I Met A Narcissist in Berlin: A Visit to the Dark Side

I met my DJ exboyfriend 6.5 years ago at a summer outdoor music festival near Berlin, Germany. He was one of the DJs that I really liked so I thanked him after he played and we danced together. Later a girl came to meet him and I asked him if it was his girlfriend. He said, “kind of” and asked me if I wanted to meet her. I did meet her but it looked as if they weren’t really together. My next stop was Hungary for another festival and it turned out that he would be there as well. I had plans to go with a friend but my friend ended up having to work so I went alone. The DJ found me there and I hung out with him and his friends for a week. I had been traveling and camping on my own for an entire month so it was nice to hang out with them, I felt protected and safe. I also enjoyed spending time with the DJ even though it was strangely asexual. He was fun, friendly and cold all at the same time. I was used to men being very clear when they liked me so it was confusing but we seemed to have a connection. Later, I wrote it off to shyness. We ended up having sex before I left to go back home to Italy but it wasn’t great and I did not feel very connected to him during it. We stayed in touch and I went to visit Berlin again and spent more time with him. I really liked him, we got along great and had fun but he was also an addict and had problems connecting deeply. It was still strangely asexual between us but I enjoyed the companionship. In the autumn, I lost my flat in Italy and had nowhere to go. He invited me to come to Berlin and I accepted. I arrived with two large suitcases and planned to stay with him. After a few hours, he told me that his other girlfriend (the one from the festival in the summer) would also be sleeping there that night. I cried and asked him why he hadn’t told me and he said it was because he knew I wouldn’t come. That was the first major red flag but with two huge suitcases and nowhere to go in a language that I did not yet know, I stayed put. Over the next few months, he left the other girl for me, at my insistence. As soon as we were comfortably a couple, I thought we would get closer but he avoided me intimately. He withheld sex, was always busy with friends or work or he was on drugs. Then came red flag number two. After three months, he told me that I wasn’t really his type, that he wanted a smaller woman. He and I are almost the same size, he is just slightly taller but he is a man with a small build and I was always insecure about how tall I was and I had had eating disorders so I had issues with my body size. Anyway, he said that he was in love with someone else but it turned out that she did not even know. In other words, it was a dream. I learned throughout the relationship that he could only ever love a dream or someone who did not love him. Anyone who loved him was worthless and a loser. I attributed his behavior to problems with intimacy and that he was just afraid. Still, I was already looking for my own flat and when I found it, I moved out. After four or five months, he got kicked out of his flat and asked to move in with me. I agreed and that was when I really got to know him. He was a slob and totally lazy in the flat. He never helped me and if I complained, he would rage and scream at me. He did not let me sleep when I wanted to and as at his home, it was his schedule or else. I couldn’t take it after six months and asked him to move out. We had also traveled together and he was always unavailable on holiday as if he was avoiding me. Then the triangulation began, he was dreaming about other women and he made me aware of it. I broke up with him but he would always beg me to stay close to him, that he had no one else. I am American and have moved around the world a lot so I did not have many friends either and he always got me with his sad story and my own feelings of aloneness. We still saw each other often as friends but I stopped sleeping with him. He would come on to me but I refused sex for a year and a half. Finally I relented and realized that I still wanted him. Actually, during the entire relationship, he was like an addiction for me. I was strangely preoccupied with him, so much so that his needs and activities were more important than my own. He disliked any new people I had befriended and I became more and more dependent on him for all human interaction. The sex between us started to get really hot and addicting but he would hurt me every time we had an intense meeting. He would taunt me with his other women and threaten to leave me to hurt and control me. There was always another woman when he was able to open up a bit more, it felt so violent. From the time that I had lived with him in my flat until when I stopped having sex with him, my back started to give out on me. As soon as I started to have sex with him again, I got sick again. I had an operation and needed him to bring me food but he took drugs and went to a party and screamed at me at the hospital when I complained. I kept trying to move farther away from him but I felt trapped and he always fed me little crumbs of love that would make me hope. I had no clue about no contact at the time. I had discovered throughout the relationship that he had lied to me constantly and was always pursuing other women. I would keep my distance and tell him not to call me for two or three months but his friends would contact me or trick me into meeting him. Then his dog, who I also loved, got sick with cancer. I helped him as did many others and he got lots of attention and sympathy. In fact, he kept her alive way too long and I think it was because he liked the attention. We put her to sleep at my house and I was the one cleaning up after her and driving her to the vets during the weeks before her death. Not long after she was gone, he dumped me and went off partying. I cut off from him again because he said he was in love with someone else. That was in May 2013. He kept trying to call me but I would not answer. In June, he sent me a message that he needed me badly, his father had killed himself. I knew the family well, they had been very kind to me and I wanted to support him and them. So, for the time after his father