Marriage Problems

100% true. Good news is I’m onto him and his antics.

Wow, is he good. He is trying to plant seeds of doubt in my mind. He’s now minimizing our fights and his insults because he “hasn’t been himself” due to his mother’s health. He is telling me I’m not giving him a fair chance and that this is a mistake on my part. He’s saying how he’s supported me through all my troubles and in sickness and in health kinds of things. He’s saying anything and everything to get me to doubt my decision.

Does “in sickness and in health” also entail enduring and forgiving insults?? Does it entail enduring multiple fights that your spouse initiates?? Does it entail not knowing from one day to the next how your spouse may react to innocent and benign questions or comments??

And how can he say I haven’t given him a fair chance? He’s had chance after chance to make things right with me. We’ve been back together for over a year now. He’s been in therapy for over a year. I’ve given him many chances - too many. There should be no insults at this stage — NONE. There’s no excuse for that.

I wish there was somewhere I could go to truly separate from him right now. We have to live together, and his pleading is making this so much harder.

Dear friend,

Everything you have described is almost TEXTBOOK narcissistic manipulation. You and I know now that they do not operate under the same societal norms that most people follow. It can take some time, and some serious study and cogitating to get to where they live, and how they think.

Every single word he utters springs from his need to control and even "micromanage" you. They get off on doing this. That's a big engine that drives their continual side-winding and method-altering approaches to their victim.

If it causes you confusion, a bit of questioning/ doubting yourself, and even a bit of compassionate paralysis (because a normal healthy mind would never operate in the ways they do), so much the better, they think. It keeps you close and available. They've "won". Even your confusion and dismay gives them a little tickle; it reassures them, and makes them feel powerful, which is the most important thing in the world to them.

Stay resolute!

I've been through it, I've lived it, and now I am actively researching it. Because, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able in a million years to untangle their motivations and behaviors, unless I dedicated lots of time and attention to it. The problem they don't realize, is that they ALL follow very often-repeated and identifiable patterns---and that's what ultimately gives them away, and certifies them as what they are.

They do not change. The manipulative behaviour often continues to escalate. So do not fall for carefully-worded and eloquent promises. Protect yourself. Stay smart, and make secure plans. Do your best to remain non-confrontational, as much as possible.

Narcissists CAN be rehabilitated, as long as they recognize their actions are harming another person, and they then genuinely devote themselves to the care of a good therapist. They have to want to break the cycle very badly, and be dedicated to changing their approaches to people, for it to work. IT IS NOT OUR JOB, as lay people, TO TRY AND DO THIS. It takes trained and highly capable diagnosticians and therapists to make a difference.

There are a lot of good and helpful Youtube videos on how to (and how NOT to) interact with narcissists. Anybody looking for recommendations can PM me.

We're pulling for you, Hope. And I'm sure we all want to hear you're safe, and soon free of him.

Thank you, dearest @MuseumGhost.

It's working - he is confusing me. I don't know how to proceed from here. I allowed him to sleep with me in the bedroom after I returned from my father's service last night. He is doing everything in his power to keep me, and right now, I feel I am weakening because he's being so sweet, thoughtful and nice.

He cleaned the entire apartment while I was gone, and turned it into a loving, peaceful and relaxing haven upon my return, with candles lit and incense burning, which I love. He made my bed and put my stuffed teddy bear on the pillows.

I do not know what to do or what to do next. We can go to a couples therapy session tomorrow night whereby I can express how I feel with the safety of a third party.

Is my husband truly a narcissist? My therapist hasn't diagnosed him, but then again, I don't think our therapist is very good. He certainly could be one, but aren't all abusers manipulative?

I spoke in confidence with one of my cousins last night at the service, and I informed my sister that I had told my husband not to attend the service. I told everyone else, including my mother, that my husband had thrown out his back again and was in immense agony and that's why he wasn't there. So, I lied.

I am not feeling very strong - it's going to take an enormous amount of strength and courage to end this for real. The path of least resistance - the easier thing to do - would be to stay. I am facing an entire upheaval of my life in leaving him again. And he is making it SO much harder to remain resolute.

This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to face.

Yes, all abusers are manipulative.

His exact diagnosis isn't important to know. The way he treats you is the main thing, whatever his diagnosis may be.

Agreed @Bill3. I will not know if he is a true narc or not, unless a doctor tells me so. He very well could be, but either way, I know I must end the relationship somehow.

@Marie123, that one sentence is helping me immensely through the confusion I face right now. "Let the side of you that is trying to save yourself... win".

This sentence keeps running through my head and that's exactly how it feels - that I need to let the side that wants to save me to win the argument.

The abuse cycle is difficult to break. If it was easy to break, victims wouldn't need advocates, escape plans and in many cases, years of therapy to heal from it.

While you were making excuses for his absence, he was setting up a love bomb and it went off. When is he going to pick a fight, call you crazy, talk behind your back to his coworker, not support you? Love bombs don't last forever, and by design are supposed to make you doubt what you know. He's trying to look as much like a sheep as a wolf can to distract you because he knows it works.

