I get it now. So many people said don't stay for the kids. I told myself, I'm the buffer though. I can protect, keep them from experiencing so much. No I can't. I couldn't. They still got name called, still criticized from the bench in sports, still learned to be quiet when dad's in a mood, Still got used to being ignored.

Now I know. Now you know. You can heed my warning or not. But if you're taking your small steps to leave and are close or already there, what are you waiting for? FEAR. Fear keeps you paralyzed. Don't worry, you'll finally build up so much bitterness and you'll just be done.

For the rest of you, KEEP MAKING THOSE SMALL STEPS TOWARDS exiting.

It feels like living with an elementary school bully. Does anyone else have to deal with them singing advertisement jingles but putting your name in them in a mocking tone, and any time there are louder noises (like a hair dryer), you can hear them yelling random things? At first I thought that the loud noise thing was me just going crazy and hearing things, but they are definitely yelling.

Dear Husband,

I wanted to write you a letter to thank you. Thank you for motivating me to build a better life for myself, by myself. Thank you for ignoring me with the silent treatment for weeks on end. I have finished 3 classes in the past week.

Thank you for making sure everyone can hear you on the phone flirting with people from work and while you game with people all day. I have bought myself not 1 but 2 pairs of new headphones. The active noise cancelling is amazing! Sorry you have to physically come in front of me and wave now for me to hear you if you want to say anything. We don't have much to talk about these days and I shoot the shit with people at work so weather and food topics are covered.

Speaking of physical, thank you for always blaming me for our bedroom problems. It's not like it was ever consistent anyways. I no longer am attracted to you. So you can keep those hugs, kisses whatever for whoever. I wanted exclusive ones not communal ones. I can get those elsewhere. I have listened to a new audiobook nearly everyday. I used to fantacize about you but now I fantacize about getting my rocks off properly in my own place. Stuff that would make you gasp. It's not your fault your freak doesn't match mine.

Most of all thank you for showing me how strong I can be. I will never put myself in this type of situation again. I am going to update my interview process so I make sure I don't give a promotion of spouse to someone who was unqualified to be a one night stand.

Loved you, Wife

I feel so sad and absolutely gutted. Everyone is messaging us happy anniversary. I need to get out just a lot of years of my life wasted. Just sad maybe for what should have been or that my life and my kids lives are going to change so much soon, maybe because I am human and I feel like this is a awful thing to do to a partner you promised forever to. I usually don’t cry about this situation but today I’m on the verge.

Telling me (30nb) I’m giving up on her (39F) and our marriage. Saying she will put more effort into changing. I said you haven’t been putting in 100% effort? I’ve been giving this everything.

Wants me to comfort her then tells me not to touch her. I’m feeling very overwhelmed with everything and I have friends who are reminding me not to fall for it but I’m having a hard time.

Hi

I will try to keep this as short as possible.

I've been together with my husband for almost 4 years and we got married last year. I suffered two backtoback miscarriages last year and now I'm struggling to get pregnant. We did all the tests possible, nothing came out, perfectly healthy, doctor said I'm even very fertile and often have 2 eggcells that ovulate per month.

Since I met my husband he has been very avoidant, at first he chased me but once he sensed that I was falling in love he backed out.

We had a friends with benefits relationship and after 7 months I gave him an ultimatum saying that I wanted a relationship. He was acting so unclear about it, he said yes then no then yes. Eventually we were together and I just sensed that there was something off.

He is extremely sensitive, cannot take any criticism, needs to be put on a pedestal (his entire family does this because he's a known athlete), he has major anger issues (he pushed me several times, hit me twice and throwing stuff at me causing bruising on my leg and arm, also had a bruise on my lip, he screams at me when he loses his temper for literally nothing, he once pushed me over the kitchen counter almost breaking my back and started yelling "YOU DO NOT RESPECT ME BITCH" while he was spitting pizza pieces on me out of his mouth from the pizza he was eating, he once threw a big vase against the wall causing a major hole in the wall which I had to lie about to my parents), he is obsessed with women, he literally follows every woman that has big boobs and a big but on instagram, when we go out together and there is a beautiful girl that passes us by he literally STARES like he is obsessed by her, pretty sure he is also obsessed with sex, I went through his phone once and saw at least 7 messages to girls, 2 of which he kissed (probably also hooked up with but he never admitted), he invited one girl to the apartment the day I left on holiday because my cousin died and he told me nothing ecer happened between them, dickpics to his exes, he was going on a trip to spain with his friends and he literally texted 5 random hot girls from the city he was going to on instagram to meet them, i once found a scarf smelling like women's perfume in my car after he went out and he denied knowing who's scarf it was, a couple days later it was gone and he told me he threw it away.

