gAMES

I never wanted to play the game in the first place so to recognize that any reaction that I'd do is still playing his game, helped me to drop any emotional attachment I had to winning with the narc..
Once I no longer had to get him to accept what I was saying (me winning), I no longer felt a need to attach to anything he said.. He's a narc and all narcs lie,, I'll never get a narc to stop lying, true story..

TRUST

Trust isn't about whether or not the other person is trust worthy,, trust is an attitude of being able to handle anything that comes our way.. Trust is an inner understanding that people are flawed and the acceptance that it's ok and the resiliency to bounce back after a complication.. Trust isn't about whether someone else is honest or not, it's about whether we have the courage to face those problems when they arise.. Trust is the opposite of a thin skin.

First Rule To No Contact

First rule to going no contact,,,,,, don't tell them what you're doing so that they do it first.. it's a mortifying lesson but it will get easier with practice..
I'm sorry that you're going through his crap again,, it's painful and frustrating..
I encourage you to prepare yourself for the best possible scenario and worst scenario.. Can you imagine what the best conclusion would be for you and his behaviors? (or lack of him so no behaviors to think about) and then imagine and preparing for the worst thing that could happen and his behaviors.. It's an old trick my therapist taught me decades ago and I still use it and it helps me to think clearer about my situation..

Cheating Stuff

I read that writing a diary about the behaviors that really baffle us, helps keep things clear.. I only had to keep the diary a week before making the huge connection that my confusion was a real response to a messy situation.. and I learned to just believe my guts..
My guts are sooooo much more honest than a liar....
Remember, once a cheater, well,, what am I saying "once?" cheaters just don't stop, they get better and better at covering up their trail... and if he's got any sadistic tendencies, our tears become their drug of choice....
I support you,, you are loveable.. You have a right and responsibility to happiness and love (without pain)

Group Stuff

I tend to put the narc in a non-personal place because nothing they do is actually a personal attack, it's a defensive move they believe will protect them from pain and abandonment.. It's skewed thinking from a disordered brain and it doesn't matter who's in front of them, they'll always do the same scripts,, and therefor, it's never a personal situation even if it feels that way.. and to me, that's the hardest thing for folks to recognize because being wrapped up in a narc's game feels personal..
I personally think it's important for people to find their own way through their own crap.. I do believe that a large number of people in this group will stay with the narcissist and they have a million reasons to stay, all valid.. (how do we support them?)
I think a support group is here to share our stories and to teach us to listen to others.. So many of us talk about finally finding a place where others understand us, but I think as a support group, we miss supporting everyone because so many of us come in and are sooo thrilled to finally have a place where we can trash the crap we've suffered through, we forget to listen..
I think it's key to listen to folks, not demand that they join our bash game in revenge..
my 2 cents..

The Dilemma

Ouch

Residue (a blog in which I can find no author, will change here if that changes)

A great example of what it's like to resolve the issue of leaving the narc, cuz you can't..  https://narcsite.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/residue/

Drug of Choice.. Tears

They test and test our tears,
until they know where that boundary in us is,, and then once they know where our limit is, they start installing buttons in us so they can get their drug of choice in public as well as private.
We become their puppets, so to speak..
We get trained to cry on demand,, by their pokes and our own hurt feelings.
Yuck,,
whatta nasty image,,
healing from narc abuse is nasty but not as nasty as suffering through it when it's happening,, and we wonder why we're all confused...

hmmmmmmmm

this is just a blurb put to a meme, we don't know who said it and it says the info is from a friend who runs a therapy group for battery intervention.. but it sure rang true for me.. "D" held Mr Hyde in hiding for a couple years before dropping his mask....

childhood with a narc mom

my narc mom took over my girl scout troupe (loving mom huh?) and then separated and singled me out from my friends, and continued the berating and belittling she'd do to me at home.. I spent two years sitting away from everyone, never being able to participate unless another adult showed up, then she was my best friend..
I begged to quit which doubled her abuse.. It created a bully hierarchy in girls that I'd been friends with for years and she taught them how to hurt me by excluding me and talking disrespectfully like she did to me.. She had her own trained little flying monkeys and over the last couple years, looking up old school chums on the computer (big mistake for me) they comment on what a great mom I had and totally forget the torture she put me through every week..

love?

if you're angry at them for over 3 days, you don't love them..
Things change with anger and our chemistry starts reacting with angry peptides (I'm no scientist) and once those become a normal body chemistry, the love peptides aren't made anymore so, chemically, after 3 days of anger, your body doesn't love them anymore.. (I read that)

Sex?

ding ding ding ding.. this is also an insight as to why sex gets bad once they knock your feet out from under you and you don't get up as fast as you used to.. Living with a narc leads to you being systematically demeaned all the time, to erode what makes you superior supply to them.. Life with a narc is all about short term gratification rather than working on long term goals with struggle and success.. Their future faking is a string along or bait to turn you into inferior supple,, and once that happens, sex goes bad.. and yet they seem to be enjoying themselves more.. creepy hindsight,, yuck..

