This man is not unique, he is not special, he is a narcissist.

If you want to get away, you have to walk away and never look back.

Here’s a fantastic website that may make the picture of what he is and the whys? clearer: http://narcraiders.wordpress.com/
And another: http://www.lisaescott.com/welcome

And beyond that, there’s a piece of you that you that craves what this man and those like him are offering. When you find that place and heal it, you’ll be immune to them.

Good Luck! =)

I didn’t think of mine as a narcissist either. We were together for 14 years and it wasn’t until 6 months after he came home and declared he was “done” that I realized that I was in an abusive relationship. I left so many times and he reeled me back in each time with his perfect plans to change and even acted on them until he had me sucked back in. He never changed. We have a child together and I’m trapped and cannot get away. The court won’t protect me from him because proving emotional abuse is nearly impossible and requires more money than I have. He still blames me for everything including his job performance, his finances, his relationship, our son getting strep throat… it never ends. He’s paranoid and defensive in his every interaction with me and it’s exhausting.

They are master manipulators and so charming, it’s like they put you under a spell of some sort and say all of the right words, but their actions are only short lived.

He left two years ago and I’m still single, still working through the damage, the regret, the humiliation and healing that broken piece of me that wanted to feel the way he treated me.

Don’t walk away… RUN.

Hi tinywanderlust.

I registered on this site JUST so I could reply to you and this discussion, because I was in the exact same situation as you, except my relationship was verbally and physically abusive in addition to emotionally. We were together 3 years and I left many times, like you describe, healing yourself, etc. but coming back. I wont go into great detail about my experience, except I want you to know I am now in a healthy, happy committed relationship, married to a wonderful man who I was only able to date AFTER I let go of the abusive guy.

I dont know you at all of course but here is my advice based on my own experience.
1. At this point your self esteem is likely fairly low because he has repeated so much negative feedback to you that you kind of believe it. So If I say something like YOU DESERVE BETTER it might not hit you the way it should. You are staying in the relationship because you still have HOPE. You have HOPE that things will change- that he will work on his issues- and that will make it OK. BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL YOU THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN. You will only lose hope and give up on this relationship when you realize he will not change, and it has nothing to do with you. Picture yourself with him in 5, 10, 20 years. Do not only imagine the happy outcome that you are so hopeful for that has you hooked- imagine his current behavior continuing or worsening and how it will have affected your life five years from now, 10 years from now, and so on. So please imagine that future. Now imagine him without you, or imagine that he is with someone else. Do you think this is a pattern that depends on you. Probably not.
2. VISUALIZE A HEALTHY, LOVING RELATIONSHIP. Think about what this would mean and how it would feel, to you. Imagine what being loved and supported no matter what will feel like. Imagine someone who supports and comforts you when life is hard.
This may sound like a fairy dream, no relationship is perfect, right. Well, that is wrong. You have compromised too much, this is not him leaving socks on the floor, this is abuse. You deserve and can find real love that is not complex, complicated, or painful, or full of blame. You can find someone who loves you the way you are. You have to believe finding this kind of happiness is possible. If you look, you will see it all around you in the relationships of friends and family with functional marriages and families. Notice how your relationship is different than theirs.
3. I have no doubt that you love this man and that he has some qualities you truly enjoy, respect, admire, and even depend on. But I will tell you one thing you do not have with him, and that is TRUST. Recognize right now that you can never, never trust someone who hurts and manipulates you. You might love them. You might call them in a moment of loneliness or even think they have a good sense of humor. But you cannot trust them, and TRUST IS EVERYTHING. Conversely, a relationship without trust is not really a relationship at all. It is simply emotional entertainment, where you are the star of your own horrifying, dark reality sitcom.
4. FRIENDS. Abuse is pretty polarizing. If you tell your friends you are in abusive relationship, and stick around, they are likely to lose respect for you. They may not continue to be your friends. A few rare people will listen to you and tolerate the total confusion and contradictions that are evident in every word you say, but most people cannot handle this kind of grey area. You may have to go it alone. If you do have friends who see you through this, GOOD! You need support. But dont depend on them. Ultimately this will come down to a
5 DECISIVE MOMENT. I do not know what this will be for you. But there will be a moment your relationship cannot recover from. Something inside you will die. That something is is the childish hope you are hanging on to. It will meet with the terrible reality of the situation, and it will wither and die. You will feel a steely resolve unlike any other time you have left before. Those were half hearted. This will be white hot metal.
For me this moment came as we drove a winding road, he accelerated around hairpin curves and threatened to drive off of them. He wanted to kill us both. I closed my eyes and prayed a little but tried to accept that this was how I was going to die. I had already given up all the control that gave him the power in that moment, and there was nothing I could do.

When he did not drive off the cliff, and I was still alive, I knew full well that if we stayed together we would both be dead.
Up until then I had rationalized things as being a mix of positives and negatives. A series of trade offs I was willing to make. From the moment I faced the stupidity of such a pointless death, there was no tradeoff.

6. GO AWAY. Remove your physically from this person. Take an extended trip, Teach ESL in another country, go back to school, move in with your great Aunt in Maine. I dont care. If you risk getting back together even after you have risked your life to be with him, you need to detoxify your heart and mind somewhere remote and new.

Ainka,

His life with her is no more “perfect” than it was with you. They don’t change, they only change their stories.

But i have seen his picks with his wife, he didnt move a fingre for me , but he does everything for her, he told me that he didnt want a child with me and would like me to abort it if it eveer happened, but i saw him and his wife holding a baby i feel so low it just kills me.