Did a Narcissist Puppeteer Create YOUR Reality?

Hi Zari

Thanks for the response, it’s just what I needed!!
Firstly, I purchased your book and I must say that’s what’s got me through these last few weeks. I’m still NC and he hasn’t contacted me either,. Tbh I’ve got no inkling whatsoever to contact him – what for him to reject me all over again – no thanks!!

What I didn’t say last time was the fact that I called him out on being a NARC last time I got back with him, and you know what he did?, he did an online test and it said that he was borderline, although I don’t believe he answered the questions as honestly as he could have.

Anyways it’s almost 5 weeks NC and I must say I’m feeling better everyday. The fact that I’m no longer on social media or look at his has helped me enormously. So if anyone is thinking of having a peek, my advice is DON’T DO IT. It will only set you back

I’m just dreading the day when he does get in touch, but I’ve been reading your hoovering techniques, and although he has used a lot of them in the past, I’m ready and waiting for anymore inventive one’s he comes up with. Like deaths in the family etc. I wouldn’t even respond to those after how he has treated me.

I try to keep as busy as I can by going out with friends, redecorating the house and just having some me time. Having someone there who poisons your mind and makes you feel like absolute shit all the time is not conjusive to a loving relationship. I realise I was in love with an illusion, it wasn’t real, that’s what’s getting me through.

Once again Zari thanks for the advice and I’ll keep you posted on how I get on.

One thing I do know is I will NEVER be in this situation EVER in my life…Thank you xx

Hi Zari – this is my story. I started talking to my N online, I fell in love with his sense of humour and his personality. We met and it turns out he was married, by then I was already hooked. There were many red flags that I foolishly chose to ignore, like the fact that he felt that he’d married ‘beneath him’ (his very words). He called his wife ‘thick’ ‘stupid’ ‘fat’ to name but a few. said she never cleaned the house and they hadn’t slept together in 6 years (which turned out to be true).

In a nutshell he swept me off my feet very quickly, apologised for things he didn’t need to. He also came across as being very naive and too honest for his own good, telling me things that made him look stupid to be frank but that endeared me to him more. He’s a lorry driver and he’d ask a question in his mind about whether he was going to marry me and then count the sheep in the passing fields for the answer – as you can imagine the sheep always answered a resounding YES. I thought it was strange but twee at the same time.

He wanted to leave his wife almost immediately but I was cautious, mainly because my previous relationship was also a N (although I didn’t know it at the time. We had a few arguments which always resulted in me begging for the relationship to continue. In the meantime his wife found out about us and he left her. it caused a lot of trouble within his family and most of them inevitably took her side. She called me to say that he was a compulsive liar. When I asked him about this he said ‘of course I’m a liar I’ve been conducting an affair for the last 12 months, which again I foolishly accepted. I did catch him out on a couple of silly lies early on and he’d twist and turn and rattle on for hours that I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

He left me quite a few times and always said it was the guilt about leaving his wife and teenage daughter that caused it – or me. He even went to see a councellor to help him cope with the guilt he was feeling.

Whenever we argued he would go on and on for hours about how my anger (at what he’d said or done) that was the problem, he convinced me so much so that I paid £350 for anger management classes!!!

He even went back to his wife in the early days and told her that I was a drug dealer, a tramp and a horrible person (he told me this) AND I STILL WENT BACK. He’d drill into my head what a lovely decent man he was and that everyone likes him, which did seem to be true as he was always the life and soul of the party whenever we went out.

He’s also a BIG drinker, he says he works hard and plays hard, which is true as he works 70 -80 hours a week, but he still expected me to pay my way whenever we did anything together. Every single argument we had would result in me either apologising or feeling totally confused. Let me just say here that I’m no shrinking violet and that I always gave as good as I got (which was ALWAYS the crux of the problem).

Nearly every time we went out together would end up in a fight which of course was always my fault. He once told me that he’d got chatting to some women in a pub when he was out with friends and told them how horrible I was to him and that they’d told him to leave me , and I STILL WENT back.

