Plausible Deniability is the Narcissist’s Free Pass

I have been reading about narricist for a year or so now as I believe my partner of 10 years is a narricist … all areas of this sight make me nod my head in agreement… I have children with this man …He a abandoned me N children many times when I really need ed his support… I suspect he has cheated on me a number of times but have no real proof…I want to leave him for me and my children as it’s not a healthy relationship …maybe I’m weak ..sometimes he’s ok and will help with kids … but our relationship is very unbalanced and I feel like I’m losing my mind …If I knew for definate he’s cheated I would defo leave ..wouldn’t I ?? I deserve to be loved…. why do I let this go on and on …help????

I was the scapegoat of my family growing up, and just in the last year i started to break free of that role! Growing up I can recall a few scenarios looking back that verify my feeling of low self worth being untrue. If i were too share every story it would be longer than any novel! Ill share a few just to paint the picture bob ross style lol! (nice and fast)
One time when i was maybe 10-11 years old, the girl that lived down the street came over and we would ride bikes like all normal kids do. My brother (the golden child) was outside playing hockey and decides to start shooting hockey pucks at me and my friend, knocking us off our bikes. I got angry and tried standing up to him. So he put his hockey stick in my spokes and I went flying of my bike chipping my tooth and splitting my lip open on the belgium blocks that lined the driveway…. Bleeding profusely from the lip, scrapes all up my chest from sliding across the asphalt… my brother proceeds to break my ankle with his hockey stick while i lay on the floor bleeding. When my mother came home from work, she made him lunch and gave him an ice cream while I waited to be brought to the hospital. I knew she would somehow make this my fault so i initially limped around swearing to god that I was “ok” and didn’t need medical attention because I knew the wrath I was about to face from my narcissistic mother! I couldn’t bear any weight on my ankle because the growth plate was shattered! The whole way to the hospital I got yelled and screamed at trying to make me admit that i did “such and such” to my brother and i got what i deserved!
In 7th-8th i was bullied by everyone in school after a kid in my school got in a car accident with his father and both passed away.. somehow the role of scapegoat proceeded outside of my family and i was blamed for their death. Instead of my mother being a person that i could confide in… i would come home to being told that I’m overly sensitive and that its my fault that i let them bully me. I was told i deserve this treatment and she did nothing nut punish me for crying to her about what was going on at school. I was pushed down two flights of stairs by kids at school and beat up at least once or twice a week! I was all alone and had nobody in the world to turn to. Anyone who was once my friend didn’t want to be my friend because they were scared that they would get beat up just for associating with me.

then when i was a teenager my parents would go to professional hockey games with my brother and only buy three tickets. then yell at me saying that i don’t wanna be part of this family and that id rather hang out with my friends than be with them. In fact it was the exact opposite. They didn’t want me in the family cause by that time I started calling them out on their BS and whistle blowers tend to take on the scapegoat role.

Now in my 30s i am happily married and have a BEAUTIFUL baby girl! the attempts of lowering my self worth are still perpetrated by my mother. She is a master of gas lighting and lying by omission! When cornered and caught in her lies she shifts gears to some other event that happened just to redirect the blame from her to me!
this is where your article really resonates with me! You called it the “Distraction-Reaction” I have always tried words to explain this and could never come up with it but your article…or just those two words you wrote summed it up better than i can ever express!!
I now haven’t spoken to my brother in over a year!! Now as of yesterday i think we (my wife and I ) finally experienced the straw that broke the camels back! We decided that my mother is no longer allowed in our lives!

Every year they have a 4th of july party. So two weeks ago i ask her what she is doing on the 4th and she gives me some BS story about how she isn’t having a party this year. My wife also asked my mother a week ago and my mother gave her a different story about not making the party this year for the 4th…. So my wife and I make other plans. Then yesterday (the 3rd of july) i ask her “so what are you doing this weekend?” She tells me her plans for that night and tells me what she is doing on the 5th but avoids mentioning her plans for the 4th… So i got more specific saying “what are you doing on the 4th?” She then tells me “oh we are having a party like we do every year!” So, she obviously lied to us cause she didn’t want me there. I then call her out on it and she turns it all around saying that she was offended that we made oner plans and she was mad at us for not coming to her party! Mind you she lied to us in order to keep us from knowing that she was even having a party then makes us the bad guys when we made other plans instead of going to the party that we never knew was even happening. When I call her out on that…she then starts the DISTRACTION REACTION….. She starts talking about things from the past that have no relevance to the issue of her lying to us about the party… or pretty much brings up anything that diverts from the argument at hand where she lied to us about the party cause she doesn’t want us there. Then says stuff like “HOW DARE I TALK TO HER THAT WAY” or “when you are ready to talk to me like a human being call me” So i stand up to her again and call out her BS and go back to the fact that she purposly didn’t tell us about the party and she is a {insert four letter word of your choice}… So when she is cornered and realized that she is losing this one she then starts attacking my wife saying that my wife is tearing my family apart!
So as of yesterday my wife and I decided that we won’t stand for it anymore!!! my mother is dead to us! She will never see her grand daughter again and can no longer control me. I have been in therapy for over a year now and have been standing my ground against my mothers narcissistic ways. She has realized that the dynamic has changed and she can no longer treat me the way she was so used to. However a narcissist needs a fall guy. So thats where my wife comes in! I WILL NOT ALLOW MY MOTHER TO DO TO MY WIFE WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO ME!
It was not easy for me to get to this point of breaking free! I just hope that even one person can read my experience and learn that they can overcome this and they are NOT worthless like their narcissistic family has taught them to believe

