Anyone in a relationship and experiencing narcissistic abuse is continually devalued and discarded.
By Doug
The following is an article that was recommended by a reader that deals with the topic of narcissism and narcissistic abuse. Specifically, how the person who is in a relationship with a narcissist is continually devalued and abused.
Based on many comments we have received in the past and on incoming search terms, it is very apparent that many of you feel that your spouse is a narcissist and perhaps even suffers from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). This article therefore will be very enlightening for you.
The article is written by Lisa Scott who has a site that delves into narcissism and narcissistic abuse in great detail. I surfed around on the site to check it out and it has some good articles written by people who have been in a relationship with a narcissist as well as offering some support forums. So if you are in a relationship with a narcissist (or suspect you may be) then you might want to check her site out.
Narcissistic Abuse: Why a Narcissist Inevitably Devalues & Discards (D&D) You
Being in a relationship with a Narcissist is like being on a roller-coaster ride that never ends. One moment, you feel loved, adored and cherished. The next, you feel devalued, discarded and abused. Narcissists have often been described as having a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. You never know what kind of mood a Narcissist is going to be in and you certainly never know how he is going to treat you. A Narcissist is unpredictable and unstable. You are always walking on eggshells around him.
Unfortunately, once a Narcissist is victorious and secures your love, the idealization phase of the relationship passes and his true colors emerge. You begin to see the pathology of his personality and realize he merely put on an act in the beginning of the relationship to win and secure your love. He becomes demanding and angry, unaware that you have needs or a separate self at all. He simply finds it impossible to see you as an independent entity.
Trying to understand how you went from being idealized and put on a pedestal to being completely discarded is baffling. Suddenly, you can’t do anything right and nothing you do is good enough for him. By understanding the inevitable Devalue & Discard (D&D) behavior of a Narcissist, you will finally realize what happened and know that you did NOTHING wrong to cause such a drastic change in his behavior.
It is important to understand when in a toxic relationship, you are viewed as nothing more than an extension of your Narcissist. Narcissists seek out relationships in order to ensure someone is present to cater to their needs, stroke their ego and make them look good. Men often select a trophy wife. Beautiful women are the ultimate status symbol for men….proof of their masculinity and virility. On the other hand, female narcissists are typically attracted to wealthy men who can support their obsession with image and status.
A Narcissist will eventually devalue and discard you with no remorse. It is inevitable in any relationship with a Narcissist. At some point, he/she will emotionally and physically withdraw from you and leave you wondering what you did wrong. Please remember, you did NOTHING wrong. It has NOTHING to do with you. A Narcissist is unable to attach in a healthy way to anyone. Ultimately, they will pull away no matter what you do.
A Narcissist has a lot of built-up resentment toward his significant other. He knows he is reliant on you for validation. However, he craves variety and is easily bored. As a result, he blames you for tying him down to a monotonous and mundane lifestyle. This creates in him a great deal of anger towards you because he does not want to rely on you, yet knows he must in order to get the validation he so desperately needs. He does not respect you because he knows you put up with a lot of abuse from him. You have done nothing wrong but be overly giving and nurturing. Yet he is angry with you and blames you for all of his unhappiness.
He is urgent, preoccupied with himself and always trying to right his chronic imbalance. While some Narcissists do not feel the emptiness in their lives, their behavior causes major suffering and angst among those around them. Once a Narcissist feels he has obtained control of you, you will see a completely different side of him you never knew existed. Once in control, a Narcissist becomes demeaning and cruel.
Narcissists are oblivious to others and how their behavior affects people close to them. They dismiss the feelings, ideas, and opinions of others. They are condescending in their nature. They belittle, criticize, judge and put others down.
Narcissism: The Difference Between Affair-Driven Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A Narcissist can be blatant about it or quite subtle in his approach. He has a way of putting you down in such a way that you don’t even realize you have been insulted until you reflect upon the conversation later or someone points it out to you. Other times, he is brutally offensive.
While Narcissists do not always realize how hurtful their behavior is, it doesn’t mean at times, they are not deliberately abusive. A Narcissist is purposefully abusive when his relationship with you changes in a way that is not to his liking. This occurs whenever he starts to feel too close to you. Intimacy terrifies a Narcissist, and he will respond by being purposefully abusive in order to push you away.
