I know he's an addict..is he a narcissist too?

[Wiish]

Ok..so tell me if this is a narcissist...I know he is an alcoholic and drug addict, but now wondering about the N word.  Husband of 2 weeks short of 20 years has taken off...dust in the wind...wants a divorce and of course it is my job to handle the logistics of getting this done AND try to make sense of a life turned upside down.

Here's the story..man, where do I start...well, first of all he didn't have the balls to tell me himself.  My recovering husband has apparently not been recovering for quite sometime and doing a bang-up job of keeping me happily oblivious.  He's been working (carpet installing) with this woman who is uglier than homemade sin..seriously...this is not bitter ex-wide talking, this is wife who saw this woman and while I didn't like him working with her, considered about as much of a threat as I would Janet Reno. So...to move ahead, one weekend he says he wants to go to an AA retreat...now this is the first AA retreat he has wanted to go to in almost ten years and I was pretty happy about it.  Thinking he really wants to reconnect with AA...what wife of a recovering drunk is going to say no to that.  He calls from the "retreat" says how much he misses me and loves me...that he is glad that he got there early because he found a good bed before they were all taken.  Comes home, all love and kisses (but no sex..we'll get to THAT in awhile) but very tired and complaining that his back hurt from that lumpy mattress at the retreat.  Well..you know where this is going...but, man..how we GOT there.  The following day he takes this woman over to our son's house after work to tell my son (who, I found out my husband has been drinking and getting high with for over a year....my son who my husband made to go treatment and threw out of the house for those very same reasons...) that he is leaving mommy and going to live with this woman.  I don't know if he was so arrogant that he thought that my son wouldn't tell me or that he thought that my son was his party buddy and they had a loyalty that transcended any sort of respect for mommy.  So....the following Day my 21 year old son came over to our house..hemmed and hawwed a bit..I could see something was on his mind, but didn't give it any thought.  He left to go home and I carried on with my day...all of a sudden there are cars pulling into the drive..my sister, my nephew, my neice, my son....clearly something was wrong.  They came in and said I had to sit down.  I thought..my dad died, my son's in trouble....my brain didn't go to anyplace else.  My sister says, Danny has something he needs to tell you and he doesn't know how to say it....last weekend when Tom said he was at the AA retreat, he was in Minneapolis with Sheri.  He plans to leave you and go be with her.  I won't get into all the changes my head went through at that point casue I don't have the steam to keep writing any more really...but I am sure you know how the next few days, weeks went.  And the TRULY bizarre part of this chapter of the saga is that when I confronted ny husband with this information, he was actually ANGRY at my son for narc-ing him out.  Sat there and said that the kid owed him an apology.  So, that is phase one of this story...my best friend told me about this site and suggested I post on here and get some insight from you all...There's more, but I have to take a break from it for now...thanks

[Andrea]

Oh my GOD!

I wouldn't even know what to do. Well...first off at least you know now. And your family cared enough to have a group sit down with you. (Sounds like good people!)

2nd, if your husband is really deep in drinking and drugs, and you're not, isn't it kind of a relief to be rid of him? If he doesn't want to change, you can't make him. Sounds like he found himself a "partying buddy" in this woman. They probably go out, getting all messed up, and go home and pass out together if they're hardcore partiers.

I don't know if this guy is a narcissist, but having an alcoholic family myself, they SURE know how to blame others for their mistakes. They'll point fingers and hate anyone to get in their way of doing their thing.

But it sounds like he just "announced his leaving you" and you should just pick up the pieces and file for divorce? I wouldn't make it too easy for him!

I'm getting mad hearing about how all these people out there poop on people and expect you to just take it and deal with it. We're the ones who lose sleep, don't eat, cry and see therapists while they go on their merry little way to fulfill their pleasures.

Keep writing here though, you'll get valuable advice!
Good luck...and hang in there!

[Stormchild]

((((((((((Wiish))))))))))

I'm so sorry.....

A lot of Ns do have addiction problems but active addiction will make almost anybody act like an N, so it's hard to tell what they really are, when they are using.

I'm glad your son had the guts to go to family and make sure you were told what was happening.

Wow, I am so sorry.

hugs

[bunny]

He sounds like a narcissist. Totally selfish, check. Liar, check. No empathy, check. Deceitful and disloyal, check. Manipulative, check. Always blames others, check. Thinks he's entitled to do whatever the hell he wants, check. I could go on....

