Ariel28's Story

Ariel's Story

Hi everyone! I have been lurking on the forums here for a couple weeks and I feel like I am finally ready to share my story. I am also on day 2 of my 2nd attempt at NC. IT IS SO HARD.

I met my narc a month after the end of a 5 year relationship with a guy that was pretty messed up himself. We were on and off, engaged twice, blah blah. My first real relationship. When I met my N and had him to focus on instead of truly healing from the breakup, it seemed like a dream come true! He made me feel so so special-desired, smart, wonderful, etc etc. Said I was the best thing that ever happened to him, and of course everyone in his life (friends, family) agreed! He was in a lot of legal trouble and was mentally unstable, and I honestly think (no- i KNOW) I was the best girlfriend he'd ever been with in terms of education, looks, personality, etc. He had dated some real losers in the past.

I knew about his legal issues but I was so bored (had moved back in with my parents after the previous breakup and was home from college for the summer) and desperate for distraction from the breakup and excitement, that I threw myself into this relationship. He charmed me like no one had before, and I truly felt like I was living some magical bohemian life with him (I think that was my way of rationalizing doing drugs and partying with him).

In the early stages, things seemed wonderful BUT he was hesitant to commit to me--always saying things like he wasn't looking for anything serious, didn't want me to get stressed out by his court stuff, blah blah. It kept me so hooked on him because getting him to commit to me seemed like a goal and something to work toward.

3 months after we met and had been "dating", he was sentenced to a year of work release and 3 years of probation for marijuana possession (he had been in trouble for this several times before and got a felony for being a repeat offender). My birthday came a few days after his sentence. For my birthday he wrote me this beautiful poem and got down on one knee and gave me a ring. He said it could either be a promise ring or engagement ring. I said I wanted it to be an engagement ring! He went to work release a few days later & I went back to college 2 hrs away.

I spent that year driving back to see him once a month for his 2 hr visits. We talked on the phone every night. We argued sometimes, and at times I would see his horrible temper. But I loved him so I minimized all of the bad things that would happen. After he was done with work release, he transferred his probation to the town I went to college in and moved in with me.

After about 6 months or so of us living together, the arguments got worse and worse. We both started smoking weed together, even though he was on probation. And he couldn't stop. He truly has an addiction to marijuana, and for so long I thought that was the problem. I thought if only he could manage his addiction then things would be better. That is STILL something I'm struggling with. Anyways, the arguments got worse because he couldn't stop and was being drug tested on probation. I was also depressed and hurt because he was constantly texting one of his female coworkers and refused to stop. He just kept saying I was being way too jealous and that I had nothing to worry about. Then one day I checked his Facebook and saw that there were flirtatious messages he wrote to her. It hurt SO BAD, but he was just so angry at me for being upset about it and basically made me felt crazy. And one morning after i was having a panic attack and he told me to "stop fucking hyperventilating" my intuition and gut instincts kicked in and I told him he needed to move back in with his parents because the arguing was so bad. He moved back, and broke up with me by text message a few weeks later.

I was absolutely devestated. I couldn't understand WHY and I moved back in with my parents. I hoped to get him back. After a month of NC, I finally broke down and wrote him a letter telling him how much I loved him and how sorry I was for being angry at him and that the smoking weed really wasn't that bad. The day he read it he came knocking at my door and we hung out every day that summer. He even moved in with me while I was living at my parents. I felt SO RELIEVED to have him back in my life, and truly felt like it was better to be with him with all his faults and the messed up relationship we had, than to be alone and without him. He didn't have a job so I would pay for everything--food, pot, etc.

He had a warrant out for his arrest because he failed a drug test while on probation, and turned himself in to court at the end of the summer. We were never offically back together, but we were living and sleeping together and having sex and it sure FELT like we were back together. Anyways, he went to jail and spent a month there. A few days after he went to jail, I got a letter from him and it felt like christmas. It said EVERYTHING I wanted to hear--that I was the best thing that ever happened to him, that he wanted to be back together, that I was the only thing he wanted in life, etc etc. So we were back together and I visited him in jail, sent him money, wrote him letters.

He got out of jail and went into a halfway house. We started arguing eventually again because he started smoking weed again while at the halfway house. He tricked them though and was released and we moved into an apartment together.

A few months later I found out I was pregnant. I told him and he freaked out and broke up with me a few days later. He said that he wanted to still be together and raise the baby together, but that we needed to live separately. I knew that was not what I wanted and felt like he was just messing with me again. So I said NO. I was going to have an abortion (PLEASE do not judge me for this) because I felt so messed up in the head. I went to have it and they said I was too far along. I immediately felt relief. I did NOT want to have an abortion but felt trapped. So I called my N and told him I couldn't have it done. He said he was excited and that he would support me no matter what.

