Thanks for giving me a better idea of that part of your history. I think it's very important that you share that history with a qualified "trauma" specialist. What I tried to do is to talk about how there is a difference when it comes to battling ptsd compared to someone with NPD. Unfortunately, there are people that tend to throw the NPD label as a reason for another person's behaviors. This is wrong and can often cause more harm to a person who genuinely needs help instead of being convinced they are a bad person when instead they are in fact a very hurt person. From reading the history you have shared, I feel your core is of a person who always wanted to do the right thing and be a good person and a responsible person. Unfortunately for you there was no mentor figure that was there for you to offer you an example of what it means to develop a healthy structure in your life. The structure you did participate in put you in a position that revolved around being aggressive in a military mindset. It's not surprising that only added to your already challenged ptsd functioning mind.

From what you have shared, I see a person who genuinely suffered due to experiencing one dysfunctional controlling person/persons to the next. I think you are more a career victim than one who tries to control and manipulate others. From what you shared of you history, I feel you have been victimized by different narcissists and have tried to just figure out how to survive despite these often abusive controlling individuals.

What I see is a person that really always WANTED to experience an actual "functional" family. It's actually not a bad thing that you did not want to engage in what your wife kept asking of you. It's not a crime that you had periods where you tried to offer her love only to have her again want you to try to engage in something that actually doesn't fit into any "healthy functional family life". You just strike me as a heart that wants to love but just ends up getting hurt by one dysfunctional person after another.

Often if a person has a history growing up in dysfunction, that child genuinely doesn't know what a functional person is or how to even tell. What you have shared is an individual who constantly suffers from emotional neglect and little to no actual nurturing.

Your wife has some trauma too. Sometimes the behavior pattern you are describing develops from sexual abuse victims. I actually met another man here that had a wife who had similar issues, and it stemmed from how she was sexually abused. Like you he loved her so much and they had children and she wanted him to do things he could not do either. It took time but he began to find out what happened to her that created this challenge. Like you, he felt helpless too. He wanted so badly to "fix" it and he had to learn how to be patient while she got help to "fix and heal". He also described his wife much like you do, beautiful and seemingly strong and amazing in so many ways. He talked about how hard it was to watch her fighting these demons from her past, how very painful it was to witness and not have a way to fix it for her.

It sounds more like both you and your wife may be struggling with some BPD challenges (not diagnosing you though). Sometimes, that also happens where two individuals bond yet both had a lot of trauma that presents challenges in the relationship and creating what is considered some kind of normal safe family environment. It's not unusual for the pattern a narcissist creates to leave the victim continuing that toxic pattern even though they distance from that kind of relationship. It's not that one is a narcissist, but instead was a victim of one or even several. It's actually not unusual for a person to develop certain behaviors that actually attract narcissists to them. This is what I meant about "familiar" and how it doesn't always mean "safe' or good. That tends to be what a person learns while they finally work on HEALING. Narcissists tend to lean cold and uncaring, that's NOT what I am sensing in what you have shared. Narcissists prefer to blame everyone else instead of actually looking at their own part of whatever contributes to relationships falling apart. Narcissists NEED to see themselves superior in each encounter. If you are not with them, it means you are against them and they like to be the first to discard. That is not what you are doing, it's what you tend to run away from instead, big difference. Manipulating or hiding is often used in both cases, it's hiding from an abuser verses using tactics to decieve and control and look for a feed in order to feel superior in some way.

I would like to step back from the label of NPD here with you. I think you need to actually see a true specialist who can listen to what you shared here with me so you can get a more accurate diagnoses. The last thing you need is to be blamed when instead you really deserve to get the right help instead. You can copy all this too. I think you put a lot of effort into what you shared here with me. I think it can help you when you do see a "trauma" specialist more instead of sitting across from that individual struggling to share all that you have been through. In my own experience, it's not unusual for a therapist to toss off a diagnoses MUCH TOO SOON that can contribute to more confusion when THAT is the last thing a person needs to experience.

I had been tossed around like that myself. Then I sat with a psychiatrist and showed him PROOF of what I had tried to say that was TRUTH. He looked at everything in my records and stared at me in the most serious way and said "YOU ARE ONE VERY MISUNDERSTOOD WOMAN". He actually saw the BS that was totally WRONG. Individuals who do not specialize in "trauma" work, tend to make a lot of mistakes. They are NOT trained to notice the clear red flags and often label things wrong.