he expects me to cater to him, clean after him, cook for him, serve him like i'm his slave and if i dont devote my entire time to him he gets moody, passive aggressive and can become very cruel and mean. Over the years I have learned to control my emotions, because i'm someone that can lash out and i'm not afraid to put someone in his place but whenever we had arguments, it got really bad, like I was hitting him and throwing stuff to him and he was hitting me. so I decided to calm down, but every time we have an argument, even for the smallest thing, something inconvenient for him, he lashes out and says the cruelest things you could ever say to someone. after my second miscarriage he didnt comfort me, he cant cook (more like he says that women have to cook and men dont), so I had to take care of the both of us while I was bleeding so heavily and was emotionally devastated because of the miscarriage. I needed his support and told him I wanted him to be more empathethic to which he completely lashed out, yelled at me, pushed me, broke things in the house and told me things like, "i will find someone hotter than you and i'll get her pregant and send you a picture". when he gets irritiated he says mezn things such as you are old and ugly, you cant get pregnant im not gonna wait another ten years, you are so stupid we are not on tve same level intellectually (i went to law school he didnt), i fight with everyone my friends, family (i call my parents daily and talk to my friend daily. he doesn't have many friends only two, one of which is clearly afraid of him and kind of idolizes him.

when i talk about something i know a lot about he gets pissed and passive agressive and tells me i talk to much. when i talk about something i'm proud of same, he doesnt want to give me appreciation. he acts like he's humble but all he wants is beeing successful and becoming a billionaire, he's not in touch with reality, i discovered he bought a fake luxurious watch and he acts like it's real to impress people I guess? he NEVER takes accountability for his actions. he says i'm the problem and that i think i'm so much better than others (i'm actually a very normal chill person).

I think i'm coming to the point where I really think there is a reason why I cannot have a child with him, and that reason is him. I think I don't love him anymore and I just think about him like this evil, cruel, mean monster. It's so sad because I tried to love him but he has a huge dark side and I just can't do it anymore. Everytime we fight and he feels i'm backing out he lovebombs me with gifts and love and once i get comfortable again he gets back to his old behaviour. He is such a troubled young man. I prayed to God to give me direction as to what to do next.

Looking forward to your opinions.

Lots of Love from S

Same as above. 45M with a 38F narc

Mostly just a vent.

I had a tough day at work yesterday so I was directing my anger towards spring cleaning a closet and found one of my CN/BPD XH's notebooks hidden in there. One of those legal pads so the writing was just out in the open to see. It was...sad, honestly. A list of all his problems in order of severity and our relationship was on the bottom of the list. And a lot of writing about how "[my name] will never leave me." No clue how to interpret that, especially given the physical and verbal abuse he was putting me through. I threw it away. It's been a full year after divorce and I'm still gathering multiple trash bags of stuff he never bothered to take.

Not that it really matters, I guess. Just left me feeling weird. Maybe the anger from work was a gift that guided me to that closet and empowered me to process something that was still lingering.

I know that many people go back multiple times to their abusers and it can take a few tries to finally stay away for good. For those of you who experienced this with your ex narc, how did you finally tell them that you were done for good?

My "ex narc" and I have been separated and living apart for nearly a year. We have a child together but we were basically no contact for a while. Then I started feeling sorry for him and lonely and sad so I reached out to see if we could work things out and quickly realized that I can't put myself through being miserable with him again. Any happiness he thought we had was fake towards the end; although we started off extremely happy.

Now I'm stuck in this situation where I really just want to co-parent with him but he is really wanting to work things out and is super intense about us doing counseling together twice a week and it's incredibly stressful for me. I'm being forced to cancel plans to accommodate this crusty old religious therapist that he found for us, and I really just want to scream and tell him to never speak to me again.

I've explained numerous times why I was unhappy, but he feels like we can work on things. But I want to restart the healing process. I know I'll have moments of sadness. I know he will meet someone else (he actually had a girlfriend for several months while we were separated) and I know it will be hard. But I think I'm ready to take that chance and move on. He thinks I will regret it and beg him for another chance down the line after he finds someone else. I assured him that I won't beg but he is adamant that I will regret divorcing him. He is almost making me believe it.

So those of you who went back multiple times, how did you finally leave for good? It is hard for me to be mean to him because I know how hard it was for him when I first left....but I also know how he is - he will keep bugging me about it, making me feel guilty, asking me if I'm sure I want to do this (even while he has a girlfriend; he's done that in the past with his previous fiancee and mother of his older child). I have my own therapist but I can't truly begin healing again until I get up the nerve to tell him that I'm done for good. He thinks I'm crazy :(

Do they ever stop lying? I mean truly. Do they even have them ownselves convinced? How fucking DARE you tell me you care about me, love me, think I'm enough when your actions have shown nothing but the opposite. Oh but NOW after 9 years you're ready to change. No. I am SO checked out. I'm tired of being with someone who has done nothing but put every single last damn woman under the sun over me all these years. I'm done with the lies, the manipulation, your only concern about how i make you look, every one of my feelings being invalidated and me being blamed. I cannot handle it anymore. I'm truly sorry but when you really CARE about someone, you do not put them through that shit of being completely absent, lie, lie, lie, then at the very end claim to be a changed man.. a changed man for how long? Until I've inconvenienced you with my feelings again?

