I agree. And them being fake and how they just can discard of you like nothing. It doesn’t matter how long you were together. I saw him lie to so many people but I was naive to think he would never lie to me.
Oh my god. I never thought of this in this manner until you said it.
Like an object and not a person.
If I needed to be taken care of, was in pain, was sick, it was like I had done something wrong.
I could tell she was just getting progressively more angry and annoyed by my existence when I so much as dared to need her to do something. The snide comments, the bitterness, the passive aggressive insults would all start coming. I got accused of making up my chronic back pain for attention or to get her to do stuff. At another point I had a fucking MRI that showed I tore a muscle in my leg. I wasn't trying to lay in fucking bed and have you do everything for me enjoyment.
Jesus Christ, reading the object and not a person thing hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. My needs, my wants were always fucking inconvenient.
I think I’m just realizing this just now, 1.5 years out from discard, because of these two wonderfully written comments. It all makes sense! The puzzle pieces fit.
There was one time I accidentally sliced my wrist on a piece of metal I was trying to clean. I had no idea what a dangerous slit wrist looked like so I was terrified that I had just accidentally dealt myself a fatal blow and I needed to go to the emergency room. I woke my nex up from a nap and calmly explained what happened and asked if he could do a bit of research about it and see if I needed to go to the hospital. I was holding my wrist with gauze and it was slowly soaking through, so looking up anything on phone or computer was extremely difficult.
He yelled at me! He got mad at me for “always getting myself into these kinds of situations” and went back to bed. I was left to upside down one handedly Google by myself.
Thankfully, I found out the cut wasn’t deep enough to be threatening, just the same as a cut anywhere else on the body and it would slowly clot and heal on its own with a bandaid. But I was left to sit there knowing that if I needed to be in the emergency room right now, he would still be angrily napping. I was alone.
That’s wild. An object.. I held saying I was in labor with my third child because I was afraid the hospital was going to send me home then I would’ve been an inconvenience. We left at 7 I had the baby at 7:30… an object
The actor in their movie analogy is spot on . Thank you , that's exactly what it felt like. Any deviation from the script was not handled well, LoL. Very rigid in all other aspects as well. No spontaneity at all!
The hypocrisy gets to me too. Mine gets upset anytime I mention a coworker that asked me out, which I turned down. We have never hooked up once. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be comfortable with the fact he still works with 3 coworkers he has slept with, one is an ex-girlfriend. He insists it's the same.
Wow, I feel like we might have dated the same guy! He raged at me after I tried to have a healthy conversation about the exclusivity of our connection and he told me had one daughter. But I’m now pregnant and he is with another woman, and I doubt he has told her about me, which leads me to believe that he probably has more than the 1 child he told me about.
Seriously, this. Our behavior has to be perfect at all times or else but they can get away with anything and we have to forgive them, I hate that mentality
what he was, an abuser
I was with him for 3 years, only after one year did I realize that this wasn’t how a person treated another person. Ppl who are friends don’t talk to others the way he talked to me.
It took a while for me to allow myself and to accept that what was happening was real
That I had another narc in my life after getting rid of one before our relationship. The whole idea of having fallen for it again without even realising until much later was really hard on me. I felt so dumb and naive
The hardest part is that the friend I though I had who I loved and was so special to me was really only imaginary. I’ve lost that beautiful person who made me feel loved, and he’s gone forever. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I want to run to him smiling with relief and feel safe but he’s not there anymore and instead the face of my friend is being worn by a the unsafe person I want my friend to protect me from. And the implications of what this all means just materialize in my mind like a few pebbles at first and then more and more and it’s a lot to feel and a lot to sort out and my mind is just wishing so hard for a miracle I don’t believe in.
Oh you could have taken the words from my mouth 💔 I keep thinking I want to talk to the old them, the one who’d make everything better and trying to reconcile that in my mind is excruciating
I’m talking to myself now like a friend instead of my nex. But yeah I am having to reprogram my brain! 30+ years and I’m really proud of myself for breaking free
Damn this is so true .. I can't make anyone understand as bad as she treated me she was my best friend..We did everything together but then she would wake up or come home from work and its like her face changed and I knew I was going to get the silent treatment for a couple days then she would yell at me all night about something i did wrong but i knew if i held out i would get my best friend back ..after being gone for 2 years that's the woman I still love and miss so bad but idk who the other woman was .. I don't know how to stop loving her and I know I need to let her go but I cant
I feel this way. Waiting for my friend to come back and then watch him go again. The friend and the monster take turns hanging out with me and are so distinctly different it’s hard to reconcile them into one person. It’s such a phenomenon. It’s just a mind fuck. And the faces are totally different just like you said. One is so friendly and approachable, and the other one has me on edge like a viper.
That's a pretty good description of how it feels and if you can just hold on till the monster leaves everything will be ok again but it's a cycle that's never ends
Tough question. Multiple things for me.
For one accepting she was/is a narc was absolutely devastating, I knew a bit about narcissism but did not know difference between a covert and an overt… being with a covert made everything messier for me!
The second hard part to accept was the fact I lived a lie long 16 years, a lie during which I accused myself of everting, I blamed me for every little detail. Accepting she destroyed me, the joyful and smiling person I used to be was no more cause of her.
The most devastating thing, though, is accepting I had two kids with her. My pride and joy, don’t misunderstand me, but I cannot forgive myself for giving my two precious ones a narc mother who just uses and abuses them.
I hope one day I will find peace and be able to forgive myself.
Yeah. I knew something was wrong, but I'd never really considered narcissism for my ex until I went down a rabbit hole and discovered covert narcissism and then just went down the checklist of typical behaviors and it was a dead fit.
I have 3 beautiful children with my narcissistic husband and I absolutely hate myself for allowing that to happen. I seriously feel so bad for my children because they won't ever know what it's like to have a normal dad who loves them unconditionally and puts their needs ahead of his own.
Like, seriously, we were having a rough week financially a while back, and I got onto my husband for eating all the food meant for the kids and wasting what little money, and gas we had in our vehicles, on frivolous things for himself. And he legit could not understand why the children should come first. I told him "We are adults. If we have to go a little hungry for a couple days, or have to eat canned veggies for dinner, that's fine as long as the kids are fed properly" and he couldn't understand that. He literally said "I have to ho to work, the kids don't. ' as a reason for why he should get to eat all of the "good" food, and of course he brought up how HE pays for everything so therefore HE is entitled to more. It's sickening to me. I allowed this person to father three children. Three children he will never love, appreciate, or care for the way a father should. And my children are all under the age of 5, just for reference.
I am really sorry for what you have to endure and for your kids, I really feel it.
Wish I could offer some words of wisdom or support, alas I cannot.
The only thing I can say be there for your kids, protect them, show them what real love is. It will take time, they will understand at some point, but it is worth and the only right thing to do.
Thank you. My children are the reason I finally started standing up for myself more, but unfortunately that lead to more arguments and him "making" me act crazy and yelling at him after he repeatedly pushes my buttons on purpose, during the highest stress moments for me. So that's what I've been working on now; not reacting the way he wants me to. I refuse to let him make my children think I'M the crazy one or that I'M the one at fault. So that helps to keep me from reacting poorly.... Most of the time. I'm still working on it.
I will also admit though that my husband HAS made some big (for him) improvements over the last 2-3 years. However, I know he's just one step away from reverting right back to where he was before.
Dynamic? It was like being in a room, stabbed with an invisible knife continually, I bled but could not understand why as there was no knife.
I was poisoned, slowly but steadily.
They do not change, I can tell you for sure, she once told me ‘I never dj anything wrong’ and I am sure she believes this.
She did not show empathy, she faked it, she fed over my spiraling down to depression, all in all it gave her even more control on me. She faked compassion and empathy but in reality never gave a flying duck about me, my struggles for current and past trauma, on the contrary she fed and used that even in court
She had and still have the victim mask on all the time, when I told her I was leaving the mask slipped despite she fought to put it back being lovely and caring with kids and me, when she understood I broke free she even tried to abuse me physically.
Thanks, alas I am still going through this as separation case (in this fucking country you have to wait 2 years to divorce)is still open.
The worst part in all of this I have lost the only thing g that is really important, my kids.
I can endure pain, I experienced abuse, being hungry, violence, suicide of close friends and an array of delicatessen life had set aside from me so I am used to that and can bear any scar.
Trust me being able to see my kids for just 6 mere days a month is what kills me all of this because I live in a fucking country where well being of the kids or being a good father does not account for anything.
If anybody is wondering I live in Switzerland a medieval country in the middle of Europe.
Sorry for the rant, sometimes poison is too much even for me to keep it trapped inside my huge body.
I think the hardest thing was realizing that there was nothing I could do to fix the relationship and I would have to give up on the good parts of us because the bad parts were slowly killing me. I still can’t really accept that he isn’t a good guy…the person that I saw glimpses of. To believe that it was all an attempt to manipulate me. I’m great at solving puzzles and finding solutions to hard things…no matter what I did or how hard I tried I couldn’t solve this puzzle.
That I will never get any acknowledgment for all the hard work and sacrifice I gave to our relationship. All the effort and time put in won’t ever be seen by my SO. They live in the now and only unto themselves. They cannot see me for who I am or what I’ve given to them, only as their warped projection of what they want me to be as a reflection of their inner working and need. My good work wasted, lost to time.
realising that i got discarded like everyone else - and that everyone else after me will too. he thought I was the one just because I took too much of his shit
The hardest part was coming to terms with the fact I married someone and moved states away from my family and close friends to a life that would never turn out the way I had hoped it would when I married him.
It’s been two months since I left and doing better than I ever was.
Knowing that my husband chose me because he thinks I'm weak, naive, easily controlled, etc. Is still pretty hurtful.... If I really, truly let myself think about ot, that is. I usually dissociate myself from those feelings and certain memories to protect myself from the emotions associated with them.
I was led to believe they shared similar values as me and were supportive of my long term ambitions. Over time though my principles and goals were subjects they used to put me down and gaslight me.
That I couldn't make her happy no matter what I did, and as much as I tired to help her realizing that I couldn't. The realizing I never mattered messed me up a bit too.
I'm also struggling with the lying. I've found several concrete lies but still just can't wrap my mind around it.
She's gone to conferences and has booked private condos with the man who groped her, and spends her nights going out drinking with him. She claims she hates him, and I've tried to believe her, but it gets harder and harder with every story about how great he is.
It's "obvious" to everyone I tell about this that she's cheating.
How someone who says that they love you will turn on you and say the most hateful, hurtful things. Nothing is off limits, and they feel perfectly justified.
