[GoldBunni]

I'm afraid I am copy and pasted this from a post I made on another forum (I sadly did not get much response or help there :[)

I was having a ponder the other night as to my own ex's inner demons and potential issues.

Since our break up, a year ago now, I have been inclined to think my ex may be a narcissist or at least have traits. Him, his two brothers and his sister had a rocky upbringing with a controlling and rageful mother and distant father. I think I have mentioned before but I have a feeling his mother may have had BPD. His eldest brother has definitely been affected in some degree, he never speaks and is a very anti social individual; I find his behaviour for a 33 year old man very disturbing and I find it even scarier that no one in the family thinks his behavior is cause for alarm. To be clear it is not simply that he is an introvert, he has never done more than grunt at me and then run out of the room. My ex, who is the youngest of the four children, is generally fine though but has a few...erm..quirks shall we say.

It's hard to determine. Some things he did I's just think 'why would any healthy person think that is ok? Or be so shocked that there were consequences for that?' and other times he seemed extremely independent and laid back.

I found this check list on a thread on the original forum. (It refers to a female but obviously mine is towards a male)
Found it interesting to go through.

I've put my response in bold.

1. Self-centered. Her needs are paramount. Yes, he certainly thought they were more important than mine.
2. No remorse for mistakes or misdeeds. No, he would feel remorse the majority of the time at least.
3. Unreliable, undependable. To an extent, he would be late for things often but never flakey; and I'm not the most punctual either.
4. Does not care about the consequences of her actions. Yes, he seemed to do a lot of things selfishly with no regard of how that may affect others.
5. Projects her faults on to others. High blaming behaviour; never her fault. Erm, not really. No projecting per say but he struggle to take responsibility for himself. It was never his fault.
6. Little if any conscience. As worrying as it sounds, I'm unsure about. I want to say he had a conscience but sometimes..
7. Insensitive to needs and feelings of others. To an extent yes. He cared about my feelings and needs but they were not equal to his and there was a large segment of his friends and networks he clearly would drop like a stone if it were to his advantage.
8. Has a good front (persona) to impress and exploit others. He was very good in his career and definitely come off as a confident young man. It was a guise he would never let down, even in private with me however many people in my life picked up how he felt fake.
9. Low stress tolerance. Easy to anger and rage. Not at all. All water off a ducks back...I did wonder if maybe he just bottled it all up though.
10. People are to be manipulated for her needs. Generally I did not see this, no.
11. Rationalizes easily. Twists conversation to her gain at other’s expense. If trapped, keeps talking, changes the subject or gets angry. I did not see any evidence of this either so I cannot say.
12. Pathological lying. I have yet to see anything he said to me or others as a lie so I shall say no.
13. Tremendous need to control situations, conversations, others. Hmm in a way. Generally no but he aimed to live his life via a very rigid plan and path which clearly depended heavily on the people around him doing exactly what he expected of them. Life does not work this way, I feel his inflexibility will get him in real trouble soon when someone diverts from 'his' plans.
14. No real values. Mostly situational. Once again, could not say. I'd generally say he had good and consistant values.
15. Often perceived as caring and understanding and uses this to manipulate. I don't think many people would label him specifically the caring or understanding type.
16. Angry, mercurial, moods. Nope
17. Uses sex to control I would say no but he had a real appetite for it. We very rarely were able to just cuddle in bed, he almost constantly wanted sex. At first great but then I almost found it a bit perverse.
18. Does not share ideas, feelings, emotions. YES! He thought what he thought and what he felt was the same thing; did not understand how there could be a differentiation in that.
19. Conversation controller. In a way, I found I'd ask him how he was and he'd then talk for 20-30 mins about his day in great details...then afterwards wouldn't even ask me how I was..
20. Is very slow to forgive others. Hangs onto resentment. Not really, he was pretty forgiving and didn't hold grudges.
21. Secret life. Hides money, friends, activities. Not that I knew of haha but guess that might be the point. I was never suspicious of this though
22. Likes annoying others. Likes to create chaos and disrupt. Needs strong emotions to survive. Not at all, he liked a calm life.
23. Moody - switches from nice girl to anger without much provocation. Nope, I never saw his angry side tbh.
24. Repeatedly fails to honor financial obligations. Not that I saw
25. Seldom expresses appreciation. To a degree, now I reflect I very rarely got a genuine thank you for kind gestures.
26. Grandiose. Convinced she knows more than others and is correct in all she does. Yep, he had a real bad habit of speaking with a particular patronising tone towards me and other people.
27. Lacks ability to see how she comes across to others. Defensive when confronted with her behaviour. Never her fault. Possibly. If I approach him about something he did that bothered me it was common for him to sulk and pout rather than be open for discussion. And he would NEVER say sorry.
28. Can get emotional, tearful. This is about show or frustration rather than sorrow. I would see him get frustrated but no more than a usual person. I never saw him cry, apparently he hadn't since he was 7-8.
29. She breaks her man’s confidence to keep him dependent. Hmm yes in a way. He could be very critical of me, I was very submissive and subservient in the relationship and made to feel I was over stepping to line if I tried to speak up and move to a more equal footing.
30. Needs threats, intimidations to keep others close to her. Nope
31. Sabotages partner. Wants him to be happy only through her and to have few or no outside interests and acquaintances. Not at all, he was very encouraging to me meeting new people, succeeding in a new job and gaining new hobbies....though just as things were starting to go well he left me so.....
32. Highly contradictory. Not really but I did find he talked a lot with little action to back it up
33. Convincing. Must convince people to side with her. Not really
34. Hides her real self. Always “on” Yes, see earlier about personas
35. Kind only if she's getting from you what she wants. As I said, I'm not sure I'd call him kind specifically but it did not feel like he had ulterior motives.
36. She has to be right. She has to win. She has to look good. Yep, he always had to be right. Always had to win the argument, he must have seen apologizing as a failure.
37. She announces, not discusses. She tells, not asks. Mmm in a way I agree with this
38. Does not discuss openly, has a hidden agenda. No I would not call it a hidden agenda. However when we broke up I was stunned when he said he'd been considering it for a good couple of months; I was very upset he did not even think to come talk to me earlier so we could see about a way of working things out. To him I had one chance/I should have just known.
39. Controls money of others but spends freely on herself. Nope, he could be surprisingly cheap though when it came to spending on anyone but himself. Especially since he made a relatively decent income for his age and position.
40. Unilateral condition of, "I'm OK and justified so I don't need to hear your position or ideas" He did not like hearing my side of things in an argument that's for sure, like I said, would just sulk and pout and almost switch off.
41. Always feels misunderstood. Not that I knew of.
42. Does not listen because she does not care. I think he switched off a lot when I or other people were talking. Loads of times I would tell him stuff and he'd forget it almost immediately. From general info about my life to whether I was seeing him on the weekend of not. Lots of times I would ask 'what time should I come Friday?' and he'd be all 'you're coming Friday?'....yes we did talk about this. He usually would have made plans cos he hadn't listened in the first place :/
43. Her feelings are discussed, not the partners. To a degree, as I said though, he didn't seem to have feelings as far as he knew; he had thoughts.
44. Is not interested in problem-solving. Unable to solve problems because that would mean facing herself. Hmm yes and no. Generally he was a very rational and logical person but, as I said, when we broke up most of our problems were solvable, I just didn't realise they were affecting us so much because he never came forward to discuss it with me. It was very frustrating, it felt like he was throwing away our r/s for nothing; he couldn't be bothered to even try.
45. Very good at reading people, so she can manipulate them. Sometimes called gaslighting. No, he didn't seem to be a people reader and he never gaslit me. (My friend and his eventual new gf however gaslit me a ton)
46. Jealous No
47. Double standards No

