[amazinglove]

My  dad is a narcissist and my husbands dad is a narcissist. Both he and I kind of bonded over this I think when we first met. He was very unselfish, warm hearted and kind. I loved that he was the opposite of my dad. He had a strong identity, was confident in himself and our connection was amazing. Over the 14 years we were together his confidence eroded and with this recent BD looking back I started to see narcissistic behaviors really ramping up for the past 12 months. Hugely selfish, zero empathy, more anger and general irritability. Can someone turn into a narcissist in mid life?

[Reinventing]

Many see narcissistic behaviors in MLCers that may not have been there before. Or at least in such extreme or consistent ways. It seems to come with the territory and is consistent with things many of them say, such as I do everything for everyone else, it my turn to do what I want to do, you've been controlling me for 20+ years and I want to be free, I want to do whatever I want, buy whatever I want, or see whomever I want...........

[mcm64d]

Hi AL,

I think you may find this post will result in a majority of resounding yesses.....just a guess as I am relatively new here.

My stbxw of 37 is most definitely much like your spouse. One of the kindest, beautiful people inside and out in the universe who only trusted in me now has abandoned me much the same way you describe.

Hope this is helpful.

[marvin4242]

I would like to add something I have seen before: narcissism can be situational or structural. Some narcissists have mid life crises and it gets worse, and some people become narcissists when in crises (including mid life crises). Narcissism that is situational sometimes is a survival mechanism, it is a way to "pull back" all resources for survival of individual in great distress, kind of like blood pooling to the core in trauma.

What is important is that regardless of the cause the effect and experience is the same.

[Treasur]

I agree on Marvin with this one. Tbh I think it’s ok to use the term as shorthand here but usually I think one should take care with labels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

All of us have a spectrum of narcissism…in fact, too little can be pretty unhealthy. But that is a different kettle of fish imho from NPD. As Marvin says, I think there are situations and circumstances that turn the volume up on those traits….stages of growth like being a teenager, events like bridezillas that we joke about, the risk of believing our own PR when roles bring attention or power, serious physical illness, grief, profound trauma. Times when the world narrows to our focus on our own wants and needs. I know that when I had PTSD, and was at my worst, my capacity to ‘see’ or care about anything but my own pain was seriously limited and I was a poor friend, neighbour and daughter.

So do I think a MLC type crisis, or indeed a big life crisis, can increase our existing narcissism? Yes I do. Do I think that is what happens to most spouses we talk about here? Anecdotally that seems to be so. Do I think that the kind of people who choose to be ow or OM are narcissistic? I think so….its kind of inherent in the behaviour….although some may just be niave and a bit stupid lol. Do I think MLC types are all NPD at their core? Probably not, statistical evidence on the prevalence of NPD in a general population would suggest not….but some LBS here will conclude that their spouse was perhaps more narcissistic pre BD with the benefit of hindsight and perspective than they might have said was true before.

Again though I agree with Narvin that the behaviour matters more than the label practically speaking. If you are dealing with someone who behaves in ways that seem to show a disproportionate level of self focus for a healthy adult and a blank space where you would expect normal empathy to be, the only thing one can do is change one’s expectations of them accordingly to protect yourself from that narcissistic behaviour. But it does put your brain in a bit of a blender to see how extreme that behaviour can get and how weird it is to deal with when you have years or decades of someone who behaved very differently.