When a narcissist wants to cheat, there’s nothing you can do about it. And let me tell you, it’s common for them to want to have their cake and eat it, too.
If you’re a victim to an unfaithful narcissist, you are going to witness them opening their little playbook and reading you one or more of these 9 excuses.
They’re boring and tiring, but if you know them, you’ll know you’re dealing with a person who doesn’t care about you at all.
Before I get any more direct, let’s check the list out.
Tiring, Aren’t They?
I mean both narcissists and their excuses, here. With both being equally as tiring as the other, they play the game of cheating so well that you’ll convince yourself they somehow earned the right to be disloyal to you.
If you’re not careful at all, they may even push you to the limit; thinking you were the one to blame for their actions.
I know. What kind of sick world is this?
#1 “You Actually Neglected Me”
Hold on a second! The narcissist is trying to frame it so that you are to blame?
Well, I will say this is actually a highly common phrase for narcissists to use as an excuse for their cheating.
Acting as if their needs weren’t met by you to the point where they sought another person to cheat with is not something you should tolerate or bow down to.
In fact, I’d say this is one of the worst ways for a person to express to you that you’re not good enough, and narcissists do that so well.
For you, you’ll likely be programmed to hang your head in shame and see the whole move as something you could have prevented – if only you treated them better.
I’m here to say no. That’s just not the case at all. This is the narcissist blame shifting and nothing more.
#2 “We Were On a Break!”
Were you? Have I entered an early episode of Friends? Because that didn’t go so well, either.
The narcissist will define ‘break’ in a way that suits them, and not you. Your version of events (and likely the actual version) is yet again going to be distorted by their excuse that you were temporarily broken up.
So, it gives them an automatic kind of permission to just go and do whatever it is they want to do.
But hang on, that break is all in their head. You probably got into a fight and they walked off thinking they had a free pass to cheat.
We all know it doesn’t work that way!
#3 “I Didn’t Want to Hurt You”
Wait… What? The narcissist didn’t want to hurt you, so they went behind your back and cheated instead of declaring it to you first, or breaking up with you?
I’ll rephrase this for you, for ease:
“I didn’t have the courage to end things with you first because I like a double helping of supply, plus I love the adoration from as many people as possible.
Plus, you know, I’m a narcissist so I figured if this didn’t work out, at least I’d still have you as a back up.”
There, I fixed it for you.
#4 “I Needed Closure”
Closure from an ex in the form of going back to them and sleeping with them? Right… gotcha.
In my world, closure from a person comes in the form of either them or you deciding that you want to end things.
And yes, in some worlds that even might mean ghosting (not that I condone that), but that is the closure a person might need.
Nobody needs to chase, nobody needs a final fling before you part ways, nobody needs that all night conversation laced with intermittent kisses.
Over is over. This is nothing but a high school excuse from an adult who really should know better.
If they can’t respect you enough to know their past is in their past, then what are you even doing with them?
#5 “I Was Drunk, I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing”
I’ve heard a lot of things in my time, but neer have I been so keen to veto this ridiculous excuse for cheating.
But you know what? If a narcissist can’t blame a person or take responsibility for their own actions, then they will blame the very poison that they chose to drink all night, the night they cheated.
The alcohol
made me do it!
Whatever. This is a really insulting way to tell somebody you value getting drunk over your own relationship. It’s not okay.
#6 “You Pushed Me Away”
When you think about what actually happened here, was it that you pushed them away? The narcissist will fall into a fire trying to convince you that was the case, but realistically, you did not make that person cheat.
Nobody can force another person to cheat.
This is all done by choice, and the choice lies with the person who committed infidelity.
Do not listen to anybody who blames you for their indiscretions.
#7 “She Came Onto Me”
Okay. Paint the picture. Your narcissistic boyfriend is out for the night, and you don’t hear from him.
The next day you find out he cheated, and he blames the other woman for making the initial move.
It wasn’t something he could turn away from or stop? There wasn’t some time before the move where she got signals from him that it was okay to get to that point?
Come on. This is just such a lame excuse that I don’t even know what else I can do to prove that this guy is a narcissist.
It’s pathetic.
#8 “It Wasn’t Physical”
Ah, okay. So all those text messages, those coffee dates, enjoying each other’s company at work, late night talking on the phone while you’re in bed; they weren’t physically intimate?
The daily life you shared together actually can feel worse than the drunken mistake they tried to talk their way out of above, don’t you think?
Emotions are deep, and if your narcissistic partner is telling you that “nothing happened,” it’s telling you that they think it’s okay to cross all the other lines of infidelity other than bodies touching.
It’s not okay, and it doesn’t make it innocent or right. They need to realize that if it hurts you, then it was wrong.
#9 “It Was a Mistake. Everyone Makes Them”
Throwing everybody into the category of, “We all make mistakes” is a really dangerous game to play, don’t you think?
I think mistakes vary, and I wouldn’t put somebody who cheats in the same position as somebody who burned the dinner.
Cheating really doesn’t have any excuses attached to it that justify the act.
Narcissists will want to just look and sound like they are like everybody else – “oops” – but no. There’s nothing “oops” about betraying the person you claim to love and care about.
Don’t be dragged into their wrongdoing by the default of, “I’m human. It happens.” There needs to at the very least be some genuine level of remorse, otherwise you’re going to see it repeatedly happen.
