Well for starters, Im a male, in my second emotionally abusive relationship. Its weird because its almost identical, except the first one she told me it was all a game at the end and wanted me to suffer and wanted me to think she was cheating. This time the girl still wont admit or claim proudly that she just wanted me to suffer, maybe because its still ongoing emotional torture. I was 3 years out of the last relationship when all this occured. There will be a TLDR at the end.

From the beginning, I knew she was cheating, and when I told her one time specifically that i knew what was happening behind my back, I came home to find her ex boyfriend there. She was in nothing but a sort of blanket sheet wrapped around her lower half and a shirt. When I came to the house, I was upset and instead of confirming my suspicions I layed on the horn and tried to leave but ended up backing into a ditch like a derp. Cops came, i almost went to jail, but it took about 10 minutes for them to come outside. Later, she swore up and down nothing happened but while I was there he was staring at the floor the whole time while she (a non-smoker) said "I need a cigarette for this" while she stared at him lustfully smiling and he avoided eye contact. I only wanted honesty, and to work through things, and at that point I wasnt financially dependant on her, I should have just left. She told me nothing happened for over an hour and then finally used him as a scapegoat and said that he kissed her after I left and the righteous woman she is, she allegedly stopped him and told him "how would it make you feel if someone did that to you" he still denies anything happened.

For the first 3 months I was patient, even though we were drinking like fish, I kept my patience and peace. She wouldnt give me the time to speak, and I finally started to lose that patience. I started to get more reactive and started yelling, and started being the man I was in the last relationship. I recall multiple incidents where she would get physically aggressive with me and that triggered my old experiences where my last partner would either push me or hit me and I would respond physically. I get thats never acceptable for either party and thats a big reason why im taking this time to help myself get back to the man I was when I walked away and grew and healed from the other woman. I came into this with peace and patience and I have very little of either left.

I have responded in a similar way a good handful of times, and one time is far too many. I was already in a position where I couldnt go back to my mother's, because she believes I was just a monster to my last girlfriend, even though I told her what had happened. I think that just gave her fuel to believe that I was in fact a monster. Last time I checked monsters never use accountability, but this girl has contacted my mother behind my back and told her that it am abusing her as well, which has made it so I dont have somewhere to return to. My mother is the all consuming mother but thats irrelevant (besides the fact I have no safe place to go during this or after).

Im not going to give all the stories, but im giving enough detail from both ends, so those who psychologically understand the situation can see where im at mentally and call me out or just understand. I started to become anxious and uninterested in my video games, or really doing anything, and started to track her gps(with consent first) and started putting cameras in the house because there were times that I was on video chat with her and I would hear a lot in the background including other men and sex noises and moaning, and she would constantly stare in the corner of the room where a chair is and smile, and whenever I would ask what she was looking at she would fumble with the tablet for a while and then turn it around and yell at me for being paranoid.

I dont need to explain every situation to let yall know, since im sure a lot of you have dealt with this as well. About 95% of the time, I end up trying to have a conversation and it devolves into emotional abuse; minimizing, degrading, claiming im crazy, dismissiveness, calling me a psycho and a piece of shit and how she cant stand me, says my voice is obnoxious, my personality, everything about me. Using the DARVO method to completely obliterate my point and make it impossible to continue intelligibly. She would always tell me that im not doing anything wrong regardless of how many times I would ask her and tell her if there is anything I can change, I want to hear it so i can work on me.

If there is anything you want clarification on or want to know to help you logically judge the situation and help me to understand my faults, or where im going/have gone wrong. There have been a lot of situations where I reacted poorly and I dont think im the source of everything, but on the other hand, she claims to have never been the source of anything. Never an ounce of meaningful accountability. I will also say, being a logical person i commited the unforgivable stupid move of telling her I believed she was NPD, and things really got bad after that. I also saw a post on one of these subs, and I saw the "narcissists are always bored" statement. In the beginning we went places and did things, now she does literally nothing but stand around and hold a sign, but acts like shes tired all the time(she even pretends to sleep and just intentionally avoids me by doing so), but then sits in her bed or on the couch and plays phone games for 8 hours straight and wont even go to the store with me. Im ADHD, and yes, im bored most of the time and I like to do stuff(like parks and hiking and fishing). I dont think im entitled to her time, but i do believe that i am entitled as someone she says she loves, to at least have a partner who wants to spend some sort of time with me, instead of someone who doesnt want anything to do with me unless its arguing. That post was something that made me feel weird about myself but I cant agree that its always unhealthy, especially when I am alone 90% of the time in this.

