The title of this post comes from a query which keeps cropping up in the search criteria in my stats which informs me of what has led someone to my blog.
Since I’m fairly certain that I haven’t written a post about this, I thought I would address it so as not to disappoint those who end up here looking for an answer to that question.
But I am going to end up disappointing you if you’re looking for a magic formula to extract love from a narcissist.
There is a fundamental problem with the question.
There are several problems with this question.
But one stands out to me as being crucial.
Can you see what the problem is?
No, it’s not you, you’re not the problem.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.
Wanting someone to love you is not the problem.
That is natural.
Wanting to be loved is not the problem.
Everyone wants to be loved. It’s a wonderful experience.
And neither is the problem the possible fact that you may be in love with a narcissist.
It happens. Love happens. Love is a beautiful emotion. It can’t be controlled. Which is part of its beauty.
And.
Narcissists are extremely easy to fall in love with.
They are in some ways easier to fall in love with than someone who is not a narcissist.
They have the innate ability to embody our ideal of love and of someone with whom we want to fall in love.
They have the innate ability to bypass all the defenses around our hearts.
They can open the floodgates which enclose our love and then it pours out, happy to be released, into them.
Being in love feels good.
It can also feel bad.
Love embraces everything. The good and the bad and so much more.
Being in love is not the problem.
Being in love with a narcissist is not the problem.
It can become a problem, and will become a problem, a problem which causes many other problems, but it is not the main problem.
Your love is your love and who you love is who you love.
Don’t let anyone else tell you who you are allowed to, supposed to, love.
It’s none of their business… even if you invite them into your business.
So what is the problem?
Look at the question again.
How do you get a narcissist to love you?
Can you see what the problem is?
One possible answer is that narcissists don’t know how to love.
But this is subjective.
Just because a narcissist does not love the way we think a person should love, does that mean that they don’t know how to love?
Love is also subjective.
What is love?
Everyone answers that question differently, because everyone is different.
We sometimes agree with each other about love and other things, we sometimes share similarities, but our similarities have differences.
Some people think love should be unconditional.
But wanting love to be unconditional is a condition.
Some people want your love for them to be unconditional, and in wanting that they impose a condition on your love for them.
restrictions for love without restriction
Some people tell you that their love for you is unconditional, but they always want something in return, even if all they want is for you to believe that their love for you is unconditional.
Love is a many splendoured and very complicated, surreal and abstract concept.
Humans are not dissimilar to love.
So.
What is the fundamental problem with – How do you get a narcissist to love you?
Can you see what the problem is?
Maybe if I write it likes this – How do YOU get a narcissist to love YOU?
Can you see what the problem is?
For a narcissist love, life, and everything and everyone in it is all about THEM, not YOU.
YOU only exist for THEM.
The narcissist loves you when it suits them to love you.
The narcissist doesn’t love you when it suits them not to love you.
If a narcissist hates you, is obsessed with you in some way… that is the closest you will ever come to truly being loved by a narcissist.
But even then it is still all about the narcissist and not about you. And it isn’t the version of love which you want.
The fundamental problem with a question such as – How do you get a narcissist to love you? – is that the question itself is narcissistic.
It is all about you, not about them.
Whether they are a narcissist or not a narcissist – you can’t make someone love you.
I know it is a hard thing to accept, especially when you love them and have dreams of what your life would be like if they loved you as you love them or as you want them to love you.
When you love someone, you wish for them to love you in return.
Unrequited love is very painful… and pain can makes us all go a little bit insane.
Escaping feeling pain is an intrinsic part of narcissism, it is the incentive behind a lot of what they do… thus when we try to escape our own pain, we experience what it is like to be a narcissist, without actually being a narcissist.
When we love someone and they don’t love us… we may want to make them love us, and that want may become an obsession because it becomes crucial to our sense of self, our identity.
But if they can’t, won’t, don’t love you… why would you want to force the issue?
Love is free, when we try to capture it and tame it, control it, bargain with it, adapt it to what we want it to be… love becomes a problem instead of a solution.
Subjective love becomes objective love – The person whom we love becomes our objective. The object of our affection. And we want that object to be what we want it to be and do what we want it to do.
What about those who love you, but whom you don’t love?
Can they get you to love them?
Would you like it if someone could access a formula for making you love them against your will, the will of your heart, just by searching for – How can I get someone to love me – on the internet?
Is it possible to love someone whom you don’t love? Even if you really wished you could love them… but you just don’t, won’t and can’t?
So.
How can you get a narcissist to love you?
Do you still want to know the answer to that?
.
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If you do then, check out this great post:
How to Get a Narcissist to Love You by Lynette d’Arty-Cross via In the Net! – Stories of Life and Narcissistic Survival
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An Upturned Soul 
Great posting. good for clarifying fantasies around this issue.
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Thank you 🙂
I’ve noticed that some of your recent posts have tied in with things I’ve been thinking, about love, relationships and other things along those lines. In fact many of the inspiring blogs, like yours, which I follow have been contemplating similar things. We all seem to be becoming more aware of ourselves and others and our versions of reality and such, and sharing our perceptions and views.
We are living in very interesting times.
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Oh, yes, I feel the same. It’s like we are coming into a group awakening. Each of us helping the other make the next step, following the lines and words of hope and awareness.
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There is an intangible sense of something changing and awakening in the air, it’s rather thrilling 🙂
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I am 42 a Taurus and he 34 years Capricorn, we started dating 6months ago. on our second dating meeting, he asked to know what I want in the relationship after informing me about his. Through this interaction he made me aware that he was not interesting in marrying either now or later. I told him I needed a companion and also a baby. we agreed to move on with the relationship- I am currently a few weeks pregnant for him. through out the iVF process he was supportive. but since I was hospitalized getting to 3weeks now he only visited me twice. He went silence for over a week and only called and stated sending apologetic messages a day before the confirmation of the pregnancy. He claims he is busy with work, studies etcs and that is why he is unable to visit. He has cold hot attitudes, which is confusing me.
I have for some time decided not to call, send him text messages until he gets back to me. what is he up to?
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
While astrology can be useful sometimes as a tool to perhaps understand someone else’s personality, or the dynamics of a relationship – and to use it that way a whole natal chart needs to be used and not just the Sun sign – there are limits to its usefulness. Someone’s astrological Sun sign is not going to inform you about ‘what they are up to’.
To know what someone is up to it is usually advisable to ask them directly. From the sounds of it he has already answered that question – he is busy with work and studies.
You mention that up until now he has been supportive, there for you throughout the whole IVF process, up front and consistent in his relationship with you. He has visited you in hospital, and he has apologised for not visiting more regularly. From your description of him and his behaviour, he comes across as a good person and definitely is not a narcissist (I only mention the latter because you’ve commented on a post about narcissists).
Pregnancy is a big event in life, for you and for him too. It changes everything in a big way. It could be that the reality of the pregnancy has just begun to sink in for him – and perhaps the idea that he will soon be the father of a child has made him feel pressured to work harder, to be a good provider and parent. He could also be afraid for you and your child since you’re in hospital, and he’s trying to manage his anxiety and not burden you with his fears.
This article is worth reading as it touches upon some of the issues a man faces when his partner becomes pregnant – http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-and-parenting/pregnancy/issues/understanding-psychological-changes-during-pregnancy5.htm – and may help you to understand his hot/cold attitudes and see them as part of what he may be going through at this time.
Just as this is a big step and change for you, it is also one for him, and it is one for both of you and your relationship. He may be confused about his own feelings and thoughts about the future.
This article also discusses the impact which pregnancy can have on a man – http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/considering-baby/dads/how-men-react-to-pregnancy/
An excerpt from the second article:
“Men worry, even if they don’t tell you. Even if your partner doesn’t mention it, he may be worrying about what pregnancy will do to your lives. He may feel anxious about upcoming expenses, your health insurance coverage, the pain that you’ll feel during pregnancy or delivery, what life will be like with three rather than two, and the effects of pregnancy on your sex life. If you are planning to quit your job to stay home with your baby, he may feel more pressure because he’ll be the sole breadwinner.
Men question what type of dad they’ll be. For some men, fatherhood is something they have looked forward to for years and feel well equipped to handle. Others may feel apprehensive. If a man was abused, abandoned, bullied, or ignored by his father, he may wonder whether he can be a good father to his child. He may fear that he will make the same mistakes his father made. Talk with him about his worries. Reassure him that you will work together to solve problems and that he’ll most likely be an excellent father, even if his own father wasn’t.”
Congratulations and best wishes!
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Love this – you are brilliant! This has so much insight on love beyond love with a narcissist as love in general can be perplexing.
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Thank you 🙂
Being human is perplexing as it contains multiple facets, of ourselves and others. So many layers and views of those layers. Love is probably one of the most perplexing and multiple-faceted concepts, with endless layers, of all the things which are a part of being human.
With love I’m more aware of what I don’t think love is than what I do think it is… but then something, someone else’s view or an experience, changes my perception and I wonder… we’re constantly in the process of creating and that includes what love is.
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I love it! But i shall admit it’s such a weird question,as once you know you have to do with a N, there is no chance to build any sort of bond, unless the one going to destry you, so someone must be a real lunatic to look for a way to be “loved” by a N. i am nuts, but never reached that peak!
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Thank you 🙂
Love narcissist style versus love non-narcissist style… there are many overlaps because love itself is all-embracing. There are many types of love, of things which we file under the heading of ‘love’.
I think that the idea of wanting to find a way to get a narcissist to love us is very intriguing. It opens up a world of dialogue within us, between all the diverse aspects of ourselves.
I recall being aware early on in my life that my parents did not ‘love’ me, but that awareness found difficulty in being confirmed and understood, in staying aware. The main issue wasn’t my N parents and their vows and versions of love, as much other people who interfered and insisted that parents always love their children and that children who did not believe this were at fault somehow.
Where love is concerned… there are so many voices and opinions about it that finding clarity is challenging and nigh on impossible. We just have to figure out what our version of love is and then work with that, whatever that is.
I suppose a question to ask is, if we believe that a narcissist loves us… is that the kind of love which we want, does it nourish or does it do something else?
Although I have spent a bit of time out of the years of my life trying to figure out how to get a narcissist to love me (as in my parents), I’ve spent just as much time trying to figure out how to get a narcissist NOT to love me – because in my view being ‘loved’ by a narcissist is a frigging nightmare, one from which I want to wake up. Because a narcissist’s version of love is suffocating.
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Hi Ursula,
As always, you write so beautifully.
I really like this post. I feel like a small wombat is nudging me in the right direction, pushing me to see what I might otherwise want to see. (You know I love visual representation of cognitive and emotional processes that are hard to capture in mere words.)
One of the advanced Jedi mind tricks that the narcissists (and sociopaths) pull off is convincing the deepest recesses of your soul that obtaining their “love” is actually something you should value above any other thing. It’s very weird how silently and painlessly this initial trick happens, and you said it very crisply here: “They have the innate ability to bypass all the defenses around our hearts.” That’s exactly right. And once they get past those defenses, they program the target to value their love/attention/approval over all other things.
Narcissists are the cat burglars of the soul. They come in quietly, they leave no perceptible trace, but when you wake up, you have been robbed.
Logan
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Hi there Logan,
I find a powerful insight in your feline metaphor- very poetical and deeply true. Thank you.
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Hi Logan,
Thank you 🙂
That is an excellent point, that narcissists convince us that we have to obtain their love and that doing so is a quest of mythic proportions, with only a true hero being able to conquer the quest and thus win the love of the narcissist. Their love is a trophy of our worth.
It reminds me of a young narcissist female whom I knew, who was still developing her ‘narcissist’ skills. She was the kind of narcissist who believes they are good, and does quite a bit of harm to others because of it. She had many of the traits of a classical siren, luring suitors with the sound of her voice, her words, her beauty, onto the sharp rocks which protected her from being human. She was always wishing for a hero who would be worthy of the love within her, a love greater than others, a super-human love which she wanted to share but just couldn’t do it unless certain parameters were met, a love she could only give to someone who was worthy. And many men found this very appealing. She kept hoping one would achieve the quest, but of course they never could. The quest was set up in such a way that those who took it on would always fail and she would always be unreachable, her love a star shining brightly in another galaxy. And she would be bitterly disappointed when they failed. They had let her down, they had deceived her. She occasionally went with the – it must be my fault – routine, but what she meant by that was that she chose suitors who were unsuited to her love quest – ergo it was ultimately their fault. She was special, they were not special enough.
I would however say that narcissists do leave perceptible traces… but we confuse their traces, their fingerprints and footprints and the mess they make, with our own.
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A Narcissist can covet us and adore us initially , but never genuinely love us. Love is an egalitarian , reciprocal , trusting, team oriented , mutual bonding process of trust that evolves, through shared experiences over time .Narcissists are not capable of any of these things.