Another example of when a Narcissist is intentionally abusive is if you voice your displeasure or threaten to leave the relationship. A Narcissist cannot be alone. He must always have someone present to validate him. By asserting abusive behavior, he is attempting to maintain his dominance and control over you.
A Narcissist has a way of turning everything around so you begin to question yourself. He will do something terribly mean or cruel. You will talk to him about it, and by the end of the conversation, you are the one apologizing for some reason. A Narcissist knows how to manipulate better than anyone.
A Narcissist eventually becomes sarcastic and belittles you constantly. You begin to feel you can do nothing right in his eyes and your presence is hardly tolerable. You’re baffled. You wonder what you did wrong to cause such a drastic change in his feelings toward you. You struggle desperately to return things to the way they were in the beginning. Unfortunately, as hard as you try, things will never be the same again. He is not the man you thought he was. It is a maddening and precarious way to live and can drive anyone to the edge of their sanity.
When a Narcissist feels he is in control of you and is not threatened by any fear that you will ask for too much from him or leave the relationship, he will engage in escapist activity and appear as if he hardly knows you exist the majority of the time. You are merely present to validate him should he not get enough attention from the outside world that day.
You are treated with indifference by the person who once showered you with affection. His “silent treatment” is his way of devaluing you. If you begin to pull away, he will lay on the charm again. Trust me, a Narcissist knows when to engage his false self to ensure you never leave him. He is always reminding you that he understands you like no one else can or ever will. It is essential that he makes you believe only he can understand you. By constantly telling you that you have problems and quirks only he can understand, he believes you will become dependent on him. By telling you he loves you despite your flaws, he hopes you will begin to feel unlovable in some strange paranoid way. This is his way of ensuring you will never leave him. It is narcissistic manipulation at its finest and you need to recognize it.
A Narcissist will always ensure he has someone present and available to him at all times to validate him. Unfortunately, he will give you no warning when he decides to leave in pursuit of validation from someone new. This is when we must remember we did NOTHING wrong and this outcome was inevitable. Narcissists crave variety and are easily bored.
A Narcissist will simply discard you when he becomes convinced that you can no longer provide him with sufficient validation. Keep in mind, this evaluation of his is totally subjective and not grounded in reality at all. Suddenly, because of boredom, a disagreement, an act or a failure to act, he swings from total idealization to complete devaluation.
He then disconnects from you immediately. He needs to preserve all of his energy in order to obtain and secure new sources of supply. He sees no need to spend any of his precious time and energy on you, whom he now considers useless.
You must accept the fact that you were not an object of love to this person, but a pawn, a mere source of supply to feed his fragile ego; nothing more, but certainly nothing less. Once you understand how he must constantly change his source of supply, you will realize his rejection of you has NOTHING to do with you. He will repeat this cycle in every relationship he enters. It is inevitable. Be grateful this toxic abusive man is out of your life and never let him back. (You can go to the original article by clicking this link.)
So what are your thoughts? Have you experienced any narcissistic abuse like the author describes? Do you feel that narcissism and narcissistic abuse played a vital role in your affair or your spouse’s affair?
One thing to also keep in mind is that most people tend to think that a narcissist is always a man. Though I believe that is usually the case, there are women who also suffer from NPD. Here is a PDF that we have in the Affair Recovery Movement area that delves very nicely into the narcissistic woman: https://www.emotionalaffair.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Female-narcissist.pdf
If you want to learn more about narcissism, NPD and narcissistic abuse, there are a ton of books on the subjects at Amazon.
158 replies to "Narcissistic Abuse – Being Devalued and Discarded"
Doug, thanks for posting this article. I showed it to my husband several months ago and it turned him around. He identified with every word he read. He was at work when he read it and he started crying when he realized what he had been doing to me for such a long time. He had to hide in the bathroom because his boss asked him if he was ok. That night when he came home he apologized with so much remorse that I secretly thanked Rachel who had posted about it the day before. Our lives have changed for the better after this and I couldn’t be happier. In the past I had tried to tell him that his behavior towards me was very damaging but he wouldn’t listen and twisted everything around so that I would look like the one with the problem (typical narcissist). Not anymore. He’s a changed man and the future looks promising.
