Back and forth w/ a Narcissist

[Newtotheblogthing]

I believe I have been involved with an charming, charismatic, handsome AND abusive narcissist for about 6 1/2 years. We were in a committed relationship until 3 1/2 years ago and since then it's been back and forth. He was in a relationship with someone else for 6 months and every time something went wrong he called me and I would get sucked back in.

 

In the last year, we have been like a couple, spending at least 4/5 nights a week together, doing everything together but he would never say we were together. I would talk to his parents, we talk about taking a trip but I would try to talk what our relationship really was or where it was going and he would shut me down, often making me feel like I was delusional for thinking anything else.

 

I became "crazy" I would look in his phone, find out he had texted his ex, I would try to talk about it, express my feelings and he did not want to hear a word about it. It was always, "I don't need this!" "I worked all day, I am tired" etc.. . I believe he used me, will never recognize it and will never admit his part or emotional abuse. (Worse when he drank: put downs, slights, never validating my feelings, and I have had bruises on my arms from him grabbing me, pushing me) He would make light of it later but I would never get a real apology or acknowledgement that it just wasn't the way you treat someone you supposedly love. Communication about feelings was ZERO unless he was angry or I upset him. It was NEVER his fault.

 

I guess my question is has anyone been through something like this and how do I truly move on because even after all of this, I don't want to. I know I HAVE to but I feel so completely disgusted for thinking he loved me but it's as if I have to believe it was real. I feel worthless and even more so now that I believe he is trying to reconnect with the other ex.

 

Is it years of being broken down and feeling like I don't really matter. Why am I hanging on to the idea vs. the reality? How can I really cut him out and start believing I deserve better? Every time he came back to me, I thought, "See I do matter, I am special". Will I ever understand? I am starting to believe I am addicted to this relationship. He never really wanted to let me go and I thought that meant something.

 

Has anyone gone through something similiar? Thanks for listening..

[worlybear]

Yes.

In a similar but not quite the same way as my narcissistic STBXH didn't bother to return and try to save our marriage.

But I look back on many years of apportioning blame(when anything didn't suit/work out it was always my fault!)

And for years- I believed it!

Now, 2 yrs on, I am beginning to re-build my confidence, meet people and express my own opinions, rather than be a mouthpiece for his.

I smiled when I read your post as it could've been my STBXH you were describing-"Too busy to deal with this, too stressed after work etc"

And I ,struggled on,juggling all the balls in the air, keeping thingsgoing, whilst he wallowed in bitterness and more than a glass of whiskey.

It is very,very,hard to throw off the shackles -and I suspect you have convinced yourself you are less than he is.

Time for a new mindset!

Kick him into touch and get yourself a new life, where you're allowed to breathe again!

It will get better and you deserve more than he offers you!

Hugs:bunny::bunny:

[Newtotheblogthing]

Thanks for your post and I am glad to know it does get better even though at the moment I still feel stuck.. I keep wanting an apology or acknowledgement but I doubt it will ever come. I just keep thinking after all of these years he really doesn't care, how could he do that to me type of thing. I have cut all ties and hope to feel better and less "'attached" as time goes on. Also, feel less 'how could he do that to me' and more 'what can i do to improve my situation and move forward'!!

[phillyfan]

DUDE you need to see the problem here is that you are being treated like sh*t - yea, u r rite there - but you are missin the real problem. The ONE PERSON truly 2 blame for treatin u like sh*t is URSELF.

 

YOU are letting some guy crap on you repeatedly. Now it mite b a guy, it mite b ur boss, it mite be ur mom that u let treat u like sh*t, but point is, YOU let whoeva, wateva, treat u like sh*t. If u even get away from this dude u'll let some otha joker do the same, treat u like nothin, so u need to sort this out now, and u look hard at urself and say, why wud I treat myself like sh*t. Do u get what I am sayin? This dude is just a way for u to hurt urself - kick the joker to the kerb n sort out what is goin on.

 

U r worth the world girl u rememba that.

[Whimsical_Ninja]

I come from a family of textbook narcissists and my ex-husband was really no exception. It was a classic case of me being attracted to the unhealthy personalities I grew up with.

 

My ex:

 

1.) Only wanted to hear positive things about himself, but never anything critical no matter how I approached it. He was amazing at invalidating how I felt, turning it around on me, and making the simplest conflict into a head trip of contradiction and denial. He was brilliant at guilt tripping me for having hurt feelings about anything, and getting me to question my emotional state.

 

2.) Would punish me for upsetting him by cutting off emotionally, going cold, ignoring me, and playing victim. He had a knack for playing the innocent child when it suited him, and behaved as if I was a nasty bully for daring to speak up about things he didn't agree with.

