Once your eyes are opened, dont think, just get out!

by Audra
(Mass)

I was a young single mom of a baby boy. I wanted so desperately to have a stable, loving family and for my son to grow up and see his mom have a healthy marriage.

I signed up for a dating website and my now husband wrote, 'No one else on here has piqued my interest like you' I felt very special and he was very handsome. We met and instantly clicked like we knew then and there that we would marry.

He told me he prayed for a wife and I was everything he asked God for. He told me he would always go out of his way for me. Two weeks later he met my son on his first birthday and he spent the whole time playing with him and focusing all his attention on him. He clicked with my son just like he did with me! It was like an instant, perfect loving family.

We married 4 months later... The signs came on immediately yet I never wanted to acknowledge them. He maxed out my credit card. He sneaked around smoking weed. He stashed vodka bottles. He got into petty arguments with people making you question your own rationality.

I had our first daughter. He forced me into a custody battle with my son's father so that we could move far away and played me like a puppet forcing me to make decisions that went against my own moral judgement, bringing destruction and abuse on my son and his father.

It was the worst time in my life. Belittling started. He critisized little things he thought I did wrong around the house. He told me my family and church was wrong and treated him badly and manipulated me into isolating myself from them.

I had our 2nd daughter. He would take possessions of mine that were precious to me and pawn them. He would give loads of family money to homeless people or anyone that asked of him and leave me and the kids the scraps. Anytime I tried to confide in him or express something I was feeling, he would turn it back to him or make me feel shame for even saying that to him.

When my mom died of cancer, he made me feel like my negative thinking was what killed her. We had our first son. On went the rollercoaster ride of doses of incredible love followed by more belittling, passive aggressivness, slaming stuff and guilt trips at the drop of a hat.

His drinking only got worse. He would hound me for taking too long at the grocery store while daily he would leave for hours at a time without ever telling me he left or where he would go to. He had a private life and he would not open up about it.

Finally the day came where he put his hands on me and that was when I had enough and got a restraining order on him. That was 3 days ago. Yesterday I finally realized he was a narcissist.

After nearly 7 years of me looking at every mental illness, every trait trying to diagnose his 'quirkiness', the one disorder was the one I REFUSED to acknowledge, was the one he is.