Recently out of a relationship with a narc and in pain

The good news is that, thanks to a close friend, I have found out reasons why the last six months of my life have a whirlwind of intense emotion and confusion. I was dating a narcissist. What complicates it further is it was an extra marital affair on my part. Some may say I deserve the pain I am suffering now and it could've been a lot worse had my husband found out.

Last September I was going through what had been a long rough patch with my husband. My emotional and sexual needs were not being fulfilled and a man who had been on the fringes of my life for 8 months previously started to look like someone I wanted to spend more time with. There were certain things about him that were a bit odd; he did drink too much and too early in the day as well. But it wasn't heavy drinking and he had a charisma about him that I found attractive. To cut a long story short, we started an affair last September which he finished less than a month ago.

I should've seen the red flags back then...what I thought would be a brief sexual fling turned into a full on emotional relationship. Not long into it, he started to tell me he loved me. He would send me extremely erotic text messages, sometimes as many as 60 a day. I enjoyed the flattery, the attention and the reconnection with my latent sexuality. As time went on, I started to fall in love with him too. When I was worried about falling pregnant he would say that it wouldn't be a bad thing....When we finally made it into bed, the sex was incredible and was so right up until the end of the relationship.

So far so good. Except in between these moments of great sex and intimacy were moments of anguish and confusion. Whenever I tried to assert myself about anything I would be met with comments such as 'you're too sensitive' and later 'you're neurotic'. If I questioned this I would then be met with a wall of silence and asked to give him 'space'. Any more from me and I would be told that I am 'choking the life out of him'. This cycle would happen on and off for the entire relationship, both through text message and in person. He would then pop back up again, we would meet, I would be watching myself and little more not to upset him and all would be well again...until the next time.

In the early months, he used to later apologise for hurting me but reassert his need for space. In the later months, the apologies stopped and the silent treatments got longer.

Last month, out of the blue, he stopped messaging me. After asking a few times he eventually got back to me and told me that the relationship had run its course and we should move on. This was days after he had taken me to a hotel and the sex, as ever, was fantastic.

Since then I have tried to get an explanation from him but he doesn't respond. I am now left hurting, confused and my self esteem is in shatters. That's on top of the guilt I am feeling for having the affair in the first place.

Will I ever heal from this?

You're in pain? Imagine how your husband will feel when he finds out what you've done.

You're not going to get much sympathy here from either narcissists or nons.

Will I ever heal from this?

You cheat on your husband for months in a row, you are even delusional enough to rationalize cheating as a "relationship", then it doesnt turn out as you want. Then you get some idiot friend of yours - who obviously cant tell his elbow from his asshole - to diagnose that person with narcissism - which you happily believe because you dont want to realize that your own stupidity and emotional instability landed you in that hole. And now you show up on a self-help forum for persons with narcissistic personality disorder to get help?
Man from all the idiots that come on here sometimes you get the medal to be the first one to be insulted by me. Youre a pathetic, brainless excuse for a human being. And I hope your suffering goes on endlessly because you deserve every bit of it.

On that note, your lack of concern for your husband and making this all about you is far more narcissistic than anything I'm hearing about your fling.

Are you Narc yourself?

It seems you wanted in best case scenario. "He crazy fall in love with you, ask you be his wife, you would leave your husband for him. ???
Obviously you with your husband because it is comfortable and already used to it and he is close person to you. But you do not want him physically any more and lost passion for him.
You are searching for another LOVE of your Life. And for you it would be easier to leave your husband if you would already find new nice airport to land on.

It is difficult to forget NARC.
because We (at least I) do EVERYTHING to be "THE ONE" Unforgettable. Unbelievable.
We PERFORM. That is why SEX is so great. I usually can sniff all the hidden desires.
I love to PERFORM I want to make him the center of universe, the KING. Get all crazy pleasures for him.
So I think he was doing the same to you?
Beside Sex is still the same, We want you to fall for us HARD. It is some kind of GAME.
But In that game we also can fall in love with you.
It happened to me before.

Aslo he can LOVE you. But may be he doesn't want break your family. And he is not ready to give you seriouse relationships you wanted. He decided to dessapear , and may be he is also in pain to leave you.
But your husband was before him. and he gave up.

IS he younger then you?

Why are you even married for? You owe it to your husband to leave him. The fact you haven't even mentioned how he might feel in all of this speak volumes. Seriously, get your sh*t together, you sound like a train wreck.

-- Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:22 am --

Their account is deleted.

FFS. Moralistic jerks.

Someone's pain or trouble doesn't in any way diminish because they put themselves in that situation or because you think they "deserve" it. Or because someone else supposedly got hurt more. Their feelings are still just as strong and valid. It's moralists like you that make criminals re-offense.

"Since then I have tried to get an explanation from him but he doesn't respond. I am now left hurting, confused and my self esteem is in shatters. That's on top of the guilt I am feeling for having the affair in the first place."

Lusid is right. The OP's feelings are just as strong and valid even though she's conducted an extramarital affair and brought a lot of the grief on herself. Some of you narcs conduct extramarital affairs or affairs with married others as well and you cast stones at a non for having an extramarital affair?

If your ex lover is indeed disordered, and I only say this because you've said that he is, based on what a friend has told you, then try to remember the three C's, you did not cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it. A PD is an intrinsic part of his psyche. You can't change him in any way, shape, or form.

A relationship with a disordered person has a certain synergy. There was obviously something about him that attracted you to him, and likewise something about you that attracted him. The synergy goes back to both the way you were raised by your parents and grew up with certain family dynamics, as well as to the way he was raised by his family, etc. It's hard to turn it around and look at yourself instead, but that's where it began.

A therapist can be help you sort out these feelings you're experiencing and learn what it is about you that attracted your ex so that you don't continue to attract such ppl into your life. You may also be able to resolve what is going on in your own marriage that caused you to stray and to consider options.

From the way you describe your marriage, it sounds like your husband is not emotionally or intimately available, and then you found out in a horribly painful way that your lover isn't either.

You can heal and you will heal, but it may take a while. The lover isn't what you need to heal from. You need to heal from whatever it is that made you choose the lover and the husband because neither of them are what you need or what you as a human being deserve.

Therapy. I'll say it again. Therapy. Work on whatever it is in you that is causing you to [subconsciously] choose unavailable men. It's clear that the affair happened because you thought this man could offer you something you weren't getting in your marriage. I'm not judging. I'm divorced from an emotionally and intimately unavailable man, I know exactly how soul crushing that experience is. Many, many women end up in affairs with disordered, charming men for this exact reason. I don't think an affair is the worst thing a person can do in a marriage. I think sexual and emotional desertion and neglect are just as damaging, if not more so.

Whether or not you eventually leave your marriage isn't a decision you need to make today. And if your marriage is going to work, your husband is going to have to do a great deal of self examination, too.

Step one, cut all ties with the lover. Step two, call a therapist. Step three, get tested for STDs (if need be) and make sure you don't have a bigger problem with which to contend.

It's going to be hard.