That’s awesome that he could read something and realize what he’s done and make such drastic changes!
you are fooled.. it will get more hidden and worse.. u got told what you wanted to hear,,, friggin farytale…. It happent to me.. and i believed .. again and again.. it just got worse and more sophisticadet… horror storie… Dantes
(not english)
Doug
That is a really good article. I have read countless books and articles on this subject and discussed with my therapist. What we have to bear in mind is that there is Narcissistic Personality Disorder and there are people who have some traits of the disorder. On the broad spectrum not every narcissist has all the traits. They can even have the full disorder with only some of the traits. The really extreme end of the spectrum is sociopath. I hope people reading this don’t think that because their spouse doesn’t have all the traits that they aren’t dealing with some form of a narcissistic disorder. There’s also the whole Somatic vx Cerebral part of narcissism. There just isn’t enough time to read all that is necessary to figure this out. All I know is if you are married to a real narcissist going to marriage therapy seldom works because they are VERY good at fooling people. It’s important to now who and what you are dealing with in relationships and whether or not we can abide by/guard yourself from the fallout. I do not believe all cheaters have NPD but they certainly have some of the traits. This disorder takes a long time to diagnose and it cannot be healed. I say if your spouse has the traits learn as much as you can about it and nip it in the bud or get out. I am no expert ,but I am sensitive to the signs of the disorder from all the reading I’ve done on the topic. Thanks again for all your hard work on this site.
TH, It sounds as though you have certainly done a lot of research on the subject. Thanks so much for your input and for sharing a little of your knowledge on the topic.
“All I know is if you are married to a real narcissist going to marriage therapy seldom works because they are VERY good at fooling people”
Unfortunately being good at fooling people is not limited to narcissism. Many mental illnesses come with that ability. Being bipolar and depressed I have to admit that I am really, really good at making people believe I am alright when I am in one of my manic or depressive swings. I can go so far as to hide my feelings from my H, family members and at time my counselor. It is a learned behavior.
Just a reminder that there are other things to look for when dealing with the narcissist. Character flaws can overlap from illness to illness.
Tryinghard, I agree 100%. There is so much on the subject that a simple article, while it can help see some abuse patterns, is not enough to diagnose someone a narcissist, nor should it. The personality disorder is just that – a disorder. The people afflicted are ‘disordered’ by definition. They don’t behave the way they do to be cruel, although that is the outcome. This article is very simplistic and is completely from the point of view of the victim, without delving into why Ns behave this way.
Worse is that there is NO mention of how to deal successfully with these people. Also, it is not true that you were never the object of love or affection. Ns just see things differently and first ignore anothers’ flaws, and then focuses on them. Really it is a form of boredom, for some of the reasons listed, but to describe Ns as empty monsters just isn’t true. Sorry, but it isn’t.
I think the best advice for most people, once they realize they’re dealing with a narcissist, is to leave. You won’t win and you can be on the wrong end of a lot of mental abuse if you stay and can’t deal with the person effectively.
It’s certainly a spectrum disorder and needs to be approached very carefully. It’s not an absolute tick list of traits that someone must have, as others have said above and therefore it’s not so easy to make clear pronouncements on how to deal with it.
People exhibiting narcissistic traits primarily have a fear of intimacy which can be mild or quite profound. My H has admitted, after reading the book on narcissism referred to on another article before Christmas, that he did display some of the traits described before during and after his affair. It lead to some enlightening (for both of us) discussions about his upbringing and mine that has lead to us being kinder to each other since as well as more aware of our feelings.
It’s not as simple as ‘leave a narcissist’ it depends on their level of exhibition of the traits and whether you can deal with them or not. Whether they deal with them or not too. Which then comes back to a frequently mentioned need post affair which is for the CS to do work on themselves in order to help the marriage.
We all have some of the traits. If a person, however, has been diagnosed with the disorder, it really is that simple. Fear of intimacy is not at the root of narcissism. Masking ones true self is due to (usually) neglegent parents or other supposed ‘caregivers’ at a very young age.
You cannot cure narcissisistic PD. Reading an article does not make someone change from NPD to nonNPD. I’m happy that you had positive results from your husband reading an article, but I can assure you that he does not have the disorder if that helped him change.
