Was my ex husband a narcissist or something else?

[Alter-eg0]

*Trigger warning: self harm, sexual stuff, CP*

Hey y'all...

So i've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
Ever since I discovered that my father is a (communal) narcissist, I seem to be seeing narcissists or at least toxic people everywhere. It makes me wonder whether there really are that many crappy people out there, or whether i'm turning something into nothing. But here's the thing: i've been thinking about my past relationships, and one of them in particular, with the man that I married. I was 19 at the time when I married him and 21 when we divorced, and i'm 35 now, so it's a long time ago. But remembering things and reading though old diary entries, and although over the years I always just told myself that he was really insecure (as was I) and that resulted in some toxic behaviour from both of us...i'm starting to wonder if there was more going on.

I'd love to gain some opinions or insight from you guys...was I abused?

For starters, I was 16 and he was 23 when we met. He found my MSN-profile, we lived in the same town and we ended up meeting. He was incredibly kind, supportive and understanding (almost in a cliché kind of way) for the first few months. I was wildly in love, but think it was at around 6 months when I started to doubt our relationship but I stayed anyway.
I know for a fact that he is attracted to young pre-pubescent girls, and I also know for a fact that he looks at CP. I'm starting to wonder if I was really in love, or if I was groomed.

He was very passive aggressive; I walked on eggshells around him. He acted nice around others, but if for example someone made a comment that I knew would ignite his insecurities, I felt the tension hanging in the air and I knew i'd be spending the next hours or days enduring the silent treatment or having to suck up to a sulking boyfriend. He never outright said what was wrong until there had been at least a few hours of sulking prior, and I had 'worked hard enough' to get it out of him.
Example: He bought two tickets to see The Who, then asked me if I wanted to come. I said no, it's not really my thing. He found someone else who cancelled later, then asked me again. I still said no. He didn't bother to look for someone else. Instead, he waited until the last minute ignoring me and sulking, then at the last minute got mad at me for ruining his evening. Then he began to pack his sleeping gear and said "if you're not coming, I might as well stay there". So I said "sure, will you call me if you decide to stay over?" and he put on a bitter face, stopped talking to me and left.
He also acted like this if I wanted to go someplace alone or hand out with friends. He always wanted to be with me, and would sulk and act passive aggressive if I did something for myself.

Example 2: He was a professional vocalist/vocal coach. I was an amateur vocalist. We both took part in a talent show, and he won the first round. He then emailed the organizer and told them to give his place to me instead, since it wasn't fair the he -a professional- won from me -and amateur-. They declined, and so I decided to participate again for the second round. I won, so we both ended up in the finals and battled it out. It was great fun, I thought, and I ended up winning the finals against him. He was entirely silent on the way home, and I already knew what was coming so I tried to be extra nice and divert his attention. I wanted to go to bed when we got home, it was late, but he insisted on opening my prize (a new dvd player) first. Then after that, we went to bed and he stopped talking to me. After days of sulking, he ended up crying in my arms that it wasn't fair how hard he had to work for everything, only for an amateur to win.

Example 3: He refused to get his drivers license, but did expect me to help him out all the time. I got up at 5 in the morning every day, did a paper route, went to school or work, got home late in the evening and sometimes he would ask me to wait an hour at the train station so that he could drive home with me. If I refused (it was late, I was tired and I had another early morning ahead), he'd just hang up the phone.

Example 3: we developed a way of talking to each other in kids voices. It may seem like just a quirk, but we did it ALL THE TIME. Like, we couldn't have a normal adult conversation. For me, it was a way of being able to say things that I otherwise couldn't get away with: if I said it in a different voice, it sounded like a joke that I could easily take back if I noticed that what i'd said triggered him.

