Please help - Can living with a N drive you to do horrible, crazy things?

thought you'd appreciate this quote I stumbled across today: "Crazy people can make the sanest people do crazy things." Anon.

My first question is, "Why does the father NOT pay child support?" Are the kids older than 18 and not in college? By law, depending where you live, the father is responsible for his children until the kids are at least 18 years of age, regardless if you remarry----those are his kids! And if they go to college, he is responsible until they graduate from college. You must get some legal advice, and while I know how difficult it is when we are going through all of this mania, it is the most important time to start taking back your control. Going for advice from a lawyer is not that expensive. Second, just by this story alone, you need to get out of this marriage. First and foremost, it is very difficult to keep a marriage together with a NARCISSIST, and if you can, your needs will never be met. Do you want to feel this way all your life? Do you want to worry about what he's looking at when you go to the grocery store? There is nothing in your past life that makes you deserve this. No woman/person should live this way. My ex smashed a cake in my face, just because I invited my parents to come help celebrate his birthday (his parents lived very far from where we lived at the time). He gave me a bloody nose. That was the first time he ever laid his hand on me. He hated me so much, just for being ME. The man practically stole my soul. Third, I had the same worries, the same fear, but I can honestly tell you that I have gained my self-respect back and my sanity. These men/people make you "go---CRAZY," that doesn't mean you ARE crazy. And there is nothing more they want, but to have you run out and have your neighbors see you in action---so later, he can have people on his side say, "The lady's a wack job!" You are no WACK JOB!!! I too was co-dependent and care/taker, with therapy you will do fine. Read some self-help books. Keep reading about Narcissism. And my advice is to make a plan and GET OUT!!! If not for your safety, for your childrens'.

Thanks Barbara and Marie. Again! It helps so much to hear that I a not alone in these situations it so seems that they all come out of some weird template. All the same! One more question - do you think going to the police and saying we are the stalkers etc would also cover his cover? Ie his girlfriend has found out he has been having an affair so to cover himself he says this affair (me) is just a crazy pyscho girl who is stalking him to cover himself? Is that possible? Is she dumb enough to believe that?

I'm feeling crazy lately, I am a couple of months out NC but I keep doing silly things like sending messages. I don't know what is wrong with me. I miss that guy that used to chase me and call me all the time and am forgetting that 80% of my time I was so stressed and anxious thinking about this other girl he was with and going crazy sick inside. I don't know what happened to me - I used to relaly like myself now I feel ugly and small and worthless. He just gets away with it he is out there in the sunlight happy and living his life and I am ruined and in despair and in darkness. I don't know what to do, it's like I am obsessed with him. I have started to cyber stalk him something I have NEVER done in my life before. I'm not this person what happened to me? I feel crazy and out of control and lost!

Crazy people never think they are crazy so you are crazy acting but not crazy. You can't control another adult. You are living with a narcissist who is unable to care about you. Start making a plan and working a plan. Stop putting your energy into him and start putting it into you. the porn thing is an addiction he won't stop. Find a job, a class, or something that leads to employment. A woman I met in California start doing housework for neighbors to get away from her husband and it turned into an interesting business for her and she now has an agency. Mary Kay Ash started a cosmetics company and she became a millionaire and she was selling Stanley Home Products door to door and was so poor a neighbor watched her kids for free just so she could make enough money for food and rent for her two kids. years later she took care of that neighbor completely and her kids are millionaires also. Start to think where your million is and go out and get it. Look at the woman who wrote Harry Potter. Her husband was a Portugese journalist who dumped her and abandoned her and she would write the books in a little coffee shop at night while her kid was asleep. She is now making 32 million a year! Get your groove back, start getting some excercise, think about surviving without this loser. Start being a winner in your own mind and then put your winner thoughts into action. You are going to make it just put one foot in front of the other with the goal of independence. the father of your children has an obligation to pay for his children. The Dead beat Dad unit at your local District Attorney's office will help. talk to the Welfare Dept. they not only provide checks but job training. talk to unemployment they have job testing for evaluating what type of job you would be good at, join a church, go to a Mary kay sales meeting they are interesting, fun and uplifting. You are going to do well you are asking all of the right questions.