If he were truly able to support you, he would have been with you yesterday.

If he successfully reels you back in, where will he be for the next family event? How will he speak to you once the fear of losing you recedes? What, if anything, will actually be different, and better?

Agreed - and he should have been with me, but I insisted that he not go.

And on that note, I just told him via text that:

(1) I am no longer in love with him
(2) that I want a divorce
(3) that the relationship is unhealthy for me
(4) that I cannot live with the mistrust
(5) that I am not happy in this relationship and have not been for some time now.

So, once again, I am confronting him with a divorce.

I agree with Bill and Rollercoaster. There doesn't have to be a hard diagnosis of narcissism for the abuse to be real.

But he's got you very confused, and that's basically where they live---keeping you guessing.

Please, stay safe.

Exactly. He is love bombing me like crazy. And it’s hard not to fall for it, but I more so see it as an act of manipulation, which trumps truly falling for it.

Of course he will pick another fight with me at some future date. And of course he will find a way to demean me again. And I do not trust that he won’t step out of the marriage again. I do not and cannot trust him. Too many promises have been broken and his words are now meaningless. His promises are empty promises. And yes he’s now disguising himself as the sheep. What a manipulative - a-hole.

Thanks darling. I’m not going to allow him to confuse my true gut and my true feelings.

I told him it’s over, he tried to call me but I didn’t pick up. He hasn’t texted back.

Three more psychics told me he has in fact cheated in the last year since we’ve been back together. One said before we were even married. One told me he is constantly scoping out women for the next flirtation.

Whether it’s true or not, I cannot trust him. Thank goodness I’m getting out now before I catch him doing something behind my back again and before he can traumatize me all over again.

That being said, I feel very foolish for giving him my trust again. I should never have gone back after the first time and I’m kicking myself. I wanted to believe in him. When it was in fact, very foolish.

Please help me to forgive myself. I allowed this abuser back into my life, when I was in a very vulnerable place in life. He was there, and I wanted to believe his words. Now I know that he is just full of crap, bs and lies. I knew this already and still went back to him. Please help me to forgive myself.

Look in a mirror and say I'm sorry self. Do it every day. One day the image looking back will say I forgive you.

Take care of you in the present. The future doesn't hurt. It can't, it hasn't happened yet. The past is history, all you need to do is learn from it.

THANK YOU. I did just that - just now. And then cried.

I have sacrificed SO much of myself . I cut off important parts of myself and now I want those parts back. It's like my wings were clipped the entire time with him. I grieve THAT vs the loss of HIM. I am not losing him, I am regaining myself. That's how I view this. But I grieve for the woman inside that I have neglected, and who was neglected in this relationship. He neglected me. Now it's ME time.

And yes, I can definitely learn from this experience.

I just quit the therapist who never validated me. What I need is validation around the abuse and my experience of my husband, and he wasn’t giving me that. Why keep going back? It’s not helping me and in fact is harming me.

Wow, this truly sucks. Our lease doesn't end until JUNE. Neither one of us has a place to go to, and neither one of us has any money to move out. It will take me 3 full months to save what I need in order to move out, but even then, I would have to find a sublet to take over my portion of the lease if I move. Once again, it would be best if my husband moved out because I can afford our apartment and he can't, but the place he had before is no longer available to him.

We're stuck together for now. He is going to see his mother for 5 days on Sat, so I will get a break from him, thank goodness. A couple girlfriends have offered to let me stay with them here and there for an escape.

This is a nightmare, but there was no way I could keep going in this relationship - not one minute longer.

I never should have let him move back in. That was a mistake. This whole relationship was a mistake.

I am beating myself up.

And, I think @MuseumGhost was right. I think he's a narcissist - I looked up the difference between narc abuse and regular abuse:

Abuse alone is clean. They hate you. They stay hating you. They want to destroy you. They abuse you.

Narcissistic abuse is dirty, twisted, perverse, slimy, invasive and vile. It leaves a dirtiness in you (and later emotional issues) and makes the narcissist look odious and sickening (once you awaken to its true face).

When the narcissist is feeling rotten, moody, angry, sad, self-pitying, unhappy. They will do anything to cause you to become unhappy too. And then they sleep well at night and remember nothing about it. This is the best known part of narcissistic abuse.

But when the narcissist is feeling wonderful, they will then profanely coerce you into feeling wonderful with them. The high functioning ones will turn on their 100 W smile, deploy their charm offensive, tell you how wonderful a jewel you are, how you complete them, buy you expensive gifts, treat you to a $500 dinner.

That's my husband. And I felt this before we got back together.

WHY OH WHY did I have to get back together with him? What was wrong with me? I was in a very vulnerable place, and he crept back in.

What is the difference between narcissistic abuse and emotional abuse? I've been abused by someone with npd (my dad) and someone without (my ex) and the experiences were incredibly similar. - Quora

Is he on the lease?

If not, you can tell him to leave. Or you can give him a deadline, X number of days.

It will then be his responsibility to find an affordable place to live. People do that every day, he can do it too.

He is on the lease unfortunately.

That is unfortunate.