Anytime, Nancy:) Keep the faith…at the end of the day, we’re only here for a short time and there’s no time for the narcissistic nonsense:) xo

Hi Mk…thanks for the link….

Hi Deja,

I know it has been a long time since you’ve written but I want to help. Please repost an update so I can catch it and respond accordingly. I hope that you have realized that yes, you DID make the right decision. Who cares what you “look” like to a narc’s mother, sisters, or to HIM??? There is no help for narcissism. It can’t be fixed or cured – not with love, therapy or any magic pill. Please read my book When Love Is a Lie to get the details of my own story and how I changed my perspective to see it clearly. A narcissist KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG, GIRL. He simply doesn’t give a shit and quite honestly, neither should you. He is a very bad person and you saved the rest of your own life by going to Chicago. Please update me and I will look for it….

Zari xo

Hi Marie,

Well, as the article shows, I obviously don’t push the “forgiveness” strategy as something that must be done before a person recovers. My God -Nothing that you describe deserves an iota of forgiveness – in fact, quite the opposite. Why should he get a forgiveness pass before YOU get better? Nope, not here. You are free to go forward and never look back. Don’t listen to anyone but what your heart wants and your intuition is never ever wrong. Best to you, sister:)

Zari xo

Extend the luxury to a loser that even introduced me to his daughter to keep up the lies. Desgusting.
He claimed he introduced me to his family, and my ass he introduced me to his mum and sister as Sam on a quick stop over on mother’s day.
Right after the end, or at least I hope, he decided a way to make money was becoming an escort. As he was broke. Fast forward 3 months he has not sell the house, he he s broke and not job prospect because you know, a usual 9-5 job is beneath him. Karma has worked faster than expected. I am happy he s hopefully suffering at least a little bit. I m glad he s got tonnes of debt. I am glad he has to sell the house. And I hope he end up in mamy house. It s not about revenge it s justice. BTW he s 41!

Hi Ashley,

Thank you for sharing and for reading my post:) Do NOT be ashamed for participating, sister. I have come to the conclusion that we will never know these creatures right off the bat. We can read about them and try to analyze it but the truth is that we will never fully wrap our heads around it because we can never be THEM. And thank God for that!

Do not fall for his ruse any longer. Go forth and be free in this life. There simply is no more time to waste…

