Is this ex a narcissist?

I will do my best to make a long story short.

Fell in love with girl. She told me she loved me soooo much. All the time, dated for months. She told me what sort of engagement ring she would like, and would reply to my complimenting her by saying "wife her." She also told me that the most important thing to her in a relationship was that the couple "build each other up."

One day she asked me the reasons I love her, and named off a few things including that she had the best soul I had ever known. I asked her the same question because I thought she was prompting it, and she sounded bitter, saying "well, lots of things," and named off like 40 qualities and that I took care of her, stuff like that. Within 10 days of that answer, she became very cold. She told her best friend that the reasons I loved her were not "deep enough." I learned this about 2 weeks later.

One morning she woke up next to me and said "I just had a dream about you, I love you soooo much." That day went great but that night she called me and broke up with me. She told me that she didn't know what I had to offer her and that she didn't think I was a "deep" person.

Confused, I called her friend (I know, not great tact), and asked what the hell just happened, I thought she wanted to marry me. Her friend said that the reasons I loved her weren't deep enough. I was very confused, like having a short list on the top of my head and lots of feelings makes me somehow un-deep and thus un-human." I wrote her a letter that had several hundred reasons why I loved her.

We met in person and I tried explaining what she meant to me, and in that time she told me that the reasons I love her were not good enough and that she needed me to love her for her "achievments and accomplishments." She also told me that she knew I was always honest and sweet to her, but that I was just "not enough." At this point I felt completely dehumanized. I had been told she doesn't know what I have to offer her, that I have no "depth," due to the fact that my love was based on feeling rather than her achievements and accomplishments, and that I was just simply not enough. I find it almost comical now but at the time it was very traumatic and made me question if I was a real person. After months of realizing how human I was, I got back to normal but wondered why the hell she had dehumanized me so much.

She told me several times that she thought she was making a mistake and led me on. One of these times she was sitting in my lap crying because she thought she was a cold person and said she was thinking of getting back together. Two days later I sent her a text saying I had started liking her in part because she liked the mature things about me (that I was dependable, hard working, took care of her, honest, etc.) She replied saying that this justified what she knew all along, that I only wanted to be with her for egotistical reasons and that there was no way in hell she wanted to date me again. I was like, hold on, I didn't say that was the only reason, didn't you read the letter with a bajillion reasons I love you? None of which were egotistical. I am certainly confident that I am worth dating, but I do not love people just for loving me. There was a time where she was the world to me and I wanted to marry her, but things changed very quickly.

I also realized she was anorexic near the end of the relationship. She would constantly eat one bite of something, then say she wasn't hungry. She avoided being near me during meal times.

Then I learned that she had broken up with EVERY boyfriend she had had. At 21 years, she had broken up with 7 guys, and led on several others. Then I learned that without exception, she had dated a friend of a recent ex. Then she started dating one of my friends, and something switched in my head and I thought, "this is not normal, first she makes you think you are her world, then she breaks up with you, then she dates your friend, meanwhile thinking that being loved for her soul is not a deep reason and needs to be loved for her achievements and accomplishments." So I looked up sociopathy, because that was what it seemed like to me. I kept doing research and eventually though it must be NPD.

I'm trying to make sense of what happened so I can get over it completely. I just want to hear if anyone else thinks it is NPD, who is more experienced. I'm certainly not in love with her any more but it makes things easier hearing that she is in fact a narcissist.

If you have any more questions, I remember just about everything she ever said.

Hi Normanjean,
Yes, I think you have it sorted. You have come here, so that tells me that her behaviour was so off the scale of normal that you recognized pathology. From your story she does have strong borderline narcissistic tendencies. She has the flight fear response of a borderline. You get too close and she feels engulfed and moves away. Her valuing is based on achievements rather than feelings. Everything she asked of you was a direct reflection of what she was internally trying to figure out about herself. When she knows she is playing a game of pretend, then her commitment to a relationship can vanish as fast as she tears up the script she is following. You're gone, and move on is the next move. She had no emotional investment in you at all. You were a script only and that is the narcissistic investment. She made a tally of the script and you didn't measure up to her ideal and so she decides not to go any further. This is really good news for you because these ladies break hearts.
Whether she has a full blown disorder only time will tell. She is still quite young and needs to do the work to sort out herself to ever have a chance at partnering. Let her go and look for white knights under rocks.

