very strange things happening in my house

I have also now realized that there are a few people, namely her friends and family, around us that she does seem to empathize with. We also took personality tests together, mine showed that I am avoidant whereas my (ex)partners showed that she is borderline - I know that these are not professional diagnoses and shouldn't be taken literally, but these are more or less the results that I was expecting.

At the moment I have to take into consideration the possibility that I have put 2+2 together and come up with 246! I'm not really sure about how to prove myself wrong at the moment though.

She has also suggested that we go to counseling together.

Where the conversation is concerned, ie 'doing her right under his nose'
'be careful'
'he'll never figure it out, she's a narcissist ain't she'

I remembered the rest of the conversation which went:

'he can be a bit mad when he wants to be though'
'somebody elses name was mentioned?'
'yep'
'ah, she'll just stick some stuff in his coffee and tell him it's all in his head'

Whether this was a projection or not I cannot be sure of. They could have genuinely been talking about the person whose name was mentioned, they could have been talking about us or they could have just been playing mind games.

I asked the one person who took part in this conversation and he told me that the person who he was talking with hasn't slept with either my partner or the person they were talking about, so basically I can't be sure.

Sorry about the late reply, desperatedan. I hope the counsellor can help you. You can trust your own judgement, I guess. I'm just not sure if something like hypnosis could make her tell you the truth if she wanted to lie to you.

I've looked into it and the problem with hypnosis is that its way too easy for false seeds and memories to be planted unintentionally. I think that at the time I first posted on here I was going through a bit of post-traumatic stress.

I think the underlying problems are the use of both amphetamines & cannabis and the fact that we had a visitor daily which made us unable to talk to each other about things as we didn't have any time together. This led to everything welling up and stirring around inside both our heads and a major lack of communication.

As far as the conversation went, I can quite easily believe that the guy in question was sleeping with somebody who lives on the same road as us who is without question definitely a nymphomaniac and I think he may have been using the word narcissist to refer to her. I also don't think he realized that i was stood there when the conversation took place and I think he and another friend of his have been doing everything they can to throw me off course, by focusing my attention on my own problems after asking if they were sleeping together, which was denied. The motive behind them doing so would be because the guys girlfriend is my girlfriends cousin and obviously he wouldn't want me saying anything to her.

My (ex)partner has made it clear that she is willing to go on national television and take a polygraph test, undergo hypnosis & even move completely away from the area in order to be with me. She says we were together for 8 years and she will wait 8 years for me if thats what it will take. She admits that she has been using emotional blackmail and sending me on guilt trips but she says this is a defense mechanism, she was scared of being abandoned and was using it to protect herself so that I couldn't hurt her, as she has been hurt before and she was scared that I would regard her as damaged goods.

I think you'll agree that all this seems to make a whole lot more sense??

Maybe it's true that it was a misunderstanding. You guys should try going to therapy together and maybe on your own too and see how it goes. Make sure it's a therapist who cares about both your feelings.
Do you want to still be with her?

Before we split up I would have like nothing more for us to have sorted all this out for once and for all. We had both become depressed and we had both been using cannabis daily.

Since we split we have both given up the weed and spoken to each other rationally. We have both pointed things out to each other which neither of us realized we were doing. I explained to my partner how she would say or do things then tell me I was imagining it or that I done or said it myself, when I didn't. She says she honestly didn't realize she was doing it and despite refusing to before, she now swears on our childrens lives that there was nothing untoward or unfaithful going on. Aswell as smoking weed she was also taking Mirtazapine daily and I think this has a lot to do with what was going on.

She has also spoken to a member of her family about how she was doing this and didn't realize it which to me seems to convey honesty. She has also told me that the accusations I was making did make her think that maybe I was up to something, so I guess there was a bit of paranoia on both sides.

It's nice that you can talk like this, dan. I think that sometimes people who've done what you describe in a relationship do it for control and when the relationship is gone, they'd do anything they can to get that control back, so they'd behave well.
I am not saying that this is what your ex is doing, I don't know her, but I've sort of seen it happen. Just be careful, but you don't have to be afraid. You're stronger now and you can try to clear things up.

Well it's 2 years later, the abuse/manipulation is down to a minimum (although still present) and things are better. There was a point where a family member got involved and said some totally out of order things to me in the belief that I was the problem. However, I resorted to manipulation myself and got my partner to admit the emotional blackmail and psychological abuse to this person who now knows the truth - she couldn't believe it .

Although my partner has posted on here in response to my posts in defence of herself, I would have to be blind, stupid and gullible to not accept the fact she is narcissistic (and it IS fact). As stated, things seem to have been fine for the last 2 years but I do feel there is manipulation still there, it's just more subtle and she's scared of the full truth being exposed (lies, cheating, abuse, etc). It's amazing how everybody constantly tells me what a good girl she is (and I literally mean everyone), usually I think to myself 'yeah right, you don't know her like I do' but half the time even I end up think 'well yeah she's a good girl really' and I don't know where that thought comes from when I know deep down inside that she's a manipulator.

