Canada's Story

Jules' Story: The Passive-Aggressive Narcissist

Hi everyone! So glad to be with you all here. I would like to share my story with you, so strap in, keep your arms and legs inside the car – here we go for an N ride!

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2002-2006

I've had a married N friend for ten years, I met him at work. Slowly he started charming the hell out of me, taking advantage of a bad relationship I was in at the time. The gifts, the attention, the 'special' feeling he gave me was like balm to my soul. He seemed to be taking it upon himself to help me with my situation for no reason, just like the typical rescuer - the white knight on the horse.

Over the course of two years, his dogged pursuit of me continued and eventually I began to reciprocate. We never had a sexual affair, but he drew me into him emotionally, creating my dependance, and eventually I fell hard for him. That doesn't mean there were no physical components – he seemed to enjoy the public danger of touching me sexually in the office, where anyone could catch us. He gave me massages at my desk, would whisper "I love you' in my ear in front of our boss, who was his brother. He would try and kiss me in the office, or take me to the storage room and hug me, initiating deeply emotional conversations. All the while, he claimed he was a good husband and totally committed to his wife. If he wasn't declaring his marital devotion, he would be talking about how his wife was frigid, spent all his money and took advantage of him.

Almost as soon as I started to show interest in him, all the typical narcissistic signs began: gaslighting, lying, humiliation, cruelty, testing, jealousy, manipulation, extreme dependance, guilt, responsibility for his happiness etc.

Then the triangulation began. He would come into work and mention casually how he would talk to his wife about me, how she called me his 'office wife' and related conversations about him dating me if they weren't married. I thought this was weird and never said anything or engaged in it. He used to steal things from her that he knew I liked - half-used bottles of body spray, really creepy. He would return from vacations with gifts for me, supposedly selected by his wife. Eventually, his wife started to passive-aggressively express anger towards me when she phoned our office. I just ignored it.

The beginning of the end started on a normal work day in 2006. After lunch in the office, he stood a few feet away from me and touched himself, sort of pulling his pants up to show me his 'outline', it was really creepy and sick, but I was already brainwashed, and interpreted this to mean he was interested in having sex. By this point I kind of got the sense that he was a coward about sex, and had no intention of follow through, but I was hooked, and felt I had to investigate further. I visited him at his second place of employment that evening, a store that he owned and worked at alone. We started talking about my current relationship as usual, and suddenly he dropped this bomb: "If I asked you to, would you give me a (insert sexual act)? I responded without hesitation: "Yes." He burst into laughter and I just stood there and hung my head, and made an excuse and left in shame.

The following Monday at work, I was very upset and was gearing up to confront him. I got my opportunity. His wife called him at our office, and after he was done talking to her, he walked up to my desk and said "That was my wife on the phone, you know, my wife?" (and gestured to his ring finger, as if I had betrayed her). I exploded. We had it out in the office – sotto voce – with the other employees present in the office. I asked him why he propositioned me, he explained it away with "Oh, I just wanted to see how far you'd go in that general situation." He denied that he was doing anything at all, he lied and said that it was just seventh grade flirting, and that he flirts with everyone, and had a creepy shit-eating grin on his face like he was proud he was getting away with it. He attacked me with "Well, I used to feel comfortable around you. Don't you like my wife?" I was baffled and furious, and left the office for awhile to calm down. How could someone stand there and completely deny what was going on between us while it was going on?

2007-2012

After I left our office for another job in 07, I thought he would just go away. He didn't. He called me every day, mostly 3-7 times a day. He used to tell me I was lucky, because he never talks to former co-workers. Boy did I feel lucky! So essentially the emotional affair continued. We started working together on graphics for a new store that he was planning on buying. I'm a designer, and he elicited sympathy from me about his bad financial state, so I offered to get him started for free. (sheesh) I created a beautiful series of work, logos, signage, posters for him, still hoping to impress and please him. He loved what I did, and we worked well together. But I was always uneasy, he was showing himself to be completely selfish, never asking about how I was, just making endless demands on me and talking about himself. He always peppered conversation with bizarre insults and crazy statements about his omnipotence. I ignored it all, but I had this bad feeling that when he moved to his new bigger store, complete with employees, that he would begin the flirting all over again with a new person, and I would get hurt, but I didn't have the guts to put an end to it.

