Intimidation & Control

This follows my previous post on "Saying I'm Sorry". As I was thinking through this part of my story, another aspect of the narcissist came to my mind. The one of intimidation and control.

My ex-narcissist used to always say sorry, even though he was being his fake self, because of his fear of abandonment. Part of my personality is being assertive, and for the most part I'm not afraid of confrontation, so he knew I was not going to give in when we discussed issues. He knew that I was not afraid of pushing back whenever I disagreed with him. So since he is so afraid of abandonment (which is a root of pathological narcissism), he would apologize, but in a fake way, more to comply, not necessarily because he meant it.

Sometimes I wonder if these guys become more bold and abusive with a woman if they see they can intimidate her and bend her according to their will. In other words, if that woman is compliant or afraid and allows them to intimidate, then they become more bold and abusive...

And I thought about this because I remember when he first said he wanted to leave me, this really impacted me, I saw the dream of "marriage" crumbling, and this was really hard for me. So when this happened, it seemed like I turned off the "assertive" part of me, like a switch, because I didn't want him to leave me. Of course, at this point, I didn't know anything about narcissism, I didn't even know he was narcissistic.

At the same rate, I noticed a change in him as well, as I was changing my position. As I became more compliant, he became more bold, like never before. He then started to tell me what to do in everything. He started to tell me what to wear, what make up to use, that I needed to put acrylic nails on, and that he wanted me to cut my hair, and wear different shoes, different slippers, that he liked me serving his meals on the table instead of him having to get up, etc. Now very controlling. He also started to more directly dictate that we needed to do more activities without my family (more isolation); one example is, he told me he did not want to have "Thanksgiving dinner" with my family, he very boldly told me he wanted to just be alone and have dinner alone at a hotel, just him and I. And in my weakness, I complied; my family was hurt about it, but I still complied. My family noticed a big change in me, they said I looked like a different person - they said I looked cowardly and submissive. He had gained the ability to run my life, in a subtle way he was intimidating me and controlling me.

I think he realized he had enough ground to become more controlling because I stopped being assertive and bold.

And there was also a second reason, he had already secured "new narcissistic supply", he already had another woman on the side lined up, ready for whenever he decided to leave me, then he would not be alone, he already had his "back up" supply ready, so this made him more bold as well.

Another example, when I found all his emails to the other woman, he came to the room and stood right next to me. When I told him I was going to forward these emails to myself as I knew he would delete them, he almost got physical with me, he screamed - "NO!" and I could tell by his body language that he wanted to grab me to prevent me from forwarding these to my self. As these emails would serve as proof of what I had discovered, and evidence in court. But I could see he stopped himself in his reaction, I saw him pull back. Now that I think about it, I ask myself "Why did he not dare to prevent me? Why did he pull back?" Well, he knows that when my father got physically violent with my Mom, I was the one who called the police, and he was taken to jail. So my ex-narcissist was aware of that history, and he knew that if he got physical with me, I had the guts to call the police on him and I was not afraid. He knew there would be severe consequences, and he was not going to stop me from calling the police. So he allowed me to forward the emails as I told him I would.

These examples show me that the more we allow control and intimidation, the more they gain ground to do it, at least from my experience.

It's so important to share and try to gain as much understanding as possible regarding the relational dynamics with these guys. The least we understand about their schemes and behaviors, the more they can control and hurt.