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When looking at definitions of covert narcissist, there are 2 traits that are part of NPD that doesn’t fit her.

Narcissism is a much more complex and nuanced issue than most internet resources will have you believe. Narcissistic traits exist in various combinations and with different degrees of severity. So much so, that diagnosing NPD may be a challenge even for a highly qualified clinician. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who wouldn't qualify for an NPD diagnosis but they still display those traits and behaviours, which makes them anything from mildly annoying to callously cruel in everyday interactions. At the end of the day, no formal diagnosis is necessary to know that your spouse, partner, relative or colleague is toxic and their actions are hurtful to you.

She has loads of empathy for people (just not for me)

Narcissistic people have the capacity for cognitive empathy, i.e. they know when to act empathetic, but that doesn't mean they necessarily feel empathy. Plus, being transactional in their relationships, they act empathetically when it suits them. Appearing empathetic to the outside world can serve a lot of different purposes and for a number of reasons the narcissist may feel it's worth putting on the mask of a compassionate, understanding and caring individual. With people who are close and unlikely to abandon them, i.e. spouses, partners or children, they feel much more "at ease" being who they are. There is no immediate benefit to acting empathetically, so they simply dispense with the act and change from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde.

and she has no problem developing and maintaining relationships - everyone wants a piece of her and her time.

What sort of relationships are those? Are they long-term, deep and close friendships or rather more shallow, "chit-chat-over-drinks" interactions?

Anyway, no matter if your wife is narcissistic, borderline or anything else, her actions towards you are an 18-year-long display of emotional cruelty continuing to this day. At this point it's all you need to know.

Awoken,

You're confusing.

She's telling you that 'if something like this happens again, you're through!' Really? She's telling *you* that???

You're telling her that reconciliation hasn't started ...yet... Implying that there is a chance. Really?

And you're letting her get out in front of the whole thing if you choose divorce. She just told you she's planning to poison the kids and her parents before you have a chance to tell them the truth.

It seems like you're letting your emotions get the better of you. Tonight's conversation should have been simple: 'Do not go see him.' 'Text him you're done now.'

And when she ignored that. Ignore her.

And file.

You're totally doing the pick me dance. We get she's attractive on the outside. And we get that people like her. But she's not your wife. And it really doesn't matter if you could have been better during the course of your marriage. Nothing excuses her being your roommate while being this guys 2nd wife for YEARS. And she still prioritizes him over you.

The handwriting is on the wall. She is not R material. And you're not right for her either. She needs a confident man that handles her. Her AP is that. You said as much. You do not handle her correctly. How much you earn isn't really a factor here.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but...

[This message edited by justsayno at 1:08 AM, September 5th (Saturday)]

Had a big blow out again last night. She got home for dinner and then told me the AP called her out of the blue as he is back in the country and has quarantined and only has 1-2 days before he has to leave to join his family so he wanted to see her. She already had plans with a girlfriend of hers which she had to change.

She will change her plans to meet him but she won't comply with your demand (boy, was it even a demand?) not to meet him. She has absolutely no respect for you.

She told me that she was going to be transparent when he got in touch with her and told me she was having dinner in a public place with him tonight. I lost it and said I told her I didn’t want her to meet him in person and she should have ended it already. I told her reconciliation hasn’t started since you haven’t ended anything.

You shouldn't have mentioned any possibility of reconciliation. She already knows you're not going anywhere and she has you exactly where she wants you to be (and that is directly under her foot).

She immediately went from 0 to 100 in anger and yelling saying the proper way to do this is face to face and end it as he has no idea what she was going to tell him.

She's using her anger to subdue you. A further indication that she has no respect for you.

I told her no problem, do it your way, don’t come home tomorrow and I turned away. She grabbed my arm and ended up scratching it, and I told her the next time she is violent towards me the police will be here. I took photos later just to have them as proof.

You failed to impose a boundary which makes you appear weak and she carried out an act of physical violence.

She said why don’t you want me to end it in person, and I said because I don’t trust him and she said, no, you don’t trust me. And she was right. She basically said if someone like this happens again, we are through.

She's threatening you because she knows you fear her. She should be in no position to issue threats or demands.

I said be careful with your threats because I can make your life a living hell.

Your own threats to her mean absolutely nothing.

She lost it again - then asked me again about the recordings and if I deleted them. She said let me see your computer and prove that you deleted them. I started laughing and said I deleted them and don’t have to prove anything to you, It’s you that has to prove things to me. She said if she gets access to my computer, she will give me access to her phone - I declined.

She's again using anger as a manipulative tactic and trying to "negotiate" from the position of power.

She then said that she will not have me hold anything over her head and will go and tell her parents herself about the affair, as well as our kids. She said after she tells them, and they see how bad our marriage was, they will be upset at me instead of her. Again blaming me. (And as I mentioned here before, I am definitely at fault for being a bad husband for years.)

More threats.

She said how hard she is fighting to have this meeting is exactly how hard she will fight for me as she chose to be with me.

