JLS story

We met when I was only twenty years old. I was in a statistics class that I had to retake as a semester before I had gotten mono. I usually sat in the front of the class, but one day some random girls decided to show up and had taken my seat. I moved to the back of the class.... And wish I could go back in time and pick a different seat. I wound up sitting next to my narc. He was older than I, and honestly I didn't find him that attractive while he was focused on the lesson. One day he teased me about a shirt I was wearing, asking if I was even alive when the tv characters on my shirt were on air. I became huffy and said of course! Then he smiled.... And that smile was so charming, it changed his whole face. It made me feel special. I was in a manipulative relationship at the time (hmmmm, that guy may have been an N as well....) and was able to keep my N off for a while because of it. Eventually we started talking about my boyfriend and how horrible my situation was. He told me I was so beautiful, and smart, and funny, and that it made him cry to think what a terrible situation I was in (cry! He must love me). He wanted to save me. Unfortunately, he was dating someone as well. As our talks progressed (notes in class, little lunch dates, coffee, bringing me small gifts) he told me he broke up with his nurse girlfriend. We had sex and then I broke up with my boyfriend. He told me he loved me after knowing me for one week.

I lived with my parents at the time and had limited time to spend with him. When I did stay, I'd leave at 3 am to get home without my parents knowing I had been out so late. He was addicted to me, couldn't get enough time with me. I started skipping class to have sex. After sex he'd behave strangely, would immediately shower then refuse to cuddle for longer than five minutes.

My parents found out about the relationship and kicked me out of the house (that relationship is abusive as well) for dating him. I didn't care. I found a cheap place to live and got to see my N for longer. That's when things began to fall apart. He was insistent I was too clingy, I was immature, I wasn't right, he was still in love with some other woman. We were off and on again for six months. Over this time, he told me that if I was his wife, he would treat me better and take care of more of my needs. I decided if he loved me and I loved him so much why didn't we just get married? His female friend at the time warned me against it. I wish I had listened.

On our six month anniversary we got married. I had to work a double at the restaurant the day before to make the $60 it would cost for our license (red flag anyone?). I was thrilled. He picked me a flower on the way home which I pressed. The night we got back was horrific, he barely touched me, he didn't tell me he loved me, he wouldn't let me cuddle him. We didn't have sex for five days and I thought it was so he could get the marriage annulled.

We got orders to Hawaii (he's a military man) and I thought that was amazing. I dropped out of school. We were in the up swing of the carousel we've been stuck on for the entire marriage. Before we moved, I found out he was sleeping with the female friend who had warned me off. Funnily enough, she became a very dear friend to me and was my source of information. When I confronted him, he denied it. He denied trying to sleep with her after we got married (he hadn't slept with me those five days as she had rejected him the day before we got married, and had been chasing her). He also had been sleeping with the nurse girlfriend I had thought he had broken up with. I decided Hawaii was a good option, we would be away from everyone in our lives and we could start fresh.

His financial life was a secret disaster. He showed up one day with a brand new truck he said nothing to me about purchasing. When I asked him to return it, he said "what do you care, you're not the one paying for it. I sacrifice for the money I make and I'm entitled to what I want. If you don't like it, there's the door". At twenty one, I had no idea how to handle the situation and let it slide. That was the first of many purchases I was not in the loop on. When we tried to find a house in Hawaii, we couldn't afford the down payment on any places because he had used that money as a down payment on the truck. We moved into base housing.

He was gone constantly, and we only had he one vehicle. I was literally trapped in my own home. He was my only source of human contact. He told me daily I wasn't independent enough for him. I became depressed and he started drinking daily. I continued to bend over backwards to meet his ever demanding needs and was constantly rejected. I became despondent and bought a one way ticket home for the holidays while he was on deployment. It was our first deployment together. I think that his military life was the reason we were able to maintain the relationship, he had no sources on the ship except for me. He wrote every day, and I thought it was love. I have of course saved everything and reread all the emails ever and have exactly five emails out of hundreds that could be considered loving. All the rest are just words I placed too much meaning on. I got a job back home to get a nice bed and breakfast week long vacation for him when he came into port on the east coast. The night before he was supposed to fly up he racked up a $450 bar tab. Having been working in a martini bar at the time, I knew he wasn't drinking alone. I confronted him, he came up, he was contrite, I served him separation papers.

When he returned to Hawaii he began to tell me how lonely it was there without me. That I made our house a home. That he was done with his obsession with the ex girlfriend that had cause us so much back and forth when we were dating (not the nurse, but the one before, I'll refer to her as imaginary girlfriend) and that he wanted us to work. He agreed to join AA and find us a place off base to live. I came back.

Things went well for the first six months. Then the lying and drinking started again. Then he decided I had to get a job because we couldn't afford to live (even though he made very good money). So I got a job and made friends. He would pick fights when I would invite my friends over and yell and scream at me about silly things I had done- not putting the dishes away before he got home, not putting my clothes in the hamper the right way, not being a supportive enough wife for x y and z reasons. Eventually my friends stopped coming over.

