Today I have a really special interview.

Especially if you are a male in this community, I know you will find this interview relatable and insightful.

This show is about Phil, who is now one of our senior members in the NARP community. He is a friend of mine, and is also a part of the moderator team in the Private NARP Forum.

Phil is a shining example of someone who has been to the brink, and managed to completely turn his life around.

If you are a male who has suffered a relationship with a female narcissist you may relate to things like:

  • The extreme affection and caring nature she provided at the beginning of the relationship to pull you in.
  • Flirting with other men in attempt to make you jealous and then saying it’s all your fault when you ask her about it.
  • The negative comments and criticism that wear you down and make you feel like less of a man.

In this show Phil talks about what it’s like being a man who suffered in silence – being ashamed to talk about it with your friends because you know they wouldn’t understand and will only judge you.

He also talks about what it’s like dealing with the male ego – that voice inside you that says you shouldn’t let a woman take control of you and affect you like that.

I had a wonderful time doing this show and I know you will get a lot out of it.

If you have any questions or comments for Phil and myself please post them below in the comments section.

Phil and I would especially like to hear from you if you are a male in the community who has “suffered in silence” as a result of narcissistic abuse.

Please also note: in only a few days time the next 3 Keys To Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse Webinar will take place.

In this Webinar you will learn about the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program, which Phil and many others have worked in order to recover from narcissistic abuse,  as well as experience a Quanta Freedom Healing session firsthand.

You can join this event here.

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Commments (32) + Leave a comments

32 thoughts on “Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse Story #24 Phil

  1. Dearest melanie..after two weeks of narp journey..I feel empowered n am able lay down sm boundaries. N partner seems to be feeling the vibes n accepting it. So issue was all with me being weak. I understand it very much now. My query is no contact is socially not acceptable in my community n will have a very bad impact on my children future. N my partner is good to our children. My partner is confusing .. he is not very bad overall ….he supported me in my career building ..which btw is very good…..but his behaviour in routine issues is simply crazy. His projections and persistent crazy fights on irrelevant issues drive me insane. Anyways my query is if he changes as I evolve…would living with him affect my healing…I want to be completely healed.

    1. Hi Wanting To Be Healed,

      It really is about setting your boundaries, and know that by honouring you – you truly are honouring your children.

      They are learning that their mother will be respected and treated with dignity – and will not participate in unhealthy behaviour.

      What other people believe is really irrelevant.

      In regard to their father it really its early days ..

      He may simply be “respecting you” more by being more accommodating – but if it’s not genuine, the cracks will appear again.

      And if that is the case, he will need to “be right” to “one-up” to “punish” ..

      And you will see that.

      Also it sounds like you’re not going to deny him seeing the children or being a father to them because he is okay with them.

      Hold your boundaries, and certainly don’t let them down simply because he is being “better” for now.

      Honour you and your truth for healthy relationship, and Modified Contact may be enough, and all else truly will unfold.

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

      1. Dearest melanie, thanks fr ur response. it really means a lot. I just need to be more clear about modified contact. Living under the same roof, with four kids, how much can one modify contact and still be happy and healed. I desperatley want to be happy and healed within my circumstances.

        1. Hi wanting, there are times when Mel might miss a post or a reply. It is difficult in your situation and it can seem hard to imagine being free. The answers and methods are in the Narp package. When we do the work and start fixing our lives from the inside we just stop being a match for the abuse and some how some way you will be free and in your power. It is a journey but one you can control.
          You will get your power back.

