I think some are self aware to a certain extent. When discussing why we didnt marry 15 years ago. his response was "We wouldnt have made it. Ive been such an asshole during the years you've been gone" He also spent several months telling me how much he wanted me back. How he was so freakin glad I was gonna give him a second chance to make things right. Then one night out of the blue after having left the country for two weeks without telling me and Im crying. He says "Dont cry I love you. your friends love you but hell be better to you than I will" but I dont want you to go. I think he was having a moment of self awareness almost as if he was saying "here i go again. Im gonna f this up again." He seemed down in the dumps almost discouraged.
At the end of the day, self aware or not they will not correct their behavior. Its like they observe from the outside but are not taking an active part. I dont really know how to describe it
The ex-Psych professor had those occasional glimmers of self-awareness. He'd say "I'm struggling with my narcissism." During the D&D, he might as well have been quoting a website LIKE THIS ONE saying things about how I was to keep a "formal distance" (most sites say that yes, if you must deal with Narcs, keep an emotional distance) and "don't care about me, think about yourself" and how my feelings for him were a diversion (of course, I took it as an insult at the time, as the usual non-validation of feelings from a Narc)
His brief moments of self-awareness were bleak. He'd be incredibly negative, saying things like "I'm an old man" (he was 32 at the time),"I'm destroying myself", "I've let down a lot of people", "I drive people away" and "one day I'll be a miserable, lonely old man paying people for their services" (what's eerie is that another poster quoted her Narc as saying THE SAME THING) He was forever dwelling on his failures. The Law of Attraction wasn't popular yet (this was the late '90s),but I'd tell him that negative thinking breeds negativity. He was paranoid about the world laughing at him, and one of his primary fears was that he'd end up back in a mental institution.
He'd say that one of his favorite scenes in "Confederacy of Dunces" is the ending when Ignatius Reilly,a fat failure who spends his days masturbating&plotting against those who wronged him,as well as terrorizing his mother who he lives with--is taken away to the "charity hospital" (mental hospital) Ignatius is indignant that he's being hauled away in a crusty Cadillac instead of a big, fancy ambulance with barred windows.
"It's like they observe from the outside but are not taking an active part"-Oh,another one of the ex-P's favorite books, "War and Peace" has a debate between Prince Pierre and the narcissistic Prince Andrei. During a philosophical argument, Pierre tells Andrei that he's not really living life. Andrei's life is described as a living death... looong before he gets his fatal wound. Andrei says that yes, he is aloof from life. Pierre ends up living life, marrying Natasha (whom Andrei treats terribly when they're engaged)... and as for Andrei, he ends up dead, thinking he's one with divine Love. Of course, Andrei is horribly cold and callous on his deathbed, forbidding Marya, Natasha and his 7 year old son from crying in his presence.
"Don't cry for me, Mother Russia, you know I've always loved you,
Back in my wild days"
mine told me he cheated on his fridgid x wife with a prostitute, told me he had gotten blow jobs through car windows, posted personal ads for young girls then payed them to be arm candy. he told me 'i hope i don't mess this up, something always goes wrong at one year', and that he hopes karma doesn't pay him back. he used to talk about sexdual things with underage girls, he made jokes about how yu can't beat yur wife nowadays.... i'm sure i can think of more.
The ex-Psych professor always felt that karma was coming to get him. He believed in running away from things;one of his favorite scenes in "War and Peace" is of a Russian general beating a hasty retreat. I told him "You can't always run away from things you find uncomfortable. It'll catch up with you."
The ex-P wouldn't brag about sexual stuff like yours did. He borrowed a line from "Confederacy of Dunces" saying he sought "surcease and (sexual) sublimation in food." In that book, Ignatius Reilly is an obese, lazy guy in New Orleans who lives with his mother and terrorizes her (how ironic,a year after the D&D, his parents moved in with him, they're raising his kids)
The ex-P said he sough sublimation in food. He was addicted to TV, movies, food, "War and Peace"--he seemed to find sex just TOO HUMAN and TOO COMMON. But he did confess to a masturbation addiction. Obviously a cerebral Narc instead of a somatic one. There's a poster here who said her Narc husband withheld sex while he got fatter and fatter... the ex-P packed on the pounds over 4 years. He was angry about me dating... yet he made himself sexually undesirable. If I had jumped into bed with him, it would've been so pathetic. His teeth were a dentist's nightmare.
The ex-P was waaay too immature to consider porn and prostitutes;he was more like a toddler who's too busy and too fascinated with his own body.
I think so are self aware to
Not taking an active part
mine told me he cheated on
Yikes...