IF you are not likely to be effected legally and materially, my advice to you would be: leave NOW. Pack your things and go. Contact him through your lawyers. Narcissists are poisonous. Stay away. There is no way to leave such a situation in stages. There is no respectable retreat.

Many women are worried about the possible consequences of such an act. "Will he not commit suicide?" is a frequent concern.

Narcissists do entertain suicide thoughts (suicidal ideation) in such cases. They usually do not act on them or act half-heartedly so as to fail. BUT, you should take into consideration a possible suicide and you should teach yourself, internalize, until you FULLY accept it, without ANY reservations that you have NOTHING to do with a possible suicide. The narcissist is autistic. He lives in a world all his own. You exist merely as a reflecting mirror. To think that your leaving would have anything to do with his suicide would be to flatter yourself. Morally, you owe nothing to such a person. But you owe everything to yourself.

4. Significant Others, Significant Roles

I have no interest in intellectual stimulation by significant others (it is perceived by me as a threat). Significant others have very clear roles: accumulation and dispensation of past primary narcissistic supply in order to regulate current NS. Nothing less but definitely nothing more. Proximity and intimacy breed contempt for reasons that I elucidate in my work. A process of devaluation is always in full operation.

All the above and a passive witness to my past grandiosity, a dispenser of accumulated NS, a punching bag for my rages, a co-dependent, a possession (though not prized but taken for granted) and much more. Being my partner is an ungrateful, FULL TIME, draining job.

5. Lasch, the Cultural Narcissist

see my: The Cultural Narcissist: Lasch in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

Kernberg made a very pertinent distinction between:

1. Saying that a specific society/culture is sick (pathologizing culture)
2. Saying that because a culture is sick - all its members are sick
3. Saying that in a specific society, certain disorders can be manifested more easily and find more fertile ground, as it were.

I support the third assertion and find the first two untenable.

Freud was the first to study the link between culture/society and pathology. Horney pursued it (as did Mead and many others). Specific pathologies, specific psychopathologies, and the very notion of pathology were always used as metaphors (Sontag) or as tools for social coercion (see Foucault, Szasz, Althusser and many others.) See my Althusser - a Critique: Cometing Interpellations.

To my mind, the following two statements are NOT equivalent, let alone identical:

1. Societal values are internalized by the child in the process of socialization and formation of his personality (-structures, such as the SuperEgo, to use psychoanalytic parlance) AND

1. A whole culture is internalized and BECOMES (=takes over) the individual

There is a cyclical argument in Lasch's writings. He is a determinist. If we adopt determinism, consciousness or will become meaningless. If a person is determined by his culture or society and later determines it - Lasch's approach becomes a tautology. Moreover: if psychopathology mirrors culture/society - how can its subject matter be determined by it?

6. Humans as Instruments

Humans are not instruments. To regard them as such is to devalue them, to reduce them, to constrain them, to prevent them from materializing their potential. Narcissists lose interest in their paintbrushes (no matter how valuable) if they cannot serve them in their pursuit of glory and fame through painting. Narcissists do not care about others (especially competitors).

7. NPD and Dual Diagnoses

NPD almost never comes isolated. It is usually diagnosed with other Cluster B Personality Disorders (especially Histrionic PD and Antisocial PD). A single, clearly delineated personality disorder is exceedingly rare. The norm is double or triple diagnoses from various axes (with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, for instance).

But a seductive behaviour is not an NPD trait.

Here is what the authoritative "Review of General Psychiatry" has to say:

"HPD must be differentiated from ... NPD. These disorders may coexist in some combination with HPD, in which case all relevant diagnoses may be assigned."

Elsewhere:

"... (NPDs) have far greater contempt for the sensitivities of others than those with HPD ..."