If you’re unlucky enough to ever find yourself divorced from a narcissist, I have bad news for you: The money is never coming back. The same goes for that unique piece of blown glass he said he bought, and you finally gave up because it was so expensive that lawyers are emailing each other about that gorgeous piece of Aegean Sea you bought on your honeymoon with your hard-earned money. These are the losses of property, some sentimental and some mere dollars and cents — and it’s time to take a deep breath, clear your throat, and simply forget about it.
The same goes for the time you spent in the relationship — gone, gone, gone, unless you can get your hands on a flux capacitor and a used DeLorean. It’s certainly frustrating, but the adage that spills milk applies here, and it’s the sponge that’s needed, not self-blame or even tears.
So what about the other things that were stolen? This is the part I want to focus on because I have yet to meet anyone who has recovered from narcissism and doesn’t feel like the empty shelves in a shoplifted.
[Note: This post is written from a woman’s perspective since all of the people I interviewed were women; however, women are narcissists too, and men bleed too. Feel free to switch pronouns.]
Related : 6 Reasons It’s Easy to Be Fooled by a Narcissist
The Post-Robbery Autopsy
What you didn’t see about the man in question and your misunderstanding of his motivations is what allowed you to hand him the keys to the store. I’m not blaming him, but to move forward, you need to see how the robbery happened; we’re playing detective here. Keep in mind that these individuals are very good at what they do, which is primarily manipulating others and writing a relationship script, neither of which is immediately apparent. By the way, this script has ups and downs, so you’re more inclined to attribute the rhythm to emotion than to musical arrangement; he’s a master of handling ice, and he does good deeds and sweet gestures when he needs to get you back on track. Your dream vacation? Okay! Expensive flowers “just because you want them”? Okay!
The narcissist’s fluency in the language of lies, especially when it alternates with sharp remarks about your behavior—“You cry at any moment. No wonder I have to walk on eggshells”; “If you don’t question me constantly, I might open up”; “I didn’t lie; you just didn’t ask me the right question”—keeps your partner in a constant state of emotional turmoil, making it difficult to discover who he is.
Only at the end—in conflict—does the narcissist fully reveal himself, and your appreciation of what he has stolen becomes clear. It is with shock and horror that you begin to see him for who he is. First, if you are married or in a long-term relationship, he will not stop until he wins and sees the triumph of his truth. He cares nothing for emotional consequences, burned bridges, or scorched earth, and he has no qualms about hurting anyone who stands in his way. He is happy to wage and organize smear campaigns because his version of the story—no matter how fabricated or cobbled together—is the one he clings to.
Inventory
Emotional looting is what takes time to recover from. This is not to minimize or dismiss the financial distress that many find themselves in after leaving a narcissist; that’s all real enough. Not to mention those stuck raising children together and looking forward to years of endless legal wrangling and financial expenses. But the hardest part of recovery involves what was stolen from you. Here’s an inventory and what you need to do to get it back.
Loss: Your Trust in Others.
A narcissist’s willingness to use every means at his disposal to hurt you in any way possible is enough to knock even the most stable planet off its axis, and it’s no surprise that many women come away from this experience feeling that the risks of trusting someone are simply too great. This is a huge loss that must be dealt with immediately. Otherwise, even in his absence, the narcissist will continue to deny you future opportunities.
Recovery: Put down the paintbrush and don’t generalize.
In our attempts to extract some kind of life knowledge from the truly painful, we risk starting to see people in broad strokes; ultimately, that vision will not serve us or you. Not all men are your partners, but one man is. Yes, it’s good to read about narcissism—try Craig Malkin’s Rethinking Narcissism, which excellently explains the spectrum and the healthy and unhealthy types, or Joseph Burgo’s The Narcissist You Know, which covers the different types—but it’s also important not to end up seeing a narcissist around every corner. The truth is, that people are people we should trust most of the time.
