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Hi Maria,
I thought I was going insane. I was with my husband 21 years before I kicked him out. Even after that I still doubted what was real, I would be told one thing by a whole lot of people and although I knew they were lies and he was lying to me I would kind of believe him. My family thought he was this most amazing guy and father and thought I was insane. I found out he had been telling them and people at his work I was having psychiatric issues before I kicked him out. My family were told not to say anything because my psychologist didn't think i could handle anyone knowing. He even put this in an affidavit for court which I proved to be false.
6 years before we separated I found out about an affair, he had told everyone at his work we had an open marriage before we supposedly separated 2 years before we actually did. This discovery of the affair is when I started questioning him and when I started to get beatings. He always managed to convince me it was my fault he had done it I asked for it. No one outside me and the kids knew what he was like behind closed doors for years, we all protected him it was our shame he treated us like this. He even turned my 3 children against each other. He favored one way more than the others and when she would say something about treating her different from them he would punish her by ignoring her completely unless someone else was around. As the years went on the questioning became more and more and so did the beatings.
One of my friends found out what was happening about 8 months before the separation, my daughter rang her because she thought he was going to kill me that time. I had been dragged by my hair out of the house in front of the kids, strangled, my head was smashed against a wall, punched in the stomach i got away was pushed to the ground and he continued to kick me in the stomach and push me to the ground. My friend found me hiding in the driveway. I live rural so neighbors weren't close.
I was told to stay in her car which I did but I needed my kids I knew they would be hiding in the end bedroom huddled together like they always were waiting for me to come tell them it was alright. When I went inside my friend was sitting there with him, arm around him telling him it was alright she understood and it wasn't his fault. I stood there in shock and I guess hearing that reassured me it was my fault. After about an hour she left us there with him.
He ignored all of us for 2 weeks all the time we were walking on egg shells wondering how else he was going to punish us. I was in pain and bruised I even had marks around my neck I had to hide if I made a noise because I had hit myself in a sore spot I got the serves you right stare. My friend said nothing to me about it after that not one word. She moved overseas 3 days after our separation.
I remember the exact moment I decided I had to get him out of my life. He organized a party for New Years eve at our place. He brought expensive alcohol and food all the normal things to make himself look good to the family and friends after all they all loved him and I was so lucky to have such an amazing husband. My nephew said to me at one point in the night what a happy loving couple we were and how amazing we were together. My heart stopped and I was screaming in my head if you only knew the truth and we were in massive debt because of his spending to make himself look good to others.
 The next morning I snuck his phone read a txt from a woman and my mind was made up. I also remember the relief when he left and I didn't get beaten before he went. I think this was because I caught him totally off guard. He stood there saying what laughing then what you are nothing without me and you'll loose everything you will never keep the kids and you'll be living on the streets. The look on his face when he did go was still of total disbelief.
The next day he came around I made sure a friend was there and he thought he was going to walk back in but I had his clothes every last sock packed and made him take them to his car and leave again. He didn't do anything because someone else was there although I did end up paying for it a few weeks later when he came around to see the kids and when we confronted him about his behavior he started attacking me. He could go from normal to uncontrollable in a split second and back again. My two youngest stood there and screamed my oldest did what she always did and would hit him anywhere she could to stop him or put him of hurting me too bad. He never left marks normally on the face or lower arms or legs. After all the beatings I still never went to the police. If I ever had marks I would come up with excuses and everyone believed me he was not like that and would never hurt a fly after all.
He still screwed with my head for the next 6 months and I decided I'd take him back. He was going to anger management (so he said) coming around when the kids were at school sweet talking me and other things. I wasn't allowed to know where he was living he needed his space to sort himself out so we could be together and he would move back in eventually. I would beg him to come back but he liked that and kept me dangling for months all the time he was secretly living with another woman the one I had found the txt from. Then he came around and the oldest was upset and accused him of lying about where he was living so she got in the back of his truck because she was going with him to find out. He dragged her off the back by her hair I got between them and a complete mess happened with me trying to protect my daughter him going for her and me, and her trying to protect me.
