Possessiveness in NPD

"I might be bored with you - critical of you - disappointed in you - thinking of/already covertly devalueing/discarding you - wondering why you are not mirroring me better - *other negative thought* - BUT:
I still don't want your attention on anyone but me. Therefore I will continue to give you the attention necessary for you to mirror me"

Is possessiveness (open or subtle) generally common in NPD? Is it within the pwNPD aknowledged as possessiveness (is s/he aware of it) or is it an entirely different thought process that is only interpreted by the other person as possessiveness?

I have thought of possessiveness in a pwNPD so far as a stalling tactic to first secure other supply. But that might be to deliberate/manipulative for NPD. Although maybe it is common for open/grandiose NPD?

I would hope sincerely that you have others in your life that desire you, as well as countless others that you desire.. Because I sure do.

The last thing I would want is for you to think of me as your 'everything'. If I found out you looked at to me as an individual that was your one and only, I would discard you like no other.

If you look at me as 'your everything', in 2015.. with all the social media outlets available.. You are clearly unattractive, overweight, or undesirable entirely and have no place in my life. If nobody else finds worth in you, then obviously my perception of you was entirely wrong and I should have never met you in the first place.

There's nothing more pathetic, than someone that has nobody else that desires them or doesn't interact with countless others that desire them as well.

What you do with them emotionally or physically, while might potentially make me jealous.. is irrelevant. Jealousy is a feeling that I can cope with just fine. You are human and I should not expect you to be faithful to me, when I am clearly not with you.

Realistically, I do not want you to be faithful, as then you will expect the same of me and I will hear about it to the end of time that you are. No thank you. Spend time with others, lots of others.. as do I.

Just be there when I need you with what I request of you. That is all I desire to possess from you. The rest is irrelevant.

Cronmaster wrote:Is possessiveness (open or subtle) generally common in NPD?

I needed a lot of mirroring. I didn't consider myself possessive. I would easily let someone go if I felt they didn't want me (and, I always felt they didn't want me because I pushed them to that point -- because my mirroring needs were too great for anyone. I would just project them out of existence eventually.).

At some level I was possessive and controlling (greedy, selfish). But, I tried to make it dignified with confidence, independence, self-sufficiency. I didn't need anyone. I wanted the person "meant for me." But, nobody was, and I could easily let them go (which, as I said above, was a circular process.)

I needed to find the person meant for me. I felt that craving to "arrive," or be completed. But, it was all projection. I was looking for me. I D&D everyone. My ideal would have been total non-possessiveness because the perfect person would make me feel safe, satisfactorily mirrored. But, shortly into relationships I could see how the person wasn't the ideal, me, and then there would be push/pull. During that process I could be possessive as a tool to test the other person. It's more about control than neediness or insecurity.

I basically couldn't give myself to someone, therefore it was little more than testing them to be good enough for me to give myself to, or getting it out of the way that they're not.

That previous paragraph is why I don't think possessiveness even applies. The person is a disposable object playing a part in a reenactment of something from my childhood. I think the question would be valid if I gave myself to the other person and were truly vulnerable, symmetrically involved. My relationships were more like two people talking past each other. And, disordered/traited people attract each other -- which contributes to talking past each other.

svenska500 wrote:
There's nothing more pathetic, than someone that has nobody else that desires them or doesn't interact with countless others that desire them as well.

I appreciated what you articulated in the rest because it seems that is what I concluded about the ex N and how he lived.

But the great irony is that I find THIS to be very pathetic. That anyone needs so many people to desire them and to live in this kind of a soup. How pathetic is that that you need that many people to feel good? I am NOT mocking you personally, just that dynamic that exists and definitely mocking the ex N friend.

He claimed to know so much about life and psychology and people and supposedly, I did not, but his life in the end looks to be very pathetic. Desperate attempts to prove now he is desireable at 53 when he has little to no primary supply anymore (he's making pathetic attempts to revive something that once I guess gave him a bit of a reputation), no money, a failed marriage, failed parenting and just pretty much a history of failed everything it seems but lost in this delusion that he's a beast in bed, desireable, HOT, cool and just a great guy. His manipulations and ability to gain people's trust is a given.... and it appears his subsequent pattern of mostly losing/abusing that trust is also a pattern. So while he may have a great harem,at least one he projects (I found out from someone that was close to him that much of it is pretend), I find it quite pathetic that anyone would allow their life to become so ruined just for supply and to get laid. Not about you here but just how pathetic looks from the other side as I have digested the ex N friend and what you wrote was sort of what I was gradually figuring out.

