Do I wish it had never happened? Most days - yes. But I have become stronger and more independent through this whole process. And, most importantly, I have a beautiful, intelligent daughter to whom I would give the world if I could.

I'm a 29 year old female who has recently discovered that my soon to be ex husband fits the classic and text book qualities of a person who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As part of my healing, recovery and quest for knowlege on this subject, I would like to keep an account of my experiences. Everyday, memories I didn't know I had stored come flooding to my mind. How could I have gone from thinking one day that my marriage was awesome and beautiful - that we should counsel couples in trouble - to the next day, realizing it was all a hoax, a sham, a dirty joke of which I am the butt? But, perhaps, through writing out my memories, I may discover that which I long to feel - I AM FREE! I no longer have to feel the daily pressures of living with a Narcissist. I no longer have to be controlled, manipulated and used. I no longer have to submit to him. My puppet strings have been cut......

If you would like to learn more about Narcissism and it's definitions, there are several websites which will be extremely informative to you. I will list them. I am not going to delve into the definition on this hub at this time....

lisaescott.com

allabouthim.com

abusesanctuary.blogspot.com

If you should happen to Google "Narcissism" you will be given loads of information from Sam Vaknin. Burn it. It's all trash. He is a self proclaimed Narcissist who wrote a book called 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisisted'. Then Later confessed that he did not write the book to help anyone. He only wanted attention.

If you ask me, I didn't have a choice. Even after I found out about his unfaithfulness, I tried to stay and make it work. I tried to change, be better. I bought him candy, gave him baths, told him how terrific he was and what a horrible wife I had been. He accepted all the attention, but rubbed it in my face about having a girlfriend, even putting her childrens' picture up on our refrigerator.

If you ask him, he would say, and I quote, "because you (meaning me) stood right there (pointing to the floor in our bedroom) and crossed your arms when I tried to hug you."

That is what he said to me when I asked him why he wanted to divorce me.

Yes, I did do that. I remember exactly. I was standing in the bedroom, changing my clothes. As I was undressed, the Narcissist looked me up and down with a disapproving scowl on his face and said, "You shouldn't wear a two piece this summer." I was so hurt I covered my bare body with my arms and he said, changing his demeanor instantly, "Aaawwhhh, come here, " and came at me with wide spread arms for a hug.......

People who are controlled don't necessarily know it at the time. That's what makes the control work. The victim thinks he/she is to blame.....for interrupting, for not cleaning the floors thoroughly enough, for not touching him every 5 minutes....the list goes on.

But how? How did I not know? Especially because the accusations became greater and more ridiculous as time went on. I knew, with just a look from him, to stop stirring the mashed potatoes; he would finish it. I couldn't do it right. Nothing I ever did was good enough....or even just...good. I swept the floors with the vacuum.....he had to redo it with the shop vac. I wipe the sinks down....he scours them. Very little words were spoken when this act of undermining occurred. It was passive aggressive.

I used to think, 'I wish I could be more like him. He has it all together and he is so motivated to get things done!'

All I could do was sit and feel sorry for myself. I didn't even know why.

It sneaks up on you. I didn’t realize it until I found myself in the bathroom holding a bottle half full of prescription pain pills.

If I swallow all of these now, I won’t have to deal with this.

This what? I didn’t even know. Why? I had a loving husband, a normally developing, beautiful 3 year old daughter, my career was going well, and I had a great relationship with my family.

What is wrong with me?

I forced myself to stare at the picture of my daughter on the wall of the bathroom. She smiled back at me, her “momma”. What was I doing?

Hesitation. Then, the bottle made it’s way back to the medicine cabinet. Tears.

At this point, I had no idea how long I’d felt this penetrating wound. Maybe it was a chemical imbalance. Maybe I’m hormonal. Maybe I’ve been this way ever since I had my daughter 3 years ago. Bad mom. Guilt and shame overflow me. Not the kind of guilt and shame you feel for not successfully controlling your screaming toddler in public or like when you pretend to be asleep when your husband fondles you on his way to bed because you just can’t do it again!