You may be far better off without this addict. However he may well try to come back. That's when you'll really have trouble.

bunny

[Anonymous]

I really appreciate your input. Andrea, the thing is if I don't take care of things they won't get done and at this point he has agreed  to quit claim the house to me (and the debt, of course) and I am doing what I have to do to cover my butt financially.  He was really good about bringing money over for the first couple of weeks, but we are headed into the third week of April and so far not a dime.  He does, however, have money to party and to get himself the tattoo he has longed for for years. He is on a spree doing everything that he has wanted to do that I have stood in the way of.  He's coming over on Tuesday to take our kid bowling and I am seriously concerned about him wanting to be good-time dad with our son and partying with this younger one too.  I told him a couple of weeks ago that our younger son really misses him and needs to see him..his response was that he "can't be in two places at once."  When I told him that Drew was having a really hard time with this and was smoking pot, his response was,"oh, he's been doing that for a long time...everybody parties." Completely oblivious to any parental responsibility.  I know I have absolutely no control over him and what he does once they are out of my sight (clearly) but I guess if that were to happen, I would have to just call the cops and have him nailed for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  

There are other facets of this that make me think of him being narcissistic after listening to my friend who posts on this board.  Even before all this happened, we would be talking on the phone and I would be thinking how there were a lot of similarities about what she was telling me about her situation and my situation.  

In our marriage, I learned to shut up about things.  Not about the drinking..that was one thing that after ten years of living with him as an active drunk, I couldn't take anymore and I do believe that for a time, he was sincere in his desire to be sober.  The biggest example of me having to shut up I would say would be regarding sex.  Never, in our twenty years of marriage and even before was there a time when sex was not something I had to ask for, negotiate for and more often than not get turned down.  I have always been overweight, but at the time we got together I had been holding my own on a 70 pound weight loss for close to ten years.  When we first got together it seemed a little weird to me that he didn't seem particularly interested in sex.  I knew from talking to his ex wife that this was a problem in their marriage too, but I was young and in love and figured that this had to do with HER.  She responded to it by cheating which is something I wouldn't do. So...here we are in our fisrt year of marriage and things were pretty sparse in the bedroom.  And I started eating...over the whole 20 years, I ended up gaining close to 80 pounds and then with that came this sense of not being deserving of his attention.  I would go to take a shower and stand in front of the mirror and berate myself and say,"of course he doesn't want to sleep with you, you're gross" although he would assure me that that had nothing to do with it and if I looked like Marilyn Monroe it would be the same way.  Thing is that he KNEW how much this hurt me, but he would never do anything about it.  As time went on and nothing changed, I tried to accept it and keep my mouth shut and just not broach the subject, but you know after a couple of months it's hard to not say something..so I would ask with great trepidation, "would you like to have a date?"  Never could be spontaneous..always had to make an appointment..nine times out of ten, I'd get a "We'll see how I feel later..." lol..now that's a real ego booster...
Then he would ask me "what's wrong" and if I said anything..you know..like speak the truth which he KNEW already, he would get all moody and start saying what a bad husband he was and then I would be the one convincing him that he was a good husband and we would just have to work on this.  I had to go on medication for depression and somehow I had to make HIM feel better about that.  There was never any discussion about what I was depressed about..he knew damned well what I was depressed about, but I couldn't say it because if I did it would be turned around so that I ended up assuring him that it wasn't anything he was doing.  If the doc had to increase my meds, we would go through the same dance...He knew he was hurting me and knew what he needed to do to fix it, but there was alwys something more important to him than being with me..be it football or...heck..whatever...if he worked hard all day, if he was mad at someone about something (frequently mad at SOMEONE), if the COwboys lost a game....there was always a reason to put me off.

So...that's another brick in the wall and I am tired of writing about it, but it feels good to vent and I appreciate your insight, Stormchild and Andrea.

[Andrea]

Ok Wish...now we have something in common.

My ex is an N also and we had the same trouble in the bedroom-big time. I'm a tall girl, maybe a little chubby, but have nice legs, I've got a great face, nice styled hair, always wear makeup, perfume, dress nice.

But my ex also never really wanted sex. He always said it may be my "weight" and if I lost it it may help. I lost 15 lbs in 3 weeks. Things didn't change. He would threaten me and tell me how all these other girls wanted him and I needed to hurry up!

Sex was a "reward" for me. If I was being a "good girl" we would do it. But I had to get on top. I was never allowed to initiate sex. And he never was able to finish, but told me that every other girl he was with he could. (He ended up masturbating, or would masturbate alone.)

