This is my experience being in a relationship with a narcissistic abuser.
Before I get into the story, please read my first post. In it, I state that I will not ever be using any real names or information that could potentially identify a person’s true identity.
Meeting the narcissist
It’s very common that narcissists meet their supply over the internet, such as on dating sites or even Facebook or Instagram. Why? Because it’s easy access to multiple women.
They’ll bait and bait until they catch one. A-ha! A new sucker that they siphon all of the life and joy from.
One thing that I learned in my recovery is that narcissists have a very short time frame to latch onto their prey.
They do this through a process called ‘love-bombing’ where they’ll send you gifts, bestow lots of attention onto you in a very short-period of time, and pressure into intimate relations as soon as possible.
For me, it was all of the above. How did I not see the red flags? I was naive. Very, very naive and young.
Now I’m acutely aware that love-bombing is extremely unhealthy and almost always leads to a very unhealthy relationship down the line.
The narcissist that I knew messaged me over Facebook. They liked a photo that I posted on my story, and for some reason I had this guy as a friend. I don’t remember adding him, but apparently at some point I did.
We began messaging and became friends.
In fact, we didn’t even begin to date officially until many months after meeting both online and offline many times, although there were serious red flags in the beginning that I overlooked.
One was that he would often had random outbursts of anger. The first time he did this to me, he was angry for some insignificant reason that I don’t even remember.
He texted me paragraphs of word-salads and slurs. I would just stare at my phone. “This guy is f*cking crazy,” I remember saying out loud to myself.
That should have been the end of our contact. But, of course me having no idea what was happening, it wasn’t.
He was normal most of the time thus far and I just chalked this episode up to having a bad day on his part.
A side note: if anybody abuses you, physically, emotionally, or verbally because they’re “having a bad day”, it’s still abuse. DO NOT put up with it for even one moment because IT WILL continue and that is their true character.
The first time we met, he wanted to meet at a hotel.
“Sure,” I thought, thinking we were going to sit in the hotel restaurant and chat. The sitting areas were pretty nice, and there was a snow blizzard outside making driving to different places not very feasible.
It seemed like an okay idea in my mind.
At first we met outside and talked for a little bit. All seemed normal except that he wanted to give me a kiss the second I came up to him.
“Um, no thanks,” I said, backing away.
So there we stood, chatting for a bit. It wasn’t really awkward, because again, we talked extensively prior to meeting and had some sort of bond established already.
It was winter time and decided to go inside. I was thinking we were going to sit in the nice dining area where people-meeting-for-the-first-time would gravitate to.
But nope. He wanted to go straight to his hotel room. I was extremely uncomfortable and politely protested, but he managed to persist and manipulate me enough for me to give in.
After all, he drove all this way…
Once inside, I kept the door unlocked and sat on the couch far enough away from him to indicate that I WAS NOT looking to have any physical contact whatsoever.
My phone was in my hand the entire time, fidgeting out of nerves.
He didn’t give me the vibe that he wanted to hurt me. He didn’t ask any intrusive questions that could indicate he was actually a creepy-stalker.
He seemed to want physical contact, and not only want, but expected it from me.
He kept trying to move closer, sitting beside me, and putting his arm around me.
Although whenever he came close, I would back away.
He tried to kiss me, and I said not now.
I would talk about different topics, trying to catch his interest on one of them so that we could actually get to know each other on a deeper level.
And he kept trying to hug or kiss me. And trying. And trying. Over and over. I told him I didn’t want to do anything physical and instead just talk to get to know each other better.
But then he would try 5 minutes later. And try, and try.
What about all of the time we talked over video chat? We had good conversations back then. I was really confused and didn’t know what to do.
Was I supposed to just leave? He came all this way to visit me. (Looking back, YES I had every right to leave. You SHOULD leave in these situations).
And he kept trying and trying to kiss me until I was exhausted and just gave in.
It didn’t feel good. I hated it. I deluded myself into feeling good about it.
“Is it really that bad? He just wanted to kiss. Maybe he was just really happy to see me..”
I never had s*x with him. Not on that night, nor for the entire time I had known him.
But he did pressure me heavily into physical contact over the course of our time being together, and as much as he could get.
It was a pattern of behavior for him. He expected me to give him whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
Of course he wanted s*x. He would pressure me for that too. That was one thing I adamantly protested.
He didn’t care that I wanted to wait until marriage. He would pretend to accept that fact I didn’t want it, and then ask again shortly after.
And during the time we actually had a relationship, he would become angry when I wasn’t giving him what he wanted or would continue to coerce and pressure me heavily into touching him.
My opinion on anything never meant anything to him, other than the fact it was just an annoyance for him to deal with and yet another excuse for him to rage out at me for.
So that was our initial time together. You might be wondering why I didn’t get up and walk out.
We had talked as friends for months prior over text and would video call often. Our conversations weren’t sexual in nature beforehand, so I didn’t know what to do after we met in-person and it turned out to be completely different.
There were many, many instances where we had good, normal conversations and he seemed like a pretty good person.
He was cordial, polite, and wasn’t angry when I did meet him in-person. He pretended to care about my feelings by saying he did. His actions never matched with his words.
Also, I experienced a lot of abusive relationships in my teenage years with different boyfriends. It was normal at that point in my life for somebody to just force or manipulate their will onto me and I didn’t recognize it as abuse at those ages.
Boys just use women for s*x right? If I want to be married, I have to do what they want or they’ll just dump me and I’ll always be alone…
Of course at this stage in my life I don’t deal with any type of disrespect, much less as bad as this was. As I’m writing this I don’t allow any form of abuse in my life whatsoever.
I learned to have self-respect and own my own life. I’m not scared of being alone.
I learned to recognize the patterns of a healthy relationship and have gotten lots of guidance from mentors who have been in similar life situations as me.
I’m very happy with my current life, enjoy my friends and family, and have a wonderful spouse who has respected and supported me every step of the way.
So… see any red flags yet?
—
By the way, for those who are victims in situations similar to mine, it’s not your fault the narcissist chooses to abuse you. You shouldn’t be abused, period.
Nobody deserves to be forced, manipulated, or coerced into doing something they don’t want to do.
That being said, PLEASE recognize the signs of abuse and escape as fast as you can.
I was dumb. Really, really dumb and it could have turned out much worse than I could have imagined.
Do not follow anything I did when meeting with this abuser.
It was completely wrong of me to not stay in a public area. Yes, I was manipulated and coerced heavily, although I need to warn others that it could be very dangerous. Please do not do what I did!
