Editor’s note: In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness month, today’s story comes from a mom who reached out wanting to share her experience with narcissistic emotional abuse in the hope it might help someone else see their own situation more clearly. She’s asked to remain anonymous, and we’re honoring that. You’ll read about two pregnancies, a betrayal that unfolded days before her birth, years of gaslighting and court battles, and the friends who carried her through. You’ll also hear the red flags she wishes she had recognized sooner, and there will be resources at the end for further learning or support. Stay tuned for a podcast audio version of this, coming soon.

Here is her story, in her words.

There’s a certain strength a woman takes on during pregnancy. I think most of my amazing friends and family members would say that I found out about this the hard way.

Looking back, I’m not really sure how I made it through – but then I think of my support system and remember that it truly took a village.

Several winters back, I was already past my due date and well past the waddling state of pregnancy. I was stressed and praying for labor to start because I wanted to try a natural birth.

Past my due date and two days away from my scheduled induction date, on this particular morning I had just finished having sex with my husband.

I remember feeling a sense of relief because he had seemed distant. This physical connection was something we both needed and it made me feel safe and desired. And of course I was also praying this could be the thing to finally get labor going! I was scared of being induced. I wanted my body to do “what it was supposed to do.”

Shortly after my husband left for work, I heard a few notifications go off on my phone. It was Facebook Messenger and from someone who was not a Facebook connection.

What I saw next nearly caused me to collapse, but I knew I had a baby to protect, so I remained frozen at my kitchen table.

I texted my husband something like, “I need you to come home now.”

In retrospect, pretty sure he thought I was in labor. But I had no other words. I was shaking. I don’t remember if I was crying.

A woman had sent me an extremely detailed account of an ongoing affair my husband had been having for months. She said she had been an eyewitness and said she was so disturbed by his drunken behavior, blatant disrespect for me, and utter disregard for my health, that she felt compelled to inform me of his betrayal. She knew I was pregnant but didn’t know how far along.

He came home. I couldn’t speak. I showed him my phone.

“That’s not me. She must have me mistaken for someone else. You don’t believe that, do you? I would never do something like that.”

In that moment, deep in my soul, I knew what the woman wrote was true. But I also knew that if I processed it fully in that state of vulnerability, that the stress could have put my baby at risk. It was too much.

I think I deleted the messages a day later. I don’t remember.

But two days after that, when we had checked into the hospital and I saw my husband resting off to the side of the delivery room, I knew I was alone with a stranger who I no longer felt safe around.

My induction and delivery was brutal. After 24 hours of labor, I was close to having an emergency C-section. Somehow my sweet angel made it out after almost three hours of pushing. I blame my husband to this day for how poorly my body responded. Looking back, I was in labor but still in a complete state of shock from finding out about his affair. I remember thinking, “I don’t want him here.”

I didn’t tell anyone about those messages until I found more messages when our daughter was about six months old.

This time it was an active affair and I could see first-hand how brazenly he was speaking about it to another friend.

I gave him an ultimatum – go to AA and couples therapy or I’m done.

He complied, briefly.

In couples therapy prior to this, I was too scared and weak to even mention the initial affair I was told about. He wanted me to pretend that never happened.

My body physically could not respond when he tried to have sex with me, even five months after having our daughter. He made me feel terrible about that.

Meanwhile, he was having another affair.

The therapist told us to drink wine together so that I could loosen up. I can see clearly now that I was trying everything to force myself to do what a wife was “supposed to do” but my body was still in a state of panic and repulsion around him from the betrayals.

Fast forward 18 more months of couples therapy and I thought I had forgiven him. I thought we had made real progress around commitment, partnership and values alignment.

I listened to Esther Perel and thought, “We all deserve second chances. Monogamy is hard. Relationships are hard.”

For the record, I still believe that many marriages can recover from infidelity. But in my case, I was dealing with a much more layered personality disorder and didn’t know it.

We decided to try for a second baby and I became pregnant right away.

Five months later, I was showing, and glowing, and had just found out I was having another girl. I was ecstatic.

Then I noticed he was coming home drunk again – and I began to feel alone in caring for our toddler. My gut told me something was wrong.

At 2AM one night my eyes pinged open. I knew I had to look at his phone. He had come home drunk and was in a deep sleep.

I crept around the bed and took his phone from his nightstand and into the bathroom with me. My fingerprint unlocked it.

It opened up to an absolutely disgusting string of text messages. I will save those details for the Lifetime Movie.

He was having yet another affair – but this time I could see first-hand how he was speaking to this woman, showing absolutely no respect for me as a mother or wife, and being open about having unprotected sex and even offering to help her get pregnant.

In that moment, then and there, I made the decision that I was going to divorce him and not look back.

I knew that this was not the type of relationship I could let my daughters view as their example of a healthy relationship. I somehow saw that very clearly.

I didn’t sleep for two days and then announced in our couples therapy session, “I had thought things were going well. But unfortunately, I have just been informed that my husband is having yet another affair. I am pregnant. I am emotional. And I need him to move out of our apartment today. I do not know who this person is and I am done.”

I was shaking.

The couples therapist was at a loss for words.

So was my husband. He did not apologize.

His first words were, “I’m just trying to figure out how she knows.”

