nowinsituation

One of the most depressing aspects of being in a relationship, and leaving, a narcissist or sociopath is that they seem unaffected and quickly move on to their next victim. This article has a great perspective on that, and how YOU are actually the winner.

https://solongsociopath.wordpress.co...-narcissistic/

Lilro

Thank you for that!! Guess what???

I WIN!

Praying

These are my feelings exactly!!! Thank you for sharing...I feel like I won too...

You can't "WIN" by getting them to see the error of their ways or reason with them or expect closure or remorse...

But oh how you can win by taking your power back and keeping your beauty.

And like any good fight worth winning...sure, there's a few scars...and also an amazing trophy...

Liveitwell

Praying-that trophy is freedom from them!

hopeful4

I sure know that I won when I divorced my narcissist X. I prayed all the time for signs, even when they were right in front of me.

Living with a narcissist is a life sentence of hell on earth, and no one deserves that.

Thanks for the article!

thequest

A confirmation actually. I was thinking about the alkie here who has stepped up his tirades/verbal assaults on how no one in the family helped him PAY for HIS last dui including lawyers, fees, fines etc. It was an inconvenience for him. Not a wake up call , not a bottom, not a penalty he must pay: just an inconvenience. Along with being a threat to his image amongst his current circle of friends which to me is yet another sign of him being a narcissist since he didn't have guilt or shame just worry about HIS image & finances.

Do not engage the narcissists directly. I've noticed just a simple challenge or comment throws him off sometimes. Could set him off as well but on more than one occasion his view/opinion was challenged with fact and it at least helped the subject go away.

PEACE

oldsoul1122

Been there. You win simply because of who you are, and what he isn't.

Readreadread

"Sure he will keep trying to get to me, sure I lost a false love, a fake relationship, those memories that were not so awful… sometimes. Those memories were always followed by or preceded by severe harm."
This really spoke to me.... There were good times, but they were often precedes or followed by bad, especially as the disease progressed. I am thankful that now I know the difference, relationships don't have to such extreme highs and lows. thanks for sharing.

Liveitwell

^ that spoke to me! Wow. That's what I started realizing-the good times were only filler for in between increasingly disturbing bad times.

Mango blast

"Here is a secret though, sure we do not WIN in the “care-less” department but when we walk away, grow, move forward, find ourselves we certainly win.

Imagine yourself in Hell, if you are in a relationship with such a personality as a Narcissist or Sociopath it is easy enough to do, then picture your triumph as you find yourself escaping the depths of Hell to find your own peace."

---

I've been no contact for many months now and my anxiety is gone. WIN!

lizatola

amen!!!!!

honeypig

I missed this on its first go-round, and apparently on the second one, too, but I'm so glad I saw it this time! I don't have any reason to believe XAH is a sociopath or narcissist, but he is certainly an alcoholic (and I've come to believe that he also has some ADD/ADHD issues, too). It seems to me that all of this absolutely applies to him/me/us/the years we spent together.

I absolutely do feel I've progressed and am in a different and better place than I was at any point while I was with him. As time has passed since the divorce, I've gotten past my anger and pain, and we do talk on the phone, and he comes by for coffee a couple times a month. From what I see, he remains in the same place he was.

Interestingly, even a year or so ago, I would have thought to myself "I win, I'm changing and growing and he is not!" Now, although I'm truly happy for the strides that I've made thus far and hopeful about further ones to be made in the time to come, I don't feel that same sense of winning/losing, that need to think that "I came out ahead." I'm getting to the point where it simply doesn't matter. There IS no winner, no loser--we are each just walking our own path in this particular lifetime. I know that his path is not mine.

I don't know if that will make sense to anyone else here. I know it wouldn't have made sense even to me just a short time ago. But again, when I read a thread like this and start pondering, when I think about how I do feel and what I do think right now--those are the times I can see how I've learned and how my thoughts, my life and my world are changing.

Thanks to all who've posted here and to those who bumped it up again at such an appropriate time for me.