He ignored how I felt, didn't take it seriously at all, or turned it into something else.
Example: In the stage in which he was starting his own business, he was on the phone all the time. I was fine with it, it needed to be done, but it also got to a point where I actually missed him.
We were on a trip at some point, and we were in the bus together talking, then his phone went again and he immediately picked it up. I felt rejected, and when he was done, I tried to tell him that I missed him. He got really annoyed and angry, saying that it was ridiculous since he was right there. And he said 'you know how it is, I have work', to which I said yeah, I get it, I just also miss you. He did this jaw clamping thing (which he always did, that's how I could tell he was angry) where I could see the muscles of his jaw tick, but he didn't say anything. And then he'd just stop talking to me again.

He could be explosive in anger.
Example 1: I'd come home from a long day at work, and he had been home all day at his pc (he worked evenings). He hadn't made dinner yet, although it was his turn that day. I said hello, he ignored me. I asked him if he was planning on making dinner soon, and he ignored me. So I left him alone and sat down at my own pc. After about an hour, I asked him again, which he ignored. Then, after about 15 minutes, he angrily got up and demanded "Well?! What do you want to eat then?!". Caught off guard, I said "Uhhhh" and he replied with: "Well?!?". So I said "Hey, calm down, you've been ignoring me for over an hour, you can't just demand I answer you in a split second", to which he got so angry that he threw a bowl of cutlery accross the room and stormed out. I then left to have dinner at a friends house (this was before mobile phones where a big thing, so there was no whatsapp or anything), which I didn't tell him about. When I got home a few hours later, he was in a total frenzy and his parents were there consoling him. He was crying that he'd searched everywhere for me and was scared that I was going to hurt myself (I was depressed at the time), and he'd called his parents, my parents, my friends, he'd even called the hospital. Then the rest of the evening, he was sweet as ever and pretended nothing had ever happened.
Example 2: We planned a holiday in which we were going busking, and he wanted to practice our repertory almost every day for weeks on end. It was driving me nuts, as I already knew the songs and was tired of practicing. So at some point, when he asked to try again, I sighed. To which he got so angry that he threw his guitar across the room, causing a hole in the side. Then he started saying "Now look what you've done, my guitar is ruined".  I was so terrified that I had a panic attack, which he tried to console. Afterwards, we talked about it and since I was too scared to say that it was because of him, I told him that i'd just been really busy and stressed at work. To which he got really nice and protective and took me over to my parents, to talk to them about letting me have a day off.

He could be very derogatory, or give backhanded compliments.
I remember having a discussion with him about someone elses behaviour, where I tried to explain where it came from and he replied with something along the lines of "That's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard, you're an idiot if you believe that". I also remember that years after our wedding, he told me about how his parents had been embarrassed by the clothing my brothers wore to our wedding (they had gotten new clothes, nice but casual, not in suit or anything). And I explained that to him, but he agreed with his parents that it was disrespectful.

When I was ill with depression and self harming, it was always about him. He didn't believe depression was real, he thought that it reflected badly on him. He thought that if I did enough fun things and loved him enough, it would go away. So for example he convinced me to go a holiday with him that I didn't really want, asked me to pay for half of it, and I didn't enjoy myself at all. Of course I didn't: I was depressed. But when he asked me after coming home whether i'd enjoyed myself, I told him honestly that no, I hadn't. And he was so mad! Que more silent treatment.
Whenever he found out i'd harmed myself, he was the one who would sulk and cry about it, or get mad. And then i'd be the one consoling and making up to him. My parents didn't know at the time that I was on medication and self harming, let alone that I was in therapy. I was planning to tell them during out first family therapy session. But my husband took that opportunity away from me when he got so mad about an incident, that he ran out of the house, called my parents and told them (when then came over to my house bawling, which was awkward).

He was incredibly insecure and easily felt rejected.

Example 1: If I didn't feel like being intimate (which I often didn't, as I was depressed and on meds that greatly reduced my libido), he didn't take rejection well. He'd turn away and sulk until I would come and make up to him. After a few years, there was a point in our relationship where I couldn't be bothered rejecting him anymore since I didn't want to deal with the consequences, so I'd just let him do his thing, or i'd pleasure him and get it over with. It was dark, so he couldn't see my face anyway. I remember a moment where he had gone off to sleep and I was just laying there with tears rolling down my face, completely frozen so as that he wouldn't notice.

