Again

I read that a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

The thought of falling in love with you again leaves me breathless,

But not without the foresight to know that I will fall in love with you

Again, when I see you walk down a wedding aisle toward our commitment,

Again, as we become our children,

Again, each time we stand united against tides,

Again, when you are kind to me,

Again, when I surprise you,

Again, when we do for each other all that we cannot do alone,

Again, as I look through time back to this moment 

When you said 

Yes, I will complete this journey with you only.

Trumped by a Narcissist...not!

Congratulations, America, you're in a long-term relationship with a narcissist. Given that you’re smart and strong enough to attract a narcissist, you’ve got what it takes to recover. Keep reading.  

First, congratulate yourself on being endowed with sufficient intelligence, self-sufficiency, success, ability, beauty and empathy to attract the attention and cross-hairs of a narcissist. Unlike the narcissist, you really are great and your narcissist needs your outlier capabilities to a) fill his empty psyche with the positive and negative attention he needs to feel alive, and to b) never consider for a moment that what you see is actually a carefully constructed network of lies that over the course of a lifetime has become an impenetrable facade and perfect mimic of the integrity you think you see.

You’re not wrong to love him. God knows, he needs real love to become a real boy. He’s been shielding himself from love ever since the trauma occurred--the one that sparked his need to cloak himself from everything in order to shield himself from harm.  

Here's the kicker, America: He needs your tough love even more than your adoration. A trauma greater than the original is likely the only thing able to create a crack in the armor and inverse integrity he has built so long and so well. Even then it may and may not ever happen.

Know that until that happens, you can’t hear him and he can’t hear you. His forced bravado, laugh, and volume together form one of many outer barriers. Until and unless he finds his real voice, be careful on approach.

Next, congratulate yourself on having sufficient survival instinct to read this far. It’s a sign that you accept--just a sliver--that you have been duped.

Stop. Do not start to berate yourself, you’re going to need that energy for your recovery. And perhaps some other relationship experience caused you to unwittingly cloak yourself in the most powerful narcissist-attracting pheromone--vulnerability.

Remember, you’ve got what it takes to recover. First, together, we need to get to a point and place where recovery from a President with NPD is possible.

But how do we invoke "No contact" with a US President? If you cross a narcissist (which can be done by stating a fact) you are likely to invoke narcissistic rage. I've seen it, and I don't think all of the other domestic and world leaders are prepared to deal with it. Who is?

Keep calm and Keep reading.  

Narcissists market themselves brilliantly: “They may present with a swagger, intense eye contact, false bravado/charm, knock-your-socks-off seduction.., swift pacing of rushing the relationship into commitment/cohabitation/marriage/business partnership, promising a future together (which is later discovered to be a lie), intense sexual chemistry, love-bombing (repetitive texting, emailing, phone calls), or romancing the target excessively (flowers, etc).”

Sam Vankin, Ph.D, also offers a few of the things the narcissist finds devastating, originally written for divorce lawyers dealing with a narcissistic personality type on the stand:

• Any statement or fact, which seems to contradict his inflated perception of his grandiose self.
• Any criticism, disagreement, exposure of fake achievements, belittling of “talents and skills” which the narcissist fantasizes that he possesses.
• Any hint that he is subordinated, subjugated, controlled, owned or dependent upon a third party.
• Any description of the narcissist as average and common, indistinguishable from many others.
• Any hint that the narcissist is weak, needy, dependent, deficient, slow, not intelligent, naive, gullible, susceptible, not in the know, manipulated, a victim, an average person of mediocre accomplishments.

The narcissist is likely to react with rage to all these and, in an effort to re-establish his fantastic grandiosity, he is likely to expose facts and stratagems he had no conscious intention of exposing. The narcissist reacts indignantly, with wrath, hatred, aggression, or even overt violence to any infringement of what he perceives to be his natural entitlement.

This doesn't get us any closer to recovery, though.

Keep calm and keep writing.