Zari xo

I consider myself an intelligent, self-sufficient, self-supporting, levelheaded individual. I have my own business I own my own home and I have raised four children to adulthood. I am 52 years old. I was raised in a Christian home and in church my entire life so this topic, forgiveness, is one that I have struggled and wrestled with the entire length of this relationship. I have never been involved with any man in my entire life that I could not walk away from and did not in fact walk away from when the relationship became unhealthy. Not with this one. I often say that I did not fall for him. He tripped me. I will also note that he is married. While I did not know this in the beginning as he told me that he was separated, working on the divorce, I was gullible and I believed people and accepted him at at face value. Something that I had lived my life by, and had never had a reason to reconsider. The first and probably only time we had ever had any type of a meaningful conversation was when we first met, telling each other about our situations. Everything that he said he was experiencing was something that I had just gone through. Every single bit of it was bullshit. He owned two homes, four hours apart and he was very good at making his “separation “believable. She resided in one home and he resided in the other. Or so I thought. I have always maintained my own residence and always had my own private place to go to. Is live from where I stood was believable. I thought I had met my prince charming …. we had everything in common and in fact met for the first time playing cards. Which was a social thing for me weekly. He owned boats, he is a charterboat captain, A former police officer, an army vet and his current occupation is a private investigator. Lucky me. I could go on anon about the love bombing. I will also tell you that I did not have sexual relations with him for seven months after we met. I was 45 years old at the time. And believe me he could not understand that for even half of a second. And he pushed. I of course was not willing to share myself with someone physically unless I knew this was a sure thing. I was not a whore and I did not sleep around. I was faithful to my husband. I had a moral ethic and values that I have lived by my entire life. And this man caused me to step over, step on, chew up and shit on every single one of them. By the time I found out that the divorce was bullshit it was way past too late. For the first two years, I call that my stupid stage, he was A Chamaeleon. And after we had sex for the first time, it was never the same. The stories don’t change. He triangulated me with bullshit accusations of another man, who I was in fact very good friends with, constantly accusing me of cheating. Imagine that a married man accusing me of cheating. That should’ve been the first red flag and I should have ran like hell. But I didn’t. For some reason he was able to make his jealousy seem like he was loving me. My life of course was an open book…. he met my children, became involved with my life and had expectations of me as though I was his wife. Of course he never lived by the same rules. Things were up and down and I had no knowledge whatsoever of what a narcissist or someone with NPD even was. He was constantly telling me that it was his PTSD from his time in the service,that was causing him to behave the way that he did. Poor guy. It became my life’s mission to love and nurture and “fix him “. What it really was was me tying my own noose. Three years ago we became business partners in a T-shirt company. Against everything we had agreed on, Which was you get a divorce and we will become partners, I ended up paying for the trademark, it was a business that we came up with together and it was supposed to be something that we started when we could be together, ….he ended up bullying that with bullshit about needing to make money and ended up taking the businesses forward. At around the same time, I decided to take my 35-year-old niece with me to the beach, they had never met, where he lived, wanting another member of my family to meet my wonderful fisherman., and on the very first night that he met her he created a narcissistic chaos tantrum that sent her out the door to “talk to him”… ans ended up with me finding them alone in his home that night hours later only to find out three months later that they had been carrying on a relationship underneath my nose the entire summer. Little did I know that my niece is borderline personality. Two of them!!!!!! And I had no idea what the hell that meant anymore than I knew the hell that I was about to experience and have continued to struggle with to this very day. Two of the closest people to me, I “forgave” them both… but did I? No I didn’t… I told myself I did… but know it was just another way to cope and Braille my way through what I can only explain as emotional torture… my whole world came crashing down around me in a way that I cannot even explain. I am telling you that Hollywood could not write the script of these past five years. And I still loved that son of a bitch even then. I could go on and on about the battle within my soul and my reconciling my love for this man and all that he has done to me. They both managed for months to convince me that they had not had “sex” only other things. As though that wasn’t bad enough. If your dick is out. You’re having sex. They had sex. They still lie to this day. And I somehow wanted to believe that it was not true, and I managed to convince myself that they really haven’t done “that “… She is no longer a part of my life and her other borderline behaviors have resulted in her being banished from the family altogether. Needless to say, and it was a daily routine of trying to cope with the businesses and keep him at arms distance, all the while, in between, falling back into the trap and on and on and on it has gone…I have ONLY been with him. This last fall 2016 he created a situation with the businesses that ultimately sent me to an attorney. I transferred my interest in the company to another partner, and I completely blindsided him. The attorney put a stranglehold on him of no contact. He managed to wiggle around that making sure I got the I miss you I love you I can’t live my life without you messages from him through other friends, and ultimately I broke no contact after two months. I thought I was going to die. The habit of him was excruciatingly gone. My phone did not ring, no one texted me. Deafening silence from a device that had been used to transmit 8000+ text messages a month… The reality of that was abuse itself. I am now two days no contact again and my email is blowing up. I’ve had tracking devices found on my car I’ve been physically emotionally spiritually and mentally crucified. My children have watched me go through this relationship with this man in shocking bewilderment. I have become a person that I do not recognize. Short tempered, quick to react, crazy in my own right. Depressed one day anxiety ridden the next. And I have been lost for days in your articles. This particular one has brought peace to my very soul. Something I do not experience very often anymore. I do not have to forgive this son of a bitch that to this very day claims that I am the love of his life and that he wants a future with me and that he wants to marry me. All the while I’m a cheating whore piece of shit at the same time. Of course he still has not found that divorce court yet. Although to this very day he claims that those papers are about to be signed. I have looked back and pathetically must admit that I have experienced triangulation and degrading at least once a month every month since the day we met. Mostly centered around this man that he accuses me of cheating with, with the most vile horrible degrading language and berated verbal abuse that anyone could ever imagine. Always followed by hoovering that was just a fervent and believable and he gets my heart every time. I would never in my life had ever considered being involved with a married man considering my marriage ended because of my exes infidelity. There are days I can hardly get out of bed because of the debilitating anguish and guilt. So many times I have almost knocked on his wifes door but stop short because of my own shame. I can only imagine what his wife has a lived through. He has admittedly said that he has cheated his entire marriage ” because she is just a “tyrannical bitch.” And of course all of his “infidelity” stop when he met me because we are soulmates you see. Bullshit !!! you have to have a soul to have a mate, he has and is neither. Of course he takes no responsibility for his behavior with that former niece of mine, and and and and. God only knows how many others. This is a very brief look into all that has happened over these long five years. But I wanted to say thank you. I do not have to forgive him. And I won’t. Freeing words were never as clear as yours have been. My words to him now are fuck you prince charming and the horse you rode in on.