If you had ever dealt with narcissistic rage (not mentioned in this article oddly) then you wouldn’t say it isn’t that black and white,or that simple. Narcissists are extremely cruel, and they are extremely good at being cruel.
Again, I’m happy that you’ve had positive results, and I’m not seeking an argument or trying to be difficult. I’ve been told by several in the mental health profession that the best course of action for someone involved with such a person is to leave because it’s basically incomprehensible to a ‘normal’ person how a Narcissist thinks.
LOAF, you’re absolutely right. This is just a simple article that outlines these traits. When my H read it he felt he had been behaving this way for a very long time. He might not suffer from NPD, but he sure acted like he did. His behavior was at times scary, especially when he would twist things around to make me seem like I was the one with the problem or the one that had created/started an argument, when it was him all the time. Often times I would react negatively to his hurtful comments or attitude and he would stop talking to me for days. I needed to protect my children so I would force myself to apologize and “accept” it was my fault. This is one of the reasons why I refused to go to counseling with him. I felt that because he’s pretty smart and witty, he’d sure turn things around in the therapist’s office and make it seem like his EAs were something I made up in my mind. He tried doing it the day I confronted him (D-day) about his EAs. He looked at me and said “I can’t believe that this (finding an ex-gf on facebook) has escalated to this (my confrontation).” I almost knocked his teeth out when he said that because he was doing it again and I was not going to let him trick me anymore. I told him “I am not making this up, you know what you’ve done. How dare you look up an ex-gf on Facebook and mention it casually? How can you possibly think that it’s acceptable after 30 years to have a friendship with someone you had sex when you were single? You are married to ME and there’s no room in this marriage for that type of friendship!” That was enough for him to shut up and not even try to pull a fast one on me. He has changed very much, he’s again the man I married. However, I still don’t understand how he could fall into EAs and not once think it was hurting our relationship. I guess he thought it wasn’t damaging because I didn’t know about them but once I found out all hell broke loose and he has regretted everything he did behind my back. I’ve given him a second chance but he knows there are no more chances. He either walks a straight line or I’m done. I believe that once everything was out in the open he couldn’t continue his narcissistic behavior anymore because I caught him! Some men are so stupid.
From the books and narc blogs I’ve read on it there’s a difference between NPD at the psychotic end and then a dsitribution of traits on the narc spectrum. So yes, there’s black and white narcissists at one end but there are alot of people who exhibit traits of it when under stress.
From what I’ve read my mother was a narcissist but not a psychotic sociopath. this explained alot about how I was brought up and the projection of herself onto me and my behaviours (for instance she treated and belittled me as being a fat child, when I wasn’t, because she had been a fat child and still thought of herself as fat even though she wasn’t – it was her own lack of self-worth). my H has always been a narc now I look back at it, and he has managed to see some aspects of this for himself, but he exhibited these traits more when he was starting to fail at his job and fail at his marriage. his family didn’t do failure (his parents still won’t even try something new, anything new, just in case they’re not good at it immediately!) and so he’s never had any idea how to deal with it. you deal with it by getting someone, anyone, to tell you you’re great to paper over the cracks for a while.
You may disagree with me, which is fine. the bigger problem is that we have a society that encourages narcissism and discourages acceptance with yourself including accpeting that you may not be good at everything.
ChiffChaff
This is what I have learned as well. My MIL has the disorder and I believe my H has the traits. As with anything left untreated I do believe those with traits can slip into the full disorder. I compare it to depression. If you don’t deal with the sadness you can slip very easily into depression. I’m NOT using this as an excuse but knowledge about this disorder has certainly given me an understanding NOT an excuse for his cheating. He has admitted he has been terribly selfish during most of our married life and the affair was part of his selfish behavior. I too see a lot of changes but I wonder if when the “honeymoon” period is over he will go back to being a selfish pig. I foolishly let my guard down after it happened the first time and I sure as hell am NOT going to do it again.
