Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Faith-and-Hope]

Just you keep rising too @Former-Member ❣️  And you @Corny ❣️

I know you hat feeling .... as if you're enabling something you shouldn't be ..... but now I know why it didn't feel safe to try to leave, so you "enable" enough to function, and to try to keep those in your care protected from the damaging circumstances as best you can ..... and there is integrity in that.

i am in a much better place to cope with this stage now than I have been at any other point since I married .... and this stage was always going to come ..... part of my new learning about his kind ......

[Former-Member]

Yes, leaving is typically not safe @Faith-and-Hope . My psych always made me promise that if or when I contemplated leaving I would tell her first. Needs lots of careful planning, and she would help with that.

I would like to think that your WH's 'bit' is one of a kind as WH. Indications seem to point that way, but I dont know.

The most important thing for you and the bd's now is to ensure your safety, both immediate and long term. It sounds as though you are on the way to doing that, despite numerous roadblocks thrown in the way.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Doing the best I know how @Former-Member, and at the end of the day, that's all we can do.

At one level it's good to understand what I am dealing with, after being so confused and distressed with what appeared to be a deliberate corroding of our relationship and the household ..... which of course I had pinned to the disordered eating / exercise issues ..... 

The fact that addictions are apparently a usual part of the NPD make-up has also ticked that box, well and truly.  

[Former-Member]

Im sure all NPD people have their own individual signs and traits, each manifesting in a slightly different way. But when enough boxes are ticked, enough dots joined, it has to ring alarm bells @Faith-and-Hope . Then you can be fairly sure.

My husband has some addictions too .. alcohol, gambling, sex ... to name a few. But its the egotistical and controlling behaviour and huge sense of entitlement (to the detriment of anyone else) which I find the most distressing.

Ive never told anyone this story before .. It still hurts, and I feel great shame and embarrassment around the issue. @Zoe7 

It was about 12 years ago now. Hubby was physically well back then and travelled overseas a lot. Initially for business (sound familiar?) but after retirement he continued to travel o/s at least 2-3 times per year. Same old haunts. I worked full time back then, so never went with him. Then one year I was invited to go with him. I took 2 weeks leave and went too. 

One night we went out for the evening and he chose to stay on very late at a girlie bar. I am talking a 3rd world Asian country here. I went back to our hotel room. About an hour later hubby comes back to our room with a little asian bar girl in tow. He explained that she was there for the night. He tried to make it a three way thing, which I categorically refused. So the pair of them 'spent the night together' on what was our bed. I was disgusted, highly embarrassed, very confused and upset. I also felt immence shame, as well as concern for the bar girl. Of course I couldnt watch, couldnt question the act, was not permitted to leave. After all .. who am I? I spent the night huddled in a corner trying to block out noises and images.And said nothing.

After she left in the morning, hubby said something aling the lines of "I knew you would understand". But I didnt. I didnt understand anything. Was he telling me I wasnt good enough, that he no longer wanted me? I was really shocked and stunned. Yet he thought nothing of it. Just something he is entitled to and will indulge in at will.

I was to learn after that about a number of other regulars he had in tow when he travelled. Some of whom he regularly sent money and corresponded with.

But I think that incident set me on the path of seeing him for the person he really is. No thought for anyone but himself. So egotistical, so entitled. And it still hurts. 

Not the same as your experience @Faith-and-Hope  but there are some parallels there.

Sherry 💘

[Faith-and-Hope]

Absolutely parallels @Former-Member  ..... although mine seems to be a "covert" which presents very differently to an "overt".  Mine it seems had / has addictions to work, technology (TV in every room including bathroom in a previous home, live cameras, fitness everything - watch, machines, fitbits), food (BED before this current eating disordered hybrid whatever-it-is), exercise (once that started again), spending on cars (once the business sold) ..... but sex wasn't one of them.  In saying that, I don't think anything would surprise me now.

I feel for you, so badly.  I had a uni room-mate being a boyfriend into our shared bedroom one night, and that was bad enough ..... after trying to pretend I was asleep for the first few minutes, I got up, barely dressed myself (not expecting to have to be) turned on the light and walked out of the room.  It ended the friendship.  She had a go at me the next morning for having treated her boyfriend badly when he had work the next day - I had kept walking back in and turning the light on every time they turned it off), and I told her I was moving out, which meant she couldn't keep the uni apartment either.

That was a situation I had control over to some extend ..... you poor thing ..... you had none.  As cringe-worthy as that situation was @Former-Member , you survived it with as much dignity as you could muster, and I fit one am so incredibly proud of you ..... you did what a good person would do in the presence of truly appalling behaviour by not-good people ..... and you are a survivor.  Your story will help others to say no to abuse !!! 

Hugs n hugs Hon ..... you're a champion to me ❣️

[Zoe7]

@Former-Member @Faith-and-Hope 

[Faith-and-Hope]

@Former-Member @Zoe7 .... dozed off for a while.

@Former-Member, I wanted to tell you the story I did (anove) to hopefully help you feel bit quite so alone in the experience you had with your hubby.  For me, it was what I thought was a trusted room-mate, and her boyfriend, who had professed to share the same values as me, until those values crossed over with something they wanted to do, and they discarded all care for someone they had held up as special to them.

The betrayal you suffered at the hands of your own husband was so much worse, and in a foreign country where you (presumably) didn't feel safe to leave the room ...... and even so your empathy lay with the bar girl.  

My empathy lies with you and your welfare @Former-Member.  I am glad you felt able to share your story with us ..... hopefully to receive a little bit of the love and concern you were owed, but denied in the moment of that experience.  

It only makes me feel closer to you, and wishing so many blessings to come your way, like that charred landscape coming back to life with the first rains of a new season.

❤️❤️❤️ @Former-Member 

[Former-Member]

Thank you @Faith-and-Hope  💕💕

[Corny]

He may find a similar personality style in her @Faith-and-Hope . She may have her own addictions, who knows, if she finds his personality traits comforting, there's a good reason for that. But I am sure all the ladies here @Former-Member @Shaz51 @Smc @Zoe7 @outlander @Former-Member agree with me, you deserve so much better. 

[Faith-and-Hope]

Sorry for all the auto-"correct" errors above @Former-Member. That was supposed to be "not so alone" in it.

In learning more about NPD, I am so glad to hear support therapists in this arena say that they understand when people stay in a relationship with one of this kind - whether it's "just" narc-traits, or fully-blown NPD .... none of these sort of behaviours are acceptable, but with these people it's not only about controlling all your resources, it's about your environment, your identity, about safety, about having to flee and start your life all over again ..... so many reasons for staying, for creating whatever boundaries you can within the relationship in order to life what is yours, what belongs to you and you value, in spite of them.

I had been prepared to do that, believing he was ill with a whole lot of soul-illness, whether it ever got identified or not ..... but that decision got made for me, and I am actually grateful for it ..... 

Despite the new hardships, consequences will flow forward and around me to land all over him regardless, hopefully contributing more and more to a distancing from him, for all of us.  "She"  is now part of our distancing .... so I need to feel grateful about that too.

More hugs incoming @Former-Member.  ❤️❤️❤️