It all happened so fast. My daughter punched him in the eye and he laid a hard punch to the nose. She fell back and as i comforted her he yelled you deserved that then started yelling your mother did that to you. He then got in his truck and drove away. My daughter had whiplash and concussion she couldn't even remember her sister helping me carrying her inside.
I went to the police and somehow although it was recorded he was the offender and were victims he was not charged. The next day before anyone knew what had happened he went to my brother in law and sisters and my parents place and told them a story about what had happened and he got sympathy and their support that is until I told them what had been happening for years and the injuries to my daughter. At first they were so shocked even though the kids backed me up and she had these injuries they still didn't believe it. When he found out about the police I got an angry abusive phone call then he didn't contact us for weeks.
When he wasn't charged my daughter was angry at me and a month later I discovered she had been lying and stealing rather than face the consequences she went to live with her father. I was still not allowed to know where they were living, they needed space.
A few weeks later he came around and I confronted him about not turning up to visit the kids the previous day like he had arranged and how he was seen shopping with a young boy instead (turned out to be the gf kid). I was shaken and yelled at it wasn't true he was busy working. It was this that the final light came on in my head this is not right. This was the first time I had ever hurt him to get away and i kicked as hard as i could to get him to let go i was pulling so hard to get away i fell over with him on top of me still clinging onto me. He got off me, said this is bullshit and ran out the door.
The younger two had emerged and were standing in shock i grabbed the phone and rang the police as he drove out the drive. A friend past him up the road and she said she could tell by his face something was wrong she found me shaking and bruised down one side of my body and eventually bruised finger marks appeared on my arms and my younger two still in shock.
So your probably thinking great the police arrested him and he was done for assault. You'd think so but No, he went to the police and to this day I still do not know what he said but my friend ended up asking the police to leave later that night because i was been threatened with arrest for assaulting him. I took out a protection order the next day and discovered the policeman had put my ex down as the victim and me as the offender. I had this overturned but it made me feel just like that day when i had seen my friend comforting him.
He contested the order going permanent, so a judge ordered him to the maximum anger management sessions he could, 17. These were one on one and 2 1/2 hours each. After these we went to court. The things he put in his affidavits were shocking and so easy to prove to be lies I couldn't believe he said them. This is when i discovered the psychologist bit i was suppose to be having weekly home visits.
In court he admitted to beating, strangling, punching, kicking, slapping me and other things, then told the Judge it wasn't violent. The court went so quiet when he said this you could have heard a pin drop on carpet. The Judge (after picking his jaw up off the floor) tried reasoning with him that actually it was but there was no convincing him. So the order was made permanent and the judge ordered he could only see the two younger kids supervised if they wished to.
 The youngest went on 4 visits broke down after the last one and told me what had been happening. The supervisor who he had manipulated completely, lost her job for allowing him to do things he should not have been doing and no more visitations have occurred. That was 2 years ago. They both have had no contact with him and don't want it. They get Christmas and birthday cards and he still lives in the same town.
In the years since I have discovered so many shocking things about him that I didn't know like that he cheated the whole 21 years we were together and I have realized I had no idea who I had even been living with. His ex girlfriends have filled me in a lot and were shocked when told the truth about some things two were horrified he was not separated like he had told them.
I have talked to a few people who thought they knew him and said they thought he was this wonderful amazing guy in some ways too good to be true others said he lived in a fantasy world where he was king. He thought he was irreplaceable at work and anyone who made waves or questioned him were assured they wouldn't have a job if they continued too. It was amazing how many hated him yet others had no idea or that they also had been threatened with being fired. He keeps them (so he still thinks) separated from each other they say nothing to anyone else. Because I have talked to a few of them they are now aware they are not alone and a secret alliance has been brewing for a while. I have been told he's on his way out in his job and he has no idea.
He has manipulated people to do jobs for him and takes the credit for those jobs. He used to tell me his work couldn't survive without him I remember saying to him once that he was replaceable at work and he was replaceable here. ( and I have replaced him)
As for my oldest daughter well I have no idea who she is either. I taught her well to protect her father and the lies she had been telling for years unknown to me are fantastic and egocentric. Some are straight out of movies or books I can't believe she has got away with telling some although I have also discovered a lot avoid her and she is known for exaggerating and lying. I had to go into her school and try and convince them and the counselor I did not have a son as a teenager and adopt him out so no guy could have turned up on my doorstep looking for me. Another I ran into a guy she worked for and I discovered she was a triplet born in another country I have never been to and my ex wasn't even her father. All untrue.