Reason that she could move on so quickly, from so many guys, is that her attachments are shallow. You were just a prop in her one-woman romance show. That's it. These PD types show high emotions, but they are only surface and change quickly and without cause. They are incapable of forming long term bonds, and change out their partners because of it. I can't say for sure if she is NPD or not, but she's not marriage material.

Glad you saw the red flags. Next time, you can make a better choice for yourself.

PS: The fact that she accused you of having no depth is a clue. Clear projection.

isn't she me?

one vote for that... she is HPD

margharris wrote:Whether she has a full blown disorder only time will tell. She is still quite young and needs to do the work to sort out herself to ever have a chance at partnering. Let her go and look for white knights under rocks.

I left out a lot of crap, I pretty much highlighted the issue. I'm, unfortunately, not of the opinion that she stands a chance at changing.

BlueFlower wrote:Reason that she could move on so quickly, from so many guys, is that her attachments are shallow. You were just a prop in her one-woman romance show. That's it. These PD types show high emotions, but they are only surface and change quickly and without cause. They are incapable of forming long term bonds, and change out their partners because of it. I can't say for sure if she is NPD or not, but she's not marriage material.

Glad you saw the red flags. Next time, you can make a better choice for yourself.

PS: The fact that she accused you of having no depth is a clue. Clear projection.

Thank you for the response. I noticed her try to project a lot of things on me, like that I only wanted to be with her for egotistical reasons, when she told me she needed me to love her for her achievements and accomplishments. The more I write this, the more and more I realize how much better off I am. I was absolutely devastated for a few months but this is just ridiculous.

One thing I left out is how she told me when she was 16, she broke up with a guy who wanted to marry her down the road, simply because he wanted to marry her and she wasn't ready to be with the person she would marry. This is really pretty normal so I didn't think much of it. After the breakup however, she talked about how she had tried to remain friends with him and he got stress induced amnesia from hanging out with her too much. The way she talked about it was creepy, and the inflection didn't sound like there was any remorse. Like it was his fault that he was going crazy from being led on by the girl he wanted to marry who he had dated seriously and fallen in love with.

She just turned into the strangest person in the last 2 weeks we were dating and the period right after the breakup.

Thank you for the responses!

I just read a long article about gaslighting.

I remember how one time she told me I was inconsiderate of her. Confused, because I had done just about everything I could for her, I asked her to give me examples so that I could improve my behavior toward her. She couldn't think of any but reassured me that I was inconsiderate and so I began treating her like a queen.

Is this a typical kind of manipulation? Make someone feel like they aren't treating you well enough with no evidence and have them start walking on eggshells out of nowhere.

Remembered another example that may be gaslighting.

What does this sound like to you guys?

Day one: is the day after I told her the reasons I loved her which were not "deep enough." Girl tells me that she wants more space, she still wants me to stay with her at night but wants more space.

Day two: She is short and cold with me

Day three: Girl lived with her sister, who had a shift that ended early in the morning. We were sleeping this night at her place and she got a call from her sister. What I heard was "it sounds like it is fine to drive home, just drive home on the rim, it's only a mile." I asked what was up and she said that her sister got a flat tire but was driving home. I thought, oh okay, no big deal. She got back in bed and seemed like she was going back to sleep. 5 minutes later she got up and said, "I'm turning the light on." I was like, okay, she is getting up to pee. She came back in a couple minutes later and got in bed again.

