Life After Loving a Narcissist

Never in my life did I think I would need to write these words.

I never thought I would let myself fall under the narcissist’s spell, but that’s what happened.

So this is my story and what I learned about how to love myself after loving a heartless man.

I had just gotten divorced and been navigating the emotional roller coaster that comes with it. I finally found peace and started to feel happy again.

I was finding myself, loving myself, and feeling a comfort that only God can provide. I wasn’t looking for anyone new because I had finally accepted the fact that I was single and I was actually ok with that.

Then he came… and my world turned upside down.

There’s so much to say, it’s going to be hard for me to stay on track, but I’ll start from the beginning when it was great because without that part, you won’t understand why it ended the way it did – you won’t understand what a narcissist is unless you know it all.

Like I said, I wasn’t looking for anyone. He found me… He chose me.

I received a text one day asking when I would let him take me on a date and show me how I was supposed to be treated.

He asked me to “throw stones at all the other guys.” Well, it seemed pretty smooth, but at that point, I wasn’t ready yet, so I turned it down.

A month later, I received another message: This time he wasn’t asking me out, just making small talk. He needed a favor, and I agreed, being the helpful person that I am, not knowing that I was opening myself up to one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn.

After a month of talking and him showing himself as a really cool guy, we decided to go out one night. It was game over from there…I was hooked.

He made me feel like I could talk to him about anything. He went through similar things like I went through, he went through a bad divorce, a toxic marriage, and lost a parent.

He made me feel safe, something I haven’t felt in a long time. It was like walking into the house and feeling at home. It would take me nearly two years to realize that this place where I felt at home was actually a prison.

My friends tried to tell me I was stupid for letting my guard down as quickly as I did, but it was okay… He felt right.

It was nice to laugh with someone instead of fighting with them and that’s what we did.

We laughed the whole time. We enjoyed the same music, the same TV shows, and shared similar interests in so many things that we never ran out of things to talk about. We can stay up for hours talking.

He was mysterious and quiet in a way, but I could tell there was a lot on his mind and I was determined to find out everything.

I tried to know about him without him knowing… I wanted to know why he was the way he was, his quirks, what made him tick, I wanted to know about every scar, every tattoo, every story he would give me parts of. to.

I kept telling myself not to fall so fast because I know how to love… I love so hard, so when I fall, it’s like a swan dive without any second thought but it made it so easy to fall.

He made this wall so easy to tear down that I spent months repairing and rebuilding it. The wall I swore to myself I would make someone work for.

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I tried to play hard to get, I really did. But he flipped the script on me very quickly. Before I knew it, I was the one trying to break down his walls and prove to him that I was not “like the rest.”

I saw red flags at first but I thought I was feeling insecure and that I was just projecting my past onto this current relationship. I kept telling myself that I was overthinking things and that he deserved a chance.

Even though my gut was telling me something wasn’t right, my heart was telling me yes it was. So I fought for him harder than I ever fought for anyone in my life, even my 5 year marriage that I had just gotten out of.

I was determined to make this work because I loved him with every fiber of my being, I wanted to fix everything that was broken from his past, and I wanted to not make the same mistakes I had made in my past relationships.

I did everything for him and then some.

There is not a single part of me that believes I could have done better, tried harder, or loved him more than I did because I know without a doubt that I gave him 110%, if not more.

It took about a year before his true personality began to emerge.

The man who made me feel safe and never raised his voice and never fought with me began to show me a dark and unflattering side of himself. Still, I loved it, so I was willing to look beyond it.

I had just gotten out of a relationship where we had screaming matches every day and talked over each other so I refused to do it again.

When he wanted to pick a fight, I would walk away no matter how many sarcastic and passive-aggressive comments I wanted to say, even though I had learned what pushed his buttons.

One of the things I liked about him was that he didn’t like to go out and party and I was totally fine with that but it became too much when we couldn’t even go out to eat at restaurants or go to places where we were invited with family or friends.