I literally have CHILLS reading this. I cannot believe how accurate this is. Reading it, I felt like I was having a glimpse of my past relationship. My ex never did anything like fly off for two weeks, because he was too lazy and never wanted to leave the house. But anytime I’d bring up something he did that really hurt me, he would ALWAYS do this. In the end, I’d be apologizing, being left so confused, questioning my sanity and blaming myself. He’d make me feel bad for always causing us to fight. I get it now, wow what an eye-opener. Thank you so much for this blog, you have no idea how much this has helped me with my very recent break up.

I have been with my recently turned ex-narcissistic bf for over 5 years. Ours is a very long story, so I won’t go into it right now.

However, this post compelled me to comment. My ex-N’s favorite response when I complained that he wasn’t there for me…”I’m here now.” It didn’t matter if I really needed him last week, or last night. No matter what I said, he would just repeat, “I’m here now!”. Talk about crazy making!

I have been researching narcissism for the past month and I cannot believe how many stories I can relate to. For the past several years, I have suspected that he was a narcissist, but was not convinced until I went from his Primary Source of supply to his Secondary. (He is a cerebral narcissist!) I didn’t even recognize this person! He acted completely different towards me! Actually, in some ways, even nicer, or at least it seemed so. But then he began withdrawing. No interest in me sexually! Contact became less and less and when we were together, he treated me more like a friend than his lover. I was baffled. But, after reading multiple articles about narcissism, it makes sense now.

The best part is knowing that I am not the crazy one. However, I do feel sorry for him. This is the person whom I have loved deeply for the past 5+ years. I would have done anything for him. Now I realize he will never really know the joy of what it is to love and be loved by someone. I’m not sure why…but I can forgive him. I guess it’s because I finally realized he no longer has a hold on me. He can’t hurt me anymore because now I understand where his motivation comes from. It really has nothing to do with me!

Anyway, I am beginning my path to recovery. I know it won’t be easy, but I am finally ready to commit myself to being strong enough to work through this pain and let go. It’s comforting to know that there are great people, who share similar experiences, to help support such an agonizing decision!

Thanks!

I have never caught my n ex cheating or lying, but I have seen him lie to other people. My story is a little different in a few aspects, as I dated a cerebral narcissist and I believe you and most of the other commenters dated somatic narcs. He has however always accused me of lying and used a particular event that happened at the beginning of our relationship, where I had in fact done nothing wrong, to motivate his lack of trust for the whole 6 months that we were together. He’s been checking my phone, checking my subway card, checking my bank account!!! and I foolishy thought that if I allowed that, he would see that he can trust me. We had permanent fights over completely unimportant things, like science news, when we would disagree about a certain topic the fight would always turn into something very similar to the above dialogue. Even tho we fought about something entirely different than your dialogue, when I read it, it totally hit home. He always said I am the one who is twisting words, however, I was always so confused at the end of a fight not being able to understand what on earth just happened. How could I end up crying after a freakin conversation about radiation poisoning !?!!? Or about religion or politics, where we mainly had the same ideas to begin with! Or after a conversation about cars! How can a conversation like that turn personal !?!? It turned personal because he could’n’t stand the fact that I had arguments and he had to deflect the whole conversation from the main topic, and accuse me of always wanting to win, to get me in deffensive.

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!! YOU STOLE THIS CONVERSATION OUT OF MY BEDROOM!!! My husband took off for 2 weeks with his Gf with my car–oops, his car–i SAW him over there and EVERYTHING he said is right off these pages! Me being bipolar, me being a bully, me bringing up the past, hebwanna get out the car cause he sick of me and he about to lose it!!!!! Why are all Ns the same?!? Thank you for bringing me back to reality!!! I have known about NPD for about 2 Yeats now and i don’t know WHAT came over me this last time that I forgot what I was dealing with and let him back–oh yeah I dropped out of my support group when I closed my Facebook page….thank YOU SO MUCH for this!!!!