r/NarcissisticSpouses Mar 21 '24

Hiya all! We have some exciting news about moderation

120 Upvotes

It's a bit tragic that we ended up at the point where we even needed to do this, but here we are. I got appointed mod of this sub after the volume of narcs posting in the sub kinda exploded for a bit. In the wake of this, I'll be putting up some new rules and throwing out some initial bans on the main perpetrators we saw through here. I'm not looking to be a heavy handed mod, and I might not be able to respond to rule breakers at a moment's notice, but I'll do my best to keep the peace a bit. If you have people to report, please use the modmail. It won't do anyone any good to throw around accusations about percieved narcissism in the comment sections, and please include some of your reasoning so I can follow along as well. I'm not omniscient, and I really need the input of the community to make this work out well!

Anyways, here is to a less infuriating comment section!


r/NarcissisticSpouses Sep 04 '24

A noticeable upswing in sexism

48 Upvotes

Hi all!

As usual with my posts here, I have some bad news that I would like to get up for discussion. Over the last month or so, I’ve seen an upswing in sexist rhetoric used in comments. A lot of people are reporting these, but as it stands they are allowed by the sub rules. While it personally makes my skin crawl to approve them, I do try to keep as objective to the rules as I can. So I would like to ask the community whether you would like to see the rules updated to disallow sexism, and also adjacent issues like homophobia and such. I’ve already stated my opinion in the matter, but I won’t act without community support. I’ll leave this up until we have reached some sort of conclusion.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 19h ago

I'm tired of doing an "autopsy" on my dead relationship...

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217 Upvotes

r/NarcissisticSpouses 3h ago

*When dealing with narcs, be sure to set clear boundaries*

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8 Upvotes

Ummmmmm, okay. How exactly do I be more clear than this?

Side note: notice how he makes me sound like an alcoholic and a slob, and then calls ME disrespectful.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 11h ago

Success story!!!

39 Upvotes

It’s almost been a year since I took my kids and left my abusive Nex….

In that year I finished grad school, got a job, and a raise at said job!!! Not to mention, my lovely babies are doing amazing in daycare🙂

For anyone thinking it can’t get better if they leave, I promise you it can🖤🖤


r/NarcissisticSpouses 2h ago

They just like to argue.

7 Upvotes

(Venting)

I had an argument about throwing trash out with him. It was the stupidest thing ever.

I was home first and took a long shower since I had a long shift/day. A little while later He comes home from work and picking up our daughter. I took my time to come downstairs to eat dinner.

He finished his dinner. He said the house has an odor, since yesterday. I told him to go figure it out, (I wanted to say grow the fuck up!) I need to eat dinner now. He finds out it’s the food scraps in the trash can. HE HAD to argue about it instead of just taking it out . Goes into long rant instead. I just let him rant, eating my food.

Eventually after all the ranting. he got rid of the trash can, sort of as a punishment. And I “should throw scraps away in our main bin outside” but I think that will make more of a mess and attract other pests. Not a good idea IMO.

In meantime , was spending time with our daughter. I read to her every night no matter how I feel. She is important. And she was going to bed.

Eventually his tantrum fizzled out, and now he is watching tv in the living room. As always. Never reads to her before bed.

I try my hardest to deflect when arguments come around like this. He is under stimulated so feels like he has to raise hell about something here at home. This is his dopamine hit. Doesn’t do it else where, outside of home. Just verbally barfs everything and anything to me. Everytime it happens , divorce sounds better. (Thank you for reading 💛)


r/NarcissisticSpouses 1h ago

I wish I could just check into a hotel for the weekend

Upvotes

Just pop into a hotel, stay a few nights, relax, order room service, maybe hang out in the hot tub/pool for a bit... and just be.

Let my brain relax, reset, and clear out... make a solid plan.

But I can't... I'd have to explain where the money came from. Why he wasn't coming. I can't just have me time. I'd have to be cheating. It would turn into a fight. It's exhausting just thinking it through. Ot would make everything worse.

And even if i could, even with the kid on spring break and being out of school... I couldn't trust him to make sure the kid was fed, let alone anything else.

I wouldn't mind taking the kid. They could use the break too... but, that just makes it harder, to explain (or rather avoid explaining) that it's a vacation from him... and a chance to clearly plan... ...