We became hermits and I apologized to him every time. I quickly realized that this was just isolating me, not him.

I missed a lot of things because I felt bad without him. I was at his beck and call and he had me completely wrapped around his finger.

I’ve always been a strong person, very intuitive, and can pick things up fairly easily. How did I let this go on for so long before I started putting the pieces together?

I loved him so much, that’s why.

Narcissists use empathic people as fuel. They choose their prey wisely. I wasn’t special to him, I was just a target.

When I started shining a light on his darkness and showing him that I was aware of what he was up to and what was going on, it only made things worse and that would be the real reason he eventually left.

Every day I felt exhausted because it drained my life.

I spent all my time and energy trying to please him, not provoking him, or keeping my fingers on eggshells so as not to hurt his fragile little ego.

I’ve never met a man who was so sensitive when it came to someone flirting with him. It seemed like nothing I said or did was offensive, and in the end, I didn’t want to talk at all.

I’m not a stupid person but I let this go on for much longer than it should have.

Once I started to realize what I was dealing with, I’d be damned if I let it continue. I spent days reading about his behavior and the patterns that became more and more repetitive.

It didn’t take long after that to realize that I was in love with a narcissist.

It’s definitely true when they say hindsight is 20/20 because all the signs I initially ignored and all the things I thought were great about him crashed into my mind like a burst dam.

I realized that this man could never love anyone, let alone me! All the things he did in the beginning, the person I fell in love with…that was me!

He mirrored my feelings, personality, and traits and used them to make me fall in love with him. I wasn’t in love with him… I was in love with myself.

When he decided to leave me, there was a moment when I felt sad.

Then it was like I had an epiphany. I can either let this make me or break me and come hell or high water, I will not allow this man to take any more from me than he already has.

I turned it over and used it as fuel. It won’t turn me into this bitter woman. I was better than that. I’m better than that.

It took me leaving to realize that I had fallen in love with myself a long time ago.

He tried to break me but he didn’t. He left me but I found him.

I gained that fire inside me that I once fought for and started fighting for myself.

The day I watched him walk out of the driveway, I didn’t even shed a tear. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted.

I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t have my moments or that there weren’t times I thought I missed him. We had many good memories together so of course I missed her but I couldn’t allow myself to stay in that feeling because even though those moments were real, the memories happened…the person he pretended to be during those times wasn’t.

I had to realize that I had been sleeping next to a man who, for almost two years, never cared about me, never bothered when I cried, and never bothered when he hurt me. He never loved me.

We all want closure after a breakup, but sometimes you don’t get the closure you want or think you need.

Sometimes closure is just about moving forward and improving yourself.

Sometimes there are no explanations or justifications.

Sometimes you end up with a worthless person, a heartless man, someone incapable of feeling love or remorse. So, as much as we want to believe that these kind of people will one day realize what they have and what they’ve lost, it’s bullshit.

They will not miss us, they will not think about us, and they will never regret what they did to us because they do not feel love the way we feel love. They had every intention of leaving from the moment they chose us.

Make no mistake, they did not choose us because we are weak; They chose us because we are strong women found during a vulnerable time.

Narcissists have very fragile egos, they need someone with a strong mind and a strong personality, someone who is likable, passionate, empathetic and driven so they can feed off of us like a parasite needs a host.

What I realized after loving this type of human being is that I am stronger than I give myself credit for and I will never allow anyone to make me think otherwise.

What I thought was the greatest love of my life proved to be one of the most important lessons I learned from it. I now know what I am capable of emotionally and I refuse to let anyone take away my peace again.

I’m now more aware of people’s intentions, red flags, and subtle signs. Yes, I was cheated on and it will take longer to fully heal but I know not all men are like him.

I wish I could say I hate him for what he’s done, but the truth is… I don’t. Had he not broken me down to nothing, I may have never rebuilt myself into who I am becoming now, and who I am becoming is worth every tear, every heartbreak, every lesson I have learned after loving a narcissist…