Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. ~ Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
It’s late 2018 and I’ve been with the X for going on two years. I’ve been trying my best to build a connected, loving relationship with him but nothing is working, and I’m slowly feeling worse and worse. And there I am, like most of us, simply living my life forwards. Taking each crappy day as it comes, and pretty much unable to put the pieces together as I do.
But over a couple of months, a few things happen. One, my best friend finally tells me what she sees about him. Two, I come to the end of my rope, feeling I have honestly tried everything I can to resolve things positively. And three, Google comes to the rescue when one night, in desperation, I search for “Can you be a victim and still be a narcissist?” and get hundreds of hits. (It’s called Covert Narcissism and is weirdly common.) And at that point, I stop “living forward,” at least in terms of trying to love this man. I painfully extricate myself from the relationship and ultimately get legal help to get my house back from him. (Full story here.)
There’s been so much learning in this whole process. I’ve even come to see that I can hold the paradox of being weirdly grateful for the experience while also doing my level best to help others process and even avoid it for themselves. And now that I’ve had over four years to understand this part of my life backwards, here are maybe the top three things I’ve learned that feel like important advice to share:
ONE: You can get out of it, you can move on, you can heal. It may feel hopeless, it may feel like it will never end, it may feel like there is no good way forward, but you CAN. There were so many times I felt stuck, trapped, and paralyzed. To be honest, there was a year I basically did nothing to deal with our legal issues. Some of this was because of his extreme nastiness and bullying every time I tried to resolve things, and some of it was the impact of the cumulative abuse on my nervous system, which simply needed some time away from him to reset itself.
But there came a point where I felt strong enough to go forward and I also realized I couldn’t stay in a holding pattern forever, as much as I might want to. I thought to myself, well, one step at a time. If it takes a year — or even more — oh well. I realized that a year passes no matter what, and if I did try to move forward things would have to get better at some point. And they did. It wasn’t a fun process, but I did get my house back and him truly out of my life. Which then made it possible to focus on my own healing. And so, I learned that as hard as it feels, and as long as it takes, you CAN move on. And you can heal.
TWO: With highly toxic people, our own love isn’t enough. Ouch. I had thought for so long that if relationships didn’t work it was because I somehow failed to love enough. If I could just bring more forgiveness, more understanding, more patience, more kindness, it would work. I thought this was probably the spiritual lesson for me — that I needed to find new depths of love. To come to face the fact that it was not my sole responsibility to “love someone enough” was a tough lesson, but ultimately freeing. So no, your lesson isn’t to love them harder. It’s actually to love yourself more.
THREE: It can happen to anyone. I don’t mean to sound self-aggrandizing, but I met this clown at age 53, as a professional coach with 16 years’ experience, as well as an acknowledged neuroscience expert and international speaker and trainer. I had also been a serious spiritual student since my late teens. I thought I knew about humans and personal development. None of this helped me recognize and avoid this man — because I did not know about narcissism and I did not realize I was being conned.
I use a mask on my home page for this blog because it’s such a great visual for who these people are. Con artists. Scammers. Liars. Etc. So if you, like me, extended love and care based on who they pretended to be, well, that’s the con. And you’re not bad, wrong, or stupid for falling for it, because this type of person has devoted their life to being a master of deception.
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This post was previously published on BUTNOWIKNOWYOURNAME.WORDPRESS.COM.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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