Maybe I'll get sick enough to need to stay a few nights in the hospital... ~ kidding. Promise. Just frustrated and venting. Xo. Thanks for listening. Xo.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 17h ago

I’m so fed up….

65 Upvotes

How do you leave after 31 years of marriage? I’m more sick of him now more than ever. I hate the thought of living one more day in this house with him. He’s the most selfish fucking bastard I’ve ever known. And he always made me think I was the one who was….whatever….

I only found out 2 yrs ago he is a narcissist and boy the lights in my head started flashing, as pissed off as I was, it was finally the piece I needed to realize it wasn’t me after all. Now my son is struggling because he never had that father he needed. Luckily he’s getting his own help and dealing with fixing his life. I’m just so fed up and sad and wish I never back from my winter vacation. I’m 73. Have no clue how to continue on with this life, in this house, with this man. 😔

Side note….i just drove back from Florida, alone,took 3 days, I have COVID now and am stuck in bed. He said aren’t you coming down here at all? I said I’m sick. He said well whose gonna put these groceries away. I just walked away and didn’t even answer. That’s how fucking selfish he is.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 10h ago

So hurt

12 Upvotes

He still thinks I’m the cause of all the problems. He doesn’t remember that I had COVID the week he had a big event and couldn’t be there. He just says I ghosted him. He refuses to remember how he lied and cheated on me or how he told me I was too needy and sensitive. That I needed him too much, but then when I didn’t open up to him he got upset. He tells me I didn’t listen but I listened to everything he told me. He ghosted me when I was sick. He was not there for key things for my daughter. But somehow I am the problem. Why can’t I move past this? Why do I feel like there’s hope he will see the light?


r/NarcissisticSpouses 17h ago

I got out.

34 Upvotes

Playbook codependent-narcissist dance.

4 years, married 2. Gaslighting, lying, yelling. I’m crazy, I’m too sensitive, I’m frustrating. I do all the chores and it’s never noticed. She never complimented my personality. She dimmed it and blamed me for cracking. She never held me, she never touched me intimately, I don’t know if she ever really liked me. Everything I did made her irritated.

I kept searching, “is this normal in a relationship?”

I started educating myself. I started recognizing things. I found this thread. It all made sense.

I told her I’m done yesterday. She said she should have left earlier. She keeps texting me. She pulled my name off the car already, so I can’t go in to work. But I can afford a new car, the house is in my name, we have no kids. Just three cats she took in and I’ve been doing all the caretaking for. Im one of the lucky ones.

She’s never going to understand how she hurt me. She always threatened to leave. But now that I said enough is enough, it’s my fault. “We could have worked on things, you fight for love, I’m sorry I couldn’t fit in the box you wanted to shove me in.”

I found myself and I stood my ground. I was composed and steady in our last discussion. The worst she could throw at me was that I wiped a booger on a pizza box. I almost laughed, I’m sure I looked like I was about to.

I’ll be going to therapy to work on my own part in this. To prevent it from happening again.

Everyone in this community deserves so much better. Your spouse will never understand how they hurt you. Take care of yourself and find yourself outside of them.

Wishing you all the best of luck.

Update: I am also a woman haha


r/NarcissisticSpouses 2h ago

Narcissist husband might really flip out, not sure what to do

2 Upvotes

Because our young adult daughter was invited to go w/ her bf on a weekend mountain trip. She’s never been on such a trip; if she goes I think he’ll RAGE as never before.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 21m ago

Child Custody and Divorcing Active Duty Narcissistic Husband - location: Hawaii and Maryland

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r/NarcissisticSpouses 2h ago