No, this was something different. Something internal. Something strong. I knew enough to know it was depression but not enough to know what I was even depressed about. I’ve got to do something.

“God,” I cried, not really in a prayer, but a plea, “I’m desperate! What do I do?”

Nothing.

Instead of feeling proud of myself for doing the right thing and putting the bottle away and turning to my Savior, I felt shame for not being able to go through with it. I remember thinking that people would have just thought I was doing it for attention.

I go on. Put on a happy face. Do for others. Let myself go. I put on makeup and looked presentable but not because it made me feel good….because, well, because that’s what people did.

The next month, my husband and I went out to dinner. He wanted to meet at Olive Garden. He called my cell. I was to meet him there in 30 minutes. Relief flowed over me. We hadn’t had a date in a very long while. Maybe I’ll tell him, I thought. My husband, my true companion. He’ll understand. He’ll console me; tell me it’s not my fault for feeling that way. I would get help. He was my rock. He gave me strength. He would know what to do.

And so I did. I broke my happy face. I even shed a tear in public, something I was terribly afraid of.

“Why did you do it?” He wanted to know. A reasonable question.

“I truly don’t know. Maybe it’s my cycle. Maybe I’m just not right.”

I was reaching out. It was a scary thing for me, being a strong person. Really, I was weak and wanted to feel strong…..desperately. How was I to know?

“We’ll talk about this later,” he determined shutting me in my driver’s side door after dinner. There had been no consoling, no tender kiss, no possible answers or problem solving strategies. No touch on the small of my back on the way out of the restaurant. It had been an uncomfortable dinner. I had tried to explain. I wanted him to know that there was one thing I did know and that was my depression was not because of him. I made it a point to tell him that.

Occasionally, he looked at me as I spilled my guts and said the all too familiar, “That’s not good,” as he nonchalantly shuffled pasta around his plate. I gave up. Clearly, there was nothing that serious for me to be worried about. I’ll survive. I’ll be okay.

Later never came. The subject was never brought up by him again. It was 2 months later when I brought it up in bed, the only time we were ever alone. I had actually stood my ground and defended myself when he tried to maul me, the usual, nightly routine of meaningless sex. Before I was objectified that night, I had to know one thing. Did he ever try to seek help for me after I told him about my depression so many weeks ago?

No. Short and sweet. Typical of him.

Long pause. This had been weighing heavily on my mind. “Do you still feel depressed,” he filled in the tension.

“Yes.”

“Why? Is it me?”

Little did either of us know, it was. Well, not him as in his true self; what the narcissism was doing to us; the self that was about to crash my world as I knew it. As I learn more about narcissism, I realize, this is his true self.

That night as I cried, he fell asleep. Mad and horny. He didn’t get laid.

What is ambient or stealth abuse?

This is a very tricky tactic used by an abusive person to make you crazy. Since ambient abuse can not sometimes be visible the victim may believe they are so bad and or are going nuts. The abuser may want to isolate their victim from other people as they provide the partner with reality checks such as feedback and reference points. Since their main goal is to de-stabalize the victim's reality they try to ruin these "outside influences." They may gossip about their partner to people in a manipulative manner such as pretending to be concerned for their well being as their partner is acting a little nuts. They wont give their self away to other people, they are calculated in their interactions. People may start to wonder about the partner as the ambient abuser fills their minds with distortions and the abuser apparently may come across as a nice person.

Answer

Ambient abuse is the stealth, subtle, underground currents of maltreatment that sometimes go unnoticed even by the victims themselves, until it is too late. Ambient abuse penetrates and permeates everything - but is difficult to pinpoint and identify. It is ambiguous, atmospheric, diffuse. Hence its insidious and pernicious effects. It is by far the most dangerous kind of abuse there is.