I met him less than six months after moving to North Carolina from California. I had a very small family base here. Obviously with their own mental disorders that I did not know about. My entire family and friend base is 3000 miles away. So much of this has been suffered through alone. Nobody wants to admit this type of relationship. And then add that I was the mistress, well I don’t really need to say much more about that It was after that awful summer that I started reading. And once I did I knew exactly what he was. I am embarrassed, ashamed and guilt ridden from my own participation and lack of strength to walk away from this man. There are days that I just want to run as far away as I can get. I have managed to hang onto my money although that has been very difficult over the years as there have been a few occasions where my involvement with him has rendered me broke. After the three months he spent running around with my niece both of them lying to me, I at least had enough bitch left in me to protect my finances and I never bought him one more thing. This of course was a challenge to him. One he has not surrendered. He still claims that he loves me and that we are going to be together forever. That is a word I no longer believe in at all.

You are awesome. Your advice is good true and right. And I just wanted to say thank you.

Even God Himself does not forgive someone who is not repentant. It’s so simple and something that I have struggled with this entire time. The light is on. Thank you Zari.

you can’t even imagine or…probably you know very well how the still-recovering human being can feel while reading your words and having that: ‘Ah-ha!’ moment of bright understanding of the horrible puzzle – the relationship with narcisst. I am grateful for finally finding out that not only me does see all that “forgive what he did to you to feel better” as a ummm crap. I can’t count how many times I was told by people I tried to make understand what I went and still going through kept repeating that only forgivness can free me from all that “pain, burden & co.” (I have to smirk that moment). Oh, really? He does NOT deserve my forgivness at all as I already forgave him during the relationship far more than anyone – who has never been with a narc – can imagine.

What I am still unable to do is to get rid of shame and guilt because I feel deeply hurt and remeber when I at the very beginning HAD a glimmer of intuition about then narc-partner…I had known who he really was, I felt it somehow and…and…was attracted to him anyway. What does it say about me? And how to forgive (?) myself for being so naive? stupid? “sooo good girl”…blah blah…and letting him did to me of all what he has done to me? And I felt guilty as I always was blamed by him for all what was bad in relationship. I apologised and asked him for forgivness even after he dumped me, too! He as a response said directly to my crying a river eyes as he “was proud because of leaving me”.

Yep, I know what you wrote: “been there, done that” – what a humilating experience, what an excruciating memory. And I loved him so deeply that after all of that I find myself as (almost? not yet?) unable to really love ever again.
Oh my, this is not easy. Especially knowing very well about his smear campaign still leading against me – echoes of that haunted me even after NC since November and blocking him, his friends, mutual friends and literally everyone who might be a friend with him. Sigh. A new happy life with someone else started immediately after breaking up with me, of course. And he denied when I had a sneaky feeling that he was cheating on me. I know she is a new supply, let’s call it as it is, but it does nothing to ease pain and that feeling of simply being USED.