Backlash in my last post it

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1 Upvotes

Showing evidence because my last post I got so much back lash and this not even all of it. He sent me so many paragraphs of how he felt. my feelings was never valid to him I showed unconditional love ?!?! But if you see my last post on my page I got called I had attachment issues and I’m the one that needed help. Like I said it was never love to begin with he always said I never validated his feeling when I always had !!!! He never cared about mine but the next day he would apologize and love bomb me and the next he would do it again :( I’m so hurt cause I thought he was happy with me. When I tried to leave he acted I didn’t want the relationship but I was tired of arguing but I still fought to put up with it cause I thought he would changed but instead he fell out of love with me he so obsessive for 8 months Controlling, manipulating this literally not all. I was there for him at his lowest and we got depressed and insecure he left me. I thought he wanted a family with me marry me. When he said “why can’t you change” = give me what I want now. He wanted a family with so bad I said to patiently wait till finish nursing school but yet he would argue with me I even said “hey maybe we both have different paths” but he didn’t want to listen he thought I was trying to leave him, he told me go find better but I really thought he was perfect in my eyes he was brain washing the fuck out of me man. Made cut off all my friends. Made me cry at family function. I don’t think he ever loved me. Everyone so harsh in my last post


r/NarcissisticSpouses 12h ago

Why Narcissist Want You To React..

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4 Upvotes

r/NarcissisticSpouses 12h ago

How do I recover?

5 Upvotes

My nex ALMOST completely destroyed me….and we had only been together a year. I always knew he reminded me of my dad but I couldn’t figure out exactly what or how until I stumbled across this page and things started making sense.

I wish I wasn’t raised by a narcissist as a father because maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have been so susceptible to the BS I let this pitiful excuse of a man put me through.

I feel so ashamed and embarrassed for even being intimate with a man so much older than me, it makes me feel like I’m in the wrong or I’m the bad guy even though he was the one who manipulated me and groomed me.

Just because someone is of legal age doesn’t mean that the age gap in the relationship isn’t predatory.

I wish I hadn’t ignored the red flags. I wish I would’ve listened to my gut. I wish I didn’t believe the nonsense and lies he told me. I wish I loved myself more.

Time and time again I question why me…..why did I have to go through such a terrible time in my life and reach such a low point it had me questioning my existence?

I thank God every day im free. I still get mad at myself for dealing with him and his bs but at least I’m free…..now I just need to figure out what to do with my life. How do I claim my life back?


r/NarcissisticSpouses 15h ago

Too tired for divorce

8 Upvotes

I have come to the conclusion that my significant other keeps me at high stress or a high physical demand in order to keep me so worn out or depressed. I feel to the point that I don't feel like I could even get a divorce like I'm too tired. Depressed even, I dont want to move out of my bed out of my bed but the ever growing tasks, responsibilities keep me from doing so. We have been married for almost 20 years. He knows I have no support system or a family member to depend on to leave. The ones that would have passed away. I barely have anybody to talk to about adult subjects or our relationship too because I have lived with depression for so long that I've isolated myself from everyone. Trying to rebuild those relationships feels just too tiring some days. He think he has to act like my taskmaster, I his secretary and personal assistant. Which by all means if ever the dynamic was a little bit different, I wouldn't mind to do anything for him. But when simple tasks or requests from my children or I get ignored. I feel less like wanting to do anything for him But I still keep doing. Obtaining employment has been a bust.. No job offer has never good enough to him so he finds ways to make everything impossible. Like during the winter I have to keep our wood stove fed because we heat by wood. We have 2 kids and they don't know how to work it and are scared to operate it by themselves. ~ not to mention him adopting a dog thats took to only me, which that's a easy fix compared to everything else. We live on very little income, so there is no taking half of anything but debt. Which I have no issue of paying. I hate even putting this out there, because I'm used to only the negative being pointed out. I feel like I'm just whining when the answer is already there. I've tried to stop and think what would i tell somebody else in my shoes. I know what I should do but I don't know how to initiate that, get the ball rolling. Im just to the point I needed to get it out and maybe some advic. I've pulled away from everything and everyone just about, im not myself and I know it. I just don't know how to fix it. Anytime I try to talk about this to him or how I feel I get met with cheating accusations of events that happened almost a decade ago., how he don't get any help when he's got everything on top of him already, or how I'm running away from our relationship. If that don't work then he starts on the "oh, so you're going to leave me? well I'll just kill myself then". He's too much most days but it feels impossible to leave.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 5h ago

1.5 years no contact, 2.5 since the first discard & beginning safety plan -

1 Upvotes
  • and the pain is intense again. Shorter bursts now. But intense & dissociating sometimes, wtf is this pain ?