It is the outcome of fear - fear of violence, fear of the unknown, fear of the unpredictable, the capricious, and the arbitrary. It is perpetrated by dropping subtle hints, by disorienting, by constant - and unnecessary - lying, by persistent doubting and demeaning, and by inspiring an air of unmitigated gloom and doom ("gaslighting").

Ambient abuse, therefore, is the fostering, propagation, and enhancement of an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, instability, unpredictability and irritation. There are no acts of traceable explicit abuse, nor any manipulative settings of control. Yet, the irksome feeling remains, a disagreeable foreboding, a premonition, a bad omen.

In the long term, such an environment erodes the victim's sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Self-confidence is shaken badly. Often, the victim adopts a paranoid or schizoid stance and thus renders himself or herself exposed even more to criticism and judgment. The roles are thus reversed: the victim is considered mentally deranged and the abuser - the suffering soul.

There are five categories of ambient abuse and they are often combined in the conduct of a single abuser:

I. Inducing Disorientation

The abuser causes the victim to lose faith in her ability to manage and to cope with the world and its demands. She no longer trusts her senses, her skills, her strengths, her friends, her family, and the predictability and benevolence of her environment.

The abuser subverts the target's focus by disagreeing with her way of perceiving the world, her judgment, the facts of her existence, by criticizing her incessantly - and by offering plausible but specious alternatives. By constantly lying, he blurs the line between reality and nightmare.

By recurrently disapproving of her choices and actions - the abuser shreds the victim's self-confidence and shatters her self-esteem. By reacting disproportionately to the slightest "mistake" - he intimidates her to the point of paralysis.

II. Incapacitating

The abuser gradually and surreptitiously takes over functions and chores previously adequately and skillfully performed by the victim. The prey finds itself isolated from the outer world, a hostage to the goodwill - or, more often, ill-will - of her captor. She is crippled by his encroachment and by the inexorable dissolution of her boundaries and ends up totally dependent on her tormentor's whims and desires, plans and stratagems.

Moreover, the abuser engineers impossible, dangerous, unpredictable, unprecedented, or highly specific situations in which he is sorely needed. The abuser makes sure that his knowledge, his skills, his connections, or his traits are the only ones applicable and the most useful in the situations that he, himself, wrought. The abuser generates his own indispensability.

III. Shared Psychosis (Follies-a-Deux)

The abuser creates a fantasy world, inhabited by the victim and himself, and besieged by imaginary enemies. He allocates to the abused the role of defending this invented and unreal Universe. She must swear to secrecy, stand by her abuser no matter what, lie, fight, pretend, obfuscate and do whatever else it takes to preserve this oasis of insanity.

Her membership in the abuser's "kingdom" is cast as a privilege and a prize. But it is not to be taken for granted. She has to work hard to earn her continued affiliation. She is constantly being tested and evaluated. Inevitably, this interminable stress reduces the victim's resistance and her ability to "see straight".

IV. Abuse of Information

From the first moments of an encounter with another person, the abuser is on the prowl. He collects information. The more he knows about his potential victim - the better able he is to coerce, manipulate, charm, extort or convert it "to the cause". The abuser does not hesitate to misuse the information he gleans, regardless of its intimate nature or the circumstances in which he obtained it. This is a powerful tool in his armory.

V. Control by Proxy

If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, mates, family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, the media, teachers - in short, third parties - to do his bidding. He uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat, tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his props unceremoniously when the job is done.

Another form of control by proxy is to engineer situations in which abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such carefully crafted scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke social sanctions (condemnation, opprobrium, or even physical punishment) against the victim. Society, or a social group become the instruments of the abuser.

VI. Cliques of Bullies

Of course, ambient or stealth abuse and manipulation can exist in the context of any kind of relationship and intimacy whatsoever. However, sly abuse of power and underhanded manipulation, with bizarre paranoid malicious gossip and all manner of Sadistic instigators and their eager and foolish proxy pawns, are only all the easier given distance, even shunning and social isolation as experienced by targets of relational bullying and harassment, scapegoats, dissidents and whistleblowers.