 

3.) Would come out with romantic expressions out of nowhere, usually aggressive and he'd use excessively showy language. At first I found it romantic, but over time it became really uncomfortable because it was like he was imitating something from a movie or reading from a script.

 

4.) Would never do anything for me unless it meant he would be showered with compliments and praise, and even excessive amounts of praise never seemed to be enough. If he wouldn't be thanked or given reward for things, he just didn't do them. It was not about making me happy, it was about boosting his ego. If I failed to gush over things he did, he would get sullen and cold.

 

He also seem to hold me responsible for the health of his ego. If he felt bad about himself, it was MY fault. If I felt bad about anything, this was also my fault.

 

5.) It was never his fault. He never took personal responsibility. He would feign it sometimes to keep peace, but he never followed up or stayed true to it. I remember one particular instance that speaks volumes.

 

He took a temp job teaching kids to use computers at his father's school. He was trying to teach a group of kids between the ages of 6-8 a simple three-step command. He showed them how on a Tuesday, and was extremely pissed off that only one child remembered it the next day. He declared the one child who remembered to be 'good', and the other children to be 'bad'. These were children! Instead of researching things like "Techniques to teach young children' or asking other teachers for advice, he just washed his hands of it and proclaimed these were just stupid, impossible children. AFTER ONE WEEK.

 

He also had a knack for putting all the choice making into my hands, and then turning around to say I was a controlling bully when it suited him. For instance, if we were choosing a concert to go to. He would show favor to a certain artist, but he'd say "Whatever you want to see". He'd keep clicking on the same artist and making commentary about that band, but he'd say "You choose, whatever you want". So I'd be the one to say "Okay, lets go see this band", and I'd choose the one he'd been fawning over. He'd do this with practically everything, so no matter what it was always me who made the choice.

 

So then, when it suited him, it gave him the power to claim he didn't actually want to see that band, or go to that place, or hang out with those people, because it was always ME who made the vocal, final choice. It allowed him to call me controlling and a bully, and I really thought I was going crazy because in truth, I really HAD been the one to make all the choices. It's the kind of stuff that can drive even the most well adjusted person into absolute madness.

 

6.) His needs and wants seem to change on a whim, but instead of asserting himself and speaking to me, he just expected me to 'know'. He wouldn't tell me what he wanted or needed outright, but he'd still treat me coldly if I failed to meet those needs. He blamed me for this. It was my job to know, it was not his job to tell me anything.

 

 

7.) He pretended he was non-judgmental, but he was extremely distracted with appearances and how other people saw him, especially people he envied or aspired to be like. He also seemed to truly believe there were people in the world who were just 'better' than others.

 

8.) He cheated and left me overnight, cut off without explaining why he did. He ran up over $750 in overdraft fees on our joint bank account the week after he left, and all the warning notices came to me. It showed his debit charges, and he had taken this girl to all of 'our' places, all within the first week after he left. He even took her to locations that he knew had been special for me that I had shared with him and him alone. He did this and many more things.

 

On the phone one night when I was just asking him to please send me a check for his bills so I didn't have to go into my own debt, he just talked circles around me. I asked him "How can you sleep at night after all this?".

 

He said "I can sleep because I'm happy".

 

My ex was never physically aggressive toward me, he was the type to make someone pay in very underhanded, passive ways. By the end of our marriage, I really thought I was some crazy, overbearing, nasty b***h because, like I said, he was brilliant at playing victim and passing responsibility to me.

 

He just seemed to have no real understanding of empathy, and got really agitated if I suggested that sometimes it helped to put yourself in someone else's shoes. It actually got him extremely irritated and bothered.

 

My family is like this too, and always has been. Hence, it was all I ever knew. My ex was outwardly very soft spoken and seemingly polite, and that's the thing with narcissist and sociopaths, they can imitate anyone they want to and BE anyone they feel like being.

 

Later on, I realized that he was always a different persona depending on who he hung around with, and he was a master at telling people what they wanted to hear. He rarely showed any lasting remorse when it became clear he had hurt someone's feelings, especially mine.

 

I could go on and on here, suffice it to say being in that relationship was so incredibly destructive for me. When I met him, I was very healthy, confident, happy with myself, active, and upbeat. Over the four years I was with him, I degenerated into this unhealthy, depressed, unhappy, demoralized person. I thought of him like a vampire, it was like he had sucked away everything good in me and took off once he had bled me dry. Sounds dramatic, but that's what it felt like.

