Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder From Narcissist Husband

This wife has admirable insight! Clearer insight, I am sorry to report, than that of many therapists.

The wholescale damage of chronic exposure to spousal narcissism is understated. In our primary adult attachment we are at grave risk, when it is essentially destructive. Not only can a wife develop depression, she can — and often does — suffer the ravages of trauma.

And why would she not? Her entire system — mind, body, Spirit — is chronically negatively overwhelmed by emotional abuse and neglect, mental abuse, and perhaps physical abuse. She lives in terror of his next act of cruelty. Rather than offering all that marriage was designed to provide — love, comfort, security, support, protection, validation, intimacy, sharing, mutuality, fidelity, companionship, joy — with the narcissistic husband, every interaction is yet another callous act of destruction.

As she moves from one day into the next, despite her valiant efforts to stay strong, her resolve to not ‘permit’ him to hurt her, and her efforts to offset his cruelties with pursuits of happiness outside her marital relationship, the accumulated poisons of life with him will eventually do her in. Like tick-tocks of an ancient clock, with each shiver and shudder her traumatic symptoms warn her: she is headed for a shattering.

The reality of her dynamic with her husband lies squarely in this woman’s keywords: in her marriage, she is traumatized.  She suffers what is known as ‘ptsd’ — though in my view, there is nothing ‘post’ about it.  Thank God he has not [yet] succeeded in totally brainwashing her into doubting her perceptions.