2 questions:

Question 1 is about theory clarification

Question 2 is about personal advice

_________

Since I swallowed the red pill, I thought that my (unhappy) relationship to my wife was just AWALT. "They’re all the same, so instead of hoping for another relationship to be better than this one, work on yourself and then maybe one day you’ll get to bang hot models".

I thought that AWALT meant something like: “to some degree, it's unavoidable that a woman will do what my wife does: controlling, constantly changing her mind, lying while saying that she never lies, in denial about being dangerously overprotective, and in denial about encouraging bad behaviors from our son”.

I thought my wife's behaviors were "normal" AWALT behaviors.

Then I saw this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE5fZaAzXws

And EVERYTHING that describes narcissist personality disorder (exploitative/entitled, projection on others of her own shortcomings, lack of boundaries/inappropriate behaviors, blaming/insulting/demeaning, etc), ALL OF IT, is my wife.

[I had no idea what actually defined a narcissist (I thought it was someone who loved themselves, which clearly my wife doesn't!).]

I felt so relieved.

So many apparently unconnected behaviors made sudden sense to me. There was so much that suddenly made so much sense.

_________

Question 1:

What is the difference between AWALT and Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Are all women afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder to some degree?

_________

Question 2:

A more personal question about my path.

The narcissist constantly looks to blame others and claims that if she's miserable it's because of people around them ("They're ungrateful - and look at how generous I am to them - and they're taking advantage of me...")

Well, I grew up constantly getting messages about being not worth enough and not good enough (from coaches, parents, peers).

Was not completely socially inept - but also not good enough socially.

Got rejected. A lot.

So I learned to be better because I didn’t like being myself. At all.

Ended up going to my country’s equivalent of Harvard about 20 years ago now.

Then started working. But I was still 100% blue pill and completely clueless about politics and power and was trying and failing at lots of things.

Moved to the US, tried 2 careers. Same thing: was technically not bad, but unable to get a real successful career going. Again, I was not horrible at social skills - but certainly not good enough.

I got a woman pregnant and stayed with her.

And when she started telling me I was not good enough, instead of arguing, I listened.

And I got a lot better. Because a lot of what she was pointing out was true.

_________

I am still in the Anger phase, so I don’t know how empowerment will come (working on it). One thing is that I got really good at being angry on the phone and in person. I got also good at being very precise, and reasonably demanding with people, rather than try to be nice and loving. I got good at being angry when what I really want is to be kind.

_________

The question is:

I’ve been becoming a better/more powerful/more adult man all because, since my childhood, I hate who I am and I hate being myself.

Can I stop this?

Can I stop trying to become better out of self-hatred?

Or is that a fundamental male thing, you never get to like yourself, you never get to anything that’s remotely narcissistic, you never stop hating some part of yourself, and being mature is having peace with that inner war?