I actually was always intrigued by the 'rugged individual'. the Malboro man that could do his thing and not need a whole lot. However, I also think that it is equally true that I didn't like to be with anyone who needed the opinion of others so much cause I knew that there would be no way I could "hold onto them". Which in a way, this is what this can also be about... just flipped ... I won't be able to hold on to you and you to me and I don't want to risk rejection and painful loss, cause it's too scary so i will makes sure i create 'relationships' where no one tries to hold on to anyone. It can get very circular and hard to say what ever comes first?

how do you experience jealousy? What is it like? If you don't care, why would you even feel jealous? That seems contradictory?

on social media, ex N always likes photos of his 'others' and interacts and I always wondered how he did that... DIDN"T he get jealous? Why would he want to continue to see the life of past exes and all? Man continue to give him supply in ways.... But when we were together, he expressed emotions that seemed to be about regret and loss and just a mountain of unfulfilled need. Yet, he continues to live a life dependent on tons of supply and the younger the better. I guess the final conclusion is that he must have made peace with the fact that his life is never going to have a loving partner but just a string of endless people coming and going. Or maybe that's just all he knows and can't even fathom a way out of it all.

This is how I know you are not as narc. You are trying to understand, what you never will. Read all the books you want, talk to all the psychiatrists in the world, do anything..

You cannot understand what you are not. Our actions may not make sense to you.. but this is our reality. You are calling him 'pathetic' at 53.. Yet, he is simply trying to navigate this earth like you.

You asked how we experience jealousy? Everyone is different. The fact that is consistent, is that you will not understand, as you do not feel like we do. One day jealousy may feel this way, one way it will feel the other. It's not something that can be easily explained to someone that processes jealously in a different fashion.

He is a human being, like you. You were with him, because he obviously had some decent traits that you found desirable. And now, you project your insecurities, your rejection, your issues on him.. when he does not even have a chance to respond to your accusations and comments about his character.

Instead of vilifying someone you do not understand and never will, perhaps you should simply move on with your life and be thankful of all you learned from the relationship.

You are not a narc and never will be. The relationship is over. If he is so pathetic and the narc is not part of your life.. the only issue at hand is you. Not him. He's irrelevant and so should any form of narcissism in your life, after what you went through..

One would think.

Actually, i wouldn't be so sure that I would never understand. I could never live it, but understand, perhaps.

For a couple of reasons. In the middle of the pain I felt from my 'relationship' with the ex N friend, I went to see my mother. It was very weird because at the time, I didn't know why some part of me knew that it would be a welcome visit because it would shut me down. My mother has that effect on me. I shut down. All my feelings. I no longer exist as I know myself when I am away from her. I am really concluding that she has some very strong N traits herself. If not a NPD. So to be around her, I go empty. There is no mirror to my internal world through her at all. No reflection of me as a person. I encounter over and over again a brick wall, a cold defense and just a weird sort of emptiness. And in general, a complete lack of imagination or insight into what I might be experiencing. She has pretty much created her world and lived her life entirely around her needs and desires.

I also think it is very safe to assume that he considers himself pathetic as well. In fact, as I did the postmortem on whatever it is we were doing together (I really can't call it a relationship), he left many many clues that indicated that he felt he was a loser and he is quite bitter that he knows he is bad news.

My 'vilifying' is not just my projective reflection of feeling rejected. the odd thing as in his eyes, he never did reject me. He continued to tell me to just chill out, he wasn't going anywhere, he is there for me. However, the reality is that he wasn't. In his head, that is what was going on. But he was not available to me for anything other than for me to be a good mirror, to laugh, make him feel good and that's it. As long as I would do that, there was no reason he would not still 'be in my life' today. And I know that if I said just the right things... he would be back despite every thing. But if I stepped outside again of my role, ask to be supported or to have anything send my way, he would disappear again. Its just not for me.

I think its safe to say that all people with NPD are not the same and it's possible that he actually fits more into one of the other Cluster B personalities and he just has strong NPD traits. But I don't have the intellectual take on how they cross over and don't really care to spend that much time on it.

Oh, he had plenty of time to comment and reply to me. Many, many times but he elected to not do so. Or, if you want, we could say that his NPD made it unworthy of his time as he was too busy with other supply.

The problem is, that I think that my entire life has been affected by this, via my NPD mother and as such, it's not something that just happened to me. It wasn't a one time thing. And in fact, when I was in so much pain as to why I allowed alot of things to go on when the writing started to get clearer and clearer, I was asking myself one night what taught me to care so little for myself that I just hung in there, and some of the answers that came took me right to my mother. Its funny as I have dealt with most of my dad issues and he and I have a decent relationship now. My mother, for some reason, I just could never seem to touch. There was always this big "do not go there" sign when it came to her.

I am getting very close though to indeed just moving on for good. A friend of his last week shared some things that really helped validate who he is, Its a loss to me. i had really, really wanted to be a friend of his, more than anything else it became. I never enjoyed vilifying him. But there is no fixing or undoing what happened or erasing the knowledge that he is just not good for me to be around.

Once again.. Like the hundreds of other relationships on here gone wrong.. It's all him. He's pathetic, because of what he did to you. It's his fault, because of this, or that.

No. You had the chance to leave at the first sign that you were being treated in a fashion that was unacceptable. And from your description, you stayed, for years and years after you realized he was an individual that was obviously 'pathetic' in your books.