Narcissists have never developed these skills due to their childhood trauma. As adults they function in a fashion that does not allow them to achieve true love due to these deficiencies. . They push way from it if they get close to it. They try to have the love in their life just as the people around them do, but they’re not capable of enduring these aspects of love. It s too painful , Each time they try , they can’t succeed.
The closest they can get is adoration and admiration of the one admired one. Once they cross that line and try form a relationship with the admired one or have true love with them , the attempt will fail every time because of their limitations and deficiencies.. Also once they cross that line, the adoration they once had for the admired one , becomes distorted,. At that point, the Narcissist get stirred up inside and starts acting all frantic , by acting controlling and abusive Its paradoxical of typical normal bonding progresses.
The act of coupling for them actually sets off a ‘pushing away/ controlling ‘ instinctual response. The thing we need to know is that once that is activated —-THERE IS NO TURNING BACK.- THE ADMIRATION PHASE IS OVER . Their personality disorder has developed as a defense mechanism for them. It is way too complicated for anyone to think they can fix them, it close to impossible. It’s a true tragedy. They sadly are damaged souls.
So, while it seem confusing that during the admiration and adoration phase the Narcissist seemed to show capacity for love, we need to know that the Narcissist only has the capacity for the infatuation ,newly smitten part of love only.Once it gets “real” and moves past the newness , the Narcissist by nature of their disorder cannot function in the steps it takes to form healthy mutual love bonds.
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You have been reading and studying the subject a lot recently, I can see it in your style of expression. You’ve been expressing yourself differently recently than the way you used to. Very intriguing. Hope it’s yielded many insights, not just into others, but also in yourself.
We are the solution to the problems we perceive in others.
Thank you for sharing 🙂
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Thank you! 🙂
When I started posting here, i had no concept of the official diagnostic criteria of Narcissism nor the experiences of those who were involved with Narcissists.
I did however live a life that included quite a few people with Narcissistic traits and was raised a by a NPD mom, as you know, but never had a label for these people or for my mom . I was searching for some info online one day and came across on of your blog postings . I was aghast that you were describing not only what I was seeking but other seemingly unrelated things that seemed to be of high interest for me. You know the rest of how it unfolded. Much of my life story was more interrelated than I had ever realized. Just fascinating how life goes isnt it?
You are correct that I am now well read & educated on the topic. You may hear my views have changed in some aspects about Narcs. I cant say if I will still be magnetized to them or not now that I am conscious of all this ??? I do know I have a new set of eyes that can now see more clearly .
In the journey so far, I have to say I have learnt alot about myself and have been able to re frame some things in a more realistic and accurate frame.
You may also hear me expressing myself differently since I reached out to the cyber-world and began blogging with you following a trauma reaction I had to the NarcDoc incident that occurred. It took me a while to bounce back. i still struggle with properly framing this incident
I do have some other interesting discoveries about things I’ve read up on I’d like to discuss with you ,since you may find them interesting also, in an upcoming post. (:
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Narcissist are capable of love. What they lack is the ability to bond, connect. I was married to a narcissist for 10 years, he has no connection to his 3 kids from different women. He goes through the motions but there’s nothing ‘real’ in their relationships. During our marriage we rarely had disagreements. For Christmas he bought me a big beautiful diamond and the card was saying how much he loved me and asked me to ‘marry’ him again for our 10th anniversary. Six weeks later he came home from work on Friday and told me to get out and two weeks later he filed for divorce. He would never give me answers or reasons. All he said was to him loving someone is a choice and he can turn it on or off like a switch and he just decided he didn’t have any ‘use’ for me anymore. So yes they can love but they never ‘bond’.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
Good point well made.
Your experience is unfortunately typical of a narcissist’s ‘love’ – one minute you’re their everything, they’re giving you diamonds, pledging allegiance to you forever and ever, making you swear to be by their side through thick and thin into the beyond… and the next minute they’ve moved on, discarded you and the whole relationship, leaving you reeling from it, and even if they give you answers or reasons you’ll never find the logic in it because they generate reasons, answers, excuses by the thousands (often borrowing them from others, from ‘relationship’ books, articles, and seminars), but none of them make sense or give closure.
We learn the hard way that what is easy for us is hard for them and what is easy for them is hard for us – neither side really bonds with the other because that bond requires for both sides to be able to bond and if one side can’t while the other can… that doesn’t keep things together.
Hope there is a happy follow on to this story and you’ve moved on too to find what nurtures you.
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Brilliant post as usual Ursula.
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Thank you 🙂
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We don’t fall on love with just any ol narcissist, we fall in love with specific narcissists, “our narcissists”. They are babies. They appeal to the nurturer in us. Only God can love unconditionally. The rest of us try. Loving a narcissist stretches the human limits. We stay in relationship with narcissists until we have reached the our limit of our ability to give unconditional love. By this time we/they have already shredded many of our own personal boundaries.
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That’s a very valid point, and one which I think runs deep into the heart of the matter, thank you for sharing 🙂
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There’s this Narc I know, the very first time we met I liked him. He had this air about him-et cute-but then he said some thing quite stupid and I got disillusioned-for the greater good. A week later, he talked to me about dating, saying he wanted to be with me bla, bla. But hey, rumors fly yeah, I found out about his ex, I didn’t know much but I felt like she was miserable and he just wanted to land a date to comfort himself. Save from what he said a week ago, that was a huge turn-off. I still like him but not like THAT any more. I declined him and now we’re like termite soldier and ant soldier. The amount of fuss he gathered over this is baffling-totally childish even. Made me feel foolish for refusing him…like I lost the best thing that could ever, ever happen to me-what insolence! I felt for him then and now still. Can’t help what he is and he hates me now but I could live with that, only he keeps getting on my nerves. He’s a jealous kid.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
Sounds like you listened to your instincts and stayed away from a relationship which might have not been so good for you. Always trust yourself, even if it may cause doubt. Doubt is natural, we always wonder… but sometimes we know even when we wonder and doubt.
Keep yourself open, but not so open that you let people in who really don’t understand what a valuable gift you’ve given them by letting them in. And appreciate and respect when others let you in to their inner sanctuary of themselves.
Keep being who you are as you are, and take good care of yourself as you do 🙂
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This is hilarious especially the part about the devil. Lol I like the plain English approach. These people exploit ur very weakness and are ok to discard u at their will. I also know they panic when confronted for fear of being revealed. I am dating one. Now that I know who he is…….hilarious!
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Thank you 🙂
They discard more often than not because you’ve found a weakness in them, either by accident or otherwise. The discard is more about them and their fears being exposed and needing to be kept hidden. It is, as you pointed out, part of their panic of being revealed as they are and not as they want to be.
Seeing a narcissist as one… changes a lot. It an explain everything, clarify the confusion they often create like a smoke screen. However if they have NPD along with their narcissism, it changes nothing for them, but changes everything for you. Not all narcissists have NPD. The ones who don’t, there’s room for something else there, but they need to let go of that to which they are holding on. The identity needs to be allowed to breath and dance, rather than just do a military control-freak march.
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Thank you 🙂
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Thank you for the insight. Very helpful. I needed this right now.
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Thank you very much 🙂
Best wishes!
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Hi Ursula, I found this older post of yours that I missed while ill during the summer. It’s very interesting to me because this same question keeps showing up in my seacrh log, as well. I mulled over what to do with it several times but never addressed it, which is a very good thing because you did a much better job of it than I ever could have. 🙂 This question and its frequency made me feel so sad and the same time wary. I wondered whether this is a desperate, fuzzy-thinking person, broken-hearted and grabbing at straws or a narcissist person looking for new ways to exert control. You handled it extremely, extremely well. 🙂
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Thank you very much 🙂
I would love to read your perspective on it, and I hope you’ll do a post, you have great insight into the matter and personal experience. I’ve never been in a romantic relationship with a narcissist. I have observed the narcissists I’ve known in romantic relationships, have listened to them discuss love ad nauseum (they love to talk about love) and had my ears filled until they bleed with their analysis of their relationships (particularly about what’s wrong with others).
Being a child of narcs, I’ve felt the urge to try to win their love, to ‘make’ them love me, felt the invisible fingers of narcissists plucking at my heart strings telling me to figure out how to love them so that they can actually feel it – but they never do and your love is never enough. And they can’t love you until they feel loved by you.
Narcissists tend to make love a quest, a heroic one – the person who can figure out how to win their love is promised a prize of great worth, for then they will be worthy of the narcissist’s love which is so special and huge it would be too much for ordinary mortals (princess in ivory tower syndrome).
So I get why someone is searching for that particular information. Narcs always leave you wondering how you could maybe just once win their ‘love’, if only you could figure out the magic formula to make them love you. Then you realise they can’t love… but it takes ages to realise that, and then you have to accept it.
And it is the sort of question which a narcissist would ask. They are obsessed with love, and not just as a means of control, in some ways it is their holy grail.
Search terms are thought provoking and I’ve understood quite a bit about my own story from those glimpse into the story of others.
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Thank you so much! 🙂
I’ll do a post on it – I don’t think that it will be as good as yours, but yes, it will definitely have a personal perspective! They certainly do love to talk about love, ad naseum, as you say. My ex-narcissist could go on and on for hours, usually trashing his former wife and girlfriends in the process and doing a lot of self-victimization, as well.
I agree completely that they see love as a holy grail. He had no idea how much he tended to mythologize it and to also see it as some sort of Hollywood movie. He used to insert complete sets of lines from movies and tv shows into his regular speech as if they were his own. When I realized that he does this I thought it was totally bizarre until I figured out that he’s channelling a fictional character. Well, that actually is bizarre – it becomes a little less so when one understands that he’s just filling up the big empty!
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It’s about sharing your insight – that is beyond comparison as it is unique, and that’s where the good stuff really is!
I have read so many brilliant write-ups about NPD and the whole rigmarole of it, and often comes across articles which make me go – This is it!!! No need to write my own take on it. But reading it and writing it are very different processes – in the writing of it we discover what we miss when we only read it. It’s sort of the difference between knowledge and wisdom. One is intellectual, the other is living and breathing. It’s a bridge between the two, where one becomes the other too.
Sharing your view, perspective, story, is knowledge in a living breathing blood flowing manner – that in invaluable! And the individual touch is the personal magic (style) at work!
ps. Remind me to add a link to your post from mine when you post it, my scatterbrained self thanks you in advance.
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Thank you! 🙂
I feel the same way – that this is it and that anything else I could add would be superfluous. But you are right. I do have my own take on it. 🙂 I will work on the post over the next week or so and will remind you to add the link 🙂
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🙂
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I stumbled onto your post by accident, Ursula. I had to read it because the link title “how to get a narcissist to love you” made me wonder what sort of half-wit could think such a thing possible?! Of course, I happily discovered your wonderful writing. I’ve just ended a five year relationship with a man who almost destroyed me. Although I’m a strong, independent woman, I allowed him to pursue me ardently, and allowed him to move in with me much too soon. I have a pretty good grasp of basic psychological concepts, but have never known or been deeply involved with a narcissist. I only figured it out after the breakup (a couple days ago), because I’m forever trying to get to the truth something, or at least my truth. I’m not a woman who is in pain and desperately looking for answers to explain why someone who claimed to love me would reject me. I’m relieved and feel liberated and glad to have my life back. We’d split up last May, leaving me with an honest-to-goodness anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and ultimately the diagnosis of PTSD. I had no idea what was happening to me during the downward spiral of our relationship. I couldn’t figure out why I was shaking like a leaf (I couldn’t write by hand or thread a needle; small motor tasks were very difficult during the worst times) and I started to throw up whenever under stress, which was just about all the time. My body knew what I didn’t want to see. When things finally fell apart, I lost the man I loved, my home, my community, and my job. To really cap things off, during the move (which involved moving house and entire hobby farm in less than 20 days) I broke my ankle on the last night of the move! So my heart was broken, my ankle was broken, and my nervous system was shot. We were apart and I lived alone for five months before he showed up again. By that time I had started to put the pieces of my life back together, and was taking really good care of myself. Still, all I wanted was to reconcile with him. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe I’d allow him back into my life after all that, but I did. The goofy thing is that I don’t have a lack of self-esteem — but I do have “hooks”, and he knew exactly how to reel me in by offering much of what I wanted. Anyway, we finally ended things (or shall I say, he ended things — complete with my first ever experience with a spectacularly dramatic display of narcissistic rage) and an email (yes, after five years) explaining that he no longer wanted to be with me, that he had lost faith in me and in us — because *I* was “abusive”! There was so much projection, so much gas lighting in that letter, that I didn’t even know where to begin. My (phenomenal) grown children remarked “gee, do you think that if you were in any way abusive — ever– that one of us wouldn’t notice?” There was even a great Freudian slip : “I’m tired of being abused and tired of NOT having a girlfriend that I fear.” By this time I’d felt myself detaching emotionally. I had already grieved completely after the first breakup. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. But I didn’t know what it was. Well. I do now, and I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have clear explanations for all the things that seemed inexplicable. I knew the problem wasn’t me, knew there was nothing wrong with me — still, he had me on this mission to try harder and harder, and dangled the relationship in front of me like a carrot and a stick. Everyone thinks he’s the nicest, kindest man in the world. He’s completely charming. He’s brilliant, funny and handsome. He’s very well known in the IT field, an educator and author, completely beloved by his students. This man managed to bring me, an intelligent, strong, loving woman to her knees. I barely recognized myself anymore. I’m happy to say that I’m healing rapidly, and can now celebrate my new found status : “The One Who Got Away.” Thank goodness. I’m thinking there still needs to be more written on the topic. I’m strongly considering sharing my story in the hopes of perhaps preventing someone from experiencing the kind of pain I endured. I wish I’d spotted the “red flags” earlier. The good news for me is that I learned quite a bit and I won’t be making that mistake again!
