Partner lies and won't accept insta request

So my partner for 3 yrs we share a baby and live together,I requested to follow him on Instagram and he ignores my request. Tells me he don't use Instagram anymore so I obviously see that he accepts other Instagram users including female coworkers you can see his number goes up but still denied using Instagram. Sounds stupid and childish but how would you handle this? I stopped requesting him and started accepting male followers just for the heck of it. Idk not to mention he ignores that I tell him love you in text and will either tell me thank you or say something else

I'm really sorry to say this, Jane5, but this is an higly characteristic scenario from 'the Dark side': He says thank-you, etc., instead of, love you too, because he wants neither to outright lie nor tell the truth. He doesn't love you any more (did he ever or is he even capable if he's so foolish to have produced a baby with you on what, evidence now shows, turned out to be a whim lasting 3 short years?). But he'd rather NOT leave you and be single while he searches for A. N. Other on Instagram because he wants control and to avoid any inconvenience to him. You'll have to confront him, tell him that you can tell from his behaviour, he's staying with you only out of convenience (his) while looking to 'trade you in for a new model' (social media is their favourite hunting ground), and clearly doesn't/can't care about the effect his ridiculous lie and withholding/fobbing-off of verbal affection is having on you. His convenience equals your painh, and, since he's not some 5-year old, he shouldn't wish to risk harming the mother of his child's welfare - and as a potential knock-on consequence, his child. Who DOES he care about and wish to protect? Just himself? Sorry, but if a man would lie to his partner and mother of his child like that then it's a sign of Contempt (which I'm betting has nothing to do with you or what you've ever done/not done; it never is; it's about his damaged mentality...he hasn't been programmed right). If he were a decent person he'd have come clean long before now, about no longer wanting the relationship, so that YOU could deal with it/catch up to reality - have an equal footing - and prepare to move on, as unharmed as possible. So he lies, which, as I say, is so that HE gets to decide when (and for whom) he leaves you. Because, obviously, if you knew what he was up to - and what that said about what a "BEEPING BEEP-BEEP" that makes him - you would take that decision away from him...and he can't have that (control-freakery based on uber-selfishness and self-obsession and an ability to be alone/single) far above and beyond what is normal for working, healthy humans, whereby it spells emotional devastation for their poor, loyal spouse. His behaviour right now is called, amongst other things, Lilypad-Leaping. It's what all Narcissists - from minor to major - constantly do. That and lying - particularly sacrilegously like that. I mean - 'fine' if he doesn't love you any more (albeit, not if he doesn't have any reason, bar his disturbed mind). But where's his love and respect in-memoriam?! Evidently, he lacks that normal human feeling too. He's treating you - YOU! - like sh*t on his shoe. He's not working right, is he. He should be wearing an Out Of Order sign. My honest opinon is, I think he's cheating ALREADY (in (fake-)Love-Bombing stage), and that he and his next unwitting victim chat on Instagram, hence doesn't want you there to see, or YOU'LL end it before it's convenient, hence the lie. He doesn't even care that his lie is wholly transparent and that you'll KNOW despite can do nothing to actually prove it ("Plausible Deniability" - a favourite Narc tool). He's practically flaunting it in your face if you think about it? You don't need to prove it. If your 'husband' and father of your child is behaving like that and refusing to even say I love you too - that's a dealbreaker, meaning, either time to seek counselling (although, that doesn't work with Narcissists) or end it. I'm so sorry. It also explains his refusal to return the I Love Yous. Crazy as it sounds, they see it that behaving like he's still with you (despite he technically still is) would be his cheating on the other woman. (Won't last long, he's just doing it while he's on a high with her. Don't hate her - she'll be his victim as much as you've been and one day too soon he'll do the same to her. She probably doesn't even know he's 'married' with a baby. But he'll be Future-Faking with her, now, just as he did - clearly, we now see - to you). There again, if he's high on the spectrum, he might think he can keep you while he cheats behind your back (again, common with Narcs). Depends on his severity. But normal, healthy blokes don't do that. They do the gentlemanly thing and regretfully end it, having sat you down and helped you through your emotional reaction - especially when supposedly he should want amicability for the sake of his future relationship with his child - ANOTHER thing clearly missing from his psyche! What's he been like throughout the 3 years, and particularly, towards you and the baby once he/she arrived? Is this a sudden, chasmic departure from his normal self or, if you're honest with yourself, were there signs here and there the whole time which this light now shows up as having been more serious Red Flags than you'd at the time thought? Again, I'm so sorry.

