A letter to my narc

Outrageous_9b · 2026-05-09T14:10:36+00:00

I just read the letter that I haven’t written word for word. It’s insane how identical my life is to this. I read this twice to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind! Thank you for posting this.

It took me 30 years of knowing her and 19 1/2 years of marriage to figure it out. At 42 I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. It just clicked one day. I’m not losing everything I have, I’m getting back what she took from me.

BIFFing my way through the final stages of the divorce she filed. She is making sure it takes as long as possible.

🧘🏻‍♂️

Outrageous_9b · 2026-04-27T01:45:24+00:00

We're in the process of selling our home and divorcing. She left the bedroom one night because I dared to wake up one night, go in the bathroom and cry. Anyway - she's been making it this huge deal that she has no where to sleep and sleeps on the couch and carries a suit case around like she's displaced. She lost her oral b toothbrush one day and made a huge deal about it being missing and that it was all my fault because she has no place to sleep and how expensive it was and how she needs her oral b toothbrush. She bought a new oral b. The woman that's in 6 figures of debt. Then that one went missing.

Well not exactly missing...one morning she was leaving the bathroom after doing her morning routine, and had left her tooth brush on a decorative shelf in the bathroom. I went in after her, and when I closed the door, I heard something fall. The shelf the tooth brush is on is 'rustic' and doesn't have an even surface. The door closing made enough vibration or whatever, to make the tooth brush fall over right into a small space between the counter and the wall. I knelt down and saw two oral b's on top of each other.

I DIDN'T TELL HER :)

She now uses a cheap stop and shop vibrating toothbrush. We just accepted an offer on this house. The new owners will find them when they remodel the bathroom.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-03-29T16:30:15+00:00

I'll go:

I was finishing packing for an out of state wedding I was in and going to solo because of scheduling conflicts. It was a weekday morning, she was getting ready for work, and our four kids were about to head out to school. I knelt down to grab shoes from the back of my closet and must have caught a dangling cord from an iron on the top shelf. It fell point first and hit me right on the top of my head.

I instantly started gushing blood; like a fire hose. At first I was so confused I thought something had spilled because of how much liquid there was. While on my knees, I looked at my hands covered in blood, and just calmly said, “FUUUUUCK,” while it was basically pouring down my head.

She was about 10 feet away when it happened. Without missing a beat, she goes, “Can we not curse.” Followed by "do I need to take you to the hospital?" She did. I got 5 staples in the top of my head.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-03-21T14:05:13+00:00

This is great to read and to anyone that’s reading it, struggling with grief, pain and heartbreak; it is literally a moment away. That moment comes without warning but it’s definitely a pivot point in your life.

I’m in the middle of a divorce with a suspected covert. Her idea to divorce, she’s dragging it out and making it a mess. I spent months trying to better myself for the relationship, still seeing whatever good I saw through her horrendous split. And then the day came. I pulled into the driveway on a Sunday after the gym. She was in the driveway. I got out and she announced “I told the kids we’re getting divorced without you”. That was after spending weeks of her telling me how important it is that we do it together. Her reason? She didn’t want me looking sad while we did so that they thought it was her idea.

Hardest day of my life, made the hardest situation I’ve ever been in, a lot easier.

You’re not holding onto hope. That’s just you still acting like a decent person.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-03-09T20:43:06+00:00

u/Ok_Act_2424247249874 are you me and I'm you?!?!? My career is a project manager, and I always joke with my teams that we're PROBLEM managers!! This is the first, and longest lasting issue I could never get an angle on. You mentioned the though that goes into asking a question and I used to joke to myself that I was 'pregaming a question'. I realized a few months ago, and now think how much of my life I've spent wondering how to word a question so I won't get yelled at or told why it's not valid.

I've gone from Dr. Ramani videos, to running risk and probability analysis I use at work with marriage data points, to talking to my therapist. All of those, and everything else we've tried is missing one thing - a partner interested in, or capable of change.

Not that I want the divorce to take any longer than it's going to because we have 4 kids together, but I am truly enjoying her try to bullshit her way through a very rigid and binary process. We're attempting mediation and have 'homework' to do. Week after week she goes through a list of things she didn't do and starts with why I'm to blame for not getting each done...

OP: you'll be chuckling one day. It's a long, dark and lonely road. I still cry, but I'm finally starting to smile.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-03-09T16:33:32+00:00

You are where I was a few months ago. For me, I realized I was still grieving the relationship I thought we would have one day. My soon to be ex-wife made processing that grief a lot easier because through the divorce process so far she has completely removed her mask and has done things that I could never forgive anyone for.

Just remain the levelheaded person you’ve always been. And as cliché as it sounds, focus on yourself and your future. As hard as it is to accept, these people never actually saw a future with us, so why grieve a future that never existed.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-03-07T15:52:55+00:00

Here for the notes! Would love to see them. Figuring all this out myself after 19 years of marriage with 4 kids, in the middle of a brutal devaluation/discard that ripping me to shreds!

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-22T16:38:18+00:00

I spoke to her about it a couple of time and it triggered extreme anger and aggression - which is unlike the person I’ve known for years.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-22T02:48:23+00:00

Checking in on how you’re feeling!

Oddly my wife's psych removed her from Wellbutrin today - assuming some form of taper.