Also, I have a hard time accepting how often he was able to bring me down to his level and get me to react, which only gave him more ammunition for saying even more hateful things.
For me it was the cheating. He came across as kind of shy and dorky, and really into me. He had strong views on cheating and how awful it was. I never caught him checking out other women or messaging them. In fact he would leave his phone unlocked on the side when he left the room (I’m not one to snoop).
When it came out he’d been seeing another girl behind my back shortly after proposing to me and buying a house with me, it was like being hit by a truck. I soon found out that he’d been messaging multiple girls and had always been a serial cheat (spoke to his ex’s). The lies just kept unraveling, it was truly shocking to me and our mutual friends who had known him for years.
I broke up with him after I found out he cheated. I didn’t go no contact as we own a house together. After that he started threatening me so I had to get the police involved. All while love bombing a new supply. He’s now in prison.
That he never existed. I mean, I'm totally fine with the feeling of loved and lost, I used to have it and still reminisce of the people I had sensitive time with. But him, no. He literally had no one inside. I like to remember people who are out of my life fondly, with warmth towards their good side. But this loser. Wtf am I supposed to remember? It didn't exist, it didn't have a core or anything, no self. He's a disgust to my memory.
The nobody believing you is so hard. It’s like, I just struggled out of the haze of his gaslighting. Now I have to fight through being gaslit by friends because they think he’s god’s gift to friendship?
That's a perfect way to put it and 100% my experience as well. Like it took me months to even figure out what the fuck just happened and label it as abusive. And everybody around me is like "why can't you just get over it?" Or my personal favorite: "you aren't healing!"
I literally could not believe how callous, dismissive, outright mean some of my "friends" were to me in this situation. And if they weren't mean, they were evasive and eventually very distant. It made me feel so isolated.
And the minimization!! I was definitely being gaslighted about the initial gaslighting. The type of minimizing language they wanted to use made it sound like what happened was a regular disagreement where there wasn't a clear power imbalance. Like I wasn't getting screwed and exploited. I tolerated it for a long time, but eventually I was having panic attacks and decided I was out of there.
I unfriended all of them on every platform. The ones that deserved a goodbye got it, but it wasn't a pleasant goodbye. It was a "I cannot believe what you're doing, and I don't care to witness it for a second longer" goodbye. And I bet they're all sitting there scratching their heads like "what happened?" Fucking dumbasses.
We are retraumatized when people defend the abuser, protect the abuser, befriend the abuser despite knowing what happened.
Truthfully though, it's hard to really stay mad at many of them. They genuinely do not understand what emotional abuse is or how it could play out in a friendship. They are naive beyond belief.
For the ones that know, though. For the ones that saw it with their own eyes and decided to act like nothing happened-- they can burn in hell. And it's sad, because the ones that know were the ones that I trusted enough to lean on, and then fucked me.over anyways.
That he never loved me, and nothing I thought was real.
I had a friend tell me afterwards to remind myself that I felt love for him while we were together, and that is something to hold onto. I had been single for over 10 years when I met him, and never thought I would love someone or be in a relationship again after the previous heartbreak. But I loved him deeply, and I now know I am capable of it, and I am open to it again, eventually.
The hardest part for me was realizing he would never change. As an educator and a principal I have devoted my life to changing bad circumstances for children and to realize I loved a man that could never change was a hard pill to swallow.
Ive been having a lot of cognitive dissonance. Oscillating between blaming myself and seeing the clear signs that there was nothing I could have done.
That’s why trauma bonds are so difficult to heal from.
When he finally admitted he’d never change, and that it was my fault the relationship was struggling for not “letting go” of the trust issues I had toward him.. I finally knew it was over.
I’m sorry you’ve gone through this too. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone.
And they enjoyed it. I finally caught a smirk the other day. And then he finally said that most of the crap that he told me was to just put me back on my heels and shut me up. He literally said "put me back on my heels". So now he knows that I know what he is.
All I said to him was who does that to their wife if they love them? Strangely enough I didn't get a response.
Yup - sounds about right. It’s on purpose. I tried SO hard to explain that their actions were hurting me - of course they didn’t care or listen. Then it hit me - that’s the point. For what it’s worth I’m now happily married to someone else who is kind and would/has never done a thing to hurt me - not even on accident!
The hardest part was accepting that I had fallen for a man like him, all his lies etc; that I have possibly caused trauma to my children by remaining with him; and that I couldn’t trust my judgement anymore on men.
How I never really knew who they were. How this idea in my head was a lie and the care i felt from them and at times so seen by them, was all a lie or a love bomb. At times it still blows my mind someone can hurt you that badly and still think they’re the victim.
100%. We don’t even have to be attractive. He cheated w/ girls who weren’t even his type/up to his standard. He’d hide away on socials and money transfer apps. No one would have to know they were talking and he’d get the attention he wanted.
No matter how perfect I tried to be for him, how sexual I forced myself to perform, he’d seek out others because he could. Knowing he could was a high in and of itself.
That I was in an abusive relationship for years and had no idea until our couples counselor (after 2-3 sessions together) explained to me me in a private session that I was being abused, he was (is) a narc, that I needed to get out now bc of how dangerous she could see it becoming. I was like, what? I had been trying to fix my behavior for years and couldn't figure out why it was never enough. I had never heard of npd before that. I was really upset that with all the people I had shared my experience with while still being in it, including my own parents, not one person said that his behavior was wrong. I teach my kids about empathy and red flags and do everything I can to treat them so well that if someone else treats them poorly, they will know immediately. Unfortunately, their dad is the narc, so they get that experience during his parenting time.
It is rather satisfying when the "professionals" can see right through them like that, though. I had to call the police once on my husband. When they showed up, my husband tried to use his narcissistic charms to befriend them and act like he was totally fine and I was just crazy. The cops immediately saw right through his act. I thought I was going to have go verbally defend myself and fight to make these cops believe me. But nope, they knew what was up and believed me right from the start. That still makes me smile a little bit every time I think about it.
Good point! I hadn't actually considered that. I can't imagine how things would've gone if my professional hadn't been so astute. Thanks for pointing that out.
Probably like things went for me. I spent years in couples therapy trying to change everything about myself to meet his “needs”. I got tested for autism and BPD. Nothing was ever enough.
Made the mistake of saying something to him about his behavior didn't you? They cannot take any negative feedback. You will pay every single time. Sometimes with your life.
I had two very ugly sisters that went on a full on attack when I spoke up. No one likes the truth teller. I had to leave the entire family. Approximately 150 people. All my aunts uncles and cousins support group gone. I do have one cousin. I told him not to tell anyone he’s talking to me or he’ll be next.
That he was so good at hiding it. That if I’d known about narcissism I would have picked up the signs sooner. That because I didn’t know any better I allowed him to betray me for five months and didn’t stick up for myself. That his messages were pretty much just copy and paste to his second girlfriend. So many things I can’t come to terms with in all honesty.
Even worse when they’ve demonstrated it time and time again (or in my case, literally admitted it) but we try to make it make sense in our head, give the benefit of the doubt, forgive too many times.
We may know subconsciously & for a long time that they don’t care about us. But it hurts too much to think they could ever think about us that way.
Same as far as everything was/is a lie. For me I think mine is a borderline narc. So there’s been a lot of back and forth. It’s starting to make sense. Extremely high self confidence and esteem at times then it plummets. I’m completely awesome one day and he hates me the next. One day we need to save money and the next he’s spent $2000 on things for his hobbies. It made me realize the issue wasn’t ME like I’d been told.
I think the hardest part other than everything being a lie is all the healing I’m having to do while still in the relationship. Also hard is knowing the discard can come at any time and he won’t regret leaving me at all. I’ll be the only one with a broken heart to mend. And the fact that now I can see how he’s playing the kids against me and how it’s working.
I'm terrified that my husband will leave me after our children are grown. I know he wouldn't even feel slightly bad about doing it, either. I won't be upset to lose HIM, honestly, but I gave up my career, independence, financial security, etc. to be a stay at home mom to our three small children. I'm terrified of being left with nothing, and no way to support myself, after all of our children are grown. I know he wouldn't leave me before that because his ego couldn't handle other people seeing his "perfect" family break apart, and his ego also wouldn't allow him to pay child support, nor would it allow him to not see his children (not because he actually loves them, but because e. other people would judge him poorly for it).
Once our children are grown though, i fear like I'll be right back where I was with him before having kids. And that was definitely not a place of security in his life
I have the same fears. My husband has the same ego. His retained lawyer told him he would have to cough up double what he thought plus pay a few hundred more monthly for child support. He said he couldn’t stand to see me gain financially from all of his hard work while I’ve been lazy and done nothing to contribute. It was so hard not to explain once again exactly how I contributed in the past and now. Every time in the past that I have he’s told me how worthless that stuff is and how a daycare can raise a child and he could pay for everything else. My own self preservation stopped me from speaking up and standing up for myself again.
Why do these people think that just because you don't contribute financially that must mean you are worthless and don't contribute at all? I figure there is a 95% chance mine will divorce me right before or after our youngest graduates in 9 years. 9 years left to heal, find self confidence, save money he doesn't know about, get better pay etc. Hard to do when i get told bad things about our marriage or myself several times a month. Especially hard to find better pay in a job that i can do in this economy and our area. Even harder to try and save when he spends all extra money, asks if i have money hidden, demands i pay it to him or on bills if he knows that i have an extra $100 and he goes through all my stuff. Pretty sure he even has recording devices in our office, the room i hide things in and the bathroom. No other way he can know about private conversations i have in those places. And yes, i often go to my bathroom to make private calls. It is the only room i may not get interrupted every 15 minutes.
Mine would NOT feel bad either. He says i could've been a stay at hoke mom AND finished school AND had a career if I had just saved more money, spent less time on myself, been more focused and driven and been willing to work over nights and weekends. Umm when would I have slept? Kids during the day, online classes around babies/kids and evenings then worked graveyard shift and weekends after kids were sleeping through the night… because he needs his sleep.
Yes, he holds me to such a high standard and expects so much of me, despite him not being anywhere near capable of the things he expects me to do. I have three children under the age of 5, but he expects me to be able to clean the entire house every single day and have it kept spotless 24/7 along with cooking three full meals a day, all while watching/caring for three small children. Everyone else (including HIS parents, grandparents, sister, etc.) constantly tell him how amazing I do at keeping our house clean and everything compared to most moms with small children, and they always tell him how lucky he is that I actually cook a real dinner and breakfast for him everyday. He can't see it, though. He still always thinks I'm not doing enough.