In 2008, him and his wife opened the new business together, and I was constantly afraid of visiting this new store because of the triangulation dynamic he had set up. I would sort of run away when I saw her coming, not wanting to make trouble for him. I noticed that he always wanted her and I to talk and would engineer situations where we would be in the same room. Things continued as is until...

One day in Feb. 2010, he called as usual, and told me that he'd been having an emotional affair with one of their employees (a close friend of his wife's), and they had schemed for him to leave his wife. At the last moment, he had changed his mind and went back to his wife, dumping and firing his mistress, a textbook case of sexual harassment. I was horrified and sick. I uncovered a huge pile of lies, and found out that he had used me the whole time as a decoy (when I visited the store), showering me with physical affection and attention to cover up his affair with his employee, who was always there when I visited his store.

I confronted him with his lies and he simply said "You're abusing me, there may be some truth to what you're saying but I won't go through them point by point." He had no remorse for what he did and could not figure out for the life of him why everyone in his life was upset with him, saying "Sorry, but I don't know how this affects you?". He explained it all by casually saying "I have a right to follow my heart, she's my soulmate." He bulldozed his employees who were all caught in the crossfire, his family, and his only friend - me. I decided I need a vacation from him, and I said that I needed time, he cried his face off and left. I continued to uncover more lies in the months that followed, and found out that his claim that the affair was over, wasn't true. A week after I spoke with him, he tried to continue the affair part time with his ex-employee, who then dumped him for betraying her. All of us who were involved in this drama were relieved that she had had enough sense to leave him.

I felt guilty the entire time I was away from him, I told myself I was a bad friend for abandoning him in his time of need, but I knew I had to be away from him because he wanted to commiserate with me about the affair, and I refused to be a part of it. I spent from March 10 - Oct 10 without him, crying myself to sleep. In June of 10, he wrote his weekly e-newsletter which goes out to 2,000 people, among them, my friends and clients. He wrote all about what happened between us, claiming he 'took responsibility but we could not make our friendship work.' It was a bizarre expose, couched in a grandiose 'good luck and thank you'. I emailed him, knowing he was trying to get negative attention from me, and said that it was not appropriate, that I was angry, and he expressed no remorse and just said "I'm sorry if I hurt you, please be well." I know now that he was hoovering. I clearly said that if he wanted to fix things between us, it was up to him. The silence continued until October. I was fed up of seeing him in the paper, on TV, his store was three blocks from my house and I had to pretend I didn't know him as I walked by his car at a stop light. We have all the same contacts and friends in common. So I gave in and made the first move. We spoke in November 10 and put things back together, of course he made me suffer while he thought about if I deserved to come back to him, and admitted no wrongdoing.

In Sept 2011, he became separated from his wife (they were still cohabitating), and went bankrupt. I spent hours listening to him, reassuring him, and gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was doing this for himself this time. I found him an apartment, brought him food when he was broke, ran errands, watched his store for him and encouraged him.

FEB - APRIL, 2012

Two years to the day he phoned in Feb 2010 to tell me about the affair, he phoned again. This time it was to excitedly tell me about a date he was going on. He had been creepily dropping hints about dating really young girls for awhile (he's 42) and I made it clear that I didn't want to listen to it. I stopped him cold and explained that I didn't want to hear about his dating life at all because of the way he treated me. He again denied that anything ever happened between us, and offered a hollow apology. We started fighting about that point, because I sensed that this was my last chance to get all of it off my chest and stop pushing my feelings aside for his benefit. He continued to display zero empathy, asking me weird questions like "What did we do? Did I kiss you or something?", and coldly told me that he was not responsible for my happiness and did not want my drama, comparing me to his crazy ex-wife. I humiliated myself by trying to prove, detail by detail, that we had an affair, which was met by silence, a blank stare and him claiming that I had a distorted memory. He assumed I was upset because I was jealous and wanted to be with him, I told him to his face "I could never be with a man who's caused me so much pain." With every cruel thing he said, I spun out more and more in private, but something was happening, I was getting stronger and more resolved...