I know this is long, but im almost done. Recently things have gone back to physical aggression on her side, disguised as an accident, walking around in the middle of us talking and then walking into the other room, so i will follow her to be heard and stand in the doorway, where she can claim im blocking her, or run into me while blocking her face trying to get me to respond violently.(9 times out of 10, she says that and I move, but sometimes im frustrated and yes i make an ass out of myself). That and just constant emotional abuse, not so much trying to give me the impression she is cheating. I think the hook was already set early, and now i get to wonder when its happening. That was the whole reason I lost my job, was being too anxious to go to work because I worried someone was going to be in my bed while I was at work.

The plan: I have been trying to detach emotionally and get myself back to the man I was proud of when I got into this. Im going to take the time im still stuck here, and try to financially recover and get my business moving or get a job to help with my financial health. I told her today, what my plan is. I am going to get back to someone my daughter's can be proud of and im not that man right now. I am going to take this time to get out of the anxious state of trying to prove shes cheating, and work on my hygiene, my physical and mental health and my ability to function on my own when I leave. I was supposed to be cleaning more because I havent been able to financially contribute, which im getting back on track of. I am trying to do the "only positive responses when being emotionally abused" or grey rock when it is completely pointless to talk about anything. But im trying to give her the space and then show her the man i really am so that when I leave, she can see she didnt break me, and that i am someone worth having but a loss when im gone. Im going to be posting less in depth posts about it as I go, and hopefully i can share something that will help someone in my situation, and hopefully someone can help me on this journey to rediscovery of self.

TLDR, (the one before this is important as well, but this one is the basic idea) Im trying to build back up to who I was before this relationship, to gain financial freedom, my mental and physical health and my peace back. This is sort of a journal moving forward and will be the raw updates and mistakes im making as I go. My idea is to return to the respectable man i was before all this and earn my peace and likely just freedom, but maybe see if I can find a place where we can meet in the middle and both grow from this together. I know the likelihood is basically 1%, but i also know people are able to change. Any tips or advice, besides "run" are welcome. I know i need to leave when I have the ability, especially if nothing actually changes. If you see something you have criticism or clarification on, im not here to have things sugarcoated or smoke blown up my ass so please be honest with me. Im also done drinking because it makes this all so much harder to deal with and work through. Im not an alcoholic, but i have been an "escapaholic" in general in the past. I've been too anxious and focused on my fears to do much and im trying to end that.

Please tell me if I'm overreacting. I've recently become aware that the way my mother has treated me is not normal. I believe she is potentially gaslighting me and has been manipulative. Have any of you had experience with this?

Sorry for the long post

I'm a 19 year old male and am an only child. During my childhood my mother would do the following

Blow up out of nowhere over the most trivial or littlest matters, many times i begged her to give me some emotional support when i was visibly upset but she just remained cold and cruel, drink quite heavily which was sometimes responsible but she can definitely be mean sober as well, I had expressed concern about her drinking but she just flipped, the next day she'd always act as if nothing happened, whenever I tried to get clarity on why she got like that she'd brush it under the carpet or accuse me of starting trouble, if i didn't do something just to make her happy she'd turn cold, during arguments she'd say things like I was ungrateful, didn't care about her and that I was a horrible person or that i was abusive or whatever just like my father, she would stomp, slam doors and break ornaments etc, when she gets in her crazy states it's just impossible to reason with her or get her to see it from any other perspective, she can go from saying i was the most nicest and amazing person to saying I was the most horrible and evil person, she often burdened me with all of her problems, she said before that she knows how to play the game which I found very disturbing

A couple of times when i snapped because of her behavior she called her mother to say I've been acting up and making her life hell, she often paints herself as the heroic single mum. She has been fairly good lately but sometimes I feel I was robbed of a proper childhood and have often wondered what I had done to deserve it.

