I Think He's a Narcissist. Do You Guys?

[tay1712]

I had an 18-year marriage to an alcoholic-narcissist. He was the rager/silent treatment kind who changed the rules on me constantly so I could never meet his standards. He would yell and call me names and accuse of me of things–and then punish me just for being alive with the silent treatment. I finally divorced him in 2011.

Then I think I fell in love with another kind of narcissist.

We were friends for several years before we began a romantic relationship.
He talked a lot about how he loved to “reset” his life. He’d moved all over the country, had countless relationships, many jobs and even colleges.
At first, he praised me for being so different from his ex-wife. He told me that no woman had been a better match for him than I was. He couldn’t get enough of me. He was charming, funny, intelligent and a lot of fun. BUT, he was also a boundary-crosser, rule-breaker, racist, misogynist who objectified women. The people we worked with didn’t like him. I ended my unhappy marriage partly to be with him. He said he always thought we’d end up together, and I did everything in my power to make that happen.

After we’d been dating for a while, he blindsided me with the news that he was dating other women. This broke my heart and I was devastated.

He came back.

We resumed dating after a few months. He finally told me he loved me a few months later and told me “how much value” I brought to his life. I sold my house and moved myself and my son 40 miles to live closer to him after he talked about marriage and a future together. We discussed retirement plans, and he was encouraging about the move. We picked my new house out together, and he promised me all kinds of help with it, because it’s a fixer-upper. He made comments about moving in with me. We traveled together and spent time together with our kids. We spent holidays together. And then right before Christmas just this last year, he came over, made me dinner and dumped me because he needs more spark and fire. He doesn’t love me.

I’ve learned about the three stages of a narcissistic relationship, and they all sound very familiar. He hits all the characteristics of a narcissist out of the ballpark. His ex-wife said he is a narcissist. But I am finding myself doubting myself.

He was very open about the fact that he has no empathy, compassion or sensitivity. His 10-year-old son told me, “My dad has no emotion.” The Narc told me many times he didn’t feel love for anyone, not even his son or his mom.

Everything about him was confusing and painful–when it wasn’t fun and exciting. He complimented me and told me how wonderful I was in the first stage, but then he would complain that I was just like his ex-wife (when before, I was so different). He contradicted himself (I was a great mom/I was a bad mom, I was a good cook/I was a bad cook, I was kind/I was spineless…and so on).

He controlled all our communications. He texted/called when it worked for him. Our dates were always initiated by him and almost always last-minute. But once I got to his house, he’d seem like he was tolerating me. He had lots of friends, but they all lived in other states. He had one friend here in Seattle–but all he did was complain about what a loser that friend was. And he was mean to that friend. He would frequently say that he was going to find better friends, but he never did. Toward the end of our relationship, I started noticing that people didn’t actually respond as positively to him as he claimed they did.

I bent over backward to accommodate him and be available when he texted and invited me out or over to his house. We rarely ever had pre-planned dates–maybe four or five times in five years. He would text me on a random weeknight and say, “I’m coming over for dinner.” I never knew when he’d show up so I felt like I had to always be ready.

He admitted that he was bad at planning stuff.

I forgave him when he confessed to having had sex with a hooker while on vacation. He would taunt me with other women, sending me photos of him posing with women, making up stories about women chasing him–usually just little comments here or there that would send me into a tizzy. I would try not to react, but I couldn’t resist. And when I’d call him out on it, he’d just say, “Oh, babe, I’m just messing with you.”

He admitted that he loved pushing people’s buttons.

He talked about other women and how hot/confident/attractive/nice-smelling they were. He talked about celebrities he thought were so attractive–and how I wasn’t like them. He criticized my clothes, hair, makeup, parenting, cooking, driving, home decor–and even the way I smelled. I changed my perfume and fabric softener for his sensitive nose. He once asked me, “Could you be younger?” I turned myself inside out and upside down trying to figure out what/who I needed to be to gain his love and approval. And I hated myself for doing it.

He once gave me deodorant wrapped up in wrapping paper as a gift because, “The last two times we hung out, you smelled sort of bad.”

I was on anxious alert all the time because I never knew when I would see him or hear from him. I never knew if I was pleasing him or not. I never could tell when he approved of me or not. He dished out his praise/criticisms very carefully. I lived on crumbs. I never lived up to his standards. I never felt loved. There were times when his eyes reminded me of a reptile’s. Cold and numb. He was sort of robot-like a lot of the time.

And it took its toll on me. He dumped me at Christmas, and my self-esteem is gone. I have been depressed and fighting anorexia. I punch myself in the head and face out of rage and self-loathing. I have cried for five months.

He emailed me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago because he misses me as his best friend. Taunted me with these little emails that said nothing but hinted at everything. Asked if I would let him back in my life just a little. This threw me into a tailspin and I ended up crying, hitting myself, etc. Finally, I texted him and told him to never contact me again after he texted me to tell me he had no regrets about the breakup and just missed his friend. It felt like he was just taunting me and enjoying my pain after being out of my life since December.

When he left me, he said, “I want to find my soulmate.” This matches so exactly what I’ve read about the Narc always chasing after his “ideal love.” There’s just so much that say he’s a narcissist. But he wasn’t a rager at me, unlike my ex-husband. And I find myself doubting myself. Maybe I really am not up to standards. Even though my friends tell me that I’m attractive and sweet, kind, patient, loyal, loving and generous. They tell me that the things he said about me weren’t true, and the way he treated me wasn’t deserved.

But I guess I just needed to write this all down–and there’s more, believe me–and see what people in this community have to say. I mean, I’ve read horror stories about narcissist/sociopaths and the devastation they inflict. My Narc never hit me, or stole my money or called the cops or acted crazy. He just was cruel and unfeeling. And demeaning and insulting and controlling. And he led me on (even though he said, “I didn’t mean to lead you on”) for years with promises that he didn’t fulfill and hints that he dropped (and claimed he never made).

I believed for all these years that he treated me poorly and with disrespect because that was all I deserved. I was trying to meet standards with him–or even exceed them. And like I said, he’d give me enough crumbs–a compliment here, a kind pat on the leg there–to keep me hoping. But in between those, I felt like garbage. Like such a failure. And he left me, in the end, because I just didn’t provide the spark and fire that he wants from his soul mate.

So this is what I’m struggling with: is he a narcissist incapable of love/empathy/compassion, or is he just a regular guy who left a woman who wasn’t good enough for him? Part of my problem is that I’ve never known anything different. I’m 49, and I’ve never felt loved or good enough when it comes to men. And I will never date again after this.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your input.

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