To me, that makes you.. the individual that should have a name attached to themselves.

You purposely stayed, even after being used and mistreated? For years? And he's the pathetic one? Sorry to be harsh, but this forum is for reality.. not sweet cakes and cookies.

He became pathetic in your eyes, because this is your coping mechanism to deal with the reality of the situation and not placing blame on yourself.

Nobody is pathetic in this world, unless we allow them to be. If he was a 53-year old stranger on the street that said hi to you, would you call him pathetic?

Your definition of him is through your eyes with him. Others, most likely have nice things to say about him. (as did you initially). When we project our feelings of how another person is, it is usually out of the reality that the other person harmed our ego or self in one way or another.

He is only pathetic, because of how he made you feel. Everyone has their own definition of what makes someone 'pathetic'. To me, I don't see the issue with anything he did. He was simply being himself and what felt natural to him. Should he have lied and kept how he felt internally bottled up and suppressed? Would that have made him a hero in your books, instead of pathetic? Isn't what you want from a relationship for your significant other to show you whom they really are?

Well he did. And you stayed. For years.. and years.. Because obviously you liked being around this pathetic individual.

The only issue I see, is how you could possibly stay with someone that does not treat you well so long.. If you didn't like the way he treated you? You should have left. And if you didn't.. then that speaks volumes about you. Not him.

Even now you are still blaming him in a way for not responding to your posts slamming his character. And yet if he had done so, you would then blame him for that most likely. He can't win. He's always pathetic and always will be in your books, because you refuse to place the blame on yourself for the relationship. A relationship with another is a two-way street. And this relationship was 'your choice'.

You are calling him pathetic, because you learned the person you were, through him. And it's easier in retrospective to place blame for all those years on him, and not you.

Look inside, not outside.. for the answer.

Hi svenska500,

Welcome back! I read some of your posts from the past, when I was not registered: what made you come back?

svenska500 wrote:You purposely stayed, even after being used and mistreated? For years? And he's the pathetic one? Sorry to be harsh, but this forum is for reality.. not sweet cakes and cookies.

He became pathetic in your eyes, because this is your coping mechanism to deal with the reality of the situation and not placing blame on yourself.

Lol... no, I didn't stay with him for years and years! lol You misunderstood. I knew him briefly 30 years ago, when he did the whole DD routine then. However, he reconnected with me 30 years later and I thought for a different reason. hoped? I did not realize that he was just old supply hunting.

And it is only by understanding what happened in our BRIEF 3 month active relationship and the slow drip 'break up' in the year after until my last and final contact with him, that I fully understood or could RE-understand the DD that first happened 30 years ago. Unlike you, he didn't just walk away for good (or do you?) when it 'went bad' he wanted it both ways. To both come and go. Again, not my thing.

Believe me, I know exactly where I went wrong. But unlike you, this person did not disclose at all who they really were until well beyond our expiration date.

I do in fact know where I went wrong. I know in fact, the exact moment I should have cut off all communication, no matter how disappointed and bummed I was. That moment was exactly when his sudden change in behavior was felt by me as a huge kick in the gut. My failure to do that is my failure. But, I could also say, he changed my life in a good way though in the midst of hell, I would not have ever said that ever in a million years. I am doubting many nons come here and say that their experience in the long term, changed them for the good. I also know what my weaknesses are a lot better.

But it doesn't change the fact that he is still not a great person. His own friends say stay far, far away even though he is a nice guy. So its safe to say that the analysis of his character is something others can do as well and not a reflection of my issues or our relationship. It is what it is.

Just like you are who you are... it does work both ways of course. And the issue is that he knew all along his pattern and again, as I look back, his 'discussing' himself wasn't to tell me frankly who he was (he pretended to want a relationship in both words and initial deeds) it was rather to warn me in a very passive way, to not become someone who he would discard. So it was inevitable from the very beginning. There was nothing I actually could have done differently to change the outcome. Anymore than any of your hookups could get you to change and be in a relationship with them after your disclosure. Some probably do like that challenge though, I bet?

I think it's really as you said in another thread... male/female dynamics have a whole other layer of deception to them. And he was very, very good at that and absolutely, I wanted to believe he meant what he said. Mea culpa all the way.... but I got the general idea over time and began to push him away. Its actually rather puzzling, I am not sure who discarded whom in a way. In some ways, it was him, in other ways, I was the one. Kind of strange that one....

But I am good now... and actually, happy though it still interests me as it also sheds light on my old family dynamics, at long last.

I think possessiveness might be more on the lines of BPD territory, but I suppose it isn't unheard of for a pwNPD to be possessive. I personally am not, because I don't really like to commit to a relationship. I will if the person is useful or especially supplying (okay, okay, I SAY I'm committed because I know that's what they want to hear), but generally I avoid doing so if possible because I don't like to be tied down. Really though, I'm not committed, so why should I care if the other person is or not?