I was even txt bombed and phoned by her with abusive messages. Luckily i took a friends advice and contacted the police because a few weeks later i received a letter from a lawyer accusing me of doing it to her. Every now and then i hear some more lies or she'll harass me. That's happening at the moment and unfortunately my so called friend who she had called the day of the beating who moved overseas has turned on me because she has managed to manipulate and lie to her and shes fallen for it. I don't know what to do about her so any advice would be great.
This is just some of what has happened to me because of him I could go on and on but its not going to change anything. He has a new victim the girlfriend I kicked him out for and from what i hear no one in her family or any of her friends like him. his lies are getting too far fetched and the girlfriend is miserable and her life has gone to the dogs since shes been with him. I know its heartless but I have no sympathy for her. I suffered and she had told friends she knew he was still married she knew he had a permanent protection order against him because he had beaten me up and she was actually pissed of our eldest moved in with them and shes only with him for the money. So she deserves everything she gets she is more than welcome to him. I've also been told that not only did he cheat the whole 21 years we were together but he hasn't stopped cheating.
As for my life beside the harassment from my daughter it is fantastic. I have had intense counseling and woken up to him. when i was confused and needing answers my psychologist told me to look up NPD because she believed that was what was wrong with him. I still believed it was me that had something wrong but my daughters saw separate psychologists and after talking to them they agreed from what the kids had told them he had NPD. So I looked it up and I couldn't believe what I was reading it was as though someone had written all about him every trait every detail was about him.
I also found myself realizing how much mental abuse he put us through before the physical started and recognized my ex father-in-law and my older daughter in the words. I feel bad and ashamed about how I treated my ex mother-in-law because I am guilty of mentally abusing her. She was ridiculed and put down constantly by my ex father-in-law and the rest of the family were encouraged to join in and we did she was the center of all put downs, but in a joking way we thought. I now realize why she is such a shell of a person and it makes me cry to think she wasn't strong enough to get out.
I am doing a degree and passing with high marks. Every time I feel disheartened I hear him telling me I'm nothing and useless and that inspires me to pick myself up and succeed. Remembering him saying those words made me wipe away my tears straighten myself up and go into my interview for the degree.
My youngest two are amazing teenagers they are happy and doing well. I went out with a guy for about 2 years and although we broke up we are still friends and he is an amazing father figure to them and would protect them like he would his own daughter.
I am still in the house and financially better off without him even though he was earning a lot more money than i get. I guess what I'm trying to put across is that I went through hell and it made me this strong amazing person who not only loves herself again but is also very proud of herself. If I can make it and pull two of my children up with me anyone can. It hasn't been easy there have been a lot of tears and breakdowns and doubts but it was worth it I am worth it. My biggest regret was not getting out sooner or getting all my children out.
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The goal of this website is to give support to people who are facing problems in their relationship related to cheating, abuse and narcissism. I am living in Europe and English is not my native language, I wish you will excuse me if I make some grammatical errors. I have a background in neuroscience and behavioral sciences and I am currently doing brain research related to these topics in university in my home country. I decided to write in English because I wish to reach as many people as I can around the world.
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Dear Friend,
Thank you for sharing your story. It serves an an inspiration to all those of us who are still struggling to break free from an abusive relationship. I am so happy to hear that you are finally out of that horrible situation. Your husband clearly has very serious issues. It is not uncommon for the abused person to remain in an abusive relationship far longer than one should. You said you returned back to your husband after the first separation. It often takes several attempts until the victim of abuse manages to leave for good. I am so glad that in your case it took only two attempts.
 If the emotional attachment to the abuser is very strong and it is very hard to maintain No Contact, sometimes it is helpful to go back simply to see that separation is truly the best option. I also went back once to my narcissistic partner after separating from him. I had broken up the relationship but he kept contacting me and asked me to return to him. I was still emotionally very attached to him and so I went back, hoping that he had truly changed, as he promised. Unfortunately he had not changed, in fact the situation got much worse.
