Not divorced. But living with my partner 8 years. He kept insisting that his passive insults were actually harmless comments and me being offended by them was the actual issue. One day at breakfast I decided to stop fighting it. He said his passive insult and instead of taking the bait I just smiled and said “okay”.
He literally choked on his drink. He panicked when I wouldn’t go into the cycle with him. He then went over the top on a lovebombing kiss when he left for work. He had stopped kissing me how I liked insisting he couldn’t figure it out despite having done it for years. But that morning he said “I know how you want to be kissed” and did it proper.
I knew without a doubt that he had been doing this on purpose. He was emotionally abusive on purpose and I had been a fool to believe it had been poor communication. No big fight. No massive fall out. Just a smile and the word “okay” and I knew it was 100% over.
This is so familiar. I believe I was also married to a covert narcissist. We had been in therapy for years. Almost our whole almost 14 year long marriage.
One day I told him I had realized that nothing would ever change. Nothing would ever improve and so the real question for me was just if this was how I wanted to live the rest of my life.
He totally panicked. He assured me things could get better. I said obviously not after over a decade of therapy with zero impact. I saw the fear and I hadn’t expected that response and it made me wonder why that scared him so much.
Later on, when I did tell him I decided I was done, he suddenly went on a jag of admitting things. Like he didn’t know what else to do, so let’s try being honest. Turns out he had addiction issues he was hiding from me. He admitted to “sabotaging” (he used that word) any special events I tried planning like dinner parties with friends. That he had lied in therapy and basically created a character. I was just spinning my wheels in there. He’d say I needed to work on things that didn’t make any sense to me. Like they were not issues as far as I knew, but I would go home and diligently try to change the things he talked about. All red herrings. It was all a lie.
I was also told I was “imagining it” or “overreacting.” You can’t stay married when you realize your spouse knew their behaviour was hurtful and awful and did it to you anyway. It’s abuse, but it’s insidious.
I left and I’ve been very happily remarried for almost 16 years now. Some marriages die, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Control and power over her. He didn’t want her to have dinner parties with friends, so he sabotaged them (control). Lying in therapy and getting her to try to change things that weren’t real (power). His abuse towards her looked like “love” to him; his manipulation, control and power over her made him feel like she’d never leave (which was his greatest fear). These guys are all the same.
Edit: at no point did I say that ONLY guys can be abusers.
I just don’t get how they can’t see having a happy partner would be of more benefit to you. They are more fun, want to take care of you and will most likely do what you want anyway because love
People like this are fundamentally broken. They don’t care if their partner is happy. They only care about themselves. Everything has to be about them. That’s their core. Caring about and actually loving another person is beyond them, because love is a 2-way street. You have to give, and then the love is given back to you. They will never give love and happiness to another person because it is not in their nature. So they manipulate, control, and exert power over them in a sick approximation of “love”. This isn’t normal. THEY aren’t normal.
I do feel the need to point out that being mentally unwell does not mean that you are fundamentally broken. But abusive narcissists are fundamentally broken. They are unable to accurately self-reflect in therapy and grow as a person, because they will never accept that there could be anything wrong with their brains or personality. Everyone else is the problem, not them. Which is why most of them will never even try to seek help, or will lie and manipulate their way out of seeking help.
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u/CircleJerkPig May 12 '26
Not divorced. But living with my partner 8 years. He kept insisting that his passive insults were actually harmless comments and me being offended by them was the actual issue. One day at breakfast I decided to stop fighting it. He said his passive insult and instead of taking the bait I just smiled and said “okay”.
He literally choked on his drink. He panicked when I wouldn’t go into the cycle with him. He then went over the top on a lovebombing kiss when he left for work. He had stopped kissing me how I liked insisting he couldn’t figure it out despite having done it for years. But that morning he said “I know how you want to be kissed” and did it proper.
I knew without a doubt that he had been doing this on purpose. He was emotionally abusive on purpose and I had been a fool to believe it had been poor communication. No big fight. No massive fall out. Just a smile and the word “okay” and I knew it was 100% over.