My T thinks my exhusband has SOME DEGREE of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and I am looking for people who have it to talk with or know about it... We are divorced and thinking about getting back together.... I have read the threads here and elsewhere and there is a great deal of info out there.....

I have to say that the problems that I have read have not really been issues with us...or maybe I am delusional....and in denial still....our problems started after we relocated to another city early in our marriage...my home town. He wanted to leave the city we were in and although I had just relocated back to that city after 3 years of commuting, I said okay... I don't know but for whatever reason he wanted to experience another city.... be the upwardly mobile professional. Since I felt like I was marketable and didn't want to rain on his parade, I said yes. However, when we moved to the city all hell broke loose. Now I am not saying there were not issues before, but they were small issues which turned out to be big issues in the end... Him not paying a bill, him borrowing money when we were dating and never paying it back, allowing him to charge on my cc but him never paying it back, etc.

Anyway when we moved things were great, he had a great job and I landed a great job through a temp agency... Then he started complaining about the job, constantly, I started to worry but put it out of my mind because he had always kept a job... Then one day I came home early and he was there and it felt wierd like something was going on...by then I had landed another great managerial job. I questioned him and he told me that he got fired.... Of course,, we were in a new city and it was all their fault...nothing he had done. I was working and we were renting at the time so I could afford to pay the rent...but instead of immediately getting a job, he waited until unemployment ran out then started looking.... Well that didn't sit well with me so we argued about it.... Of course, he was looking for the perfect job to fit his perfect, intelligent self! I also think the fact that I was managing people now had something to do with it as well.

Over the years it seemed like a pattern, get a job,, get fired...get unemployment....wait til it expired...then look for a job seriously... Then I got pregnant and thought he would get a job instead of sit on unemployment, but he didn't. During most of my pregnancy he was unemployed. During the fourth month of my pregnancy he was supposed to been saving money, we both were for a down payment on a car. He said he had the money, and I had the money, my share, so we went looking for the car. When we went to negotiate and pay, he said he left his check book at home. I said okay I'll just write the full balance and you can give me the rest when we get home.... The car was only in my name because his credit was EXTREMELY BAD! Now you might wonder why no joint account.....he was always overdrawing the account....money I put in would be gone! I had enough one time and was done! I decided I could not live like that....I was the saver....he was the spender! His money management skills were horrible!

Anyway, when we get home from the dealership with this brand new red sports car, he then tells me he hasn;t worked in weeks. Now mind you, I am pregnant, and you just lied so we could get a shiny new sports car and we have one income....but as he told me, YOU CAN AFFORD IT! I was furious and couldn't believe it....also I let him talk me into getting a stick although I couldn't drive a stick...he would teach me how to drive it hah! Two months later, we were in a six car pile up and the car was totaled...I took the money and brought a used car for him to drive since he was the only one driving it...albeit another sports car. I almost lost the baby and so my doctor put me on bed rest, now no income so I had to beg my boss to allow me to work from home so that we had an income and he did...SOMETHING THE COMPANY HAD NEVER ONE BEFORE...he still didn't get a job! Now I am not the kind of person who doesnt work, never wanted to stay at home, not that there is anything wrong with that, but when I needed him the most, he was not there! I remember the day we were going to come home from the hospital with the baby, I had no sick leave for the six week leave.... I was afraid and told him so, again he said, YOU HAVE MONEY IN THE BANK!

Anway, our marriage was full of him not working, going into companies wanting to be more than he was....these were good sales rep jobs with company cars and expense accounts but he just does't know how to work his way up the ladder, he wants to be the boss....a professional. Also, another thing that he did that drove me crazy was he was always bragging about his friends and the professional positions that they had, the degrees that they had, etc. Always bragging about me to people and it made me uncomfortable becauuse I was not the type of person to discuss my career with people at all!

After the baby was born, I decided that if he didn't change I was going to leave him, now this decision was hard for me, because he helped with all the chores around the house, was a great parent, and really has a great personality and was literally my best friend, didn't cheat on me, enjoyed doing things together, really enjoyed the good life, but not the part where you have to pay for it! If we went out of town or when we did, it went on my carrd and I paid it off...NEVER DID HE BOTHER!

So, when my daughter was about a year and our lease was up I signed a new lease just under my name, scheduled the move and told him I was leaving, and moved....left him in the apartment alone. He, however, came knocking on the door and told me he had no place to go. I told him after my mother talked to me and told me to give hm another chance, that if things did't change I would divorce him.

Okay, so he landed a job in retail and worked that although he complained about it but he kept that job...then he got a lead on another job and decided that he had that job after 3 interviews and quit the retail job before even getting an offer. He didn't get the job, so he was jobless again! Even though the previous employer wanted him to come back and called to ask him to, he refused... Again, I was furious....he promised he would get another job soon. The problem was that he refused to take ANY job, it had to be the job, one specific job that he would focus on for months and months of networking, callling, etc. until he got the job. That he is good at, GETTING THE DANG JOB!