When I left him for the second time I knew I would never go back. I felt I had done everything I can, I even gave the relationship one more try even though his behavior towards me had been unacceptable, but nothing worked. He could not change his abusive ways and I knew I could not live with a person like him without seriously endangering my health and emotional well-being. I chose not to accept the mistreatment and so I left. It was not easy, but I have always known I made the right choice and I would never go back to him. Based on your story it seems you feel the same way regarding your ex husband, that you have crossed the final line and you know you would not go back even if he begged you to return. Your story gives hope to all those who are afraid that they will always feel miserable and miss their abusive partner if they separate. There is light on the other side, it is so important that we who have survived this kind of a horrible relationship tell our survival stories to give hope and encouragement to others. Thank you again for sharing your story.
It is so sad to hear how the situation is with your daughter. Dear Friend, please do not blame yourself. It is possible that your daughter had genetic tendency to develop similar behavioral problems as her father, and the role model your ex husband gave her influenced her in a negative way, strengthening the negative aspects of her personality. It is not your fault that she is behaving this way towards you. You tried everything you could and in the end you refused to sit still and let the mistreatment to continue, instead you saved yourself and your two children. You did a very brave thing, something that is so difficult to do for so many who are in your situation. You have all the reasons to feel proud of yourself.
Since you are not living with your daughter your chances of influencing her behavior at this time are quite small. If you try to approach her, she may not be receptive. I wish that as time goes by and as she becomes older she will understand your situation better, as you have now understood the situation of your ex mother-in-law. The most important thing is that you have now saved yourself and your two younger children.
I am so glad that you found my website and decided to share your story with all of us. It is so important to hear the stories of people who have suffered with a narcissist and an abuser and have managed to get out and regain their happiness and emotional balance. I am so glad you are finally free after suffering for so long with your abusive husband. What he did to you is simply horrible, there are no words to describe the resentment I feel towards people like him. I am so glad this person is now permanently out of your life.
Thank you again for sharing your experiences. I wish you happiness and success in everything you do!
To read more about these topics, please see section Narcissism.
Warm hug,
Maria
If you wish to submit your own story and get feedback and support for your situation or if you wish to contact me for any other reason, send me email to
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Stories - Narcissism 
It started for me with the picture perfect narcissistic tendencies. I didn't even realize that I was married to a narcissist until a friend told me I should look it up. I did, and now I feel more informed in the last two days than I have my entire 8 year relationship with this man. He was perfect. He was a friend of mine my entire life, a person who I had always felt a connection with. We had even played together as small children. I had known him forever. When he came back into my life, I had reservations. He broke those down so quickly that still amazes me how easily he charmed his way back into my life. I was completely blindsided by this relationship, and I had been married at the time. His previous girlfriend had been married too, and I wondered then if that was his mode of oprende. Just the way he works. He enjoyed feeling like he had stolen me from someone else. He made me feel like he was the one winning the prize.
Soon after we had married, he told me about a woman that he was doing construction on her house. He said that she had approached him, and that she was the one who attempted to entice him with sex. He said he refused. My world was completely shaken because he told me that he had considered it.
He convinced me that he was a sex addict, and that I would never be enough to completely satisfy him sexually. He was adamant that we start a swinging lifestyle, but only wanted threesomes and for me to be the one being with another woman and him enjoying having sex with me and another woman while I was to continue to be a part of it and accept it. For that I flat out refused. He was always pissed that the only way that I was okay with any of it was for it to be strictly couples, another man and a woman. We continued this for several months, and many times after we got home I would cry myself to sleep knowing that I felt like I was being forced to be in a relationship where I was having to share my husband with random other women. It was awful, and I hated it. I told him there was only one way that I was okay with any of it, and that is that we always had to be together, and do it together as a shared experience. He violated that one night, and when I entered the room where he was after drying off (we had been in a pool; he had said he was coming inside to use the bathroom) there he was having sex with the woman. I left him there. It was a violation of my trust and a betrayal of my boundaries. We never did it again after that night.
