This is a true story but in accordance with the Family Court rules any identifying information such as names and locations have been changed.

I got home at 6pm that night.  The house was nearly empty – even the curtains had been removed.  Apparently she had bought those!  I found a large A4 envelope on the kitchen bench in the new kitchen that I had borrowed money to build – “if you don’t fix the kitchen I’ll leave you!”  Inside the envelope was a typewritten letter of many many pages.  To this day I don’t think I have read it entirely.  

But the key point in this letter was that according to my now “ex” partner I had Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).  This diagnosis was reached by reading the Neil Rosenthal relationship advice column in the local newspaper.  The particular article in question was conveniently included in the envelope and listed the symptoms of NPD.  There was some irony in that the article was published on my birthday!  This “diagnosis” would be thrown at me for the next 14 years.  More about that later.

In terms of mental illness I had on and off for many years seen a psychotherapist after having been diagnosed with Reactive Clinical Depression by a Psychiatrist.  It can be a difficult illness to cope with but with therapy and medication I was generally on top of it.  I learnt over time that sleep deprivation and too much alcohol didn’t help!

Over the first few weeks after my partner left I tried to get some answers and attempted to get a reconciliation.  I paid for couples counselling and paid for Andrea to see my psychotherapist who would explain that I didn’t have NPD.  Unfortunately it didn’t help and to this day she still believes I have that disorder.

It became apparent that my partner wanted nothing to do with me so my focus changed to working on arrangements to allow me to have a role in bringing up our yet to be born daughter.  A lawyer friend of mine recommended a Family Court lawyer and I made my first steps into the Family Court “justice” system.  Since our daughter was yet to be born the only thing I could do at that stage was write to my ex-partner through the lawyer making it clear that I wanted to be actively involved with the raising of our child and requesting that I have an input into her name.  There was no response and because of such that was all I could do until our child was born.  I got my first Family Court lawyer bill – $700!