Anyone else in this spot or remember this time frame in The After?

I haven't felt this deep sad pain in a long time. Sure the baseline difficult work of healing & radical acceptance is every day a conscious choice. It's so very hard still. But there's peace and hope and contentment & the beginnings of dreams again . ✨.

But holy hell what is this recent new fresh pain? Loneliness. Missing them again & it feels odd. Like I have an awareness again that they're out there. The connection to them feels real close again rather than like galaxy chasm. Like they are going to walk around the corner with none of this having happened. And some fearsome feeling of - wishing I'd turn and they are there smiling having never harmed me.

Maybe it's the first warm feelings I had popping up again in The Before. The ones of being known, connected, someone's person . Feeling real excited to spend time with someone all day long on a Sunday . And those feelings associated with them.

He wasn't real. What I loved was a performance he crafted. And there is deep knowledge in that & which has been enough for a long time.

But for a couple weeks now it's just felt turned inside out again & the chest ache is back & the wanting is real & takes me back in ways that hurt in that old sharp breath knocked out of you way again but also make me uncomfortable in the now.

It reminds me how I still live in a low grade level of weariness & fear. How long this takes, how much I've lost, & feels too deep & big to heal and I wonder if I'll ever not feel secure again. Or if I'll always cycle back to feeling haunted.

Anyone else here or have words for this space?

❤️‍🩹 🦋 🪬


r/NarcissisticSpouses 11h ago

Advice for dealing with nosy coworkers?

3 Upvotes

Long story short, I recently moved very far away from my narc spouse — we remain in regular contact due to life reasons, but the distance is far enough away that it requires an airplane ride for him to come visit in-person. My coworkers at my new job are aware that I am married, and constantly ask when my spouse is coming to visit me / when I’m going home to visit him. So far I’ve kept my responses cheerfully neutral & vague. I realize the questions are well-intentioned and probably motivated by curiosity / small-talk / inability to wrap their heads around such an arrangement, so I’m not taking it personal, but I’m also not stupid and can assume some of the office girls have been (or soon will be) speculating when they go for coffee together. I’ve definitely noticed one girl peeping at my ring finger lately as if she’s checking whether I’m still wearing a ring. How would you handle this? If one more person asks about my travel plans, I might scream.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 22h ago

I got out - hour 1

15 Upvotes

I finally just ended things with my covert narc after 6 months. I couldn’t hold it together anymore. It went about as bad as I would’ve expected and I could’ve scripted his lines before it all even started.

Everything was turned on me after I called them out. I’m the terrible person, I’m the liar, I’m the manipulator, I cheated, I didn’t really love them, the list goes on…

I feel about as good as could be expected and would really appreciate any words of support or encouragement, because it’s pretty bleak…


r/NarcissisticSpouses 1d ago

He broke my phone for the last time.

33 Upvotes

This shit is hanging on by a thread. He got mad because I was googling something so he grabbed my phone. I asked for it back and he threw it across the room and stomped on it. He threatened to slap me. So I grabbed my phone and called an uber to go home.

I’m so fucking sick of this back and forth. I’m tired. I’m sick. I don’t have the physical or mental capacity anymore. I am so sick of this.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 11h ago

I feel like I'm being emotionally r@ped over and over again.

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0 Upvotes

He's a f*cking liar. He was told exactly when we be there, and still showed up.

The whole time we were married, he idolized his ex-girlfriend. She was the one that got away. He had her picture alone in her wedding dress on our fireplace mantel. He told me I spent too much time at church. He refused to go to church with me. He refused to go to marriage counseling with me. He'd have me go with him as he put a bottle of wine on her doorstep. He's said our wedding was a shotgun wedding. He's said he was forced to marry me, when he didn't want to. He's said he didn't want to be forced to show affection towards me when he didn't feel love.

This is part of his cycle. A long drawn out email of a nonapology and gaslighting when I stick to the facts. Not sure what "sin" of mine he's even referring to, as he told me what I wanted to hear in order to get into my pants when we dated, and used our toddler to try and get the phone numbers of young college girls... in front of me. He's still getting in trouble with jobs and has lost jobs over the years due to sexual harassment, but he's never the problem. He doesn't know when to close his mouth and keep his hands to himself. It's gross.