Example 2: When we were having a hard time during out marriage, he developed a crush on a friend of mine who lived close by. She was a few years younger than me and had quite a few issues herself.
My husband told me about this crush, and I acted quite understanding. Not only was I doped up on medication and didn't feel much at the time, but I also understood that given the difficult time we were having, it made sense that he was attracted to some kind of distraction. When I told him this, he got really mad at me, and then really sulky. Instead of being relieved that I was being understanding, he was insulted, saying that this didn't bother me enough for someone who supposedly loved him.

After we split up, I found out that he had been telling people that I was crazy. Telling them that I read too many books about depression/self harm/ED/s, and talked myself into developing them.

We had remained friends after we split up and we spoke to and saw each other regularly. He often cried about how lonely he was, and how he missed having someone who knew everything about him and accepted him, like I did. And then he got a new girlfriend and stopped replying to my messages from one day to the next. If I ever run into him, he turns into a side-street and avoids me completely. I told myself that it was because his new girlfriend was uncomfortable with us, but i'm starting to think that I was just discarded.

Another weird thing: I have no memory of the majority of our honeymoon. I remember where we went, and I remember getting in the train to go there. I remember arriving at the hotel, and taking off my dress. I remember one other snapshot in my brain, of a bridge in that city. That's it, nothing else. I have no clue what else we did that weekend.


I'm curious about you guys's perspective on this...

[Blueberry]

I write very long posts myself, but I can't manage to read yours atm, I'm sorry.

I did read your question though, so will try and give you my perspective on it. Sry in advance if you already wrote in your post that this is not the response you need or want.

Maybe it's not so important to know whether your ex was a narcissist, but to know that the relationship was harmful to and for you? This is partly what my T said to me when I wondered if my parents are maybe narcs or Borderline or do they just have cptsd themselves or?? If they ever went into therapy (unlikely) that would be up to their therapist to figure out if he/she wanted to delve deeper than depression or sadness-at-estranged-daughter. But for me it's enough to know that I need firm boundaries and very low contact because my parents' ways of being are very harmful to me.

otoh just ignore my post if it is in fact important for you to know whether ex was a narc or not.

[Bach]

I read your whole post, Alter-eg0, and although I can't make a definitive judgment on whether he was a narcissist or not, I'd like to validate your sense that you were abused. Whether he is clinically NPD or not, most of what you describe here is right out of that playbook. He sounds like a nightmare, and like he took advantage of your youth, naivete, and sincerity. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I hope that you can continue to explore it and find some healing, because no matter what your imperfections, you did NOT deserve that.

[Kizzie]

His behav's do sound like NPD to me although of course none of us can say for absolute certain. Caveat aside,  we (survivors of N abuse) are experts by way of lived experience. I feel like I can spot a person with NPD within a minute or two now that I am more knowledgeable about NPD and trust my instincts.  It's my N-radar and I listen to it.

If you want to reassure yourself that he was though, you might go over to our sister site Out of the FOG as they have a lot more resources and info about personality disorders. It's here - https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/.  It's where I first went when I was trying to figure things out and it was enormously helpful.

[Alter-eg0]

Blueberry: Thanks, You're right about that, I agree that the actual diagnosis isn't all that important. I suppose my real question was more about whether I was right to say for all those years that he was just really insecure and that we both had a part in that toxic relationship (I mean, I didn't have the most healthy contribution either) or whether there was actually something more serious at play, and was there abuse that i've been downplaying all these years.

Bach: Thanks, I suppose that validation was what I was looking for. I've just been really confused about it lately since I always told myself that it wasn't a big deal, and I was very 'understanding' about the whole thing. But now i'm looking back as an adult with more knowledge and i'm thinking....hang on.....something isn't right here.

Kizzie: Thanks, I will do that!