Coparenting with a Narcissist: Part 1

This story is for my daughter, whom I hope will understand.

It’s been over seven years since I left my abusive ex boyfriend and I feel like the abuse continues just in a different way and I don’t know how much more I can take.

I dated the guy, let’s call him “Guy”, for a year and a half. Tops. Most of that time was miserable. We started dating very shortly after I had left my husband and was not even close to having recovered from that. I had changed my expectations after leaving my husband. I decided I no longer needed “Mr. Right”, just “Mr. Good Enough”. So I was never in love with Guy. I was mostly thinking “hey, we get along well enough, he helps me with my son, he’s okay”. One of the biggest mistakes I made in my assessment of his character was that he seemed really “laidback”. I later came to find out that he was and is the most controlling person I’ve ever known in my entire life. But I didn’t know what narcissists were then.

Guy was living rent free with his boss and his “rescue dog” when we first started dating. We bonded over a mutual dislike for our exes- he had been in a long term relationship with my husbands sister. I didn’t really question why he was living on his bosses couch when he clearly could easily afford his own place. It occurred to me as strange, but I didn’t pry.

Because I had a young son on my own and was paying all the bills- I wasn’t averse to help from Guy. I realize now that this was my biggest mistake. I assumed that since I had known Guy casually for a few years prior- that I really knew him. I was wrong. Guy put on an excellent facade for everyone but the people closest to him in his life.

I allowed Guy to move in with me and my son after maybe four months of dating. The only warning signs that Guy wasn’t a good guy were that he didn’t seem to have any friends and that he was definitely abusing substances. Alcohol and pain medication. But I let this go because he was a functional addict. I also didn’t realize the extent of his drug abuse until he moved in. I looked at the drinking and pain pills as a “oh he’s just having some fun on the weekend thing”.

As soon as he moved into my two bedroom condo, he scheduled back surgery. He went to great lengths to show me what was wrong with his back and why he needed surgery. I found that odd but again, just thought “okay he’s a little quirky”.

He showed me who he really was when I went to visit him at the hospital following his surgery. He was bitter, angry, hostile and extremely drugged. As a nurse myself- I was kind of shocked at how drugged he was. After some angry remarks that didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, I decided to not stay at the hospital for very long and went home, confused.

I tried to think “okay so he’s drugged and vulnerable”, that’s normal, right? Well yes I guess it was normal for him. He left the hospital the next day- with a cache of pain medication that made him seem like he was planning to open up his own pain clinic. He had every kind of pain medication imaginable. And in large quantities. Again, as a nurse, I was shocked. I’ve had surgery and given birth- the most I’ve gotten was a few Vicodins for a couple days.

Guy had everything. Percocet, Vicodin, ocycontin. And more that I don’t even know the names of. He hid the painkillers in the bedroom from everyone and proceeded to basically camp out in a reclining chair in the living room for the next two weeks while he took copious amounts of drugs and drank too. And he expected to be waited on. And he wasn’t very polite about it either. This is when I started to have serious doubts about the situation.

After he “recovered”- he seemed more the way he was initially again. He liked to shop, go out to eat fancy food and generally hang around very expensive places. He and I never had any meaningful conversations. I tried. He wasn’t interested in current events, politics, philosophy- none of that. Our conversations were almost small talk. He could be funny at times though.

After a while, I started to notice that he would have temper tantrums. Sometimes he would refuse to speak to me for something I said or did and I wouldn’t even know what the cause was. He hated that I worked full time. He often demanded that I spend less time at work. He also hated that I liked to rest on Sundays (my only day off). The list of things he hated about me seemed to grow and grow daily. He hated my friends. He hated my clothes. He started telling me how to dress and what kind of makeup to wear. He stopped cleaning at all. He would make a mess and then leave for me to clean up.

He started faking seizures. I actually believed he was having a seizure during an argument and called an ambulance. He made an instantaneous and remarkable recovery the moment the emergency personnel arrived. He never pretended to have a seizure again.

It seemed like he was going picking at me about everything. Nothing I did was right. I stopped talking to him and then he would criticize my eyebrow plucking. Things were very tense. All the time.

Throughout this decay of the “relationship”, I was under the mistaken impression that he and my son had formed a significant bond and that it would be wrong for me to break up with him. That I should try and stick it out for my son.

I never met Guy’s mother, but I spoke with her regularly. She was in an assisted living home in Georgia and it sounded as if she was terminally ill. I begged Guy to go and visit her. I said I would take time off work, I would even pay for the flight. He didn’t want to. I was flabbergasted but the way he blew it off- I thought “maybe he’s right? Maybe it’s not as bad as she says?”

Then I got pregnant. Guy was not happy. Not happy at all. He was very annoyed at the “inconvenience” and questioned whether or not I was “making it up”. At this point, I was feeling confused about his behavior towards me but I didn’t know it was abusive because he had only hit me one time.

During that short pregnancy, I couldn’t sleep but I was exhausted. I was excited about being pregnant but I couldn’t understand why Guy wasn’t. He and I had spoken early on in the relationship- I had said I wanted another child and he had said he wanted to become a parent.

