@redtulip I understand. Had parents like this, especially my father. Haunts me to this day, and I dearly love/d them both.

I know it is different in important ways when it is family - esp. parents - versus a personal relationship. Somehow I've avoided (unknowingly?) relationships with narcissists - to my knowledge. Been single all my life, and the closest I got was a few months' relationship with someone who a psychologist later described as a sociopath. He took pleasure in making things up, setting things up, lying...all of which I found out just a few months later. But the experience haunted me for years.

All of this is to say - you are far better off, long-term, in removing yourself from this relationship. He doesn't deserve you, he can't get his "narcissistic supply" from you any longer, and, as narcissists do, he moves on to new feeding sources.

For me, the hardest part of being exposed to narcissistic parents firsthand is what you mention: how others never see the "inside" reality of their being, what devastating consequences their coldness has on those daring to relate to them.

I haven't found an answer to that, except to vent my experiences in therapy. It hasn't solved or resolved the issues I struggle with having grown up in this environment, but it does give some solace that I was not crazy to oppose their behavior, find it abhorent to observe how they treated each other growing up, and vow to never be like them or with others like them in my lifetime.

I hope you will find a productive outlet, like therapy can be, for sharing your experience in a safe environment. That is what we who post here on MCC find so helpful and welcoming - the lack of judgment, the sharing of familiar experiences, and the safety in doing so.

I wish you well, and that you protect and value yourself as you emerge from this depth. I think you will surface with much knowledge and insight and caring. I hope it will serve you as you find others who value your struggle and your progress moving forward.

Hugs.