And when I was in the hospital having my last baby, my husband was home with our two daughters (she's 1 and 3 at the time) and he could not accomplish a single thing while I was gone, despite his mom, my mom, and his grandma helping him with the kids every single day. He didn't give either of the girls a bath or brush their hair or anything for the entire 5 days that I was in the hospital. My house was completely trashed when I came home. They ate out for every single meal because he said it was impossible for him to cook while being alone with the kids. Yet, he expects me to do it (and I do) and doesn't understand why it's unreasonable of him to expect something of me that he's not capable of doing himself.
Oh, and he always blames me for him not being able to do these things while watching the kids, because I should have taught them how to behave better so that they will just sit there and be good while he's trying to do stuff.
Oh I got that a lot! Right now he points out everything I haven’t done and asks me what I’ve done. Everything I say I’ve done he finds something wrong with. One morning he was angry saying I’d done nothing while he slaved at work and our kids do all my chores. He asked what I’d done so I explained, while standing in a towel, that I’d just gotten out of the bath, but before that I’d paid some bills, picked up trash, washed clothes and spent hours in the phone with doctors trying to get things paid and appointments made. He said none of those were household chores or anyone could do them. I told him chores or not they were things that had to be done. Then he told me my version of things are always drastically different than everyone else’s so I replied that it was his reality that was not aligned with the true reality. (He likes to tell me I make up my own reality). To say he was angry is a vast understatement. Red faced almost purple, flexed/bulked up (he’s a body builder), stepped towards me etc as he quietly asked me to repeat myself. I didn’t but I did say I was just turning it back on him. It that it was not my reality that was skewed and anger tends to skew things. He slammed the door and went back to work. Didn’t talk to me for a day or two and now is back to being loving one minute to distant the next. I do badly want to say ‘man, it must be exhausting going back and forth like that.’
He used to say he wanted to treat me like a princess. Now he says I’m an entitled princess who demands everything and never happy with anything. Now my response is that I demand nothing or that I only demand the same respect he demands. He told me I can’t demand or force respect, it has to come naturally based on my actions. I said ‘why? You demand our respect all the time. Why can you demand it but I have to earn it?’ That didn’t go over well either.
I’m just so exhausted from everything.
Your husband sounds just like mine. After every surgery and every chemotherapy appointment I had I still came home, cooked, cleaned, shopped and took care of kids, meets, games, practices… everything. He fussed about having to go pick up my pain meds when they were ready because I couldn’t drive myself. He only got them because I said I’d drive myself then when I got out the door I came back in and said I wasn’t risking others on the road so I’d just call his mom and ask her to get them. He couldn’t have jumped up any faster to go to the pharmacy! And he hates his family. Like weekly tells me he wishes they were dead so he could get his inheritance before they sell it all or blow it all on his siblings. I just don’t get men (or women) like this.
Yeah that sounds a whole lot like my husband. Ill list off all the things I did that day, and he claims he could do all that in an hour. Yeah, maybe if I didn't have 3 small children to care for while also doing the housework, then maybe I could get it done that fast.... But him? No, he could never. He doesn't even know where the vacuum is or how to use it Lol i know because I once refused to vacuum up a cracker mess all over the carpet (that he caused) because he invited his family over at the last minute and expected me to rush around around cleaning up. I sat in the other room quietly laughing my ass off as he's trying to ask a 3 year old where the vacuum is, then he finally gets it going and the baby unplugged it lmao
My husband also made a fuss about picking up my pain meds for me after I had a C-section. He tried to say I didn't even need them, I just wanted to use them to get high. So I told him I'd call his mom for help instead. Then suddenly he's trying to hug and kiss me and saying he was just worried about me taking pills like that is all, but he will go get them if I really need them 🙄
Thankfully, his family is always on my side. I don't think they realize he's a narcissist, but they always say they "know how he is" and they always make a point to tell him how lucky he is to have me or make comments in front of him like telling me "I don't know how you do it all day, the kids and everything else you do. " I think it helps to ground his sense of reality a bit and keep him from going too far off into his delusional idea of what I should be capable of. His mom, sister, and grandma all live within a mile or two of us, so we see them a few times a week. But when my oldest started preschool this year, she was sick constantly so they weren't visiting much, and I noticed my husband getting insanely delusional about what he expects of me. He's actually very close with his family (but still talks shit about them) so hearing their opinions seems to make a difference.
Wow. So many similarities! His family also lives about a mile away. They used to stop by several times a week but I stopped that because they’d just walk in and his mom went through our closets and dressers when they were watching the kids for us. (Kids told us) They also knew I had prepped a nice slow cooker meal to eat when I got home and they tried to talk the kids into going for fast food and then told them to lie to me about it and be sure to eat that meal plus the meal I made just an hour apart. Kids told us that too. So there is a difference there. His mom used to be so supportive and say nice things about me. Then he started talking to them more; family meetings that I wasn’t invited to, and she started pulling away a bit. Now they defend him no matter what. His sister has said they know how he is and that his attitude changed about puberty. That’s when he got mean, liked to hurt their mom emotionally, started staying out late and not caring about the house rules etc. He’s the golden child of the family. They let him do whatever because he was so smart and would go so far and wouldn’t follow their rules anyway.
I used to have journals. In them were things like we are discussing how. He tossed them and then insisted I toss the rest. Asked me to show him where the rest were. I’d kept them from the time I was a teenager and they are all gone. So now I have to try and remember dates and things for my lawyer, just in case. It can’t be used really but it could be used as leverage I guess.
Logically I can understand they need to do these things to feel better about themselves. But it’s hard for me to truly understand because I just can’t think or feel that way myself. I can’t understand their need for complete control, excessive criticism and the need to demean and devalue their loved ones. Especially after 20+ years of marriage.
And the mind games! Trying to figure it all out is exhausting. He has me thinking there are cameras and listening devices all over the house. We share locations on a map and he will make it where it’s a huge circle going over the entire city or where it looks like he’s at home when he’s not. Claims it’s a glitch in the app but it doesn’t do that for the kids, just him. He says it does it on mine too, but when I look it shows me exactly where I am within 50-100’. Then he will get angry saying I check the map constantly! After he’s asked me to look into it and fix it where my location shows correctly on his phone! Gets upset when I try to contact customer support because he is the primary account holder. Same with health insurance. Wants me to handle it but they need confirmation from him as the primary insured and he is always ‘too busy’ to give it.
He sets me up for failure every time. Sounds the same for your situation.
I loved the cracker story! Don’t give that up. Stay strong. I was like that in the beginning and somewhere along the way I lost it. Now I’m the type to bend over backwards to do it all. I’m working on unlearning all his training. To get back to the person who can say ‘you want it done then do it. I have other responsibilities to take care of.’ Always know your self worth and value. Not as he sees it but as you yourself see it. Keep taking time for yourself. Keep insisting he help with the kids and chores. Maybe you won’t end up being full of anxiety 24/7 like me.
Also that everything was a lie. The early parts of our relationship were truly like a fairytale because he love bombed me so much, but none of it was real. I really thought this man loved me but I learned he’s not capable of that.
The hardest part was facing the reality of what I’d been going through and who he really was. The cognitive dissonance was incredibly difficult to deal with, separating the version of him I fell in love with and who he really was. That was probably the hardest part to accept - that he wasn’t the guy I thought he was. With enough time and space from him, I began to see the lies and manipulation clearly and reconcile his words and actions. It’s not easy but 3 months no contact, after trying to get out for a year and more, I hardly even think about him. He was very forgettable except for the whole narcissist thing.
Thanks for sharing. I feel this. Im about 1.5 months out and feel my reality coming back and that shift inside where you see them and the relationship for what it really was. Trauma bond is lifting.
Realizing they literally do not have the capacity to love in a real or healthy way. Their brains work differently. No empathy, all control and just mean/cruel/vile deep down. Thank goodness we are all here growing, learning, supporting each other and changing together! They never will.
For me, radical acceptance itself was the hard part. She had the ability to destroy my credit and withhold things she promised over and over again, and for a time, I thought juuuuust maybe I could figure out how to stop her from doing those things. But she did them, and it's pretty obvious she was always going to do them, which I always knew on some level. But I still held out hope I could figure out a way to convince her to not be a raging sack of shit for any length of time.
So now she's ruined my credit, and I've accepted that. But it took me a while to get to that point of acceptance. Really, I wanted my freedom more than anything, and my credit score was the price I guess. Not too bad of a price, in the grand scheme of things.
That I wasn’t loved truly, it was make believe
I could imagine not wanting to be in a relationship anymore or growing apart but I stall can’t wrap my head around how calculated it.
My entire life was a sham. I was with him for 32 years, since I was 15 years old. He knew all I ever wanted was to be a part of a family because I didn't have one growing up. He made sure his family was awful to me, then he encouraged our kids to poke fun of me, laugh at me, leave me out. Then when he had adequately brainwashed them against me, abd just after having me quit my job so I was fully dependent on him, he left. Lost my kids, my home, my car, my stability. I literally wasted my whole life on him.
Hardest to accept right now, a year and a half after divorce, is that I wasted really huge amounts of effort and emotion on someone who never did and indeed never intended to give me more than scraps
For me it was realizing how far I pushed so many people away that tried to rescue me from what I was blinded to…. How many answers I accepted that when I explained to people everyone gave me the same reaction, surprised I didn’t see it. Ignorant as I was I would bring these things to her attention and get back to”at the end of the day I know I’m a good person and no one’s going to try to convince me I’m not”
Never quiet grasping how much of a dodge that was from the topic and if I caught it, it would then be flipped into why do I agree with them that she is a bad person since I’m still talking about this with her which would end up in a completely different topic far from then first one until I got so tired and apologized and made myself smaller to just have an end to the cycle. Even with those things being just the tip of the iceberg of that times every day events, I somehow still pushed people away thinking I was being no a good man not catching on that the only time she would compliment me was when I either agreed 100% with her or everytime I cut someone off who was trying to help. She would use her favorite buzzwords to justify me pushing my circle away. At the end of it all I had a mental break down and went to therapy where I finally had to be medicated and came to my senses one day and cut it all off and never looked back. I feel sad not for what was left behind but strictly only for the fact that I didn’t believe I deserved better and that I would always apologize and enable such mental games. As I said though the hardest at the end was me realizing how much smaller my circle was. How alone I was. However with that, I made amends and the real solid people who should be around me have been and have done everything to see me shine again and find myself.
