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Hello Maria, I write to you during the saddest, loneliest and most confusing time of my life.
I have just removed myself from a 9 month relationship that was draining me of all positive emotions and self confidence. I highly suspect that my girlfriend was narcissistic. I began to realize I was in real trouble when my girlfriend took out her frustrations on me when she was drinking. She drinks often, a lot, is one of the nastiest drunks I have ever seen. She drinks on weeknights, and has acted out of control towards me when under the influence. In general nothing I had ever done was ever good enough for her (although I was incredibly devoted, kind, and generous), she constantly criticized me, and quite often withheld affection. When I tried to challenge her on the problems caused by her drinking, she went straight to rage. She is volatile and goes straight to anger whenever we disagreed about anything. She either loves or hates people, refuses to acknowledge if she was ever wrong about anything, surrounds herself with needy people that tend to worship her, and blamed me for her misbehavior. She has a huge sense of entitlement, and does not like discussing feelings. Towards the end of the relationship anything I had to say was of no importance to her, was "boring", or just plain dismissed. We started out incredibly passionately, telling each other that we'd be each others' forever. She was full of compliments for me and I found her absolutely charming. We did many things together and in general I was in awe of how attractive, charismatic, witty, and talented she was. She would send me cards and very loving emails all the time. She told me everything I wanted to hear. The sex was often and incredible. She sometimes got sad and tearful when drinking, and needed reassurance. This didn't bother me because it made me feel like I was a supporting partner in the relationship and I wanted to make her feel better. After all, I loved her.  I began to realize that she was a little bit difficult a couple of months in. Her little bouts of irritation over the tiniest things (when drinking especially) started to increase, and the level of anger started to increase also. She started to react to things with anger that was much more disproportionate to any issue. She would start to criticize me after drinking and get tearful.
One of her favorite things to say to me drunk or sober, is “Stop Talking.” One evening when we were on vacation we both had quite a bit of wine to drink, and we had a disagreement about an unimportant issue. Instead of allowing me to plead my case, she resorted to cutting me down with a constant barrage of put-downs, while saying “stop talking” in the most scolding manner possible with an evil look on her face. 15 minutes later she became sweet again and wanted to take a bath with me. I complied, didn’t bring up her conduct, and woke up depressed the next day. I decided to allow her to move in with me a few weeks later in October. Right away she wanted complete control over how the apartment should look. I had no say whatsoever. She threw away many things that she disapproved of. She wanted to spend, spend, spend, on decor, new furniture, a flat screen TV, Christmas decorations, and many other things. I was on a budget and could not come up with the money to buy these things. She got a new job that month, and many weeknights would come home dead drunk after going to the bar after work. She would be staggering and her speech would be slurred. She would often continue to drink at home after getting drunk at the bar. I started to feel uncomfortable about it and decided to talk to her about it. She reacted with rage and told me that she will never modify her drinking for me. I decided that if I wanted to keep her, I could not question her drinking. The relationship was never the same after that. Fast forward a few months. We were at a local bar together, she was very drunk, did not remember a lot of the things she did, insulted everyone she encountered (including a female friend of mine), when I tried to stop her from picking up the wrong drink (on purpose) from a table, she dug her nails into my arm hard enough to leave marks on my skin for the next week. I had to apologize to my female friend for my girlfriend being so rude to her. On New Year’s Eve our designated driver told us we’d have to wait another couple of hours, to drive home from a party I suggested we go to. The driver simply wanted to sober up before driving. As a result, my girlfriend berated ME in front of everyone at the party with a barrage of “You abandoned me!!!!”, “I hate you!”, “You’re a bad boyfriend!”, over and over, and every time I tried to defend myself, all she said to me was: “STOP TALKING!”, with the trademark dirty look. She was screaming it at me. Everyone at the party witnessed this with horror. After we got home, she refused to sleep in the same bed as me, and the next day put up a huge wall of defenses when I tried to point out what she had done. Her defense to everything I tried to reason with her: “You abandoned me, and if you do it again I’d probably do the same thing.” I kept trying to reason with her which led to her to tell me continuously to “stop talking”, she then threw the TV remote control at me, smashing it against the wall. I left the room and 20 minutes later I got a tearful “I’m sorry, I love you.” I decided to forgive her. A few days later she condescendingly asked me if I had reported her bad behavior to my family. I hadn’t.