We left Hawaii because he hated it there. Yes. He hated Hawaii. He said the sand was dirty and he hated me tracking it into his truck all the time, he hated me wanting to go to the beach, he would tell me all the time he didn't like being my parent (HA!). So we came back to Virginia. Typical N behavior, the last two weeks we were in Hawaii he decided he loved it and didn't want to leave (sounds like when they start to lose us huh), and that he didn't want to go back to Virginia and he chose that city because of me (who would have been completely happy staying where we were). So the move to Norfolk was all my fault, and everything he had to deal with there was also my fault. Again he bounced a check and we couldn't get the apartment I wanted because of his credit. Again I started working to supplement the income to pay bills and buy food. He continued to tell me I wasn't a partner, I didn't bring anything to the marriage, I wasn't a good wife, I wasn't clean enough, he hated me being home all the time. Then he deployed again. I saw him a total of three months over two years and things were good enough while he was gone to stay. He'd tell me he loved me, he was sorry, yes please fix the finances. His truck almost got repossessed because he had stopped making payments. I'm still not sure where his money went while he was on the ship but it didn't go to the bills. He gave me enough strings of promises (after I paid to keep his truck from being taken, still our only vehicle) that I continued to stay.

Then we were supposed to move to California. I swore up and down before we got married if he ever moved to California I would divorce him. His ex wife and daughter lived there and according to him, they were drama. We got separated again, but I hadn't had enough abuse yet. I still didn't think I had given my all to the relationship. We fought bitterly for months and finally he deigned to say I could move out to live with him. We were "happy" for about two weeks before the drinking and lying and degradation started again. Somehow I managed to go to school (and did very well, top of the class in all of my classes so clearly I was smarter than I was giving myself credit for) to make myself more independent like he was always asking me to do. After three months out there the sex stopped completely. He openly made snide and rude comments to my face in front of friends and neighbors, he told me constantly how worthless I was to be married to. The hell continued for eighteen months. He got into a horrible accident with that involved alcohol and him winding up in the hospital. He insisted on drinking and driving even after that. That's when I decided to leave him. It took me several more months to gather the resources (since I was in school I didn't work and got a $200 a month allowance). Over the course of that time, I found out he was trying to find imaginary girlfriend (who happened to live in the next town we were supposed to move to). I confronted him and told him to just call her. He said if she still loved him he was going to leave me for her. I calmly told him okay, just call. So he called the woman he had dated for six months ten years ago, and told her he was still in love with her. She laughed at him. He proceeded to self destruct for two weeks. He still hated me and I began to feel that just being alive was offensive to him.

Then I met someone else, a friend I hadn't spoken to in years who had always treated me with kindness and respect. We began talking on the phone. I began to smile more again, and started to put the abuse of my marriage in perspective. Two weeks before I left him, I was happy and he saw it. That's when the hoovering began. It was like he could sense I didn't care if he gave me the silent treatment or berated me any more, I was happy somehow without him and giving my attention to someone other than him. So he told me he wanted to make it work. I left him any way just this last September.

I hadn't identified him as a N/P yet though we had been to several therapists over the years. We continued to talk even as I moved back in with my parents. His story was the same, he loved me, he was so sorry, after lifting the burden of imaginary girlfriend he can love me fully because he doesn't have to hold that last chip back. The emotional abuse continued as well - well if you hadn't left that day we could be having our happy ending, if you had tried to give me a chance you could have had my undivided attention, if you had been able to trust me we could be together and happy right now. Through all the promises to change though, and the declarations of devotion, he never put his wedding band back on, and six weeks after I left he found a girlfriend near his brothers house on his own way across the country.

I still didn't know what he was. I felt hurt because when he found her he didn't talk to me for three days. Then when he did call, he acted like nothing was going on. Eventually he left the state to go check in at work, and after that it was all I'm sorry, she reminded me of imaginary girlfriend and I had to see how it would work, I miss you, it never would have happened if you had been here, I wish you were here on this trip with me, I miss having you in the car for road trips, but I have to see where this relationship with her goes.

So for three weeks of his relationship I dealt with them being "in love" (they said they love each other after three days) and him choosing her over me because of things I've done wrong (which is ridiculous to think I believed). He had me groveling and using every sex trick I knew to try and get his attention. He maintained a Madonna relationship with her and a whore relationship with me, and when she found out about it he thought she would never speak to him again, and immediately said hey let's reconcile to me. When he found out she wasn't going to break up with him over it, he told me two hours later that he still needed to see where it goes. Then I got a therapist I had seen with him before I left my parents years ago, and she shared about NPD.

I am now attempting to maneuver my way through a divorce without getting hoovered. I am going to follow the six steps and work my way towards recovery.

Overall, the things in our relationship I would point out as flags to other people would be -
1. The sense that you're stuck in some strange cycle of really bad then really amazing that your actions have no control over. No matter what you do, you can't make the good part of the ride come back. It's at the N's discretion
2. The N will consistently train or condition you to tolerate worse and worse behavior and treatment from him
3. The N makes you feel like everything is somehow your fault
4. The N will do anything to keep you if you try to leave
5. No one who is capable of love will treat you this way. Conversing with him is the last thing I need to be doing, conversing with any N will never solve anything as the non narc is the only one who compromises.
6. They feel strangely entitled to the things they do. They deserve to waste money on whatever they want and not pay bills.
7. I constantly told him and all our therapists it was like being married to two people.
8. He never let me finish any opinions in public, whenever I spoke to other people he would butt in and take over the conversation (devalued my opinions and isolated me)
9. He would only compliment me when I wasn't around to hear it. He talked me up to other people (she's so smart, so pretty) but would devalue me at home (can't let her get a big head and hear me say anything nice about her)
10. He lied all the time to other people. If he's lying to other people, he's lying to you.
11. He maintained a fast lifestyle and overspent way more than he made in order to maintain the illusion of an officer and a gentleman. If he takes you out and his card gets declined often, it's a red flag.
12. He constantly told me things that I felt I should be telling him (projection)- you're not a partner, I feel like your parent, you don't contribute, if you were better with the finances we wouldn't be in debt etc. All red flags.

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