I have always tried extra hard to make my Narcissist feel like he was the most important person in my life. He told me at the beginning of our relationship that his ex had cheated on him which made me feel really bad for him. Because of him “playing the victim card” I always felt like that was his way of one upping me and the reason he was so suspicious of me. I reasoned that maybe his heart was wounded so badly that he was incapable of trusting anyone. I thought that his controlling behavior and suspicious nature would cool off the longer we were together. But that was not the case. As it turns out, I don’t think his ex ever did cheat on him. I now know that narcissists play the victim so that they get you to feel sorry for them, making it easier for them to manipulate you.

This is a very common move in the narcissist’s playbook. They then accuse you of being insensitive of their feelings. However, they never once stop to consider your feelings along the way. It is always about them. I would beg and plead for him to trust me and not be so suspicious when my cell phone would ring when we were together. If it was a wrong number he would interrogate me. “Who was that?“ “Why were they calling you?” I would then go as far as to Google the phone number and show him that it was a telemarketer. I was a nervous wreck when he bought me a new phone and new number and it turned out to be a previous number of some party girl who got calls from at 2 am from drunk guys at a club. They would ask for Shanikwa or someone. Then my narcissist would he would get mad at me, as if it was my fault!

I never will forget when my narcissist told me to dump every male acquaintance on facebook before our marriage, he even made me cut ties with my gay best friend. He said that it wasn’t who he wanted his future wife to be socializing with. The sad truth was that he didn’t want me to hang out with ANYONE other than him. Even my own family were enemies in his eyes. He saw my Mother as a threat because we are extremely close. He would make jabs at her on the rare occasions when we did get together. He did it in a sly, sneaky way that my Mom would later ask me why he said those odd things and I would shamelessly try to make excuses for him. I would say that maybe she misunderstood him, or that maybe he didn’t mean to offend. But she was onto him.

My narcissist was so jealous of anyone who took any of my attention that even just the act of sitting next to my Mom on the couch when the only other seat in the room was a comfy recliner where he had to sit, caused a serious fight. Later that night, my narcissist was dark and broody and confronted me as to why I would not ask my Mom to move so that he could sit next to me on the couch? He said, “your Mom should know that your husband would want to sit next to his wife.” I looked at him like he was bloody insane! At the time, we were living three hours away from my family and were back for one weekend visiting them at their house, I didn’t think anything of it when I sat next to her and not him. I wanted to be able to visit and talk with her. So from that moment on, any future visit at my parents house was ruined for me. I never knew what he would find to get mad about. I always had to put him first, so that he didn’t feel “neglected.” It was exhausting. I couldn’t enjoy the visit because it would create tons of arguments between us, so eventually it was easier to just not visit them. He couldn’t comprehend that I would want to visit with any of my family, because whenever we would visit his family, he would sit with a baby on his lap, avoiding his whole family and would make ME entertain them. He didn’t know what it meant to be close to his family, although he would swear up and down that he was “very close” to them. Liar.

So, if your partner keeps close tabs on you, vies for your constant attention, and puts down your family and friends in an attempt to steer you away from wanting to spend time with them, be forewarned!  It is a toxic relationship that will NEVER get better.  The narcissist is out to destroy you, he or she will burn everyone and everything you care about down to mere ashes.