Questioning your sanity and your own version of reality

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I was working at a clients house yesterday that used to be one of my ex’s clients. My SIL cleans for the lady and she started a conversation with me asking if I’d spoken to my ex lately. I told her I don’t see her and try not to have anything to do with her. She told me that SIL had asked why she had stopped coming into the salon and the client had replied to her that she could no longer handle the toxic atmosphere in the salon.

Now, a little while ago my ex had brought this lady up in a text conversation calling her rude expletive names. I asked her what she had done to her and she replied…well nothing.
The penny dropped and I realised yesterday that my SIL had obviously relayed the reason why she had stopped coming into the salon, so my ex’s outburst must have been in response to some sort of narcissistic injury.

As the conversation progressed with the client she asked me the question if I ever pondered if I was narcissistic as her own relationship had made her question the same.

I don’t think I am, I mean to the point of being a full blown narcissist. I think we all at times display narcissistic traits, I think sometimes perhaps we have to for our own survival, but it does raise the question. I would always want people to be straight with me, want to learn from my mistakes, and certainly be told if I’m being or acting in a narcissistic way.

I have been reading about DARVO which does make me question my own behaviour. My wife would regularly go on the attack about something, There would be regular periods of quiet before the storm, when everything used to seem fine then we would go to bed and in the early hours the attack on my character would start. I would try to answer her, give reasons why I would do, or not do certain things that she would bring up that was troubling her. Quite often it would be reasons that meant I would have to bring up her behaviour and reactions to things as to why I did or didn’t do something because of the way I had to constantly walk on eggshells around her. This would often result in my ex telling me not to be so defensive and that it isn’t an attack on me, although at the time it certainly seemed like it.

To give an example, as it was an often recurring one, she would ask me why I never made the effort to book a holiday. I would then reply in the following way. I don’t like to book a holiday because you have clients booked in for months in advance and you get stressed leaving the salon with someone else in charge. I also don’t like to ask people to look after the dogs and the children while we go away because they are our responsibility. I am also not that confident with that sort of thing. I’m happy to go away whenever you want to but it’s easier if you book it because I’ve no control over your work schedule or when your employees are there or not to look after the salon.

Just to add, my ex is a control freak and would always get stressed when we went away because her employees would constantly be on the phone to her about something. But I am also aware that this is in the realms of DARVO.

But the bigger thing that is making me question my reality is what happened 20 years ago. I’d caught her out going to meet her best friends at the time husband. They had split up and one day I was cleaning the car out and came across fuel receipts and car park tickets that didn’t add up, and when cross referencing them with messages that had been sent between us did not correspond with where she said she was at the time. So one night I checked her phone and found messages between her and her friends husband arranging meeting ‘At the usual place’
I confronted her and she denied anything happening, that they had just been meeting to talk about his marriage breakdown (anyone that has read my story will see the pattern here)
However, she did then start crying and admitted to sleeping with a completely different person. We split up for a few months.
We then got back together but to be honest my ex didn’t show the greatest amount of remorse, tried to dismiss it as meaningless and pretty much wanted me to bury it under the carpet and move on.

It ate away at me inside. I questioned a lot of things in our relationship, even down to whether our youngest son was mine or not. I had got quite close to someone during this time that listened to and could see what she had put me through and this developed into an emotional relationship that was starting to get out of hand and I could feel myself spiralling out of control.
My ex picked up on it, asked me outright  if something was going on, to which I denied up to the point when I could no longer handle feeling the way I did and explained everything to her, that I was developing feelings for someone but didn’t want to, that I wanted to sort my head  and our relationship out and get over it.

The thing is whenever my ex felt disregulated, or had some sort of problem, this event would be brought up with any conflict, over a decade later. I would tell her at that time I wasn’t in a good place mentally and I’m sorry it happened. I would tell her that it had taught me a lot, it had taught me that we all make mistakes. My remorse was never enough for her and would just end in a circular argument until I would retaliate by telling her that her actions had a domino effect and one thing led to another because of what she had done. This is where I question my reality as I am aware it is DARVO. I know that I initially denied it, I know that I flipped the script on her and told her if she hadn’t done what she had done it wouldn’t have happened and I know my actions were wrong, but I also know if she hadn’t acted in the way she had throughout our relationship it probably wouldn't have led to me being messed up and seeking external support.

Nothing physical ever happened, we never actually met up secretly or anything like that, just discussions on our feelings, but it does make me wonder if my actions and the way I handled it and defended myself make me a narcissist.

[Rowdy]

I was working at a clients house yesterday that used to be one of my ex’s clients. My SIL cleans for the lady and she started a conversation with me asking if I’d spoken to my ex lately. I told her I don’t see her and try not to have anything to do with her. She told me that SIL had asked why she had stopped coming into the salon and the client had replied to her that she could no longer handle the toxic atmosphere in the salon.

Now, a little while ago my ex had brought this lady up in a text conversation calling her rude expletive names. I asked her what she had done to her and she replied…well nothing.
The penny dropped and I realised yesterday that my SIL had obviously relayed the reason why she had stopped coming into the salon, so my ex’s outburst must have been in response to some sort of narcissistic injury.