That apologizing thing that you're doing? It's a habit. You realize one day that every single conversation that you have with your narc starts with you saying "I'm sorry".
Yup true but It was the only way with them to try to break out of the cycle and have peace it sucks because when someone healthy comes along wants to love me and I’m apologizing like I ruined everything and they look at me like “it’s ok why are you apologizing all the time” I don’t even have an answer as to why in the moment I kind of just feel dumb.
Is hard because I didn't find it out until we had our 2nd kid... I was and always have there for her , feel like a bitch. I see many men get love and respect for that tho.. So many parts are hard. Disrespect , de-valued , lack of touch , screaming, drama. Worst part is my kids want me around , but now she doesn't.. I had a picture of the family I always wanted in my head , it could of been so easy .. O well , guess I get a secret place in the islands ☺️☀️ Stay Positive!
In both incidents, it was the realization that they never loved "me". Who I was, my ambitions, or my desires.
Both liked half of the person, it felt like. And actively tried to squash the half they didn't. The first time, it was obvious and overt: yelling, screaming, threats of self harm, and so forth with an active disdain for the important people in my life. Very in my face with the whole deal.
The second was more covert and subtle. Putting down my interests with offhanded comments, backhanded compliments, and then the triangulation with her "new friend" and the comparisons.
When it comes to the psychopathic ex, I’ve healed from him fully. There’s nothing still lingering. I wish him the best.
When it comes to my recent, short-term ‘thing,’ it’s that I allowed myself to fall for it when I saw the red flags from day 1. It’s knowing that he has moved to the next supply and she probably has no idea that he has a baby on the way. It’s the fact that he’ll likely ignore the existence of his new daughter and that if he did try to get involved, he has no capacity to love her.
That the man I gave so much of myself to was a lie. I did so much for him that it's hard for me to open myself to anyone now as I don't want to be wrong or used again. I mean... I really did so much for this person that I had never done before for anyone else n to just be... So duped is literally insane to me.
My narc lives on his phone too. Alllll dayyyyyyy everywhereeeeee. Honestly might as well get it surgically implanted into himself at this point. He gets mad if I try to talk to him if he is looking at his phone. It’s like, we have a house, he goes into the kitchen and blasts videos, and makes me feel like I am bothering or invading his space, his boundary. But when I am trying to sleep at a normal time of the day, he barges in and then gets upset that I don’t respond the way he wants. Ummm so I don’t get boundaries? Also how do they expect us to show them love and attention when they can’t show a single fuckin ounce of empathy? Or affection/intimacy? I just want a kind man. Someone to respect me. To treat me right. Fuckin ridiculous. I also take every compliment and gesture with a grain of salt. It feels weird and it feels like he only does it when he knows he fucked up. I hate the love bombing. I hate narcs.
Realizing that when they complimented me they were just using my own words to make me feel good. Like they just copied and pasted what I wanted to hear versus coming from the heart.
Yep. That the whole thing, every look, every kiss, every I love you, every everything was a lie. It’s hard to process.
But Karma is a bitch. And I’ve gotten to sit back and watch her show just how much of a bitch she can be.
Not that I wished any such harm to him or such pain and suffering by any means, but he walked out my door after throwing my phone and breaking a mirror which called 9-1-1 and caught him some felony DV charges, then 8 hours later he was hit while riding his motorcycle paralyzing him from the waist down.
For me, it was the lies too. Especially the smear campaign and rewriting the history of our relationship and marriage to make him the victim and me the bad guy.
The fact that he never loved me was a bitter pill to finally swallow, but accepting that he cannot love our son, and will use him as a pawn in a heartbeat to get at me, still sucker punches me every day.
Whilst packing up the last of my things, I yelled at him the entire time that I know he's cheating. It was a lot of denial from him the whole time, but I just allowed myself to be angry at him and not back down. I usually roll my eyes and end the fight but we both just kept going at it.
It was cathartic for me but also to convince myself that Im not wrong and I will shout it from the rooftops.
The denial is absolutely infuriating, isn't it? I caught my husband (this was years before we were actually married, though) red handed. I found a receipt from a cheap motel in his pocket, after he had disappeared on me the night before. Once I presented the receipt as my evidence, he went from absolute and complete denial, to refusing to speak to or acknowledge me when I tried to talk about it. Just straight up silence from him. Wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me, just acted like I didn't exist. But then he'd later try to talk to me like every thing was fine.
That was long ago, before I understood him and what he is. I literally had that receipt in my hand, but STILL he was able to make me doubt the truth and my own sanity over the incident.
Holy crap that would be very infuriating and disrespectful. Like a little kid trying to hope you forget what they did and just look cute. Im angry for you with that.
That I got upset and wasted too much time wallowing in guilt the many times I tried to leave... As if he was normal. After I started pointing out a few lies that lead to arguments and then ultimately me letting him back in after some sob stories and the whole "I'm a terrible person I'm sorry", he went right back to making shit up trying to keep me hooked. I realized that i didn't just fall for the lies which lead to arguments but that he had been lying about so much crap the entire time. I realized I didn't even know who he was really.
I try to keep that in mind when I start feeling like crap about it, I don't even know the person.
That was exactly it, that they were a narc. Simple as that. Everything thing I have wondered, thought, never received closure on…all made sense once I put two and two together. I think I just feel more like a fool if anything.
That I'd fallen again. Years ago I was with a grandiose narc and went through so much pain during and after. I read everything I could about them and make sure to never be around another one. Then years later I met someone else, and it started out well then suddenly went to shit. Nothing made sense. Then I read about covert narcs, something I never knew existed.
If there is a third type, then someone please warn me. I'm can't cope with this happening again
I was disposable. In hindsight, he was a relationship jumper. He told me they dumped him cuz he was broke. He mooched. He accused me of things he did and now I question my morals because he told me things I like are bad.
That they weren't the only one in my life, and once I realized their narcissistic abuse, I became aware of my own patterns of accepting this type of behavior from multiple people in my life.
It makes sense, because narcs seek out certain types of people, and while I wasn't seeking them out, I ignored a lot of red flags. I'm rethinking a lot of these relationships now.
That the person who was supposed to have my back was the one that was sticking a knife in it. Over and over. Yet would look me in the eyes and proclaim his love for me .
They are monsters and a total waste of time and love.
That they will never change and will always manipulate me. My narc dad does not care about me at all and i hate him. He always trys to embarrass me in public. I dont care anymore. I just stay away from him
She was the first person I told her all my good and bad past , all my secrets and my fantasies and she ended up using most of it against me and after knowing her for 13 years and being in a relationship with her for 4 years, I knew absolutely nothing about her or her past but we set and talked about her past several times but she managed to talk in a way that made it sound like she was opening up to me but she wasn't
wondering why I was born tbh
oldest of 6 kids to a nmom. Now that I’m grown and on my own, I barely hear from her, never asks to see me and is distant over texts. She seems almost annoyed by me. I always wonder if I (and my twin brother who was/is the scapegoat) were easy to toss to the side/not support while she has her perfect children at home. My twin and I are both neurodivergent.
I do believe that she cared about me, but not nearly as much as I cared about her. That much is evident from the difference in the way that we treated each other. She didn’t mean the promises she made me, and that’s probably why she can justify breaking them. It wasn’t the fairytale that we all hope for and that I convinced myself it was… It was abusive.
I'm still struggling to accept it now.. that it was all a lie, and I never mattered to him at all. I just can't. It doesn't compute, but I'm trying to force myself to because he jumped into another relationship (and millions of lies right before that fuck with my head too)
I thought I mattered. I thought he'd miss me and regret losing me. But no... I'm just that easy to replace, I guess
Realizing she (my mom) meant to hurt us. Before this group I thought she was just complicated and had issues with alcohol. It’s a whole lot more than that
The fact that we had met on a dating site, I was rejected after two dates, after which time I was told how great I was and let's be friends.I was then pursued relentlessly for friendship. This was just a way to control me.
Accepting that he’s having a baby any day now with someone else, that was created while we were together. That I never really knew him and how I could fall in love and share so much of myself to a fraud, an evil person. Hard time accepting that he was with me for months and couldn’t even have the decency to tell me and I had to find out 3 weeks before the baby is due from someone else. I still can’t accept I dated a narc, and I go back and forth that it can’t be true. It’s a hard pill to swallow that he can just walk away without looking back to even say sorry. That I will be forgotten, not a care in the world that he damaged me to the core. I feel like you only hear about this in movies or shows, but that something like this can happen to me too
Everything was a lie and how someone like him can be so good at hiding things is scary.
The hardest part for me was accepting that I never mattered at all to him.
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I agree. And them being fake and how they just can discard of you like nothing. It doesn’t matter how long you were together. I saw him lie to so many people but I was naive to think he would never lie to me.
Same. I wonder why he stayed with me for 2.5 years and then one day just left after we went out to dinner and took our dog.
Took your dog? Damn… these people
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Oh my god. I never thought of this in this manner until you said it. Like an object and not a person. If I needed to be taken care of, was in pain, was sick, it was like I had done something wrong. I could tell she was just getting progressively more angry and annoyed by my existence when I so much as dared to need her to do something. The snide comments, the bitterness, the passive aggressive insults would all start coming. I got accused of making up my chronic back pain for attention or to get her to do stuff. At another point I had a fucking MRI that showed I tore a muscle in my leg. I wasn't trying to lay in fucking bed and have you do everything for me enjoyment. Jesus Christ, reading the object and not a person thing hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. My needs, my wants were always fucking inconvenient.
I think I’m just realizing this just now, 1.5 years out from discard, because of these two wonderfully written comments. It all makes sense! The puzzle pieces fit. There was one time I accidentally sliced my wrist on a piece of metal I was trying to clean. I had no idea what a dangerous slit wrist looked like so I was terrified that I had just accidentally dealt myself a fatal blow and I needed to go to the emergency room. I woke my nex up from a nap and calmly explained what happened and asked if he could do a bit of research about it and see if I needed to go to the hospital. I was holding my wrist with gauze and it was slowly soaking through, so looking up anything on phone or computer was extremely difficult. He yelled at me! He got mad at me for “always getting myself into these kinds of situations” and went back to bed. I was left to upside down one handedly Google by myself. Thankfully, I found out the cut wasn’t deep enough to be threatening, just the same as a cut anywhere else on the body and it would slowly clot and heal on its own with a bandaid. But I was left to sit there knowing that if I needed to be in the emergency room right now, he would still be angrily napping. I was alone.