Know more at: http://www.FoolQuest.com/cliquebusters.htm

This is what I take from that exert:

I was Ambiently abused.  It could have been 100 x's worse.  Some men and women live like this for decades and don't know why they feel so horribly about themselves.  Some people are tortured with these methods that are so haneous you couldn't imagine the pain they live in.  I experienced what I believe to be the very beginning of his ways.  I was target "practice".

I.  Inducing disorientation

He talked badly about my family.  Subtle things at first like, 'they never come over to see their grandaughter'.  It got a little worse than that but never anything that would cause me to see this red flag.  And I knew the unspoken rule of never telling my family.

He often compared his mistakes to my own.  I remember one time confronting him about being out all night (until 1am) at a friend's house on a weeknight while I was left at home with our daughter (not that I minded that part!).  He immediately compared that with me leaving the house an hour at a time to go tanning or when I brought work home to do....

II. Incapacitating

He always told me the house looked nice.  But, as I was present (he made sure I saw), he would clean up after I did.  If I swept...he shopvaced...if I cleaned off the sinks...he scoured them....if I put things away....he re-organized....if I made mashed potatoes...he stepped in and added more milk or stirred them faster!

He soon took over all chores.....told me I spent too much on groceries and praised himself to me on his grocery trips for spending money.  I have a feeling today if I had tried; I wouldn't have seen the difference in our grocery bills.

When he was in the Military - I could never iron his uniforms correctly.  They always had to be re-ironed by him.

I enjoyed gardening around our home....he sprayed all my flowers with weed killer that killed my flowers.....sometimes I wonder what was in that weed killer!

III. Shared Psycosis

He woke me up for sex regularly; out of a deep sleep. Yet I couldn't even turn a hall light on in the mornings to see to get ready for work or he would rage.

He interrupted...talked over me in front of people...told me I interrupted too much.....made fun of me enough to make others feel awkward around us.  One time he dry humped me momentarily in front of church friends at our house. He never praised me - my perfect job performance that I was so proud of....he only acknowledged it long enough to pick it up like it was a used diaper and move it to the side so as not to interfere with his pie baking!

Whenever we went to social events.....I knew to sit in the car before getting out in the parking lot or driveway so he could lecture me about how many times to touch him there, where to touch him, how to treat him in front of others (sit on my lap, scratch my back, etc...).  When he split he said, "I EVEN HAD TO TELL YOU HOW TO BE AFFECTIONATE WITH ME!!!"

Sex games - perverted....humiliating.  Can't describe.

IV.  Abuse of Information

He did everything I did, then better.  I got an associates' degree...he got a bachelor's....I worked with in the schools....then he did.....I changed to work with the elderly......guess what he does now!!!!????

His charm in the beginning was brilliant.  We're not just talking movies and dinner.  We're talking making love under the stars....candlelight picnics on summer nights.....cooking  meals for me....long weekends....country drives....poems....dancing....you name it!

V. Control by Proxy

Telling me our 'mutual' friends said hurtful things about me.  He said they always said, "What's wrong with her?!"

VI.  Clicks of Bullies

He makes sure information gets back to me.......time he spends with 'mutual' friends.  He said, in the end, through crocodile tears, "the guys at work always commented on your picture and I never told you". 

After I confronted him about his affair, he said, "you don't know how hard it was for me to have (our daughter) around her (mistress) because (daughter) looks so much like you.....I mean, that really was hard for me."

Told me, in the end, that he told others I never had sex with him, I never was affectionate to him or had anything in common with him.....I didn't have any idea I was the topic of discussion!

This is my story - it's long and painful to read so I understand if you just move on from here! It's helpful for me to write it out.

On Nov. 16, 2008 I found a text message on my husband's cell phone. It said, "I need it baby, I gotta have it. Gimme more. I love it. I need it. I want it."