  2. I too am a man who has suffered narcissistic abuse, although my story is a little different to Phil’s. My abuse came at the hands of someone I thought was a friend, another man. The hooking techniques, idealisation and devaluation are all the same as what you all know. I had been conned into being responsible for his emotional state and the quality of his work. His favourite trick is to feign depression, because he knew this was close to my heart and that I would do anything to alleviate it. I realised I was being played for a fool and after a long sit-down discussion I thought I had gotten through. In hindsight it is clear that rather than validating my concerns, he was doing the exact opposite with very tricky and ambiguous words! His beviour did not change and when I took it up again with him, via email this time, he couldn’t hide his true colours. The rage, gaslighting, recruitment of unnamed third parties to support himself, belittling of me and false justifications for his own immoral behaviour shook me to my core. I explained the situation to a wise person who told me to research NPD. This explained the behaviour but provided zero relief for me. I saw a psychologist and learned the important truth that my emotional state is my responsibility. I read volumes on NPD and childhood emotional neglect and realised that both of my parents are narcissists. But still no relief from the pain, crushing doubt and relentless sense of longing for the very person who had abused me. I am a smart person, and I felt a lot of shame and confusion about how I’d been fooled and abused, and yet I still wished things could go back to the way they were! I eventually found Mel’s website late last year after a long and desperate search for relief. Thank God I did! I put together as much as I could from her blogs and shows about healing my subconscious childhood wounds, and got some relief. I only recently got the money together to buy NARP, but already it has been worth it many times over. I have had moments of sheer joy at the kind of space and peace I am already feeling, and the pull of the narc has settled into just a wary kind of pity. I am in a situation where I can’t avoid his physical presence sometimes, but this no longer distresses me as it use to, and one day soon our paths will finally diverge. I am incredibly grateful for this, and I know things will only get better and better. Thank you Mel for your wonderful work. In closing I would just like to say to anyone reading who might be considering NARP, but thinks it’s all a bit new-agey or weird, to just give it a good try. As Mel says, you don’t even have to believe it will work. It just does.

    1. Thanks for coming forward and sharing Dom. It just goes to show how we can be hooked in many different situations to a Narcissist. Thanks for sharing, it is liberating.
      It is great to see you doing Narp.
      All the best

      Phil

  3. I was also narcissistically abused. Nobody knew, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. I didn’t tell my parents, until the very end of the marriage of the nasty behavior. One of my daughters overheard me telling my parents and she was very angry with me. The ex had a way of getting everybody on her side. One the other hand she told everybody I was abusing and neglecting her and the kids. Another daughter told me that the ex spent hours every night (I worked nights to avoid her) telling them that I was a rotten father and personal bedroom stuff. Heck the kids knew more of my sex life than I knew. One of my friends noticed some of the ex’s bizarre behavior but didn’t say anything until after the divorce. When she wasn’t accusing me of some dastardly deed she was accusing the kids. She triangulated the kids against each other and turned sister against sister and against their brother. Now they are all bitter enemies and do not communicate with me, their mother or each other.

    I was just too ashamed to tell, she had me so confused I thought everything was my fault. I tried my very best and I think that is what angered me the most when I realized it was all wasted effort. Nothing was ever good enough.

    The second biggest issue was “why”. Why did she do this? It just went over and over the big WHY?

    Well, I’m rid of her for good. If the kids ever want to have a relationship with me, I’m open, thought one of them is a full blown narc. It took several years for the rage and anger to completely stop.

    I now have peace, something I craved for the 2 decades I was with her. Peace and narcissism cannot coexist.

    1. Thanks Stephen for sharing your situation. I’m so happy you have peace again in your life and I hope you can reconnect with the children one day soon. I’m sure they feel as confused or upset as you once did but have learned to handle it in there own ways. All the best !

  4. Blessings to you Melanie and your ongoing communication with me and your community. I am thankful I found you.
    I am a male and continue to be a target from a narcasistic ex spouse. We have three young children together. I am one great father and was an excellent husband. She has taken me to court eight times–all appearances are about money and the judges have made good decisions. My ex works for her family law attorney as well. This does not help. I could go on and on–I am trying to recover and I will over time. I just want this woman to go away and to let me focus on supporting her over four years and to let me focus on my children. I do deeply care about being the best father and person I can be.
    Two of the three children are in therapy. My ex has turned my daughter against me and my sons are very hurt with what they see their mother doing. I do not address these issues around the children–I do keep them away from the nonsense. I just want to move on–I cannot because I consistently receive letters from her and her/employer/attorney.