After a month of pregnancy, I began to bleed and I knew it was over. I went to a gynecologist and brought Guy with me to confirm that I was no longer pregnant. The gynecologist called it a “chemical pregnancy” probably trying to make me feel better. He decided that meant that I had never been pregnant at all. And he told me, my family and anyone who would listen that I invented a pregnancy.

I was baffled and grieving. I couldn’t even think about why he was behaving this way. Also during this time, the way he treated me became more callous. We went to see a therapist together. The therapist ended up telling me that she wouldn’t see the two of us together and that I should come in on my own to deal with his abuse. I couldn’t process that at the time.

Whenever he was around, he was critical, mean, calling me names and insisting that I needed to be treated for my “extreme mental health condition”. I recognized that I needed mental health support- but I also realized that it was due the grief over the loss of the baby and the way he treated me. I voluntarily went into a psych unit for a few days. While I was there, a friend of mine sat me down and said “what are you doing here? There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t belong here”. And I realized she was right.

I was overworked, stressed out and in a bad relationship but I wasn’t in need of being institutionalized. I realized that I needed to make some changes in my life. I quit my stressful job first and decided that I would end the relationship with Guy as soon as I got home.

But that’s not what happened. Not exactly. I let Guy have sex with me one time while I was working up my nerve to end it. To Guy, ending the relationship was a negotiation. It wasn’t just my choice. He once again tried to convince me of my mental instability, but this time, I knew he was being manipulative. Because he was basically refusing to leave, I made him sleep in my sons bedroom while my son slept in my bedroom. I figured out that Guy was abusive when I saw him fake crying and I did an internet search on it and came out with “crocodile tears and other manipulations”. I flat out told Guy that he was abusive and I was done.

Guy agreed to live elsewhere for some time. During this time that he was gone, I began to have symptoms of pregnancy. It was unmistakable. I know my body. I knew I was pregnant again.

Guy had agreed to return and change his ways. I told him I might be pregnant. He didn’t seem affected one way or another. I took a test and it was positive. I told him and he was indifferent. I told his mother and she was thrilled.

Because of the pregnancy, I hoped that things with Guy could improve. That he might be more considerate and…nice. But he wasn’t. He became more cruel, more judgmental, more controlling, more critical. He was insulting me daily about literally every move I made. Why was I tired? Why would I get annoyed that he refused to clean up after himself? Why did I need to speak to my friends? He wanted to completely “manage” the pregnancy, while at the same time expressing that he believed that I was “faking it” again. Why did I care that he was leaving his firearms and shells around the condo with my 7 year old son?

He was telling me I should have an abortion. He was trying to get me to drink alcohol and take drugs. And he claimed he didn’t understand why that would upset me.

I had enough one evening. We were arguing and I got so angry that I yelled at him. I realized at this point that he needed to leave. I would sort the rest out later. He said that if I told him to leave, he would call the police and tell them that I need to be institutionalized. I said “go ahead and call, just get out of here”.

I called my mother right away, crying. I told her what had happened and what he had said. Five minutes later, the police were at my door demanding to know what was going on.

Turns out, he had planned the entire call ahead of time with a therapist who he had seen under my name. A therapist that had never met me. He asked her who to have someone institutionalized against their will. He said I was a danger to myself and the baby. And that’s what he told the police too. I explained to the police that I had just asked him to leave and that I was no threat to myself or others. They told me I should consider getting a restraining order against him. They said this was “a common ploy”.

My son witnessed most of this. And that was the reason that I refused to reconsider allowing Guy back into my life at that point. My son was clearly traumatized and so was I. I later found out from family members that he had been calling them for months without my knowledge and telling them I was so delusional that I was faking pregnancies.

Guy did not go quietly. He called me all day, every day. Sometimes insulting me, sometimes begging me to give him another chance. He emailed me, texted me, called all my friends and family. He was showing up at places that I frequented. I became scared of him. My gynecologist told me that for the health of the baby, I needed peace from this harassment.

I was exhausted but I ended up filing for a harassment restraining order. It was granted. He filed for his own but was denied. Probably because I wasn’t harassing him. He then challenged my order- dragging me back into court 5 months pregnant. I was so stressed out, afraid and traumatized, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to carry the baby to term.

I considered abortion. Almost everyone I knew told me to have one. But I refused to let Guy make the decision for me. I couldn’t end the life inside of me. I kept her. But I was afraid for the future. I was afraid of how Guy would come back and try to control and abuse me again. I hoped he wouldn’t. But I had a sense that he would.

The baby came an entire month early. It was a difficult pregnancy. Less than one month after delivery- I was served a summons that Guy wanted to split custody of the premature baby 50/50. He had never cared for a baby before, let alone a premature one.

Thus began the battle for my daughter. I wasn’t willing to let him have her on his own at first. She was breastfeeding and very fragile. I went to lawyer after lawyer, bringing the baby with me in freezing cold conditions.

More to come…