A few days after that, we were hanging out and he told me he wanted to be a family no matter what. That he was just scared before and that we would make it work and he loved me so much and that everything happened for a reason.

We got another apartment together, and my pregnancy was mostly great. We got along for the most part, and I truly felt blissfully happy. He stopped smoking and I felt like we really had everything together. During our baby shower, he wrote me another poem and read it in front of everyone- all our friends and both of our families. Then he got down on one knee and gave me a GORGEOUS HUGE ring and proposed. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world and was soooo excited!

Everything was pretty much great until after our son was born. Five days after we brought him home was the N's last day of supervised probation, which meant he had 1 year of unsupervised probation left (they don't check up on you or anything for this). He came home from paying his court fees super excited and as he walked past me with his backpack, I smelled weed. I waited til he put it away and I checked inside and saw it. I WAS SO FURIOUS! I begged and pleaded with him NOT to start smoking NOW- we JUST brought our son home. He kept saying it wasn't a big deal- that I needed to get off his back, etc. It became a re-occuring argument, Almost every day. He would promise to stop smoking, never would, I would catch him with weed, he would beg me to smoke with him, I would to keep the peace and to de-stress myself, and it was just an awful vicious cycle. Lying, empty promises, RAGES, etc. Just a nightmare.

We married 2 months after we had our son. His family paid for us to have a beautiful wedding and honeymoon. The arguing just got worse from there. He punched a hole in the wall, and yelled and yelled and yelled. He even threatened to beat me up and called me a bitch repeatedly. His twisted arguments combined with a lack of sleep and postpartum depression made me feel so crazy that one time I even slapped him. That is when the violence started.

One night (about two months after we got married in November 2012) after we were fighting at 3am (he started yelling every time our son would wake up crying, and act like it was MY FAULT! What the hell) I yelled at him to get out. He packed up the next morning and moved in with a friend. He stayed there for about two months, mostly ignoring me and putting up a huge wall whenever I would tell him I loved him or try to reconcile. Never saw our son once or really even asked about him.

I was telling one of my close friends about all this and she said to me, "He is such a fucking narcissist!" which prompted me to look up info online on NPD. It honestly felt like a lightbulb went off--THIS was the answer I had been searching for all these years. THAT was his problem. Not addiction, not ADHD, not bipolar (although probably those things as well). But this was the only thing that totally explained all of the behavior I had witnessed and been so confused by. So I have spent every day since then reading about narcissism and devouring the content on this site. I AM SO HAPPY I FOUND IT! I also found an amazing therapist who is helping me through all this. My assignment for this week was to post on here. :)

We were supposed to get $4000 back from taxes but we found out that our student loans took them all since we hadn't paid on them. He had been planning on using that to buy a truck and move to California to "start a life for us" and wanted me and our son to come live there with him after he got it all set up. I thought this was complete bullshit and I was pretending to go along with it, hoping that he really would move out of state and I could get on with my life. I had been practicing NC until then but he baited me with an email about his plans and I responded.

We were both really upset when we found out we weren't getting any tax money, so I used that as an excuse to start talking to him again. He was homeless, jobless, and miserable so he checked into a halfway/sobriety house in a town 30 min away to "get clean". Of course he is saying everything I want to hear, asking to wear his wedding ring again, telling me he loves me and never wanted to break up and is working on himself now. I even went to see him on his birthday which was last Friday. He looked SO GOOD and honestly seemed like a different person. It gave me hope, and I even started wondering if he truly is a N, or if he just has addiction issues...and maybe we could be a family...maybe I wouldn't have to go through the divorce, the pain, the loneliness....maybe??

I KNOW it is bad, but honestly talking to him feels like a drug I can't give up. I know i CAN, it's just hard. All the NC topics on here give me so much hope & strength. But late at night, after my son has gone to sleep, after I am high (I have been smoking weed to escape the pain...something I also need to stop, I know.) I wish that he would call me. Sometimes he does, and it feels great. But then the next day is awful and I find myself in the obsessive thought pattern. And knowing deep down that it is hopeless and pointless to hope to be with him again. Because i know it will all happen again, and be worse when it does.

Anyways, thank you for reading my story. I really hope I will be able to follow the steps and recover and love myself and be able to NOT care about him anymore.

God bless! xoxo