In March 2012, I attended a fundraising event for his business. I walked into the theatre, and saw the girl that he had the affair with in 2010. I was shocked and left the theatre as they watched me. It was another of his tests, to see if I'd abandon him again, instead of warning me about it in advance. All this time I had been caring for him he had been setting that affair back up in the background, buttering me up, knowing that I'd disapprove. I was humiliated again.

He went into hiding for a week, knowing that I'd be furious. I found out he also rehired her at his store. It was then that I set my first boundary with him: "I don't want to be around it nor hear about it and I will not come into your store anymore. If you want to be friends we can do so outside of work like normal people." I clearly explained that I did not want to repeat the dynamic he set up with his wife. His position was clear, 'If you don't accept me for who I am and accept her, you are a bad friend.'

Between Feb and Mar of this year, we had logged in at least 100 emails back and forth about this mess (and several disastrous meals), and I gradually moved from a place of understanding and negotiation to a place of anger and power, being more and more direct and harsh – even sarcastic. (in essence, ripping his N mask right off) I knew something bad was going to happen, even though he kept repeating that he cared about me and he'd always have room for me in his life. I sensed that the time that I would be thrown to the wolves was fast approaching.

It was then that his N rage finally came out and I was indeed, thrown to the wolves.

On April 6, I received a harassing email from his girlfriend, ("What the 'f' is wrong with you...why won't you come into the store??" etc etc) I was shocked but I did not respond, because I knew something fishy was going on. I never showed it to him because I knew he wouldn't have my back. He's blindly 'in love' with his victim and does not care about what I think or feel. On a very visceral level, I knew that I had been replaced.

I posted on Facebook the next day that I had received a creepy psycho email and that it was hilarious, but without her name used. I had no idea that he knew anything about it, as girls who do this kind of jealous harassment normally hide it from their boyfriends. He sat sulkily for a week, completely withdrawing from me until I contacted him to find out what was wrong. He then proudly admitted that he read the email she wrote and allowed her to send it. (I actually think he wrote it himself from her email account and was lying in wait to see my reaction). He was enraged, telling me that I had been trash-talking his girlfriend on Facebook. I thought 'I have just entered Crazytown.'

I believe he set up this elaborate game to get a reaction out of me, but it wasn't the reaction he was hoping for. I was laughing about it. I think he'd hoped I might email 'her' back and start a jealous fight. He went as far as posting passive aggressive status updates on Facebook knowing that I'd see them: "Two wrongs don't make a right, but two know-it-alls make a fight". (I was thinking, sorry buddy, nobody's fighting over you...)

I told him that this behaviour was completely inappropriate and that he was the one who created this drama, and I was horrified to find out that they were in cahoots to harass me. He never responded to my last email, and I know that narcissists never have the guts to end a relationship. All I got was a few paragraphs on how I was at fault, went too far and "I don't think our friendship has mutual respect." So awesomely delusional. I finally had the 'evidence' and confidence that I needed to break away permanently.

A week later on April 17, I deleted him off of Facebook without a word or a goodbye letter and I finally feel free and unencumbered by guilt and confusion. I never understood what was really going on with his creepy menage a trois, why I was a necessary player in his self-created drama. I realize now he is the Victim. In layman's terms, he wants his cake - he wants his girlfriend, he wants me to be jealous in the background, listening to all the details and ready to clean up the mess when this relationship blows up in his face. It's so sick I don't even have a number for it, but all the information I've found on NPD has helped me understand this concept and set me free. I don't actually believe he'll be back as he's such a coward - I do believe that he'll most likely mount a misinformation campaign against me to remain the Victim and elicit sympathy from our common friends and his girlfriend. He's not only lost his only friend, but the source of all his free graphic design, including a new outdoor sign I produced in January which he'll never have now.

The two of them spend 14 hours a day working in a 4,500 sq foot store covered from floor to ceiling with my graphic design – posters, gifts, signage, cards and illustration. That and the fact that my life is truly awesome without him, is my revenge. I am finally free and happier than I have been in ten years.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope all of you can find the same freedom as I'm enjoying now (I'm dancing around in my underwear!)

Jules