    1. Thanks Warren for listening and contributing as well. Keep up the good work your doing and I do hope you can find peace through this program.

    2. Hi Warren,

      blessings to you too and I am so pleased that you are finding some comfort in this wonderful community.

      Warren I strongly suggest the NARP Program to break you free from this.

      Amazing things happen when we release all our subconscious hooks on the inside – that’s what causes the N to lose any power and hooks on the outside.

      But you have to live this orientation to experience it ..

      I promise you it’s real.

      Mel xo

  5. I’m a male and I think my ex gf of 4 years maybe a narc or bpd she did all those things mentioned by phil but was never violent or physically abusive..the first 2 years it was bliss then slowly the verbal abuse,critiscisms,drunkeness and infidelity crept in till our last year when it was at its worst..”your not worth the financial convienience” “your going to be a short fat old man” ( began a relationship within a few weeks of our break with a tall grossly obese older man ?) “you will never find one as beautiful as me to love you”

    a year on after nc and I still hear her abusive insults..I hope I never again hear or see the Vile creature she is.

    1. I does sound as if she has a hybrid of dissorders that are all toxic. Make sure you give her no chance of communicating with you. Is she still in your head ? Keep investigating Narp if you feel the need to free yourself of the Vile creature and not give her a second thought.
      All the best

      1. Yes phil it’s been 15 months and I can’t shake the feeling I’m less than the unattractive older obese guy..I keep sayin it’s his money @80k a year it’s double mine..she did it to drive the knife in further cause I knew this guy,trusted him around my girl…then I say it’s go to be money cause she said ” I wasn’t worth the financial convienience”
        Why on earth would she say I was fat but the obese guy is attractive ?

        Started therapy this week..can’t believe @50 I’ve been driven to seek therapy when it should be her in therapy..instead she’s the happy one and I’m busted and broken.. Arrrrgh

        1. I know the feeling of reaching this age and ending upon the couch, at least i did know the feeling, its now a part of the process, after doing Narp I’m happy to look back on it as part of the new me. All the best with the therapy.

  6. Mel
    Thanks for posting this interview. I relate so well to this Phil. I to have read volumes about narcs and I was a researcher so I researched. The damage they inflict is more than even I realize. I don’t have time this a.m. to say much, but one comment on the 25% males. I think it would be 50% if the males would come forward and acknowledege the abuse. Why? because females hide their abusive side to most. They act out only on the ones that see their flaw only, so it remains hided to many, where, it seems to me, a male will act out on anyone and is known to be a difficult person. This presents many problems for the male when they try to say to a friend “she really is abusive”! You get the look, the stare? You must be the one who is nuts because your wife is this wonderful, nice lady! So you really question your own sanity and don’t open you soul to friends anymore. Very destructive!
    Lyn

    1. Hi Lyn I do know that look or stare when you know they have lost interest or believe what you are trying to tell them in your story. Some women are very covert and passive aggressive and easily hide behind the collective umbrella of the abused woman, leaving us even more devastated. If you do the work in the program you move beyond the story and abuse, and find validation in yourself instead of trying to seek validation from others that we know will never happen but we keep trying.

  7. I so enjoyed listening to the blog with Phil. I am one who bought NARP over a year ago and just recently joined the forum but have not participated yet. I’ve completed NARP and bought he Thrive module but haven’t started yet. I have had no contact with the Narc for 2+ years and feel peace and freedom, but I still have lots of healing left to do. Recently I have been feeling very stuck and emotional. I realized after listening to the blog today that I need to go back to NARP module 1 and do that one many times and repeat the entire module before I start Thriver. I also realized that I have been self avoiding for a long time…even though I desperately want to thrive, I just HAVE to devote more time to heal. It baffles my mind that I still need so much more healing because I have been on a healing path and invested significant dollars and many many years of self and professional help. I have been feeling very isolated lately as I have systematically pulled myself away from all the narcs in my life. Now I have a very small set of friends and a busy work life, so I am needing healthy community. This community of people who really understand how much damage can occur at the hands of NARCs is truly a gift. I believe this community is exactly what I need to help me get unstuck and continue to get to the deep layers that still need validation and healing. Thank you Mel for your dedication to helping people with your amazing and inspiring work, and to all of you in the community. I look forward to sharing my progress and so comforted to realize You are all here for me through this healing process.

