By the time I knew deep in my gut that there was something very wrong with my marriage, my ex had already stopped being physically violent. I struggled daily with identifying exactly what it was that was really wrong about the entire situation. I believed my ex when he placed all of the blame on me. I thought I wasn’t caring enough, loving enough, trying hard enough.
The very first step in my journey to get out of my marriage to The Narcissist was Google. When I was at work and I knew The Narcissist would never find my browsing history I would search things like:
- I’m always wrong in my marriage
- My husband makes me feel like I’m never good enough
- How do I be a better wife
- I think I might be crazy
- My husband makes me feel crazy
- How to tell if something is wrong with your marriage
- What are the symptoms of depression
- Am I selfish
While this might not seem like the most logical place to start, it shows a pretty good idea of what kind of mental state I was in at the time. The really wonderful thing that happened when I started searching for these things is that I started to find a lot of information about emotional abuse.
Slowly, I would read through the articles, the blogs, the stories of others who had lived through these things. I found more and more similarities. I found words and definitions I had never heard before. I started to finally have a way to explain what was wrong. I started to have the ‘proof’ I felt like I needed to be able to justify leaving.
This is why I feel so strongly about sharing my story of The Narcissist with others. I hope that anyone out there who is wondering, questioning, doubting, self-blaming, and Googling might just end up here and might just recognize some of the signs.
There has been a hashtag trending on Twitter since early May: #maybehedoesnthityou started by Zahira Kelly at http://thebaddominicana.com/ with the intention to spread awareness about emotional abuse. I have spent hours reading these tweets. They have brought me tears, they have given me flashbacks, they have resonated with me on a very deep level. I have spent equal time crafting my own tweets, telling my own stories through those brief 140 characters.
A graphic designer Maya Drozdz made an amazing downloadable kit for schools to use with many of the tweets around #maybehedoesnthityou to spread awareness about what emotional abuse looks like so that teens can identify the signs early on. The kit can be downloaded for free from her website here: #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou Free School Kit … man do I wish I had known these things when I was much younger, it might have been easier to identify and define what I was dealing with when I got older.
So thank you to all of you who are a part of this community in any of the various ways that we are all here, telling our stories. I encourage everyone to be interacting with #maybehedoesnthityou if you are active on social media, and if you know anyone who teaches at a school – please share the download kit with them!
Keep spreading the word, keep telling the stories… you never know who you will be helping along the way. ❤
Divorcing a Narcissist Blog 
I agree. My wife is maybe not FULL blown narcissist. But looking back , I felt always like I was wrong. She would tell me I was wrong, she never apologised, she was never in the wrong. And many more red flags. But I thought it was just me.
Since she left, I read, discovered narcissism etc.
But you know what is awesome? Her affair partner is a full blown narcissist. O my… life is good!
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SDK, that should work out amazing for the 2 of them! hahaha
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I love that you are sharing your story. You have enlightened me so much with your blog.
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Thank you for reading Bethanyk!! ❤
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I resonate with your stories so much. My husband was very abusive and I stayed for 28 years until she kicked me out. How scary was that. But I have come to the realization that this is the best thing that ever happened because I am free from living with someone that couldn’t love
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Thank you for reading Catalinazamora ❤
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Wow, I thought I was the only one who turned to Google to figure out what was happening to me.
Those search phrases are so familiar.
I looked up so many articles about mental/emotional abuse and how a narcissist manipulates you into thinking that you’re wrong and that somehow its all your fault. And also how you crave for him despite the abuse.
My phone/laptop was spotchecked everyday so I had to be extra careful and browse on incognito mode on the browser.
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thisbittermarriage, me too! We shared a computer, shared passwords, shared all accounts so I could only ever do research at the office. I started to wonder what my IT team would think if they saw my search history, haha. It is definitely difficult to try to search for some answers when you cannot verbalize what is actually happening.
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After 3 weeks of my relationship with Narcissist – I google-d words: “man jealous on woman”…but the word I used “jealous” was wrong. I tried that search in my native language (Croatian), then in English. Google showed me examples of “jealousy”. However, we had incident on Narcissist extreme ENVY over so banal item – fast drying T-shirt I had. Namely, he stayed for a weekend at me and he talked and talked and talked about the jacket he bought (for hiking, as both of us like to hike). I did not react, I did not ask him questions…Then I said – I don’t buy these sporting clothes in Croatia due to limit offer and high prices, I usually buy them in London or online. Then he “attacked me” out of blue with words – you are privileged, you are selfish. Actually, he envied me because I was able to buy some sporting clothes (I am recreational long-distance runner and I have T-shirts which dry fast, obviously). I have never ever experienced such outrage from any man. To me, at first, it was silly. I was in shock and disbelief. We both are 48. I could not imagine that grown man, a literature professor, who claimed that he loved me, could show such an aggressive outburst – “envy” – because of 5 USD T-shirt. So, I google-d, but instead of envy I used jealousy. If I put the correct word, I might find out earlier who he was. I wonder, if anybody experienced something like this – envy- over such banal thing. In “our case”, I am better (higher) educated, I work as international expert, while he is a literature professor in our old high school, our finances are incomparable – so I guess, at the end, he was with me because he wanted my money (short-term to cover his debts and long-term to cover his mortgage). I am also running a blog (in Croatian language) for the same reasons – to educate others and to spill out all the nonsense and all manipulative tactics he did on me.
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