Are YOU the narcissist? Here's why you may think so...
(Oops! This week’s didn’t get scheduled for Monday! So sorry about that! Here you go!)
Have you ever wondered if maybe you’re the problem? Maybe, God forbid, if you’re the narcissist?
Highly conflictual people are masterful at making us think so. They twist conversations with ease until we are no longer sure which direction is up.
I’ll never forget sitting in the car beside my then-husband on a short drive home. We had reunited after a brief, tense break. Things had ended just a few weeks earlier when he said he wanted a divorce, but now he claimed he wanted to make the relationship work. That he was serious about addressing his issues.
I did and didn’t want to be back with him—the discovery of betrayal after betrayal had been soul-shattering. Living around him was worse than walking on pins and needles with the sudden eruptions and constant criticisms. And yet, I wanted us to work.
It wasn’t just the threatened company’s capital that kept me stuck in that marriage. The truth was I still loved him and wished he would love and choose me, too.
But I’d seen the text messages between him and his girlfriend. The arrangements they had made to fly her in for a visit within days after our split. I’d read the emails detailing their walkthrough of a new subdivision looking for a new home. This man had never loved or chosen me.
Still staring at the road, he casually said that his girlfriend used to judge people for having an affair, but she saw their relationship as different. Something special.
I whirled to face him. “How can she say that? There is nothing justifiable about cheating. Absolutely nothing!”
His face tightened into a hard grimace. Without looking at me, he snarled, “Kerry, I’m a sex addict. You’ll just have to decide if that’s something you can live with.”
There it was—the accusation. The problem wasn’t him; he had made it me.
For a second, I wondered if I was the problem.
Within weeks of marrying him, I had discovered he’d cheated on me, and yet I stayed. Next, he confessed that he had been seeing several women, not just one. And still, I stayed. Then, I uncovered that he had an on-and-off-again girlfriend, and I continued to stay.
My ex certainly had issues with sex, but maybe I was the problem.
I know I’m not the only one who’s wondered that. Many of you have shared you’ve thought the same thing, too.
In this Subscriber’s Edition, you will:
Learn the top reasons narcissists blame others for relationship problems.
Find out if you have narcissistic traits with several free online assessments.
Discover, in the Podcast Extra, how to use a person’s history as a helpful evaluation tool.
Check out other resources on identifying narcissism.
On this week’s podcast, Rossana Faye joins me to share why victims get so confused when accused of being the problem. You can listen to it here!
Here’s a sneak peek of the Subscriber’s Podcast Extra with Rossana!
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