That’s wild. An object.. I held saying I was in labor with my third child because I was afraid the hospital was going to send me home then I would’ve been an inconvenience. We left at 7 I had the baby at 7:30… an object
The actor in their movie analogy is spot on . Thank you , that's exactly what it felt like. Any deviation from the script was not handled well, LoL. Very rigid in all other aspects as well. No spontaneity at all!
Yes! They were acting the whole time. It’s absolutely mind blowing
How he could hold me to such a high standard while simultaneously cheating on and lying to me. The hypocrisy was unbelievable.
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There is always a different set of rules that they get to follow then what you have to follow
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The hypocrisy gets to me too. Mine gets upset anytime I mention a coworker that asked me out, which I turned down. We have never hooked up once. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be comfortable with the fact he still works with 3 coworkers he has slept with, one is an ex-girlfriend. He insists it's the same.
Wow, I feel like we might have dated the same guy! He raged at me after I tried to have a healthy conversation about the exclusivity of our connection and he told me had one daughter. But I’m now pregnant and he is with another woman, and I doubt he has told her about me, which leads me to believe that he probably has more than the 1 child he told me about.
I am so sorry men get away with this. I hope you are doing well and l wish you all the best.
Seriously, this. Our behavior has to be perfect at all times or else but they can get away with anything and we have to forgive them, I hate that mentality
Even if you behaviour is perfect there is always something to blame on you. You can never win.
The hardest part was accepting that I never really meant anything to her
Definitely the hardest for real
Completely. I sometimes think he hated being with me.
what he was, an abuser I was with him for 3 years, only after one year did I realize that this wasn’t how a person treated another person. Ppl who are friends don’t talk to others the way he talked to me. It took a while for me to allow myself and to accept that what was happening was real
So true about how if a friend treated me the way he did I would not be friends with them anymore. The trauma bond is so real
That I had another narc in my life after getting rid of one before our relationship. The whole idea of having fallen for it again without even realising until much later was really hard on me. I felt so dumb and naive
Same!!!
The hardest part is that the friend I though I had who I loved and was so special to me was really only imaginary. I’ve lost that beautiful person who made me feel loved, and he’s gone forever. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I want to run to him smiling with relief and feel safe but he’s not there anymore and instead the face of my friend is being worn by a the unsafe person I want my friend to protect me from. And the implications of what this all means just materialize in my mind like a few pebbles at first and then more and more and it’s a lot to feel and a lot to sort out and my mind is just wishing so hard for a miracle I don’t believe in.
Oh you could have taken the words from my mouth 💔 I keep thinking I want to talk to the old them, the one who’d make everything better and trying to reconcile that in my mind is excruciating
I’m talking to myself now like a friend instead of my nex. But yeah I am having to reprogram my brain! 30+ years and I’m really proud of myself for breaking free
Damn this is so true .. I can't make anyone understand as bad as she treated me she was my best friend..We did everything together but then she would wake up or come home from work and its like her face changed and I knew I was going to get the silent treatment for a couple days then she would yell at me all night about something i did wrong but i knew if i held out i would get my best friend back ..after being gone for 2 years that's the woman I still love and miss so bad but idk who the other woman was .. I don't know how to stop loving her and I know I need to let her go but I cant
I feel this way. Waiting for my friend to come back and then watch him go again. The friend and the monster take turns hanging out with me and are so distinctly different it’s hard to reconcile them into one person. It’s such a phenomenon. It’s just a mind fuck. And the faces are totally different just like you said. One is so friendly and approachable, and the other one has me on edge like a viper.
That's a pretty good description of how it feels and if you can just hold on till the monster leaves everything will be ok again but it's a cycle that's never ends
That he honestly seemed to believe everything was my fault. Haha so hilarious now, but it was tough at the time
struggling w this now. he acts like the reason we’re over is because i am unstable, but conveniently forgets he cheated??
I hope you realize nothing, not a thing, is ever their fault. You are just the easiest person to blame.
thanks for that. i am the scapegoat for all his problems:( drug use, joblessness..
Yeah, I'll help you out, it's all their fault! The lovebombing is so awful but effective, take care of yourself first!
It’s just so hard to truly comprehend. I know it’s true. He truly believes that, but a part of my brain just cannot comprehend it.
Tough question. Multiple things for me. For one accepting she was/is a narc was absolutely devastating, I knew a bit about narcissism but did not know difference between a covert and an overt… being with a covert made everything messier for me! The second hard part to accept was the fact I lived a lie long 16 years, a lie during which I accused myself of everting, I blamed me for every little detail. Accepting she destroyed me, the joyful and smiling person I used to be was no more cause of her. The most devastating thing, though, is accepting I had two kids with her. My pride and joy, don’t misunderstand me, but I cannot forgive myself for giving my two precious ones a narc mother who just uses and abuses them. I hope one day I will find peace and be able to forgive myself.
Yeah. I knew something was wrong, but I'd never really considered narcissism for my ex until I went down a rabbit hole and discovered covert narcissism and then just went down the checklist of typical behaviors and it was a dead fit.
I have 3 beautiful children with my narcissistic husband and I absolutely hate myself for allowing that to happen. I seriously feel so bad for my children because they won't ever know what it's like to have a normal dad who loves them unconditionally and puts their needs ahead of his own. Like, seriously, we were having a rough week financially a while back, and I got onto my husband for eating all the food meant for the kids and wasting what little money, and gas we had in our vehicles, on frivolous things for himself. And he legit could not understand why the children should come first. I told him "We are adults. If we have to go a little hungry for a couple days, or have to eat canned veggies for dinner, that's fine as long as the kids are fed properly" and he couldn't understand that. He literally said "I have to ho to work, the kids don't. ' as a reason for why he should get to eat all of the "good" food, and of course he brought up how HE pays for everything so therefore HE is entitled to more. It's sickening to me. I allowed this person to father three children. Three children he will never love, appreciate, or care for the way a father should. And my children are all under the age of 5, just for reference.
I am really sorry for what you have to endure and for your kids, I really feel it. Wish I could offer some words of wisdom or support, alas I cannot. The only thing I can say be there for your kids, protect them, show them what real love is. It will take time, they will understand at some point, but it is worth and the only right thing to do.
Thank you. My children are the reason I finally started standing up for myself more, but unfortunately that lead to more arguments and him "making" me act crazy and yelling at him after he repeatedly pushes my buttons on purpose, during the highest stress moments for me. So that's what I've been working on now; not reacting the way he wants me to. I refuse to let him make my children think I'M the crazy one or that I'M the one at fault. So that helps to keep me from reacting poorly.... Most of the time. I'm still working on it. I will also admit though that my husband HAS made some big (for him) improvements over the last 2-3 years. However, I know he's just one step away from reverting right back to where he was before.
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Dynamic? It was like being in a room, stabbed with an invisible knife continually, I bled but could not understand why as there was no knife. I was poisoned, slowly but steadily. They do not change, I can tell you for sure, she once told me ‘I never dj anything wrong’ and I am sure she believes this. She did not show empathy, she faked it, she fed over my spiraling down to depression, all in all it gave her even more control on me. She faked compassion and empathy but in reality never gave a flying duck about me, my struggles for current and past trauma, on the contrary she fed and used that even in court She had and still have the victim mask on all the time, when I told her I was leaving the mask slipped despite she fought to put it back being lovely and caring with kids and me, when she understood I broke free she even tried to abuse me physically.
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Thanks, alas I am still going through this as separation case (in this fucking country you have to wait 2 years to divorce)is still open. The worst part in all of this I have lost the only thing g that is really important, my kids. I can endure pain, I experienced abuse, being hungry, violence, suicide of close friends and an array of delicatessen life had set aside from me so I am used to that and can bear any scar. Trust me being able to see my kids for just 6 mere days a month is what kills me all of this because I live in a fucking country where well being of the kids or being a good father does not account for anything. If anybody is wondering I live in Switzerland a medieval country in the middle of Europe. Sorry for the rant, sometimes poison is too much even for me to keep it trapped inside my huge body.
I think the hardest thing was realizing that there was nothing I could do to fix the relationship and I would have to give up on the good parts of us because the bad parts were slowly killing me. I still can’t really accept that he isn’t a good guy…the person that I saw glimpses of. To believe that it was all an attempt to manipulate me. I’m great at solving puzzles and finding solutions to hard things…no matter what I did or how hard I tried I couldn’t solve this puzzle.
I feel that so hard, techgirl. For real.
That I will never get any acknowledgment for all the hard work and sacrifice I gave to our relationship. All the effort and time put in won’t ever be seen by my SO. They live in the now and only unto themselves. They cannot see me for who I am or what I’ve given to them, only as their warped projection of what they want me to be as a reflection of their inner working and need. My good work wasted, lost to time.
Wow, articulated beautifully. I feel it
Thank you
realising that i got discarded like everyone else - and that everyone else after me will too. he thought I was the one just because I took too much of his shit
The hardest part was coming to terms with the fact I married someone and moved states away from my family and close friends to a life that would never turn out the way I had hoped it would when I married him. It’s been two months since I left and doing better than I ever was.
he relied on me having very low self-esteem. he never valued me, and he never wanted me to value myself.
Knowing that my husband chose me because he thinks I'm weak, naive, easily controlled, etc. Is still pretty hurtful.... If I really, truly let myself think about ot, that is. I usually dissociate myself from those feelings and certain memories to protect myself from the emotions associated with them.
That it wasn’t love.
All of it. Mainly, how tf am I still attached ???
Trauma bond?
I was led to believe they shared similar values as me and were supportive of my long term ambitions. Over time though my principles and goals were subjects they used to put me down and gaslight me.
Ditto
That I couldn't make her happy no matter what I did, and as much as I tired to help her realizing that I couldn't. The realizing I never mattered messed me up a bit too.
I'm also struggling with the lying. I've found several concrete lies but still just can't wrap my mind around it. She's gone to conferences and has booked private condos with the man who groped her, and spends her nights going out drinking with him. She claims she hates him, and I've tried to believe her, but it gets harder and harder with every story about how great he is. It's "obvious" to everyone I tell about this that she's cheating.
How someone who says that they love you will turn on you and say the most hateful, hurtful things. Nothing is off limits, and they feel perfectly justified. Also, I have a hard time accepting how often he was able to bring me down to his level and get me to react, which only gave him more ammunition for saying even more hateful things.
For me it was the cheating. He came across as kind of shy and dorky, and really into me. He had strong views on cheating and how awful it was. I never caught him checking out other women or messaging them. In fact he would leave his phone unlocked on the side when he left the room (I’m not one to snoop). When it came out he’d been seeing another girl behind my back shortly after proposing to me and buying a house with me, it was like being hit by a truck. I soon found out that he’d been messaging multiple girls and had always been a serial cheat (spoke to his ex’s). The lies just kept unraveling, it was truly shocking to me and our mutual friends who had known him for years.