    1. Hi Debra, it’s so good to know you recognise how you feel and what you need to do.
      I look forward to your introduction in the forum, don’t be shy just say hello, its another forward step in your healing.

    2. Hi Debra,

      you are so welcome – and I really second what Phil said – it will be lovely for you to start connecting to the incredible love, support, connection and personal solutions that will be offered for you, when you join in with the Forum.

      This will be such a powerful step forward for you – one that will bring you great progress.

      Debra, I really relate to how you’re feeling – I used to believe that healing was a destination and I was sooo frustrated to think “I still have all this healing to do!”

      Now I see it completely differently. I am so excited about evolving myself that I know my healing will NEVER end .. and I am so thrilled about that!

      And the great thing is I don’t have to agonise over “how” and “why” anymore. What I have learnt is: if I go into my head regarding negative emotions and try to nut it all out – that it inevitable equals “how to lose” … but if I drop into my subconscious, and up-level by releasing the pain, and bring in Source replacement … THEN life just continues to become freer and freer, and I continually expand into feelings, aspirations, and pursuits and abilities I would NEVER have previously believed I could get to!

      Evolving myself completely changed for me when I stopped judging “I’m not there yet” and started loving every up-level and the results within the never-ending journey.

      Expansion is the COOLEST thing to be doing!

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

  8. Hi Mel and Phil

    Thank you for another story that proves that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I commend you Phil, for sharing your story although you are male.

    Like many men across the globe, gay or straight, I too, suffered in silence for a long time while being abused by the many narcissists in my life ranging from my sister, ex lovers, ex employers etc. The last one however, being my last intimate relationship.

    I did not feel that it is fine for me to cry openly or tell someone what is wrong because I saw it as a weakness on my part. I was too scared of being blamed, judged or not understood. When it came to my experience of narc abuse, I felt shy and not willing to cry openly as it would have compelled me to say and share more than what I was ready to. So I cried behind closed doors.

    I was at a suicidal point and told myself that I will never go into a relationship or get married again. It felt poisonous to be with my soon to be ex husband. Whenever I stayed silent and went along with things, he was very good to me but the moment I tried to speaking up or disagreed with him, he made life very hard for me so I learnt early on to remain silent.

    I then found this site which gave me lots of ah ha moments, did NARP and progressed a lot on my healing journey. It made me realise that real love does exist and is for me too and also gave me the strength to walk out of that marriage and apply no contact. I am however still struggling with feelings of guilt for leaving the way I did, just thinking how he must have felt arriving home and finding a letter telling him that I cannot be with him any longer.

    Due to my fear and also hiding from my partner, I did not respond to his attempts to try to find and contact me so he went back to his own country but I am still so fearful of what will happen if I have to start the divorce proceedings. I just don’t know where to start.

    I do speak about my experiences in that marriage with some people now and actually started doing so a few months before I left him. However, how do you as a guy, face a court, a judge or a lawyer, and tell them: I was abused in my marriage and in order to heal, walked out and just left my partner a letter because I was scared that he would either hurt me physically or manipulate me to stay and then punish me.

    Voila! Finally I posted what I wanted to post in the NARP forum long ago. I have joined the forum but have not yet participated. I hope to do so soon so that I can benefit from others who went through these experiences too.

    xoxo

    1. Hi, Qunton.

      I never married my same-sex, ex-narcissist-partner, so I’ve not had that pain to go through. I impute from your letter that you felt that you had skulked away in the middle of the night, instead of “facing him down like a man”, and breaking up with him in person.