had passed until the funeral, I was totally there for him. In fact, I was more there for his family than he was. I comforted his mother and helped his brothers while he remained self absorbed and did not help anyone with anything. After the funeral, he dropped me again and was suddenly in love with some new girl. It was devastating after being totally there for him after such a deep and painful experience as a suicide and funeral. I did not see him for a few weeks after that and very little contact. Then I discovered that I was pregnant. In Germany, an unmarried couple has to have therapy sessions if they want to abort. We were not sure about the baby but during the first session, we discovered that we both wanted the child. We left in good spirits. We had to have two sessions and for the second session, he came after a night on cocaine. I shared and participated in the therapy and he laughed at my pain and took nothing seriously. The therapist suggested couple therapy but he was unwilling. He said that he wanted to stay with me but have other women on the side. I never wanted that and I was clear so I broke up with him in the session. It was obvious that he was angry and hurt about my decision but he was unwilling to discuss his feelings or do any further therapy work. The therapist wanted to discuss what we could do to be better parents. She suggested trauma therapy to me due to my family history and the current relationship with him. To him she suggested addiction therapy as a start followed up by psychotherapy. He said no to everything and had various excuses. I agreed to continue my work and since he did not return, I decided to come back again on my own. After the session, I went to the toilet in order not to meet him. After 15 minutes, I left the building and he was waiting for me. He attacked the therapist and begged me not to leave him. I told him I would only discuss things further in therapy. He refused so I left. He then followed me on the street and later called me continuously. I did not answer. When I returned to see the therapist the next time, she told me that he had narcissistic personality disorder. I did not know what it was but as I informed myself, I felt equally horrified and ashamed. Horrified because he fit the description so well and it described someone without empathy, feelings or any care or love for others. Ashamed because I put up with so much abuse and pain and I had I thought that he would work on himself eventually. I was also ashamed that I had not been able to feel that it was not real love coming from him. I had asked him many times to work on himself and he always said he would some time but until the last therapy session with him, I believed him. I decided to continue my pregnancy on my own but it proved difficult. The custody laws had also changed and they made it easier for fathers to get shared custody. The lawyer told me to move out of Germany. She explained that if he got shared custody and decided that it was better for his child to remain in Germany, he could keep me and the child from leaving Germany for 18 years. I discussed it with the therapist and she said she agreed that it would be better to leave considering the damage a personality disordered man could do to me and the child. I have an entire house and a business here so the news really upset me. I was already stressed at dealing with the pregnancy on my own so that just pushed my limits and I cried for days. Then I lost the baby. I was 30% sad and 70% relieved. My ex was really upset. He had never said anything about the child except, “I am so proud that you want to have my child. It means that I am a really really cool guy.” That alone disgusted me. With the miscarriage, it was clear that he had a lot invested in me keeping the baby. He wanted to have me as his wife that would always be there for him and have his fun on the side. After reading about narcissistic personality disorder, I knew about no contact and once the baby was gone, I went no contact. I blocked him on Facebook, I changed my landline number and blocked him on my mobile. Since then, he has been at my door twice, once he sat in front of it for two and a half hours and the second time only forty five minutes. His mother called me to check on me and give me a message and I had to tell her not to call me anymore. After his visits and her call, I was very stressed and upset. It was as if I had been trained to not set my boundaries and I felt that I was not allowed to do so. I am doing trauma therapy and when I began it, it was clear that I was bonded to him by trauma. The more we worked, the more angry I got. Now I am wondering if I will ever be free of the horror of this relationship and the feeling that he still haunts me. Last week I went to trauma therapy and I got sick afterwards. I slept for three days and my sleep was filled with nightmares about him. Sometimes at night I am filled with violence towards him. When I speak to most of my friends or family about narcissists and psychopaths and the horror of my experience, I feel that they do not understand. I hope this story with help me move forward. On some days I still feel like I am the one who failed, like I am the crazy one or that I did not do enough to make things work. On other days, I know that he is sick and I can let it go. However, I do not understand not having empathy and not being able to love others or that he never loved me. I get confused and attribute my feelings to him as if he is a normal person. I also thought that he was my best friend but it turned out that he never had my back. He wanted me to support him when he needed help but he would drop me afterwards and he was rarely there for me. The only times I remember him being there for me were when I suffered because he had hurt me by his involvement with another woman. Then he was glad to console me, it made him feel powerful. He told me many times that I would never leave him. Now I have. I know that if I can do the work and heal the old wounds from my childhood, I will be stronger and more full of love than ever. This experience is in fact a challenge to grow but it is so painful at times. I never learned to protect my own boundaries and that is what I am learning now.