How to leave a narcissist?

You're right vermilion, but I took the OP's lack of urgency as a sign that this might've happened in some explosive episode where the person couldn't be taken seriously and that they've had many explosive episodes of radical statements.
I'm just not quick to monsterfy someone, might be a hazard of mine. But better to err in the side of caution!

Advice is nice, but the narc is a chameleon and completely unpredictable. The rational is irrational and lines between making logical sense and illusion convene into a mess. Advice on how to deal with a narc is nice, but how many people have been successful with any 'tactics' on trying to get a narc to do what they want with a 'good' end result for said abused.

If he is a narc, you know him best and your course of action will be more effective than anyone can ever provide here.

act distracted and bored works for me
cut off supply
he/she will leave you
tell them you are an aspie (lol)

I plan to deploy such tactics with my N girlfriend soon myself though I doubt they’ll actually work, as she’s displayed a complete inability to actually pull the trigger in the past when put on the spot to do so despite threatening me about doing so (and worse) many, many times, even when she believed she had all kinds of justification. The idea with this is of course, that giving her subtle reasons to want to decide to leave me on her own terms, in a non-dramatic way will be the easiest for all involved for the same reasons that BlueFlower briefly touched on earlier in this thread. Likely I’ll just have to bluntly do it myself and go NC which I had been planning to do but she’s been extra nice to me lately (which is even scarier at this point as I really have to question what’s behind it, and I’m sure it’s only temporary regardless) so she’d probably be extra offended and vengeful if I were to do that now.

Bernem, I'd suggest you start making peace with the idea of having to just bluntly drop the bomb yourself, possibly going 100% no contact afterwards. Start building up the courage to actually do it, putting together as much justification as you can to be happy about doing it, thinking of how it could go down and the safest ways to go about it, where you could stay for a while afterwards, etc. That's where I'm at now myself. The truth is, that is usually the best way to handle a break up, abusive or not, and usually the only real way out.

As an aside, the whole “attachment” aspect of NPD relationships is very interesting to me because in some ways it is at odds with a lot of the other qualities Ns have. My N has loudly proclaimed on many occasions that she’d coldly dump and move on from a guy who wronged her in a second and I actually believe her, in general, and I’m quite sure she has done that in the past, but that isn’t how she’s been with me at all and I know for a fact she’s stayed for a long time in several other relationships she claimed were horrible and full of turmoil as well. I know I'm just too great of a supply for her, even when I'm trying not to be.

vermilion wrote:ok.. this is how twisted it all gets. Here this conversation is focused on clothing, and cell phones, and emotional support...

And we are all so used to such extreme behavior that the fact that he says he has a gun and will kill you has been completely taken in stride by most everyone here. You are with a man that has threatened to kill you. Do you have a death wish? Get the hell out of there, cut ties, be 100% inaccessible. Whether or not he would actually do it is irrelevant, the fact that he voiced that your life was his to take, that is what is important. He meant that. Get out before you find out how far he is willing to push that idea. No matter how nicely he dresses, if you value yourself, you can't stay with him. If you place no value on the quality of your life ....or, heck, actually having a heartbeat, then by all means, stay.

Good luck to you either way.

Yes well it is messed up. I guess I just assumed he wouldn't really kill me. What happened was I stole his SD card from his cell phone and found like literally hundreds of pictures of naked women. I found one phone number and called the woman and she said she was his gf for 8 months but she lived in another state. She called him by the name "Roy" and that is not his name. I'm sorry but it makes me laugh. Where the heck does he come up with these fake names. Anyways I confronted him with her on the phone and he flipped out and went crazy. He couldn't figure out how I knew everything because he always kept his phone locked. Well then he stole my cell phone and when I tried to grab it back from him he lifted up his arm and hit me in the face. Then he walked out the door and my neighbors came over because I was crying. My neighbor confronted him and told him to leave and my bf threatened to kill him. So anyways later that night I met up with him to get my cell phone back and he told me to go to the back of his car and he opened his trunk and showed me a gun and kept telling me he didn't care if he went to jail that I would never be with anyone else. That did honestly worry me at the time. I just acted really nice towards I'm to get my phone back and then I left. I told myself I couldn't stay with this crazy man, but here I am a year later. Still with him. He hasn't done anything like that since.

-- Tue May 22, 2012 8:47 pm --

But yea so now whenever I tell him I will leave him he never cares. I break up with him every couple months and he just says okay. He never goes crazy like that one time. So I think he realized its just stupid and ridiculous to go that crazy. And he is a narc I'm sure he doesn't really want to be in jail.

Does he have any respect for you?

lodi dodi wrote:Does he have any respect for you?

He is respectful towards me as long as he can continue to view himself as above me. He has even made some changes, shockingly. He is very very slow to change. And it is never on my terms. And he will never even agree to change. But as long as I just tell him what I want and I'm super gentle about it and I'm willing to wait months and months he may or may not give me what I'm asking for.

That's very patient of you but not good enough. I believe you need to be his equal and he needs to acknowledge that too... and I'd suggest it be done in a way where it won't be threatening for him but, instead, a good/welcome change. I'd suggest the disengage/self reform method to introduce it...

lodi dodi wrote:That's very patient of you but not good enough. I believe you need to be his equal and he needs to acknowledge that too... and I'd suggest it be done in a way where it won't be threatening for him but, instead, a good/welcome change. I'd suggest the disengage/self reform method to introduce it...

I agree and I will give it my bet effort

Godspeed! Peace for both of you.