I say “semi” Narcisstic because he genuinely seems to care for his kids and he does show empathy for others at times.

Mostly he just works, and works, and works, then pursues an avid hobby, then spends time with his kids, and then, possibly, with me. As a result of him working so much, we have a lot of money, but it’s a lonely and miserable life for me.

He always comes first, which he justifies because he’s the one who pays the bills. The jobs I could get wouldn’t make nearly as much money as his, so he says they’re pointless. What I should be doing is organizing and fixing up our house, but most of the time I’m too depressed to do this.

He has the worst temper of any I’ve ever met. When he’s angry, he’s threatening, brimming with white-hot hate for me, inconsolable, and nothing can calm him down. He goes on long tirades about how horrible he thinks I am and how he’s right and has done nothing wrong. He often demands I give a detailed apology and be “contrite” and take full blame. If I do this (and cry and beg him to stop), it’s often not enough. He doesn’t care who hears him yelling. He’s yelled horrible criticisms at me when his kids can hear very word. These tirades can last 30 minutes, hours, or days. Once, on an anniversary trip, it was 8 hours straight. There is no talking to him or reasoning with him. He sometimes breaks treasured things. And everything is always 100% my fault, because whatever it is, I started it. Me starting it could include me having a tone he doesn’t like (if he’s particularly stressed or it’s a touchy subject), me being grumpy (when he’s stressed), or me getting upset with him or snapping/yelling at him. I’m generally depressed and can be moody/sensitive, so I get that I’m not easy, but I work very hard to improve myself and have done so for many years. I’m a much calmer person now, but he’s exactly the same. How could he improve if he’s perfect? If I’m grumpy or snap at him, or even yell at him, I generally try to work through it. But if he’s stressed to begin with, which is often the case, there’s no working through it. He has to demean me. He lays out in detail how awful he thinks I am (which is particularly hurtful because he never compliments me), clenches his fists, breathes heavily, often screams at me, and is just not satisfied until he’s completely demoralized me and torn me to shreds. After that, I just don’t care about anything anymore. I lay in bed for days. And the threats. Always goes right to how I don’t deserve him and he’s leaving me. When I used to get very upset at these statements, it was much worse. Now I just say then leave and he rarely ends up driving off. His entire goal is to obliterate me. Once he accomplishes that, he’s often nice and tries to cheer me up. He acts like nothing happened, sometimes asks me “what’s wrong,” and says we need to be positive and focus on the future, don’t dwell on “the past” (even if “the past” is an hour ago). If I try to talk about what happened, he says I’m negative and just trying to upset him again or punish him. When he’s in his rage, I think that if I were hanging from a cliff about to fall, he would tell me to apologize guest and be contrite before he’d help me.

I’ve tried many approaches. It’s very hard for me to stay calm and ignore him or just leave and go someplace else. My family lives on the other side of the country, and I gave up having friends a few years ago because I was going through too much drama to be consistent. So if I leave, I’m only gone hours. I have to block his number because he’ll send vicious texts, threatening to leave me, breaking up with me, telling me I no longer have a home to live in, and just going on and on about how awful I am and how wrong I am and how right he is.

Before I met him i had accomplished wonderful things and overcame so much. I was productive and I had people in my life I was close to. Now it’s often hard for me to keep a dentist appointment or do a load of laundry. It’s hard to get out of bed. I’ve had trouble with depression before, but this is one I can’t seem to get out of.

Sometimes, everything is fine. Sometimes we get along well. We don’t fight as much as we used to. But even at its best, I’m still very lonely. And there is still the underlying premise that he’s great and I’m problematic. He thinks because he’s productive and successful that this is evidence he’s healthy. It isn’t.

He simply doesn’t care that I spend most of my time depressed and laying in bed. He just thinks that’s my problem and focuses on what he has to do.

I could deal with a lot, but I’m just so sick of the inconsolable fury. And that it’s always my fault.

I used to have so much confidence and feel good about myself. He took that.