Loss: Your confidence in your perceptions and choices.
The words I’ve heard come out of my mouth and the mouths of others who have experienced these high-level narcissistic traits include manipulation, deceit, complete ignorance, stupidity, and more. It’s hard not to blame yourself, especially with the clarity of vision: How did you not notice that he was playing on your neediness? Why did you make excuses for his lies and manipulations? How did you let him get away with it every time you tried to speak up? Why didn’t you fight back when he insulted you? Why did you continue to fall for his charm?
Recovery: Understanding without self-blame.
Recognizing what you unwittingly brought to the party and understanding why you chose this man is key to ensuring that history doesn’t repeat itself. The truth is that a narcissist is looking for a partner who can seduce and fascinate him, as well as someone who can manipulate and intimidate him. Taking a self-inventory—seeing how your tendencies and insecurities contributed, and understanding why you let him slack when you shouldn’t have—can be helpful. These may not be flaws, strictly speaking; for example, your desire to make the marriage work may have blinded you to the fact that you can’t, or your rush to keep the peace at home may have made it easier for you to avoid conversations you needed to have and stances you needed to take. Building on what needs to be built is a step forward.
Loss: Your faith in human decency.
It’s hard to maintain your faith in humanity when someone who claimed to love you turns out to be a thief, but you must. This is especially true if you’ve been through a nightmarish divorce or have been the victim of a smear campaign, which are often parts of a narcissist’s arsenal when it comes to defending their kind of truth. You have to remember that for every person like them, dozens have a personal code of ethics, who don’t need to win at all costs, and who care about how their behavior affects others. Narcissists are outcasts.
Recovery: Focus on your kindness and compassion.
It’s important to keep bitterness in check and stay open to how much kindness there is in the world; this may sound optimistic, but again, the narcissist’s weakness or complete lack of empathy makes him or her the odd one out, not the norm. Start with yourself, and reassure yourself that kindness and compassion are real and exist. Pay attention to how many people in your life are capable of kindness and compassion, and over time it will become clear that the narcissist is no substitute for all of humanity.
Loss: I have hope.
The real problem with a narcissist is that there is never a “Paris will always be with us” moment. You know that scene in Casablanca when love is thwarted again, and the lovers will never meet again, and Ingrid Bergman asks, “What about us?” and Humphrey Bogart turns to her and says, “Paris will always be with us.” There is always pain and loss at the end of a relationship, even a marriage, but usually—after a while—you can remember the moments of pleasure and emotional spark that the relationship once provided. Thanks to the narcissist’s scorched earth policy and the lies that poison every memory, there is no Paris to relive, only a burning landscape. Even a photo of the two of you together is enough to quickly bring back bitter disappointment. One woman tore up every photo she had taken of them together from their years together, saying, “I couldn’t bear the real image of how he treated me. I hated how happy I was, not knowing who he was the whole time.”
Recovery: Set goals for your relationship.
Instead of seeing yourself as a victim or someone who has no agency, you’ll recover and heal faster if you take a proactive stance and set goals for your relationship. The work of Charles Carver and Michael Scheier has shown that setting abstract rather than very specific goals, especially after a relationship ends, leads to more productive outcomes and allows you to explore possibilities you might not otherwise explore. Instead of thinking, “I want to meet someone who isn’t a narcissist,” think, “I want to meet someone who shows caring,” or “I want to meet someone who looks beyond their own needs.” This not only hones your sense of what you want in a relationship, but it also opens you up to meeting such a person—in a volunteer group, a community mentoring program, etc. Instead, think about what you want from an intimate relationship in broader, more abstract terms, such as “close companionship based on open give and take,” “partnership based on equality and mutual respect,” or “commitment to a shared life with each other’s needs met.” You’ll notice that if these were your relationship goals at the time, the narcissist likely wouldn’t have entered your life, or if he had, you would have left sooner, provided you didn’t make excuses for him (which you did).
