Laurelly82's Story

3 months on

Hi everyone, I wanted to share my story as I have been reading this site for a while now and have found it so very helpful to understand the NPD behaviour and why I have gotten myself into the situation I have. Mine was a vulnerable narc as opposed to the grandiose type. It has taken me almost a year to diagnose him - I kept feeling that something wasn't right and I thought it was bi-polar for a time as he mentioned within a few weeks of meeting that he had been diagnosed with it a few years back. At the time he said he suffered from huge highs and lows and felt suicidal at times. To be honest, I just felt really sorry for him and ignored what was actually happening in our relationship and to me. For those who don't know, vulnerable narcs see themselves as victims of those who don't understand how superior they are and unlike grandiose narcs, they actually care about how their partners see them. They tend to swing back and forth between acting superior and feeling hurt and accuse their partners of having affairs and almost obsessing about finding their 'perfect' partner.

I won't go into all of the details here, but I'll give you a quick summary of my story. We met in Jan 2012 online. I didn't fancy him on the first date but he was so persistent in the days that followed that I thought I'd give him a chance and see if I'd grow to fancy him. In fact, I ended up falling madly and deeply and slightly obsessively in love with him. He became the only thing I would think about at the detriment of myself. Sadly, I fell pregnant the first time we slept together and he was quite insistent that we kept the baby but my mind was already made up and I had an abortion. This was something that was brought up time and time again in the coming months - phrases like "you killed our baby" were commonplace during arguments. He became very jealous and possessive quite quickly telling me to delete my online dating account after a week and claiming our relationship status on facebook as well as sending me flowers to work and spending a lot of time with me - an abnormal amount of time to be honest and before I knew it, he had moved in to my lovely little flat where I had lived by myself, perfectly happy for 3 years. He would tell me that he had never felt like this before - I was special, beautiful, his 'penguin' soulmate, you name it, he said it. I was flattered - it seemed too good to be true. By the August we were engaged and had bought a house together in the October. Things got more difficult when we moved in together - I felt so far away from my friends and family and anything familiar. We had bought a house in an area I had never been to before about an hours drive from my parents when before, I had only been 20 minutes away. He had convinced me that this was the best thing for us and our future and I believed him.

He accused me of being a lesbian with one of my best friends who is practically my sister (he would go through my phone behind my back and because we would write 'love you' to each other he took this that we were acting like we were in a relationship - I tell all my close female friends that I love them). He accused me of having an affair with a friend's husband because I once called this guy 'amazing'. He would call me an alcoholic so much so I thought it easier to stop meeting up with my friends for dinner/drinks after work and made excuses not to see them. He would sleep on the sofa to punish me, tell me he didn't love me and would break up with me every time we argued. He would break stuff in the house - tv, drawers, pictures punch walls, doors etc. Basically, it was a repeated cycle of overvaluation, devaluation and discard and then start all over again. Back in March, we had a huge row and he left the house for a week only to tell me a few weeks later when we were back together that he had had a 'breakdown' and was on anti-depressents and sleeping tablets. Of course he stopped taking these after a few weeks and the cycle started again. I promised myself if it happened again I would leave as I literally couldn't take it anymore. He pretty much kicked me out after 4 days of me begging him not to dump me, so in actual fact, he helped me make that decision.

My biggest fear was abandonment which he knew and played on this insecurity of mine. I left 3 months ago and am back living at my parents. He begged me to come back for weeks. I kept saying no. In this time, all I have had is words, no actions. It has been so very very hard and I have no idea who the 'real' him actually is. He can be so unbelievably kind and generous, warm, loving, affectionate. The house sale is going through - he has met someone else and has messaged me to tell me how amazing this new woman is - he even told me her name and where she worked - I tried to warn her but she immediately told him that I had made contact and so I never replied to her email as he then threatened to take me to court for slander even though I didn't say a bad word against him - I have the original email to prove it. I went over to the house a couple of weeks ago to collect some documents and took a friend with me and when we left he text to say he saw her scratch his car which she didn't do and couldn't have possibly done as both of her hands were full carrying a box of mine. It's just one thing after another.

I have been trying to focus on me - I've been in therapy, I've been reading literally everything I can get my hands on regarding narcissists which has been really useful in so far as trying to understand why they behave the way they do. I've even been on a couple of dates just to prove to myself that I am ok! Sounds crazy. All he cares about is hurting me to make himself feel in control and more powerful. I can't actually believe I am writing all of this - I never thought I would have ended up like this. He never criticised my appearance, it was always my behaviour (which often was often a concocted story made up in his mind), my family, friends, my work. He projected all his crap onto me. There's so much more I could share, but for now, that's me, I'm done. I can see the light creeping in and I'm starting to feel like me again. Thanks for listening.