Not easy thing to do: to belive in myself again and what is even more difficult to belive in reality where I am in a new relationship now and still hardly belive in the fact of being treated well and with respect. Can anyone relate to that? I am talking about being still suspicious while the closest one shows (not talks!) that he cares of me is stable and faithful. It is like what IS a normal way of doing things in relationship – is STILL something so new to me. Yep, I know that what was with ex, the narcisstic one, was far beyond anything what can be called normal but still…

Anyway: I am glad that I found your site and that I spent this another sleepless night reading your posts. So good to see that what I PREVIOUSLY belived in (“you do NOT have to forgive him to heal your wounds as he has NOT deserved it ever!”) resonates not only with the strings of my broken soul.

PS: I would appreciate if you hide my email as I am still afraid ex can find out my post even not having any contact with me. He wrote once to me, Xmass time (so classical…pfff) and with blaming me and patronising style (again: typical) and I was almost sure I strictly establish a rule to the email box to delete any messages from his addresses. Not as good as I thought – corrected it but had few bad hours after all of that. I DID NOT ANSWERED on that email, though – should I consider it as a victory? A bitter one.
It last the anxiety inside me till now and I do not want him to know anything about me so…I know you understand it. Susan is…the chosen name and still, I think you will understand it, too.
How to remove that fear from me and re-establish the faith in anything that IS good and honest? ;-(

Hi Julia,

Yup, you get it! We don’t have to forgive pain such as this. Why should we??? First of all, like I said and as you said, we don’t have the spiritual CREDENTIALS to forgive at that level so why should we waste our recovery time trying to do it. With time, the anger and all of it fades on it’s own to next to nothingness as it should be. It fades in due time! To feel that we can’t move on until we FORGIVE this person is ludicrous and I have always bucked that system. LOL

You stated it all so clearly and so well. Thank you for the confirmation and cheers to your recovery, sister!!!

xoxo

Hi Annabel,

Your welcome, girl. I just felt I had to remind you one more time that there is NOTHING sincere about this guy. Nothing. There is no “being friends” with this person…he was never your friend before. All this “friendship” will mean to him is that he still has you in the queue…and he will be right. A narcissist only returns again and again to make sure that we never move on from the pain he has caused us. There should be nothing tempting about that.

Be safe and stay strong, sister….

Zari xo

Hi, thanks for your response Zari! I ended up talking with him one on one yesterday and I felt strong but he responded very very sincerely with how sorry he was again for what happened, how I’ve changed him, how he’s in therapy, how I changed his relationship with his daughters mother and his family and how he wants to honor and respect me moving forward and maybe we can be friends….I know I know….he seemed very sincere and his energy so compelling but yes I will keep my distance moving forward! His “friendship” offer was tempting but just BS and I need to just move on! Thank you again. Annabel

Hi Annabel,

Well, the situation with him as your son’s teacher will likely always keep you in the loop. And yes, it is dangerous. I would stay away as often as possible and just continue on the right path. Sending him a note will only put a smirk on his face, proving to him once again that exes never stray far. Narcissists LOVE to keep all the girls in the queue along with the new ones. Don’t give him the satisfaction of any of it and pray long and hard that June comes QUICKLY.

Stay strong!

Zari xo

Hey Sam. It sounds to me that you are a pretty strong lady, not cowardly at all … and at the heart of it, do you want to be in your old age still wondering who he is with and what he is doing? Hell no! You deserve luurve babydoll! You have totally done the right thing. Be proud of yourself.

Regarding the mistress and his “change of heart” .. pfft. Remember sweet pea that humans often use denial as a coping mechanism so, maybe she was still in the love bombing phase or maybe she just didn’t want to hear the truth, from you or from herself. Either way, he is not your problem anymore. Enjoy your wonderful new life and realising who you are again and connect with the love that you have deep inside of yourself …. that love certainly gives me hope and nutures my vulnerable and hurt inner child. *big squeezy hugs* and a big thumbs up.

Hi Julie,

It all takes time…especially letting go of the anger. That happens on it’s own as we get on with life. We can’t stop him from moving along to do what he does best and our suffering changes nothing. Keep reading and working on each day, one at a time. Suddenly, there WILL come a day where what he might or might not be doing won’t matter to you. I wish there was a quick fix for that pain but it’s really all about time and acceptance.

Stays strong!

