Reply to Can a narcissist ever stay married and be a good enough spouse?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was with a covert malignant narcissist for almost 18 months. Mask dropped after about 9 months. It was the triangulation and belittling that I could not continue with. It slowly eroded me and the cognitive dissonance meant my poor system was in flight/flight for too long. I ended up physically sick and I have held down stressful senior jobs across countries so I thought I would be ok. I wasn’t. The physical toll can be high as well as the mental & emotional stress. I left him and I am doing so much better. [/quote]

My spouse is a malignant covert narc as well. Everything done for purported altruism is actually done for validation purposes. Incredibly rude and hostile behind closed doors and full of constant digs. It is what it is and I grey rock. Not sure the plan.[/quote]

Yep I get it. I grey rocked for a while.  I then thought why am I doing this, a partner should add to my life not take away.  Then he hurt me emotionally big time as he upped the anti because I wasn’t giving him the antagonistic supply he craved. At that moment my love just drained away. Eyes opened. I had had enough. [/quote]

Regarding antagonistic supply, there is a lot of research about the challenge of differential diagnoses for certain presentations of personality disorders and AuDHD. Mine may or may not have all 3, and has only been diagnosed with 3, but it’s obvious that he was using dopamine-seeking behavior, including seeking out antagonistic interactions, as a maladaptive coping mechanism and/or self-medication. [/quote]

So true.
My audhd rager wakes up at 5am to do screen time or work or who knows and by 7am when everyone’s in the kitchen will strike up a yelling rage match every other week. Among other destabilizing juvenile behavior things.

He also avoids conversations about anything - spring break, his parents visiting, kids mental health issues - and will send 10 texts from the airport n his way out of town for a work trip. Half of them are just accusatory lunancy or rewriting of the narrative.[/quote]

You’re replying to me and it’s like we are married to the same person. Mine seems to use work travel for stimulation and has the same habit of crazy aggressive communication dumps right before a trip. And then once he’s on that plane it’s like the kids don’t exist again until his next visitation. I think he does it to try to get his adrenaline up so he can take a crash-out nap on long flights. In the old days when we lived in the same house he’d achieve the same effect by packing at the very last minute or getting to the airport with minutes to spare.

Avoiding conversations has made the divorce process really challenging for me to try to communicate about our kids. He’s enjoying it because he can finally withhold communication but say that he’s being “low conflict” and collect a little gold star from mommy attorney and mommy custody evaluator.[/quote]

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