And when exactly is she planning to graciously start "fighting for you"?

People will treat us exactly as we allow them to. You have allowed your wife to openly disrespect you and you continue to do it. I don't want to sound unnecessarily harsh and red-pilly, but a woman will never want to be with a man she doesn't respect. As things are, she will never fight for you. Instead, she will use her anger and threats to beat you into submission and have you serve as her walking cash machine for the rest of your sham of a marriage.

Stop doing the dance and file.

You keep drawing your line in the sand and then move it accommodate her.

This stops when you say it stops.

So it's clear I'm not alone in my assessment of the nature of your wife's dominance over you and you're willingness to be in that position. A position that had a ton to do with why this has been going on for so long to begin with. And *why* she's attracted to this particular AP.

My advice is to read freefallers approach as described here:

Topic: WS has no idea I know - page 6

https://survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=648478&AP=101

freefaller handled things extremely well. He was matter of fact, unemotional, he recorded audio and video (imagine having both for the scratches), he set boundaries, he communicated consequences, and he packed his wife up and shipped her off for now, notifying her brother in the process.

You need to grow a pair. My personal opinion is that you're highly unlikely to win your wife back over given how long you've been, and continue to be, the way you've been. If you were to start doing this correctly, she knows you're game too well. Regardless, at a minimum, you should be able to man up and move this toward D firmly and assertively, and most of all, unemotionally.

[This message edited by justsayno at 3:55 AM, September 5th (Saturday)]

When looking at definitions of covert narcissist, there are 2 traits that are part of NPD that doesn’t fit her.

The more I read about Narcissism, the better my understanding that we should not put this label on complex personalities, and even on people in general. I think Sceadugenga describes it very well. Most people who are labeled as "narcissists" would never be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder by a mental health professional.

Non-pathological narcissism is a personality style, like a set of traits, and there are different types (grandiose and vulnerable). We may all have narcissistic traits, more or less, to some extent. They say "we are all on a spectrum". We need to have some healthy narcissism for survival. Awoken, you should think about that. Would it hurt with a little more sense of entitlement in your case? Accepting to live without sex, like you did for a very long time, is not very healthy.

Please note that covert (or “vulnerable”) narcissism is not a personality disorder which is defined in DSM – it’s more like a personality structure (first definition is by Salman Akhtar 1989 I read some place). Personally, I believe the behavior is some kind of trauma response caused by violence during childhood and youth. Shame has a central role in covert narcissism. A frequently misinterpreted term I noticed (“covert”), especially online by survivors of narcissistic abuse, who had experiences with malignant (psychopathic) narcissists and subtle (“hidden”) abuse.

baller20

The more I read about Narcissism, the better my understanding that we should not put this label on complex personalities, and even on people in general.

I've already written it somewhere else, but I'll repeat what my psychiatrist said about it, because it seems to have struck a chord with a few forum members:

Labelling people and trying to diagnose them is pointless and in the long run detrimental to your healing process. By trying to find explanations for their behaviour, their rationales and motives, you turn your attention outwards, instead of inwards. The precise term she used was objectifying people. As the result, instead of reflecting on your own traumatic experience, you focus your attention on the other person, whose thoughts you'll never really know and who could be all but absent from your life. It doesn't serve any useful purpose whatsoever.

Another, probably more important, aspect is that by intellectualising your experience you subdue your emotions of grief, fear, anger, sadness and so on. Without allowing yourself to fully experience them (and we all know that it is extremely painful), you don't release them. Once bottled up, they will one day manifest themselves in three possible ways: outward aggression (verbal or physical, aimed at whoever happens to be around), inward aggression (resulting in self-hate and possibly prolonged clinical depression further down the line) or carrying those emotions as negative baggage which will affect your future ability to enter and/or sustain romantic relationships.

Funny how my H ended his affair the first tine with a 73 minute phone call. He left the house to have that conversation. I sss highly suspicious.

Funny how 6 weeks later the OW calls him and 💥 BOOM the affair started up again.

Funny how the last time he ended it he told her it was over on the phone in two minutes and never spoke to her again. Not the two times she tried to initiate contact. Which he showed me immediately.

When the cheater really wants to end it they do. Swift. Final.

Not dragging it out or insisting on meeting face to face.

See the difference?

The cheater who insists on face to face to end it is not ending the Affair. It’s another opportunity to hook up and figure out how to take the Affair underground.

Really? She just tells you she’s going out for dinner with her ‘lover’ and that sits ok with you?!

I think I actually wanted to throw up reading this thread.

Sceadugenga: I've already written it somewhere else, but I'll repeat what my psychiatrist said about it, because it seems to have struck a chord with a few forum members:

Labelling people and trying to diagnose them is pointless and in the long run detrimental to your healing process. By trying to find explanations for their behaviour, their rationales and motives, you turn your attention outwards, instead of inwards. The precise term she used was objectifying people. As the result, instead of reflecting on your own traumatic experience, you focus your attention on the other person, whose thoughts you'll never really know and who could be all but absent from your life. It doesn't serve any useful purpose whatsoever.