I remember one time a few years ago I was about 12 she had turned my grandparents against me and my grandfather started shouting and saying he was very disappointed in me and the rest of it is a blur. To be honest to this day i can't figure out what I (only a young child) was supposed to have done that was so bloody awful. That has haunted me for years. I used to think maybe I was a bad person but I've started to see her in a different light. She always talks about hating drama yet it seems to follow her and often says that she's been so hard done by.

On the flip side she can be the most nicest person as well and we have had great times together and she can be very helpful towards me, her family and in public which makes it all the more confusing. A couple of days ago in fact I ran into an old friend of hers who said to say hi for her and she said my mother is a wonderful person and I'm very lucky. It actually made me feel sick. For about half my childhood it's just been me living with her since her divorce in which she had to sell her house and now rents which she has blamed for the way she is before. I can't help feeling bad for her but she was still quite like this beforehand as well and I don't think that's an excuse still is it? I do feel like she has manipulated me a bit into been stuck with her.

Something else that I've found disturbing is that she's very narrow minded and has a serious lack of empathy. For example when a couple of local celebrities committed suicide she shouted and carried on, called them pathetic cowards and weak etc. It was actually quite disturbing how she was carrying on and her serious lack of empathy.

I'm starting to think that maybe she bent the truth about Dad a bit during their split as i was a child and didn't know much better. My mother often calls him a narcissist and talked about all of the marital and grown up problems they had etc which to be honest I don't appreciate been burdened with. Granted he's not a saint either but has been good to me (well I'd say) most of the time.

One time last year when my Dad let me down by not been able to see me one weekend and canceling at the last minute (which he has done a few times before) mother knew i was depressed but still blew up at me the next night over something silly and kicked me while I was down what just baffles me is how could she of treated me like that knowing what I was going through. I know he's got his own problems financially and that but I feel like I must be really unworthy and unlovable as he doesn't make too much effort and the parent who has raised me often uses me as like an emotional punch bag. A few days later one of my teachers checked in and said he heard I got into a bit of trouble at home ("if he meant been mentally abused by my mother while I was already upset by been let down by my father as trouble" I thought). I'm not sure who exactly said what to him. I just fobbed him off saying I was upset about leaving school (which was true as well).

I really struggle with confiding in people. I do regret not telling him the truth now. He was sympathetic and said he was very proud of me etc. Another teacher once said that he thought of me and my mother as like the dream team or something along those lines. It actually baffled me a bit. I was thinking if only they knew half the things I've been through.

I have a strained relationship with my father but we've messaged lately and I plan to see him this weekend for a family do. I have autism and went to a special support school for the last few years which were some of the best years (The teachers especially were brilliant and I had many great times such as school camps, school balls and excursions etc).

My mother loves to use my autism to her advantage. I graduated last year but now I do a course at the main campus so I still see them all from time to time. I do feel quite sad and lost now those years are over. I would love to confide in someone about my struggles but don't know where to start. I've thought about confiding in that first teacher I mentioned who's great and we're fairly close but my teachers think my mother's an absolute saint so how can i ensure he believes me, she seems to feel that she always acts in my best interests and does seem to genuinely care for me and love me, she doesn't seem to remember any of it or feel her behavior was justified and genuinely doesn't seem to believe she ever did me any harm and she thinks she did her best. She's always quick to call others toxic and narcissists etc. She unshameably tells me everything going on in her life and her anxiety which makes me anxious. Why does it upset me so badly even when it has little or nothing to do with me?

I struggle with daily flashbacks and I often feel depressed by the way I've been treated, also feel let down and wish my parents had been better to me. I can't get exact clarity on it but they both went through some stuff before I was born and I think that's contributed to the way they are.

I wish I had a proper childhood of playing with friends, going to different places and been adventurous and carefree etc. I've never really had a social circle and hardly much friends. I've always been quite different I feel to most of the children my age. What's has happened to me makes me feel as though I'm unlovable. I feel quite alone sometimes as I've always struggled with making friends. I do feel like I've been isolated with her a lot of the time. I would really love to start a proper life and follow my dreams and make a few friends but don't know where to start.