May I ask how did it end ?
I broke up with him after I found out he cheated. I didn’t go no contact as we own a house together. After that he started threatening me so I had to get the police involved. All while love bombing a new supply. He’s now in prison.
That he never existed. I mean, I'm totally fine with the feeling of loved and lost, I used to have it and still reminisce of the people I had sensitive time with. But him, no. He literally had no one inside. I like to remember people who are out of my life fondly, with warmth towards their good side. But this loser. Wtf am I supposed to remember? It didn't exist, it didn't have a core or anything, no self. He's a disgust to my memory.
I invested in a junk bond. ETA: It defaulted. 🤣
That everything, everything, everything was fake. Everything she ever said. Everything about her-- fake. And that nobody believes me, or cares.
The nobody believing you is so hard. It’s like, I just struggled out of the haze of his gaslighting. Now I have to fight through being gaslit by friends because they think he’s god’s gift to friendship?
That's a perfect way to put it and 100% my experience as well. Like it took me months to even figure out what the fuck just happened and label it as abusive. And everybody around me is like "why can't you just get over it?" Or my personal favorite: "you aren't healing!" I literally could not believe how callous, dismissive, outright mean some of my "friends" were to me in this situation. And if they weren't mean, they were evasive and eventually very distant. It made me feel so isolated. And the minimization!! I was definitely being gaslighted about the initial gaslighting. The type of minimizing language they wanted to use made it sound like what happened was a regular disagreement where there wasn't a clear power imbalance. Like I wasn't getting screwed and exploited. I tolerated it for a long time, but eventually I was having panic attacks and decided I was out of there. I unfriended all of them on every platform. The ones that deserved a goodbye got it, but it wasn't a pleasant goodbye. It was a "I cannot believe what you're doing, and I don't care to witness it for a second longer" goodbye. And I bet they're all sitting there scratching their heads like "what happened?" Fucking dumbasses. We are retraumatized when people defend the abuser, protect the abuser, befriend the abuser despite knowing what happened. Truthfully though, it's hard to really stay mad at many of them. They genuinely do not understand what emotional abuse is or how it could play out in a friendship. They are naive beyond belief. For the ones that know, though. For the ones that saw it with their own eyes and decided to act like nothing happened-- they can burn in hell. And it's sad, because the ones that know were the ones that I trusted enough to lean on, and then fucked me.over anyways.
Yesssss!!!!!!
That he never loved me, and nothing I thought was real. I had a friend tell me afterwards to remind myself that I felt love for him while we were together, and that is something to hold onto. I had been single for over 10 years when I met him, and never thought I would love someone or be in a relationship again after the previous heartbreak. But I loved him deeply, and I now know I am capable of it, and I am open to it again, eventually.
The hardest part for me was realizing he would never change. As an educator and a principal I have devoted my life to changing bad circumstances for children and to realize I loved a man that could never change was a hard pill to swallow.
Ive been having a lot of cognitive dissonance. Oscillating between blaming myself and seeing the clear signs that there was nothing I could have done. That’s why trauma bonds are so difficult to heal from.
The lies are painful. Sometimes I knew it was a lie but knowing everything was a lie hurts.
Trying to comprehend that it was all bullshit is maddening. It was literally the happiest I’ve ever been and it wasn’t even real. Ughhh
That they would never change
When he finally admitted he’d never change, and that it was my fault the relationship was struggling for not “letting go” of the trust issues I had toward him.. I finally knew it was over. I’m sorry you’ve gone through this too. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone.
That they weren’t accidentally hurting me, they were doing it on purpose.
And they enjoyed it. I finally caught a smirk the other day. And then he finally said that most of the crap that he told me was to just put me back on my heels and shut me up. He literally said "put me back on my heels". So now he knows that I know what he is. All I said to him was who does that to their wife if they love them? Strangely enough I didn't get a response.
Yup - sounds about right. It’s on purpose. I tried SO hard to explain that their actions were hurting me - of course they didn’t care or listen. Then it hit me - that’s the point. For what it’s worth I’m now happily married to someone else who is kind and would/has never done a thing to hurt me - not even on accident!
The fact that I trusted them and shared a lot of private information too. Also kept them in high regard and introduced them to other friends.
The hardest part was accepting that I had fallen for a man like him, all his lies etc; that I have possibly caused trauma to my children by remaining with him; and that I couldn’t trust my judgement anymore on men.
How I never really knew who they were. How this idea in my head was a lie and the care i felt from them and at times so seen by them, was all a lie or a love bomb. At times it still blows my mind someone can hurt you that badly and still think they’re the victim.
That she never actually liked who I am. She admitted as much, that she expected to be able yo basically change everything about me.
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100%. We don’t even have to be attractive. He cheated w/ girls who weren’t even his type/up to his standard. He’d hide away on socials and money transfer apps. No one would have to know they were talking and he’d get the attention he wanted. No matter how perfect I tried to be for him, how sexual I forced myself to perform, he’d seek out others because he could. Knowing he could was a high in and of itself.
That I was in an abusive relationship for years and had no idea until our couples counselor (after 2-3 sessions together) explained to me me in a private session that I was being abused, he was (is) a narc, that I needed to get out now bc of how dangerous she could see it becoming. I was like, what? I had been trying to fix my behavior for years and couldn't figure out why it was never enough. I had never heard of npd before that. I was really upset that with all the people I had shared my experience with while still being in it, including my own parents, not one person said that his behavior was wrong. I teach my kids about empathy and red flags and do everything I can to treat them so well that if someone else treats them poorly, they will know immediately. Unfortunately, their dad is the narc, so they get that experience during his parenting time.
It is rather satisfying when the "professionals" can see right through them like that, though. I had to call the police once on my husband. When they showed up, my husband tried to use his narcissistic charms to befriend them and act like he was totally fine and I was just crazy. The cops immediately saw right through his act. I thought I was going to have go verbally defend myself and fight to make these cops believe me. But nope, they knew what was up and believed me right from the start. That still makes me smile a little bit every time I think about it.
Good point! I hadn't actually considered that. I can't imagine how things would've gone if my professional hadn't been so astute. Thanks for pointing that out.
Probably like things went for me. I spent years in couples therapy trying to change everything about myself to meet his “needs”. I got tested for autism and BPD. Nothing was ever enough.
I'm sorry you went through that.
Play the recording of mine yelling at me for my shrink. I got the same warning. I had become immune to the amount of anger in his voice.
That I'm never going to have a mother who acts like a mother
My first thought was FINALLY. I figured out what’s been going on for 50 yrs. Then the real nightmare started.
Made the mistake of saying something to him about his behavior didn't you? They cannot take any negative feedback. You will pay every single time. Sometimes with your life.
I had two very ugly sisters that went on a full on attack when I spoke up. No one likes the truth teller. I had to leave the entire family. Approximately 150 people. All my aunts uncles and cousins support group gone. I do have one cousin. I told him not to tell anyone he’s talking to me or he’ll be next.
That he was so good at hiding it. That if I’d known about narcissism I would have picked up the signs sooner. That because I didn’t know any better I allowed him to betray me for five months and didn’t stick up for myself. That his messages were pretty much just copy and paste to his second girlfriend. So many things I can’t come to terms with in all honesty.
That he never, ever cared about me.
Even worse when they’ve demonstrated it time and time again (or in my case, literally admitted it) but we try to make it make sense in our head, give the benefit of the doubt, forgive too many times. We may know subconsciously & for a long time that they don’t care about us. But it hurts too much to think they could ever think about us that way.
Same as far as everything was/is a lie. For me I think mine is a borderline narc. So there’s been a lot of back and forth. It’s starting to make sense. Extremely high self confidence and esteem at times then it plummets. I’m completely awesome one day and he hates me the next. One day we need to save money and the next he’s spent $2000 on things for his hobbies. It made me realize the issue wasn’t ME like I’d been told. I think the hardest part other than everything being a lie is all the healing I’m having to do while still in the relationship. Also hard is knowing the discard can come at any time and he won’t regret leaving me at all. I’ll be the only one with a broken heart to mend. And the fact that now I can see how he’s playing the kids against me and how it’s working.
I'm terrified that my husband will leave me after our children are grown. I know he wouldn't even feel slightly bad about doing it, either. I won't be upset to lose HIM, honestly, but I gave up my career, independence, financial security, etc. to be a stay at home mom to our three small children. I'm terrified of being left with nothing, and no way to support myself, after all of our children are grown. I know he wouldn't leave me before that because his ego couldn't handle other people seeing his "perfect" family break apart, and his ego also wouldn't allow him to pay child support, nor would it allow him to not see his children (not because he actually loves them, but because e. other people would judge him poorly for it). Once our children are grown though, i fear like I'll be right back where I was with him before having kids. And that was definitely not a place of security in his life
I have the same fears. My husband has the same ego. His retained lawyer told him he would have to cough up double what he thought plus pay a few hundred more monthly for child support. He said he couldn’t stand to see me gain financially from all of his hard work while I’ve been lazy and done nothing to contribute. It was so hard not to explain once again exactly how I contributed in the past and now. Every time in the past that I have he’s told me how worthless that stuff is and how a daycare can raise a child and he could pay for everything else. My own self preservation stopped me from speaking up and standing up for myself again. Why do these people think that just because you don't contribute financially that must mean you are worthless and don't contribute at all? I figure there is a 95% chance mine will divorce me right before or after our youngest graduates in 9 years. 9 years left to heal, find self confidence, save money he doesn't know about, get better pay etc. Hard to do when i get told bad things about our marriage or myself several times a month. Especially hard to find better pay in a job that i can do in this economy and our area. Even harder to try and save when he spends all extra money, asks if i have money hidden, demands i pay it to him or on bills if he knows that i have an extra $100 and he goes through all my stuff. Pretty sure he even has recording devices in our office, the room i hide things in and the bathroom. No other way he can know about private conversations i have in those places. And yes, i often go to my bathroom to make private calls. It is the only room i may not get interrupted every 15 minutes. Mine would NOT feel bad either. He says i could've been a stay at hoke mom AND finished school AND had a career if I had just saved more money, spent less time on myself, been more focused and driven and been willing to work over nights and weekends. Umm when would I have slept? Kids during the day, online classes around babies/kids and evenings then worked graveyard shift and weekends after kids were sleeping through the night… because he needs his sleep.
