Well done DrP, you’re dealing with it way better than I would be.

Well I would sunshine ..but this is the closest thing I get to an online presence

And it’s the (mostly) supporting nature of the forumites online presence that makes this place so amazing. Different sides to the story, rights and wrongs, if someone needs help or support then someone needs help and support.

PLUR ❤️

And i see this is the crux… the trigger if you will…
Hands up who has, or still is, called “disrespectful” all the f’ing time…
“you show me no respect”
“you’re so disrespectful for not [insert thing they want you to do, reasonable or not]”… !

It’s so funny… it’s like it’s THE ‘word of the narcissist’… I get it all the time!

DrP

scarily familiar…

This is in fact a rehash of the story he told when splitting up from his missus..what a wonderful person he is and what a hateful and spiteful person his missus is …

Hodgynd, I can only imagine you’ve had the luck of passing through life having no interaction with a genuine narcissist.

I think it’s probably a case that some of us just fall for this far easier than others and to some extent that is probably biased towards people who basically just try and be a “nice guy”.

I think neilc1881’s post on the previous page needs more love.

It’s very easy to stand outside throwing stones when you’ve never experienced anything like this first-hand, it’s akin to telling someone suffering from depression to “cheer up a bit.”

I always thought myself to be a pretty strong character, not one to be “told what to do” by a woman (or indeed, anyone), never thought I’d be in a relationship which would slowly sap any sense of self I had. But the thing is, people like this, they’ve had a a lifetime of practice at this and they’re so very good at it.

I was once in what I recognise now to be an abusive relationship. Victim mentality, everything perceived to be wrong in her life was someone else’s fault. Ex-boyfriends, parents, you name it. She’s married now, and there’s little doubt in my mind that he’ll have been told at great length about what a shit I was. We had lots of blazing rows about absolutely nothing, and if it was something I’d been upset or pissed off about then I’d be the one winding up apologising.

She lived ~250 miles away. We’d see each other every other weekend – the off-weekends I’d get berated for not seeing her – and it’d always be me making the journey as it was “too expensive” for her to make the journey in her big daft car. It got to a point where I was leaving work on Friday (home was an hour in the opposite direction), driving down from there, then leaving to go back to work at Silly O’Clock on Monday morning. I’d spend half the weekend cleaning up the shit-tip of her house only for it to be a bomb site again two weeks later. This, apparently, was all her housemate’s fault. Funny how when said housemate moved out their new place was immaculate and hers if anything got worse.

One time I was due to go down, I’d been off work all week with stinking flu. Told her I couldn’t, so the conclusion she drew was that I was having an affair. After a blazing row I got in the car, got about an hour from home and had to make an emergency pitstop in the services to be violently sick everywhere. I realised, this is bloody stupid and I’m not fit to be driving. Did a U-turn at the next motorway junction, stopped again at the same services Northbound to desecrate that side too, limped home and went to bed. I didn’t hear the last of that for weeks.

I could go on, this was just the tip of the iceberg. I could talk about the time I had her sectioned, the numerous threats of suicide / overdoses (always a good tool to keep someone in line), the time she almost knocked me out (which really was the time I should have just walked away) or the number of late-night phone calls after we’d broken up. It was only her getting a new fella that really knocked it on the head for good.

The point I’m making in all of this is, when you’re in the middle of it, you just don’t see it. I’d defend her to anyone who tried to say anything about her, they must just not understand. It was only with the clarity of hindsight, months later, that I realised what had been going on. It took years for me to unpick the mental damage she’d caused, it very nearly cost me my next relationship also.

Anyone glibly suggesting that we should simply “grow a set” or “man up” suggests to me that they are either completely devoid of empathy or fortunate enough never to have been in that sort of situation. I can assure anyone reading that there was nothing wrong with my “set.” But it’s far removed from anything as simple as a “messy breakup,” it has more in common with being sucked into a cult and brainwashed.

It took me a long time to realise there is a major gulf between the face people show the world (persona) and the person beneath.
I’ve been single for 12 years now and counting. For me, it is just too much of a risk, I’ve found on balance I’m happier on my own than taking a risk on someone with the fallout and heartache from realising they are not their persona. Infact the people with the sparkliest, most outgoing personalities are often the ones to avoid.

handybar

It took me a long time to realise there is a major gulf between the face people show the world (persona) and the person beneath.
I’ve been single for 12 years now and counting. For me, it is just too much of a risk, I’ve found on balance I’m happier on my own than taking a risk on someone with the fallout and heartache from realising they are not their persona. Infact the people with the sparkliest, most outgoing personalities are often the ones to avoid.

Probably not everyone though if your happy not suggesting you change 😀
Something I said earlier was “I think it’s probably a case that some of us just fall for this far easier than others and to some extent that is probably biased towards people who basically just try and be a “nice guy” but I think it’s a bit deeper …

The one thing every narcissist has is a terrible story about their bast*** ex partner and I guess some of us are just not only suckers to believe it but we also look or give out signals we are suckers for it.

Being a bit generous … I don’t think the narcissist can actually NOT do this, it’s like giving a kitten a ball of wool… and from their perspective they can’t see any different.

I had to laugh at the comment someone made about getting councelling… and the “right off you go then .. get fixed as its all your fault” … from THEIR perspective this is entirely the case and suggesting councelling is an admission it must be your fault.

I don’t have much to offer on breakups or narcissism, thankfully.

However, as someone whose parents split up when I was quite young, I would echo the encouragement to avoid making negative comments about your ex in front of the kids.

By and large, my parents had a very civil relationship while I was growing up, which I think in retrospect was largely for the benefit of me and my sister.

