finallydone's story

I met this narcissist a long time ago and we were friends for a long time. I was married and h was friends with both of us. He's very talented and we wrote off his "oddities and temperament" to an artistic personality and being a little wiggy. But I always worried about him and thought he was very sexy, even though I was very loyal to my marriage.

Well the marriage broke up and he swooped in with all the drama and too good to be true of a classic. Only I didn't know it then. I was aware of the terminology of a narcissist being a person being self-involved... but I'd never thought much about it. In the last 6 years I've been obsessed with the concept. I've been with him for 8 years and today I left him a voice mail saying I no longer wanted to be in this relationship. I never did that before because I was afraid of his reaction and because I knew it wasn't really true.

I guess it's true now. We are not married but own a house together and I have a 13 year old son from a previous marriage. There is way way way too much to this story to tell here... but the verbal abuse, emotional abuse, the crazymaking, the manipulation, the temper tantrums to get what he wants. It's made me so angry and so sad and he doesn't care. He will demand apologies but give none, he will cry about how mean I've been to him but then go into a rage if told that he has treated me badly... it's endless. And I have still tried to get him to be nice to me... I would feel outrage, sadness, depression, feelings of guilt, worthless, wondering how somebody who said they loved me could be so mean to me (he wasn't physical but did threaten it occasionally) and then run to everybody else and tell them I had the problem.

This last final confrontation came about because he was determined that my son should spend the entire summer with his father. His father, my son and me don't feel that way and I have a fairly amicable relationship with my ex. My son, who is a very sweethearted person, wants to be here some this summer because of the pool and his friends and his new dog.

The boyfriend of 8 years feels that I am not meeting him "halfway" and helping to find "balance" because I am not "standing up to my ex" and requiring him to take 50% of the responsibility since my son is already with us 24/7. Now mind you... the boyfriend is not here most weekends, he is an entertainer and works. His is a dueling piano player if anybody's ever been and quite good. If you ever run across one with the stage name Ashton Wolf... steer clear. That's not his real name so I assume I won't get in trouble for writing that.

Anyway, we've been locked in nothing less than a "war" for three months over this. And he kept convincing me that I didn't care about the relationship because I wasn't taking his feelings into consideration and finally I started really paying attention to my onw feelings. It never "felt" right. It felt like an attack. There was never discussion about what everybody wanted or what would be right for my child... even my ex-husband and I could have this conversation... but not the boyfriend. He would say that he wanted me to "bring options to the table to find balance" because life had gotten too busy and "balance was healthy". But I began to realize that "balance" could only achieved if he got his way and my son would be gone all summer whether he wanted to be gone or not. And I wasn't going to do it.

And every time I would say no, let's talk about planning a trip or doing something fun together so that we can reconnect when my son is gone... he would... pout, go home to Mommy's, not answer e-mails, cuss me out and tell me I'm selfish, not pick up his phone... etc. And I kept telling myself that it was all about control, but then wavering and thinking nobody is really like that... maybe I was being insensitive to him nd just needed to try to get him to understand my intentions... YUCK! And this is after 8 years of nastiness from him (laced with moments of heaven which is I'm sure why I've stayed).

I've spent at least the last 6 running to friends and family in tears and then going back to him.... and I have to start facing up to what is wrong with me that I accepted this. I should have left the first time he said, "Shut up you fucking bitch". And I don't know why I didn't... other than nobody had ever spoken to me like that and I had the wrong reaction. I thought I must have really done something awful for somebody to be so mad and I had to convince him that he misunderstood. The conversation was about him being mad at what somebody else had said to him and I was trying to make him feel better and convince him that it was possible the guy hadn't meant it and was just having a bad day...

I know now that he perceived I was "negating him". But I didn't know... seriously. I didn't know there were people like this. And I spent almost a decade of my life trying to convince him that he misunderstands me and that I'm really a nice person. Sometimes I just want to die over the heartbreak, shame and stupidity of it all.