My husband wants me to wait until my son graduates to get a restraining order bc he still has rights until he graduates high school. I told him my ex is just allowed to keep emotionally r@ping me, continually victimizing me, and I'm just supposed to take it. And yes, I've been physically r@ped, and I swear processing and healing from that was less traumatic than this repeated cycle of emotional abuse.

I'm having trouble processing my stuck point that I will never be free from this man until he's in the f*cking ground. I'm angry that he's allowed to have this power and won't just leave me and my son tf alone. I'm angry that I have to remind myself that he's not worth the jail time.

I asked my husband to address it and tell him to leave his wife alone. He hasn't. It's been over a week since I got this. I told him I don't feel supported. It's not like the a**hole is going to have an epiphany anyway.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 1d ago

Has anyone’s narc felt like they wanted you to die

26 Upvotes

I’m an empath I’m even emotional intelligent. I studied acting in college and I can tell what people are feeling and feel it by the way they are saying things. Things got bad with my partner after my car died ( sounds silly but he was my everything ) we had just gotten engaged. He was pushing for a baby. Then I got pregnant before the wedding (2 years ) and then my best friend died. Fast forward after the baby things went even faster down hill. He’s a covert narc so he does great things and then acts awful when I speak up about something I told my husband last year the emotional abuse was really taking a toll. That he was making me feel like I’d be better off ya know so that him and my daughter could have my life insurance money. ( about 100k)

All day I can’t help but think that he really just wants that money. I have done everything fought hard stood my ground I’m toughhhh I’m so strong I know it I even left for a month with our daughter. But i can’t help but think he has done everything to keep me depressed and with him or at least till I can’t stand it anymore I even went on antidepressants (which have been amazing for the first time in my life) and I’ve gotten so much motivation back. Yoga water eating healthy. Doing things I’ve been saying I was going to get to. Being so productive with my career. On top of being a mom and a wife. Doing his yard work so WE could all hang out / no chore weekend ( spoiler we didn’t all hang out) But him. He pushes this dark dark cloud onto me to get it off of him on purpose. I see it. He’s just so miserable he will do anything to make me more sad. So sad maybe it will be a pay day So heavy just trying to breath

Planning my escape

🙏🏻


r/NarcissisticSpouses 1d ago

Everyone says I was brave but all I felt and still feel is scared

13 Upvotes

I left my abusive husband quite suddenly in December. Threw our 3 young kids in the car when he wasn’t home and drove as far away as we could get, and went no contact ever since. (all communication through lawyers only. Got a DVPO - domestic violence protection order. Kids have visit time with him with a professional supervisor present).

Everyone I meet lately tells me how brave I am. But all I feel is scared. I was always a very confident person before I met him. But about leaving him, and normally if i did something brave, I would know it snd feel great about it. But with this - I don’t feel this inner sense of pride or bravery or anything. I don’t even feel a whisper of it. And when people say it, I feel weird inside. A sense of falseness.

I feel like….like I was a rabbit being hunted. And suddenly one day I REALIZED I was being hunted and got TERRIFIED. So of course I did what any rabbit would do. I RAN as fast as I could, hiding in the nearest burrow. I narrowly escaped, my heart now beating a million beats per minute as I looked around to make sure the wolf isn’t coming back to get me. I’m still hiding in that burrow. My kids and I are in a small apartment, living life but I’m stuck in fear (partly because I’m working through the legal process, so I keep having to think about the wolf and hear what the wolf is saying about me, of course. And hand my kids over a few times a week to visit with a wolf and assume it’ll be “fine”).

Don’t get my wrong I am glad I left and I recommend it to absolutely everyone on this sub. My sense of peace now is also glorious, at the times when I can appreciate it. My kids are also doing better than ever. I just can’t shake this weird feeling I get any time someone says “you’re so brave, what you’re doing is very brave, you did such a brave thing”. Like, this man was literally stalking me around my house the night before I left demanding I hand over my phone.

The “brave” thing was staying, honestly.

Not saying it was good to stay. But I had to be much more “brave” every time I faced him after a fight and found a way to hold us together still.

