I recently read a fantastic article on narcissistic rage from ChoosingTherapy.com, and it resonated deeply with me. The behaviors and actions I’ve witnessed from my narcissistic spouse feel so foreign. Like many people, I can get angry at times, but it’s usually clear when it’s appropriate. Most of us don’t lose control over minor upsets, but that’s exactly what happens with some people.
The rage didn’t surface immediately. At first, my partner seemed cool, calm, and collected—perfectly normal. But over time, during our marriage, rage became a regular occurrence. I found myself walking on eggshells. If I did anything he didn’t like, I’d be punished—verbally, emotionally, financially, or even physically.
In my case, the abuse was mostly verbal, financial, and emotional, though there were a few instances where it escalated to physical violence. I’ll share more on that later. One way or another, any perceived slight resulted in punishment.
Punishment is a common tactic in narcissistic relationships, as I discussed in my previous post, 4 Signs You Are Dating a Narcissist. After I published that, I received several crazed text messages from Dennis. He’s now suing me for defamation, hinted that he had just bought a gun, and told me, “You messed with the wrong guy this time. Sleep well, lol.” He also said, “You crossed a line, and it won’t go unpunished.” That last comment almost amused me. Did he even read the article? Did he not realize he was acting out exactly what I had described?
But it didn’t stop there. When I didn’t respond how he wanted, he began contacting my friends and family, saying some really nasty things. To one close friend, he wrote, “She put up a website that’s going to hurt her financially. It’s on now. I’m going to ruin that cunt’s life legally.” This was a common pattern with Dennis. If he couldn’t get to me directly, he would reach out to my friends to try to hurt me through them. Thankfully, most people saw through it. My parents even had to ask him months ago to stop calling them to “tattle” on me. They reminded him that we are adults and need to handle our own problems. It was probably an odd conversation to have with a man in his 50s.
Don’t get me wrong—there were times I had to reach out to Dennis’s family for help during his rages, but that’s very different from him calling my mom and dad to tell them, for example, that I had used cocaine. That’s just petty. As it turns out, petty was also a pattern of behavior, but more on that another day.
If only his abuse was limited to nasty text messages, but it wasn’t. That’s just the extent of the contact I currently allow. In the past, when we still lived together, things were much worse. I lost count of how many times Dennis screamed in my face over something I did—or didn’t do—that made him mad. The name-calling was another level. For about a month, he fixated on calling me a “stupid bitch” whenever he got angry. It got so bad I had to bring it up in couples counseling, where our therapist suggested calling a “time-out” when things escalated. It worked once or twice, but eventually, it only made him angrier. I remember shouting “TIME OUT! TIME OUT!” and trying to escape while he raged at me because… he didn’t like the groceries I bought. I wish I was making this up.
Initially, I wasn’t going to mention the physical abuse I endured because, sadly, it was far from the worst thing he did. But now, I think it’s important to address.
In response to my last post, Dennis commented: “Nice of [your friend] to call you, but you don’t mention the time you punched yourself in the face and hit your head against the wall trying to get me arrested like your previous relationship. You won’t post this, so maybe you can talk to your therapist about punching yourself, since I know I didn’t lay a hand on you. Did [your previous partner] really do it, or did you send an innocent person to jail?”
Not only do I need to address his denial of physical violence, but also the lies he’s fabricated to make himself seem less awful.
First, I have no idea what he’s talking about regarding punching myself. I’ve never claimed Dennis punched me. I did make several police reports about his violent behavior, but none of them were about being punched or slammed into a wall. Most of the violence I experienced from him involved destroying property—breaking furniture, tearing my plants out of the garden, and at its worst, attempting to poison my cats. The extent of actual physical abuse toward me was pinning me down, screaming in my face, pushing me to the floor when I tried to leave, and throwing things at me, such as the previously mentioned groceries that he didn’t like. But since he brought it up, here’s a really ugly 5-second video of one of the times he did get physical with me. How dare he claim he never laid a hand on me? This is gaslighting, friends, he is trying to rewrite my reality to something completely different. Adamantly denying things he absolutely did do, making up lies, and trying to tell me that I’m the one who is crazy.
Dennis often brings up my previous relationship, which ended due to domestic violence, to make himself look better. He told me—and some of my friends—that his and my marriage failed because I was still traumatized from that previous relationship. Let me clarify: I never experienced what I consider “Big T Trauma” until I married Dennis. With my previous partner, when my physical wounds healed, so did I, for the most part. But with Dennis’s narcissistic abuse and rage, I’m still healing, even after two months of intensive personal therapy.
After Dennis was kicked out of our Toastmasters group for violent behavior—attacking another member—he began telling everyone about my previous partner’s violence, presumably to make himself look better by comparison. Despite being removed two months ago, he still sends out “poor-me” emails and messages to many club members. He won’t let it go. He continues trying to convince people that he’s the good guy, even though he’s shown the entire group what a dangerous thug he truly is.
His reactions were never proportional to the circumstances. He would go insane over trivial matters. Like this message Dennis sent to a friend I carpooled with:
“You don’t ride or talk to my wife, I’m gonna find you and you came to my house today, you’re such a fucking loser mommy’s boy I bet she paid for your tab. You waste of oxygen, so how do you get on my car, yes I paid for that too, paid her electricity bill? I did you fuck, you ever talk to her again, I mean talk text or even look at her, tonight will look like tee ball. I am so fucking done with your games, glad she told me where in Sahara to go. You got in my car, which I thought we were clear on, you worried about toastmasters members, well stay the fuck away from the married ones, swear to Lucifer I see you there next week, worse is gonna happen”
Control, violence, rage, and lies—it’s all here. Yet, he’s still trying desperately to convince people he’s the good guy. It’s wild.
I’ll end this rant here. I just wanted to call Dennis out for gaslighting in that comment. It’s hard to convince people you’re decent after acting like a complete raging lunatic.