Oh my gosh I am so sorry you're going through this. It is not you. You have to believe what we're saying. Like others here, I am a professional at a large nonprofit with 10 direct reports and an 80 million dollar budget. The last few months of last year, I lost my mind. I did things that I never in my life imagined I could do. I would lie in the spare bedroom and cry the entire night - sobbing loudly like a crazy person - so loudly, the neighbors complained. I would soak the mattress. And when the rage came from his lies, and cheating, and despicable behavior, I would confront him and scream and yell. I even slammed his laptop closed on his hands so hard I nearly broke both of them. I was so hurt and scared and ashamed and angry. It was nothing I ever experienced. He would go in the bedroom and lock me out, as if I was so crazy, I was going to hurt him. Then he'd email the therapist we were seeing (something they should not have been doing) telling her how out of control I was and that he was scared for me. All he ever cared about was himself and his image - how he looked in front of everyone but me. All of that just made me more crazy. I just talked to my therapist today about these things because I, too, am ashamed. She told me "thank God you began to react this way." She said that over the past five years I had been repressing so much, putting up with so much, and denying the confusion that I had all along, that I no longer could repress it and I just blew up. She said now we just have to work on recognizing the red flags much much earlier so that I'm never driven to that same edge and I believe it's probably the same with many of us. It's not who you are, it's actually the healthiest part of you saying, "enough. get out." Please get away from this situation. I know it's difficult, but I can't imagine ever being in a worse place than I was in those last few months.

I know you feel crazy but you're not. I have a Director position at a health insurance company. Director of Provider Relations. Which means my job is to play company diplomat with physicians and their office staff. I negotiate contracts and smooth over ruffled feathers for a living. But not at home I didn't. Mine used to scream at me to Shut the F up when we argued. And he would scream it. Even if I hadn't been screaming. The minute I challenged an opinion or some off the wall thing he came up with... it was either yelling me down, calling me a name or giving me the silent treatment. Anything to get me to shut up. He once told me he was going to call my job and get me fired as it had turned me into a monster. Yep... I was the monster. Just like you, when I would cry after having been hurt by his nasty comments, he would either laugh and call me a "crybaby" or tell me I was psychotic and needed professional help. Just like you... I wondered if I did. No matter that I had a long-term job that I had been successful at, no matter that I got along with my family and friends, no matter that other people would describe me as patient and understanding and a leader and very good at seeing all sides of an issue. It didn't matter... I thought I might be crazy. He told me many times that this didn't count because none of them "knew what I was really like." And I oftened would sit and wonder if he was right. Maybe it was me who put on a good show instead of him. And just like you locking yourself in your car... I spent many many a night sitting in my car in various parking lots just to be away from him and called friends until I was too embarrased to call anybody anymore. So I would just sit for two hours smoking cigarettes and crying. I stopped being able to focus on him being the one with the tumultuous drama-filled past. I stopped focusing on how all of his relationships had ended with some craziness, or how many friendships had just ended because "they were assholes and selfish". I focused on exactly what he wanted me to focus on... and it was working. You are not crazy.... you are acting like most of us have given very extreme unnatural situations. But I promise you are not crazy. I have to keep promising myself that a lot too. Last night was a very good example.... I'm really angry and it still makes me feel a little bit nuts because there's so much emotion tied up in it. Feeling vengeful, but knowing I'll just have to work through it. If you can't do anything else right now either due to emotional incapacitation or financial circumstances or whatever the issues are... if you can't do absolutely anything else... you keep telling yourself you are not crazy until you can do something else. Keep holding onto the truth okay?

Oh my gosh!! Please, please, please listen to Barbara. You have to for YOUR sake and your children's sake. I KNOW it is crazily difficult...but the situation you are in is disgusting. And NO, it is not your fault!!

Please seek counseling IMMEDIATELY. make a plan to get away from this man. Get Lisa's book and read it! There is NOTHING wrong with you. http://howtospotadangerousman.blogspot.com/2007/09/am-i-pathological-too.html http://howtospotadangerousman.blogspot.com/2007/10/am-i-who-he-says-i-am.html http://howtospotadangerousman.blogspot.com/2007/11/should-i-react-this-way.html Click on the MESSAGE BOARD link on the left and read through ALL the pages and click on messages that resonate with you... Click on BLOG on the left and read through all the articles Lisa and I have put up. You can NOT BE CO-DEPENDENT LIVING WITH A NARCISSIST!!! NO WAY!! I know other therapists say this but it is DEAD WRONG!!! http://howtospotadangerousman.blogspot.com/2007/08/finding-effective-help.html "Abused women are not codependent. It is abusers, not their partners, who create abusive relationships" - Lundy Bancroft - WHY DOES HE DO THAT You did NOTHING WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are not alone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Articles & information for abuse victims - Updated Daily Online Coaching for Victims of Narcissists/ Psychopaths