As the conversation progressed with the client she asked me the question if I ever pondered if I was narcissistic as her own relationship had made her question the same.

I don’t think I am, I mean to the point of being a full blown narcissist. I think we all at times display narcissistic traits, I think sometimes perhaps we have to for our own survival, but it does raise the question. I would always want people to be straight with me, want to learn from my mistakes, and certainly be told if I’m being or acting in a narcissistic way.

I have been reading about DARVO which does make me question my own behaviour. My wife would regularly go on the attack about something, There would be regular periods of quiet before the storm, when everything used to seem fine then we would go to bed and in the early hours the attack on my character would start. I would try to answer her, give reasons why I would do, or not do certain things that she would bring up that was troubling her. Quite often it would be reasons that meant I would have to bring up her behaviour and reactions to things as to why I did or didn’t do something because of the way I had to constantly walk on eggshells around her. This would often result in my ex telling me not to be so defensive and that it isn’t an attack on me, although at the time it certainly seemed like it.

To give an example, as it was an often recurring one, she would ask me why I never made the effort to book a holiday. I would then reply in the following way. I don’t like to book a holiday because you have clients booked in for months in advance and you get stressed leaving the salon with someone else in charge. I also don’t like to ask people to look after the dogs and the children while we go away because they are our responsibility. I am also not that confident with that sort of thing. I’m happy to go away whenever you want to but it’s easier if you book it because I’ve no control over your work schedule or when your employees are there or not to look after the salon.

Just to add, my ex is a control freak and would always get stressed when we went away because her employees would constantly be on the phone to her about something. But I am also aware that this is in the realms of DARVO.

But the bigger thing that is making me question my reality is what happened 20 years ago. I’d caught her out going to meet her best friends at the time husband. They had split up and one day I was cleaning the car out and came across fuel receipts and car park tickets that didn’t add up, and when cross referencing them with messages that had been sent between us did not correspond with where she said she was at the time. So one night I checked her phone and found messages between her and her friends husband arranging meeting ‘At the usual place’
I confronted her and she denied anything happening, that they had just been meeting to talk about his marriage breakdown (anyone that has read my story will see the pattern here)
However, she did then start crying and admitted to sleeping with a completely different person. We split up for a few months.
We then got back together but to be honest my ex didn’t show the greatest amount of remorse, tried to dismiss it as meaningless and pretty much wanted me to bury it under the carpet and move on.

It ate away at me inside. I questioned a lot of things in our relationship, even down to whether our youngest son was mine or not. I had got quite close to someone during this time that listened to and could see what she had put me through and this developed into an emotional relationship that was starting to get out of hand and I could feel myself spiralling out of control.
My ex picked up on it, asked me outright  if something was going on, to which I denied up to the point when I could no longer handle feeling the way I did and explained everything to her, that I was developing feelings for someone but didn’t want to, that I wanted to sort my head  and our relationship out and get over it.

The thing is whenever my ex felt disregulated, or had some sort of problem, this event would be brought up with any conflict, over a decade later. I would tell her at that time I wasn’t in a good place mentally and I’m sorry it happened. I would tell her that it had taught me a lot, it had taught me that we all make mistakes. My remorse was never enough for her and would just end in a circular argument until I would retaliate by telling her that her actions had a domino effect and one thing led to another because of what she had done. This is where I question my reality as I am aware it is DARVO. I know that I initially denied it, I know that I flipped the script on her and told her if she hadn’t done what she had done it wouldn’t have happened and I know my actions were wrong, but I also know if she hadn’t acted in the way she had throughout our relationship it probably wouldn't have led to me being messed up and seeking external support.

Nothing physical ever happened, we never actually met up secretly or anything like that, just discussions on our feelings, but it does make me wonder if my actions and the way I handled it and defended myself make me a narcissist.

[Under The Bridge]

but it does make me wonder if my actions and the way I handled it and defended myself make me a narcissist.

You always try to see her point of view and calm her - narcissists don't do that.

You show remorse even when you're not the one causing the conflict - narcissists don't do that.

You offer to let her choose holidays to suit her working schedule - narcissists definitely wouldn't do that; they'd put themselves first and to hell with anyone else.

Yes, you're right to say that we can all be narcissistic sometimes when absolutely required - we're only human - but that's a long way away from being a 100% 24/7 narcissist. Try to remember that she is the one with the problem and you're just doing your best to cope with it.. and doing a good job too.

[Rowdy]

You always try to see her point of view and calm her - narcissists don't do that.

You show remorse even when you're not the one causing the conflict - narcissists don't do that.

You offer to let her choose holidays to suit her working schedule - narcissists definitely wouldn't do that; they'd put themselves first and to hell with anyone else.

Yes, you're right to say that we can all be narcissistic sometimes when absolutely required - we're only human - but that's a long way away from being a 100% 24/7 narcissist. Try to remember that she is the one with the problem and you're just doing your best to cope with it.. and doing a good job too.

Thanks that all makes sense and means a lot.

And you are right about the holidays, the guy she is with is narcissistic and couldn’t care less about her job and books holidays all the time. This hasn’t turned out well for her.