Question for those who married/had long-term relationships with their Ns

I was with the ex for 5 yrs. It comes down to one simple reason why I stayed, I didn't love myself enough to believe I deserved better. I had two failed very long term relationships before him and didn't want to go through another failed one and start all over. I actually believed I didn't deserve more.

And am now so glad I didn't. We were on/off (some long periods of separation whilst he was with NS) together for 22 years - never lived together either. He was the master of manipulation with sob stories, hard times tales, divorced parents and the reprecussions, N mother, depression, wanting to change his life, crying, always ill, cancer, infidelity, lies, secrets, broken promises. BUT in between all the above the sweet guy I first met would reappear again and we would reunite. I was totally naive about P/Ns and hey, his intention was never to hurt me. Yeah, right. And then it would all start over again (see above). I now realise that there was very little true joy in my life, I was just supporting him and surviving. I can only put it down to unhealthy boundaries learnt (or lack of emotional support) in my childhood from parents and siblings. I am a strong, independent, very caring individual but one who had never been shown how to protect herself emotionally through healthy boundaries. What a recipe for disaster and an easy target for the P/Ns of this world. Until 18 months ago when I finally opened my eyes through therapy. Then the shutters really came off and I started to see the real truth, both within myself and him. Unconsciously I slowly disengaged from him and this time round "I" had closure because I finally understood what was going on. I was calling him out on his lack of respect for me, laying down boundaries and my self esteem was increasing. He must have been shell shocked because this wasn't the old me. And so I walked away last Easter after his last act of devaluation of me. No more Jose. Yes, it's incredibly sad to have wasted all those years but I don't fully blame him and, I don't blame my family either. AND, most importantly, I don't blame myself. We can only act upon what we are shown and taught. I didn't have great teachers but I am now my own teacher and so am looking to a brighter future where I am so much more aware of the consequences to my actions. I read somewhere recently, something along the lines of : "When you are ready, the teacher will appear". That is so true - my therapist was the best teacher I have ever had and I learnt my lessons well and am now constantly doing the homework. Being on this site has so helped too so, thank you ladies and gentlemen. Dee x

I was with married to my N for 3 years. What made me stay so long? I wanted to be a family. I that for me and him and for our children. I grew up in a single parent home and I had always wished my parents would have stayed together. Its natural to want this and i hung on trying with all my might to keep our family together. Another reason was that I kept thinking he was still the same guy I married and fell in love with. He did some horrible things to me but I kept thinking that he was just making innocent mistakes. I kept thinking that he was just a little immature and that he'd eventually realize he was wrong. I was scared to divorce and then realize that I'd made a mistake and that i should have stood by him. I vowed to stand by him through good or bad and I took my vows seriously. I'd always knew that if I ever found out he cheated on me i would divorce him. Our entire marriage i always felt like he was but i never could find any proof and I wasn't going to divorce him over suspicion. I just wanted to know for sure that when I divorce him that I was doing the right thing. I wanted to know that I had done all I could to make it work. I can honestly tell you that I did. I tried all sorts of different reactions, behaviors, etc to see what would change things and it all failed. It took me a while but I finally realized that he was never going to change. He just kept making the same mistakes over and over. I was telling him the same things over and over and he never learned. He didn't care to. The bomb finally went off when I found out he had cheated. IT was over from that point and I now knew that he was never that person that I married. I saw that who I see now is who he was all alone. I don't want that person and I don't like that person. So it over