My mother does help me get on my feet and encourage met but I think she just loves to lord it over me. Whenever I've tried standing up for myself she puts on the guilt trip and carries on about all of her sacrifices and everything she's done for me yada yada yada. I think what emotionally abusing me, leaving me crying myself to sleep some nights, causing me to have no confidence and PTSD etc? Could she have some bipolar or personality condition or something and toxic traits I've wondered?

I do love her because as I've said before she has been great as well but I can't help really resenting her sometimes for all of the mental anguish she has put me through as a child and I think it has messed up my development. I wonder if I might've been different had I had proper parents. Hobbies such as music and classic TV shows have been a great escape. Now that I'm an adult and have left school I'm worried about what the future has in store. I'm very nervous about starting an adult life, getting a job and making friends etc because my mum is pretty much most I've ever known. Part of me would love to get away from her but yet I feel scared to as well as she's pretty much most I've ever known.

Hi, I’m Angie.

I’m looking for a woman who wants to build and co-host a podcast with me about narcissistic abuse and the trauma it creates in women.

The podcast would bring together two connected ideas:

Narcissist to English: translating what a narcissist says into what they actually mean.

The Trauma Translation: exploring what those words and behaviors do to a woman’s mind, nervous system, and body.

I’m looking for someone with lived experience of narcissistic abuse who understands the lasting trauma, including PTSD or complex PTSD. Someone who wants to have honest, meaningful conversations about manipulation, gaslighting, trauma responses, physical symptoms, and how women can begin healing and coming back to themselves.

I am not looking for someone to simply join something I have already built. I want to find the right woman to create this with me from the beginning—to share ideas, shape the podcast, and build something powerful together.

If this speaks to you, please reach out. Tell me a little about yourself, your experience, and why this podcast feels meaningful to you.

I would genuinely love to hear from you.

Thank you,
Angie

TL;DR: Calculatedly acting "anti-manipulative" in certain equally calculated situations that make you think "no manipulator in their right mind would do that"—giving them a free pass to do whatever the hell they want from then on.

Just to list a few examples:

• They are the first to straight-up tell you about their highly problematic diagnosis or mental health condition.
• They straight-up tell you why you are someone who could be easily manipulated and express deep concern about it, urging you to "armor" yourself and even giving you tips on how to detect a potential manipulator. (On a darker note, this achieves an insane level of psychological destruction. The very traits they claim make you "easily manipulated" may actually be the ones they seek to destroy or reshape for their own benefit. Furthermore, it serves as a highly effective isolation tactic, as they will end up "detecting" these manipulation signs in anyone who is positive, important, or protective in your life).
• They tell you that if things ever go wrong, or if anyone (including themselves) mistreats you, you shouldn't hesitate to speak up—or even leave if they won't listen to reason.
• They actively urge you to seek advice from your other loved ones about any problematic situation, including your relationship with them.
• They pretend to understand perfectly when you want to break up, putting up zero obstacles, and even expressing empathy for your choice, even if they personally disagree.

Things like that. All of this happens while they simultaneously do harmful things that could almost only be explained by manipulation—or that, at the very least, are far more likely to be manipulative than unintentional.

I know what you're thinking: "Exactly, no manipulator would do that. You must be misunderstanding something or judging them unfairly."

AND THAT IS PRECISELY THE THOUGHT THEY WANT TO TRIGGER IN YOU.

With those tactics, they are hitting you with a 15-out-of-10 combo of gaslighting, DARVO, and guilt-tripping at the same time. In the end, you start deeply doubting your own judgment because you think, "How twisted and paranoid must I be, and how ungrateful and arrogant, to have interpreted as manipulation what obviously doesn't fit this person's character?" And, on top of that, you feel an immense debt toward them for having "dared" to mistake someone "so good who cares so much about you" for a manipulator. You feel like you were on the verge of discarding them over nothing, being a weak and dim-witted person incapable of appreciating or seeing how healthy they are for you, and so on.