God spoke to me that morning and said, "Get that phone in your hands." I've never snooped in his phone.

I crumbled. My daughter (age 4) was spending the night with a friend. I screamed, "What is this?" He threw back the covers and tore the phone from my hands, "I told you I was going to hurt you!"

I had never heard those words in my life. Things hadn't been good for 4 months prior to this. He was spending every friday evening and all day Saturdays with her, my daughter and her children. (All age 4). I was asked by my husband 4 months before this to work on Saturdays. Now I knew why. First he just started going to preschool functions with them then I found myself coming home to leftover dinner on the table with extra seats placed.

I kept my cool. I told no one. I was embarrassed. It soon turned into my husband making poor choices and taking our daughter to the gym so the sitter there could watch her (who neither of us knew) and he could take his mistress' palates class. It was all kept from me but 4 year olds tell their mommy everything. I had no idea she was being watched by someone I'd never met.

He began leaving the room when I entered it. Or when I was in a room he came into, he'd turn around and leave. This was so incredibly different than the charming, sensitive man I'd fallen in love with.

His mom told me, "They are using the children to date" NO. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't accept that. 7 year marriage. 12 year relationship.

I found out about the affair and told no one but my mom who eventually told my dad and brothers. I wanted to work the marriage out. What did I do so wrong? I was having sex with him 5 times/week. When I asked him what I could do to be a better wife, he said, "you could come home from work, strip me down and devour me." He said, "remember when you crossed your arms when I tried to hug you?" This apparently made him feel unloved. Well, I was naked at the time and he had just finished telling me I should not wear a 2 piece swimsuit that summer:(

Time went by. I bought him candy bouquets and sent them to his work; I had every form of abusive sex he could dream up. I agreed to a threesome with another man - a long time fantasy of his.

Nothing was helping. He continued to tell me he didn't love me. He would never love me; he loved HER. He put her children's picture on our fridge and I was expected to keep it there.

Then, it happened; he got in the bath tub with our four year old daughter. He had not done this since she was in diapers. I didn't want to make a scene in front of her so I just sat in the bathroom and watched every move he made. I told no one - now I'm ashamed/embarrassed. He was totally nude and touching himself. Let it go - if you say anything now - you'll just look vengeful.

One week later, it happened again. I tried to leave our driveway so he and our daughter could have bonding time. I put the car in reverse but could not pick up my foot from the brake. "God, what's going on?" Nothing. I put the car in park and was able to get out. 5 minutes after I went in the house - he was preparing to get in the tub with her. I said, "I wish you wouldn't do this, she's too old for this." He said, "This will be the last time" and proceeded to get in anyway.

I started telling people about the divorce. This was his ego injury. He truly thought I would protect him forever. When he found out I had told one of his long time gal pals about it - he called me and threatened to take my daughter from me forever.

Obviously, the law is involved. He has locked me out of my own home, called the sheriff on my mother for coming to help me take some items of mine he had thrown into the garage. My father had called the sheriff on him several weeks prior to this because he was in my face and causing a scene in front of our daughter. My husband stripped down the scriptures from our walls that I had placed up as encouragement for me and proceeded to tell me they were lies, all lies, you are mean and spiteful. This was because I told two people of his inappropriateness with our daughter (there's more that goes with this - my daughter, at age 4, was masturbating to the point of climax and was unable to be redirected.). Also, I told the father of the boys my husband was spending a lot of time with. This father said, "my boys are having odd behavior, I found one of them kissing the other one's testicles in the bathtub and they've recently been thrusting each other from behind - naked"

I had to tell these people - my husband spends a lot of time with other people's children d/t his job. It scares me. My husband said, "What gave you the right to tell him" He was asking me why I told the mistress' husband about the affair and the bath tub incident?

I'm scared. I'm living with my mom and dad during the custody case. My husband wants her 50/50. I want him to go away and never come near us again.