If you’re trying to move on from a narcissist, this one’s for you.
There are things you can do to help yourself heal and take steps forward, and there are moves you can make that pull you right back several steps.
Seeing as you’re trying hard to release yourself from your abusive past, I’d say there is one mistake in particular I need you to avoid making.
Let’s look at what that is, and how to avoid it.
I know you want them to understand you
Who doesn’t want to be understood, especially in the relationship they’re in?
Without it, you’re just two people leading two different lives while trying to convince yourselves and the world that you’re a perfect match.
You feel like your responsibility in the relationship is for the narcissist to get you.
You try so hard to come across as somebody who wants to communicate well and have it back in return, but it doesn’t happen.
How can it?
A huge mistake people always make when trying to move forward from a narcissist is to try to understand them, and have them understand you back.
You feel that with this kind of mutual appreciation, moving on will be easier for you, but that’s just not the case.
What the narcissist does with these efforts
When you have broken up from a narcissist, and you are trying to move on, you have to put yourself first.
Start by taking some time to think about why you are broken up.
You felt unseen.
You felt unheard.
You felt unloved.
These don’t look like much on paper, but in a relationship if you aren’t getting these three major things, it’s game over.
Nothing will last because everything love is, is built on being seen, being heard, and being loved.
Your efforts to be understood are wasted on the narcissist, whose intentions with you were never to really know you enough to love you, but rather know you enough to use you.
So when you try to strike a conversation with them to figure out why they act the way they do, you’ll be met with resistance.
Maybe even denial. Perhaps a sprinkle of projection, or rage that you’d even have the audacity to try to know them.
As you dig for an opportunity to be vulnerable with the person you once loved to find out what happened between you, you assume they will help you talk it through so you can move on with ease.
They won’t.
And for that, you will never get closure.
Closure is mistaken
You heard me.
I think closure is something everybody wants, but only victims of narcissistic abuse assume the only way to get it is via their abuser, and that’s why it’s such a mistaken concept.
Conversations that lead to a feeling of closure don’t happen, and I think that’s because the victim is always hoping there will be some kind of remorse involved that will ultimately bring them back together with the person who they should be moving on from.
If you want closure, you have to stop thinking that you are going to be able to understand why they are the kind of person they are.
You will never get them to admit that they’re a narcissist, and they will never want anything more from you other than the supply you once so freely gave them.
Going into conversations: two different goals
This is really what allows for mutual understanding to slip away, don’t you think?
You are you, and you spent all your time with the narcissist heading into each conversation with the hope that they will understand you.
You want them to be better, to listen more. You want to be validated, and you want a solution to the problems you face together.
The narcissist is against all of that. Their goal is to deny all of what you want, throw whatever the drama is right back in your face and cause you to react.
They create a level of confusion that distorts your reality, making it easier for you to fire back a reaction you won’t be proud of, but they will love.
Understanding this goes a long way to realizing that in the long term, any kind of conversation just isn’t going to work.
You want different things, and the only person who feels good about the outcome is the narcissist.
That’s probably why you’re now in a place where you’re moving on from them. You’ve had enough.
What you’re making sense about is the truth
Moving from a narcissistic person creates room for you to make sense of the truth.
All that time you were with them, you sought to try to understand why they are the way they are, without accepting they were born and raised this way.
The truth is, you no longer have to wonder. You can live freely in the knowledge that a relationship with a narcissist will never make you happy, therefore you don’t have to try to understand them.
It’s enough to know that they’re toxic and bring misery to your life.
You want progress, they prevent it at all costs
Moving on is possible, but if you’re being pulled back by the narcissist, it’s because you are wishing they would take accountability for their actions.
You think, “If they could just do that, then we’d stand a chance.”
That’s not necessarily the case, and you’re lumping whether or not the relationship will succeed or fail based on how much they understand their narcissism.
There’s no way you’ll get those answers, nor that admission.
Your progress is prevented by the narcissist at all costs, especially when they see you’re trying to dig an honest person out of somebody who lives to lie.
They know they can’t give you what you want, so instead they will turn around and blame you for trying to ‘change them.’
And you’re stuck.
You’re stuck wishing and hoping, but knowing that wishing and hoping won’t get you anywhere.
You feel as though you can’t move on until you hear what you want to hear.
- An admission. “Yes, I am a narcissist.”
- An apology. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”
- Validation. “You didn’t deserve my treatment of you.”
- “Reassurance. “You’re not those things I painted you out to be.”
The best thing you can understand is that you can’t get those comments, but that you can live without hearing them.
You’ve spent too much time already trying to understand your part in their games, to no avail.
Now it’s your turn to start living how you want to live, and leaving the past behind you.
If I can offer you a solution moving forward, it’s that trying to understand the narcissist, or have them understand you is a total waste of time.
When you’re trying to move on, the best action you can take is making the promise to yourself that you won’t put yourself through any of that again.
From now on, it’s only emotionally regulated people you will give your time to.
Anybody else – give a wide step away from.
