one loves, but please listen to me and believe me in this one: If you stayed with this person, you would have most likely felt very sorry about it afterward. If your husband would forgive you now and you would get back together and his behavior would continue to be the same as it has been all these years, after several years you will look back at this moment and you feel sorry you did not break free when you had an opportunity to do so. If you stay with your husband another ten years, it will be more difficult to leave.

Please do not question your decision. You did the right thing. It is best not to contact your husband and apologize anymore, you have done enough apologizing. I do not think anything positive will follow from it if you contact your husband now. If you contact him, he will only have an opportunity to make you feel bad again with his behavior and it will take several days for you to recover from it. 

Dear Friend, I wish you strength. I know how lonely and abandoned you must be feeling right now. Nothing I say can make that pain go away instantly. But I wish my feedback has given you encouragement and strengthened your feeling that you made the RIGHT decision by leaving.  A decade is enough of trying. You did everything you could. You cannot change another person if he does not see any fault in him and does not want to change. Dear Friend, it is time for you to move on and find yourself again.

You wrote you made the decision to leave your husband because when you were on your holiday trip, you felt like your old self again. Hold on to that feeling. Do not succumb to depression and feelings of guilt. Yes, you did wrong, but we are all just humans, anyone can make one mistake. You apologized and showed clearly to your husband how sorry you were. That is all you can do. You have done everything you can in this situation, please do not cause yourself more pain by thinking you should still keep trying and keep apologizing. You have your whole life ahead of you! It will take a moment, but you WILL get over this.

Thank you for sending your story. Please write to me anytime you feel like it. You do not have to go through this alone.

To read more about how to get over cheating and narcissism, please visit page Recovery After Cheating and Narcissism.

Warm hug,
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 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   

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Comments (1)

• |2010-03-30 21:23:43 Angela Ellis  - Bastard!
  Hello, I am so glad to have found this website! I am very confused. For the last 3 years I noticed that my husband behavior had changed toward me. I would come home from work and my house would be a wreck! I would get up set with my husband because he would be home and would not ensure that the house was clean! I am going to make a very long story short. My husband has had an affair with 3 women for the past 3 years. Although he claims that he has had no sexual relationship woth any of them. Two of the ladies where older vunerable women without children and a boyfriend. My husband is the true definition a true narcissitic person. He has the world figured out and nobody is right but him. When he is challenged and can possibly be wrong he gets so up-set. Anyway he told me that the only reason why he dealt with these women was for money. However he did stated that if I had to worry about anyone it was the younger lady who he felt a connection with. It is totally sad how my husband views life. He said that he is a hustler and will always be one! We have 3 children together however I am ready to move on. Mind you this is bigger then just me and my husband, his family supported his infidelity as well as friends. Now not only do I not trust him, I can't trust his family nor his friends and I refuse to live like that. I am ready to muve forward. At one point I felt as if I may need to speak with a therapist. I was so angry because I was the best women I could be and solely because of his greed he didn't care about any family values. I am in a better place and should be moving out next month with the lords blessing...but why do i sometimes worry about him and even ask myself who will take care of him while I am gone? This man has hurt me in a way that I thought could and would never happen. I need piece of mind and direction....God will see me through.
  
  Thanks for existing...
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