Living with an N
“It was like trying to raise another kid, but an
irrational, mean one at that. One who couldn’t,
wouldn’t learn and it was all my fault.”
“At some point in the relationship I realised that my
role was no longer ‘partner’...it had evolved to mentor, coach, and at
times I felt more like a mother than anything else.”
“That mother-love is so good, so unconditional. I too
loved him after he treated me poorly time after time. He loved the
Mother-love and he hated it. All children do.”
“He cheated on me endlessly, used women for money and
sex, kept telling me it was my fault, and the sorry thing is I believed
him because of low self-esteem. So for years I thought that if I tried a
little harder, worked harder, pleased him more, did more at our
business, then he would wake up and see what a wonderful person I am...but
no. He would blame everything that happened to us on me. Said people
didn’t respect him as much as they should because I would try to tell
people about our home life and it sounded too made-up and crazy... how
could this wonderful, charismatic man be so bad?”
“For 23 years he made excuses for her behavior and he hid behind the lies, hoping
against all odds, that she would somehow transform herself through his
love. She did not, in fact she got worse, not better at
all.”
“I knew that his emotional world was comparable to
the way a shark feeds. If you study sharks it is a great metaphor for the
emotional world of an N. Their whole being, I mean every word, gesture and
action is to present a false picture and to supply their insatiable need
to avoid emotional contact with others without losing their supply and false
sense of perfection. It quite a balancing act for
them. And you better believe that they are very good at it because they
have been at it since childhood and for them it is a matter of survival.”
“They steal the innocent, harmless fun out of
life.......It’s like you find yourself in a position where all the good
things and good intentions in the world are somehow blocked from applying
to you. As though they poison the sunlight. They try
to gag and ban truth... You get to feeling like there is no safety, no
hiding place, no-one you can trust...”
“They are trapped in the mind of a two year old, and
they possess no cognitive ability to reason, to negotiate, to cooperate,
to give and take, to love, to empathize. Rather their lives consist of
ultimatums, demands, greed, egocentric thinking, bullying, temper
tantrums, and a plethora of ‘I wants’ and ‘Give me’s’
etc.“
Devaluing
“To my experience, a favored
technique for Narcissists is to debilitate your identity [personally, I
hate the term self-esteem] by levelling false accusations and/or
questioning your honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, your “true”
motivations, your “real” character, your sanity and judgement.”
“He has devalued me so much. he
has lied, cheated, been a total son of a bitch and has sucked my esteem
right out of me - yet I still have hope for him. I can be so damn mad
at him that I think I am going to kill him and then he usually says
something that makes me forgive him.”
“It will get worse too, if you want to be devaluated
all the time whenever he doesn’t get what he wants, and I don’t know if
you can be lover, mother, sister, friend, counsellor, financier, etc., all
in one with no returns.”
“Ns invade our emotions and our
psyche like a virus and it’s hard to get over it. They mastermind our
dependency on them (and we cooperate) so that we won’t abandon them—then
they abandon us, a sort of pre-emptive strike.”
Selfishness
“At our house, he had a candy and sweet stash that the kids
weren’t allowed to touch, he would eat in front of them, them be MAD
because they begged some from him. He would stop for gas and buy a pop and
chips or candy for him and no one else and sit and sat it in front of us
and yell at me for letting the kids ask for bites and drinks. He never got how
come I thought that was so cruel. He said I didn’t discipline the kids
well enough.”
“We don’t exist for them, not really. I’m basically
here in the ‘wife’ role, to make his life easier...to cook and clean and
wash his dirty undies. If I DARE to mention an unfulfilled need of mine,
the reaction is always rage. That’s NOT the way a loving husband responds
to a wife he loves!”
They’re Sadistic
“One of the sickest aspects is the pleasure they appear to get when they
cause pain. Most healthy people back off when they cause others pain N’s
feed on it and even increase and repeat the act to prove they were right
in the first place (they can’t ever be wrong) and as a means to denigrate
vulnerability. It’s all so unbelievable because it is so irrational that
it takes a long time to really get a grip on it.”
“…he was the MASTER of saving up your most personal
“confessions” and then using them to tell you why you are so disgusting
and sickening.”
“They’re keenly intuitive and know just how to get to
us and know we’re giving, and it’s a huge rush for them when we respond
even though they treat us badly.”
No Morals
“In the three years I’ve been married to him, I haven’t seen
one speck of morals; I just hear a lot of hot air about my morals and the
kids morals...as if he’s okay in that dept. Delusions, denial, blame,
excuses, arbitrary rules for everyone but themselves, it’s all smoke and
mirrors to try to hide the empty spot where their soul should be.”
“They are vile, despicable creatures with no
conscious. They know right from wrong, they simply don’t care.”
Entitlement
“It never ceases to amaze me at the N’s ability to
continually use and abuse people with no sense of right or wrong. It is as
if they feel the world owes them something, they are ENTITLED to anything
they want.”
“What is incredibly scary to me is that N’s do not see
ANYTHING wrong at all with taking from people, it is as if they are
entitled to all the luxuries that money can buy.”
Boundaries
“Are most usually found, like small puppies, or dinky toys,
EXACTLY where you next intend to tread...”
“As far a boundaries go, I was the one who didn’t
have clear, defined, well-established boundaries on what I would permit,
not permit during the dating experience with my N (soon to be divorced).
If I had the boundaries, I would have booted his butt out the door on
the first date!”
Hatred
“If I’m not nice of course, then I’m a bitch and “protest
too much” my ex N said. Of course when I went along a few times in his opinion of other people to see how he would react,
a very mean opinion, very cold, he loved it. He wanted me to join with him
in his hate toward the world. He was brainwashing me from the very first
time we spent together. Telling me I was no different than him, turning me
into a monster like him. He knew I was a caring person and said, “…you
mean we aren’t going to be Bonnie and
Instant Gratification
“They are filled with their own set of fears and
really can’t persevere in a relationship. Everything is “instant
gratification” for them. Either they want what they want, NOW - or they
will move on to someone else to get it.”
Idealised Love
“He didn’t want to try. He didn’t want understanding. He
didn’t want to “work through” anything. All he wanted was his own
idealized version of love and since I didn’t fulfil the 110 qualifications
for a relationship - he moved on. Forget the fact that I did fulfil
about 99 of them. I wasn’t perfect. Sooooo...off
he goes to find another “perfect” love.”
Contradictions
“They talk out of both sides of their mouths - mine did it
all the time - one minute he would say let’s get a bigger house with a
garage, etc, then the next he would say we needed to downsize to save
money! I learned not to put any hope into anything he said and that’s
no way to live.”
Lies
“An incredible actress, she can suck people dry and they are
left having no clue as to what just happened. She thinks nothing of lying, as a matter of fact I am not sure she even
knows the difference between fact or fiction.”
“They are absolutely the world’s best manipulators,
liars, and fabricators of truth. They do so convincingly because they
believe their own lies. After all their life is nothing but a lie, a sham,
how can we possibly assume they know anything different.”
Money
“Mine borrowed money from me constantly - I mean were
talking in the 10’s of thousands. I actually had to file bankruptcy
because he ran up my credit cards so high. Of course, it didn’t affect him
any - he has repaired his credit and is on his way to getting credit
again while I sit with a public record on my credit report.”
back
to "The Penny Drops": A narcissist survival guide written by
those who’ve been there.
Narcissistic
Personality Disorder Information
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