New here

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
#1 Oct 26 - 8AM
NicNac13
NicNac13's picture

New here

I have just come out of an 18 month relationship with a female who I believe has npd. Maybe not, maybe she is just needy and insecure and I do...
We met through work circles and we clicked at a social event after which we started emailing and she was funny and sparkly and good fun and I thought I had found a new friend.
My brother took his own life on Boxing Day 2011 and I had to return to Australia at short notice and was away for a few weeks. Upon my return I had to attend an event at her work and I was, understandably, very low and exhibiting the signs of my grief stricken state. I confided in her about my brothers death and she took to emailing and texting me regularly and organising drinks and social catch ups. I really enjoyed this as some of my other friends had responded in less than great ways to my brothers suicide and it felt a little bit like a release.
I guess there were times when I got the sense that she liked me more than on a friendship level, but having diminished perceptive abilities at the time, and never having had a same sex experience, I overlooked it.
Some time later after a night out, something did happen and I reacted with confusion and regret and she appeared upset, however the following week I made a real effort to move things back on the friendship track. This seemed to go okay and we were seemed to be firm friends again. A few weeks later she was house sitting and invited me to stay. I went and was nervous as the incident from a few weeks before had shaken my already stirred up psyche. As anyone who has been bereaved knows you go through a period of feeling your whole world is different and I kinda wondered whether this what I was, maybe I was gay and didn't know it, maybe in light of her care and loveliness and the fact that I should see what happened. No one else was bestowing me with such attention or cared as much as she did.
And so it commenced and it was initially heady and romantic and I began to wonder whether this was what things were meant to be like... We spent all of our non work time together and I sincerely began to have feelings for her. However, over time I began to have a nagging sense that something wasn't right, but dismissed this as probably being related to my grief or confusion over my sexuality.
Things moved quickly and she spoke of the future and wanted to move things right up. She confided that she had had one short relationship with a woman and at the end she had been pressured to tell her dad and it wasn't right and she had ended it. Afterwards this woman had gone on a long campaign of terrorising her with texts and phone calls and letters wanting to know what had gone on.
Ironically, the demands began that I tell all my friends and family about us and despite expressing my desire that we wait longer than 3 months to do this and ensure we were strong, this became a real sticking point. The more she pressured me, the more I felt uneasy. The main thing was that we were happy, right?
She was unhappy in the house share she lived in - particularly as her landlord lived in and was quite patently depressed after the death of his mother and end of his marriage. When he requested money from her and the other lodger she refused to pay anything - even though she hadn't paid anything for over a year - until he produced the bills (which she knew he couldn't). She began a campaign of refusal and revved it up by bringing up a whole list of demands about what he needed to do around the house. The whole thing escalated and the landlord ended up asking both her and the other lodger to leave. She took on a room in the house I lived in and then things really started to slide.
We went out for drinks with work colleagues, including my boss, who didn't know we're romantically involved. I had been attempting to give up smoking - at her insistence - but had a couple that week at work. When a colleague mentioned this, she grilled him for details and then launched a massive verbal attack on me in front of my boss - who at one point intervened to tell her to back off. Unsurprisingly the fact we were in a relationship came to light. I was basically dragged home by her and the next day was expected to pay penance. A night in a luxury hotel was arranged and paid for by me as way of apology for not telling her I had been smoking. I had committed a huge slight against her and was expected to pay. None was forthcoming for her having publicly abused me or outing me to my boss and colleagues.
To this day she has not told her colleagues or mother.
I believe In a level of independence in relationships is healthy. Over time suggestions that she have a night out with her friends would be met with tears and statements about how she only wanted to spend time with me. When I suggested a trip for myself to the doc as I was starting to feel depressed I was met with tears and statements on how she didn't like people being on medication. Demands commenced that I cut all contact with my male friends, to the point where she would check my phone or watch me type a message and send it. A refusal to do so, a suggestion that she meet them to see they were no threat or a discussion about this matter and I would face tears and internet articles backing her position that it was a sign I was not committed to her. She would check my phone and handbag and demand to know why I wouldn't give her the password to my work blackberry. She began to ask if I was having an affair. Meanwhile she was still going out with male friends who were texting to say they wanted to f her.
I became completely conflict averse and constantly looking for ways please her. Meanwhile, over time there seemed to be nothing I could do right. Anything she did or gave me was conditional - she once returned from a trip and told me she had something for me but would give it to me when I behaved in a way that deserved it. I broke my foot and was simply told by her when I considered taking the day off 'you're not going to stay off work just because of that are you?' She would correct me in front of friends, pick snide fights when we were out with others (which I would walk off from - which was then used to illustrate how unreasonable I am), and even ranted at me about what a miserable, miserable person I am when her dad was visiting, while he was there...
I was in a constant state of anxiety, but it thought I loved her and suggested we just get a place together as I thought this would improve things.
Oh boy!
We ended up taking a flat that I preferred, but like any time it was my choice or action, this was criticised and she suddenly hated the flat, it was a shit hole, she expected better for this period in her life. If I spoke of anything when out with friends I would later be chastised as 'that is her story to tell' or told I was to remember that they were her friends. If her dad bought me dinner I would be told later that hadn't I had a lovely time being paid for. I was told she hated me washing the sheets once a week as normal people do it every fortnight and then a week later informed she had googled it and every two weeks is normal. I was even told to continue eating my dinner when I had had enough, as she had noted that I always stopped eating when she did. But apparently I was the control freak, bully. Then the gaslighting increased and the discard commenced.
Silence to me but texting my friends and colleagues to say that whatever happened she would always love them. When I pushed for a conversation (I was in the middle of a huge work project working 14 - 16 hour days) just to resolve it , she refused and kept the line of 'i will speak to you when I am ready to speak to you.' She came in and worked on the project and was sparkly and light to everyone else and showed total disdain of me. I meanwhile, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and was starting to unravel. In the end I pushed for an answer, got what I knew was coming and was told we should be housemates as that's what we are. Cool, calm, collected. I suggested she move, she refused and things got heated, I shoved her, she shoved me back and when I fell was then told that 'I had done that to myself.' I was incredibly exhausted and upset and stated that I did not know what was happening. Cue her calling my sister and mum in oz to infer I was crazy and suicidal.
I went home for a couple of weeks to oz to remove myself and she is still in the flat. It's apparently too much hassle for her to move and she will cite the fact that we are both on the lease. Of course none of my upset is to do with her or the end of my relationship, but is about my unresolved grief. I have been told that she knows I have lost a lot - my bro, my family ever being the same and now her, someone I loved.
Meanwhile she is having a wow of a time and takes any opportunity she can to tell me so. Out with friends, partying, sleepovers and seeing a woman we both mutually knew. She has suggested that I accept that I am 100% gay (apparently she is 90%...) and that I do what she intends to do by testing her value in the gay community. She has since told me that she has had numerous encounters with females and that she knew when I first went to her work for a meeting that something would happen between us. She has no regard for my feelings or the relationship that was. Instead everyone needs to know what's going on and I feel manipulated into out of character behaviour which she uses as ammo and to reinforce her victim status. NC is impossible when we are both in the same house... Need her out.

Oct 27 - 6AM
NicNac13
NicNac13's picture

Thanks Trixy, am taking it

Oct 27 - 9AM (Reply to #4)
Trixy
Trixy's picture

she sounds seriously unhinged

Oct 27 - 12PM (Reply to #5)
NicNac13
NicNac13's picture

Were you

Oct 26 - 10PM
Trixy
Trixy's picture

Hi NicNac

Oct 26 - 6PM
Done sourcing
Done sourcing's picture

It sounds like prison. You