A night a few days after that, she came home after work at 10:30, dead drunk, as I was waiting anxiously for her to return, and when she found out I hadn’t made dinner, I received a giant “F*CK YOU! I KNEW you wouldn’t get ANYTHING done while I was out!” Truth was, I was only getting more and more anxious as I waited for her to come home, and making dinner was the last thing on my mind. She then went on to ridicule me that I report her bad behavior to my parents and if her family had ever found out about anything mean I did to her (which I never did), her step brother would “kill” me and her parents would “hate” me.  By this time, I was faking all my emotions for her. I pretended to be happy, but in reality was walking on eggshells the whole time, and was depressed and anxious. I was taking Gravol constantly to settle my stomach, and tranquilizers to calm my nerves. The stress was almost unbearable.
Everyone in her life loved her and she treated them so well. She was highly accomplished and respected in her field, was always bragging to me how much admiration she gets from her colleagues. She only wanted to talk about herself and her job. Anything I wanted to talk about was of no importance to her. The only person in her life that saw the ugly dark side of her was me. All of her previous relationships were with abusers, losers, addicts, and lowlifes. She told me she cheated on a lot of them. None of her past relationships were stable and often ended badly. A few weeks ago was the last straw for me. She was not living with me at the time, since she was house sitting for her parents. She called me up, asked for a ride home from work, which I did. She had just been to the bar and was dead drunk. Anyway, during the car ride, out of nowhere she ripped away a hanging trinket souvenir I had attached to my air conditioning knob, including the knob, and threw them out the window. To this day I never received any acknowledgment or apology. I asked her just what the hell she was thinking, and her response was “Who gives a sh*t, your car’s a piece of sh*t anyway, you’re running it into the ground, just like you are the apartment when I’m not there, with your messy closet clutter, you have no idea how to take care of anything, you’re useless, I want to move out…..blah blah blah!”, Jumping wildly from one subject to the next. When I dropped her off at her parents' home I told her we’d continue the conversation when she was sober and I yelled “GET OUT!” Her response was: “OK, just for that, I’m not moving back in with you in March!” She had worked me up to a point that I had to blow up at her, so she could react with even more anger. I fell right into her trap. I screeched my tires down her driveway and down the street for which I later apologized. She refused to contact me for a few days and I didn’t feel like talking to her, but I finally gave in and emailed her about her conduct. She looked at it as "both of us were behaving badly” which was partially true, although I apologized for my reaction and she never did. We talked on the phone and her wall of denial and anger was fully up and she wasn’t giving me an inch, only to say that we needed a break. She took absolutely no accountability for her behavior that night and that was the last straw for me. I wrote her a letter describing how her drunken rages had been affecting me, and described to her all her abusive behavior. I told her to get sober and to start treating me better, or else we were finished. Her response: “I was planning to to return to the intimacy and good times we shared in the past, but thanks to this hateful letter, you can forget it.” The letter was NOT hateful; I stated I loved her and cared about her many times in it. The letter was about her behavior, and how it affected me; that's it. Foolishly I tried to email and call her again, which she refused to respond, only to say how “hurt” she was by the “hateful letter”, and like an idiot I recanted what I wrote in an attempt to win her back. I still believe what I wrote is the absolute truth, and she blames the letter as the final straw for HER to break up the relationship. I tried to remain civil while I left town for her to collect her things, during which she deliberately baited me with an email stating how shocked at how selfish I am, then blocked me from responding. I didn’t respond anyway, or try to contact her during the process, so she messaged me on Facebook telling she blocked