Hindsight is almost always 20/20. At the end of a narcissistic relationship, there is rarely closure. It is incredibly difficult to make sense of reality, emotions, and what to do next. Without narcissist education and resources to figure out what went wrong to help to piece together and logically understand what happened, hindsight stays in a fog. So many narcissist abuse survivors have no idea what narcissist psychological and emotional abuse actually is and naturally, they shoulder the blame for the failed relationship. They swallow the guilt. They look at the destruction around them and are fortunate to have family or friends remaining to help them rebuild their lives.
Typically, the longer the relationship, the more challenges survivors face. Along with the psychological and emotional abuse, there comes financial abuse, and loss of friends & family, lack of self-confidence, for those going through a divorce or custody battles, the abuse continues for months or years through smear campaigns. After leaving, healing takes time. Rebuilding their life, self-esteem, and their physical health. Narcissist abuse survivors have a high rate of autoimmune disease, digestive health or neurological disorders, hormone imbalances, and other ongoing health issues.
In most cases, healing starts with a talk therapist and unless the talk therapist is narc-abuse informed, they try to unravel why the survivors feel crazy instead of validating and educating. Piecing together reality is difficult in the survivor's brain fog, inability to focus, and other trauma responses. It is important to know, it is not their fault. It is important to begin emotional healing from abuse. Some simply move on subconsciously seeking the familiar, which is emotional or nervous system dysregulation. The majority struggle to trust themselves and others. Most never get to know they have been part of a narcissistic abuse pattern. Out of shame, most stay quiet and simply survive their new reality, the onset of overwhelming emotions, and physical symptoms.
I feel fortunate I have found tremendous healing in building a connection with the Narc's past partners. I am grateful Jen reciprocated the connection. Her honesty, strength, and her kindness shine bright on my healing path. Jen, I am incredibly grateful for your willingness to connect and for your courage to share. It is with that courage, I will continue to write.
Jen's Experience, in her words, part 6
Why did I accept this behavior time and time again? I spent so much of those 4 years angry and anxious. The accusations and arguments intensified, leading to absolute rage on my part, stone-cold certainty on his part, ugly yelling, ugly crying, storming out, deleting him from my life in passwords and garage codes, and a day or two later, one or both of us were crawling back. No matter the argument, I always accepted him back in my life. It fed my fear of being alone and my desire to be wanted. I clung to the memory of the guy I first met. We had so much in common, at least I thought. We had so much fun golfing and traveling together, eating out, and sharing our daily routine together. I concentrated so hard on these things that it was easy to block out the inexcusable and completely miss the fact that I could never let my guard down and be completely myself around the Narc. I lost things that made me me! I loved music but the Narc was never one to listen to it. I loved to read but never did so at his house. I loved to work out, and managed to keep doing so, but not without a barrage of questions to follow.
I lost all my friends. They knew the details of my relationship. With every fight, I unloaded to someone during my retreat, so staying in the relationship became an embarrassment to me among my friends and family. Knowing what they knew and knowing I was choosing to stay in the relationship brought me so much shame. My friends and family begrudgingly accepted him because they loved me, but that didn’t stop me from avoiding social events and family time. I couldn’t invite him to anything for fear of judgment and embarrassment. How did that fit into a lifelong, partnering, loving, and trusting relationship? I grappled with this time and time again, hoping time and even couples counseling would heal everything.
I had always been wired to trust people and focus on goodness. Dishonesty, manipulation, sneaking around, and lying was so foreign to me. For most of the relationship, I had blinders on. I accepted his snooping on my phone and computer, his obsession with my Facebook account, his endless questions, and his denials of tailing me on my runs even though I knew he was lying. To most, this would be enough to realize the person you are with is legit and honest. All his surveillance would only lead me to prove my innocence. Over time, unfortunately, I found myself stooping to his level when I knew his lies were accumulating in our relationship. His phone was always inaccessible, but I managed to log in one time to find him conversing and making promises to a woman he had been seeing for a few months, all this while on vacation in Aruba with him. I became intent on finding his stashed tobacco, cigarettes, and weed that he denied using. I was turning crazy before my own eyes.
I began focusing on one day at a time, rather than looking ahead to our future. Truthfully, I could not fathom a future with him, despite my clinging to our relationship. In the end, our relationship boiled down to two things: eating out and traveling. The first was all we seemed to do and enjoy together; the latter was something we hadn’t done in a long time. I found myself longing to be at my own home when I was with him and then longing to be with him when I was alone in my home. So much conflict and toxicity consumed me. I didn’t know my up from my down. I resented and dreaded driving to St. Louis to stay with him but then was sad to leave to come back home.
Now two years removed, I am thankful to have this all behind me. My friends are back in my life. I have my independence and confidence back. I know now that the Narc was not
deserving of the assets, affection, and
genuineness I brought to our relationship. I know that I was enough and nothing I could have done was going to change him. Sadly, his struggles will continue and unsuspecting, innocent, intelligent, and successful will fall to his charismatic, love-bombing ways. But as long as he is stuck in his ways and in his head, he will never find happiness and true love, but that’s not my problem anymore. It’s up to him to figure it out.
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