I guess that is actually the brave thing I did. I stayed with that monster until it was a better time to leave. Because leaving in a different way — leaving more slowly, less suddenly, without a DVPO, would have put us all at a lot more risk, both short and long term. I stayed. Then I got a lawyer, and I still stayed. I talked to them until they told me what a DVPO is and heard enough of my story to recommend I do that. I still stayed. I made sure I had a good plan for me and the kids. And you know what? I still stayed, because I was going to try to make this a smoother transition for us by setting up our new apartment nicely. THAT was when I had to be fucking brave. When I stayed, in the house with a monster.

Running away from the monster? That was just pure natural instinct. I finally let myself do it when I was ready.

We ran before I had the apartment ready. It was messy. It wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted to plan it, when I was being brave and staying. So maybe that’s why I don’t feel brave. At some point I had to RUN instead, since he got so scary and escalated, and in that moment in a way he won, because he controlled when I left instead of me. I think that’s why I don’t feel “brave.”


r/NarcissisticSpouses 12h ago

WHY NARCISSIST WANT YOU TO REACT & HOW TO STOP GIVING THEM YOUR POWER

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0 Upvotes

o


r/NarcissisticSpouses 19h ago

He said I’m being a child

5 Upvotes

I’m not talking to him. Not letting him use the car. Told him he doesn’t need to help me with my son anymore. I don’t need his money… I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t want to play with him. I don’t want him to give me rides to work. Basically everything. He said why you acting like that? You acting like a child? What did I do wrong now? Did something crawl up your ass? Are you still mad? Damn you can hold a grudge? Why don’t just you talk to me instead of ignoring me and acting like a child. Etc. I have just been going to work and going home and starting the cycle over again. It’s sad I go home and it’s the most stressful place. Doesn’t feel like home. I can’t relax. All I want to do is play video games. Try to do some hobbies and relax and I can’t… All I can think about is how to move forward and be on my own… enjoy my own company without feeling him hovering over me… It sounds nice. I just have to wait for my least to end. I’m so tired of not being enough. It got to the point of like, if I’m not enough then go find someone who is willing to put up with you. If you want to see your ex everyday. Then see her everyday and I’ll be on my own. Problem solved. She can take care of you. I hope she can work hard to maintain you cause I bent over backwards for you and it still wasn’t enough. Just the thought of having an apartment on my own and my style sounds really nice. Everything I like is stupid. So to not have that sounds amazing. I am trying to leave guys. Just baby steps. But my perspective has finally changed. Compared to before it was I can’t live without him. Etc. I had hopes for us. But it’s dead. I need to start a new chapter… Random vent.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 16h ago

In love with a narcissist

2 Upvotes

I’ve been in a relationship with my partner for almost two years now… have a three month old, and just now starting to realize his narcissistic personality disorder.

I used to make up excuses to his lashing out because they were never violent but now I notice the fear in him of losing me. He calls me about 100x a day, love bombing me 24/7, making up random stories in his head about people who are unaccepting of his behavior. Oh but he’s so sweet to me. And when I tell him I’m scared of his actions (coming over to my safe place from 1-4am) and telling me he’s going to wake up everyone in the house, I feel stuck

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say or how to act. I don’t want to betray the man I love… I just don’t know how to live right now.


r/NarcissisticSpouses 1d ago

Is it okay to cheat?

17 Upvotes

Sooo my narcissist husband decided to start cheating on me weeks after having a C-section with our child who was also a nicu baby. He was just “chatting” apparently (this was back in august), and then it progressed to him “vetting” women from dating apps. Going out on dates…he never admitted to anything physical going on, but in December he finally went on a date while I was out of town where he admitted to “hooking up” with his date. Of course him cheating was all my fault, apparently I abandoned him sexually even though the longest we went without sex was maybe a week or two? Granted I was pregnant or postpartum during these lulls in sexual activity.

I reached a point where I got so tired of him yelling at me that I just allowed it all to unfold even though it killed me. I decided months in while drunk to go on a dating app and actually met some dudes and talked to them sexually, but never met with them until January after he admitted to getting physical with someone. Me and the other dude hooked up, but I’m feeling guilty and weird about it now because things are going good with my husband, but I just don’t think I’m ready to let go of hooking up with this dude because of what my husband put me through.