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Thank you 🙂 made me laugh, the bit about being a half-wit… and the bit about stumbling over my blog accidentally! I sometimes stumble over my blog posts accidentally when searching for stuff online and… get a bit annoyed at myself for it.
This part of you – I’m a strong, independent woman – is like catnip to a narcissist. I bet that you also have high standards about your ideal partner, which would normally be a good thing, however that is very attractive to a narcissist. If they can win the love of a strong independent woman who has high ideals of the man she would allow herself to fall in love with, then that makes them as special as they desire to be if they can win your love.
Once they win your love and you ‘choose’ them out of all the princes in the kingdom, Pandora’s box gets opened, and Hope is the most evil entity in the box rather than the saving grace. All the things they admire about you become what they hate about you, not because of you but because of them – it is always all about them.
But it takes a long time to realise that, and during that time you end up blaming yourself for everything they do to you, trying to make amends but never being able to do so, trying to make everything alright, trying to turn back time to that moment when everything was happily ever after, to make all this go away and be safe again – which is a large part of the PTSD, as this causes a complete breakdown of feeling safe within yourself. Once you no longer feel safe within yourself, you can’t feel safe in the world around you. If you can’t trust yourself… who can you trust?
Losing everything which you once had is unfortunately a common occurrence once you’re in a relationship with a narcissist. Everything you had is everything they want and if they can’t have it, neither can you. Their admiration is quick to turn to envy, and their envy is very destructive.
I’m glad to hear that you are healing rapidly, it’s a sign of inner strength, a strong sense of self and a return to self, to knowing yourself and being yourself again after being invaded by a narcissist – they’re always after that magic of being yourself because it is an elusive power to them.
Their ability to be charming, to present an attractive facade to others, to appear to be perfect and so on, relies a lot on them not knowing who they are but knowing who others want them to be. They can become whoever you want them to be without interference from who they actually are, at least on the surface. They study the desires of others and then become the seeming fulfillment of those desires – as long as you don’t look further than the surface appearance, everything is okay, but scratch the surface and the beauty becomes all kinds of ugly, the perfection is very imperfect, the ideal dream turns into a nightmare.
Their facade poses them with an impossible problem, their way of dealing with that problem causes a lot of damage.
I would encourage you to share your story if that is something you would like to do and feel driven to do, it can be very therapeutic and it can help others too, however don’t do it for others, do it for yourself. You can’t stop others from falling for narcissists, especially if, like you before this man, they’ve never had the displeasure of such an experience.
There are loads of articles out there about ‘red flags’, and anyone who wants to know about them can read about them. But those red flags generally only mean something to us once we’ve had a bad experience, one which includes ignoring red flags and learning the hard way.
In psychology there is this concept of the third person – it’s basically what we all experience when we read about something happening to someone else and we feel for them, maybe even empathise with them, but if we haven’t lived it ourselves we tend to conclude that it would never happen to us – we’re too savvy for that or something like that.
People only tend to search for information about NPD and narcissists after they’ve had a bad experience with someone whom they can’t figure out, understand or explain. They do some searches based on their confusion and end up finding a post or article which describes the person and their experience. And that’s when the ‘red flags’ make sense.
People don’t tend to heed warning signs unless they have some personal experience of what the warning is warning them about. Warn someone who has never met or been involved with a narcissist about narcissists and they’ll most likely conclude that you’re a bit crazy and paranoid. Warn someone who does know about narcissists… and you’ll meet someone who already knows, who doesn’t need warning but who does appreciate any tips you have about avoiding them in the future and healing from the effect which a narcissist has on you and your life.
Tell your story, share your experience, pass your healing methods on, that’s a treasure for all, for you and for others 🙂
And be inspired by yourself!
Best wishes.
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I am just coming to terms that my husband and marriage have been a lie.
I keep obsessing over the details and how foolish I have been not to listen to people who recognized him for being the narcissist he is. I couldn’t understand why he kept making excuses for not knowing how to love.
My being a nurturer, I could not believe that. Yet, it is true. Charmingly deceptive and without a conscience. He violated me in every way and I kept making excuses for him! He manipulated me with our Catholic faith.
I am deeply grieving the loss that never was! It was smoke and mirrors. He takes no accountability for any wrong doing and plays the victim among our church family. He is very sick and I pray for his healing because I do honestly love him even to let go!
Sharon Ingalls
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
‘Obsessing over the details’ is a normal part of the process of healing and understanding. Don’t be hard on yourself for doing that. It can be very insightful.
And you’re not ‘foolish’ for not listening to others. Cut yourself a lot of slack – you were in love. Love is blind… and sometimes that works out, sometimes others are wrong and biased for reasons which are their own and which aren’t necessarily good for you.
We need to have our own experiences, even if they end up being painful. That’s how we really learn about life and how we discover who we really are and who others really are.
I hope all those people who were ‘right’ about him are being supportive of you now, rather than doing that dance known as the smug ‘I told you so’.
Being taken in by a narcissist is very different from seeing the narcissist for who they are. It’s a world of experience apart. So be gentle with the you who found him charming and believed him, loved him, etc. Respect your healing and grieving process. And be kind to the very human side of yourself who saw the best in him, made excuses for him, and then couldn’t do that anymore, was forced to faced the fact that those who have a best side also have a worst side… and sometimes that worst side is all that is left.
Take good care of yourself, and give yourself plenty of time to heal, understand and to be angry (the angry side of things needs to be acknowledged and expressed… it’ll dissipate in its own time – don’t suppress it for religious belief purposes! Honour how you feel, let the truth gradually sink in and set you free in your own time).
Best wishes!
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[…] The title of this post arrived in my search terms about a year ago. This query also came up for Ursula over at An Upturned Soul; she posted a excellent response that you can read here. […]
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Since I first saw this post, Ursula, there have been some pretty radical shifts in my perception and my reclamation of myself after my significant other and I broke up — twice. After the first breakup, I did everything I could to recover. I went to therapy, I took medication, I read, I wrote, I researched. I focused on self-care and eating, gaining lost weight and getting my strength back. In short, I worked hard. I no longer have symptoms of PTSD — no more anxiety attacks, no more shaking, no more nausea and throwing up. I can sleep again. I’m at peace. One thing I did was surround myself with people and voices I felt I could trust. I allowed my intuition to guide me to what felt true for me and where to look for the things I needed and knew in my heart to be true. One of those things was reading the works of Byron Katie, doing “The Work” and using the process of “Inquiry”. At first I had the feeling that she was absolutely correct — I knew she was right, yet I wasn’t yet able to really *understand*. By the time the second breakup happened, I had caught on. I felt myself detaching from wanting him to love me a certain way; he could no longer hurt me. I had a strong sense of self to come home to, and home I went! The upshot is that I now am able to love him more than ever — and I honestly don’t care what he does with that. I don’t care if he comes or goes; it’s not about me. I am not in any way deficient. I see him clearly, I see his pain and his struggle. I can’t fix it, but I can love him. Some people might not understand this — they might see it as being masochistic. But I’ve had this lesson before. A few years ago I fell for a man whose behavior was utterly perplexing. His come here / go away dance was both confusing and hurtful. I suffered until I was able to detach. But I’m not the sort of person to discard people. I fell in love with these men for a reason, and there were actual moments of connection, moments when I saw who they really were, when they were momentarily free of fear. They had some very good qualities, and we had history. So I hung in there with this man, as a friend, rather than as a romantic interest. I was only able to do that when i honestly knew I could do so without causing myself further damage. And I’m glad I did. He proved to be a most excellent friend, as long as I was able to let him be who he was, and didn’t bury our friendship in my expectations. I value his perspective and his insight. He’s honest about his limitations (he believes his official diagnosis is schizoid personality disorder) and his pain and his frustration. Seven years later, he’s changed considerably, and we’ve developed a wonderful relationship. At any rate, though it helps to know something about what’s behind some of the destructive behavior of people who have narcissistic or even some sociopathic traits, I don’t want to dismiss someone entirely because they aren’t able to offer me the kind of love I want. I can look elsewhere, or nowhere, and still appreciate and love the person behind the behavior. Or I can move away entirely if I’m unable to prevent them from harming me. It’s a choice, and I don’t think there’s one right answer. I’m grateful to these men, even though I was hurt. I played a part in allowing that to happen. I’ve learned so much about myself, and I’m stronger (and wiser) than ever. As odd as it might sound, sometimes a narcissist (or anyone who can’t love us the way we’d like them to) can be a great teacher. Thank you, Ursula, for sharing yourself here. Yours is one of those voices that ring true for me.
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Reblogged this on dreamer girl and commented:
Such a fabulous post.
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Thank you very much 🙂
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Praise the Lord that I found this site. Your quotations were the validation I needed. Everything makes so much sense now and I can go forward. I hope all victims of narcissistic partners will be able to see the light. Thank you thank you!!!
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
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Hands down the very best information I’ve ever read on narcissism, and I’ve read a lot on the subject. Narcissist fear being caged, thus the walls they build around their hearts to avoid just that. What they don’t understand is that those walls they build to protect themselves is their self made prison. And I’ve learned the answer to the question is, to get them to open the door to their hearts, is to love them flaws and all.
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Thank you very much 🙂
This is the best article which I’ve read on the subject – http://www.energeticsinstitute.com.au/page/narcissism.html – it explains NPD and Narcissism in detail.
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Thank you for this article. After 9 years with a narcissistic partner and currently going through divorce, I bounce back and forth between hurt and anger almost daily. The passive agressive games were insane and the emotional abuse has left many scars.
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Thank you very much 🙂
9 years is a long time, and divorcing a narcissist can be an incredibly stressful experience because they tend to complicate legal matters as they often don’t think the law applies to them.
Have you visited this blog – http://letmereach.com/ – Kim, the blogger, has been through a divorce with a narcissist and she writes about the ups and downs of the process of recovering from all the aspects of having been in an intimate relationship with a narcissist.
I remember reading a while ago that when a long relationship ends it can be similar to experiencing the death of a loved one, and that a period of grieving is needed. When I went NC from my parents I definitely passed through the 5 stages of grief, and I found Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ work helpful in recovering from my relationships narcissists. It allowed me to see that being angry was an important part of the process, and needed to be felt and also understood.
The scars won’t go away, but they become over time an inspirational reminder of things other than the pain, abuse, and insanity. They remind us of what we’ve overcome, of our strength in adversity, and of our ability to learn, grow and heal our wounds.
Let yourself feel all that you are feeling, it can be uncomfortable, harrowing, but it needs to be acknowledged. Every emotion has a place in the process, a message from ourselves to us about our psyche.
The anger can sometimes be harder to handle than the pain and hurt. In a relationship with a narcissist we become experts at handling being in pain, at being hurt, but we usually end up suppressing our anger, often denying it, being ashamed of it, feeling guilty for having it. So when we finally acknowledge we’re angry, it can be overwhelming and it can take over.
For me, the hardest aspect of the anger was dealing with how angry I was at myself for allowing myself to put up with the narcissists in my life, for letting them in and exposing myself to the pain they inflicted. I was angry at myself for betraying myself. Anger is a protective feeling, and when we understand its purpose we can shift it from a destructive thing to be feared into a creative thing which guides us.
This is an interesting post about emotions – http://www.psychedinsanfrancisco.com/energy-theft/
Let yourself heal at your own pace, be gentle with yourself, recovery takes time and needs for us to be patient with and compassionate towards ourselves.
Take care of yourself!
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After 44 years, I finally walked away from a narcissistic parent. The initial pain was unbearable, but a year later I am beginning the journey of loving and valuing me. Thank you for the post. So very true.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
It is very hard and painful to walk away from a parent, but it’s the healthiest thing we can do for ourselves when they’re a narcissist. As long as they are a part of our lives, we can never be allowed to love and value ourselves, be who we are and enjoy being ourselves.
Best wishes on your journey, take good care of yourself!