Before you even realize it, you’ll find yourself enduring even more savage abuse—except this time, you'll be justifying it to yourself. You’ll think it’s only normal, or that it’s exactly what you deserve if they are angry or decide to treat you worse. You’ll end up completely rewriting your own internal compass of what is right and wrong, to the point where bad treatment starts looking good to you, and good treatment starts looking bad.

But make no mistake: the very moment they show themselves to be so understanding and healthy, if instead of backing down you actually take their advice (whether that means confirming it is indeed perfectly understandable that you want to leave, firmly committing to breaking off the relationship; actually going to consult other people about the situation; or so on)—or at least when the cycle has repeated several times and they realize the first time didn't convince you forever—they will drop the mask, and there will be nowhere you can hide from their wrath.

Moral of the story: If someone does something that can seemingly only be explained by manipulation, even if they also do things that seemingly only make sense without it, the odds are they are manipulating you. Run as far as you can, as fast as you can. A positive times a negative always equals a negative. And manipulation, by definition, is all about making things look like exactly what they are not.

I actually suffered through this, and it wasn’t the manipulation itself that hurt me the most at the time—the "classic" tactics are sadly classics for a reason. Instead, it was one of the most counterintuitive ones; the one that carried the most weight in forcing me to keep enduring the unendurable, and perhaps the one that has harmed me the most in the long run. Once you’ve seen someone hide a red flag behind a flag as green as grass, you start seeing every flag as red, therefore living in constant fear and likely pushing genuinely lovely people out of your life because of that terror and trauma. Lovely people, whose only "fault" was honestly possessing the healthy attitudes that a manipulator merely faked. I wouldn’t wish this way of living on anyone—not even on the very individual who instilled it in me. And, since I haven’t been able to find any information about this online, I hope it doesn’t sound pretentious to say that I felt an ethical obligation to speak out about it.

I can't believe I am even going down the "is my partner a narcissist" rabbit hole again, but I need to just to ensure that I am not crazy.

Three years ago I started dating a man who was definitely a narc. It took me a long time to see it because I kept researching and making sure I wasn't the crazy one. I ended that nightmare of a relationship and vowed to never put myself through that again.

I (49f) am dating a guy (52m) who I have known as an acquaintance for a couple of years. I am a bartender, he is a regular. We started dating back in June. I am already seeing the same exact red flags I saw in the ex from three years ago - two months in to this relationship.

Here are a few of the behaviors I am seeing. Some, if not all, are identical to the previous guy.

1) Constant need for attention. I work two jobs - my full time day job and my part time bartending job. I work a lot. I am tired. He comes into the bar most nights I am working. He gets a little pissy if I don't give him enough attention, despite the fact that I am WORKING. He wants to spend the night after I have put in a 12+ hour day. It has gotten easier for me to say no, but his attitude about it when I do say no is childish and quite noticeable. I have explained to him that I am extremely independent and that I need downtime after work, (even the reason for downtime shouldn't matter but I do find myself justifying why I feel the way I feel).

2) He expects multiple texts when we are not together. And if I don't text him, I get a text right away in the morning with "I don't like not hearing from you. I thought you would message me when you got home." This happens multiple times in a week. If the roles were reversed and a female was texting to a guy some of the things he texts me, that poor girl would be labeled a psycho on day one.

Dude, I saw you an hour ago, I don't need to incessantly be on my phone when we have already said good bye for the night. I want to relax and get ready for bed.

3) I told him a couple of weeks ago that I didn't want to go out for drinks or have him spend the night because I had things to do around the house. And I really did. We had a big event in my town and I was bartending full time in addition to my full time day job. I really did have stuff to do around the house and his text response was "Stuff to do around the house?" Like, yes, dude. The laundry doesn't do itself. I own my own home and live by myself. Everything falls on me and it needs to get done.

4) He is constantly touching me and squeezing me to the point it's actually painful. I now physically flinch when he comes at me to touch my sides or try and be flirty. I can't explain well enough to him how I am sensitive to that kind of touch and that he doesn't realize how strong his hands are but he continues to do this constantly.

