You’ve done it. You’ve caught them cheating. Before I give you a huge congratulations-type virtual high-five, how did they respond?
I bet, if you’re dealing with a narcissist, they responded by continuing to lie even though you caught them red-handed.
This is classic narcissistic behavior to the point where their denial about doing you wrong is pretty much the worst kind of acting you’ve seen in your life.
Here are 6 reasons why people who cheat keep lying after they’re caught.
#1 They don’t have a conscience
If a person is going to cheat, I’d say any form of conscience is going to be so far down on their list of endearing characteristics that it’s not even visible.
To have a conscience means you regret something you did, or feel bad about it to the point where you open up honestly about your wrongdoing, in the hope of forgiveness.
A person with a conscience knows right from wrong, and steers their boat of morality toward always doing the right thing.
Narcissists don’t own a boat of morality, so cheating will be accompanied always with an internal shrug.
So what?
To you, that looks like more lies.
#2 They want everything, and more
A narcissist will never make their victim feel loved or wanted, and cheating is just another, more cruel way of doing that.
They want everything and more, and will have you as just a number on their list, rather than the most important person in their life, as you try to make them.
The lying comes from their need to protect you as just one of those numbers, and the other people (I say people as there’s always more than one), too.
That way, they feel they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
As unfair as this is, this is all part of the narcissists’ personality disorder. The idea that they are so self-entitled that their lies are nothing but a smokescreen for what’s going on underneath it all.
#3 There’s no accountability
A narcissist will continue to lie after being caught cheating due to their extreme lack of accountability.
They do not want to come across as the person who is in the wrong, and not want to carry the burden of blame you’re quite rightly trying to put on them.
I think if somebody is going to do something so awful, they need to at least apologize and try to make it better. If there is still love between you both, it can work out.
A narcissist won’t be willing to do that, and will almost push the blame back to you for trying to make them look bad.
How dare you be right and have morals and want to see somebody be accountable for their shocking behavior?! (Eye roll).
#4 Denial: it wasn’t me!
You must be imagining things because I have no idea what you are talking about.
Are you sure you’ve got the right person?
How do you get me cheating from this lousy piece of evidence?
The narcissist may as well be saying:
Who do you think you are, coming in here and telling me what I most certainly really truly am?!
Jokes aside, the denial response from them can be infuriating if you’re trying to have an honest, open conversation about a situation that has become painful to you.
Even after they’ve been caught, the denial will just push you away from the scent and leave them to continue cheating, which is really what they wanted after all.
#5 To gaslight you
Anybody who has been with a narcissist knows what it feels like to be gaslighted.
The danger of experiencing gaslighting is that a narcissist will know exactly how to do it without making you feel like anything is particularly wrong. Victims agree with their abuser.
You know, you are so right.
I know I can be sensitive.
I must have just been seeing things.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
I’m sorry. It wasn’t cool of me.
You’re right, I don’t think I like it.
Your opinions and thoughts get squashed and replaced by whatever it is that the narcissist wants you to think and feel.
Your memory gets altered by the lies they are persuading you to think about instead.
And why?
To cloud your judgment. To make you doubt yourself. To make you lose faith in what you remember.
That makes everything so much easier to craft from the narcissist’s point of view.
#6 Making you the problem
Let’s be crystal clear:
If you’re cheated on, it has nothing to do with you.
You did not force the betrayal, or ask them to cheat.
They did it all by themselves, and they have only themselves to blame and hold accountable.
Narcissists won’t want to hear that, because making you the problem is their favorite thing to do.
And what bugs me to high heaven is how convincing narcissists are when they do blame their victim.
And victims apologize!
I wonder if that’s ever been you, saying how sorry you are for driving them into the arms of somebody else.
This is nothing but a big fat lie, and I urge you to rethink any kind of forgiveness the next time you are told it was your fault that they went off and slipped into bed with another person.
The problem is clearly not you. Convincing a narcissist of that is a waste of time, as they will only laugh in your face and tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
#7 Amplify your worth: knowing what’s right
I don’t think you need me to tell you what’s right and wrong, but if I have to, I will.
Cheating is wrong.
The narcissist can call it innocent. They can say it meant nothing. They can even say that because it wasn’t physical, it wasn’t cheating.
Here is where I want to call you out for your own beliefs, because I know they are in there somewhere, buried underneath what the narcissist wants you to think.
Cheating is anything that the narcissist hides from you.
You can have innocent conversations with people you know, and exchange with them, too.
But if emails, texts or messages online are being held back, and you don’t know about them, that’s because the narcissist knows they’re probably crossing a big, fat line.
You don’t deserve to put up with it, and that’s when I want you to:
Amplify your worth.
Know what’s right.
Know how much you want to be treated with respect, and see their line crossing as a sign that they will never treat you that way.
There’s no real reason to allow somebody to lie, even after they’ve been caught.
You have seen it with your own eyes, and no matter how much the narcissist tries to talk their way out of it, you can’t undo what you saw.
That’s where I say, for once, please don’t think it will make you stronger. Please don’t think the narcissist’s apology is genuine.
Neither are true.