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I met mine 3 1/2 years ago. Just broke it off this past May. I stayed because he said he wanted my help. He said i was the only one that would put up with him, and he held his hands out and said here. Like here, this is me. He knew he ran people off, he couldnt control it. We must have broke up two thousand times. I fell deeply in love with him. He did the love bombing,gas lighting,projection, blaming, devaluation. Hot and then cold. Damaged my property, car, busted my phone, hit me over head with rod iron chair, hit me in face , knocked me to floor, through a plate across room at baseball strength and almost put my eye out and cut my face. Called police twice, never arrested. He looked like the devil when he went into the rage, I could see it in his eyes, pure evil. He could not control his rage! He didn’t remember what he did at some point and would have killed. I am a very strong minded person and knew what he was saying about me wasn’t true, some of the things he said was so off the wall how could they be. I’ve done 6 months research and what you guys are saying is all true. What hurts me so bad, is loving a person so much and understanding that you can never be with him, because they will never change. I feel sorry for them, they do really want love and a relationship, but know they can’t have it, so they put up a block and start finding fault, to mask the pain of losing somone else. Another failed relationship.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
That sounds like an horrific experience. It’s hard to predict that someone who you meet, who seems so wonderful during the courtship phase, who you fall in love with as they present themselves in the days when they’re trying to win your affection, can be that violent and abusive towards you later on. It’s not a lesson any of us wants to learn, and it can cause more than just physical scarring.
The person you love and loved is who he is when he can control the fury inside of him. Unfortunately getting close to someone like that means that all their inner demons eventually become something you get to know up close and personal in ways that are hazardous to your own health. Even if he would like to change, changing what is routed that deeply in the inner darkness in a person can be very difficult. It’s impossible for anyone else to do ti for them, and sometimes they find it impossible to do too even when they genuinely want to change.
He’s addicted to being violent in a way that he can’t control. He may have experienced violence as a regular part of his early family life, and therefore it’s rooted inside of him that love and intimacy are expressed with increasingly violent acts.
It can be seen as a failed relationship, or it can be seen as history repeating regardless of how much we try to change it. For him. For you, I hope it is an experience which will not be something that is repeated. Don’t let anyone hurt you in that way no matter how much you love them. Please take good care of yourself, you deserve a love which protects you from harm.
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I grew up with a narcissistic father, No matter what I do or how hard I try it will never be good enough.. eventually this has made me learn to live life without feeling the need to impress anyone.. it helps you become mentally stronger to criticism.. and you learn to stand up for yourself.. sometimes I still seek to feel the need that I have to prove myself to him, I’ve learned that it’s not all bad.. its been a good motivation in helping me do better, try harder, every time in order to try and make him happy.. which he never happens to stay long enough lol.. in a way it’s help me become a better person.. As for love, I know my father loves me.. love is not universal.. everyone has their own way of giving love.. my father criticism are the harshest when I’m at my lowest, I’ve heard it all.. but I know if I need any help he comes running to my aid (maybe it’s the your my hero compliments of admiration he likes.. lol) growing up I remember my father pulling me out of every tight fit.. criticism, put downs and all.. but always there to help me.. I also learn to become more independent because the more you need a narcissist the more control they have over you.. eventually I distanced myself, get back on track.. try not to be dependant.. when we disagree I just nod and agree with him even thou I don’t plan to do whatever it is he is telling me to do.. I make shure to feed his ego once in awhile it keeps him happy.. feeding his ego also works as a great diversion to simply avoid a potential argument.. lol.. his criticism and put downs truly come out of frustration usually when I’m at my lowest.. he wants me to do better, he just doesn’t know how to express it.. he told me this himself.. which took many many years of learning how to have a meaningful conversation with him.. I remind him that as his child I am his legacy and any flaws I have will reflect back to him.. I tell him I’m not better than him.. I am a reflection of him.. anyhow back to the topic at hand.. I know a narcissist can love.. in their own way.. it was my father who stepped in and was always their to save the day..
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
You’ve expressed the kind of love a narcissist has for others very well. And also how the child of a narcissist learns to cope with that kind of love, often putting a positive spin on the situation and finding the blessings in a difficult dynamic. Telling ourselves that things aren’t as bad as they seem is something a narcissist needs us to do for them as they need us to support their status as a good parent.
It’s not an easy task trying to figure out how to deal with how a narcissist loves because the rules which apply are their own and our version of love is rarely if ever integrated into their version of it. I suppose if we can accept their way of loving, and accept that they’ll never love us in a way which actually makes us feel as though we’re loved for who we are rather than for who we can be for them, then I guess things can work in the relationship.
It does require keeping an eye on the ripple effect of those sort of interactions, as even if we’re aware that someone is a narcissist, and are cautious in how we interact, how they treat us can still affect how we perceive ourselves. Narcissists have a way of nagging you that worms its way into hard to reach recesses of the mind, and even when you try not to let what they say get to you, it gets to you.
You mentioned several times the way that your father behaves when you’re at your lowest. For a narcissist, when we’re at our lowest is for them when we’re at our least threatening. They tend to feel strong when we’re feeling weak. Sometimes in the way they behave in those moments you can see their own wound at work, they do to us what was most probably done to them which made them the way that they are. Your father probably had a parent who demanded from him what he is demanding from you, and he is repeating with you the scenario which happened to him, perhaps hoping that you’ll solve what he couldn’t solve, heal what he can’t heal. Narcissists hurt us because they’re in pain – that’s an explanation and not an excuse.
I think it is deeply telling of the sort of empathic and caring person that you are that you have never given up on your father no matter how much he hurts you. He may not be adept at showing love, but you certainly are. I hope you have people in your life who balance out the criticism, with whom you can be yourself and feel loved for just being as you are.
The way you describe your father helping you when you’ve been in difficult situations, reminds me of my mother, except she was often the cause of why I ended up in those difficult situations, and help helping me out of them always came with strings attached. She was the sort of narcissist who pushes you into a ditch then ‘saves’ you so she could feel heroic, and expects you to owe them for the rest of your life.
Be careful, take good care of yourself, and remember that the way a narcissist sees you is a projection of themselves as they can’t see you as you, so those criticisms and flaws your father finds in you aren’t yours.
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It i a bit intriguing to me that there are so many similarities between narcissistic abuse and healing from them. Silent treatment and no contact. Are Co-dependents and narcissists two sides of the same thing trying to be complete?
I had an encounter with a narcissist a couple of months ago.
She was a colleague, very beautifull and a little older than me. I was talking to her at some courses we both were taking and she was very nice and sweet, so i was very much flattered by her. Soon after i found out she had a boyfriend, so i tried to tone my feelings down, but she just tried more and more. Always greeting me when i came to work and always smiling very sweet when i met her. Whren i tried to talk to her or move in closer she would disappear or give me the silent treatment. Evferything she did was a mimic of my actions if i tried to get closer she would give me the silent treatment. If i gave her the silent treatment she would be sweet.
As i was getting tired of this game i simply gave her the silent treatmet back. The last time i saw her was a the christmas party, she was looking like a sad little puppy staring at me, so i gave her a stare that clearly said i do not care about you.
It was like flipping i switch she became so happy and ignored me completely the rest of the evening, until she went home early.
Now i am left sitting back thinking about if it did mean anything at all.
AM I NOT SUPPOSED TO BE STALKED HERE OR AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH FO THAT?
So yes my thoughts are intirely narcissistic…
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
I agree, there are similarities between narcissistic abuse and the steps advised for healing from it. It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between the two. The lines are blurred. The problem and the solution can appear to be one and the same thing.
No contact is a form of silent treatment, however the way it is used (or supposed to be used) is not for the same reasons (or not supposed to be). Someone using No Contact is trying to extricate themselves from a difficult relationship rather than trying to manipulate the relationship and the other person.
Narcissists sometimes see themselves as being the victim of a narcissist (which they may well be as two narcissists may have a relationship), and they have access to all the info on narcissists, narcissistic abuse and healing from it that everyone else does, so if a narcissist uses No Contact it may well be used exactly as the silent treatment is used.
http://n-continuum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-appropriation-of-no-contact-when.html
There have been a few articles online which have explored the connection between narcissists and their victims, which have asked uncomfortable questions about who the actual narcissist really is, and have also asked if perhaps in certain cases there isn’t a clear cut ‘one narcissist and one victim of narcissist’ scenario.
http://clearreflectioncoaching.com/the-empath-and-the-narcissist
One of the lines which has been blurred, more so now that Narcissism is a hot topic and ‘narcissist’ is a trendy accusation, is the difference between someone who is actually a narcissist (has NPD) and someone who is behaving narcissistically (which all humans can do). If we’re on the receiving end of someone’s narcissistic behaviour we don’t really care if they have NPD or not, if they’re really a narcissist or not, we don’t like the way they’re behaving and so they’re a narcissist to us.
According to psychologists only a small percentage of the population fits the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, however if you go by the discussions online it seems as though one out of ten people is a narcissist (and it seems to be increasing to the point where we’ll all be labeled a narcissist by someone that we know – so we’ll all eventually be narcissists and will have to find a new topic with which to separate ourselves from each other).
In the scenario which you shared, it does sound as though your colleague was behaving narcissistically. She may be insecure about herself, and if she lives in a society/environment which uses appearance, beauty, attractiveness, as a gauge of social status and worth, or if she grew up being ‘loved’ and ‘valued’ because of her looks, she may feel the need to encourage others to find her attractive, but she may not want to ‘follow through’ on the ‘promises’ she makes. She just wants you to find her attractive, she doesn’t want a relationship with you. That is very narcissistic. But is she a narcissist or is it society, it’s hypocritical rules and messed up messages which is really the narcissist and which makes us all behave like narcissists.
She could also have been doing something which females sometimes do with males, which is silly as it sends mixed messages but is almost second nature – women, from when they are little girls, are taught that men are dangerous and could rape or kill them at any minute, so to protect themselves, women are told to be ‘nice’ to men, and ‘flirt with/flatter’ them hoping to avoid the danger. Men don’t usually understand this as they don’t get taught this as little boys. So when women behave this way men think the woman is attracted to them when actually the woman is too worried and nervous to be attracted.
This famous quote sums it up:
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” ― Margaret Atwood
There was a post I saw recently about an advertising campaign by a fashion designer. The advert ran with the words – Walk like you have three men walking behind you. The women who commented on this said that the first thought they had was to run, and it was only much later that they realised this advert was telling them to be sexy so that men would find them attractive.
That’s society’s messed up rules for you, and those rules mess up all up, so when we interact with each other it’s always going to be complicated, and there’s probably going to be a certain amount of narcissism involved.
To top things off, most romantic films glamourise stalking and dress it up as love.
Being stalked isn’t really a case of ‘are you good enough for that’, that kind of ‘love’ and ‘attraction’ can be fatal, and you aren’t being desired as a person, you’re an object of someone else’s fantasy. They literally see you as an object, a thing.
You’re right to be frustrated and annoyed. What she did was messed up. Just don’t take what she did as a reflection on you – it reflects her not you. She’s playing a silly game (one she should have learned to stop playing awhile ago because that kind of game can get a woman into heaps of problems rather than being the thing which helps her avoid them – if she is a narcissist she’ll love that kind of drama). Luckily you’re very intelligent and sussed things out early enough to back away from a situation which would have only become more confusing.
You’re also lucky she didn’t want to have an workplace romance as if she’s this complicated in the just met you stages, she’ll be even more complicated in the relationship area. If what she’s done so far has driven you a bit stir crazy, it would have been so much more crazy-making if she’d wanted to take it further. You escaped a bullet.
It’s wonderful when someone finds us attractive. She seems to be very addicted to the feeling. It was great when she flattered you. Enjoy the memory of that, and don’t worry about what came later, that’s on her not you. Even though she may be older than you, she’s more immature.
Have you considered that you may be too good for that!
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My point is exactly that. It is very easy to brand her as a narcissist simply because it is comfortable. I do not have to worry about myself or my actions simply because she is a narcissist.
The scenario mentioned above lasted five months and there has been quite a lot of weird situations.
One of the weirdestswas we were doing some courses outside of the school we were working at and she was complaining to five other colleagues that another colleague had said something to her and she was almost in tears. All of us were listening to her sad story and comforted her. The weird part was she was happy and acted like nothing happened within a couple of seconds it was like switching of the lights in a room. I saw her talking with the exact same colleague a couple days later and they were both smiling like nothing ever happened.
Funny you say that about her looks she definitily knew she was beautiful i remember i once told her that i had never rejected a women because of her looks or lack of same and that seemed to shake her up.
Other weird things included i noticed she was never smiling in pictures. She looked depressed or her face was completely dead, to a degree that i found scary.
She was very haughty and she had a weird contempt for weaker students. We both worked as teachers at a college.
What i meant was by stalking and perhaps it was a bit misplaced it was the exact same thing like she could switch of her emotions and suddenly i was a nobody it simply happened so fast.
I have met women with low self esteem that tried to play games and i guess that was the reason i could see through her but they were just pathetic and sad, she was different there was something evil about her.
