[hopeful622]

I think my ex has NPD but am not sure and it has torn me to pieces…I didn’t realize for about a year that there was something wrong with him…Things started out amazing..He was like the man of my dreams. He doted on me and told me he loved me nonstop and would take me places and buy me things even if I didn’t ask for them. If I mentioned I liked something, he would get it and I always thought maybe he was just trying to buy my love. I never really cared about materialistic things but if I would say something like you shouldn’t have bought me that (bc is was expensive or unnecessary) he would react in a negative manner and get an attitude with me and tell me how ungrateful I was when in reality, I was just looking out for his financial situation. He cannot ever accept fault or blame and his main problem is that. Any fight we had is always my fault and I create every adverse situation according to him.

In the beginning, he really won me over with his charm. Everyone seemed to love him and I was thinking how did I get this lucky I had never had anyone treat me so well before. He was so happy to always be the center of attention, the life of the party and I thought wow what a great, fun guy to be around. He promised me the world. We were both going to leave our unhappy marriages and live this fairytale life together as man and wife. My husband had a drinking problem and in the past was physically abusive to me and I was just so desperate to take my kids and start a new life. He was everything I hoped for, or so I thought…We looked at places to live together but for some reason, he never could take the step forward to be with me even though that was what he kept claiming he wanted.

One day after I had been seeing him for almost a year I got word that he left his marriage of 12 years. He was greatly unhappy, in fact he swore it would’ve happened whether I was in the picture or not. His wife and him were more like roommates, they never shared a bedroom throughout their entire marriage and had relations maybe once every year and a half. I knew that wasn’t normal but he had me believing that it was all his ex-wife’s doing and he was pretty blameless. Said she wouldn’t sleep with him because of his snoring but having slept with him, his snoring was there but certainly not so bad as to keep someone away for 12 years! There had to be something else going on. I note that he controlled every aspect of their life and finances which in turn got them into financial trouble. He ruled the roost so to speak until one day she told him to hit the road. He seemed unable to cope with being tossed away from her even though he claimed he didn’t want to be with her, I think the ego blow was more than he could handle.

Once his divorce proceedings began things started to deteriorate rapidly with us. He was making bad legal decisions and I kept trying to tell him as such (I am an attorney) but he wouldn’t listen. For instance he was insistent on taking what he called “the high road”, liquidated his retirement plan to pay off his ex wifes car and her credit cards etc which left him with severe tax penalties for early withdrawl. He used the excuse that he was paying her stuff off so that she could afford to remain in the marital home with his daughter yet she made a comfortable living, almost 6 figures and all that wouldn’t have been necessary. I started to wonder about this because in doing so he got himself in massive debt with tax penalties because the wife basically screwed him and stuck him with all the debt which he allowed. His mother sent him a card after his divorce was final congratulating him on taking the high road..He was so proud of himself even though his life now truly was a shambles…Which brings me to my next point..His mother. He is overly infatuated with his family, his mom in particular..She often pats him on the back so to speak and tells him how wonderful a person he is. His real father abandoned him and his mom and brother when he was just a little kid maybe 4 or 5. He has never had a real relationship with his father and to this day barely sees or speaks to him as he lives halfway across the country.

When he was in his early twenties, his mother remarried and while his step father seemed like a great guy (I never met him as he died before we hooked up) my ex idolized him..called him dad, calls his step brothers and sisters his brother and sister even though they were step. Now mind you, I am not saying there is anything wrong but it was as if he was so desperate to have a real family that he never had, he made himself part of his stepfamily as if he had been a part of it his entire life. I just thought this odd. I never heard of anyone who became a step child in their 20’s and referred to their step parent as mom or dad. I just found that so bizarre! He is obsessed with his mother and rarely does a day go by where he doesn’t have to go over there for one thing or another and when he isn’t there he is on the phone with her. He has broken plans with me on many occasions to go over his moms for dinner and when I would get upset about it because as time went on he would spend less and less time with me, he would get angry, and tell me I was twisting the truth around and have me in tears. She did not approve of our relationship and I guess me, because I was married even though my marriage was in the crapper..hubby cheated on me too and I just eventually left. Even after I got my own apartment, or house rather, she was telling him my soon to be ex hubby was going to come after him and he would believe her and distanced himself from me and stopped coming by altogether.

