MY LIFE IS PURE HELL

A reader wrote to YOU recounting her harrowing experience of living with a narcissist for decades. Pieter Van Zyl relays her story

SHE has to sneak around in her own home like a thief. Watches TV secretly because he doesn’t like her programmes. Calls family and friends when he isn’t around. Gives away her pets before he hurts them. Hides the bruises his blows leave on her skin.

And the person responsible for her torment? The man she’s shared her life with for 30 years – the person who promised to love and cherish her forever.

Frieda (not her real name) delivers a chilling account of her life with a man who has narcissistic personality disorder. You might ask why she doesn’t leave him – why she stays and subjects herself to misery almost daily. But it’s easier said than done, she says.

Here, in Frieda’s own words, is her story.

IWAS in the process of divorcing my first husband when we met. Initially, I wasn’t interested in him – I had children from my marriage, and I wasn’t up for a new relationship. But he contacted me persistently until I finally gave in.

In the beginning, while he was reeling me in, it felt like I was in heaven. He spoiled me like few men could. I’d never loved a man as much and I felt like the happiest woman on Earth. It was the best time of my life.

Looking back, the warning signs were there from day one, but I was willing to overlook everything as long as I could be with him.

He was always extremely jealous. I couldn’t even mention another man’s name without being accused of being unfaithful and his accusations were always delivered in the crudest language possible.

Meanwhile, he was having multiple relationships behind my back.