Everything is a disorder, and there seems to be some underlying “reason” for everything that people use to try to excuse their behavior. I am sick of it!! Cheaters made CHOICES! I told my husband just 2 days ago that, just to be clear, that I will NEVER forgive what he did. NEVER. He knowingly lied, broke our marriage vows, treated me like crap, used me, and CHEATED. KNOWINGLY. Why? Because he is an egomaniac and I was too busy doing life to feed that ego. Got really SICK of the ego actually!! The ego even fed on being better than ME! It fed his ego, and he ate it up. Is that Narcassism? Idunno really. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he lied, cheated, and almost cost me my life. He CHOSE that, knowingly, willingly, even happily…. He was a BAD PERSON, Narcassist or not. GOOD PEOPLE do not do such horrible things. People CAN change IF they want to. I think my husband wants to… seems to want to… am holding out that it is real and not just a show but only time will tell. CHEATERS ARE EVIL while they are cheating. If you do it more than once, it is WHO you ARE, not what you DID. And that is how I see it….
Interesting. I know what you mean about ‘everything is a disorder’. It’s funny that there is so much discussion about narcissism on infidelity websites. You aren’t married to a person for 10 years, all the time they are kind and loving, and then they have an affair and you ‘discover’ they are a narcissist. The person’s true colors would have shown long before that. It’s a nice bow to put on it though,isn’t it? Well, he wouldn’t have cheated BUT he has SOME minor narcissistic traits. We all have some of the traits. However, a full blown disordered person would have shown so many signs – cheating is usually either far down the line or is done from day one with a person with NPD. It isn’t a one time thing. That is simply a person displaying incomprehensible selfishness.
I liken it to the person that runs to rehab AFTER being caught drunk driving. NOW it isn’t their fault. NOW they have a problem. No, now they were caught.
Sorry folks – most cheaters are just cheaters, whether it’s once or 100 times. Only about 3-4 people have NPD. How many people cheat? 60% or so? There may be studies that say that narcissists cheat most of the time, but there is NO study that says that most cheaters are narcissists. They aren’t.
Oh, but that’s exactly what happened. Married 10 years with not even one argument. Everything was beyond wonderful. Then, by accident, I discovered his 15 month long affair with a woman from his past. Once his mask was off, I endured mental and physical abuse. I began looking for answers and discovered another affair that had been going on our entire marriage. I contacted other women from his past relationships and found he cheated on all. This is his method of devaluation. He’s begged each one of us to stay, but after discovery, his actions make that impossible and we all end up leaving. Then he starts again with another, all the while having standbys. Some of these standbys have been there for over 40 years. He has told me all of his ex’s would take him back. He has a serious problem. Each time he gets better at hiding his disorder. I think that’s why our relationship lasted so long. He even told his affair partners he was a good liar and wouldn’t get caught. He was half right. It has been 3 years since Dday. I cannot move due to financial reasons. It is very hard to see a man each day that looks like the man I married, but I know is a fake. Sometimes narcissists are very covert and hide their true selves for many years. I believe that’s what I’m dealing with.
Recovering/LOAF….totally agree. Unless you have seen and lived with the signs for years (and yes they would be there), then you are just dealing with a person who made some very selfish choices, and acted horrible while they were doing so.
Self-diagnosing, so to speak, is a VERY dangerous thing. If the cheater truly wants to save the marriage, he or she will go to therapy and do the work that needs to be done. If they have NPD, that will come out quickly enough and be diagnosed by someone qualified to do so. Otherwise you are essentially just reaching in the “excuses jar” and handing them a hall pass.
I’m having a lot of fun on Lisa’s website 🙂
LOAF. Just checked it out. WOW what a hoot all those goodbye letters. Makes me laugh even when I am hurting. Thanks for sharing.
Battleborn, I too checked out the website. While NPD certainly does exist, I don’t think everyone that gets crapped on in a relationship doe so because the other person has some type of “disorder”. Likely only a very few of those men truly have NPD. Most are just asshats. That would be my professional opinion!