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Welcome to the roller coaster narc recovery ride..
It's normal to go up and down with a break-up in a relationship with a "normal" person, but the ride after the abuse of a narc can be extreme,,, and totally normal.. Being with someone who's been targeting your best qualities is traumatic and a narc's goal is to install as many buttons to push and play with as they can before the victim recognizes the abuse and gets away..
The more abuse that you endured, the higher and lower the dips and hills.......... it's all good, it's your body detoxifying,,, it just doesn't always feel good and can be downright nauseating..
We're not alone, we're all here figuring this out

triangulation.

triangulation.. this was one of the cruelest of his crap games cuz he didn't understand that I don't naturally triangulate with another woman, they're my sisters not my enemies or competition..
.. I'm very comfortable in letting go of someone who wants to be with someone else and I'm comfortable with other people being attracted to my partner..
What hurt the most, was the reality that he just didn't get it,, and the crap that other women would put me through until I'd tell them, "Hey, he's yours, I've been trying to break up with him since he picked up a stranger" .. It shut them up..
The nastiest thing I did before just gray rocking it, was to tell a woman: "Excuse me but I think your hormones are running down your leg" and she actually looked.. and then left..
People just don't understand that just because someone dumps pheromones on you, that doesn't give you the right to screw with their wife..

STAY OR GO

• We can have a million reasons to stay, it's finding that one reason that's so overpowering that we change and decide to leave that we're in search of..

•  At some point it's up to you to decide what's best for you..
  
•  A wise man told me: "Kay, you're out in the middle of the rapids in a boat without a paddle, going with the flow of things and then being surprised when the boat rocks..
  
• Maybe if you wrote all the reasons for staying vs all the reasons for leaving, it will help you learn that lesson and find that answer that you're looking for..
  
•  It's up to you and I'll support you..
  

Co-dependency

I am encouraging you to find out more about co-dependency because when someone believes that they can change another person by being a certain way, they are describing a client / doctor relationship or an addictive/ co-dependent relationship..
If you are with someone with NPD, you've already been picked for what your specific supply gives them..
To believe someone else needs to change is a mistake..
NPD is NOT an illness, it's a brain disorder..
Unless we also have the disorder, we can't identify with what NPD feels like so we can't tell someone with NPD how to live their life..
Living with a narcissist skews our thinking, part of their manipulation is to get us to believe that an investment in them will eventually benefit us and while we see a future shared with a loving partner, they're advertising themselves for some "future fake"..
They are not a piece of property..
Part of their disorder is their inability to see reality because they live in a fantasy world, devoid of empathy, full of obligation and created with meticulous effort through out their life, practiced on everyone who loved them.. What you met was someone portraying a solid person..
If he has NPD, feeling sorry for them and giving the excuse that they feel "bad" somehow,, is a mistake because playing the victim is their favorite game/role ,, it allows them to be irresponsible, heck, she/he's got someone else to be responsible for them..
The fact that they continually need us to tell them where the boundaries are, is proof that the manipulation works..
IF you are living with someone with NPD and you believe that they can change,, you are co-dependent.. and in for a long, exhausting and futile ride with a god/devil..

Yep

  The first thing a narcissist does in a relationship, is to convince the new target that they really really love them,, I mean, they really really go out of their way to show how much love they have,, gosh it's an overflowing river of love,, remember that?
Still believe him instead of your heart?   My guess is that you still believe that first brainwashing you went through, like I did, like anyone who's figuring out the abuse.
  They exploit our caring and know from experience, that once we think they truly love us,, we become totally loyal to them.. they know this, we don't.. and from there, we enter a relationship being built on the lies of the narcissist..
   Personally, once I decided I couldn't believe anything he said, I also recognized that I couldn't believe that he loved me or that he'd hurt himself if I left.. and guess what? it is true that they can't live without a partner, it's just not necessarily US..

I am not a jealous person

I am not a jealous person, it's something that someone has to scam me on for me to feel angry about but by the second decade with him, he'd finally figured out how to install the jealousy button in me.. Jealousy is a combination of love (you love someone therefore they become family)
and pain (that someone broke a promise about your family safety)
and anger (that someone treated you with disrespect and rejection) and he finally figured out how to do all three things to me at the same time so I had no time to process it and it became traumatic for me and once that happened, he could push that button and that's called living in a "climate of fear"..