Going through a breakup is not easy. It’s even more difficult when you need to know how to move on from a toxic, narcissistic ex — and even more difficult when your ex is moving on from your life.
This can leave you wondering: Can a narcissist change? Did he really love me? Does he like his new girlfriend?
Related: 7 Devastating Ways Narcissists Retaliate Through Their Own Children
First, I have to mention something that I think a lot of people miss when they think back to their ex who really hurt them and compare their relationship to their new ex. Whether he really has Narcissistic Personality Disorder or is just a malicious jerk, what matters is how he treats you.
It matters how your relationship went off the rails. Maybe it was decent and amazing at first, but isn’t that true of 99 percent of all relationships? Isn’t that what makes us addicted in the first place? That feeling of blossoming happiness, lust and excitement where we can’t think of anything else?
Otherwise we wouldn’t find ourselves so deliciously entangled in someone else’s world. No one is going to wake up one day and wonder what happened to them to get there.
Here lies the problem. You see that new beginning that brings a new touch to the relationship with a new person, and every bit of it reminds you of what things were like when you had a good relationship.
The thought of someone else getting that instead of you – it’s a painful thought. It doesn’t help that in order to get through the bad times, you probably ran the memories of the good times over and over in your head like a talisman that you hoped would protect you from the danger of truly realizing the fact that this situation was not at all what you imagined it would be.
Related: What It Means When A Narcissist Says ‘I Love You’
You see, the questions about new flames after narcissistic abuse are actually questions about whether or not there is something wrong with you and whether you could have gotten a different outcome by changing your behavior in some way. You find yourself asking real, raw questions like:
If I had been someone else (like his new girlfriend), would this have happened?
Was it my fault that he abused me?
What’s wrong with him treating me this way?
Did he throw me away because I’m not __ (young, pretty, thin, enough for something…else)?
If he is a narcissist, can we get him treatment, heal him, and perhaps turn back the clock to the good old days?
You get the point. Being on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse says nothing about your character, but it says a lot about your abuser. Whether he truly loves you or not is not the final word on whether you are lovable or not.
The bottom line is that the fact that he moved on with someone else means that he chose someone else to unleash his fading relationship skills. You and I have no idea what’s going on out there, and frankly, it’s none of our business.
Analyzing what he does with the new woman keeps you stuck and thinking potentially ugly thoughts about yourself. He could do all kinds of weird behavior with her or he could be a perfect angel (for now). It doesn’t matter.
Believing that you did something to bring about all of this is just blaming the victim. It is a fruitless endeavor to control what happened. Unfortunately, this control does not come. All you can control is your choice to heal, move forward, try to choose better next time, and cherish the people in your life who truly treat you well.