In my case it’s mostly the OW who’s the narsist type. I had known her as a polite almost nice and quite reserved person in the beginning, after gaining power on the workfloor she evolved into this sexy “B” and suddenly all men were turning around her and she enjoyed it. As she is my H’s co-worker and not mine I mostly saw her in private situations were she was still quite normal. After DDay she was furious. putting her off was ‘not done’ and she made me feel it!! (some bunny boiling..) and then my H admitted he had seen this side of her in the past but she alway’s turned back to being “nice”. And thinking about my attention-seeking, manipulative MIL I think he probably finds this kind of attitude quite normal. I think I’m lucky I never really confronted her. It probably would have become very nasty. Now I try to keep my distance. Just sorry my H still values the friendship with her H and still like’s to keep in her “good books”
Thank you for this article, and the link detailing the Narcissistic woman. I only wish I had come across this 8 months ago, but then again, I would not have known this is what was going on in my best friend’s relationship. After three years of being victimized in so many forms of abuse domestic violence comes in- my best friend’s girlfriend ended his life. It is only now that the pieces of what happened in their relationship are starting to come together to form a bigger picture for those of us he left behind.
The emotional and narcissistic abuse he suffered in that time really left him with no other life outside of her. She was his reason for everything, so when he suddenly found out about the man she had been cheating on him with- SHE was the furious one. Kicked him out of the home they shared (that he paid for) and the night he moved out she had the other man in their home. Unstable, heartbroken and devastated he went to the home and confronted them- where she exerted the ultimate form of power and control and shot him.
I suppose because they are fairly new (in comparison to other disorders and abuse) NPD and emotional abuse are typically put together, but i believe “narcissistic abuse” can very well be one of the most deadly forms of domestic violence- and i didn’t even know it existed until I came across this article.
It has only been 8 months and I will never get answers that will fill the void of losing my best friend of 20 years, but your article definitely help me see what we secondary victims have suffered in a clearer light….. from the bottom of my heart, thank you for that.
Thank you SO much for this article.
I have been researching the subject for two years now since I woke up to the fact that my 27 year marriage “strains” were not because I am a failure after all!!!!
I have listened to Melanie Tonia Evans (brilliant woman) and Sam Vaknin who is a self confessed narcissist, both have been really helpful as to how to handle being on the receiving end ….. but somehow your article hits the nail on the head as to the description of what goes on in the relationship and how it makes a spouse feel.
I’m tangled up in a joint business (with my name firmly meshed into the mix) and can’t get out of it without losing my credit status and good name so I’m financially doomed, but to be enlightened and know I am not alone in suffering at the hands of someone who is not balanced is somehow comforting!!
At the same time as wanting out and hating this way of life I feel SO sorry for him because he cannot see he is wrong or at fault or that he has a problem and certainly won’t discuss it with me. He has to live with this constant turmoil and inner conflict with no relief from it (other than giving grief to others) how awful must that be.
If anyone goes to counceling and admits they have a problem I do not believe they are truly narcissistic because by it’s very nature it prevents the sufferer from seeing they are in anyway wrong.
This basically discribes my father – He is very judgemental of other people, constantly worries about what people think of him, always going to the window to check who is outside, and is very sensative to criticism, and when challenged gets very moody indeed. He can never, ever admit that he is wrong… when he came back and dumped his mistress (who I also believe to have NPD too), he could never say that he is sorry. He insults everyone in a mean and cruel way, calling me a failure, saying to my brother he’s a loser…
The mistress doesn’t know what she’s in store for – she refuses to believe our warnings, he’s already insulted her and her family, calling them “dirty scrotes”, “scumbags, calling her son “an ugly prick”, “her two daughters ‘fat'”, and her “an alcoholic nutjob”, not just to us, but to his friends… suppose he hasn’t said this two her face. When he shows his true colours, it’ll be like a ton of bricks hitting her and she won’t know what has happened.
All these stories make us all connected and yes there is some relief in knowing that others have gone through or are going through the same types of situations. I think the worst of it is just knowing how someone you have shared your life intimately with could care so less about you and at times actually hate you and cause you harm and distress. When your being accused of everything under the sun including cheating just to find out that you are the one being cheated on it is truly heart wrenching. I wish I wasn’t going through this and I wish I had never allowed this man in my life. I have given him so much of myself and my children I just feel like a total idiot for not seeing who this creature really was/is. I pray that karma comes back and bites him in the ass and I also pray for whoever this other woman is because she is in for a life of hell if she gives into this man like I did. I didn’t deserve any of this and still wonder why my life is this way. All I can do is go through the pain and hope that I will come out still sane and one day enjoy all the happeniess I know I deserve. God bless all of you on here and let’s pray for one another and keep uplifting each other. Nite to you all…..