As he is lying to you, my only advice would be to end the relationship. I don't say this flippantly but because I was once in your situation. It started from something very similar but on fb. I wish, when it happened, I would have taken my own advice and ended the relationship (marriage) then & I would have saved myself the last 3 years of mind games,manipulation and deceit, so much so, that I have ended up with serious life long health issues, after having a heart attack due - my cardiac consultant informed me - to stress.If this man truely loved you he wouldn't do ANYTHING to jeopardise your relationship. It sounds from what you have written that he is bideing his time until someone else comes along who piques his interest. His behaviour smacks of pure narcissism. This will just be the beginning...Good luck

(Quick aside - excuse-me, Jane5) Hi DazednConfused! :) "His behaviour smacks of pure narcissism." Hallelujah! Someone else here with enough knowledge & experience about NPD to have to the confidence to 'name the (damaged/sick) puppy'! (And, yes, experts are starting to come round to the idea that psycho-emotional incarceration in a toxic, abusive fauxlationship is actually Slow Murder.)

(PS: yours must have been a right monster to have worn-down your heart that badly, not to mention significantly more rapidly than normal!)

Indeed he was....it was one of those all too familiar cases that began with 'the love bombing technique '. Before I knew it was toxic, it was too late. I was already deeply invested.The first red flag was something similar to the original writer & I wish I had listened to my instincts from the get go, hence my reply..

(And a really succinctly helpful reply it was, too. I hope you plan to stick around?)

Jane5, do you want to share your thoughts with us? Are you okay?

Here - read this so's you know it's absolutely zero reflection on you. (Brad cheated on Jen, remember?) This more describes a non-Malignant - a "Benign" or Classic. (A Malignant is and/or affects as downright evil as it includes deliberation and Sadism): https://mentalhealthcenter.com/why-narcissists-cheat-on-their-spouses-and-have-extramarital-affairs/ "The Psychodynamic Process Enables Cheating In the quest for narcissistic supply, the somatic narcissist resorts to serial sexual conquests. Narcissists are easily bored (they have a low boredom threshold) and they have a low tolerance for boredom. Sexual dalliances alleviate this nagging and frustrating ennui. Narcissists maintain an island and focus of stability in their life, but all the other dimensions of their existence are chaotic, unstable, and unpredictable. This “twister” formation serves many emotional needs which I expound upon elsewhere. Thus, a narcissist may be a model employee and pursue a career path over decades even as he cheats on his wife and fritters their savings away. Narcissists feel superior and important and so entitled to be above the law and to engage in behaviors that are frowned upon and considered socially unacceptable in others.They reject and vehemently resent all limitations and conditions placed upon them by their partners. They act on their impulses and desires unencumbered by social conventions and strictures. Marriage, monogamy, and child-bearing and rearing are common activities that characterize the average person.The narcissist feels robbed of his uniqueness by these pursuits and coerced into the relationship and into roles – such as a husband and a father – that reduce him to the lowest of common denominators.This narcissistic injury leads him to rebel and reassert his superiority and specialness by maintaining extramarital affairs. Narcissists are control freaks. Having a relationship implies a give-and-take and a train of compromises which the narcissist acutely interprets to mean a loss of control over his life.To reassert control, the narcissist initiates other relationships in which he dictates the terms of engagement (love affairs). Narcissists are terrified of intimacy. Their behavior is best characterized as an approach-avoidance repetition complex. Adultery is an excellent tool in the attempt to retard intimacy and resort to a less threatening mode of interaction..."

PS: This is Malignants (continued in the above article): "Narcissists are misogynists. They hold women in contempt, they loathe and fear them. They seek to torment and frustrate them (either by *debasing them sexually – or by **withholding sex from them). They harbor ambiguous feelings towards the sexual act." (*Somatic Narcissist; **Cerebral Narcissist)