I’d tell him about what a bad day at work I’d had and mention my horrible boss or a coworker and he’d be understanding at the time, but then in an argument would say that I don’t even get along with the people at work. Said I was a horrible grandmother because My grandkids aren’t with me every weekend, the list goes on and on.

Anyway the last few times he’s left I decided not to beg him back and hey presto he was always back although each time has got longer, at the beginning it was a day, then a few days, then a week, then 2 then 3, anyway last august he ended up renting a flat, but begged to move back in with me. He’d signed up for 6 months and I told him that we’d see how he went after the 6 months, suffice to say, the last fallout resulted in him buying a house, but still insisting that his ultimate goal is to rent the house out and move in with me.

He’s never been very sex orientated, if I’m honest he was a bit boring in the bedroom and said that I was sex mad – which I certainly am not. What I couldn’t understand is that he watches loads of porn on the internet WTF is that all about??

We had a big fall out in new year which resulted in me ending it, In was so fucking determined too. I lasted nearly 7 weeks in which he attempted the hoovering, texting to ask if I’d been trying to text him, that he missed me you get the drift.I ignored it, and then a few days later something happened and I was stuck and I called him, he seemed so genuinely pleased that I’d got in touch but I told him that I only got in touch as I was desperate for his help at the time. I ended up getting drunk and sleeping with him.

The ironic thing is Zari that I’d already been on your website and it had honestly gave me the motivation and determination to stay away for good and I was back to square one.

It lasted the whole of 2 weeks, we went out last week, we went back to his flat, we were happy and laughing, I went to the bathroom, and somehow the buckle on my bag had caught his shower screen and it shattered into a million pieces, In was stood there in shock not knowing what had happened, he gave me a horrible look like I’d done it on purpose and we started arguing and this resulted in him dragging me out of his flat in the middle of the night blind drunk, I’m ashamed to say that i drove the 4 miles home, although it had sobered me up, I was most certainly over the drink drive limit. The next day I called him for the rest of my stuff and he answered by saying he wants nothing more to do with me and we’re finished. He even acknowledged that he knew that the shower screen had been an accident, when I responded with the fact that id been dragged out of his flat by my hair in the middle of the night he ignored me. Not that I was bothered, he left all my clothes in a bin liner on the seat of his car saying with a note saying he can’t cope with ME and that we’re finished.

I changed my mobile number and my landline number at great expense and am determined that I will NEVER go back. I realised that I’d left my hearing aid at his flat, but knowing that he was away working and that he knows how much I need it that he would post it to me, after a week (last Friday) I emailed him and asked him to post it, he never replied, so I got my son in law to call him, well he was all sweetness and light to him saying that he would drop it off on Saturday or Sunday, he never came on Saturday and I knew that he goes to the pub on Sunday all day, so my daughter text to see whennhe was dropping it off. He replied that he’d dropped it off and that the shower screennhad cost £110!!

I can’t believe after what he did to me that he was only bothered about the fucking shower screen. I has a little peek on his twitter account which he is addicted to and what I saw made me feel sick, he was listing pics of young girls (no older than 18) his daughter is 23, he’s 50 years old. Acting like he doesn’t give a shit, I told him the last time we fell out that I didn’t look on his twitter account, I’m ashamed to say In was obsessively on it, as he says he was with mine. I have now deleted my twitter account and will not look again. I KNOW for a fact he will be in touch although the last time was 6’weeks this time it will be inevitably longer. I HATE the man with a passion, I’m wishing alsorts of horrible things to happen to him, I’m thinking maybe I’m as bad him. I wish I could just forget about everything but it’s hard. Its been 11 days now and some days I feel so optimistic and others I just cry, I can’t believe what a monster he turned our to be.

Oh man–my life story for 8 years. It’s like the puppet master has a training manual from Hell itself. It’s really a game changer though when you–the little dancing puppet– starts to do their own jig–like buy a house, move away, set boundaries, enforce boundaries, go no contact etc. etc. When I did these things–the perspective completely changed and I had a vantage point in which to watch the evil ways the puppet master worked. Cut those strings and run! It is the only way back to a sane reality and any hope for a fulfilling life. Pawn the shit they gave you (or maybe keep something as a reminder of the hell you lived) and choreograph your own dance. It has taken me a year and half to do this (more like 2 months for each year I was with him) but I like my new dance. No one tweaks those strings but me and I feel like at age 50, I am finally starting to live. Wouldn’t trade it now for anything in the world and Zari this blog has been a huge part of cutting those strings and not returning to the entanglement. Never could thank you enough for all the hours you have spent pouring your heart into a site to help those you don’t know.

