Did you grow up with a narcissist parent? Some of the things you write just remind me so much of how I have felt ending recent friendships with narcissists.
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Originally Posted by BeteNoire
Part of it is that I don't even know if he is NPD. With nothing official I keep feeling like maybe I've been projecting. Maybe I've slanted these incidents to back up my supposition.
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This seems to be a very common feeling among people who have grown up with a narcissist or had one as a partner. I know that I often struggle with feeling like I am selfish because I am not being compliant with someone else's desires. I start to worry that I am the one who is a narcissist.
That's what they want us to think. The only way I've found around it is to just blindly trust myself. Remember what you figured out when you were being rational (this relationship is not healthy, he is taking advantage). Trust that you were right when your brain wasn't clouded with emotion.
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And I can count times when he really did seem like a 'normal' person, there was no grandiosity, no rage, no obvious fakery.
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I find it can be helpful in those moments to make a list of all the things that weren't normal -- like you did in your first post.
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In our last argument he kept telling me to leave, it was my choice etc I thought he was just trying to take the high road but maybe he was just trying to avoid abandonment. By baiting me he was pushing me away rather than me leaving him.
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This is *CLASSIC* narcissist behavior. As soon as they sense that you may leave, they flip it around. They twist it so that they are the ones dumping you or pushing you away.
I can't tell you how many times I have had this done to me and how many times it has left me wanting to chase them. It's like some switch gets flipped in my brain and no matter how much effort I have made to detach myself from the relationship, their rejection of me or my perception that I've displeased them makes me go running right back in for more.
I have a friend who has a similar problem and we both check each other. I'll say "I'm thinking of calling so and so" and she'll remind me that I need to resist the urge. I do the same for her. Sort of like an accountability partner.
I'm sorry you are going through this. Letting go of a person like this is very, very hard. Time helps, but it's so easy to start it all up again by contacting them six months afterwards, when the bad stuff is a distant memory and you just want to know how they are doing. I hope you stay strong through this hard time.