We fought constantly, and it was always over something to do with other women that he was always saying were just his friends. I became a person who felt like I constantly had to be in competition with these other women for his affections and love, and he would always tell me that these women wanted more from him, but he would constantly refuse, because he loved me and was faithful. There were scores of them, they were always the ones at fault, and he never gave me a real reason as to why they always thought that they had a chance with a married man that they knew was in love with his wife. Umm, because they didn't, and because he was charming them just like he did me.
I was always eventually giving him the benefit of the doubt. He would always convince me that I was seeing something that just wasn't there, and he had no idea why these women would take his friendship the wrong way. I wanted to trust him so badly I would eventually succumb to his lies and believe him. He would charm me into believing him.
The emotional abuse then came. It was never escalated to the point that it has been now. He never became truly physically abusive until a day that he pushed me into a cabinet and it split my head open. I needed ten staples in my head to close the wound. I told everyone including the nurses and doctor at the emergency room that I had hit my head on a cabinet putting up dishes from the diswasher. He begged me not to tell anyone the truth. I lied for him like a dog.
Then the mental abuse started happening. At that point, everything I did was wrong. From the way I washed dishes, to the way I washed clothes, to the way I cooked a freaking fried egg. In my job, he would constantly ridicule the fact that I was a manager, and I could not do my job in a way that he would do it, and therefore I was a horrible manager, and I was to be in constant fear of losing my job. This has continued on for years now, about five of the eight years we have been together.
Mental abuse continued, and has gotten progressively worse. We went through in vitro to have a baby, because he wanted one so badly, and would tell me his life would never be complete without a child. I fell for it hook, like and sinker. I really didn't want to have a baby at the time, but the more I thought of it, the more I really wanted a baby too. I thought if nothing else could make the situation between us better, maybe he would truly change for the better if he had a baby to think about.
I got pregnant very quickly, and I had a very difficult pregnancy, due to the fact that I am a type I juvenile diabetic. Pregnancy reaks complete havoc on your body when you are diabetic, and I had a very hard time with my health. It was constantly my fault that I had a hard time. I was gaining too much weight. I was not eating right. I should drink more water. I should constantly do more. The entire pregnancy he was out of town supposedly working. Sure didn't look like work when he was posting pictures on facebook of him partying and having a great time always with other women around him. I began to question him. I wanted to know how he thought I felt being at home, very pregnant and alone, while he was 1300 miles away partying every night with other women in tow. I never got a real answer. He even told me one of the women he was just "friends" with flew up to see him while he was there. That she had gotten the wrong idea, and that he had told her to leave. I asked him, how did she even know where to go? He said he had told her where he was, and that she had said she wanted to send him a birthday card. Yeah right.
He came home finally when I was 7 months pregnant, and was in and out of the hospital with uncontrolled diabetes complications. A woman who was supposed to be a mutual friend to me and him both had been telling me to trust her, and that she would find a way to get him to come home and be with me. He did. Then he blamed me, saying I wasn't taking care of myself because I was hospitalized. Again, everything that was wrong was my fault.
He had curbed some of the physical abuse while I was pregnant, but mainly because he was not home. When he did come home, he pushed me down, whipped me with a belt, and the night before I had the baby had pulled my hair so hard that I had a bald spot in the back of my head that three months later is now growing back. Again, it was all my fault because I spoke out of turn and or said something he didn't want to hear, which was mainly because I was questioning him about the woman that was supposed to be a mutual friend. They were sending texts back and forth to the tune of 300 per day, and calling each other for an hour every morning when they got up and at least an hour before going to bed at night. It was ridiculous, and I knew something had to be going on between them. Everytime I would question him about it, he would be physically abusive. In fact, all of the physical abuse while I was pregnant was due to the fact that I questioned his relationship with her.
Baby was born early and had to stay in NICU. She was there for nearly three weeks, and again that was all because I didn't care enough to take good care of myself. Again, no regards for my feelings and the fact I was suffering too knowing our newborn baby was there and we couldn't even hold her.
As soon as the baby was home from the hospital began the mysterious overnight visits to friends. They were numerous, and very frequent. Seven times in two weeks as a matter of fact. This is when the real abuse came.