The narcissist DID create my reality…but the good news is that he does NOT do so any longer! In hindsight I guess I foiled his pathological relationship agenda haha. That final silent treatment was probably intended to turn me from a PIT to an actual puppet. But no, it did not cause me to forget all of his suspicious, rotten behavior or make me fall into step. All it did was piss me off enough to take my scissors out, cut the strings and make a run for it, once and for all. Not to mention, move on to a better life and a better love. Do whatever you can to move on and cut the strings!

Our precious Zari, I feel IOU a debt I will never be able to pay. My 22 year partnership with an N ended almost 5 months ago in a text from him. We maintained separate residences. He is my boss. We are both executives. I stayed away from my office for a week after the text, then returned with a closed-office-door policy and a set of Bose sound-blocking headphones. he has a booming presence…even when I was getting the silent treatment he would yuck it up plenty when he holds court at his office next door. He is always the center of attention. I call his regular worshippers the bobble heads.

He is also a top elected official, for whose campaign I am treasurer. I’m white ( which was always my fault) he is not. His daughters and I are extremely close as I’ve been involved with them most of their lives.

I am 60 this year. (Yikes!) and don’t relish a job search at this point. He retires next fall (2017). I want to believe I can evolve my perception of him as a tedious cliche to get through the next 20or so months. I have numerous colleagues who are uber supportive and on to him.

He’s in the number 2 spot at our $10 million non profit, I’m number 3. I’ve mostly done his job for him over the years…I’ve now backed that way off. Our contact has remained minimal, polite and professional. There is certainly an extra heart-rending layer of pain with seeing him every day. He does Hoover a bit, but I stay aloof- I’m the first to end a discussion with him and rarely instigate one.

I trust your instincts and respect your experience with NPDs. Can I do this? Can I hold out until he’s gone? I love what I do and have helped build our organization for 26 years.

Thank you…I have voraciously gobbled up the work ofSam Vaknin, Melanie Tonia Evans, Richard Grannon and others… But you struck a chord that neither those goodfolks, nor the two psychologists I’ve consulted so far have been able to. Your publications are lifesaving. Most eye-opening personally was the workbook revelations.

Perhaps I should have a session with you… You are god sent. Thank you again. Much love.

I’m so effing blown away. Been in this relationship for almost five years. I stumbled across narcissism and covert narcissism by accident by Googling the silent treatment. I am overwhelmed. I am pissed. I am shocked into silence in his presence. Most telling was the feelings I’ve had before I discovered this…I actually said to him not to long ago that I had lowered my expectations of what would happen in the relationship. He had managed to do what Zari described in her book and many other things without me knowing. Now it makes sense. All the odd things, the weird times where he seemed to have no emotion when another human would. I need to leave. I am not sure where to start. Thank you, Zari, for having this information out there. He knows something is up, has started with the texts again, saying I probably will leave him for someone else, etc. I’m waiting for him to tire of it and try to piss me off so he can do the silent treatment again and pull me back in. Or he’ll get sick and I have to take care of him. OMG I cannot describe how completely mind blown I am right now.

Zari, What is their motive? Who purposely seeks people to deceive, I drive myself crazy every day going over the lies, the senselessness of it all and come up with nothing. To have total disregard, to not care what your actions cause, what type of human being is this? This ex of mine, his father whom I never met who he claims to hate and denies vehemently he’s anything like him, was a womanizer who left his mother with his newborn sister and he at 3 yrs. old. Was sporadically in and out of their lives, always disappointing. His mother who I don’t trust gives me the impression of a keneiving gold digger, phoney, who over praised him and bailed him out his whole life and taught her kids her ways. I believe he got the worst of both, the narcissistic gene from his father and learned behavior from his mother. And I had the unfortunate luck to have him find me!