Married to a Narcissist?

I had a great Labor Day weekend - spent a day boating with friends in Michigan, another day catching up with another good friend and then did some retail therapy and worked on getting ready to move. The goal was to keep myself busy because Ex-L took the girls out of town for the weekend. It was weird not having them at home at night ... and being away from them that long. Monday morning was a little rough for me but I was able to drag myself out of it.

I've been doing a ton of ready on co-dependency and narcissism in relationships. I find a ton of similarities in my marriage, and am starting to realize how manipulated I was (and still am) and how this all was inevitable. I'm also trying to pull myself out of the victimization I feel - I need to get strong but I do feel like "why me?" a lot. That's the perfect spot for a narcissist to have you pushed down to. It's also hard to know the person that you loved could/would do all of this - and in the end not really love you anyways. Or maybe they loved you but not in the way you need them to. Not in a way that is healthy. And especially since this is has been a pattern in our relationship, this would happen to me over and over in our relationship. I'll never be "enough" for her. And that's not something that's my fault or that I can control. No one will ever be "enough" for her.

As a codependent, I have a LOT of work to do internally. My self-confidence is gone, my personal self-worth is out the door, my faith in the future is diminished. I'm at a low-point, and I'll never be able to attract all of the good things I want in my life if I can't mirror the good that's already inside of me. I have a lot of work to do to pull her back out. And I'm working on what that looks like - right now I'm just trying to stay busy. Filling up my calendar, connecting with old friends, doing stuff I've never done before. It's not really "fulfilling" stuff as it is "busy" stuff.

To say I'm terrified of life without Ex-L is an understatement. That's part of the co-dependency ... not having faith in myself to provide for myself and be by myself and be ok without her. All stuff that is untrue - I can provide for myself (heck, I provided for our whole family for a long time!), I'm totally ok being by myself and being single, and I'll absolutely be ok without her - I've actually done it before. But I still have that twinge of doubt and that's because I lack self-confidence in myself. I need to learn to be my biggest cheerleader. I'm working on that. I'm sad for myself a lot - sad that I don't have that internal "I'm better than this!" attitude. Sad that I need someone else to validate my self-worth. Sad that I'm not confident in who I am.

I also have a lot of anger, though. I mean - Ex-L left me when I was at my lowest point. My self-esteem was garbage because I was post-partum and alone A LOT. I was isolated and felt just drained. I had no time or motivation to work on myself. And I only had her and myself to lean on. And instead of supporting me or helping me out of that dark hole, she left me. She cheated on me. She gave up on me and left me in that dark place. Who does that? See - and the anger rises up. Ugh!