He never kissed me, hugged me, barely touched my body ever. I felt like a fat freak. I did the same thing, stood in the bathroom and said, "you fat-ass! Lose weight and then he'll LOVE you."

He started getting violent with me during sex. I started to think I deserved it. He would bite me, hit me, slap me, and I think now it was out of sexual frustration, but either point, he HURT ME.

I finally reported him to the police, but he told them I liked rough sex, we always did that, and he's "Not violent" and not a "Big drinker".  yeah, right. I started drinking more from the situation then.

My self-esteem was shot, still is. I feel A-sexual now. Like I don't want ANYONE touching me or kissing me. I'm scared to get involved with a man. He took my self-confidence away about sex. (And I never had complaints before with men!)

We never had foreplay. He always had to be drunk. Then he started getting stupid and wanted me to have 3-somes and maybe that would help? Or have sex with his friend? Or have people watch us? He always wanted to up the ante. It was bullcrap.

Now that he's gone I have gone out with my girlfriends. I've met several guys and they ASKED me for my phone number. I'm remembering who I was and that I'm not some awful looking girl. (i'm not ready to date, but it's a compliment)

Oh, and by the way, I saw some of his ex-girlfirends. NONE of them are very cute. They're all messed up, cokeheads, drunks, strippers...but that's what gets him off I guess. And I have a good job, morals, never been married and no kids...I guess I'm not enough of a loser to "excite" him.

But hey, It's not my tree to sit in anymore, but the sucker's going down.
 

[Wiish]

Well, the funny thing about all this is that since he has left I've lost 30 pounds....that's two to three weeks of not being able to swallow food unless someone was standing over me making it do it and now I am able to manage eating, but ...who knows...

I will say that my husband never verbalized anything about my weight.  If anything, he was really nonjudgmental about it and always supportive of whatever I wanted to do relative to that, whether it was to be a weightwatcher zealot or an eating machine. I took his lack of interest and internalized it and beat myself up with it.  

I'm not particularly pretty.....average at best...short little fat lady...I don't know what I am going to do about realtionships in the future.  At this point, it is something I think of mostly in terms of just having someone to communicate with, but the idea of having sex with someone other than my husband seems pretty foreign at this time.  I have virtually no self-esteem at this point. I can't imagine anyone ever wanting me. If you could see the woman that he "left me for" you would know why.  A good foot taller than him and not an attractive thing about her.  Imagine an unattractive woman who is big and ox-y enough to haul rolls of carpet.  I have maintained since this happened that he didn't leave me for her, but for the right to party and do all the things I stood in the way of.  He looked me dead in the eye and said "I love you, but I am not in love with you anymore...I love Sheri."  That really kicked my ass because I never saw her as a threat or saw any of this coming...so I look at her and think I must be horrible if he would want to be with her instead of me.  He told me that he married a fun girl who would party with him, but who has turned into this straight-laced church lady.  He seems to forget that I spent the first ten years of our marriage dealing with his active drinking and drugging and that can kind of take the fun out of going to the bars.  Also, there was that small matter of two children to raise and as you grow up, your priorities change.  

This week I found out though that while he was installing carpet at our neighbor's house last year, a bottle of oxycontin went missing.  And I found out that the last time I took our oldest son to the doctor for an ear infection, my husband went over to his house to "check on him."  I'm thinking he is being a good dad...found out this week that when he got to my son's house he asked if they had given him anything for pain and if he could have some.  So now I am seeing things clearer and beating myself up less becasue now I know that he didn't leave me for that ox, he left me for drugs and alcohol and in his sick mind he would rather admit to cheating than admit to his disease.  So..he is a liar and a cheat and a thief and I think it was getting too hard for him to keep up with the lies anymore.

What Bunny pasted sort of hit home with me too...especially the selfishness thing.  He wants what he wants when he wants it and anyone who stands in the way be damned.  Time spent with his children has always been at his convenience.  If he spent time with them it was doing something that interested HIM..not their stuff.  My yougest son (15) has talked about this with me.  Both kids have really opened up about their perception of their relationship with their dad and it is coming to light that they have felt as dismissed as I have.

[Andrea]

From the sound of things, maybe deep down he felt a little guilty and knew he was doing wrong and he was hurting all of you.

 He has this other non-judgemental "ox" who will let him do his thing and does it with him! He is probably calling it "love" with Sheri when it's really just drugs and booze they have in common. It will last as long as their most recent "high". But he can slum and bum and drink and smoke and she probably doesn't expect much out of him.