Anyway, her responses to my posts on these forums were minimal without addressing even half of our problems, she didn't even scratch the surface (hmm I wonder why!). She is a narc and here's how I know:

she moved me into her mum's house with her after a few weeks before we even had a chance to get to know each other.
She has very little depth to her personality.
She is extremely lazy and selfish and appears to be zombified most of the time.
She flirts with other men/women in front of me when drunk, admits it, justifies doing it and THEN goes on to deny it after she's already admitted it (tells me I imagined it).
Disappears for hours in the early hours of the morning, conveniently her phone is switched off for an hour or two.
She didn't tell me she loved me for 2 years, when I asked her why not she suddenly said 'I love you'.
If she's in denial about something she says 'it's all in your head' and I then know it to be true.
She makes extreme sexual references towards other people when drunk, if I confront her at the time she complete disregards me, it's like I'm invisible - when confronted the next day she says I'm paranoid and I imagined it even though she did it right under my nose.
She never shows any affection to our children or to me.
When I told her I wasn't willing to be manipulated she said 'there's no relationship then'.
I was told early on that she had an infatuation with the person I believe she was cheating with.
She would make extreme sexual comments about him when drunk (like 'I could do him right here right now') in front of me, then denies it (in other words she made that infatuation pretty clear).
She would disappear for an hour or so with him at social occassions.
At one party I overheard someone saying she was out the back doing something sexual with the guy in question - I went to see what the fuss was, couldn't find her anywhere and when I asked what was going on, I was told 'nothing' by her friends. She mysteriously re-appeared about ten minutes later, the same time as the guy returned.
She claims to have no recollection of anything like this ever happening, yet half the time she's already admitted and justified it. I think this is denial, she can't accept what she is, so denies it to herself (represses it?).
The guy I KNOW she was messing around with pretty much moved away straight away after the explosion in our relationship and all the sneaking about suddenly ended.

I think you'll agree it would be pretty stupid of me by now to not realize what she is. As stated, the abuse/manipulation is to a minimum, she very rarely goes out drinking any more although she did come home recently at 6am after a drink at her sisters, this was a one-off which I'm willing to let slip. I have no idea if she actually fully slept with anyone behind my back, but I know for fact that she did sexual things with people, often in front of me. However, this hurt me so much emotionally I would just end up drinking to the point where I didn't care any more and I'd forget about it. Some of these memories have come back to haunt me since and that's how I know for a fact that I was right all along.

I think at the moment I'm just waiting to see how things go. However, I am still suffering with anxiety disorders two years later from the abuse she subject me to and I think I may have no choice but to leave her if I ever want to recover. I still think about all this on a daily basis so I'm obviously still traumatized by it and I know deep down inside exactly what she is. She knows deep down inside too but I think that she just can't admit it to herself. How do I know she knows? Because when I confronted her about it her reaction was 'oh you have been doing your studying haven't you?' Why would anyone say that unless they'd been figured out?

Two years later indeed, Dan, and thank you for coming back. has anything really changed over the past couple of years? It seems to me that not much has. You still seem deflated, mildly depressed, and as if you are holding your aner inside. How much more of her behaviour can you take?; and for how long?

Kevin

Dan, it does sound like you're still having a hard time because of this. How are the kids doing? Maybe it would help if you tried to focus on their well being and figure out what you should do with your life.

Thanks for your replies. Don't get me wrong - all the behaviour that had me in that mess before has pretty much stopped and I was overly paranoid, for all the right reasons - but still, I was paranoid. The abuse has almost ended completely, I resorted to using manipulation myself in order to expose the truth to her nearest and dearest. It's harsh but it was the only way to get them to see the truth. However, it cannot and will never change the past. However, the kids are fine, they are happy and my beliefs about what was happening was down to being overly paranoid - I was thinking if she's capable of doing this to me, then what else is she capable of?

I think she wants to love and she wants to feel empathy and she tries her hardest to do just that. But I never see her offering affection, asking the kids how their day was or giving anyone a hug or any normal kind of loving you would find in a relationship. She has acknowledged a communication problem, a problem with trust and a fear of being manipulated by men. It's also clear that she had a compulsive urge to use sex to control and manipulate men, even in front of me when she was drunk.

Her going out and drinking is down to an absolute minimum, she really is making a massive effort here. I now need to find out if this is to protect her lies about the past (ie cheating, abuse, lies) or if it's because she genuinely cares. A few members of her family now know the truth which is a big relief to me and some of them don't even bother speaking to her any more because of it.

I think deep down inside she knows everything, she's insecure and ashamed of herself about everything which is why she has a hard time admitting it. Seems like she denies it to herself, she represses it because she can't accept the truth and that's why she tells me it's all in my head. It also seems like she's had problems with sexuality, she always used to seem attracted to other women but could never admit it, yet she used to use other women to manipulate me in a sexual way.

Other memories which I had forgotten about keep coming back to haunt me and I think that's why I'm still a bit weary of her and her capabilities. The effects of suffering abuse are still there, I cannot comprehend or justify what she has done to me in the past and she still can't accept it herself. By now I was hoping to have everything out in the open, but communication between us seems to be down to a minimum again - I'm basically too scared to confront her about it all. However, all the cheating she did was when she drunk, a lot of the time this was right in front of me so I know it's true, yet she'll still deny it. I think she genuinely believes her own lies (which makes them pathological?). She's in denial about the truth. I'm wondering if these repressed memories will come back to haunt her in the future? If she denies her conscience about what happened then does that make her a psychopath?

By the way, everything she did in the past was covert. All the abuse was behind closed doors, the cheating would be outside or in the toilets at social occassions (which is how her 1st child was conceived). What amazes me is how her family members would blow this off as her having too much to drink. I actually overheard someone saying she was outside doing something sexual with a friend of the family (who was sleeping with 4 other women behind his GF's back), a guy she had an infatuation with before I even met her. When I went to see for myself, her family wouldn't let me past so obviously they knew it was happening but kept it hidden from me by helping her to conceal it.