ManDy, i stayed on, 20+ YEARS because i had NO CLUE that the NH was a PDI. My first upsets started barely within 10 days of meeting him..and that was somehow tied up with the way his parents spoke to me. I wanted to break off the engagement, but lot of other social pressures added with my advanced age which was quite a few years the normal age when girls get married...I was 30.. caused me to think that perhaps i was being 'too sensitive'. it has been over 2 decades of non stop harassment and very quickly NH and his parents succeeded in isolating me completely. I had no real friends or well wishers. yes, i am still here in this hell(marriage with the NH), unable to leave due to severe lack of finances required for self support. This is from your post: Was it that he didn't show his true colors for quite awhile so you didn't know what he was? I WAS GENUINELY NAIVE. Was it him repeatedly promising to change (and actually acting like he had for awhile)? YES Was it a matter of low self-esteem? ABSOLUTELY. I WOULD HAVE HAD 90% SELF ESTEEM WHEN I MARRIED HIM..WITHIN 6 MONTHS OF THE MARRIAGE MY SELF ESTEEM FELL DOWN TO 50%..AND EARLY THIS YEAR..I MUST HAVE RETAINED BARELY 0.001% THANK GOD I FOUND THIS FORUM. NOW MY SELF ESTEEM IS RETURNING GRADUALLY. Was it that you kept thinking that if you hung in there, things would eventually even out and everything would be fine? REACHED A POINT WHEN I WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED..AND THREATENED TOO. AND I HAD TO KEEP IN MIND THAT I ALONE COULD KEEP MY CHILD SAFE FROM HIS DAD'S HARM..LONG STORY.. DON'T KNOW HOW TO PARAPHRASE. LONG&SHORT OF IT WAS I BECAME A PRISONER. LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY. ONLY CHANGE RIGHT NOW IS MY KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PD.

I spent 15 off and on years with mine,never married, lived together for one year and had to ask him to leave because of all the abuse, except physical, I kept thinking if i tried hard it would all work out, loved him dearly, and kept investing more and more years. When he would break up with me i would try to go out and meet new guys but no one I connected with like him, so went back each and every time; just met another narky type guy and this time was out after few dates, no more hanging in there!!Also self esteem issues as well.

I wasn`t long with Wottaprick, in less than two years we had met, moved together and separated again. But he wasn`t my first narc. My first great love was a narc. (together for four years, married for three). I had my last two children in a narc. relationship (15 years, never really lived together). The father of my second child can`t have been a narc., he was as empathic as I was, but he was definitely abnormal. Shortly after his child was born, I began to discover little by little (a) that everything he had ever told me about himself had been a lie, (b) that he was regularly stealing money from my bank account and (c) that he wasn`t faithful and had made at least one other woman pregnant. When I tried to separate from him, he started a nine-month terror campaign which ended with his being sent to gaol for : around five cases of assault around five cases of child abduction two cases of grievous bodily harm 5 cases of housebreaking 2 cases of damage to property 1 case of attempted rape

http://www.drpatallen.com/EXC-goodwomen.shtml The reasons I stayed so long: 1. Trauma bonding. 2. My brain had easier access to the good times than the bad so I'd be in denial about the abuse. 3. I am competative. I wanted this to work. 4. Toxic hope 5. Didn't know the difference between love and intensity 6. The uncertainty kept me interested 7. Victim of prior abuse 8. Insecure, low self worth 9. Guilt 10.Focusing on only the "good" and denying that evil exists 11.Stereotyping...that extremely successful people can't be that bad 12.Believing he had more worth than I 13.Being gullable and naive 14.Applying spirituality beliefs to a N 15.Fear of never being loved again

I was with mine for 2 years. I guess that's not a very long time as compared to some others here. In my case, I chalk it up to three things. My religious upbringing, being an empath, and possessing other personality traits that kept me hoping against hope and trying and trying. Sandra Brown describes these "supertraits" as commonly found among women who love psychopaths (or narcissists). You can see the list of traits here. http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/women-who-love-too-much/news/view/2143433 Though I should add ours was never an "otherwise committed relationship". Though I was committed...she never was. I just kept hoping one day she might. I hope this helps. hugs, Rose

I was married to my exhusband for 10 years. I didn't know that he was a narc until sometime in 2009. By that time we had experienced two affairs. It was until the last affair that I started to figure him out. I think I stayed for so long because first I didn't know for a very long time that he was disordered. I knew things were not right but I could never put my finger on it. The last affair was a crushing blow, I just couldn't believe that we were in that spot again. Maybe it was God but at that time something just clicked inside of me and I started to really take a good look at what had been happening for so long. For once I saw the lies and didn't try to "explain them away", for once I started to look at him and see something I didn't recognize. I stayed because I was commited to my marriage. I loved him. But once I figured out his issues it was very clear that I was the one living in a fantasy.(when he would try to explain his affairs and his other stupid behavior he always told me that he had been living in a fantasy!) My life was one big lie and I finally saw it for what it was. He held all the cards to our lives, he knew what was happening every step of the way. He carefully conditioned me to accept things and not question. (which by the way is not my nature to do). So I guess you can say I stayed for the following reasons: 1. I was commited to the marriage 2. I loved him. 3. I had gotten conditioned 4. I had hoped things would eventually get better 5. I was lied to time and time again and I believed the lies 6. I was scammed and it took a long time to figure it out Be glad it was just a couple of months that you spent with your narc, I lost 10 years of my life that I will never get back. I gave love to someone that never gave it back. 10 years is very hard to just shrug off even with knowing all that I now know. But I have survived and I tell myself everyday it is better to know than to be where I was 3 years ago. In the dark being made a fool of. Yes life is much better these days, even when I feel lonely and lost it is still a better feeling than to be in a position where the one person you love the most is using and abusing you. Joy2me