Time passes, the arguments between us get more and more frequent. The littlest thing I say sets him off. I am rarely if ever allowed to express an opinion without fear of a violent angry outburst or a session in degradation. He no longer talks about our future together like he did in the beginning, now he just seems to want me around when he wants me around. He hangs out with his mom on weekends or goes out with his friends and I am left sitting home alone weekend after weekend and he sees nothing wrong with this. I would ask him midweek if we were gonna do something that weekend he would say yes only for the weekend to come and he would tell me he had plans to do something else. When I would get upset about it he would get angry and thrash me verbally till I was in tears telling me I am to blame for the reason we didn’t go out even though that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He would call me names like the master of self pity and the martyr which I never understood and still don’t till this day. He would always make excuses for why our relationship wouldn’t move forward, he had a huge problem with my oldest daughter. She did not like him for whatever reason, as she claims he was a liar and she saw right through him. She was never disrespectful to him but she would not go out of her way to talk to him at all. This enraged him. We had more fights than I can count because my daughter wouldn’t love, admire and accept him. He just could not cope with it and in the end he would blame me and say it was my fault and I should have given her a kick in the ***. I did try on many occasions to talk with her about it but she had her opinion of him and nothing I said was going to change that. He made my daughter the focal point of why our relationship was now destroyed. He tried to get me to throw her out of my house and when I refused, I was blamed for the way things were going because I chose to not hold her accountable for her behavior. He said he would never live with me because of her…All the while she really wasn’t doing anything to interfere, she was a good kid! in college during the day and then working 6 days a week at night and on weekends. He harped on her behavior non-stop. Her behavior of not accepting him that is. She never said a disrespectful thing to him, she just basically made like he wasn’t there. We fought over this so many times and I just got so tired of hearing about it. One time we were in his house and he brought her up and again was telling me I should cut her off and when I started to get teary eyed and said that is my child I cannot do that! He blew up at me and walked upstairs to go to bed leaving me sitting there alone this was just after having sex which made me feel like a piece of crap… I just left and went home. He called that time telling me how much he loved me and that he was sorry but a day or two later was back to his usual behavior. Every argument we had was started by him almost because he would do something or say something to upset me and when I would try to talk to him about the things that were upsetting me, he didn’t want to hear about it. He called me an idiot and a moron and would just cut me off and tell me what we were and what we were not going to talk about. If I tried to explain to him why I was upset I would get told to just shut my mouth.. I never called him names. It was so very hurtful because all along I really thought that I loved this man. Meanwhile as he has been insulting my family and friends god forbid if I was to say anything about his mother or family. He would go postal. All I ever said about his mom was that I thought she was a bit too involved in his personal life. He somehow twisted that into I don’t know what and she ended up not liking me and I was never again invited into her home or around his family. At Christmas time he had plans to be with his family xmas eve and he didn’t even invite me. I asked him why I could not come over with him and be with him and he wouldn’t give me an answer. Probably because he badmouthed me to his family saying untrue things and got them to not like me? That was my guess. He left me sitting home alone again xmas day as my kids went to be with their father and he once again went to his mothers house.

I became greatly depressed and started seeing a therapist over this and dealing at the same time with a broken marriage. It was just too much..Oh and did I mention last year I lost both my parents 3 weeks apart. As my father who I was extremely close with lie dying in hospital, I asked him to leave work to come be with me and he told me he couldn’t leave work..same 3 weeks later when my mother passed, he couldn’t leave work…On one occasion I was driving home from work and my stomach hurt so bad I felt I needed to go to the ER. I called to tell him and asked would he come sit with me and he said he was at work and couldn’t leave and lets see what happens. He didn’t even care yet my then estranged husband offered to come be with me. I thought something is wrong here. The man who claims to love me cant come to the hospital but my soon to be ex husband can?