I have since been fired due to budget cuts, but after i had not seen her in two weeks my feelings for her changed completely from the perfect woman to something worse than nothing. I have not seen her in almost four months and i will probably never see her again Those months however was like an emotional roller coaster.
About my intelligence, yes i have been diagnosed with an IQ of 128 spread 15. and my MBTI type is an INTJ…
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She does sound as though she is on the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum. The scenarios you’ve shared show her as having a propensity for attention seeking. Lots of people seek attention, we all like to be noticed, but someone who is highly narcissistic craves constant attention in a way which is different from the rest of us. What stands out is the amnesia – as in the very thing she used to get attention gets forgotten once she’s received the attention.
Narcissists often complain about the pettiest of things but inflate those petty things to larger levels – they’re looking for the caring reactions of others to their concerns, if they get the caring reaction they’re seeking they often completely forget what they were complaining about.
And a narcissist being best friends with a sworn enemy is a regular pattern – they operate from a rather childish level, so one minute they hate someone because that someone was mean to them, and the next minute all is forgiven and they’re best friends forever, then something happens and they’re enemies again, then something else happens and they’re friends again. The only ones who suffer from this yo-yo behaviour are those who take the narcissistic person’s word seriously.
And yes, it’s easy to end up not seeing the human behind the narcissist once you’ve decided that someone is a narcissist. That label means that ‘good’ people can behave badly because they’re dealing with a ‘bad’ and ‘evil’ non-person. That allows us to justify our reactions to someone once we’ve labeled them in a manner which lets us to not be accountable for our reactions to them. With narcissists it gets complicated because, everything connected with them is complicated, and because sometimes the only way of dealing with them is doing to them what they’re doing to you – but you can lose yourself doing that, and they carry on regardless.
Narcissistic people often appear perfect, and can be great to know, as long as you don’t look beneath the surface veneer, but an INTJ isn’t going to settle for the surface veneer… look beneath and it gets ugly. They’re a twisted mess below the surface. All humans are messy, the problem with narcissistic people is they hate being human and seek to be something beyond human, so the mess gets messier.
All things considered, and personal pain aside (which can hurt like hell sometimes, sometimes all the time), you’ve had an experience which has imparted an invaluable lesson about the people you’ll meet in the world as you travel through it, and of yourself – you now know how perceptive you are, and how deeply your intelligence penetrates beyond intellect.
Most of the INTJ’s I know have an uncanny ability to see through people and know the inner workings at a glance. Question is – How will you use your natural perceptive ability?
I’m an INTP, btw 😉
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Thank you for your replies i appreciate them very much. My thought s are constantly going round and round but i am realizing more and more that nothing good would ever come out of her.
It is difficult to explain but there was something weird and childlike about her and that is probably the weirdest. She seemed like a little child in a grown up body. that is why i find it difficult to make fun of her simply because it is like poking fun of a retard.
Everything just seems so sad and somehow i feel sorry for her.
I have no idea what she was up to. Did i miss the love of my life? Is she a living nightmare?
Did anything ever mean just a bit?
There was nothing mutually about this relationship, she never walked over to me and start a conversation. She was way to passive for my taste. I think that was actually what killed it.
I remember i met her one time hallway and she greeted me and i did not notice because i was talking to a colleague and some students, so i was punished by the silent treatment for two weeks. I could not take her seriously after that. She always had this weird smirk while giving me the silent treatment. I know i was in her mind even though she gave me the silent treatment.
Even though i can sense that the relationsship was escalating it happened rather slow.
According to Sam Vaknin cerebral narcissists like to frustrate other people simply by teasing them, perhaps this was it. She was not very sexy despite her good looks.
So if it had ended up with us being together i could cater to her every need she might have, never get anything in return and nothing or very boring sex. You said she was high on the spectrum.
That is not a relationsship but a nightmare.
Funny you say that about some INTJ looking through people. I have a weird way of pissing off certain people, especially bad bosses and people with a hidden agenda, even teachers in high school, that did not like me but never honest people.
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You definitely did not miss out on the love of your life. She may have momentarily seemed that way because narcissistic people have that kind of illusory glow to them, they’re a bit like those celebrities upon whom we get crushes because of some part we saw them play which meant something to us at a certain point in our lives, we never really get to know them because they remain elusive so our imagination fills in the blanks.
With narcissistic people those blanks are blank. There’s nothing there.
When you do meet the love of your life, it’ll wipe this experience and this woman out of your mind. Although you may have a small moment where you’ll wonder why you thought this woman could have been so special because you’ll have someone truly special in your life. The real love of your life wouldn’t play these kind of games with you or let themselves get away from you because you’ll matter as much to them as they matter to you. You’ll be as special to them as they are to you.
This is an experience worth having. There are a lot of narcissistic people in the world, and the sooner we recognise what it’s like to get caught up with one, the less time we’ll suffer at the hands of others.
You may find yourself going around in circles, reviewing all aspects of the situation, analysing your interaction with her, perhaps even playing out alternate endings and consequences – this is the mind processing what happened, and an intelligent mind does this more thoroughly because it can calculate more optional results. So this problem may be one which keeps your mind busy for awhile. You’ll move on when you’re ready and have figured out what you needed to. Let it run until it’s run its course.
Things like this have a way of bringing insight into matters which have nothing to do with it.
INTJ’s are similar to INTP’s (although INTJ’s are far more focused) they will obsess about a subject and puzzle until they’ve exhausted the uses it has to offer in the way of learning.
Think of her as a muse who has inspired a mastermind to hone mastery of the mind and other related things 🙂
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I know it has been a good lesson and i know now what to look out for.
I just get these attacks where i keep thinking did it ever mean anything? Is it me that is all wrong?
They do not last long and they are becoming rarer. It is like radioactive waste with halflife it gets less and less for each day.
I know the answer is she is not worth thinking about, but it is like an addiction. Nothing to do but wait till the attack is over.
It can be difficult to forget this was her second time she tried. A year earlier she tried for the first time. At that time she came on so fast that i simply
rejected her it was just way too awkward and I did not pay much attention to her, until the second time she came around, this time she toned herself down quite a bit and she did not seem so desperate as the first time.
Since you told me how high she is on the spectrum and i have not missed anything, the image i have of her is cracking and these attacks are becoming rarer. 🙂
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You’re handling the situation in the best way possible. The attacks you describe are normal and natural, they’re part of being human, and tend to be more pronounced if you’ve been involved in any way with someone who is very narcissistic. Flashbacks, sudden overwhelming fits of self-doubt, and a sense of the surreal, wondering what was real and what was imagined, are par for the course, as narcissists have a way of leaving us with a sense of self-discomfort, not knowing what to believe anymore. It’s a bit like being exposed to toxic radiation and experiencing strange symptoms.
You’re also a Thinker, so your mind may need to go over the story more often than you would like it too until it is satisfied that it has processed the experience fully and understood it, integrated the lessons and information gathered from it. Narcissistic people tend to be illogical and a logical mind needs to make sense of what does not make sense – that is often why people get addicted to and obsess over narcissists.
I read this the other day, thought you might find it interesting – http://www.personalityhacker.com/intj-personality-type/ – the one for my MBTI was so spot on I almost decided to retire from figuring myself out 😉
Give yourself time to work things out at your own pace and in your own manner. One day you’ll completely forget about her and will notice it and smile.
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Thanks for the link it was interesting especially because i have never really felt at ease with the usual INTJ stereotype Who wants to rule the world anyway? Theres just too many idiots in this world…;-) and i do not hink i have an arrogant attitude. People actually tell me im a very nice person to be around 🙂
I guess my endoskeleton saved me (again) this time.
When i heard she had a boyfriend i left it to her to walk over to me and talk to me simply because i thought it was a waste of time and she was not trustworthy. She should simply put something into it to show me she was trustworthy.
Then her mind games started with the silent treatment and haughty attitude mixed with periods of her being sweet and nice. It was weird, i could sense i was in her mind the whole time thinking about what treatment she should give me that day. It all escalated for three months till i got fired did not see her for a month, until the christmas party when she was sulking for attention like a sad little puppy.
I have had a similar story happen to me before.
It was a receptionist at my local gym if i did not greet her the right way she would whine and sulk. It escalated and she had to clean up were i was working out. I found out she had a boyfriend because he was around and they were kissing and it had to happen right in front of me. I was happy now i could ignore her completely with a clean conscience. I was back a week later and now she was sulking so much that i never sat foot in that same gym again. I bumped into her about four years later by coincidence and she was still staring at me.
Why are they so afraid to show any positive emotions or make an emotional investment?
I remember once i was visiting a friend in Budapest one of his colleagus simply jumped on top of me and started to kiss me i was surprised at first but honestly she is the coolest girl i have ever met. I still miss her once in a while.
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I agree about the MBTI stereotypes, if I read one more where my type – INTP – is interpreted as somehow being unable to deal with feelings/emotions… but those sort of things have to generalise, and they also tend to be written by those who aren’t of your type, and who are trying to be impartial… humans can’t really be objective even when they try hard to be.
From what you’ve shared… you remind me a lot of my partner. He’s an INTJ 😉 He suffers from the mysterious ‘nice’ guy syndrome. He’s very aloof, accepts people as they are… gets a bit frustrated when people can’t decide who they are because they’re busy playing games and he’s not… into that.
The mysterious part comes in because you’re actually at home being yourself so you don’t feel the need to impress others with who you are – which they may interpret as being arrogant. You know who you are, you know what you know… this seems normal and natural to you… to others this can be the weirdest way to be, almost liek you’re some sort of enlightened being, and they’re annoyed by that.
Being comfortable in your own skin even when your skin is uncomfortable is something which perplexes those who never experience that – and that is something narcissists never experience but crave, and it draws them inexorably to people who have that ability.
When ever you feel insecure – times that by ten and more and you’ll have a moment of seeing what it feels like to be a narcissist. Your ease of being is both alluring and frightening to them, which might explain why you notice the narcissistic types. They’re foreigners who help you appreciate your homeland – yourself.
You come across as being very cool… being cool means you’ll attract crazy people sometimes. They wish to be with someone as cool as you, they want to be as cool as you… that’s just not their destiny. 🙂
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I can relate so much to what you have been writing about your partner. I feel i am wasting a lot of time on testing boundaries, it is like a ritual when meeting new people, like dogs sniffing each others butts, but to me it just seems like a waste of time. Neither do i have any patience with sycophants or other people using the ass to mouth method.
I am trying to understand more about this narcissistic epidemic and how narcissist is becoming a hot topic.
Could it be that many people that complaining online about narcissistic people are codependent people that have been rejected?
Am i simply a sad idiot with a fragile ego that did not get enough attention from the woman i wanted?
It is so easy to accuse someone of being a narcissist.
I am beginning to understand why narcissistic people go so well with codependent people. It is like one enjouys being chased and one cannot stop chasing and therefore keeping each other locked in these roles.
They are like little kids that wants a new toy, when they finally get it they quickly loose interest.
I found this site about a dysfunctional relationsship it describes my relationsship with her perfectly. I thought it might be useful to others.
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/five-lies-that-keep-us-stuck-in-dysfunctional-relationships-fiff/
I am still a bit disappointed that i did not get sexually ”abused” or being used as a living vibrator, but i guess the risk of getting fucked over instead of getting fucked, is just too high.
Plus i have a feeling it would have been the most boring sex of my life.
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Narcissism, viewed from a broader perspective than just relating to narcissists, seen as a trait and phase of development common to all humans, has in some ways been over-stimulated in recent decades (aided by the internet and the increased access it gives us to others – and therefore gives others to us, including advertising and other forms of media which influence us) and therefore made us all prone to being narcissistic.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that we should live our dreams, get what we want, aim high, and not be satisfied with less than our ideal made real. This has rippled into everything.
We tend to have higher expectations of ourselves, of our lives, our jobs, and of others.
Relationships of all kinds have been affected by our increased expectations – and our expectations have increased partly due to feeling that others expect more from us as we expect more from ourselves. The pressure we put on ourselves is going to transfer from us to others.
This is an interesting article – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201411/19-ways-tell-if-you-expect-too-much-your-partner
The average narcissist is trying to live up to societal expectations – they’re quite adept at appearing to live up to them. They seem to embody our ideal of Mister or Miss Right. But this is a facade. However we invest ourselves in the appearance and want ti to be real for our sake – we want this person who seems so ideal to actually be as ideal as they seem. When the facade begins to crack, we crack with it. This perfect person isn’t perfect and we feel robbed of our dream of perfection made real for us.
I suspect that some of those who are accusing others of being narcissists may be simply accusing a regular person of not living up to their ideals and expectations of who they wanted that person to be for them. They’re deeply disappointed, they’ve been let down, and to deal with the crushing blow and issues which it stirs up for them, they explain the situation by making the other person responsible for it. It’s not their fault for being too idealistic and expecting too much, it’s the other person’s fault for leading them to believe that their idealism would be rewarded by becoming real and that their expectations would be met without fault, flaw or error.