Zari

Hi Kindred Sage,

Based on your letter and assuming all is true, I don’t think you’re a narcissist at all. You’re ex-girlfriend might be one though…LOL. Look, we all have narcissistic qualities but being in the US has nothing to do with it. Narcissists exist in the same quantities – and even in larger quantities – in other countries all over the planet. I’m thinking that you need to give yourself a break and stick close to the friends you’ve made in your new life. Don’t ask questions of them anymore about this and don’t be stuck on a label given you years ago by a girl and company who were indulging just like yourself. It sounds like you’ve been working really hard to get your shit together and thinking about her and the past behaviors is just going to mix that up.

I don’t know of drug-induced narcissism (by the TRUE definition) and personally I don’t buy into that particular theory at all. Do drug-addicts exhibit narcissistic behaviors? Sure they do but, if this person isn’t a true narcissist, then he (or she) is probably just exhibiting asshole behaviors induced by the drugs. Once the drugs are gone, an asshole usually isn’t an asshole anymore. A narcissist, however, is a narcissist whether he’s on drugs or not. To me, there is never an excuse for the kind of behaviors that we speak of here on this website. Just so you know, I don’t give haphazard labels top anyone who misbehaves. It’s absolutely possible to be an asshole – and even an asshole who cheats – and still NOT be a narcissist by the REAL definition. It happens all the time. People make mistakes. Sometimes they learn from them or grow out of the behaviors or sometimes they don’t. A narcissist LIKES being a narcissist and feels falsely entitled to always cause suffering. In fact, a narcissist isn’t happy UNLESS another person is suffering. They don’t believe for a minute that a single thing is wrong with them. There isn’t a pill or any amount of love or therapy that will fix it. Ever. When we talk about someone being a narcissist here, we really mean it and the behaviors define it. The blurb that you quoted at the top of your post is how I see it and I stick by that. Narcissists are narcissists. The fact that you are here writing to me like that…that you are worried about the label and trying to rectify it…the fact that new people in your life don’t even recognize the person you describe as being you…all of it screams that you are NOT any such thing.

So, stop talking about it or thinking about it. Keep moving along in your recovery. Stay away from your ex and anyone associated with her. Don’t try to explain to her ANYTHING because she’s probably the true narcissist who was projecting who she was onto YOU in drug-induced stupors. Let it go. Don’t try to fix her and no more apologies. You fucked up and now you’re better. That’s what happened…end of story. Don’t talk about it anymore with new friends. No need to fill their heads with false images…start new.

I wish you the best…assuming all you said was true and sincere, YOU ARE NOT A NARCISSIST AND NEVER WERE. It’s time to be happy. Life is too short to look back…

Zari xoxo

Here’s a question, or rather my situation. I’m not innately narcissistic. Sure I have some tendencies and frankly our lovely USA encourages a lot of narcissistic things, but I digress. Regardless, I have on numerous authorities, aside from my own research (and I’m going back to school for a Masters in Psych), that “I lack the core sociopathy for narcissism.” Ok, that’s great, I’m somewhat validated but that only goes so far.

Here’s where I got into trouble and the false-positive narcissism thing ran rampant:

1. I have borderline personality disorder…
2. I was addicted to dissociatives (NMDA Antagonists) which I used to self-medication my uber strong emotions
3. Dissociatives chemically dissociate you from your emotions
4. Long Story Short: Narcissism is essentially dissociation from self, that’s why you can be so sociopathic…
5. ergo chemically induced narcissism that crept up on me as the years of abuse altered my personality
6. Chronic NMDA Antagonist addicts correlate strongly to narcissistic manifestations
7. I was not narcissistic prior to my drug addiction
8. I’ve been clean for three years in June 2017.

There are LOTS of parallels between behaviors of NPD’s and BPD’s as you well know.

To those less discerning,it’d be easy to confuse one for the other without adequate scrutiny (especially if emotional and cognitive biases are doing their lovely magic).

I have to summarize as I am attempting to digest tomes of mental information and research on this:

I was branded a narcissist by my ex-wife (and her friends)
The drug abuse thing was totally ignored
The borderline thing was totally ignored
Many behaviors of addicts alone (those without other psychopathologies) are narcissistic.
This is common sense to anyone that’s studied addict behavior.