Your kids need you and he sounds like a terrible role model. Kids aren't dumb. They probably caught on a long time ago. They may be harboring anger towards him for a long time. No one likes being on a emotional roller coaster. Who can you depend on?

And don't worry about meeting someone new! I can't bear to think about sex anytime soon either. The plan is to get myself and my life back together! I think a lot of us on here are trying to do that. One day at a time. That's as far as I can go right now....

[October]

And the TRULY bizarre part of this chapter of the saga is that when I confronted ny husband with this information, he was actually ANGRY at my son for narc-ing him out.  Sat there and said that the kid owed him an apology.  

This man sounds like a nasty piece of work.  The tactic of deflection that he is using here is certainly one my Nmum uses a lot, whenever anyone gets close to telling her the truth about pretty well anything.  Unless you can understand what they are doing it is very effective at shifting blame onto an innocent party.  I dare say there are few of us here who have not had this happen to us, and stood there wondering how on earth we got from being hurt to being the baddie.  

My alcoholic husband also used this tactic, and still does, to portray me as the wicked woman who drove him to drink, and to absolve himself of any responsibility whatever.  Very nasty.

I am sorry you are in this situation, wiish.

[vunil as guest]

Wiish!  And Andrea!

I am so sorry you had such terrible husbands.  And I'm really glad for you that they are gone.  WOW.  Just awful.

Wiish, your husband sounds like he is twelve years old.  I guess addiction leads to that.  But a lot of N's use alcohol and other drugs to keep them feeling superiour, and I agree with Bunny he seems to be an N and an addict.

I love that you are taking care of things-- get a really good lawyer.  It's going to be a bumpy ride, I am betting, having watched these super-great husbands turn into truly-super-great exhusbands (sarcasm....).  He probably will try to get out of paying anything he owes.  Your lawyer can help you figure out how to get as much out of him upfront as possible so you don't spend the rest of your days chasing him around.  I have seen a lot of women end up weirdly tied to these guys through their anger at them-- yuck!  If you are looking for a check every month that doesn't come, every month is another chance to want to throttle him.  I mean, I don't even know him and I very very much want to throttle him right now




Does it sound like a dismissive cliche to say you are better off without him?  I don't mean it dismissively at all-- I just see how articulate and funny and smart you are, and how insightful, and I contrast that with Mr. Tell the Son about the Affair While Drunk and it seems clear that better things are ahead for you without him.

please keep posting--

Vunil

[vunil as guest]

PS It's clear your family really loves you and wanted to protect you-- that is something wonderful to hold onto.  
PPS  Please please can I at least kick this man in the shins?  Just once?

[Anonymous]

Vunil,
The shins? And once? No, no, no.
I would recommend aiming, depending on his height, about two to three feet higher and repeating the treatment as necessary.

Sorry you all have had so many problems with my sex. Pretty hard living down being a man sometimes.  

mudpuppy

PS. Vunil I have some large heavy boots you can borrow.

[Wiish]

And then, just when I am feeling the teeniest bit empowered....argh....todya was my first day at my new job..shoved as much of the turmoil as I could to the back of my head and di pretty fine all day.  Then I came home and the house was empty and I wanted to tell my husband about the job..you know..talk, so I called him which was DUMB when I am in that frame of mind.  Told him I missed him....his response?  "Cool."  He wasn't even listening to my pain he is so far into his crap...it's just very hard when you are used to having someone to talk to for 20 years to come home to an empty house.  Sometimes it's harder than others.  Sometimes I can fake it through and some times I am sincerely strong.  Most of the time I'm faking it.

[vunil as guest]

Wriite-- I have these same feelings about my family-- I sometimes call them even though I know I shouldn't and I am inevitably disappointed.

I just did that, actually, in a moment of weakness, and I really regret it.  I think the key (and I am trying to remember that!) is to try to call other people instead, people I know will be there for me, supportive, loving, straight-forward, etc.  It's important not to be vulnerable with an N person, because they will never be good in those moments (or if they are it is not something to rely on-- soon will come the hatchet!).  

So, I know you are having a rough night, but please feel free to reach out to us, and to other people who will be there for you.  And don't worry one second about your phone call.  You wish he was a nice person because you are and you deserve one.  That's fine!  

Hang in there  Hugs to you.  You poor thing-- we are all sending positive feelings your way.

[Stormchild]

PS. Vunil I have some large heavy boots you can borrow.

STEEL TOES!!!

STEEL TOES!!!