Another, probably more important, aspect is that by intellectualising your experience you subdue your emotions of grief, fear, anger, sadness and so on. Without allowing yourself to fully experience them (and we all know that it is extremely painful), you don't release them. Once bottled up, they will one day manifest themselves in three possible ways: outward aggression (verbal or physical, aimed at whoever happens to be around), inward aggression (resulting in self-hate and possibly prolonged clinical depression further down the line) or carrying those emotions as negative baggage which will affect your future ability to enter and/or sustain romantic relationships.

@Sceadugenga

Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm new here so I didn't read it before. It makes so much sense, and it puts more exact words on my own predator-prey perspective on things. Some of us may stuck in this way of thinking, which is not very helpful for recovery & healing, just like you point out. That's exactly what happened to me, I lost my power and made myself a victim.

@Sceadugenga

Thanks so much for sharing this.

Glad to be of help. But, enough threadjacking :-), let's allow Awoken to have his safe space here.

Pre DSM , we just called these folks selfish assholes. Narcissist, to me, is just shorthand for it.

I do think , for me, learning more about this type of person and figuring my XW displayed most of the traits, was somewhat beneficial. It helped me realize I was not imagining a lot of the abuse.

I am not sure how gaining this knowledge would impede healing in any way. Seems it woke me up and made me aware of things to watch out for in future relationships.

Sceadugenga: Glad to be of help. But, enough threadjacking :-), let's allow Awoken to have his safe space here.

+1

Awoken,

Hopefully you are moving forward. One step at a time if needs be.

You advise that as you have not been the best of husband/father through the years. You fail to account for the psychological effect of being in a sexless marriage. The hurt, the rejection, and the feeling of inadequacy. 18 years is a long time. I should know, I have been in a sexless marriage for about 16yrs.

Again. Stop putting her on a pedestal. She is no unicorn. She is just another run of the mill cheater.

Again. Start taking control.

When she realizes that people will see what she is really like, her crystal palace will start to crack.

Your first port of call still needs to be a lawyer, and file.

Information to the other spouse needs to occur. Using a PI to deliver this is now your best avenue, as now the AP will have informed her of the lunatic who will try to contact her.

Start letting family know whats going on. Telling your children what has been going on. ought to be the first family members to talk to. Let them know all of it in an appropriate way. Inform them of the sexless part, so that they empathise and perhaps understand your psychological state through this time. Inform her parents as well.

This takes away her power.

If you had taken a stronger stance with this, there may have been something salvageable.

She has returned to the person who she has most feelings/respect for. You are her plan 'B'..

Get out of this. Run for the hills.

Awoken,

One of the big problem for one “last” meeting is that she wants todo this based on her feelings towards the OM. A good candidate for R realizes the damage he/she has done and look at the AP with revulsion. Affair relationships are all fake and based on lies, unicorns and rainbows.

Imagine a salesman sells you a car for $50000 but it turns out to be a complete lemon. Do you have to go shake the guys hand one last time? In person? Maybe bring him a bottle of wine? Why not? Your WW insists she needs to do this.

Reading all your posts, what I see is that All your WW is doing is blameshifting, rug sweeping and minimizing.

So what is best for YOU? I kindly suggest you stop fighting with her, arguing with her, just don’t talk to her anymore. Whenever she argues with you, just tell her “I’m sorry you feel that way and wish you the best inyour future endeavors “.

You will gain nothing by talking with her, just more pain. Let her do whatever she wants and proceed with the lawyer and D.

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 5:19 PM, September 5th (Saturday)]

I am also thinking.. when she stopped working with him because he owed her money, and would not pay. I presume that is what she told you.

I am of the opinion, that he broke up with her to marry this first wife, and that is the excuse she gave you.

Take her off her pedestal, she is just another, plain jane cheater..

Have her served.

She is not worth the worry, hassle, or trouble to continue in any type of relationship.

One day at a time.

When you expose her to the AP #1 wife. Inform her that the A has been on and off for 18 years, not a few weeks or a month or two. You don’t need her permission to do this.

Have her served and in the separation agreement have her move out and change the locks. VAR at all time when engaging with her.

One day at a time.

She told me that she was going to be transparent when he got in touch with her and told me she was having dinner in a public place with him tonight. I lost it and said I told her I didn’t want her to meet him in person and she should have ended it already.

Oh how nice of her, REALLY !!! and you allowed this ! all she needed was 10 seconds to send him a text in front of you then block him from everything, but then again your WW is light years away from being a good candidate for R, please end this farce and file for D, your sexless M is a sham, you deserve so much better than an unremorseful cheater and liar who on top of everything has the audacity to threaten you. File for D and haver her served and EXPOSE the A with ALL family and close friends without warning, don't let her control the narrative with family and mutual friends.

Please stop torturing yourself. She’s a sociopath. You are not even a person in her eyes, just a convenient walking breathing ATM.