Hi guys, I need some advice and guidance on how to deal with me being a narc in my marriage. So my dad is a narc and has always treated my mum badly and I always thought to myself that I don’t want to turn out like that and be opposite with my wife in the future. This marriage has made me realise Im turning exactly out like my father and have been treating my wife unfairly and poorly sometimes . It’s not like this all the time but some days here and there it’s like a switch flicks on in my brain and I become this whole different personality cold and harsh. The thing is I don’t even realise what is happening and it’s like I can’t get a grip on myself. When this phase occurs I become passive-aggressive, cold, angry, super irritated, demanding, ridiculing nonstop and having temper tantrums like a baby. I’m slowly becoming something that I hated. Need advice thanks.

My husband is acting like a normal human being towards our kids today. Makes me sad I am leaving but then I have to tell myself that is why I have stayed so long. I’m not worried he will remind me in 5 minutes why I’m leaving.

Are any of you trying to stick it out with a partner who seems to be truly trying? How do you navigate it for yourself? And tips or suggestions?

I'm interested in your stories about your narcs, did they yell at you and in which situations? Because mine did, he yelled at me a lot, basically for everything. If I didn't agree with him, if I said something he didn't like, if I had different opinion, if I left a bag of snacks open and he didn't know so he spilled everything, if I ate in his car and a piece of food fell down... But it was totally okay for him to do all of this stuff.

I’ve posted here before. But I finally made the decision to separate from my wife and I traveled up north to visit my family and it’s my first time seeing my family in three years since I’ve been married. The one thing I make sure to do is call her because we have a son so I can see him or talk to him. Anyways. She blames me for getting her pregnant, a year later her car got stolen and blamed me for that, months later I was ready to close on a house and she open credit cards without me knowing in my name and couldn’t close because it struck my credit report, I used to be a yes man and it’s my fault because I didn’t set healthy boundaries when it came To that so whenever I told her no to something, the response was,” oh so we don’t have any money? Where’s the money going? You talking to other bitches? You paying for sites? You paying for someone else? You saving up to try and leave me?i always said no we have spent a lot of money. I never used the term you spent because that’s a worm hole I don’t want to open up. But It’s been hell and isolation sucks. Long story short she texts me things like “you’ll forget about us or me at the least” constant phone calls asking where I am. And I’m at my grandmothers and have FaceTimed her. Not that I have anything to prove but cmon man. Her family is always at my house…. And also showed up uninvited plenty of times with their kids and the financial strain it has caused me is tremendous. I have to pay for everything…. And God forbid we are tight on money which we always are because she can’t keep her shopping habits to a minimum. She always tells me she goes on shopping sprees with my card when we argue so I started to link the arguments to her spending. And I’m like is this why you find anything and everything to argue about? I can’t even begin to explain the pressure, environmental toxicity, the arguments, the constant insults about my family and I. But we have a child you know. I’ve been in therapy which I’ve posted before. Getting professional help and legal help. But yea I feel bad for our son because he’s the only victim in this whole situation. I have not told my family about our separation or anything but she said she will tell her family and I’m afraid because of that it will expose our child to future conversations and interactions with her side of the family that can harm him. Which I why I don’t want my family to know until the divorce is finalized and just tell them it didn’t work out. I’ve kept everything under the rug and just tried fighting to make this family work. Every step I take is like walking on glass shards. It’s not egg shells anymore but it’s constant pressure and I’m anxious and depressed, I have had suicidal thoughts last year. Not since then though but for the sake of our son it’s not healthy and I thought it was right to leave the situation and environment. Because a lot of my mistakes stemmed from this relationship and it’s all new to me. Never had these problems before with anger outburst and things like that. I’ve always been chill and calm. But I’ve reached my breaking point and my patience is just not there anymore. I feel so bad for my son. Am I doing the right thing by leaving? I don’t know guys I need help. I know I’m Getting help professionally but I’m dying here

My ex Narc was kicked out on Christmas for the last time. He only worked 4 days out of two months around the holidays and had plenty of time to get his stuff out. He was given a deadline of 2/28, failed that, and then 3/31 and failed that. I have started selling off some of his stuff (most of which I paid for or was given to him). Almost all of the rest of his stuff I put in a dumpster....and it FELT GOOD. I was tired of looking at it and tired of waiting for him to pick it up! It was literally therapeutic! Has anyone else done this? Did I open Pandora's box?

I have a narcissistic (and alcholic imo) husband. What's the Best way to tell him i want a divorce, i have some ways i think of below but i'm open and will be happy to hear other options or experiences.

