Are vanity jealousy and emotional detachment signs of narcissism?

Answer 1

I just was dumped by a boyfriend of 10 months. I am divorced over a year and met him four months after my divorce. I have two daughters, one with autism. This guy overwhelmed me with promises and love. After two months, he told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and my special needs daughter. I came to love his two boys. Then after taking a "family" vacation with all the kids two weeks ago, he called me and said he had never loved me. Over the course of the relationship I found him to be a ridiculously jealous, ego-centric, hypochrondriac. Still there were moments of sweetness, especially as he was kind to my daughters. Interestingly enough, he preferred my autistic daughter because she worshipped him ( her dad is not good with her). Sometimes he would fly into rages over my talking to a waiter, etc, even my finding a movie star handsome, saying I didn't make him feel special. Then he would say I was abusing him. He always had to be right, considered himself smarter than everyone else. And I think tried to fake empathy, but it never seemed to have depth. He is a very responsible father but mostly courts his kids worship. He has a hard time disciplining them and talking to them personally because he wants them to see him as perfect. They are like little prototypes of him, still he is a good caregiver to them. Is he a narcissist? The way he left me was so sudden and detached. He does not wish to speak to me, and I expended so much energy trying to be so good to him. It was the promise to love my daugther that really hooked me. Do you think he knew that, or liked the idea of himself as being wonderful enough to love her? He has an enormous ego, is a fastidious dresser, and exercises constantly. I have since found out that he has a history of women he has suddenly left since his wife left him 8 years ago. I spoke to her and she said she felt he had no feelings for her, just like the "services" she provided. Still he wouldn't have left her, but was chronically unhappy with her. He told me he never fell in love with her, the same line he used with me and all the other women he has hurt. I was very vulnerable when I met him. MY Ex was emotionally abusive. Does he sound like a narcissist? Oh, yes, he also never wanted me to talk and say "I love you" during sex. Sex was great, but kind of mechanical. He would mostly keep his eyes shut and if I talked at all, he said I took him out of the moment. Kind of like he was doing it with himself. He told me in the past, he has had sexual dysfunction problems but it was because the women was untrustworthy. Anyway, when I called him on his coldness about the breakup, he said I was abusing him. He is just done with me, like a switch turned off. What do you think? === === answer to the third part: emotional detachment. yes, it is a definite sign that there is a narcissistic personality disorder which evolved as a child due to a lack of emotional attachment generally by the maternal parent. there are other types of personalities who detach emotionally, however the above description exhibits many pathological narcissistic traits. a pathological narcissist's perception is that a relationship is not needed. the only thing they desire is the ILLUSION of self-sufficiency, not dependency, which is how they interpret another's love. they do not love because they believe love is a dependency, an obligation, a liability and a detriment. they require immediate gratification and are not able to stay around for the deeper emotional connection which is derived from a long term commitment. they confuse physical love and emotional love. they cannot comprehend the feeling of emotional love. it is a void for them. when the physical love is no longer excitiing, they believe love is waning and eventually dies. sadly, they are pathetic human beings, who do not understand themselves and their behavior. most of them never will, even with years of therapy. however, the best time to begin is during middle age when they see the repetitive pattern in their lives and see no alternative ways to live a deeper, happier, fulfilling life you cannot feel personally rejected by them. you can only feel sorry that they live such an empty existence. the earliest function of detachment is as an ego defense in order to prevent severe damage to the emerging experience of self. in pathological narcissism, detachment functions to preserve the integrity of the pathological grandiose-self structure. the patients are often resistant to analytic therapy and it is also an ordeal for the therapist. the narcissist exhibits an "absence of a sense of futility" concerning his hope for a "good relationship". the dysphoria and futility that exist come only from any sense of needing a relationship at all. in a narcissist, futility is from feeling inadequate that he lacks anything he cannot give to himself. it is only when the grandiose self begins to diminish in scope which creates an accompanying shift in the function of detachment, the patient begins to make "choices" rather than 'decisions'. for example, detaching oneself from any relationship that was not felt to be under one's control---a decision, a command of the facts that lead to selecting the right one. a choice is something of value is gained, but something else of value is also lost. it is ambivalence, a narcissistic vulnerability (grief or mourning, rather than loss of self-esteem - loss of actual self).in pathological narcissism, the "grandiose self" is the structure which protects the illusion of self-sufficiency at all costs, and disguises the individual's lack of a fully individualized identity. such patients use detachment as an ego defense in an attempt to convert the fear of being abandoned, an ego-passive fear, to an active movement away from the relationship; the consequence is that the greater the depth of detachment, the greater the futility; that is, no hope for a "good relationship". the emptiness and futility which accompany detachment do not come from a lack of hope for a good relationship, but as a functional consequence of dimly recognizing a need for any relationship at all. it is an experience of "ego depletion". it is a felt "inadequacy" of the grandiose self in these individuals that they lack anything that is not contained in themselves --- a temporary unmasking of the illusion of self-sufficiency." see: "Standing in the Spaces" by Philip M. Bromberghttp://books.Google.com/books?id=60lvKdwdUDkC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Narcissism+detachment&source=web&ots=6SXUq9RZJ7&sig=ID29IwBO2e66DG_tIbRlQ_Gg8qI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA78,M1