So I am stuck, because while being seen through narcissistic lenses, virtually everything I try to do is getting labelled and dismissed (which is ironically something narcissists and abusives and manipulators do).

Essentially, I am just seeking some sort of validation because there is SCANT info online about drug-induced narcissism (which is quite more ‘fixable’ than what I call “innate narcissism.”)

I am very much better now since I got clean and started reincorporating mindfulness, meditation, proper medication, long-dormant healthy coping strategies, exercise, volunteering, etc. etc.

I ask people in my ‘new life’ now if I seem narcissistic. They say basically that they can’t believe the person they know now was like the person I described to them from late 2013.

Yet I am branded the immutable narcissist by people who haven’t even bothered to entertain the notion that their hasty “trendeigh” jugments just might not stand up to objective scrutiny (reminds me of mob-mentality/groupthink/sunken-costs).

Further, many of these same people have narcissistic tendencies of their own, as many are performers (that’s not the only reason of course but I can’t delve into all the supporting data).

I realize this is a lot to parse. I guess I just want some affirmation that those people that are genuinely and demonstrably remorseful (heck I was raised Catholic for one thing; I know guilt) for actions they did that hurt others they genuinely cared about…and that work dilligently to improve themselves and try the best they can each day to be mindful and compassionate and empathetic to everyone they can…that they just maybe might not be worthless and justifiably abandonable POS’s doomed to walk the earth into perpetuity like Judas for mistakes they didn’t even comprehend they were making AND received virtually no negative feedback on until after the fact (if anything quite the opposite; literally).

see I kinda disagree fervently with the whole justified abandonment thing for narcopaths…well not for actual ones, but for “acquired” narcopaths, no contact and abandonment, I feel, should be addressed on a case by case basis. Argh, label and dismiss, thus avoiding cognitive dissonance and any moral accountability…if you label accurately that is.

Yup, I’m a mess. It’s been three years, I still think about my ex way too much. I wish her the best, but I wish her the best that is congruent with the Reality of the past (big picture); for I know her and I know how she bottles up things and how they knaw at her…and there are ample external physical manifestations of her inner conflict, aside from her cyberstalking me and things that got back to me via the grapevine.

I know it’s not my job anymore to fix her, but I’m a classic Pisces anyway and she wasn’t some rechargeable battery of narcissistic supply for me; and I still care because I always did. Hello – BPD – Abandonment issues…

She was my co-addict and my best friend and she shows no indications whatsoever of grasping the complexity of the past since she’s applying the over-simplified abuse/victim model to everything as she plays disengenuous martyr.

I understand the whole moving on thing, I just want to make sense of some things and bounce some ideas off people who aren’t so relentlessly negatively biased to things I say (when I have credible references).

Thanks for your time and trying to follow my poor attempt at organizing these thoughts and emotions.

Any help is appreciated.

Hi Suzi,

As you know, narcs will come in and out of our life until the end of time if we allow it. Years can go by between chance meetings or social media makes it possible but you can pretty much guarantee that it will happen. For you, I suppose the good news is that you are continents apart. This being the case, you can technically shut him down so that he can’t contact you online or off. You can’t expect your relationship with him to be the most meaningful and significant because 1) NO relationship in his life is any more important than the next (they all mean the same – including the one that you have with him), and 2) the fact that you are still in your relationship at home can and will always be his Ace in the Hole. Again, since you don’t share the details of what has transpired or how you are dealing with it, perhaps you might consider talking to me so that I can help you find a way to deal with it and/or accept it based on your situation. You don’t say whether you will leave the person you are living with or even if you want to. To the narc, this situation – just the way that it is – can go on forever. He’s fine with it this way…all narcs would be. It’s your happiness, however, that is important here and you have to find a way to get to that. The narc will never change. He drove you crazy way back then and he’ll gladly do it again if you allow it – even if it’s a long distance endeavor – and there is no more time to waste in this life.

Zari xo