Hi Pragya,

I hope you are feeling better in knowing that you are at least not alone. It hurts when we love someone who is either not capable of reciprocating the feeling or just doesn’t have the same feelings as we do. It is simply never easy. But when it comes to narcissism, you have to find comfort in the fact that it WASN’T you and that there was nothing you could have done. I hope you have found peace, my friend, and have opened yourself up to being happy again. Life is so short and this is all nonsense in the grand scheme of things.

Stay strong,

Zari

You’re welcome, Lea! Stop by and visit anytime…there’s plenty to read and always something to learn:)….xoxo

Theres so much more to this story and its still continuing because I’m now caught in a trap where if I find my son he will take my daughter away from me and she’s only 3. I feel utterly trapped and I have no family as he cut them out for me !! How do you recover from this? How do I ever trust anybody again? How can you go no contact when you have children together and he manipulates situations to get a reaction?

Hi Tempie,

Narcs will typically steal bits and pieces of the personality of whomever they happen to be hanging out with. Whenever my ex would disappear for, say, a couple of months, when he did reappear, sometimes he would be speaking a whole different lingo!! Sometimes he would even be dressing just slightly different enough that I would notice. It was as if he would go to a whole other world and it would take a few days or whatever before he’d settle in to mine. Yikes! So, yes this happens but it’s has less to do with BPD and more to do with the fact that these monsters are simply evil chameleons and can adapt to anything to get what they want. That’s all it is….

Zari:)

Hi Patricia,

I definitely recommend reading When Love Is a Lie first and then Stop Spinning, Start Breathing. The little handbook Narcissism In a Nutshell is good anytime because it is straight forward about the behaviors specifically. I have a new book coming out – Vacancy In The Rabbit Hole – which is all about mentally breaking free of all this nonsense once and for all! Everything you read should be confirmation that it definitely isn’t you…it’s all him!

Stay Strong!

Zari xo

Thanks! 🙂

Hi Jennifer,

I happen to think that narcissism is very EASY to diagnose. The behaviors that define a narcissistic personality connect to each other seamlessly and there is no mistaking it. You have to be confident in the truth that you know because the narc, of course, will never admit to anything. Now this isn’t to say that every cheater is a narc because this is not true. But the fact that you have made it to my website and others tells me you know what you are dealing with. And even if you weren’t sure, why stay in relationship where your partner is treating you like shit? Who cares what the label is? Life is too short.

Get my book Narcissism In A Nutshell from Amazon. It’s a quick read and I explain EXACTLY what the behaviors are behind the narcissist’s relationship agenda and how they connect. You can call me too and I will give you my honest opinion one way or another. Good luck, sister!

Zari xo

“Stuck on stupid,” indeed. It has been three years since I found out my husband was cheating with his ex-sister-in-law. 2.5 years since I found out he was cheating the entire time I knew him… 15 people that he admits to. All the lies… He was feeding me a new line of crap tonight about why he did all the f-ed up things he did. I outright asked him if HE believed what he was saying. He couldn’t make himself say yes. It made me want to laugh. It’s SO hard to face that someone would take vows essentially with their fingers crossed, that they would even want to live in so many lies. Sometimes it does take one to know one- when you have a human heart it’s incomprehensible to you that another person doesn’t. He now tries to make me jealous hinting at being with other women. I’m sure I won’t enjoy seeing my ex-husband with a new relationship, but I imagine coming to terms with him sleeping with all those women while we were married should take the sting out of it. Ha. Glad to FINALLY be seeing the light.

Hi Agi,

I am so sorry that you are hurting so badly but you don’t have to put up with this. Even as I was enduring the years of emotional abuse and cheating, I never doubted my own self-worth and eventually that took me out of it, thank God. I knew the whole time that it was HIM, not ME but my problem was that there was so much time invested I wanted to FIX HIM so we could stay together. Wrong!! These narcissists are complete jerks, assholes, douchebags, you name it…how can you base your self-worth on what HE thinks?? Kick him to the curb and get on with your life. I’m not saying it’s easy because it is NOT but it certainly is NOT impossible and you have to start somewhere. Read through my articles here…there are over eighty-five of them covering every topic. Read my book When Love Is a Lie to see how I managed it and finally got out. Book some talk time with me so I can help you to change your perspective. There are ways to get moving on this..

Why on earth would you feel like the ugliest human on earth based on the behaviors of the this asshole?? Who is HE to make you feel that way? While we can’t control the behaviors of people, we can certainly control our reactions to them. It’s time to stand up and start climbing out of the fog…I’m here to support you. Read the stories here as well because you will see how others have survived it. YOU can do it but you have to be proactive. There’s no easy fix.

Stays strong, sister, and consider some talk time.

Zari xo

Hi Sarah,

I have to be honest here…I’ve spoken with many women who have either a husband or long-term boyfriend with a porn issue and it never works out. These women have tried to hang in there, giving chance after chance, but the issue keeps rearing it’s ugly NAKED head. Some of the guys have even gone to counseling, giving the appearance that they’ve gotten better for quite awhile to appease the wife or girlfriend, and then the wife will once again find that he’s been sneaking it, blah blah. This is what I think: you need to stick to your Christian principles and do the right thing for yourself and your children. Go with your intuition BECAUSE IT IS NEVER WRONG. God gave us intuition for a reason…so that we could breeze through life always knowing INSTINCTIVELY to do the right thing. The problem with humans – even those that claim to be Christians – is that intuition is typically ignored. In other words, we don’t walk the talk, know what I mean? This is why we get into the trouble that we do. You obviously WANT to walk the talk and no one one should hinder you from having this opportunity if it is truly in your heart and important to you. I’m pretty sure even God doesn’t expect us to fix the un-fixable after a certain number of tries, right? With you as their mother, your kids will do just fine. If your husband tries to guilt you, telling you it’s on you if the family is ruined, you tell him “Nope, you’ve got that wrong. YOU are the one with the problem and therefore YOU are ruining the family and ONLY IF I STAY IN IT will it THEN be on me. I want to SAVE my family and therefore I want OUT. YOU did this. I know it and you know it!”

You can do this, girl. Let me know how you do:) I’m here to support you….

Zari xo

Hey, there ARE real men out there too, keep the faith! I can honestly vouch for that as someone who was once involved with a narcissist (Zari can vouch for that as well, remembering my earlier posts). Now I’m happily married to one of those REAL men! It took me nearly a year to be truly “over” the narcissist…and then, that’s when I met my husband. I’m thankful I didn’t waste any more time with the narcissist, so I could be open to a real relationship when it came along.

I’m in my 30s but hey, I also know three women in their 50s who found love…it’s never too late for anyone (one of them got married for the first time; the other two got married again after some of the most bitter, nastiest divorces you can imagine).

So I hope you can find a little hope that you can find a real one again, now that you’ve dropped the dead weight of the narcissist. And believe me, I didn’t do anything all that extraordinary to find my husband, but just keep myself open to the possibility.

Hi Holly,

There’s nothing to be confused about. He’s NOT celibate, I’m sure, and don’t believe that no matter what he tells you. You are “settling” in the relationship and, yes, he is keeping you around just to make sure that you don’t move on. Why don’t you just let him have his bm and get on with your own life? You don’t need to be anyone’s chauffeur or financial support. This is what he wants and he’s pretty much willing to say whatever he needs to to get what he wants.

Write me back and let me know what has happened since you wrote. I’d be curious to know…

Zari:)