I discovered very recently that my wife is a covert narcissist, which, while terrible, provides me the answers as to why she’ll never be happy, had an emotional affair, and is so controlling.
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Ha ha ha, reading this makes me really understand that I was married to a narcissist in my 1st marriage. I ended up cheating on him and the absolute turn around in his behavior toward me after I cheated was even more baffling. Something in me told me not to believe in the turned-up romance and attention he was displaying at the end. Somehow I knew it was temporary and once he re-secured my affection that I was really going to suffer for being unfaithful.
It never occurred to me that he was a narcissist because they have such sob stories built into their past that they have used to gain your sympathy and secure your dedication to them and them alone.
I was too caught up in the fear and anxiety of never being good enough for him, then REALLY knowing I screwed up by cheating, that I couldn’t have seen it at the time. My instincts just knew something was badly wrong with him, and it would be especially brutal for me after he felt like he regained control of the situation, so I bailed pretty quick.
Glad I did, too, because to this day, some 15 years later, he still claims to anyone who will listen that I cheated on him because I’m a nympho who only wants a man with a big _____.
He had an obsessed idea that his was too small and looked at porn constantly. It is frustrating and angering to this day that he says such things about me, but I moved on and I definitely keep my distance from him. Our marriage is now one of the sob stories he uses to rope others into his orbit to serve him.
I am sorry I hurt someone by cheating and I have empathy for his pain. I just don’t believe his pain was about anything real, but about his ego and inability to keep me under his thumb, so my regrets about that affair are minimal to say the least.
I learned more about myself in that, whereas he did not, and just seeing his pain (fake as it was) made me make sure I’d never hurt anyone that way again.
Now I’m the BS in our situation and even after having experienced this, I still can’t drudge up much sympathy for my ex.
Can you spell KARMA? Perhaps your story of your 1st husband is legitimate. But I have seen it from the other side where words like yours were used as justification by the unfaithful.
I am in the midst of a classic silent treatment scenario, hour 6 so far… He’s on the couch, mean bed. Im starting to be able to predict almost my life with this dude who once asked me to marry him & move out of state to be with him…I am still in limbo 4 years later as he covertly set me up. He asked me to movie in with him in 2 months & has already started blaming me for situations that haven’t even happened yet! I haven’t even movef in yet! He is a cerebral to the t! Complete with withholding sex, attention & being short verbally if he speaks at all to me. I’m not exactly gonna stick around for what lies ahead. I’m sooooo very awake about this behaviour/disorder…I won’t be able to live with myself if I can’t BE myself.im leaving.
I am glad to see im no alone. I’ve been in a long distance relationship & yesterday would’ve been nine years. I’ve been dealing with the silent treatment for years. It seemed like each time became longer than the last one. I never knew why I was getting the silent treatment over any little disagreement. I would wait a few days or a week before reaching out , only to be further ignored. I loved him so much. After the last silent treatment , last august, lasting for four montsh ( The longest ever) I became so ill I lost 30 lbs. He contacted me and drove from NC to NY to bring my belongings. He begged my forgiveness and we got back together. Things we better than the first time we fell in love. He promised this would never happen again and said he was going to look for a place for us to live to finally be together in the same state. I believed it and was the happiest Id ever been. Two and a half months later we got into an argument over something ridiculous and now its been three months since we’ve talked. He texted me this past columbus day and told me hes in a new relationship. I am floored! He has never gone this far after a silent treatment and got into a relationship. I asked him if he wanted to work this out and if we still have a future together and he said its too late. I cant believe he’s the same person that just begged me to take him back and said he wanted me with him forever & then could turn around and do this to me. Will his new supply get the same treatment ? It took me a long time before realizing what he was. I believe , and i’m no therapist, he is a covert narcissist, based on the many articles I’v read. I am in turmoil now and feel like i’m losing my mind and this all seems surreal to me My heart is broken and I’m crushed. I never in a million years would have imagine he could do this to me. I’m suffering and can barely sleep or eat. while hes living his best life in his month and a half relationship. . How can I begin to heal from this ? Please help.