Life with a narc/P addict

Possible triggers

Sometimes we hold on to people for far longer than we should. We don't want to believe that the person we've given our entire heart to is hell bent on destroying it. We don't want to believe that anyone ever loves us less than we love them. We stay, trying to justify every hurtful word we have learned to embrace. We try to see things differently. We change. We become a person we don't even recognize anymore, inside and out. By the time this happens we've already lost oursleves. We're already gone. The person we were before, so full of naive hope and love is long gone. They'll probably never come back. When you put so much hope and trust into another person and they betray that it really does kill parts of your soul.

They will never take responsibility for anything in your relationship. Every time they hurt you it's going to be your fault. Every time they screw up it will be your fault. You try to walk on eggshells and be the best person you can possibly be and it's never enough. No matter how good you are to them they will betray you, and you're to blame.

All of the sudden anything you experience in life will fall under the category "your bullshit". Having a hard day? He doesn't need your bullshit. A family member is in the hospital? Please don't bother him with your bullshit. Got preganant and he'd feel too guilty because of his 17 year old daughter so you have to have an abortion? Enough of your bullshit. Don't you know by now he is the only person on earth who has any legitimate stress? He has enough on his plate with his regular clock in job, he doesn't need your drama.

Pretty soon you just stop talking. Big changes happen and you keep them to yourself. You start to feel suicidal but don't dare bother him with that drama. You're grieving the baby you felt forced to kill and are reminded of him every time your eyes meet the bathroom floor. You bottle everything up and try to pretend you're ok. Anything to make his life easier. You listen to him complain about work and offer whole hearted advice when he vents to you about family issues. He'll use this against you however. He'll blame the disconnect in your relationship on the fact that you don't talk to him about what troubles you. That you don't introduce him to the monsters that keep you up all night.

Once you're here the real fun begins. He'll keep doing the same thing over and over and expect no reaction out of you. Like you'll just become accustomed and ok with the betrayal at some point. Why can't you hurry up and be ok with it? He'll be so angry with you for being hurt and wanting to protect yourself that he'll raise a hand to you during an argument. He will fuck up over and over again. And he won't feel the least bit sorry. He'll only be angry at you for somehow knowing. Like you're some kind of piece of shit for not being stupid. He'll tell you how miserable you make him, how you're ruining his life, how he resents you. All because for the first time in his selfisg life he is being held accountable and seeing first hand that he is responsible for his actions and the subsequent consequences of those actions whether he likes it or not. Welcome to adulthood babe.

Your sex life is going to suck. He will deny his ED is P related until he is blue in the face. Testosterone levels will come back normal and in a healthy range. He has no physical issues that can be responsible for his problem. At least that's what his Dr. will say. But in his mind this can't be true. It's a physical problem and it has nothing to do with the 4+ hours of porn he's been watching literally every day for over 30 years. No way. That just can't be possible. He will have no problem getting and maintaining an erection by himself, just him and his phone screen, but in order to be with you he has to take a pill. And even that hardly ever works. It must be the extra weight, the stretch marks, or the pores on your skin. It must be you turning him off. No man alive wants to be with a woman who looks so horrible. Attractive women don't have flaws. Their skin is smooth and poreless, no hair anywhere, and god forbid she have a wrinkle or scar. After all the 18 year old girs he spends all his time watching are just a special breed of human. They look aurbrushed in real life too. If you don't you're just grotesc.

Cue your self esteem issues. You never minded your chest before and were quite happy with your size and shape. But he never looks at them, let alone touches them. Obviously there's something wrong with them. He enjoyed the gifs of teens flashing he was getting on FB messenger so you know he is excited by it, just not by you. You start saving for surgery. Even when you loved your body you were still too fat for him. His bookmarks taught you he only cares for 80lb teens and hundreds of them don't lie. Now you have an eating disorder and feel horrible about the body you once appreciated. You understand why now. And for some god awful reason you still want nothing more than to please him. He will take no responsibility for you feeling this way. It's all in your head, you were fucked up before he met you. Despite being a lights on kind of girl with all your past partners. It has nothing to do with him or the fact that he chose P instead of you for the first 6 months of your relationship. Only being intimate with you 3×. Nothing to do with all of the magazine's and videos you have found in the year since he promised he was done. You'll never forget the day he asked you to take your shirt off during the act and he immediately went soft and took his tablet in the bathroom. That memory will go to bed with you every time and he'll never, in a whole years time, ask you to do that again.

***I just needed to vent my feelings and perspective in all of this. It's frustrating not being heard at home. If any of this sounds like you I hope it can help you see the changes that need to be made. On either side.

 

I'm really glad you gained something from it. I had so much more but it was so long already. I know I can't be the only female going through these issues. I can't be the only one so deeply wounded.
I'm not angry. In the beginning I was fuming. But you hurt someone enough in the same way they run out of steam. After a while that seething anger is just a deep rooted hurt. It quite literally radiates from my heart to the tips of my fingers. It's an indescribable sensation that I've come to learn means another piece of my soul has died.
I wish the PA could see, FEEL, just a fraction of what this addiction does to the woman they claim to love. Over time it becomes more about the lying than it does the actual act, we beg and plead for honesty and never get it.
I told mine
"I never expected you to be perfect, and I wouldn't deserve you if you were. But I will always expect you to be honest. I deserve that at least"
The PA gets so caught up they forget that without honesty you have no foundation on which to build. Even if it's going to break her heart, tear her apart, if you know she will distance herself from you again....tell her. You regain trust by being honest when it's difficult to be.