Day four: we wake up. She says to me, "how come you didn't get up?"
I replied, "uh why would I have?"
Girl: because of the creepy guy in the truck.
Me: What are you talking about?
Girl: The guy who was looking at my sister, she thought maybe he had slashed her tire and was going to try to rape her or something.
Me: How on earth could I have known that, you didn't even tell me about this. All you said was "she is driving home on her flat."
Girl, mad now, somewhere between condescension and yelling says: "Well if you were more of a man, you would have had better instincts and followed your girlfriend outside, I got a knife to protect her and you just stayed in bed!"
Me: What the hell, I thought you had to pee. First you say you need more space then you expect me to get up to protect you and your sister from something that I didn't have any way to know existed while I think you are just peeing. I didn't even know you went outside.
Girl: You still should have had better protective instincts because I am your girlfriend and a real man would make sure their girlfriend was okay.

I was torn between wondering if I was as un-masculine as she said and thinking she was out of her mind.

I said I was sorry and that I had made a bad judgment call. I would try to be more protective in the future.

I honestly felt that I had made a mistake and should have gotten up. I don't know what had built up to this that made me believe her. In retrospect it was just ridiculous but I was caught in a pattern of smaller versions of this that made me doubt everything about myself.

At the time it was very cruel, you don't tell someone that they are not a real man if you are disappointed in their reaction even if it has base. This however had NO base. She responded to disappointment with cruelty. I wonder if I had gotten up and followed her out if it would have been, "I need to talk to my sister, why did you follow me out here, I told you that I need more space." I could do no right in this time.

The next day I was driving with her from dinner. I backed out of my parking spot and then someone right in front of me backed out as well, almost hitting me even though I hadn't started to move forward yet. It wasn't one of those situations where someone cuts you off to get out of the parking lot first, this person actually didn't even look back. They didn't know I was there until almost hitting me. I put my hands up in exasperation that someone had put the people of the parking lot in danger by not looking back and then backing out. I didn't flip them off or anything.
Girl: Why do you have to be an asshole to these people by putting your hands up?
Me: What if someone had been walking there? They backed up without looking, if I show that it was dangerous by doing that, then maybe they will pay more attention and put less people at risk.
Girl, bitterly: That's not why you were doing that.

I sucked up at this point. In retrospect I was such a pussy. I was trying to avoid a fight at all costs and conceded and thanked her for trying to make me kinder to people. It makes me sick thinking what a pussy I was.

Then we drove home without saying much more.

I would flip them off and honk if I had the chance again. And probably tell her "oh, so you can read my mind now, I'm just an asshole who wants to make people feel bad about themselves."

-- Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:54 am --

Is that gaslighting or just devaluation, making up things about me to justify her lack of feelings?

gaslight where?
what i can see is only a girl who is desperately unstable and needs some protection
and you have 0 understanding of her pain
and only think she is a mean abuser!

gaslight where?
what i can see is only a girl who is desperately unstable and needs some protection
and you have 0 understanding of her pain
and only think she is a mean abuser!

These aren't gaslighting, these are proving she's just a nutcase.

Gaslighting: her: "I DID tell you that someone was stalking my sister!"
You: "No, you didn't"
Her: "Yes I did! I told you there was a weird guy and THAT was why she was driving home on a flat, and you just rolled over and went back to sleep!"

you then question if she really told you.

Regarding the backing up incident, she's right - that isn't what you were doing. You justified being annoyed and acting as such by saying your actions might teach them a lesson about hitting someone, but all you were doing was getting pissed that they didn't look and almost hit you. Doesn't matter really - she was looking for a reason to attack you, but she is right in her statement.

No one here can tell you if she is a narcissist. We only have your version of the relationship, and lets face it - if she hadn't dumped you you'd still be saying she was the love of your life. You're bitter about the relationship and are now looking for reasons that it WASN'T you and that she's broken. If your stories are correct and there isn't another side that she could tell truthfully, then who cares if she's a narcissist? She has some serious issues and you should be glad it's over.