me for “antagonizing” her. I told her I was no longer interested in an email war and settled the last issues of moving out in a straightforward manner. I received a final Facebook message from her which I has left me incredibly confused: “I’ve been fueled on mostly anger recently, but now I realize that this place is still like home to me, and now I’m just sad. I miss you so much and love you. Maybe someday we can do it right.” To this day, she has not acknowledged or apologized her abusive behavior towards me in my car, and I don’t expect she ever will. I am absolutely devastated that a relationship that started out so well became so terrible and hurtful. I wasn’t perfect, but always took accountability for my actions and offered frequent, unnecessary apologies. I am interested in what you can determine from what I have written, and if I have done the right thing by cutting off all contact with this 35 going on 12-year-old. Even after all this abuse, I miss her desperately and think I still love her. She is all I think about. __________ 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. __________ Dear Friend, Thank you for sending your story. I am sorry you have experienced this kind of a mentally draining relationship with a woman who clearly has serious behavioral issues. Many things you mention in your letter support the assumption that your girlfriend indeed is narcissistic. I always emphasize how difficult/impossible it is to make the "diagnosis" without knowing the person. The actual diagnosis is really not important, what is important is how the behavior of your girlfriend has affected you and it is clear based on your story that this effect has been negative.  You wrote how your girlfriend's favorite phrase was "stop talking". This is a comment that seems to be very typical for a narcissistic person. Many people have mentioned to me that they have heard this exactly same phrase many times during their relationship with a narcissistic person, in same kinds of situations than the ones you described in your letter. You also wrote your girlfriend had a strong feeling of entitlement and was not able to talk about the problems in a relationship or about the emotions in general. This also is typical for a narcissistic person.
The inability of a narcissistic person to discuss the problems in a relationship in a constructive way seems to be related to the fact that a narcissistic person is often not able to feel empathy towards others and to put herself or himself into the position of other people. Add to this the fact that a narcissist is often feeling entitled and expects special treatment, and suddenly it is easier to understand why a narcissist is not willing or able to discuss the problems or emotions. When it comes to a narcissist, the fault is always in someone else, so why should a narcissist waste his or her energy trying to solve the issues by talking about them. From the point of view of a narcissist all the problems would disappear if the partner of a narcissist would only behave the way a narcissist expects. When this does not happen, a narcissist gets angry and frustrated. In this situation a person who is not narcissistic would try to solve the problem by talking, because most people realize that talking is the best way to make the other person to see one's point. Instead of talking about the problem, a narcissist often gets angry in this kind of a situation, because a narcissist perceives the behavior of the other person as a deliberate insult against a narcissist. A narcissist is assuming the partner of a narcissist is aware how "special" and "entitled" a narcissist is and so when the other person does not agree with a narcissist or is criticizing a narcissist, a narcissist often interprets this incorrectly as an act of defiance. This is leading to all sorts of problems in a relationship.  Dear Friend, it seems clear that your ex girlfriend was a very self-centered person. The way she treated you at the party, humiliating you in front of everyone, is totally unacceptable. Alcohol can make people behave badly, but at list your girlfriend should have apologized the next day when she realized what she had done. Instead she accused you, got very defensive and said she would do it again in a similar situation. This woman seems like a quite insecure, childish person. It is easy to think that a person like that deserves pity and understanding instead of hate and abandonment.
