The End Game

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Oct 14 - 9PM (Reply to #29)
Tinker
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time warp

out of sight, out of mind. it's like they mean what they say when they say it, but he never did it. one time, i waited 2.5 weeks for him to contact me. he finally emailed me like no time had passed. i sat in a parking lot and just cried, i was so happy to hear from him and overwhelmed. i tell him he does that and he looks at me like i'm crazy.
Oct 12 - 10AM (Reply to #26)
hopefuljms
hopefuljms's picture

Oh he was the king of BS!

Oh he was the king of BS! The funny this is I have a great BS meter and this guy totally snowed me. He must have really thought I was a fool and I would continue to buy his crap. I thank my lucky stars I found those pics on Facebook (and it wasn't easy)! If not, I would still be waiting and wondering.
Oct 12 - 9AM
helldweller
helldweller's picture

End game

I truly believe now that, from the beginning, he decided how it was going to end. He decided I was going to be: too busy for him and too needy of my ex-husband's help. Interestingly, neither of those things was true---until he forced them to be by totally abandoning me, ceasing to help me at all, ceasing to support my parenthood, and forcing me to get a third job because he decided we were no longer going to live together and share expenses. In the end, he stood there and said, "See? I knew this would happen." He did the same thing when the foster child came. While he was telling me, "We're going to raise and adopt him together" he was telling himself that I was going to be too busy to take care of him. He would actually, after a week, take him to the neighbor's house and then gaslight me later on, telling me "You said you were working tonight" or "You said you were too busy." Completely freaking nuts. He would tell the child that, too: "Helldweller's too busy to have you over after school." Huh?
Oct 12 - 9AM (Reply to #22)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Helldweller - Things to be Thankful For

I'm thankful that at least my child didn't get into the middle of his mindgames. I'm sorry that there are several children in the middle of your ex-narc's mindgames - his foster child and your girls. Disgusting. I felt really bad this weekend. My daughter knew my ex-narc and knew that we had a relationship while my H and I were separated however she never was included in that relationship (thank goodness). When the ex-narc dumped me, my daughter wanted to know why I wasn't spending time with him any more and I explained to her that he didn't treat me the way I deserved to be treated. She internalized that and we haven't discussed him in a long time. This weekend we were at a fair with my step-daughter, who has a cousin with the same first name as the narc. The cousin was at the fair. My step-daughter said to my daughter, "do you remember (narc's name)?" and my daughter looked at me very confused and quizzical. Like that's not (narc's name) Mama??? Then my step-daughter said, "he's my cousin" and I could see it click in my daughter's head. But she kept looking at me to see how I was doing. I felt really sad that she had ever been even indirectly exposed to the bastard but was also thankful that it never went beyond indirect exposure. I can't imagine how it must be for you Heldweller to know that this slimeball ever became a part of your precious girls' lives.
Oct 12 - 10AM (Reply to #23)
helldweller
helldweller's picture

Morty

I am sending up a prayer of thanks that it went no further for you. It is a nightmare. One good thing is that my older daughter has shown me that she has no tolerance for BS; she has no time or emotion for him but disgust. My little one is suffering and in counseling, feeling as rejected as me. I beat myself up every day over it, but I am going to get her back to her wonderful self and soon. No more.
Oct 12 - 8AM
hopefuljms
hopefuljms's picture

It is so bizarre! This

It is so bizarre! This resonates with all of us because we have all had similar experiences. These guys think they are so smart, but eventually people figure them out and they move on to their next victim. It was very obvious with mine. 8 jobs in 10 years, each one with a higher title and most not lasting more than a year. He completely discarded his exw and then me. I am starting a pool to see how long he lasts with the new wife. (just joking). She can't be that naive, his vile behaviours ususally rear their ugly head around year 4 and they are heading into that shortly!
Oct 12 - 8AM (Reply to #20)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Hopeful JMS - Ya Gotta Wonder