 

Truth be told though, I let it happen. I just could not see at the time what I was doing to myself, because I had allowed him to treat me that way and my confidence simply wasn't solid enough to realize this treatment was unacceptable. I hadn't yet gotten enough perspective on my family relationships to see I was repeating them, and that those relationships themselves had been unhealthy. It was actually NORMAL to me because it was what I had grown up with. As bad as that relationship was, I'm actually so grateful I had it and it ended that way in a lot of ways, because it woke me up and made me see so much truth about how I viewed relationships. It made me take stock of what a healthy relationship actually was and made me start working on solidifying my confidence and self-worth enough to never repeat that destructive relationship pattern again.

 

Really painful, and ongoing to this day, but ultimately positive.

 

It is really hard to recover when you've grown up with and have experienced life with narcissists or sociopaths.

 

Have you looked around online for specialty websites dedicated to the subject of recovering from relationships with narcissists? I found a lot of interesting stuff.

 

Did you happen to grow up with any narcissistic personalities? I grew up with a textbook narcissistic grandmother and borderline narcissistic mother, and the websites dedicated to that have helped me immensely. Even though they deal with the subject of narcissistic mothers, they also proved really helpful to me in terms of reflecting on how I let my ex treat me too.

 

At any rate, recovering after being in a relationship with a narcissist is really hard because, like I said, they have a really sharp knack for turning the responsibility around on others, blaming others, and getting others in a pattern of blaming themselves. They can talk circles around any issue to the point it's easy to feel like you're really losing your mind (that is usually exactly what they want).

 

It's not impossible to recover though, I promise you that. I'm still sorting out a lot of things and I hit bumps in the road, but I've come really far. I'm happier than I've ever been. You just have to decide to make the time for yourself and learn to care for yourself and learn how to place importance on your own needs (narcissists are brilliant at finding people who are predisposed to care for others needs before their own). Learning to respect and care for yourself is key.

 

I've written a freakin' novel here, but I hope perhaps some of this has helped. You're not alone and you're not crazy. You CAN get past this and leave this toxic person behind you. I know it's hard and I know why, narcissists are great at giving you just enough promises and romance to pull you back in before they stomp all over you. They're great at creating an environment where they surreptitiously hold all the control and get you thinking "This could work out if I only try harder" or other such things.

 

You seem to know deep down this relationship is sucking you dry and causing you to be unwell (mentally and physically). Listen to that voice and hang on to it, start digging yourself out and getting yourself free.

 

Mucho, mucho good luck to you in this! *HUG*

Edited February 17, 2011 by Whimsical_Ninja
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[Newtotheblogthing]

This is exactly how I feel...

 

I could go on and on here, suffice it to say being in that relationship was so incredibly destructive for me. When I met him, I was very healthy, confident, happy with myself, active, and upbeat. Over the four years I was with him, I degenerated into this unhealthy, depressed, unhappy, demoralized person. I thought of him like a vampire, it was like he had sucked away everything good in me and took off once he had bled me dry. Sounds dramatic, but that's what it felt like.

 

Truth be told though, I let it happen. I just could not see at the time what I was doing to myself, because I had allowed him to treat me that way and my confidence simply wasn't solid enough to realize this treatment was unacceptable. I hadn't yet gotten enough perspective on my family relationships to see I was repeating them, and that those relationships themselves had been unhealthy. It was actually NORMAL to me because it was what I had grown up with. As bad as that relationship was, I'm actually so grateful I had it and it ended that way in a lot of ways, because it woke me up and made me see so much truth about how I viewed relationships. It made me take stock of what a healthy relationship actually was and made me start working on solidifying my confidence and self-worth enough to never repeat that destructive relationship pattern again.

 

I definitely believe I am not seeing something there with my family patterns. My father and I were extremely close and I believe I somehow made myself an extension of him. or vice versa. When he died when I was 24 i was LOST, I spent my whole life working and planning things out with him. I was not my own person. I think when I found my ex it filled whatever I thought was missing. I didn't want to give it up, even when I started to notice things were not what they should be. It was also my first adult relationship beginning at age 30.

 

Oh how I know these feelings as well:

 

I know it's hard and I know why, narcissists are great at giving you just enough promises and romance to pull you back in before they stomp all over you. They're great at creating an environment where they surreptitiously hold all the control and get you thinking "This could work out if I only try harder" or other such things.

 

I believe you when you say I can get past this, I have to believe it because I feel as if I have wasted far too much of my life on this relationship.

 

I appreciate you sharing your experience and if you have any suggestions for websites,I would be very interested.

 

Thanks again, really..

[Newtotheblogthing]

And Phillyfan.. I hear what you're saying.. I know I am responsible, I just also know that it's not as black and white as that. At least not for me.. he's gone now though and I am doing everything, well mostly, everything I can not to have any contact at all and to make sure I do not make the same mistakes again.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

[xpaperxcutx]

I think therapy and counseling would be a good step forward for you to talk about your pent up anger towards your ex and rediscover the things that made you, you.