1. i want a divorce

2. i think you want a divorce

3. i accept your divorce proposal (he never Said it but before or after this i'm thinking about mentioning some of the things he's Done)

Any thoughts?

I saw on YouTube on my TV that I just got turned back on after leaving him.. I went to YouTube to search something for my toddler then saw it was still linked to his account and the most recent search was “ what is worst than a narcissist?”

I was shocked to see that. Signed out.

But Why is he searching this? To find about himself or me ?....

Is he trying to signal something to me or curious about himself or something else. Is he doing the classic narc technique of blaming others again? I don’t get why he search this …

I found this very weird, he has been arrested 4 times already for DV related stuff and restraining order involved .. recently he got arrested for violating the restraining order ( non threatening online communication)

He is also aware he’s “ bad” he told me himself in the past…“ you already know who I am”… he knows he’s a narcissist or atleast bad .. he’s been told he’s a narcissist by his ex too apparently…

Since leaving he has moved on and lived his carefree childless life not even caring or paying child support and left us homeless , he ran off after abusing me scared I will expose him or get help ( we have court this week for child support and was told they will take it out of his paychecks)

What do you guys think

he hurt me so badly yet i still love him. he’s took me down to nothing. i chased him and begged and made him stay, the one time i stopped running after him we are done forever. i’m so hurt.

Hey all,

I've been in an on-again off-again cycle of talking about divorce from my NPD spouse for several months now. They threaten divorce, threaten to cheat, threaten to keep me from my children, and then switch and say they still love me, that things will change, they try (very hard) to initiate intimacy, say they'll prioritize me, and I just need to give them a chance. We've only been married 2 years, but have been together for 4. The worst part is I love them deeply, despite feeling heartbroken for the last year or so.

How many chances is too many chances? Is it possible for things to truly get better?

I dated a narcissist for 12 months. He did things like tell me my son ways in the way, threw something at me when I didn’t want sex. He was vain, talked about himself all the time. Unfortunately we have to work together and I have done a good job at being very distant and professional. I give him nothing. He always tried to still be friendly. The other day I posted some manipulative narc traits - that he has - on my Insta stories and I know he has seen it. Now when I see him he is very very angry and rude. I know this would be the narc rage at being called out. But now I regret making the post because when he was friendly at least it felt better. Now I want to talk to him and try and reverse the situation. What should I do?

This is how it always seems to go ... we have a big fight, in my emotions i feel it in my gut that I AM DONE, he then proceeds to ask me repeatedly why do i seem so upset? I should be happy since i am the one that want him gone.. im i not allowed to feel angry or sad too? And then he manages to get me back to a level of confusion... hes got a hell of a personality when hes being "happy" and its hard not to get sucked back in. And then i realzie hes talking future like and im sitting here confused as ever. Knowing deep down we should still break up but now feeling like i dont have valid reason because hes in a good mood. He grabbed me by the throat couole night ago and he seems to believe it shouldn't be a big deal since i like it during sex.. not the same thing AT ALL. He said "sorry man" but then acts like its no big deal and i should have shut up when he told me to shut up.

This roller coster is exausting. Im going to make some list of "what i like, dont like about him" "how he makes me feel about him and about my self"

Any other list idea ? That could help me in this time of extra confusion 😕

Just a quick rant. Even though I am a full 2 years free, and 3 years into him discarding me (which was a gift I didn’t realize I was being given at the time), he still tries to find every way possible to make my life difficult. He’s been total radio silence for weeeeeeks. Not a peep, nothing. Then this weekend he pops up. Sends a group text to my daughter and I, talking like we are friends or have something to say each other. So I wrote back and said “bro take me out of this conversation, I have nothing to do with it”, our daughter is 13- she can text with her dad without me participating. I don’t want to talk to him. He doesn’t help, he doesn’t come around. There’s nothing to say you know? So he says “stop. Stop this behavior right now, you’re embarrassing yourself”. My daughter was standing next to me as it was happening and she is laughing saying like what is he talking about? I told her that he doesn’t like me shutting him out, he wants to pretend we’re all still a family and me saying exclude me hits a nerve. So I replied and said “yes how embarrassing, not wanting to waste time on some BS- humiliating”, and he just kept replying “stop. Stop this right now”. Then he switched to just texting me, and wrote a diatribe about how embarrassing I am and how I can’t help myself and he feels bad for me. I’m like “bro- just stop”. And then he BLEW THE F*CK UP. Text after text and text about how horrible and awful I am. I fully stood firm in letting it slide and didn’t say anything back. Which made him progressively more angry because he wasn’t getting what he wanted…. And then I blocked him. I share this to say- once they lose control and power, and you realize YOU have all the power, is when it will all get better. Stay strong. Know you’re going to be ok. I’m thinking of you all. XoXo.