Do they actually SEE these patterns? Get a new, higher level job or get a new woman ..... wait around long enough until you start to feel like they're going to realize you're the Wizard behind the curtain ... and then bail before you are exposed? Is this all part of their plan or does it just happen? I used to think it just happened. Now I'm not so sure. If what the ex-narc said is really true, that he's always 'doing math', then this pattern is his dastardly plan and by no way an accident. And that really just blows my mind.
Oct 12 - 8AM
CarolKittyGale (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Thanks Morty

Absolutely fabulous post and 100% correct for me both times.(Had 2 of these idiots in my life). I dumped Narc No. 1 and he tried to turn it round on me and make it about him so it was his end game and 7 years later have only just started to get rid of him (they have to win all the time) out of my life in every way as he liked to keep in-touch and play the best friends card keeping his options open and I was to frighten because he is violent and I didn't want to upset him by not talking to him, but no more those days are over. Narc No 2 was this to a tee and because of my new knowledge neither of them will be getting a look in ever again. I used to feel sad for them but now I just feel "go away and leave me alone" and I can't believe I was such a idiot to be soooooo nice to these morons. Strange how exNarc No. 1 has been on my case for 7 years since the break~up using the friends card and Narc No. 2 kept coming back over 14 months but I called him on his behaviour and as soon as (in both cases)I become NOT useful any more I don't hear from them....bliss :~)). What happen to your such an amazing person and I love you soooo much...laugh. Maybe that's the answer in getting rid of them to call them on their behaviour and become not useful. Thanks for posting Morty exactly how it is, exactly how I have come to see it...will bookmark and read when having a wobble...
Oct 12 - 8AM (Reply to #18)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

CarolKittyGale - YW

Yep, mine tried the best friends card and the dangling of the 'perhaps someday when your life situation isn't so complicated we can try again' crap with me too. I saw through that crap pretty early on (patting myself on the back for at least something!) and put an end to it fairly quickly. You wrote " I can't believe I was such a idiot to be soooooo nice to these morons." Don't beat yourself up too bad. I read something once that only a liar would assume he was being lied to. I think that equates to a lot of stuff, not just lying. Only an unempathetic N would assume he wasn't being empathized with. Turn it around. Only an empath would assumed she was being empathized with. You weren't an idiot. You were assuming that you were being treated with the same dignity, respect, and empathy that you treat others with. It's our lot in life to learn the hard way that we won't always get the same treatment in return because some people, particularly Ns, aren't capable of it.
Oct 12 - 6AM
onwithmylife
onwithmylife's picture

Morty

I would have LOVED to have a session with me and the EXN with this therapist of that book, she would have ripped him to shreds, That book, freeing yourself from the Narcissist in your Life ,this board, and many hateful, venomous letters from the man are to me, what did it for me in changing my whole thought process, to know deep down that NOTHING will ever change with him, short of a miracle or epiphany. EVEN then I would not hold my breathe.........................As Michele so aptly stated a cigar is just a cigar when all is said and done.
Oct 12 - 7AM (Reply to #13)
onwithmylife
onwithmylife's picture

Morty

this EXN had low level jobs, even though he was very smart and intelligent, he had zero self confidence and such self loathing he could never go anywhere professionally speaking.. He was always depressed and blamed it on his first wife leaving him many years ago and of course to look inward and figure out why was not in his vocab.I always thought he shot himself in the foot many times, doing self defeating things, alienating people for little reason. He use to say I smothered him when on the contrary, I may be too independent, in hindsight he was speaking of his mother and once when I point my finger at him gesturing about something, he said"don't ever do that to me again." His mother reared her head up again. sad he has NO CLUE.............
Oct 12 - 8AM (Reply to #14)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Wilfully Alienating People