My therapist asked me the same thing on Sunday. I told her I didn't know...but have now been pondering this all week... I *think* a few reasons (so far): ~I have a skewed perception of failure (ie afraid to fail again at another relationship which is just plain silly because it's not like I jump from man to man...) ~I don't want my N mother to have *another* reason to be hateful towards me ("She can't seem to hold a relationship together" etc...) ~I'm punishing myself ~I have a low self-esteem so I subconsciously believe that I can never have a real loving relationship so I settle for a relationshit with an N... ~I have a karmic lesson to be learned I could go on ;o)

and clueless about PDIs. I now know more than I'd ever care to about borderline personality disorder. The disordered one I was involved with was a master manipulator. He was charming, "brilliant," witty, funny, a risk-taker and of course very self-assured. He was a cop, too, so I thought it meant something that he passed a psych test. What I didn't consider was that he was a trained interrogator and got right down to the core of me post-haste. His interest I mistook for love and caring. There were red flags that I now know but didn't know then so I stayed. His jealousy I mistook for him really caring about me. His constant calling and checking in (controlling) I mistook for really caring about me. His sobbing when I'd ask him why he lied about something I chalked up to his childhood issues of being adopted at age 5 and being a "wounded little boy." His rages I mistook, again, for great caring about me. I didn't realize the sobbing and the rages were tools to deflect what was really going on. The focus would be off why he lied and onto me trying to calm him down. It is insidious how it happens, Mandy M. I didn't wake up one day and say "I really want to be with a disordered freak who will suck my soul dry and turn me into a frightened zombie." It happened so slowly, the mask slipping. An inch at a time. I really had to dig deep to figure out what was going on...that's when I found this Website and everything clicked big time. That's when I learned it was never about me, it was about supply. It was about his vast emptiness that will never be filled. His mirroring, projecting, raging, all of it. This website changed my life. I'm 11 months NC tomorrow and couldn't be happier. Sorry for going on so long. It actually feels good to get that out. Thank you for the opportunity! Most sincerely, (not) spinning. THE DISORDERED FREAK ISN'T WORTH THE ENERGY OR THE EFFORT. HE CAN SPIN DOWN TO HELL FOR ALL I CARE!

XN and I were together 6 years, living as a couple for 5. The first 2 years of the relationship were absolutely wonderful. As soon as he put the ring on my finger he changed. It was a gradual change so for years I kept thinking he would revert. Every now and then I'd see the guy I fell in love with. He would state he wanted to be a better person. When I returned the ring last March I thought perhaps then it would get better because he wouldn't feel pressured. Nope. Everything snowballed at a rate of high velocity. Surprisingly, my self-esteem has not taken a beating in regard to the outside world - friends, family, and strangers. My self-esteem only took a beating with him. It hurts now, but I'm SO GLAD the whole thing is finally over. The relationship felt like a slow, agonizing death.

in my 31 year marriage, i stopped thinking at all...just lived on medication....i never thought of anything, that i can remember....he had shown his true colours many a time, but i became ill in the end, got of the medication that was comotosing me.....told him to go...... exn, i put up with it, until his ow came to see me....i dumped him...i still stayed in these toxic r/s,s too long....but as the song goes....PERRY COMO[FOR THE GOOD TIMES], YOU THINK THEY WILL COME BACK THEY DON'T,WITHOUT EVEN BEIGN AWARE OF IT...I WAS CHANGING,THEN ONE DAY I WAS *DONE WITH THEM*