Hi smilie .... I re-read your post, and it really hit home with me. I was married for 43 years to a Narcissist. He also was verbally abusive and demeaning, I was "stupid and irrational," I was too fat (5'8" and 145 at the time), nothing I did was right, he never complimented me on anything - meals, clothing, hair. When out 3 kids were young I used to wear my hair in what they then called a "pixie" ...... he hated it and called me "pinhead." He talked to the kids behind my back about me, which I never knew until we were divorced and my son told me, and so much more. Basically, he was and is a Narcissist. I kept thinking, "I can't leave" because deep inside I believed what he said was true. I got so deep in depression that one Thursday, my therapist said to me, "I'm going to be perfectly honest with you .... you either have to get out of there tonight, or I'm going to have to have you admitted to (name of local, private psychiatric hospital). "It just so happened" that only the Sunday before a girlfriend from my church told me that she had a bedroom with its own bath that I could use, plus the kitchen, if I needed one. Well, I knew that was God's message to me, so I got to my car and asked her if the offer was still open. It was and I was there by Saturday PM. And ...... that night was the first good nights sleep I'd had in many months. Narcissists are usually very bright, manipulative, and always want you to "know" how superior they are to everyone else, particularly their mate.
abby