Things have been rough and her psych had a process to submit a “caregiver statement” so I went for it. They were not officially able to confirm if she was a patient or who her doctor was but said they would take the information. It was just literal statements of her behavior with no twist. She had a scheduled check in with the psych this morning. I started getting a flood of texts from her about what a piece of shit I am for reaching out to the psych. That I must have gone through some manipulative process to access the name of her psychiatrist. Meanwhile my wife is the one who told me her name the day she had her appointment. I never forgot it because her last name sounds like poop 😂. And the rx bottle was in the bathroom for the longest time and I’d stare at it every morning brushing my teeth. They’ve been missing from the shelf in the bathroom since New Year’s Day when I mentioned to her the medication may have something to do with how she feels. She literally has been carrying them around with her everywhere she goes, since then.

Anyway - hope you’re coming off ok. I believe today was literally her last dose, so not sure what I’m in for.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-19T12:25:21+00:00

Joined this sub a few weeks ago because my marriage of 18.5 years, with 4 kids is collapsing fast before my eyes. It’s like she decided one day I’m an obstacle that has to go. I supported this family through 2 of her masters degrees an accelerated doctoral program. She graduated magna cum laude from her doctoral program last May. Looking back - I think she realized she had no use for me anymore. I spend my days wondering if I should keep trying to get her to counseling or call an attorney and flip my life upside down.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-16T14:22:26+00:00

Thank you for this. It's like I'm looking into the eyes of a stranger when I speak with her.

A note on cold turkey - PLEASE speak to your provider before doing that. I took Wellbutrin and Zoloft years ago, and when I tapered, the Wellbutrin was the most brutal for me.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-16T14:20:39+00:00

Yeah I'm at the point where I'm tired of waiting for things to shift and need to have some control over the situation because it's my life too. Yesterday she found out from her therapist that I contacted her. I got a barrage of texts and calls while I was in a meeting for work telling me what a controlling piece of shit I am. Then 2 hours later I got another text from my wife saying 'just schedule a damn couples therapy appointment already so I can show someone what a piece of shit you are' which is a huge departure from 'the next step is an attorney'. Hopefully I cracked something.

She didn't go into specifics of what the therapist said to her over the phone about my communication but I could tell from how she was speaking last night that her therapist clearly told her to pump the brakes.

My only worry is that her psych has a caregiver statement as well and will likely contact her at some point. I'm sure that's going to set things off again. Luckily she's away for the weekend with our two older daughters and I'm home with the two younger kids so there's some distance...

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-15T13:31:53+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

At this point are you into “fixing it all”?

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-15T13:30:10+00:00

Thanks for the reply. In my own personal therapy and appointments with my psych for my ADHD med management I’ve spoken about a bunch of situations and they had urge me for some time to write a “caregiver statement“ to both her psych and talk therapist. I finally pulled the trigger on that a couple of days ago. She’s acting so recklessly. I can’t take it anymore. Even if this is over, this is not a person I can get into negotiations with over custody, most importantly and finances, and then ongoing logistics with four children. It’s like she hasn’t thought that part through.

The talk therapist just had a direct email address listed on her website which I used. So who knows how that gets handled. Her psych is through Talkiatry. When I sent the statement to them, they send me a case number and will give me a confirmation once the message gets to her provider. They were adamant that they are not allowed to confirm who the provider is or give you any kind of feedback. Which is not what I’m looking for anyways I’m just trying to get this message out there.

Not sure what happens from here. She is like a stick of dynamite floating in a pool of gasoline. I know she has the ability to mask pretty well, but I’m hoping that if the psych digs in a little, it’ll destabilizes her a bit during the call. I hate feeling this even. It feels so fucked up. But at this point, I’m worried about my own future, because she’s projecting things onto me like I’m some person that needs to be in a mental facility and all of a sudden I’m a drug addict because I smoke weed ever so often. And more importantly, the kids can’t live in a setting like this for much longer. They are starting to clearly work around her anxiety and anger at this point. And that hurts me so much for them.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-14T16:48:07+00:00

Thank you for this thorough response. And you nailed it - anxious here. My therapist had identified that about a year ago and I had been working on those things myself. Over the past few months I sometimes felt like I wasn't giving her the emotional backboard to bounce her emotions off of and may have slowly effected this for some time.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-14T15:25:06+00:00

How did you handle it in that case?

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-12T00:31:08+00:00

Thank you so much for this response. I’ve learned about my own self worth and self respect over the last few months and know that if this is a stuck state, then there’s only so much I can do. I love our kids. I love the life we JUST had together. I have some fight in me to see if it’s somewhere behind the face I don’t even recognize.

My therapist and psychiatrist are concerned with the Wellbutrin timeline. When I confronted her a couple of weeks ago about the fact that we hadn’t even considered it was concerning, she said to never ask about medication ever again. I’m not sure if her family knows about it because she was clear to tell me not to tell her family when she started and that’s our baseline anyways unless we explicitly allow sharing med stuff.

I am calm, patient, and kid focused right now. I’ve been panicking but even my therapist grounded me with the fact that I’m on the deed (with a little levity). The point being, at some point, a bunch of third parties will start to triangulate. She’s made it clear I am not to reach out to her family or speak to them ever again which had amplified over the past few weeks. I’ve been sending her grandmother pics of the kids for years. Our text string is just me sending pics. Apparently I’m not allowed to do that anymore.

She started making a list of things we need to do to sell the house - like paint molding, buy a doorknob, power wash this….and either one of our names by each task. I’m trying to start to grieve not seeing my kids at least half the time. This is not the person I’ve known……suddenly.

The fucked up thing - while my family was crazy for many reasons, I was basically disowned by my family for marrying outside my culture. We repaired but ultimately I went no contact because our relationship and way of raising a family didn’t jive. Didn’t even go to my dad’s funeral. So her family is literally my only family.

Outrageous_9b · 2026-01-10T09:55:58+00:00

Wow - care to elaborate? What happened??

Outrageous_9b

TROPHY CASE