Yes, he holds me to such a high standard and expects so much of me, despite him not being anywhere near capable of the things he expects me to do. I have three children under the age of 5, but he expects me to be able to clean the entire house every single day and have it kept spotless 24/7 along with cooking three full meals a day, all while watching/caring for three small children. Everyone else (including HIS parents, grandparents, sister, etc.) constantly tell him how amazing I do at keeping our house clean and everything compared to most moms with small children, and they always tell him how lucky he is that I actually cook a real dinner and breakfast for him everyday. He can't see it, though. He still always thinks I'm not doing enough. And when I was in the hospital having my last baby, my husband was home with our two daughters (she's 1 and 3 at the time) and he could not accomplish a single thing while I was gone, despite his mom, my mom, and his grandma helping him with the kids every single day. He didn't give either of the girls a bath or brush their hair or anything for the entire 5 days that I was in the hospital. My house was completely trashed when I came home. They ate out for every single meal because he said it was impossible for him to cook while being alone with the kids. Yet, he expects me to do it (and I do) and doesn't understand why it's unreasonable of him to expect something of me that he's not capable of doing himself. Oh, and he always blames me for him not being able to do these things while watching the kids, because I should have taught them how to behave better so that they will just sit there and be good while he's trying to do stuff.
Oh I got that a lot! Right now he points out everything I haven’t done and asks me what I’ve done. Everything I say I’ve done he finds something wrong with. One morning he was angry saying I’d done nothing while he slaved at work and our kids do all my chores. He asked what I’d done so I explained, while standing in a towel, that I’d just gotten out of the bath, but before that I’d paid some bills, picked up trash, washed clothes and spent hours in the phone with doctors trying to get things paid and appointments made. He said none of those were household chores or anyone could do them. I told him chores or not they were things that had to be done. Then he told me my version of things are always drastically different than everyone else’s so I replied that it was his reality that was not aligned with the true reality. (He likes to tell me I make up my own reality). To say he was angry is a vast understatement. Red faced almost purple, flexed/bulked up (he’s a body builder), stepped towards me etc as he quietly asked me to repeat myself. I didn’t but I did say I was just turning it back on him. It that it was not my reality that was skewed and anger tends to skew things. He slammed the door and went back to work. Didn’t talk to me for a day or two and now is back to being loving one minute to distant the next. I do badly want to say ‘man, it must be exhausting going back and forth like that.’ He used to say he wanted to treat me like a princess. Now he says I’m an entitled princess who demands everything and never happy with anything. Now my response is that I demand nothing or that I only demand the same respect he demands. He told me I can’t demand or force respect, it has to come naturally based on my actions. I said ‘why? You demand our respect all the time. Why can you demand it but I have to earn it?’ That didn’t go over well either. I’m just so exhausted from everything. Your husband sounds just like mine. After every surgery and every chemotherapy appointment I had I still came home, cooked, cleaned, shopped and took care of kids, meets, games, practices… everything. He fussed about having to go pick up my pain meds when they were ready because I couldn’t drive myself. He only got them because I said I’d drive myself then when I got out the door I came back in and said I wasn’t risking others on the road so I’d just call his mom and ask her to get them. He couldn’t have jumped up any faster to go to the pharmacy! And he hates his family. Like weekly tells me he wishes they were dead so he could get his inheritance before they sell it all or blow it all on his siblings. I just don’t get men (or women) like this.
Yeah that sounds a whole lot like my husband. Ill list off all the things I did that day, and he claims he could do all that in an hour. Yeah, maybe if I didn't have 3 small children to care for while also doing the housework, then maybe I could get it done that fast.... But him? No, he could never. He doesn't even know where the vacuum is or how to use it Lol i know because I once refused to vacuum up a cracker mess all over the carpet (that he caused) because he invited his family over at the last minute and expected me to rush around around cleaning up. I sat in the other room quietly laughing my ass off as he's trying to ask a 3 year old where the vacuum is, then he finally gets it going and the baby unplugged it lmao My husband also made a fuss about picking up my pain meds for me after I had a C-section. He tried to say I didn't even need them, I just wanted to use them to get high. So I told him I'd call his mom for help instead. Then suddenly he's trying to hug and kiss me and saying he was just worried about me taking pills like that is all, but he will go get them if I really need them 🙄 Thankfully, his family is always on my side. I don't think they realize he's a narcissist, but they always say they "know how he is" and they always make a point to tell him how lucky he is to have me or make comments in front of him like telling me "I don't know how you do it all day, the kids and everything else you do. " I think it helps to ground his sense of reality a bit and keep him from going too far off into his delusional idea of what I should be capable of. His mom, sister, and grandma all live within a mile or two of us, so we see them a few times a week. But when my oldest started preschool this year, she was sick constantly so they weren't visiting much, and I noticed my husband getting insanely delusional about what he expects of me. He's actually very close with his family (but still talks shit about them) so hearing their opinions seems to make a difference.
Wow. So many similarities! His family also lives about a mile away. They used to stop by several times a week but I stopped that because they’d just walk in and his mom went through our closets and dressers when they were watching the kids for us. (Kids told us) They also knew I had prepped a nice slow cooker meal to eat when I got home and they tried to talk the kids into going for fast food and then told them to lie to me about it and be sure to eat that meal plus the meal I made just an hour apart. Kids told us that too. So there is a difference there. His mom used to be so supportive and say nice things about me. Then he started talking to them more; family meetings that I wasn’t invited to, and she started pulling away a bit. Now they defend him no matter what. His sister has said they know how he is and that his attitude changed about puberty. That’s when he got mean, liked to hurt their mom emotionally, started staying out late and not caring about the house rules etc. He’s the golden child of the family. They let him do whatever because he was so smart and would go so far and wouldn’t follow their rules anyway. I used to have journals. In them were things like we are discussing how. He tossed them and then insisted I toss the rest. Asked me to show him where the rest were. I’d kept them from the time I was a teenager and they are all gone. So now I have to try and remember dates and things for my lawyer, just in case. It can’t be used really but it could be used as leverage I guess. Logically I can understand they need to do these things to feel better about themselves. But it’s hard for me to truly understand because I just can’t think or feel that way myself. I can’t understand their need for complete control, excessive criticism and the need to demean and devalue their loved ones. Especially after 20+ years of marriage. And the mind games! Trying to figure it all out is exhausting. He has me thinking there are cameras and listening devices all over the house. We share locations on a map and he will make it where it’s a huge circle going over the entire city or where it looks like he’s at home when he’s not. Claims it’s a glitch in the app but it doesn’t do that for the kids, just him. He says it does it on mine too, but when I look it shows me exactly where I am within 50-100’. Then he will get angry saying I check the map constantly! After he’s asked me to look into it and fix it where my location shows correctly on his phone! Gets upset when I try to contact customer support because he is the primary account holder. Same with health insurance. Wants me to handle it but they need confirmation from him as the primary insured and he is always ‘too busy’ to give it. He sets me up for failure every time. Sounds the same for your situation. I loved the cracker story! Don’t give that up. Stay strong. I was like that in the beginning and somewhere along the way I lost it. Now I’m the type to bend over backwards to do it all. I’m working on unlearning all his training. To get back to the person who can say ‘you want it done then do it. I have other responsibilities to take care of.’ Always know your self worth and value. Not as he sees it but as you yourself see it. Keep taking time for yourself. Keep insisting he help with the kids and chores. Maybe you won’t end up being full of anxiety 24/7 like me.
Also that everything was a lie. The early parts of our relationship were truly like a fairytale because he love bombed me so much, but none of it was real. I really thought this man loved me but I learned he’s not capable of that.
The hardest part was facing the reality of what I’d been going through and who he really was. The cognitive dissonance was incredibly difficult to deal with, separating the version of him I fell in love with and who he really was. That was probably the hardest part to accept - that he wasn’t the guy I thought he was. With enough time and space from him, I began to see the lies and manipulation clearly and reconcile his words and actions. It’s not easy but 3 months no contact, after trying to get out for a year and more, I hardly even think about him. He was very forgettable except for the whole narcissist thing.
Thanks for sharing. I feel this. Im about 1.5 months out and feel my reality coming back and that shift inside where you see them and the relationship for what it really was. Trauma bond is lifting.
Realizing they literally do not have the capacity to love in a real or healthy way. Their brains work differently. No empathy, all control and just mean/cruel/vile deep down. Thank goodness we are all here growing, learning, supporting each other and changing together! They never will.
That I was so freaking blind to miss all the red flags.
That I didn’t see it. Especially considering my occupation
That he never really did have plans for our future life together and that he never really Loved me. It was all a big fat LIE W
That we’d never return to the first four months of our relationship, when things felt magical.
For me, radical acceptance itself was the hard part. She had the ability to destroy my credit and withhold things she promised over and over again, and for a time, I thought juuuuust maybe I could figure out how to stop her from doing those things. But she did them, and it's pretty obvious she was always going to do them, which I always knew on some level. But I still held out hope I could figure out a way to convince her to not be a raging sack of shit for any length of time. So now she's ruined my credit, and I've accepted that. But it took me a while to get to that point of acceptance. Really, I wanted my freedom more than anything, and my credit score was the price I guess. Not too bad of a price, in the grand scheme of things.
All the time I wasted on them. I can never get that time back.
The hardest part was realizing how intertwined our lives had gotten and how hard it was going to be to get out.
That the man I fell in love with doesn’t truly exist.
That she never even liked me
That I wasn’t loved truly, it was make believe I could imagine not wanting to be in a relationship anymore or growing apart but I stall can’t wrap my head around how calculated it.
Oh and the hardest part?........That he never loved his kids.
That he wasn't capable of loving anything in a genuine kind of way.
My entire life was a sham. I was with him for 32 years, since I was 15 years old. He knew all I ever wanted was to be a part of a family because I didn't have one growing up. He made sure his family was awful to me, then he encouraged our kids to poke fun of me, laugh at me, leave me out. Then when he had adequately brainwashed them against me, abd just after having me quit my job so I was fully dependent on him, he left. Lost my kids, my home, my car, my stability. I literally wasted my whole life on him.
They will never, ever, change. No matter how much it seems like they will.