      I broke up via email, and in the beginning, I felt guilty for not having been more “manly”, more “honourable”. A few months later, someone pointed out to me that breakups in person almost never go as well as hoped, and almost never provide the sought-for closure. With that realisation, my guilt about the way I broke up, instantly fell away. In the end, it had to be about my emotional and physical safety.

      I’ve worked NARP for over a year now, and I must tell you, I’ve come a long, long way, and far more quickly than I could have ever imagined.

      I would encourage you to follow your impulse to explore the forum. You’ll derive a lot of inspiration and ideas.

      See you online soon,

      Arnel.

  9. Katie, we love all of the pictures! You did such an amizang job! The pictures with our dogs are some of my favorites! Thank you so much! I can’t wait until October!! =] You’re the best!

  10. I couldn’t help but leave a comment. Your forums and blogs truly helped me make some “sense” out of the relationship I finally said enough to. I always thought of myself as a loving and giving woman, yet strong and independent. I’m sitting here thinking that life handed me my last relationship to finally teach me that I am a co-dependent. And I believe that I am. I was married for 20 years, 10 of which were pretty good….there was never anything in it for me though. I always thought, as I was raised, that the woman in the family is the “rock”, holding everyone and everything together. Taking care of everyone, I lost myself. I left my marriage 3 years ago after almost losing myself completely. Leaving my marriage gave me some much needed time to rediscover myself and become independent. I entered the dating scene when I thought I was ready. I never really connected with anyone until this past year. We hit it off immediately. I felt like I finally met my best friend and soul mate and started dreaming of a loving future with him. The beginning was great, which now I can put a name to it “love bombing” (great analogy). It slowly turned from “all about us and our future” to “all about him”. I always felt off balance. Never really being able to put my finger on it…but my gut was always screaming at me. His words rarely matched his actions. He was calm and never got angry, but I always sensed a very dark side to him. I know what it feels like to be a victim of “gaslighting”. I never knew what that term meant until I experienced it. Being ignored for having feelings and wanting to talk about things that bothered me got me the silent treatment. It’s just who he is he says…he didn’t want to argue. I now know, he knew I was slowly figuring him out and he didn’t like it. It was all about him. We never spent any time apart. I loved that at first, and now realize that was one of the voids in my life from my marriage where I had barely any adult time with my ex husband because of work and kids. Our relationship only lasted 13 months. I finally told myself I deserve to be treated better, to be loved and respected more than what the reality of the relationship was. I fell in love with the “fantasy” of what I thought it was, and I know I’m still mourning that. It left me confused, hurt, feeling taken advantage of and questioning my own sanity. I tried it all. Reasoning, explaining my side, setting boundaries. He always knew how to wiggle his way back to my heart. I still love this man but I finally told myself that I was in a toxic relationship. I always believed that a loving relationship lifts up your partner, supports and makes you feel happy. I felt exhausted, confused and drained most of the time. I started doing research online trying to figure out what was happening. I searched “being ignored by your boyfriend” and things like that to begin with…All pointed to narcissism. I was blown away. Things started to make sense. I now firmly believe that my ex was a covert narcissist. I always knew he was very hard on himself and had low self esteem. And yes, I thought I could “fix” him, because that’s what I do….I asked him to move out and he left quietly. We cried together and held each other and told each other we loved each other. It sounds strange, but it was closure for me….closure that allowed me to be strong. It’s been two weeks and I’m still trying to be strong. He texts me that he wants another chance to be “one”, tells me how his day is, anything to get a response from me. I’m still afraid I will be weak and reply one day. My only course of action is to block his number but haven’t brought myself to that yet. I just read his messages and feel horrible for not responding. My friends see him as the “nice guy”. He is always the victim. I can’t explain it to those who have never been through an experience like this. It breaks my heart but I know the cycle will repeat again as it did in our very intense but short relationship. I am now trying to heal myself and learn about myself. I’m not entirely sure that my marriage wasn’t one of narcissism as well but never knew it. Not only has your words given me information, it’s given me some sort of validation as to what’s happening so I don’t feel so crazy. Thank you. Here’s to a happy and healthy emotional future to us all !!

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