How have you allowed yourself to stay in this abusive relationship so long? The answer is really quite simple, you lie to yourself. You fool yourself into desperately believing that things will get better, that he or she will change. How could those glimmers of greatness that your partner exhibited in the early stages of your relationship have faded away forever? It is because he or she was never that person to begin with. It was all a façade to snag you in the first place.

Also, it is due to the cycle of the “pedestal and the pit” that I discussed in my post, The Ways That Narcissists Abuse. For example, he isn’t terrible all of the time right? If he was, it would surely be easier to leave him wouldn’t it? He is smart enough to realize that if he is bad for too long, you will get fed up and go. So he will throw a bit of sweetness your way, just to wet your appetite to keep you hoping that he may return to the wonderful person that you thought he was in the beginning. You lie to yourself every day. You do not trust your gut feeling that he may just be a terrible person, a narcissist with no soul.

But then that has other consequences, you start to question your own judgment. How could I have made such a bad decision in choosing this person to share my life with? I know that I sure did. I couldn’t come to grips with my awful luck with men until I faced the cold truth and realized that I had been lying to myself all along. I chose to ignore the red flags waving in the breeze when I first began to date him. The fairytale blinded me! I do not blame myself nor do I blame you for falling prey to the unobtrusive spider. However, I want to open your eyes to what I recently discovered, you need to ask yourself the hard questions. You need to figure out what your weak spots are and wipe them clean so you never get stuck in this situation again.

As if lying to yourself was not bad enough, you begin lying to all those people you hold so dear. You don’t lie to be malicious, you lie to keep them from worrying about you. Or you lie to make them see your partner as a good person. You would hate for your friends and family to see him as he really is, so you make excuses for him, you cover-up for him. That is what I did. I felt ashamed that I was trapped with this manipulative and uncaring human being, so I overcompensated with tales of his good deeds or nice words, and conveniently left out the bad parts, and the hurtful comments that he dished out.

This kind of editing is not all that different from what people do on social media sites, I guess. But, I could not live a false life like that anymore. I needed an escape, I needed to live an authentic life where I was comfortable living the way I wanted. The truth, no matter how much it hurts, will come out. Nothing will scare off a narcissist like the truth. So I say, let the truth rain down and clear those muddy waters!