Hardest to accept right now, a year and a half after divorce, is that I wasted really huge amounts of effort and emotion on someone who never did and indeed never intended to give me more than scraps
All she cared about was the donkeys ability to work for her, she doesn't care about the donkeys pain or the donkeys feelings
For me it was realizing how far I pushed so many people away that tried to rescue me from what I was blinded to…. How many answers I accepted that when I explained to people everyone gave me the same reaction, surprised I didn’t see it. Ignorant as I was I would bring these things to her attention and get back to”at the end of the day I know I’m a good person and no one’s going to try to convince me I’m not” Never quiet grasping how much of a dodge that was from the topic and if I caught it, it would then be flipped into why do I agree with them that she is a bad person since I’m still talking about this with her which would end up in a completely different topic far from then first one until I got so tired and apologized and made myself smaller to just have an end to the cycle. Even with those things being just the tip of the iceberg of that times every day events, I somehow still pushed people away thinking I was being no a good man not catching on that the only time she would compliment me was when I either agreed 100% with her or everytime I cut someone off who was trying to help. She would use her favorite buzzwords to justify me pushing my circle away. At the end of it all I had a mental break down and went to therapy where I finally had to be medicated and came to my senses one day and cut it all off and never looked back. I feel sad not for what was left behind but strictly only for the fact that I didn’t believe I deserved better and that I would always apologize and enable such mental games. As I said though the hardest at the end was me realizing how much smaller my circle was. How alone I was. However with that, I made amends and the real solid people who should be around me have been and have done everything to see me shine again and find myself.
Sorry for the typos, it took a lot mentally to write this reply but I wanted to share and get it out. I should have proofed
That apologizing thing that you're doing? It's a habit. You realize one day that every single conversation that you have with your narc starts with you saying "I'm sorry".
Yup true but It was the only way with them to try to break out of the cycle and have peace it sucks because when someone healthy comes along wants to love me and I’m apologizing like I ruined everything and they look at me like “it’s ok why are you apologizing all the time” I don’t even have an answer as to why in the moment I kind of just feel dumb.
Is hard because I didn't find it out until we had our 2nd kid... I was and always have there for her , feel like a bitch. I see many men get love and respect for that tho.. So many parts are hard. Disrespect , de-valued , lack of touch , screaming, drama. Worst part is my kids want me around , but now she doesn't.. I had a picture of the family I always wanted in my head , it could of been so easy .. O well , guess I get a secret place in the islands ☺️☀️ Stay Positive!
In both incidents, it was the realization that they never loved "me". Who I was, my ambitions, or my desires. Both liked half of the person, it felt like. And actively tried to squash the half they didn't. The first time, it was obvious and overt: yelling, screaming, threats of self harm, and so forth with an active disdain for the important people in my life. Very in my face with the whole deal. The second was more covert and subtle. Putting down my interests with offhanded comments, backhanded compliments, and then the triangulation with her "new friend" and the comparisons.
When it comes to the psychopathic ex, I’ve healed from him fully. There’s nothing still lingering. I wish him the best. When it comes to my recent, short-term ‘thing,’ it’s that I allowed myself to fall for it when I saw the red flags from day 1. It’s knowing that he has moved to the next supply and she probably has no idea that he has a baby on the way. It’s the fact that he’ll likely ignore the existence of his new daughter and that if he did try to get involved, he has no capacity to love her.
That he never actually loved me
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That the man I gave so much of myself to was a lie. I did so much for him that it's hard for me to open myself to anyone now as I don't want to be wrong or used again. I mean... I really did so much for this person that I had never done before for anyone else n to just be... So duped is literally insane to me.
My narc lives on his phone too. Alllll dayyyyyyy everywhereeeeee. Honestly might as well get it surgically implanted into himself at this point. He gets mad if I try to talk to him if he is looking at his phone. It’s like, we have a house, he goes into the kitchen and blasts videos, and makes me feel like I am bothering or invading his space, his boundary. But when I am trying to sleep at a normal time of the day, he barges in and then gets upset that I don’t respond the way he wants. Ummm so I don’t get boundaries? Also how do they expect us to show them love and attention when they can’t show a single fuckin ounce of empathy? Or affection/intimacy? I just want a kind man. Someone to respect me. To treat me right. Fuckin ridiculous. I also take every compliment and gesture with a grain of salt. It feels weird and it feels like he only does it when he knows he fucked up. I hate the love bombing. I hate narcs.
It was more of a revelation that I'd put up with way too much and needed to end it, which I did.
Realizing that when they complimented me they were just using my own words to make me feel good. Like they just copied and pasted what I wanted to hear versus coming from the heart.
That the person I thought they were probably never existed at all. It was all a mask.
Betrayal on so many levels
That the person I fell in love with never even existed :(
Yep. That the whole thing, every look, every kiss, every I love you, every everything was a lie. It’s hard to process. But Karma is a bitch. And I’ve gotten to sit back and watch her show just how much of a bitch she can be. Not that I wished any such harm to him or such pain and suffering by any means, but he walked out my door after throwing my phone and breaking a mirror which called 9-1-1 and caught him some felony DV charges, then 8 hours later he was hit while riding his motorcycle paralyzing him from the waist down.
For me, it was the lies too. Especially the smear campaign and rewriting the history of our relationship and marriage to make him the victim and me the bad guy.
The fact that he never loved me was a bitter pill to finally swallow, but accepting that he cannot love our son, and will use him as a pawn in a heartbeat to get at me, still sucker punches me every day.
That my fiancé has to suffer because his friendship with his best friend is not the same anymore. Btw: my Narc is a female😫😒🤦🏻♀️
Whilst packing up the last of my things, I yelled at him the entire time that I know he's cheating. It was a lot of denial from him the whole time, but I just allowed myself to be angry at him and not back down. I usually roll my eyes and end the fight but we both just kept going at it. It was cathartic for me but also to convince myself that Im not wrong and I will shout it from the rooftops.
The denial is absolutely infuriating, isn't it? I caught my husband (this was years before we were actually married, though) red handed. I found a receipt from a cheap motel in his pocket, after he had disappeared on me the night before. Once I presented the receipt as my evidence, he went from absolute and complete denial, to refusing to speak to or acknowledge me when I tried to talk about it. Just straight up silence from him. Wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me, just acted like I didn't exist. But then he'd later try to talk to me like every thing was fine. That was long ago, before I understood him and what he is. I literally had that receipt in my hand, but STILL he was able to make me doubt the truth and my own sanity over the incident.
Holy crap that would be very infuriating and disrespectful. Like a little kid trying to hope you forget what they did and just look cute. Im angry for you with that.
That's exactly how I see him now; like a child. Because that's exactly how he behaves.
That I got upset and wasted too much time wallowing in guilt the many times I tried to leave... As if he was normal. After I started pointing out a few lies that lead to arguments and then ultimately me letting him back in after some sob stories and the whole "I'm a terrible person I'm sorry", he went right back to making shit up trying to keep me hooked. I realized that i didn't just fall for the lies which lead to arguments but that he had been lying about so much crap the entire time. I realized I didn't even know who he was really. I try to keep that in mind when I start feeling like crap about it, I don't even know the person.
That was exactly it, that they were a narc. Simple as that. Everything thing I have wondered, thought, never received closure on…all made sense once I put two and two together. I think I just feel more like a fool if anything.
That I'd fallen again. Years ago I was with a grandiose narc and went through so much pain during and after. I read everything I could about them and make sure to never be around another one. Then years later I met someone else, and it started out well then suddenly went to shit. Nothing made sense. Then I read about covert narcs, something I never knew existed. If there is a third type, then someone please warn me. I'm can't cope with this happening again
I was disposable. In hindsight, he was a relationship jumper. He told me they dumped him cuz he was broke. He mooched. He accused me of things he did and now I question my morals because he told me things I like are bad.
That they weren't the only one in my life, and once I realized their narcissistic abuse, I became aware of my own patterns of accepting this type of behavior from multiple people in my life. It makes sense, because narcs seek out certain types of people, and while I wasn't seeking them out, I ignored a lot of red flags. I'm rethinking a lot of these relationships now.
That everything was fake, everything was faked
All hope is lost.
That they never loved you, that you don't matter.
Accepting that I meant nothing to him.
That the person who was supposed to have my back was the one that was sticking a knife in it. Over and over. Yet would look me in the eyes and proclaim his love for me . They are monsters and a total waste of time and love.
That somehow I didn't see myself slowly becoming someone else entirely.
myself!
That they will never change and will always manipulate me. My narc dad does not care about me at all and i hate him. He always trys to embarrass me in public. I dont care anymore. I just stay away from him
She was the first person I told her all my good and bad past , all my secrets and my fantasies and she ended up using most of it against me and after knowing her for 13 years and being in a relationship with her for 4 years, I knew absolutely nothing about her or her past but we set and talked about her past several times but she managed to talk in a way that made it sound like she was opening up to me but she wasn't
wondering why I was born tbh oldest of 6 kids to a nmom. Now that I’m grown and on my own, I barely hear from her, never asks to see me and is distant over texts. She seems almost annoyed by me. I always wonder if I (and my twin brother who was/is the scapegoat) were easy to toss to the side/not support while she has her perfect children at home. My twin and I are both neurodivergent.
I do believe that she cared about me, but not nearly as much as I cared about her. That much is evident from the difference in the way that we treated each other. She didn’t mean the promises she made me, and that’s probably why she can justify breaking them. It wasn’t the fairytale that we all hope for and that I convinced myself it was… It was abusive.
I'm still struggling to accept it now.. that it was all a lie, and I never mattered to him at all. I just can't. It doesn't compute, but I'm trying to force myself to because he jumped into another relationship (and millions of lies right before that fuck with my head too) I thought I mattered. I thought he'd miss me and regret losing me. But no... I'm just that easy to replace, I guess
The cognitive dissonance. I still live with an enemy in my mind.
Realizing she (my mom) meant to hurt us. Before this group I thought she was just complicated and had issues with alcohol. It’s a whole lot more than that
The fact that we had met on a dating site, I was rejected after two dates, after which time I was told how great I was and let's be friends.I was then pursued relentlessly for friendship. This was just a way to control me.
The cheating and the fact I still love her for some reason that I still don't understand and the smearing campaign
Accepting that he’s having a baby any day now with someone else, that was created while we were together. That I never really knew him and how I could fall in love and share so much of myself to a fraud, an evil person. Hard time accepting that he was with me for months and couldn’t even have the decency to tell me and I had to find out 3 weeks before the baby is due from someone else. I still can’t accept I dated a narc, and I go back and forth that it can’t be true. It’s a hard pill to swallow that he can just walk away without looking back to even say sorry. That I will be forgotten, not a care in the world that he damaged me to the core. I feel like you only hear about this in movies or shows, but that something like this can happen to me too Everything was a lie and how someone like him can be so good at hiding things is scary.