We’ve all become a bit afraid of human error, of being human and of others being human too. The proof is in the media – so many films about superheroes, so many TV shows about ordinary humans with extraordinary abilities.
And yet we’re all crying out to be seen as humans, have our flaws and faults understood and appreciated – along with narcissists being a hot topic, introverts are also a hot topic. Introverts want everyone to understand them and their quirky ways, yet do introverts really understand others, such as extroverts, and their quirky ways?
We’re all a bit confused about ourselves and about others… perhaps if we understood ourselves better we’d understand others better too. So what’s stopping us from understanding? Is it perhaps the pressure we feel to be something and someone more than who we are – and of course this transfers from us to others in our interactions.
This is also an intriguing article (kind of goes with the one you shared) – https://blog.bufferapp.com/thinking-mistakes-8-common-mistakes-in-how-we-think-and-how-to-avoid-them
This woman you knew, what holds your attention about her more:
1 – who she seemed to be
2 – who she could have been
3 – who she was
4 – who she wasn’t
5 – all those fantasies she stirred up in you
Perhaps if you’d had sex with her it might have blown your mind. But what if it didn’t. Would she have been easier to get over if you’ had sex and it was the most boring of your entire life. But what if it was the best sex you’d ever had… is that what keeps you wondering.
Narcissists are the best sex our mind will ever have because they stimulate the fantasy receptors in our minds – they seem to embody our desires for us, our dreams, ideals. But then they turn out to not be who we thought they were and that makes us frustrated, not just with them but ourselves – our anger at them is more about our anger with ourselves. Sure, they played a part in the deception, but so did we – that’s much harder to deal with, it’s easier to blame them for everything.
The more we expect, the more we’re prone to suffering from disappointment. Humans do not handle disappointment well.
What is co-dependency? Isn’t it a human label applied to symbiosis – isn’t symbiosis and intrinsic part of nature?
If you examine co-dependency from an impersonal angle… how many people do you rely upon to fulfill roles in your life for you? Do you expect someone to pick up your garbage, deliver your mail, fill the shelves at your local shop, provide you with electricity, Wifi, power, energy, etc. Do you buy coffee from a cafe…. where does that coffee come from?
And isn’t this a part of the structure of life, because people rely on you too and that gives all of us a place and purpose in the bigger picture.
Sometimes it hits us… how dependent we are on others, others whom we don’t always know, whose lives we know nothing about. We rely on total strangers to keep our lives going at their most basic level… so that we can have time to get involved with others on a more complex level. Perhaps the narcissists we meet along the way bring that into our awareness in a twisted manner, they make us face how human we are and all that entails, and it isn’t a comfortable feeling so we get annoyed at them for making us take another look at ourselves without our fantasy filters.
This is a different take on inner and outer conflicts – http://www.calmdownmind.com/resolving-your-inner-conflicts/
Consider your experience as a door opening into a new area of yourself. Perhaps everything which seems to be about her, isn’t about her at all… she was a muse who got you to ask questions about yourself… the purpose is wherever those questions lead you to find answers.
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In the beginning she seemed like this sweet single mother that needed someone to take care of her. I honestly thought she was a sweet woman that had a hard time with two kids. She kept smiling at me when i met her and seem like she was into me. When i found out she had a boyfriend it did not match with what i had experienced.
Then came the silent treatments and i started to notice the haughty attitude. It did not match with my image of her.
There was no sweet single mother instead the fascade slipped and she showed a completely different side of herself that i had NEVER anticipated.
I saw she was flirting with other guys and it did not match with the image i had of her.
I confined in a female colleague and she said i was just being crazy and that i must have made it all up. My colleague however confronted her with me being confused. Then she started giving me more and more attention and the silent periods stopped, even though she told my colleague she was just being friendly. She gave me far more attention than any other colleagues.
Then came the accident were i happened not to notice her when i was talking to my students, that was a big mistake. I got the silent treatment fortwo weeks, but now i was fed up i did not want to be a part of it anymore, so i gave her the silent treatment. At that point i was ready for an insane asylum.
The last time i met her she looked at me like this sad woman in need of someone to take care of her but i know that a monster is hiding underneath the sweet fascade. .
Somehow my mind is in love with the sweet one but another part of me knows there is a monster inside that will devour me.
It is like trying to pet a tiger they look so cute anf cuddly but at some point they get hungry…
Maybe she was excellent in bed… Who knows but like many things in life there is a price to be paid and that would have been to expensive.
You say there is a lesson to be learned but i can´t think of it. She seemed like a sweet nice woman till i was in deep. Then came the monster. I had never seen it coming and i do not think that i will be able to recognize someone like her in the future.
If I am not open and friendly to new people who will find me interesting?
If I am not trustworthy who will trust me?
Sure i can lock myself up in an ivory tower be paranoid and pretend other people are bad, but why? To be a lonesome hermit living the INTJ stereotype?
In the end i think everything is just sad. How did she end up like this? Are people evil like this when they are born or was she made into who she is? How conscious is she about her actions? How many people are like this?
Have i misunderstood everything and she was just a friendly colleague?
Was she somehow trying to pursue a relationsship with me or `was she just playing around?
Sure i want a girlfriend but i would like someone i can trust and in whose company I am enjoying myself and she should be psychologically stabil.
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The other day I came across a great blog by an INTJ who uses fiction to demonstrate MBTI – http://mbtifiction.com/ – what I found fascinating was the way this INTJ expressed themselves both in posts and in comments. They have a very distinctive style.
We all have a distinctive style of our own, and sometimes it is through relationships, often the troublesome and challenging ones, that we find our own individual and distinctive style.
The lessons we learn in relationships teach us about our relating style. Show us our hopes and dreams. What we long for and what we do not desire. They show us about ourselves. They show us about others. They show us the place between self and other.
The questions you’re asking, which you could say that you have been inspired to ask because of this experience, are ones worth asking – the answers come from asking, and exploring further.
You’re not going to end up being a lonesome hermit living the INTJ stereotype. There’s a brilliant TV series – Dag (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1711386/) – which you might enjoy as it poses many of the questions you’re contemplating and answers them in interesting and novel ways. It’s the sort of show which makes us think and think differently.
Your search to find a girlfriend whom you can trust, with whom you can be yourself, enjoy being with her and hope she’ll be psychologically stable is a wish most people have.
I would say that perhaps that is what your narcissist found attractive about you – you seemed trustworthy, she enjoyed your company, and you also come across as being stable, logical and level-headed. Narcissists tend to be drawn to people who offer them what they don’t have themselves but for which they long. Problem is that their inner program usually wrecks things for them, their fears come along and knock things over.
The average narcissist isn’t evil or a monster, we experience them that way because of the manner in which they behave. They come to represent evil and monsters for us. They behave that way most commonly because they’re all sorts of screwed up and damaged. Most likely this screwing up and damage came from the ‘nurturing’ they received as a child.
Best article on narcissism and its possible roots – http://energeticsinstitute.com.au/narcissism/ – read the part about Early Developmental Defenses if you’re truly interested in knowing why your narcissist is the way that she is. It captures the reason for you experiencing her as sweet mother and monster. This is a dynamic which plays out inside the narcissist due to splitting, and they play it out with everyone in the world outside of them. They’re repeating a pattern learned in childhood, and it just keeps repeating.
One of the most interesting aspects about a relationship with a narcissist is that it brings us face to face with our own latent narcissism. It shows us where we have our own version of splitting. It brings to our attention the part we played in what happened. The most common reason why we find narcissists attractive is that they often appear to embody a fantasy for us, they appear to be our ideal person, our prince or princess charming, miss or mister right. When they can’t live up to our fantasy and not only don’t live up to it but seem to swing to the opposite extreme, becoming the embodiment of anti-fantasy, it disappoints us in a way from which we find it hard to recover. Our ability to trust ourselves is crushed under the weight of what has happened. Hence the overwhelming self-doubt which drowns us in the aftermath of a relationship with a narcissist.
When asking questions which have an either/or format about a narcissist expect to never get a satisfying answer. When it comes to narcissists it isn’t one thing or the other, it’s both and neither.
The best way to solve this puzzle is to focus less on her and more on yourself, as ultimately this isn’t about her and her life story, this is about you and your life story. This relationship is a part of your life story and the resolution which you seek lies within you and not her.
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Turned down expectations there is definitely something about that. We enter relationships with something in mind and to get something. In this way you could say there is a lesson to be learned but honestly is my demands not justified?
The hurt ego is also a very important issue here. Like i wrote in the first post it was like she was able to turn her emotions off just like flipping a switch but in the end it was only my ego that was and as soon as i acknowledged that she almost disappeared.
I guess thats why they like this race of competing for attention. If you just try a little harder, then you will be good enough but the expectations just rises.
If she want´s a stone from the moon. You go getit and when you come back she will want a stone from mars. Never are they satisfied.
The reason it never ended with anything wat it because i was not good enough?
Trying to be good enough is just like trying to run a marathon where the main prize is a turd smeared all over your face, and who wants that?
I have been dating since my encounter with her and i must say even though nothing came out of it in the end, they all had something that she was missing. It is like she was a living corpse. All other women have a certain warmth but hers was missing.
My job was pretty OK the first year i was working but then expectations and demands changed and i got more and more unhappy. In the end it was a relief getting fired. My fascination with her increased as i got more and more unhappy. I do no think that was a coincidence.
You should watch the movie Revolver http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365686/
Sometimes you have to go to the 13th floor.
In the end i don´t think she really has taught me anything i did´nt already know, except she has highlighted some traits to avoid and i am becoming better at recovering from disappointment and she has cemented clearly that relationsships should always be mutual but in the end nothing i did not already know.
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Sometimes we need someone to remind us of things that we know but have perhaps forgotten that we know or have been doubting and need confirmation. We tend to notice things more when they come in painful packages. Pain makes us know at a deeper level. The deeper it goes the more lasting the impression, and the greater the roots of the knowledge.
Everything which she has stirred up for you is a piece of the puzzle of yourself. In some ways she has made you take stock of what truly matters to you and what you really want in a relationship, including your relationship with yourself.
This kind of disappointment can, if allowed to, flow to a positive place rather than a negative one. It can inspire. Knowing what leads to a dead end can be very useful to know.
I saw Revolver awhile ago, can’t remember anything about it. I do agree with the idea of going to the 13th floor.
As much as I sometimes wish I hadn’t experienced disappointment, shattering of expectations, pain in relationships, and so on… I think they have a value which can be nourishing in a way that can only come from that kind of experience. The worst of times can lead us to the best of times, but we have to work with what happens and that can be challenging.
In some ways… there’s no such thing as a coincidence 🙂
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As time passes by she is becoming more and more pathetic in my mind.
The only thing that annoys me is if ithere should be something to learn from this experience i can´t seem to find it.
Was it because i did not try? I have not exactlhy been lovebombing her. Simply because it was all to weird and i knew she had a boyfriend.
Was i simply too suspicious?
Is that the lesson? Hey if you want a girlfriend try harder. But if i try harder my life will be absorbed by a narcissist? Hey then i probably have´nt tried too hard…
I could sense as even though she became more and more interested in me I also withdrew it was simply too weird. I have barely even been talking to her.
Everything was just too forced. Get over to me and hit on me… That was a bit of a turnoff for me. If she wants someone she can call on she should get a dog.
I was split between a voice that said:
Hey you want a girlfriend get over to her and tell her you like and give her some compliments.
Another voice said SOMETHING IS WRONG GET OUT NOW!!!!
She was way to dominant if i did not greet her the right way she would be angry and look the other way.
I have only been talking to her a couple of times and both times she was so self-absorbed i was about to be sick.
So why was she so interesting in all of this weird drama???
Lack of boundaries? Hey it did not end with anything because i backed out. So i guess no.
I was actually gonna write something funny about being pissed off, as i have´nt gotten any honeymoon period with lots of dirty pornstarsex but honestly in those two months i was walking on eggshells and no sex is worth feeling that miserable.
I guess the lesson is: Never accept silent treatment from your partner but i already knew that.
I must say i loved your post Are you obsessed with a narcissist. It is very accurate. I get the idea that they are a reflection of me but there has been so little communication here i cannoit point to it, besides she was acting way too weird and colleagues mentioning her to whom i have never been talking about her to, saying she was weird.
So my real problem is i do not like hot n cold treatment, but who does?
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From everything which you have shared it sounds as though you’ve learned a lot from the experience which you’ve had with this woman, and you’re still learning things from it. It has opened up a long and involved dialogue within you, has provoked many questions for you which have inspired you to seek answers, and has given you much food for thought.
Every time you go over the story you view it from another angle, ask more questions, come up with more answers, go off on different tangents. Learning isn’t always of the obvious kind, sometimes it’s more subtle. It’s something which penetrates us and awakens a knowing within.
