At this time of year relationships can be especially hard, but a relationship with a Narcissist can be impossible…..

Be aware that at this time of year, many of us will be more vulnerable and more insecure than usual. Let’s face it, all the Christmas movies are based around two people resisting then finding love for each other or family Christmases with Mum, Dad and however many children. The pressure to have a ‘happy family Christmas’ is huge, only acceptable to shun if you’re about to have a romantic love fest with your ‘better half’ (f**k I hate that term)! Emotions are heightened but beware, it’s easy for real issues that need to be addressed to be blamed on the pressure of the holidays. 

If you’re still in the love bombing stage of your Narc relationship (so obviously you’re unlikely to even realise this is where it’s heading), I could probably quite accurately guess at least some of the presents you’re going to receive — the big gifts and the meaningful gestures, the secret gifts he’s never given anyone before. The ‘I’ve never felt like this until I met you’ BS they’ll use to draw you in even more deeply than you already are. The cards, the poems, the ‘thanks for sticking by me despite the difficult circumstances/my past,’ the ‘here’s to many more now I’ve found my soulmate’ manipulative lies.

The key to your recovery from a Narcissistic relationship is realising that they will never change, that they are master manipulators who are highly skilled at doing the “Poor Me, I’ve just had such bad luck with my batshit crazy exes…bla bla bla.” Or they’ll just laugh things off so that any insecurities you may feel can be dismissed. They may blame their behaviour on bad memories of the holidays or on missing a loved one (despite being anything but loving towards them on special occasions they HAVE been with them). They will do contradictory things to gaslight you and amp up your confusion, forcing you to justifying them in your head as being kind and loving but hurt and damaged, rather than just plain nasty and narcissistic. Obviously if we KNEW they were nasty, rather than only questioning some aspects of their behaviour, we wouldn’t find reasons to make excuses for them and to stay stuck in a destructive relationship with them. 

After taking steps to try to protect yourself this Christmas, I then want you to look at what you’ve already survived:

• Even if only just, you ARE still standing.

• There may be times that you think you haven’t been, but there absolutely WILL be times that you have, especially when you soldiered on regardless of the shit being thrown at you, even if at the time you felt like you had no choice but to keep going. 

• If you’re in or have been in a relationship with a narc, you have rivers of resilience greater than you know.
• You have used your power to overcome everything so far, or at least survive it if you are still in the process of healing. You still have those reserves of power, those rivers of resilience, you just need to believe it.

• What can you do to lock in the positive moments and love you’ve received from your cheerleaders and support network?
• What can you do to protect yourself from this point on, from those who have made things worse, weather intentionally or unintentionally?
• What can you do to see the gift in their new supply distracting your Narc for long enough for you to realise things weren’t right, to realise that you deserved better so that you got out of the relationship.
• What can you do to make peace with the fact their relationship started off and has continued full of lies and that there’s nothing you can do about it because even if you told them, it would be denied by the Narc and the new supply would believe them and not you anyway.
• Are you wasting precious energy worrying and wanting to help protect or ‘save’ someone who can’t yet be helped and who needs to go on their own journey and live their own experience, even if that means a present of lies and a future of more and worse?

• Especially if it was you that left, celebrate that and know that you have and will continue to inspire others to do the same.
• If it wasn’t you that left, how can you thank the powers that be that helped this to happen and celebrate the fact you dodged a bullet?
• How can you realise and celebrate that being on your own is wayyyyy better than being in a relationship that is miserable at best, abusive and damaging at worst?

When I finally left my three (yes THREE, wtf 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️) abusive relationships, even though in my oldest and most recent ones I was still being told they couldn’t live without me, still promising me they’d change, that they couldn’t imagine a future without me (despite their contradictory behaviour, even when one of them had already found a new supply but still couldn’t give me up), it gave me a sense of pride in myself and helped so much on my recovery journey because I was just not prepared to continue to put myself through his constant covert and sometimes overt abuse, obsessive jealousy and false accusations anymore. I made a stand for myself and for my children too by saying enough is enough, we are done and I’m not going to be sucked in yet again.

To anyone going through this, I see you and I hear you. I see you and I hear you through your denial, through your pain, your brave face, your social media posts weather they be honest and vulnerable or carefully curated. I see that masked look of sadness, doubt or brokenness in your eyes. I see you through your silence and hiding, through your suffering.