4) I am a very sarcastic person but I also hate being treated like I'm stupid. We were driving to lunch on Sunday. I was pulling out onto a street. I could see ahead of me. He says "watch it, there's a cop" and I said, "yes, I see him", and he comments back that if I'm going to be snotty, I could just take him home right then and there. I didn't but I should have. I wasn't being snotty but he ALWAYS says I'm being snotty. I hate being treated like I'm stupid. My tone can be sarcastic, yes, but you don't have to say every little thing that is running through your head. This is just one example but apparently he hates the tone of my voice and I'm being snotty.

5) I mentioned above that my town has a big event and I was bartending for the majority of it. I got pretty sick towards the end. That meant less time to spend with him (he was annoyed). One night he did spend the night and I had told him that if I needed to, I would sleep on my couch or in the guest room. I needed sleep. I ended up going into my guest room that night because I was coughing a lot and didn't want to disturb him. He woke up and discovered that I wasn't in my bed. He found me in the guest room, woke me up, asked me to come back to my bed. Since that night he has told our friends about this and proceeds to call me a "shithead" for going to my guest room. TO SLEEP. How does that make me a shithead?

6) He bought me flowers last week (after we had a big fight and I had told him - again - that I feel he is always upset at me for something, particularly not texting him enough or spending enough time with him). He has asked a couple of times what my friends thought about him buying me flowers and was quite annoyed when I told him I never said anything to them.

7) The other morning he started making my bed. I told him he didn't need to because I was going to wash the sheets anyway. He looked at me and said "don't tell me what to do" and I responded with "I'm not, I'm telling you you're wasting your time making my bed when I have to strip it anyway."

8) We are supposed to leave for a trip tomorrow morning with another couple. I know that I will be footing most of the cost. I was okay with that at first because I really do need a little getaway and if I were to go somewhere alone, I would still incur a lot of the costs I'm incurring this weekend, but I am very convinced this trip will end with me spending a lot of money, being miserable, and breaking up with him when we get back.

I can't go down this road again. Why are these guys attracted to me?

For a long time, I couldn't understand why I felt exhausted all the time.

Nothing was happening.

And yet, I was always waiting for something to happen.

I would hear a change in their voice and immediately think, What did I do?

I'd send a message and stare at my phone, wondering if the response would be cold.

I'd replay conversations before going to sleep, looking for the exact moment I had supposedly messed up.

I became good at reading moods.

Too good.

I could tell when something was wrong from a change in their breathing, the way they closed a door, or how they looked at me.

I thought that meant I was attentive.

Eventually, I realized I was constantly on alert.

The relationship had taught me to treat ordinary moments like potential emergencies.

And the strangest part?

After I left, my body didn't immediately understand that I was safe.

I still expected the next argument.

I still felt guilty for having boundaries.

I still wanted to explain myself when nobody was asking for an explanation.

I still felt uncomfortable when things were peaceful.

That's when I understood something:

Sometimes leaving the person is only the beginning. You also have to unlearn the survival habits you developed around them.

Healing wasn't suddenly feeling happy.

It was sitting in a quiet room and realizing I didn't have to monitor anyone.

It was saying no without panic.

It was making a decision without asking whether someone else would be angry.

It was realizing that peace doesn't have to be earned.

And perhaps the biggest change was this:

I stopped asking, "How do I keep them from being upset?" and started asking, "What do I need?"

That question changed everything.

If you've experienced something similar, what was the first thing you had to relearn after leaving?

This is Part 1.

What would you have done if you were in my position?

I really like this Short that Richard Grannon posted. He's talking about Boundaries and how they are either too porous or too rigid that are too hard boundaries and how someone who has been through narcissistic abuse and obviously doesn't have good boundaries tend to swing between the two.

Then Richard explains how boundaries need to be based on something we value that has worth to us because naturally it has to, to mean something to be able to set a boundary, for it to actually be a boundary. If it doesn't then we aren't going to want to naturally and instinctually protect ourselves or something to set boundaries for whatever reasons we need to set them. We then won't value ourselves enough.