Seems to me this relationship has given you far more than a ‘honeymoon period with pornstarsex’ could ever have given you. Perhaps the fact that there was no sex has kept her interesting – there was no climax and anti-climax, just a lot of teasing foreplay. The dream never became real, and therefore it’s the plaything of the imagination.
You keep wondering what would have happened if…
Chances are if you’d consummated the attraction, got more involved with her, if she’d become your girlfriend, if you’d had sex, you’d now be wishing you had listened to that voice telling you that SOMETHING IS WRONG GET OUT NOW because you’d have overdosed on that something which you instinctively knew was wrong.
I don’t think you’ve missed out on anything other than a worse version of the nightmare you’ve been through.
She has reflected you back at you and served as a mirror – every time you look at her you see yourself. What you make of what you see also shows you things about yourself. That is what there is to learn from this – it’s a better understanding of yourself, a more conscious knowledge of you.
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I guess i have learned quite a bit from her.
I still hope there will be someone for me out there but i still seem to attract weirdos, they are just easier to detect, but that is also the problem. What if I am the weirdo? I am still an INTJ…
I don´t really know about this lovebombing thing either, it is actually pretty intrusive, and more annoying than nice, i feel i am being overrun. I simply cannot understand why people can fall head over heels for this.
I saw someplace that narcissists like to use the silent method/cold shoulder as a way to ”educate” their partner that was definitely what she was doing, but to me it is simply too weird to put my life on hold like that.
Fantasy is also an interesting thing i can recognize 8 of 9 points of the DSM-IV in her, but i have not seen her really act out so somehow my fantasy keeps filling the gaps, but i have a feeling that the underlying layer is very ugly and i haven´t seen it yet. Like you wrote yourself: What if… I have come to the conclusion that this would have ended in a nightmare.
It all reminds me of the deepsea anglerfish. The males are much smaller than the females. The males then bite on to the female, the bloodvessels are connected and the males slowly cease to exist. The female essentially becoming a hermaphrodite.
I have a fascination for the Addams familiy, they are so weird and upside down, but still they are so harmonious.
Now i know what Wednesday is thinking. I feel the exact same way with a partner.
Plus Debbie reminds me so much of the narcissist in my life.
Finally i want to thank you for your good advice and comments, this have turned into a rather long thread. You have been a great help to me.
All of this happened at a rather weird time of my life.
I am currently training to become a police officer and i have a weird feeling this experience will come handy sometime.
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Thank you 🙂
The video about the anglerfish was hilarious! I can definitely see the connection between its mating habit and getting involved with a narcissistic person.
The thing about the concept of being a weirdo or seeing others as being weirdos is that it is very much dependent on perception. Everyone can be viewed as a weirdo by others, and almost everyone thinks they’re a weirdo compared to others or as seen by others. When I first started blogging, which was on tumblr, most of the bios of other bloggers included ‘I’m weird’.
Being weird simply means you’re aware of your own uniqueness and differences, and thinking others are weird means you’re aware of their uniqueness and differences which you see as being unfamiliar to you.
Weird can be a good thing and also a bad thing depending on whether your weird gels well with someone else’s weird, if their weird is constructive or destructive for you, compatible or incompatible, similar or dissimilar.
There is a person out there in the world for all of us, sometimes there’s more than one person out there for us, the trick is in recognising them when you meet them as they may not seem like you expect them to seem. An encounter and attraction to a narcissist can teach us about our approach to meeting others, what we’re looking for in a person, our expectations and how they influence us and sometimes mislead us.
Best wishes on your new career path. I definitely think having met a narcissist will come in handy as those in the police force tend to meet a lot of narcissistic people while carrying out their duties. It’s an interesting choice of career, I think it’s rather well-suited to an INTJ.
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My deepest sympathies to the male anglerfish. That is a very crappy way to live a life, but it’s dark as hell down there and someone needs to light up that pretty, pretty lady.:smile:
That pretty much sums up my experience with the narcissist in my life. If i were to get involved with her, it would be like giving her complete control of my life.
I think the abscence of lovebombing had to do with her being insecure with me, so instead she was trying to control me by punishment. It did not work so she trashtalked me infront of some other female colleagues and discarded me.
At the moment I am more interested in what attracts these types. They seem to be very interested in me.
http://www.thefriendshipblog.com/forums/topic/attracting-trainwrecks-and-narcissists-but-why/
http://www.psychforums.com/narcissistic-personality/topic101377.html
About two years ago a neighbour of mine started to greet me. I was not interested in her so i just greeted back and did not do anything. So she gets a boyfriend and she starts to overthrow my bike in the common shed and place hers where mine once was. It stopped when i pulled her bike out of the shed and placing it right in front of it. When she discovered it. I suddenly had to empty my mailbox and cough loudly at the same time. I have never seen her ride that fast. Then i had to help her move some furniture for wich i suddenly did not have time to do.
It is like a child that wants attention. 😎
Another case was another neighbour. She is a fitness instructor. So naturally i asked her if she could help me train for the police admission test. She would love to but unfortunaltely she did not have time. When i asked her she opened her door in underwear and bathrobe wich unfortunately slipped to the side. When i met her she would look like the overly attached girlfriend but her actions never came through, never time for anything so i lost my interest in her.
I just have this feeling that I am wasting my time.:roll:
Weirdness has to sides a positive and a negative it is interesting to be yourself but sometimes it is used as a way to get attention and not the good kind.
There is definitely a narcisssitic trait of being weird i guess that is what your tumblr says.
The issue of weirdness is one i have always had that feeling i was a bit different from other people.
Even for an INTJ i do not fit in, my enneagram type is 8w9. I should be an ENTJ instead.
Even an INTJ has social needs.
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Most people tend to feel that they’re different from others this is mainly due to only being able to experience life and being alive from our perspective and only experiencing others from the outside looking in. We see others through the filters of ourselves, and those filters tend to focus on comparison between us and them, judgments, and ego-related issues, using our inner world versus what we perceive of others which is only the outer world.
Occasionally we glimpse the inner world of someone else and it can freak us out because it wasn’t what we expected of them, we’d decided who they were and suddenly they’re not that.
You see these ladies from your own perspective, just as they see you from their own perspective – if you were to share your perspectives it would probably surprise both you and them. The biggest surprise isn’t the misperceptions which we often have of each other that can be caused by us misreading, and why we behave the way that we do, it’s usually in the similarities going on behind the scenes. We thought we were so different when in actual fact we’re not so different – as much as we sometimes hate being different we also kind of like it.
Get to know yourself and it aids in knowing others. We all tend to have similar fears, issues, worries, anxieties, and we all find relationships daunting and complicated.
Typing ourselves can be helpful, but ultimately we all bleed over the lines, and we can all be narcissistic – being narcissistic has a positive aspect, and isn’t the same as being a narcissist.
There really is no such thing as wasted time, it’s all part of life and learning from living.
Have you ever met another INTJ?
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I have never met another INTJ, as you may have found out english is not my first language but instead my third…
I come from Denmark and here it is not very spread, so i don´t know much about the types of my surroundings, but i have been studying for 6 years at a university and living in a dormitory for just as long so probably i have but i have never known for sure.
You are probably right about the ladies that we each have completely different perceptions even though i must say that i find it hard to believe that someone overturns my bike and expect positive attention is a bit silly. 😉
Was it a punishment for not giving her attention, but why should i give positive attention to someone who overturns my bike?
This was my reality with the narcissist. Puppet training.
http://www.thenarcissisticpersonality.com/the-narcissist-puppeteer/
Everything with her was so confusing. I once talked to a female colleague of mine about it all. She went directly to the narcissist and asked: Have you heard Thomas really likes you? The narcissist replied she was not interested in me and instead she hoped everything would not be awkward between us. After this the narcissist immediately began to show more interest in me.
It did not really make any sense.
Till this day i have no idea what she was up to. Was i just some drama fun to give her a little fresh supply or was i the soon to be new boyfriend? I have no idea.
She was forty years old and definitely knew what she was doing.
I can see from what i have heard and read about narcissism that i have done everything right and i should feel proud of myself
The problem is a certain part of me wants it to be different. That is just not going to happen because the woman i want her to be is nothing more than a dream. Instead she is a monster.
How we talk to each other is so important and especially being able to express feelings and opinions . Those examples i have mentioned with the other ladies who knows what might have happen if communication was better and different.
It is a bit like people speak different languages, shaped by our own misfortune. A narcissist accuses someone of cheating simply because they would cheat themselves but why would a functioning person in a happy relationsship cheat? They would probably cheat because of a lack of understanding from their partner, that could be a narcissist handling out the silent treatment. In the long run such a relationsship would be pretty boring.
About the other ladies was i paranoid and scared of being with another narcissist that i opted out?
In the end it all seem so very random.
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narcissist do love. Only one person beside them self’s they will never try and be with that person they will hide. narcissist who are in love feel that person IS Perfect. So much so that the narcissist is second and no good enough for them. And when we see their fault we see their fault as perfection. narcissist will forever know we a good but if they have fallen in loelve they will forever know their is someone better.. They may have only seen them once but the person they love will never know. That a narcissist loves them and only them. And themselves.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
Going by what you’ve said you see yourself as a narcissist. But are you really a narcissist? The perfect someone to be loved from a distance is an experience which narcissists do have, but those who aren’t narcissists can also experience this.
The ideal may be someone or something we don’t actually ever want to attain due to how much we are nurtured by the distance.
Those old and wise have warned us to never meet our heroes – this is similar to that. Love can sometimes only exist if it is done from a safe distance.
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I heard somewhere, the road to hell is paved with good intentions… You nailed that one pretty good.
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Thank you 🙂
Wiki has an interesting page on the road to hell – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions
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Is it really all about the control with narcissist? Or can we (empaths) hope for some honesty, answers and a happyending at some point (after 30 years of being friends and/ or lovers?)? I’ve tried, during all these years, to start conversation about my feelings, fears (since he hasn’t got any) and my ideas of the future, w/o success. I’ve tried to stop our relationship, but both wanted us back. I was kind, I was sweet, I was angry, disappointed, confronted him with his lies many times… he never showed he cares. When we are in a bed, everything is perfect, from a look in his eyes to his wish to satisfy me. When I tell him what bothers me, next time he tries to correct it… but only then. He doesn’t remember what is important to me. For so many years I wasn’t getting a goodbye kiss and got used to it (stopped asking for one, too) when all of a sudden he gave me one when I was leaving a country. That happened again after few months, in the same occasion. He is also always playing ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, depending if we are together or miles away. I am on the verge of leaving him for good, even though I love him. For decades I was happy with crumbs, but giving him all I have. Last time he insulted my intelligence by making ridiculous excuses and for the first time I saw the light out of tunnel. Hope I will have the strenght for No Contact and will stop loving him!
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
From your description of him he doesn’t sound like he’s a narcissist. The fact that he is considerate of you and your needs when you make love, the fact that he does listen to your complaints about his behaviour, what bothers you about him, and does try to change, correct himself, for your benefit, is not usual behaviour for a narcissist. A narcissist usually only does considerate things at the beginning of a relationship or later on when they want something from you, otherwise they are consistently selfish and self-centred and aren’t interested in satisfying you in any way at all.
This gives a concise description of a narcissist (someone with NPD) and their behaviours – http://outofthefog.website/personality-disorders-1/2015/12/6/narcissistic-personality-disorder-npd
Him only being able to correct his behaviour for a short span of time isn’t necessarily a sign that he’s a narcissist or that he doesn’t care – it actually shows that he does care because he heard you and is making an effort for you but he can’t maintain what isn’t natural for him to do and be. He can’t be who you want him to be for you, he can only be who he is – this is generally the case for most people.
Him not being able to remember what’s important to you is also something which is quite common for most people. It requires effort to remember what is important to others, especially if there is a long list and the important things are complex. Remembering a birthday is far easier than remembering that someone doesn’t like it when you chew with your mouth open (if it is natural to chew with your mouth open you’ll revert to that and only remember this person doesn’t like it when they remind you).
Narcissists are actually quite good at remembering what is important to you, it’s often one of the first things they try to find out about a person, they tend to make a mental note of what you want, hope for, what you value, what matters to you, as they can use it as leverage, to manipulate you, and to hurt you with it.
If you’re with a narcissist they’ll expect you to remember everything about them, they’ll have a long list of rules and regulations of interaction with them, everything you do will become a problem for them and they won’t accept you as you are – they will expect you to change who you are into who they need you to be for them, and will punish you with narcissistic abuse when you fail to live up to their expectations, demands and needs.