In that moment, I registered that he did not have any remorse.

In that moment, I flashed back to a podcast I had seen about narcissistic personality disorder.

Little did I know I would be in that rabbit hole for years – trying to piece together how I missed the signs, how someone who betrayed me to such an extent during not one but TWO pregnancies would then somehow write to the court for YEARS claiming I was an unfit mother and that HE was the victim in this situation.

It was absolutely horrific.

I opened up to my close friends, little by little. I realized that I had so many true friends who didn’t judge me and simply showed up for me.

I felt so much shame around the breakdown of my marriage and so much embarrassment and sadness having to tell my doctors that I no longer had a partner who was welcome in my delivery room this time around. (It ended up being my mother and that is another intense and beautiful story for another day!)

My maternal instinct kicked into high gear. While I had trouble standing up for myself, I had no problem standing up and fighting for the girls.

That said, over 3+ years, the court system traumatized me and bankrupted me emotionally and financially.

I spent my birthday being evaluated by a forensic psychologist (while nursing my 4-month old baby) so that she could write up my entire life story and make a case for whether or not I was a good mother – and what her custody recommendations would be.

I knew I had to accept that I had to ask for help to survive this.

And I did.

I had to accept help from my support system at every turn. They showed up over and over again. I tell people, “When you go through something like this, you find out who your true friends are.”

It turns out that I had more good humans in my life than I could keep up with who were constantly checking on me.

I am also grateful every day I do not have to live with him or be with him.

To be clear, leaving this type of relationship can be dangerous and often requires a different type of strategic thinking. Planning ahead can make a huge difference.

Please be sure to check out the resources below for support and guidance.

If This is Sounding Too Familiar...

If you are facing this type of betrayal, you can take it day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute if you have to. Do not underestimate the relief that comes from deep breathing exercises.

I now know many women who have survived much worse and many whose nightmare of narcissistic abuse is seemingly never-ending.

Narcissists can convince themselves that what they’re saying is true. It causes many to question their reality. My trauma still goes back to the various unfounded and completely ridiculous ways I was accused of being an unfit mother.

I think for most moms...there could be nothing more painful than that. But then couple that with lies written in an affidavit with a clear aim to threaten, to torture, and to accuse us of putting our children’s safety in jeopardy.

I will leave you with key resources and a last thought: I will never forgive my ex-husband for his actions. And I will never forget that he cannot be trusted. Never.

At the same time, I am able to compartmentalize and co-parent and I have never uttered a negative word about him in front of our daughters.

That takes emotional maturity and strength – and can completely deplete one’s mental and physical energy supply.

To be clear, a healthy co-parenting relationship is also not always possible. But once you realize what is in your control, you can hopefully find peace and relief in knowing you’re doing your absolute best to protect, support and love your children.

🚩🚩🚩🚩 Red Flags 🚩🚩🚩🚩

Here’s also a short list of red flags that I either missed or pushed away for various reasons:

🚩Deep, Underlying Insecurity. Often, people who come across as the most confident, have the most fragile egos. Are they able to laugh at themselves? Or do they become immediately combative or uncomfortable or checked out?

🚩Gaslighting. By definition, this is a form of psychological and emotional abuse where a person systematically manipulates someone to make them question their memory, perception, or sanity. There was an incident when my then-fiance was flirting with a friend of a friend right in front of me. When I confronted him: “That didn’t happen at all and you can even ask everyone else who was there. You’re imagining that and I would never do something like that.”

🚩Lack of Accountability. There is a deeply unsettling victim mentality that surfaces with most narcissists. They will typically “blame shift” and have a reason why something was not fair towards them or hold the belief that “the world is against them.”

🚩Addiction. The pull toward excessive attention and the need to be admired is commonly coupled with various kinds of addiction. Whether it be sex, porn, alcohol, drugs, gambling, or a bad combination of several.

🚩Financial Triggers. Ever since child support became “at the judge’s discretion” in a 50-50 custody arrangement, the family court system has exploded with conflict–driven men, most of whom were not active parents, demanding a 50-50 schedule with the aim of getting out of child support payments. Financial abuse is prevalent in many cases and ties directly into the spiral that results when control is lost.

🚩The Need for Excessive Attention. I was one of those women who just LOVED being pregnant. I felt the glow. I felt the immense gratitude of being able to conceive and my body being able to experience this. I have always wanted to be a mother. A narcissist is triggered by this shift of attention and it is unfortunately not uncommon for men like this to cheat while their partner is expecting.

🚩Conflict-driven. It occurred to me early on that my husband found conflict oddly enjoyable. Especially when it was an opportunity to (unnecessarily) prove he was right about something. I saw this is in his work life, but since it wasn’t with me, I pushed it aside. It is very common for people who are very “conflict-averse” (🙋‍♀️) or submissive to end up in a relationship with this personality type.

🚩Lack of Empathy (or forced or “fake” empathy). Covert narcissists know they should feel for others, but they don’t. It’s eerie. So sometimes they try to fake it. This will be much more obvious with the other types of narcissists – such as the grandiose or malignant – or are incapable of and uninterested in faking it.

My therapist suggested immediately that I read The Empath and the Narcissist, citing how common it is for people (usually women) with a heightened sense of empathy to find themselves with a narcissist.