One parent did however say the odd derogatory thing about the other, and this is more confusing than you might expect for a child or young person. You love both your parents, you look up to them, and now one of them is saying something nasty about the other. I still think about some of these comments now, decades on! Which is weird, because I don’t even remember the content of much of it, and I don’t recall caring much at the time. But there you go, the mind is a mysterious thing.

Were my marriage to break up now, I’d be doing my best to remember that my ex was still my children’s mother, and she always will be. And as such, if I had nothing nice to say about her to them, I’d be saying nothing.

It sounds as though you’re doing a good job OP, all the best.

I hear the term narcissist a lot now, I don’t think I’ve ever been caught up with one – my red flag detector has always been quite good overall – but it’s more that you realise everyone has some major issues, which you only learn about close-up. Plus people can change from good to bad.
The question for me I suppose is whether together, as a team/partnership, you can overcome your collective hang-ups and problems and be happier than on your own. Communication, apologies, patience, forgiveness from both parties, rather than creating an abuser-abused dynamic which seems all too common after the honeymoon period has worn off.
I did meet someone recently and I suddenly realised why the “love” industry is so lucrative, the feeling can be overpowering. I wasn’t comfortable with the feelings so didn’t pursue anything, plus I’ve just seen too many bad break-ups of late to think that I could be the exception not the rule.

@cougar Wow, some comparable situations there dude. Sad to read, life can be mean, people can be worse. Easy to judge when you’re not living that life.

Thanks for that. I was rather expecting a reaction of “WTF is wrong with you, man up!”

The question for me I suppose is whether together, as a team/partnership, you can overcome your collective hang-ups and problems and be happier than on your own.

That’s probably quite on point. A question we perhaps should be asking more is “how are you enriching my life?” If the answer is that you’d be happier / better off on your own, well, you only have the one life.

I did meet someone recently and I suddenly realised why the “love” industry is so lucrative, the feeling can be overpowering. I wasn’t comfortable with the feelings so didn’t pursue anything, plus I’ve just seen too many bad break-ups of late to think that I could be the exception not the rule.

I think that’s a real shame and it makes me genuinely sad.

Sure, there are always risks. And some 30 years of dating has demonstrated far too often to me that people aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. But now I’m seeing someone who has been an absolute revelation in terms of “it doesn’t have to be that way.” It can happen.

Every time you cross the road you risk being hit by a car. What do you do to mitigate that, never cross a road again? I’ve had this argument with my mum of late and now just given up because, well, she’s a stubborn old goat (like her son). She had a cat and adored it, it died and she was devastated. I’ve suggested getting another and her stance is “I couldn’t go through that again.” But it overlooks the years of joy and companionship she got out of him before that happened.

When my current girlfriend and I first went out on a date, one of the very first things I said to her even before agreeing to that date was “absolutely the last thing I’m looking for right now is anything even remotely resembling a relationship.” 18 months later, we’re now making plans for her to move in with me.

Why not give it a go. You’ve lost nothing if it doesn’t work out, so long as you’re mentally prepared to walk away rather than get dragged into something toxic if it all goes sideways.

@cougar you make some bloody good points. It took me until I was 39 to actually get into what I consider a normal and healthy relationship. Many years of poor choices and compromised principles combined with me not being the healthiest person around compounded it all.

I could blame my exes but ultimately I got sucked in and due to my own issues hung around for the shitshows that they became, glad to past all of that and it took me a while to realise I was the cause of my own misery.

Like you said, you should enrich each others lives, not cause friction or misery, but we hang in there, for reason that escape us sometimes.

Like you said, you should enrich each others lives, not cause friction or misery, but we hang in there, for reason that escape us sometimes.

For me this was clear…the kids…
You put up with a degree of ‘discomfort’ for your kids, and don’t bat an eye (early morning wake ups, standing on the cold side of a field etc etc.. ‘uncomfortable’, but we do it for the kids). It’s when the partner adds ‘creep’ into it…
A little bit of discomfort becomes a bit bigger…and bigger…
You still think ‘i’ll endure for the kids/family unit’…until you ‘pop’….

DrP

@DrP Yeah man, story as old as time. Thankfully I don’t have kids, but still hung around too long. Sorry you and the little humans have to go through this shit.

I did meet someone recently and I suddenly realised why the “love” industry is so lucrative, the feeling can be overpowering.

After 30 years in a relationship which works that’s something I miss, the initial rush of a new relationship. It comes back sometimes but usually after some kind of tiff and as I have no wish to spend my life arguing that’s rare (better to argue with randoms on the Net) I accept that foregoing the initial euphoria is the price of being happy but not quite euphoric nearly all the time. Some people don’t seem to be able to live without the initial rush and have affairs or go from one partner to the next.

Others never seem to get fully invested in a relationship, there’s a lack of passion or romance, things are just a bit too practical. There’s a balance, relationships that work can work because people are passionate about their partners or simply because it’s convenient to be with them or even because it provides for practical wants/needs. Everything is possible. It just takes two people to sign up to a shared life and live with the joys, irritations and constraints.

Some people are nicer or more horrible than others, just hope you discover things sooner rather than later. Some of the most toxic people I’ve known have also been capable of being the most seductive and charming.

My ongoing divorce has been terrible. The person I thought I knew and loved for nearly 22 years has done and said some terrible things. I have sat and questioned my own behaviour. You have good days, and bad days. It effects people in different ways each set of circumstances is different.
But as DrP has said, talking about things helps. At those low points where you are trying to juggle kid, house, money, solicitors, life etc having somewhere like here to talk helps massively. So, from me to you all…thanks. And to DrP..it will get better.

Some of the most toxic people I’ve known have also been capable of being the most seductive and charming.

Ain’t that the truth.

One of my previous girlfriend’s exes was the most charming man you’d meet. Everyone thought he was lovely. He was also the most manipulative ****pig on the planet. Last I heard he was banged up for armed robbery.