Going by what you’ve shared it doesn’t sound like he makes those kind of demands of you. He may not be as thoughtful, considerate, truthful, as you would like for him to be, he may be egotistical and narcissistic, but is he a narcissist (does he have NPD)
You might find this article insightful – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201204/it-s-fine-line-between-narcissism-and-egocentrism
Something like the goodbye kiss scenario – have you ever considered that maybe he finds it painful to say goodbye to you, perhaps he’s superstitious and believes that kissing you goodbye might mean he’ll never see you again. The sudden change might mean that he’s gotten over his issues with it, that maybe he finally feels safe with you and no longer needs to worry about losing you.
His hot and cold may be his way of protecting himself. Maybe he goes cold when he feels vulnerable. If he does it when you’re far apart it may be because he misses you so much that it hurts and he detaches himself as a way to deal with the pain he feels when you’re apart.
You might find this series worth reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201508/how-end-the-fight-you-cant-remember-why-you-started
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201509/the-dynamic-thats-poison-any-couple
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201509/intimate-relationship-dynamics-iii
It’s also worth considering that he is a man and men deal with emotions, feelings, attachment, with love, differently from the way that women do. They often find it hard to communicate their feelings, especially in a manner which suits and satisfies a woman. The communication styles of men and women are different, men don’t tend to talk about how they’re feeling as much as women do – this does not mean that they don’t feel emotion, they do. This difference is partly because society expects men to be practical, detached from emotion, macho, to hide their feelings, keep their softer side under wraps, etc. Men are not allowed to be emotional the way that women are. When a man is gripped by a strong emotion he will handle it differently from the way a woman would, he may act cold when he feels anything but cold.
This is an interesting article and analysis of a man’s experience of love and relationships – http://pinnacleofman.com/thetruth-an-uncomfortable-conversation-about-relationships-by-neil-strauss-book-review/
If he isn’t a narcissist (someone with NPD) and he is not abusing you (narcissistic abuse) then going NC is not necessary. No Contact was designed to deal with the cycle of abuse of a relationship with a narcissist. If he isn’t a narcissist then you should be able to use the methods which people use when ending a long relationship which respects both you and the other person.
Once you love someone, especially if you’ve loved them for a very long time, the love does not tend to stop – but it may change. Even if the person you love is a narcissist who has abused you for 30 years.
If he is a narcissist you might find this blog helpful when going NC and dealing with the difficulties of that process – http://letmereach.com/
Best wishes!
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Thanks a lot for your reply. You’ve upturned my soul now 🙂 I will definitely think before I act. I will also read all the articles you’ve suggested. It’s just that I feel tired of trying and not seeing much of the result. I feel like a pursuer and I don’t like the feeling… I am not that desperate, I just care…Best wishes!
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I can relate to the feeling of being fed up of trying, and of seeing yourself as playing a part which you don’t want to play. When I find myself feeling that way I usually take a step back and pause to self-reflect, to reassess myself and my perspective.
Relationships are different from other aspects of living life – expecting results for efforts made can be counterproductive in relationships because the other person is not a ‘project’, they’re not a house you’re fixing up so you can live in it, they’re not a room you’re decorating the way you like it, they’re not a job which if you do it well will reward you with success, they’re not something to be molded and made into the shape you want them to be for you – they’re a person like you are, and like you they are seeking to be loved for who they are as they are.
One more link, to an interview with an author whose perspective on relationships and love helped me understand why relationships are complicated and how to work with love rather than expect love to work for me – http://www.beliefnet.com/love-family/relationships/dating/dating-week/thomas-moore-on-the-soul-of-a-relationship.aspx
an excerpt from that interview:
“Do we try too hard to find the perfect relationship?
We often try to manage our relationships according to an ideal, overlooking the importance of the contradictory and uncontrollable aspects. Whenever I see a couple in therapy, I try to help one partner see the mysterious nature of the other. I believe that if we allow ourselves to be unpredictable and even eccentric, we might tolerate and enjoy the same qualities in another.”
The challenges in relationships are often the best part as through experiencing difficulties we have an opportunity to grow, learn, go deeper within ourselves and the other.
Best wishes for whatever you decide to do – be true to yourself!
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Thank you for your reply. I agree with everything said, especially with ‘The challenges in relationships are often the best part as through experiencing difficulties we have an opportunity to grow, learn, go deeper within ourselves and the other’. In my case, only when I realised with whom I have to deal with, I started to introspect myself and understood why I feel the way I feel. Now I am in a phase that I want to love myself more than I loved him.
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My sister told me to read this post. she wants me to finally cut him out of my life.
I met my narcissist 3 years ago and pretty much went through the textbook experience: Love-bombing, sudden devaluation, discard, ultimately stabilizing in a constant push and pull. In the initial phase (3 months) we ran off together, happily lived together for a while, made future plans, talked about love, never fought, laughed more than ever, supported each other creatively and even planned a gun-shot wedding (on our way to getting married my appendix acted up… the universe’s way of throwing me a bone 😉 ). In my mind my soulmate had finally arrived.
Unfortunately, he was far from it.
When the sudden devaluation phase started (previously unaware of the narcissistic love cycle), I never took it personal. I was shocked and saddened, but always felt that this had all to do with himself. His issues. As I cared about him, but also about myself, I wanted to be supportive by giving him space. But also clear and cautious, by voicing that I was not happy about his change in behavior and that I would not be in a relationship according to his rules. I took a step back. assured him that I loved and trusted him. So whatever time he needed to figure himself out, was fine. and whatever the result of this would be, a healthy relationship or simply a friendship, I’d be there.
Sadly, this only seemed to intensify the cycle and start a weird roller coaster loop of devaluation, discarding, coming back, to start love-bombing and devaluating all over again. this lasted 6 months and cost me quite some energy, as I had not experienced anything like it before and within this short intense looping cycle, I didn’t have enough time to catch my breath and process. So one day I broke it off. took distance to analyze what I was going through and what I needed. what I wanted. I truly believed he was dealing with personal issues (which I only know very superficial scrapings of): coming from a broken home, hatred towards his mother, legally changing his Birth-name, having performance issues in the bedroom, etc… that this was his own survival mechanism. I didn’t want to feed into it, I didn’t want to judge it, but I realized I could not be in a relationship with him.
It has been 2 years. We are friends. Close. We talk and see each other regularly. Which my friends and family hate. I care about him. Within all his “darkness”, the moments of light are beautiful. Nothing is purely black or white. But sometimes I’m not sure if I am empowering his narcissism by accepting him for what he is and not expecting anything in return; by being in his life as much as I am willing to be, but also always according to his rules. After all, he is a narcissist….
He has not had an official relationship since we officially broke up, but I know he dates. We talk about it sometimes. And I know how he treats them, the expectations he creates, which they always believe. How hurt they get. angry. confused. Sometimes even slightly psychotic. How some of these women suffer. Lately, a part of me wants to warn them about him, tell them about the cycle. I feel, intentionally or not, it is a form of emotional abuse and it is draining. But up to this point, out of loyalty to him, I have never gotten involved. Maybe I am more tangled up into his cycle than I want to believe…..
Either way, thank you for the post and all the comments. It is interesting and helpful to gain other perspectives.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
Two things stood out in your comment.
One was how beautifully you organise your thoughts – you have such a clear and concise view of this relationship, your part in it, his part in it, the dynamic between the two of you, the profile of a narcissist, how the narcissistic wound works and doesn’t work, and more. You’ve thought this through carefully, researched it in depth, have observed in a detached manner and are fully conscious of many nuances and details which often go unnoticed. And your powers of self-reflection are fully functional, asking a question like – “Maybe I am more tangled up into his cycle than I want to believe…” – shows great self-awareness, self-reflection and that new buzzword – mindfulness.
Whatever you decide to do you’re going to land on your feet even if you get swept away momentarily. You’ve dealt with how he treated you with logic, reasoning and clarity, managing to protect yourself from the full brunt of a relationship with a narcissist. You have a strong sense of self – this is invaluable.
Maybe part of the attraction you have to this man is because his mind is a mess and that’s the opposite of your mind.
There’s a sense that a lot of this story is more about you visiting a human zoo to observe humans who are very different from you.
The only thing you said which rang an alarm bell for me was – “Lately, a part of me wants to warn them about him, tell them about the cycle.” – while this is a natural reaction and impulse when watching lambs going to the slaughter, the hero in you wants to save them because you know the damage and danger which lies ahead on the road they’re walking, in a scenario which involves a narcissist, it is a road to hell paved with a good intention.
I’m sure you realise that if you interfere he will turn on you and turn nasty, you will have officially declared war and all is fair in love and war – narcissists in particular take that saying very seriously, to mean they can do whatever they want because it’s fair, so there. How he will react will perhaps not surprise or hurt you as much as how the women you are trying to warn will react to your interference. Those under the thrall of a narcissist, particularly during the ‘honeymoon’ phase of the relationship, will perceive your trying to warn them as you being jealous, envious, bitter, spiteful, a crazy-ex-girlfriend, and it might actually push them further into his arms. He’ll find a way to benefit from the added drama which your attempt to warn his victims creates.
If you really feel compelled to get involved, be there for those women afterwards when their ideal man and romantic fantasy bubble pops and shatters them. You can give them the gift of your clarity to ease their confusion – however this can backfire, it can be difficult, and it will be exhausting as they go through the stages of recovery which are similar to the 5 stages of grief.
However be aware that if you do this you will get tangled up in his cycle more than you already are because helping those he hurts makes you part of his story more than you already are and he may perceive this as a wonderful partnership – he can make a mess and you tidy it up. It could turn into a rather sick dynamic, a folie-a-deux of sorts.
The fact that you haven’t gotten involved is a good sign, even if you feel guilty perhaps for the suffering those women go through. He’s the one hurting them, and they’re adults just as you are.
Would you have listened if anyone had warned you about him when you thought he was your soulmate?
The other thing which stood out was that you’re here because – “My sister told me to read this post. she wants me to finally cut him out of my life.” – this is a very interesting revelation.
This makes me wonder if what you’ve shared of your relationship with him is your ‘for public consumption’ story and there’s a ‘private’ story which is less logical and clear, one which your sister knows and it alarms her that you’re still in a relationship with this man. She’s seen his effect on you and she wants to protect you from being affected by him. She has observed your suffering the way you have observed the suffering of the other women he dates – and she’s getting involved, trying to warn you, protect you.
It could also be that she’s fed up of hearing you talk about him. Those who’ve been in a relationship with a narcissist, especially once it crosses the threshold from honeymoon into hell, tend to need to talk about the relationship, compulsively and obsessively, and it can become their one and only conversation. Those close to them may get their ears battered by an endless narrative about the narcissist. A superficial social discussion about the weather can turn into a story about the narcissist. Someone else trying to tell you about their day, their own life, may find the conversation becoming all about the narcissist, what the narcissist has been doing, what they did, what the narcissist said, is saying, etc.
You may be clear and detached, but you’re still centering your attention on your narcissist, what he’s doing, what he’s saying, what he’s up to, etc… and you may be neglecting yourself, and other people in your life who love you and whose love for you isn’t all about them.
I think your sister wants her sister back – and it’s worth maybe sitting down and asking her about what it is she sees when she looks at your and your relationship with this man. Try to listen without interrupting, explaining, justifying, or anything like that, just hear her out and consider what she tells you – this might give you some insights which you may not have noticed, and a perspective you may have missed.
Take good care of yourself!
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But sometimes the rational, intelligent person also thinks with the heart, and the heart often wins.
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The rational intelligent person knows that the heart must always be included in a discussion, as the heart offers much wisdom. And the heart knows that sometimes it is too full of chaos, and it needs the intellect to step in and protect it, help it to sort things out and understand. Our system is a whole made up of parts, and it’s up to each of us to figure our system out 🙂
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Wow…truly great writing. We love your perspective and really feel what you put out here.
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Thank you very much 🙂
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Are you in the UK? Your clock said my comment was 345 but it’s 1145 where I am.
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Yes, I’m in the UK.
However on WordPress you can set the clock on the blog to display any time you want, so it’s not always a good guide to where a person is located 😉
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Absolutely love this article. I think it’s true for many, not just those in love with a Narcissist. As humans, we’ve somehow decided that unless we are loved in a romantic way, we don’t have value. “What’s wrong with me?” “Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
This truly opened my eyes and my heart in many ways! Thank you!
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
I read in the news the other day about a trend which is starting to gain momentum – Marrying yourself. It sounds strange, but the reasons which those who’ve done it have spoken about make a lot of sense.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/italian-woman-marries-herself-saying-my-happiness-doesnt-depend-on-a-man/ar-AAsyYzl
One person said they were doing it to – “demonstrate their commitment to self-compassion” – and someone else said they were doing it to show themselves they could – “live a fairytale even without a Prince Charming”.
While it is wonderful to love and be loved in a romantic way, it shouldn’t be what defines us and gives us value, and it shouldn’t take anything away from us if we’ve lost the love, or if we’re flying solo. There is so much within each of us, to be, to do, to express and to experience – our value is limitless, but it’s up to us individually to realise that (because then we value it more).
Take good care of your self, explore the riches of being you!
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