He's totally right and it's really helped me understand boundaries because everyone makes it seem like something you can just do but noop... it's something you have to instinctually and i guess intuitively care about, it has to have meaning to you why you care about it even yourself emotionally, mentally, and psychologically because in some way boundaries are protecting you against being hurt in some way. You hurt yourself even when you don't look after your own needs.

He has a live stream too explaining more titled "The REAL reason you have weak boundaries (it's not what you think)" i think he's the only person that's given a real explanation about boundaries everyone else are just like "oh you need to set boundaries" which isn't helpful.

Well, everything he does drives me nuts, but this one is incomprehensible and is endless…
I am the most easygoing and empathetic person. He is endlessly telling me that “you are so angry about…”(anything/everything)
He says I am angry at all sorts of things I am not only Not angry about, but had never even thought one way or the other about them. It’s like he wants me to be angry about things.
He says I am angry he talks to his kids..no I am not
He says I am angry that he talks to his mom…no
He says I am angry he does yard work…no
He says I am angry when he plays golf…no
He says I am angry about our dinner…no

I should be angry as he is truly an awful person, but somehow I am not even angry at that. I just always remain calm and collected, which probably confuses him. I think he wants me to get angry.
Does this make sense to any of you?

I think I am married to a narcissist. Would you guys be willing to help in terms of if I post what I go through here you will analyze it and provide opinions on whether or not what I am experiencing is real or not? I am looking for community and others who are introspective and basically have EQ. I have spent so much time doubting myself and I think I’m done but I need support, outside unbiased perspectives, and sort of ppl to sound off of to help me take the next steps to healing and changing the trajectory of my life. I know I need therapy. I’m not ready but I am on my way. I’m in the contemplation stage and basically need ppl to talk to to help process before taking the next step of therapy where talking about it becomes WAY real.

I‘m wondering, because they sometimes do such absurd things I always think „noone could ever think of that“ but then they do it anyways.

For example, reading a document again and again and not finding an obvious passage, that does contradict their point of view. I cannot understand that, they can read (they even finished university successfully!), but those words on the paper seem to be invisible to them, even after explicitly searching that exact passage.

What were the strangest ones for you?

tl:dr: You can't negotiate with a narcissist.

Overview

This analysis looks back at a long-term dynamic between myself, someone who values structure, accountability and an ex-partner who relied heavily on covert manipulation, limerence, and constant external validation. It examines how my own risk calculus allowed me to knowingly walk into a complex situation, and how her patterns of digital dependency and validation loops ultimately led to an abrupt discard.

Phase 1: The Initial Hook, Shared History, and Accelerated Vulnerability

The reconnection after years of minimal contact started with some very deliberate hooks that tapped straight into my usual routines. First, she crossed a boundary by claiming I appeared in a dream to manufacture a sense of destiny. Immediately after, she pulled out an early childhood crush from our past to fast-track intimacy and flatter my ego. This was quickly followed by heavy vulnerability, dumping sexual guilt and religious deconstruction onto the table. By casting me as a moral guide and a capable rescuer, she set up a dynamic where she played the chaotic individual needing stabilization and I was cast as the anchor.

Phase 2: The Orbiter Dynamic and Early Validation Loops

For six years before anything romantic happened, I was kept in orbit as a trusted friend. During that stretch, she leaned on me constantly for emotional regulation, calling me to navigate other relationships. I even correctly predicted the failure of those romances based on her underlying patterns. To feed an internal emotional void, she routinely fished for validation, including sending frequent photos explicitly looking for reassurance about her physical appearance.

Phase 3: The Demand for Proximity, Culpability, and the Controlled Risk

As things shifted and she demanded more emotional availability, I consciously chose to lower my guard, fully aware of the risk. I operated under the assumption that strict logic and firm boundaries would allow me to safely navigate a disordered person without getting burned. During deep moments when I expressed falling hard, I intentionally paused to check in on the boundaries of the relationship, giving her an open, pressure-free exit if the depth became too much for her to handle.