The problem was that this job required him to travel in a neighboring city an hour away.... He immediately started talking about moving there. Now with his history, and a baby to take care of, I was not about to uproot myself and follow him again after five years of craziness.... So, I told him that he would have to commute for a year, if after a year he still had the job then I would move. In the meantime, I suggested that we pay his cousin who lived there money to allow him to rent a room during the week and he come home on the weekends....he said no. It just wasn't possible. So he worked this job, with a company car, and expense account until they fired him. They fired him because it was in the contract for him to move to the city, that is what he says anyway.... Of course, I will never know the real story.... After that I divorced him because I was tired of taking care of him and our dd....

Now after 8 years of being divorced we have been thinking about getting back together....I won't pretend to tell you that things have been good on his end or my end. I am BP diagnosed a year after our divorce. My parents help me with our dd who is 12. He has been living with his relatives in the state we used to live in, most of the time not paying child support, some of the time homeless, and I've been worried about him the entire time. I still love him and yes he is a good father, except for the support issues... For him, he was hurt by the divorce but did well because I gave him a car and furniture....another long story. Even though he got a job in another state immediately after the divorce, he lost that one too... The car that I gave him in the divorce was in a small wreck shortly after, becaue he had a company car with the new job, he left the car at the repair shop and took the repair check. They called me two years later trying to sue me for storage fees because he never took the car out of my name.

I've struggled for a long time to understand his behavior, My T thinks he is somewhat narcisstic.... He's now in school trying to finish his degree and has been there for over a year. He had about a years worth of credits left. Some how he got the school to pay all of his tuition, room and board, etc...except for books... As I said, he is very good at PR.... Before that, he was homeless living in shelters. This is a very intelligent man, always dressed very well. Even when he was homeless you would not have known it by looking at him. By talking to him you would think he was a Mayor or PR person, etc. He is currently struggling because he had two language classes that he is having a difficult time with and the school cut the funding so he is trying to find a job on campus so he can pay for the two classes and his apartment. He is 48 years old this month.

I give you this history because one part of me wants to say he never abused me, but he lied, cheated, and eventually forged my name for a credit card account when we were married because his credit was so poor. He called it leaveraging his assets! We couldn't get a house in both are names because of his poor financial decisions so I decided not to buy one until after the divorce. He never has paid the student loan people.... I think it has tripled. Judge put him in jail for 30 days for nonpayment of child support... I think it is some where around $30,000,,,,,

Okay, I ask myself what am I thinking... Well my daughter needs her father in her life. I love him and want our family back together. A part of me thinks he is trying to improve his life and has even been in therapy. I believe he wants to change. He has agreed to full therapy if we get back together. By the way, getting back together does not mean marriage until I am satisfied somewhere down the line that he is really serious and doing a good job at it! Since I have bipolar and social anxiety disorder, it is difficult on my daughter, she really has no life until he comes around... I try, I am doing the best I can but it is not enough. It is starting to affect her in school and she is usually a honor roll student. She is currently in therapy to help her deal with my illness and her father being away...

Some of what I have read about N is true about him, but most is not. Although, he has lost many friends because he took advantage of their kindness... He really just has us now. Most of those friends he owes money to but spins it in another direction.... You know, he doesn't really owe them, in friendships you scratch each others backs, etc... I know better! One friend let him borrow his credit card for a one night stay in a motel suppposedly, I had to call the friend and tell him he had been there for a week! One friend paid for him to get his insurance license....he has his own business. He paid for the hotel room and everything...car rental, etc.... He never went to the classes...partied the entire weekend....

Both parents are deceased. He is an only child, adopted. His mother died when he was 18 in front of him, a stroke. His father died the year I divorced him of cancer, I did wait until after he was buried to divorce him because his father consstantly begged me not to divorce him, said it would kill him. It was a difficult time, he was crazy with depression during this time, it was hard for him and I was at a loss....but couldn't do it any more. By the way, one day when my car had to be in the shop he took me to work and dropped off our dd at Daycare and was supposed to pick us both up.... He never showed up...that is how he ended up with the car in the divorce... When my parents finally picked me up and my dd....he was gone! I filed for divorce shortly after! He said if I gave him the car he would sign the disallusion papers....so I gave him the car and furniture for his move....

He tells me that depression set in after the divorce and resulted in the homelessness... I had an epiphany one day this summer and it was that the person that I thought he was, he is not. That was all a facade that he wants people to believe in and I bought into that. It was hard letting go of that facade, but I have. I constantly let him know when he is being unrealistic about his expectations about life, job, career, etc. He, of course, still wants to be a "professional." I think I do understand him somewhat now... He is a lost soul because of being the only child, and adopted. They doted on him, spoiled him and didn't teach him life skills. Taught him to be a giver, and that is what he does to a fault. He thinks only about today....not tomorrow! When he has money, the sky is the limit! He loves high end things.... My dd is an only child...he has no others...and I refuse to allow her to be anything like that!

I think with counseling and said boundaries that we can have a wonderful life together after all of this mess....but yes I am afraid! My T thinks it is possible to have a good life with him with boundaries...so does my best friend and she has been with me through it all! Okay, so now tell me what you think....


TJ