FallenAngelina

It makes sense to me and this is the only way I find that I can progress on my path of peace and serenity. Frankly, it's hard for me to see all the posts here that hate on the alcoholic. I get that anger can be helpful in the early stages of separation and recovery for those of us who love an alcoholic, but alcoholics are people, just like us. The constant vilification of alcoholics on this forum is not all that helpful to me. I understand that this bandwagon of derision is the only way to get that emotional distance that scares so many of us codependents and I understand the value of seeing bad behavior for what it is. But there's precious little compassion and love around here for the human beings we struggle to love and who love us, which is why I have been less frequent in my posts. Not that anyone asked - it's just my feedback to the forum community here.

My point is to appreciate what you said, honeypig. I would love to see more long timers here, who have the stability of time and distance, posting with a more compassionate and loving tone as you do.

Eauchiche

I just announced my retirement from playing church music after 40 years. At the end of this month, I will be free from the irritating influence of anyone connected with that scene.
Oh happy day!!!!

atalose

I am sorry you feel that way FallenAngelina. I think that so many come here to SR in crisis mode, high drama, chaos and often many are in unsafe living environments so the compassion tends to lean towards the person seeking help here and not so much the suffering addict.

I know for me my own compassion kept me in an unhealthy living environment for so long but it was compassion for myself that helped me find my way out of that. Did I still have compassion for my ex you bet I did. Do I still have compassion today for my ex today, absolutely, and I include him in my daily prayers and only wish him well but I know that I need to do that from a safe distance for myself.

At times I felt anger and hate towards him but it was that anger that also motivated me to make the necessary changes in myself so that I could find my peace and serenity separate from him. The hate well there were times I wish I could have thrown him off a cliff but then I know me and I’d rush to the bottom to catch him.

I agree with Honeypig there are no winner or losers only experiences on this road of life.

Seren

I suppose I never assume that all alcoholics are narcissists nor vice versa. Dual diagnoses with a variety of co-occurring illnesses is not uncommon, but not the rule, either.

And yes, compassion can be hard to come by for someone who has suffered due to someone else's addiction. But it is possible to find. I think we all do so at our own pace.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ompassion.html

honeypig

I think that what we feel about our qualifiers depends on a number of variables. One is certainly where we are in our own recovery journey. Forgiveness takes time, and I don't think anyone would disagree.

Another, though, is what the relationship was like. The degree and type of abuse, how personal it felt, how long it went on--I think all of those things affect what we feel towards our qualifiers too. XAH wasn't often verbally abusive, never physically abusive, didn't cheat that I know of or suspect--and while I'm not saying that the absence of those things makes the situation "not as bad", I AM saying that it has been a lot easier for me to get past these things than if he was cussing me out daily, cheating on me, and/or slapping me around.

And yet another variable, I think, is how it all ended. XAH was decent, in the end. He did not fight me for the house, which I'd brought to the marriage. We were able to easily and fairly divide up our assets. We only used a lawyer to make sure our paperwork was filled out correctly and completely. We were in and out of court in one visit for the separation, then only had to fill out papers and mail them in to convert to a divorce b/c we both consented. Now if we'd had a dragged-out, costly court battle and I'd ended up losing what I felt was mine by rights, I'd doubtless feel very differently towards XAH. But again, in my situation, XAH did not add needlessly to the pain and struggle, so it was much easier to move on from.

So, what I'm trying to say here is that, as much as I'd love to be venerated as some wise and kind person, I'm only another bozo on the bus. I've been able to make some good progress w/healing and forgiving, but in all honesty, I can only take so much credit for that. I started from a relatively easy place, and I had a LOT of help from those who've been down the path before. I can't really judge how someone else is doing b/c even though all of us here are in the same boat, the boat isn't quite the same for any of us, if you get what I mean. And I need to remind myself of that often, too, b/c I DO tend to forget what it was like when I was new...

AnvilheadII

there is a BIG difference between your run of the mill addict/alcoholic and a sociopath or narcissist that also happens to have a substance abuse problem.