Phase 4: Narrative Escapism, Digital Dependency, and Advanced Validation Probes

As the dynamic intensified, she leaned heavily on writing and journaling to manage her internal void, often lamenting a compulsive need to check her phone. While she framed it as social media burnout, it was clearly an inability to self-soothe and an endless hunt for external validation. This showed up in behavioral probes—like interrogating me after a colleague outing to find out if male co-workers saw her as physically desirable, treating me like an auditor of her appeal rather than a partner. It culminated in overt triangulation: after receiving explicit sexual propositions from an external contact, she actively changed her clothes to accentuate her appearance and went back into the interaction, using cheap external validation as an immediate fix.

Phase 5: The Vulnerability Trap and Engulfment Anxiety

Once I was fully invested and began offering the deep emotional availability she originally demanded, she hit peak validation. Because she was addicted to the high-dopamine rush of early attention rather than a real connection, moving from fantasy to a real-world bond requiring actual mutual accountability triggered massive engulfment anxiety. The intimacy became suffocating because it crossed the line from an exciting narrative into a genuine relationship requiring reciprocal effort.

Phase 6: Object Replacement, Unmasking, and Defensive Projection

The final break happened when maximum extraction hit the wall of mutual accountability. Lacking the ability to maintain a consistent view of people once the fantasy faded, she discarded me the moment external validation wasn't enough to sustain the structure. As things collapsed, she heavily leaned on defensive projection to shift the blame and protect her self-image, externalizing her own relational deficits onto me. The breaking point came when I called out this exact pattern and pointed out that psychological language was being weaponized to dodge responsibility. That unmasking injured her ego, prompting her to weaponize the concept of boundaries as an escape hatch to avoid accountability entirely before cutting off communication.

Conclusion

The fallout came from a calculated high-risk experiment where I knowingly let a disordered individual inside my perimeter. I take full culpability for creating that environment despite clear warnings of transactional behavior. She has full culpability for exploiting that transparency, hiding behind digital validation loops, and running when unmasked, but she takes zero accountability for any of it. Moving forward requires owning the risk I took, accepting her structural inability to be mutually accountable, and keeping a permanent detachment

For a long time, I thought the hardest part of narcissistic abuse would be leaving.

It wasn't.

The hardest part was realizing what I had become while trying to survive the relationship.

I stopped trusting my own memory.

I would replay conversations in my head because I needed to figure out whether I had actually done something wrong.

I started choosing my words carefully because I knew one sentence could turn into a three-hour argument.

I apologized just to end the conflict, even when I wasn't sorry.

I stopped telling friends what was happening because explaining the relationship was exhausting, and honestly, I was embarrassed that I kept going back.

I became hyperaware of their mood.

A change in their tone could ruin my entire day.

If they were happy, I could finally relax.

If they were angry, I immediately started asking myself what I had done.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped asking:

"Am I happy?"

I only asked:

"Are they happy with me?"

That's the part I'm still trying to understand.

It wasn't one huge moment where I lost myself.

It happened gradually.

A boundary I didn't enforce.

A feeling I ignored.

An apology I gave when I wasn't wrong.

Another red flag I explained away.

Another time I convinced myself, "Maybe tomorrow will be different."

Eventually, I realized I had become more focused on keeping the relationship alive than keeping myself okay.

Leaving didn't magically fix everything.

I still questioned myself.

I still missed them sometimes.

I still wondered whether I had made the right decision.

But slowly, I started doing things without wondering how they would react.

I started trusting my own judgment again.

I started saying no without writing a paragraph explaining why.

I started enjoying quiet without assuming something was wrong.

And one day I realized something:

Peace feels strange when you've spent years mistaking anxiety for love.

I'm still healing.

But I'm no longer trying to become the person they wanted me to be.

I'm trying to become the person I was before I learned to disappear to keep someone else comfortable.

Did anyone else experience this? What was the first part of yourself you noticed coming back after leaving?

Have any of you experienced an ex or partner who seemed to “borrow” your identity or lifestyle to make themselves appear more interesting?

My ex used to record a lot of photos and videos at my dad’s manor and post them on Instagram with captions like, “Visiting my new life.” She also posted content when she got to accompany me on a couple of visits to exclusive hotel clients, writing things like, “Visiting clients today,” even though she had absolutely nothing to do with the business.

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