When he told me he was going to the mutual woman friend daughter's basketball game, he never came home that night. I was at home without the baby, because he had wanted to take her with him. He took her, did not tell me where he was going after the game, and later I find out he had went to a spend the night party with the mutual friend and her daughter at a hotel. It was a birthday party for a girl that was friends with the mutual friend's daughter. He had kept the baby out all night, not told me when he was coming home, or that he was even going to this birthday party. It was all out of no where. When he walked in the door, I took the baby from him. I could not beleive his insensitivity to my feelings and for the baby, considering she was only home a few days and he had kept her out all night. It was again ridiculous. He said don't worry; The friend took care of her all night. WHAT?? I was so upset I admit I was screaming at him. He pulled out a gun and held it to my head while I was holding the baby. I was terrified, but pushed the gun out of the way, and then he came back and hit me in the head with it. It almost knocked me completely out. I don't know how I didn't drop the baby.
Two days after that I found pornographic pictures that my husband and the mutual friend had been sending back and forth to each other. Disgusting pornographic pictures. I confronted him with it, saying that I knew he had been messing around on me from that point for a fact, and there was no denying that there had been something going on that should not have been. He admitted to an emotional affair, but never a physical one. I texted a couple of the sixty plus pictures to her, saying I wanted to know why she would ever have said she was my friend and send those pictures to my husband. I have never gotten a straight answer. One of the pictures was of her lying in my bed with nothing on but one of his shirts that was taken with his phone, time and date stamped. I was in the hospital, and it was the night she was telling me to trust her that she would get him to come home. She had picked him up from the airport, went back to my house, stripped down, had him take a picture of herself lying in my bed in nothing but his shirt, and I am supposed to believe they have never touched each other. Yeah right.
The next morning when I confronted her by text, she sent one of my texts to him by "mistake". He had been sleeping. He came into the living room, told me that I had to die because I was a demon, and then proceeded to put a blanket over my face and smother me to death. I fought hard, and eventually got away from him, but this continued for over two hours until I was exhausted from fighting. I fell limp, and he was still beating me and kicking me in the back when I had no fight left. He made me take a bunch of random pills, and then tied me to the bed so I couldn't get up by my neck. I prayed at that point hoping I wouldn't die, that I would still be alive to see my daughter another day. I woke up to him raping me, but I was so drugged I was unable to fight him at all. And all the while our newborn is in a bassinet at the foot of the bed. I fell back asleep for a while, and when I awoke, I was told everything that had happened was my fault. And further, if I tried to call the police, that it would be considered mutual combat because I was fighting for my life. I didn't call out of insane amounts of fear that something else would set him off and I would be dead before the police could arrive.
Two weeks later, I moved out. He was saying that we would "kill each other" if I stayed, so he wanted to separate. He secretly filed for divorce, then forced me to sign the decree when the lawyer was out of the room, stating that I would die right there if I didn't sign them.
Now, I am out of the house that I still legally own, and he is having the mutual friend over all the time. I have even found them in bed together after she hid her car at a gas station and "its not what it looks like." She was just too tired to drive home after work. Yet she had a packed overnight bag, and had already placed some of her clothes in my chest of drawers.
I have not only been abused by one narcissist, I have been betrayed by two. She has fallen completely for all the lines of how abused he was in our relationship, and how he was always a victim. It was always my fault, and he is a poor injured broken man. He has charmed her into believing all of the lies he can spew. I feel sorry for her because she has no idea what he is really like. It will take some time, but he is a pattern man, and it will come back to haunt her. I feel like I was used by them both. It is an unbelieveable sadness that I cannot get over yet.
I have realized this battle is not over for me.. I am going to file an order of protection against him tomorrow, and I am going to take back MY house from this narcissist and get back what is rightfully mine. I have suffered enough from his abuse and it is time that I stop listening to the lies. I am ready and willing to stand up for myself for a change, and yes, it is about to happen. I am there. And I hope and pray that I will still be alive when all this is over. The threats have been
outrageous, even one where he told me he was trying to figure out a way to murder me and get away with it. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. It is time I defend myself and our newborn daughter.
And all of this because I finally realized how many lies he was telling and how much I have been manipulated into believing he deserved better from me. WRONG. I AM THE ONE WHO DESERVES BETTER THAN HIM. I will not let this defeat me. Please pray for my strength in my ongoing battle with an abusive narcissist. I will need it.