"he shot himself in the foot many times, doing self defeating things, alienating people for little reason." I think this is part of the disorder - I think they wilfully alienate people so they have an excuse to discard them. My ex-narc did that. He made the decision he wanted to discard me so he purposely set up a situation in which I would get pissed at him and say something that could be perceived as hurtful. He and I never argued. We always saw eye to eye, or so I was led to believe. We worked together. He wanted to end the whole shebang (work and intimate relationship) so he made a comment, "I make your job easier". He didn't and I told him that he didn't make my job easier, he made the job of someone on my team easier. Well, that became the excuse for dumping the job and me because I hurt his feelings. He could say the meanest, cruelest, nastiest things to me but I hurt his feelings by telling the truth. And there was his excuse. So I don't think they're as inept as they appear to be. What they do - shooting themselves in the foot, alienating others, looking for excuses - is all part of their plan. Evil.
Oct 12 - 8AM (Reply to #16)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

PS - Wilfully Making Situations to be Used as Excuses Later

PS - he did the same with his ex-wife. About two months before he discarded her - he came home from an on-the-road job for an 8-day vacation. He claimed he was looking forward to that vacation - spending 8 days at home just with her doing nothing. He said that they spent 8 days in silence. They had supposedly run out of things to talk about. He purposely didn't say anything during those 8 days. Rather than talk to her about their problems and tell her it was bothering him that they had nothing to talk about - he said nothing and then cruelly discarded her using the 8-days as an example of why their marriage had turned for him to a life of quiet desperation. He said he had promised himself that he wouldn't live like that because his father had. (Used the same excuse with me BTW). So he dumped her because they no longer had anything to talk about. And told her about his Moment of Clarity he had even before they got married in which he 'realized' their relationship would some day end badly. And he claims he doesn't engage in self-fulfilling prophecies!!! They're evil but they sure aren't self-aware. Only self-absorbed.
Oct 12 - 8AM (Reply to #15)
Used
Used's picture

haha

"he shot himself in the foot many times, doing self defeating things, alienating people for little reason." PITY IT WASENT IN THE HEAD..
Oct 12 - 7AM (Reply to #12)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

OWML - Difference Between "High" Level N and Just a Mediocre Onc

Hi OWML - yeah. The biggest difference between the narcs described in Linda's book and the ex-narc in my life is that he is not what I would call "high level". Despite all the smoke and mirrors - his life is pretty lame actually. He floats from job to job and the only thing that makes it seem like a big deal is that the job is a high-paying, highly technical one. But it's still a hands-on job; it pisses him off that he hasn't "made it" to a higher level position and he blames that on everyone but himself. The couple of times he did get promoted to a managerial position, he couldn't handle it and quit before his bosses could figure out that the emperor wore no clothes. When he fails at something, he reverts inward into his self-imposed depression so he can wail about no one understanding him. I'm reading the novel The Women by T.C. Boyle about Frank Lloyd Wright and it describes a high level narcissist to a tee. Some similarities with my ex-narc but the biggest difference is that Wright was actually a genious in his field. My ex - not so much (although he'll tell you that he is.) =)
Oct 12 - 12AM
Jewwell
Jewwell's picture

He pretends to understand you . . .

wow. This part really hit home... "He gives the impression that he understands you intimately and has your best interests at heart."
Oct 12 - 7AM (Reply to #7)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Jewwell - Yes Hits Right Where it Hurts

It still to this day floors me that someone would do that to another person. I know that I was naive before - but I never in a million years suspected that I was being taken. I really did think he understood me and had my best interest at heart. There was another thread about sex addiction - I don't think my ex-narc was addicted to sex but he was addicted to complicated situations and he targeted me because of mine. It's like the book said - there's a strong sexually seductive component to all of this. It pisses me of about myself that I couldn't see this. And what pisses me off more is that deep down, I knew there was something off. I had seen the red flags and chose to ignore them because I was so infatuated. =( I guess in my defense - my husband and I got together under similar circumstances - I was married to an abusive weenie and my husband presented himself as my knight in shining armor who would protect me. The difference is that he actually did. What happened after we got married is a long story (it's in Morty's Story!) - but my H actually came through on his promises. I now see the pattern though - looking for a man to save my ass when I have the power all along to save it myself.
Oct 12 - 3PM (Reply to #8)
Jewwell
Jewwell's picture