Anyway, after I moved into my own house which I was renting, I assumed he would want to move in with me. He had spent the prior almost 2 years telling me how he wanted our life together. He then found out his condo was being sold by the landlord and he had to move. I figured he would move in with me then for sure but instead, moved further away from me..almost 20 miles away. I felt so hurt and destroyed. I ruined what was left of my marriage because he promised me the world, got this nice house where I thought he would come be with me because that’s what he had promised then he left me there alone, paying the bills almost financially devastated me. He did not care. Not one shred of caring or concern for what I gave up to try and have a life with him. I was really starting to feel like I was being used for one thing.

Fast forward, shortly after he moved to a more distant town, he got fired from his job. He told me it was because they said he was adding hours onto his time card but somehow he had me convinced that he did nothing wrong and the organization was merely out to get him. His financial situation rapidly deteriorated nevertheless I loved him and it wasn’t to me about what he had I didn’t care if he was broke because I loved him. He stopped making the time to be with me always giving me an excuse, his mother stepped in and started paying his rent. His birthday came around and I got him a really nice Armani watch and a beautiful card. My birthday was 3 weeks later. I knew he didn’t have the money to get me anything nice but I wasn’t prepared that he wouldn’t get me even a card. I was extremely hurt. For a dollar he could’ve showed me that he cared. I asked him did he get me a card, he lied to me on 3 occasions when I asked saying he did get me one yet it never appeared. He said he would have to get it filled out…really? How long does it take to sign your name on a card. He stole from me on more than one occasion and when I confronted him him made it out that how dare I accuse him of such a thing there was something wrong with my way of thinking he said. I caught him in many lies and when I would attempt to call him out for something I knew wasnt true he would accuse me of just trying to trip him up..

Our fights began to get more bitter with him constantly accusing me of doing things I didn’t do…I felt verbally abused by the things he was saying to me till one day he left me a voicemail in which he just sounded like an evil maniac telling me how I was the master of self pity and to knock off my crap. We had made plans for this past Saturday night and that morning he tells me (and I was shocked because we once again had plans) he was going to dinner at his mothers..mind you he had been there the prior two nights for dinner. I was hurt but didn’t at that moment say anything because I knew he would spaz on me as he often did when I told him what he was doing wasn’t right. If he wanted to go there he shouldn’t have said he would be with me…more lies… He left his moms earlier than expected and called me and I didn’t answer. I was very hurt at sitting home alone because I couldve made other plans had he given me advance notice. He would often do this, try and tell me he told me something when I knew he didn’t to try and make me think I was going crazy. I called him back about an hour after he called and told him I had gone out for a drive because I was upset about having been sitting home alone on a Saturday night. Had he said something a couple days earlier I could’ve made plans with friends but he waited until that day to tell me so he was sure I guess, that I would’ve been home alone. He immediately got defensive and started blaming me for having not answered my phone saying he left a family function early so I wouldn’t have to be alone. I said we made plans a few days ago and you said you weren’t doing anything then you turned around and went to your moms. He screamed at me that is in the past!! You should’ve picked up the phone when I called you that is why you are home alone tonight! He was hostile and nasty and refused to acknowledge what he did to me and just kept saying it was my own fault. I was eventually driven to tears and saying I don’t understand why everything is always MY fault. I was sobbing and he just hung up on me…. I just couldn’t take anymore. I sent him an email the following morning telling him I was done and I just couldn’t handle the way I was being treated any longer and he immediately called me up. He in fact called me 3 times. I would not answer because I knew it would have been more of the same, him accusing me of twisting the truth around and not ever accepting responsibility for his actions. He left me a very evil sounding voicemail calling me names and telling me to go back with my husband because that’s what I want to do anyway which was never what I had said it was something he always told me I wanted. He tried to control me and told me I needed to change my way of thinking on many occasions. He interfered in my relationships with family members and caused me to lose friendships because he did not like at least two of my friends. He badmouthed them and would constantly tell me my friends and certain family members brought nothing positive to my life. I cut people off because he had me thinking that he was right when in reality they saw what he was doing to me and he knew it and that’s why he didn’t like them.