[Newtotheblogthing]

xpaperxcutx

 

I think you are right.. I am so angry, so resentful.. period. For so many different things, at him and at myself. I want to be happy, I really do but this has been my "story" for so long now and I want a different one. i want to write a new story where I am not a shell of the person I used to be. Only I can make that happen.. therapy, counseling.. good place to start.. thanks..

[Katrina_L]

(Worse when he drank: put downs, slights, never validating my feelings, and I have had bruises on my arms from him grabbing me, pushing me) He would make light of it later but I would never get a real apology or acknowledgement that it just wasn't the way you treat someone you supposedly love. Communication about feelings was ZERO unless he was angry or I upset him. It was NEVER his fault.

 

 

I am going through the same thing right now. My partner is constantly telling me that everything is my fault, he shouldn't have to explain anything to me because I am too stupid to get it anyway and I am wasting his time, he never accepts responsibility for anything. If I had a dollar for every time he has said "It's not my fault, you can't blame me" I would be rich.

 

I have been with my partner since 28th of October 2009 and I found out I was pregnant in early February 2010. We now have a baby together which makes it harder.

Some of the time I am worried that I am the problem and that I would be making a huge mistake by leaving, but then I listen to him putting me down and I just feel tired.

 

I am going to go see a councellor tomorrow to try to sort out my head.

 

I hope everything works out for you. Everyone deserves to be happy.

[Katrina_L]

Only wanted to hear positive things about himself, but never anything critical no matter how I approached it. He was amazing at invalidating how I felt, turning it around on me, and making the simplest conflict into a head trip of contradiction and denial. He was brilliant at guilt tripping me for having hurt feelings about anything, and getting me to question my emotional state.

 

 

The more I read here the more I can relate!

For a while I thought I was actually losing my mind. Someone pointed out to me recently that it sounds like I am living with a Narcissist and when I looked it up on the internet everything started to make more sense.

[Newtotheblogthing]

Katrina L, thanks for the response.. it's hard and you have a child with him. Counseling is a good idea and I plan on doing that myself.

 

The crazy thing also is that I want to label him.. I want to understand, there must be a reason they are like this! I mean, I am narcissistic myself at times. I want to know why he is like this and he must be a narcissist.

 

Maybe, maybe not but I do know they are selfish, and geared toward their needs and we put up with it. I, somehow, in the last few days feel more relief and keep telling myself if I REALLY want to feel better about myself and have a healthy relationship one day, he is not the person. Period. I am moving across the country for 5 months so I believe that will help but just when I think I am good, and I have been NC for a week now.. he contacts me.. Sends me a little note saying have a good trip, be safe. REALLY? He must be feeling bad or feeling the loss of his puppet. but it gets to me.. I start thinking about the good things about him..

 

I wanted to respond but I haven't. I spent 6 1/2 years going back and forth and I hated myself, hated him but was unwilling to give up my dysfuncitional security blanket. I was just used to it and it's NOT supposed to be like that when you are in a truly loving and adult relationship.

 

Just as others told me, you are worth being loved, in a healthy, supportive way. You are worth it. Try to really believe that. I am doing the same right now!

I feel for you and you are not alone!

Big hug..

[freestyle]

Hey New~~

 

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with a toxic relationship like that--it can be difficult and painful to extract yourself.

 

Please don't beat yourself up--it can happen to the healthiest, most well-adjusted people in the world....Good people don't usually assume that others are presenting a false persona (which is how a narcissist hooks people in initially)---so they can get hooked into a toxic relationship and fall into the trap of blaming themselves. It's more common than you may think.

 

If you'd like, send me a PM, and I can send you links to a couple of sites that may help you with healing. It really does help to talk with others who have been through it.

 

best wishes~FS

[Kansas]

"I appreciate you sharing your experience and if you have any suggestions for websites,I would be very interested."

 

I was in a 2.5 year relationship with someone I have recently found out is a full-blown narcissist.

 

I have found this website to be super helpful (http://www.narcissismfree.com/blog/). There is a blog that you can sign up for and the women on it all have similar stories and are very supportive.

 

There's also another support forum that I've found to be helpful:

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/narcissist-victims-syndrome-survivors

 

There is also a website that has FREE click tracks, to help with PTSD

http://pstecaudiosource.org/pstec/

 

Most importantly, remain NO CONTACT with this person if at all possible. Everytime you talk to him, it will restimulate the abuse and behavior. You will always walk away feeling devalued.