Morty - I had never felt that type of connection before

I had never felt that close of a connection with someone before and being naive, I never suspected that it was fake. I saw red flags, but I suspected he was bi-polar at the time. The naive trust I had in mankind is forever gone.
Oct 12 - 9PM (Reply to #10)
ClusterF
ClusterF's picture

Losing naive trust

Not the worst thing in the world. We become fewer and fewer targets for these things masquerading as people.
Oct 12 - 4PM (Reply to #9)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Jewwell - Bi-Polar - a classic excuse

Mine told me he was bi-polar. It was the play for sympathy he used on our second date. I spent months after the D&D agonizing over this. I BELIEVED him. I researched bi-polor - discovered that something like 90% of the marriages to a Bi-P person fail and I felt so damned SORRY for him. Problem was two-fold. One - I've read a couple of times now that Bi-P is a common misdiagnosis for NPD. If I believe him when he says he was diagnosed with Bi-P at aged 15, that would have been back in 1988. "They" didn't know as much about NPD as they do now so they probably did think he was Bi-P. But if he really was Bi-P - he wouldn't LIKE the way he is. He would want to get better even if he went about it in a dysfunctional, whacked out way. He certainly wouldn't have sought out a relationship with a woman who is a mother if he knew that the idea of children and parenthood freaked him out. Secondly - I think now that the Bi-P thing was something he could hang his hat on and was also part of the effing end game. He used his 'growing depression' over our 'situation' (me being a mom - as if that just fell out of the sky on him) as the excuse for discarding me. The end game he claimed to envision was one of quiet desperation for him. So since he didn't want to be depressed, he ended it. At least that's what he said. But in another converation, he said he LIKES to be depressed because if forces him to be introspective. Waffle much? Anyway - people who are truly depressed, or Bi-P, want help. And while they may sometimes do dysfunctional things like stop taking their meds or stop going to therapists - they still admit that they have a problem that needs fixing. The narc? Never, ever admitted he had a problem that needed professional help. In fact, he had the cojones to tell me I was the one who needed a counselor. Whatever.
Oct 11 - 10PM
solost
solost's picture

Not really new

I just don't post much cuz trying to get even little things out overwhelms me so much that I can't really seem to say what I mean or convey my true thoughts accurately. That's how it seems to me anyway and so I get frustrated. That's why posts like this are so validating and helpful to me and even draw me out some. :)
Oct 12 - 7AM (Reply to #5)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Solost - Validating

Hi Solost - I'm glad the post helped. I'm sorry you feel overwhelmed. Hang in there. (((Solost)))
Oct 11 - 10PM (Reply to #4)
iAmMINE
iAmMINE's picture

**LIKE**

~~~ Keep Learning & Keep Healing ~~~ ~~~~~ The best revenge is to survive and be victorious over it. Nobody can take from you what you don't give them, --she said, (taken from my final remarks in a Sync Weekly Magazine article about my art and mySelf

~~~ Keep Learning & Keep Healing ~~~

~~~~~ The best revenge is to survive and be victorious over it. Nobody can take from you what you don't give them.

Oct 11 - 10PM
solost
solost's picture

All so true

The narcissist is always aware of the end game – how he will dispose of a partner, colleague, employee, wife, or mistress – when someone ceases to be of value. (From Morty – this makes me sick. This is EXACTLY what the narc did to me and to his ex-wife before me). This is exactly what happened in my case as well. I got shivers up and down me spine reading this post. It's all so true. And sad.
Oct 11 - 10PM (Reply to #2)
anonymous
anonymous's picture

Solost - sorry you had to go through it

I know - I got shivers too. Are you new to the board?