I feel hurt very hurt right now and like I was mentally abused by this man. I did some research and I think he seems like he has NPD. I am no therapist but he has something wrong that much I know. I hope I can find the inner strength to get through this horrible time. I will never go back to him. I don’t suspect he will come back and ask me to but if he does I am keeping my distance. I honestly feel like I have been through the ringer after almost 3 years of this mental abuse.

[Jannaku]

Hi there. Sounds a bit NPD to me. I'm married to one and I can see the similarities especially not taking blame, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, denegrating you, etc. Biggest trait = does he believe 100% that he is superior/better than everyone else and is hypersensitive to criticism? My H certainly does and there is no question about that. All I can say is that I am really sorry to hear about all the abuse that this man has put you through. Psychological/verbal abuse is a slow insiduous way of destroying your self esteem and sanity. It's torturous and soul destroying. You are so lucky that you never progressed further in your relationship - thank goodness for that. Don't for one minute weaken and go back. You need time out to build your "self" up again and gain strength to venture forward in your life. Never regret what has happened. Consider yourself lucky - lucky that you are free from a dysfunctional relationship and a man that has never given you the love and respect you deserve. Allow yourself time to heal but I am sure that as time heals your wounds you will realise that you have made the right decision and will have the wisdom of hindsight. All the best

[hopeful622]

Originally Posted by Jannaku

Hi there. Sounds a bit NPD to me. I'm married to one and I can see the similarities especially not taking blame, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, denegrating you, etc. Biggest trait = does he believe 100% that he is superior/better than everyone else and is hypersensitive to criticism? My H certainly does and there is no question about that. All I can say is that I am really sorry to hear about all the abuse that this man has put you through. Psychological/verbal abuse is a slow insiduous way of destroying your self esteem and sanity. It's torturous and soul destroying. You are so lucky that you never progressed further in your relationship - thank goodness for that. Don't for one minute weaken and go back. You need time out to build your "self" up again and gain strength to venture forward in your life. Never regret what has happened. Consider yourself lucky - lucky that you are free from a dysfunctional relationship and a man that has never given you the love and respect you deserve. Allow yourself time to heal but I am sure that as time heals your wounds you will realise that you have made the right decision and will have the wisdom of hindsight. All the best

Thank you and yes he is EXTREMELY hypersensitive to criticism. If I dared to criticize anything about him or his family he would go berzerk on me! However, he had no problem criticizing me or my family and friends constantly... He would always stress how he is NOTHING like my past relationships as he is so much better and he would tell me not to DARE compare him to my exes...I think I will be ok. He really had me fooled stated he loved me more than anyone ever had or will and I was sucked in and believed him. People kept telling me actions speak louder than words but I just couldnt accept that for I fell in love with this amazing guy but as time went on, his real self emerged and I was in love with a person that simply did not exist. It has taken me what seems like an eternity to accept this fact that this person who I thought was so amazing just isnt real. The real person I have been seeing more and more during the past year is who he really is and well..I not only dont love THAT person...I really dont even like him.

[Hetty]

Hopeful...
I'm glad that you were able to get out all those feelings of frustration and disappointment. You feel mentally abused because you were mentally and emotionally abused, regardless of what diagnosis he might fit. It can be easy to get into letting someone hurt you when you love and care about them. I was married for 12 years to someone who was psychologically abusive, possessive, controlling, and even cruel. It's hard to get perspective on it when you are in it and trying to please someone and show them that you care. I'm glad that you got yourself out of it now, and I agree - don't go back. I encourage you to give yourself time to get perspective, and heal yourself and your life and build up your other relationships. You can't be of help to him when he blames you for everything and won't take any responsiblity onto himself for his unhappiness.