In a way we should feel pity towards narcissists because they are totally missing the warmth, security and companionship of a normal, loving and equal relationship. However, a narcissistic person should not be pitied to the point where one decides to stay with a narcissist because one thinks one understands why a narcissist is behaving in a certain way. If one does that, one ends up sacrificing one's life and happiness in a hopeless attempt to "understand" and "cure" a narcissist with one's love. The sad thing is that the more one lets a narcissist get away with the bad behavior, the worse the behavior of a narcissist becomes. Your narcissistic girlfriend is not a child, she is an adult and her narcissistic personality is not a "ticket" for her to get away with her bad behavior. Being a narcissist does not justify mental abuse and cruelty. Narcissists are not stupid, often it is quite the opposite, they may be extremely intelligent. Deep inside a narcissist is well aware of the negative consequences of her or his behavior to the partner of a narcissist. A narcissist realizes he or she is hurting the other person, but a narcissist is able to dismiss the thoughts of quilt as soon as they enter the mind of a narcissist and instead thinks that the partner of a narcissist actually deserves the bad treatment because the partner has been behaving in a nasty and disrespectful way towards a narcissist. So a narcissist is very well aware of the pain he or she is causing the other person, but is thinking the other person deserves to feel hurt. This kind of thinking is simply cruel. Most people are not that vengeful, especially towards one's own partner. This is why I am saying that being a narcissist does not justify the bad behavior. It is not that a narcissist does not understand what he or she is doing. A narcissist understands that very well, but does not care about the feelings of his or her partner. If one stays in a relationship with a narcissist, in a long run it is impossible to maintain one's mental health and self-esteem intact. Dear Friend, I know you are missing your girlfriend and wish you could somehow change things in such a way that you could make the relationship work. I wish it helps you when I give you an opinion of an outsider, based on the facts in your story: There was nothing you could have done to salvage the situation. This was not about you, this was all about your girlfriend and her personal issues. You did everything you could, you went out of your way trying to understand her, support her and make things work in your relationship. You could not have done anything more.  Imagine if you stayed with this woman for the rest of your life. Imagine having children with her. There are may stories in the Web of the people who are living with a narcissistic partner. However, there are equally large amount of stories of people who have had a narcissistic parent. Imagine a child with a narcissistic mother. A child cannot break free from an abusive relationship by leaving. A child does not have a choice, he or she must stay with the parent and grown up experiencing constant criticism and mental neglect.
Think what that does to the psyche of a child. My point here is that there is no reason to believe this woman would have changed her ways. There is a strong possibility that she would have been an unideal mother to your children, if you ended up having them. She also would have treated you with disrespect in front of the children. Had this happened, imagine how horrible you would have felt, knowing that there was the time when you could have ended the relationship but you did not do it. Even if you did not have children with this woman, it is certain she would have made you more and more depressed due to her disrespectful and cold behavior. You were in this relationship for 9 months. Imagine if things would have continued like this for 9 years. I am absolutely certain that you would have separated at some point anyhow, because no one can accept that kind of a behavior forever. If you read the stories on this website, you see that for some people it takes 1 year to end a toxic relationship, for some it takes 30 years. In the end most people draw the necessary conclusions and realize the only way is out if one is dealing with a narcissist. Surely it is better to end this kind of a relationship sooner than later. After some time has passed and your "withdrawal symptoms" (feelings of longing) will pass, you realize how good thing it was that this relationship ended now instead of ending later. You wrote you are wondering what your narcissistic ex meant with her facebook message. Sound like that is her way of trying to keep you mentally hooked so that if she feels like it, she may return to you in the future. Dear Friend, please do not fall into that trap. It is very selfish to try to keep the other person (you) in a reserve like that. This woman does not love you in a pure way. If she did, she would never have treated you the way she did. Ask yourself could you ever treat a person you love the way she treated you. Could you have treated HER that way? I think not. This woman loved the feeling that you adored her. She loved to be the target of your love. That boosted her ego and fragile self-esteem. It is very important to understand that "loving the fact that one is being loved" is very different from actually loving the other person. Dear Friend, I understand you are missing your girlfriend strongly right now. You might find this article helpful in your situation: Controlling Your Emotions. I assure you that after some time has passed your feeling will be very different. One day you are glad you made this decision now instead of waiting longer. Thank you for sending your story. It will help others who are in a similar situation to see the warning signs earlier and break free from an abusive relationship. Remember that you are not alone. Please write to me anytime you feel like it. 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
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Stories - Narcissism 
Whenever she was angry with me, it wasn't expressed as genuine anger; it was as if I needed to be "punished" for doing something that she did not appreciate, instead of being discussed and settled like adults. Instead, I would get the silent treatment, or some sort of verbal cheap shot that could cut right to the bone. Then she would humiliate me further by telling me to "suck it up" when I acted hurt by the trauma symptoms that she induced.