Am I over complicated this or does there seem to be a pattern? As you can see there are some worrying things in there but lots of contrasting attitudes too. Can anyone help me work through this? Be good to get more info and be able to move on from this a bit better.

[-jimi-]

I'm not saying this is what is going on, because lack of attachment as a child can also end up in a similar pattern, or could end up in OCPD. I'm just showing how narcissism differs from what some people think is narcissism.

[GoldBunni]

Wow!
That was a really fascinating video, thank you.

I did see a lot of links. He did used to sleep a lot, in terms of taking naps quite regularly through exhaustion (though he was VERY skinny so he may have had an underlying physical health problem he was unaware of). He would also appear, and tell me, he was very dense, for instance I brought him a card and cakes for valentine's day, he got me nothing . I was obviously upset and thought 'what on Earth?!' and he did not see the issue at all, saying his family did not 'do cards etc'. He seemed genuinely sorry (though did not say it) and told me I should have said it was important to me then he would have come over on the day (we celebrated on the weekend) and cooked me dinner etc. I remember thinking, how did you not get the hint that it was important to me; he knew I was bringing him stuff.

I didn't see the rigid daily routine or dislike in being touched however. He had rigid life plans but was relatively spontaneous in day to day activities (he didn't like us spending nights in, he would get a bit sulky about it actually).

I thought the video on the Golden Child and Black Sheep was interesting too.
I think my ex saw himself very much as the black sheep, and commented regular that one of his brothers was his parent's 'Golden Boy'.

I had a look into OCPD also (I originally though his mum had some OCD).
I thought Millon's Conscientious Sub-type was interesting:
Rule-bound and duty-bound; earnest, hardworking, meticulous, painstaking; indecisive, inflexible; marked self-doubts; dreads errors and mistakes.

^I saw a lot of those in him (except maybe the indecisive one).