How Did I Fall in Love with a Narcissist? [Ep: 820]

0:00 Welcome back to the Ashley Burgess podcast. I recently had a YouTube viewer ask, why do people fall for narcissists? How does this happen? How do they get into a relationship with somebody like this? Did they know? Did they have an idea of what they were dealing with in the beginning? Well, that's the case. They didn't know what they were dealing with in the beginning. It's not like they went out and chose a narcissist to be in a relationship with. They actually chose the person that they met that showed up in the beginning of the relationship. The version of that person that seemed amazing, one of a kind, a soulmate or a twin flame. And then over time, that begins to augment and change. You're left with something completely different, a person that's utterly different than what you ever imagined could be. This is how it happens.

0:44 And the problem is, is that you initially get into a relationship with one person, but over time, that person morphs and changes to somebody else. Now, it's the kind of concept of the chicken and the egg, right, which came first. You know it. In all honesty, this person has always been like they are later on. They develop this image and this mask that they use to be able to, well, get people to do what they want to do, to get people to fall in love with them, to get people to tell them all their dreams, desires, and secrets. And then they begin to gaslight and manipulate that person and use them for their resources and what they can get from them. So this is the issue. And I know that many of you are in a position right now that you're in a relationship with somebody.

1:25 You never saw this coming. You never saw this coming. You thought you were in this relationship with this amazing person. And this is when the trouble hits is when the narcissist completely reveals themselves and you see them for who they truly are. What do you do? Because that becomes a conundrum, a personal conundrum for you. Because the pain of seeing the narcissist is overwhelming and actually kind of saddening for a while. Because the thing is, is that you begin to remember all the old times. You keep playing the old playbooks, the old times, all the fun, all the great times that you had, because a lot of times you did have fun. There was a lot of excitement or humor, whatever that was. And you start playing those back, those events, those nights, those times and all the fun that you had in the beginning. And you're thinking, where did this go? I want this back.

2:17 Maybe if I do a few different things, maybe if I act a different way, maybe if I show up differently, maybe if I give more, I'm going to get that original person back. Because there's got to be something wrong. I must have done something wrong. And this goes back to our childhood. The reason why many of us find ourselves blindsided into narcissistic relationships is is that this reminds us of our childhood because our parents didn't give us attention. And instead of saying, man, my mom or dad is just not a good parent, we went within ourselves and said, well, you know, there's something wrong with me. I need to give more. I need to be a better child. I need to show up more. I need to do this. I need to do that. And I will win my parents' love. The concept of winning your parents' love is the same when you get into a narcissistic relationship. You begin to try to win their love, try to get them back, thinking that you're the problem, when in reality, they were never honest in the beginning. And this is really, well, kind of heartbreaking because what this is is a pattern of behavior. It's a situation where we choose people that remind us of our past. We choose people that remind us of our upbringing. And unfortunately, this is all trauma bonding.

3:29 We're going to talk about this in today's podcast because this is something that needs to be talked about. Because I know that many of you are there right now. You're in a position where you've recognized the truth. about who this person is to you. You've realized that this narcissist is truly a narcissist. You've also realized the beginning was not honesty. And now you're grappling with the fact that this is the case. And I know some of you might not even be there yet. Some of you may still be on the hook. And that's where I find a lot of people at. They're still on the hook thinking that if they do something different, show up differently. that this person is going to augment and be like they were in the beginning. And if anything that you get out of this at all, listening to this short podcast, is that nothing you can do is going to change their behavior. Nothing you do will stop the narcissist from being a narcissist. You can do everything you want. You can give until you hurt, but even then, it's not going to be enough. Because remember, when we forget, when we put the blame on ourselves, when the blame is not to be on ourselves, we lose sight of reality.

4:45 So that's the key, right? So many of you are still in the reveal stage. You know, is it a boy or a girl? You're still in the reveal stage. You don't know. You don't know. Is this person really a narcissist? Are they just having tough times? Are they just challenged right now? Are they just going through a bad state? What have you? And you're starting to give them, well, you're basically making excuses for their behavior. You're making excuses. And when you finally hit the last of your excuses, that's when you kind of get angry. You get miffed. You get upset. Maybe you start a fight with them. Maybe you walk out. And then usually what happens is the narcissist gives you a crumb here or there, gives you a slight crumb to get you to calm down, to get you to rethink things and fall back in line into where you were. But the thing is, is that when we go through these processes with these relationships, you begin to see more and more of the narcissist.

5:41 And the more you see, if you're honest with yourself, see, this is the internal battle. When you are married or in a relationship with a narcissist, the internal battle, once the reveal has begun, is to see the truth, to not forget the truth, and to stop falling into the problematic situation of blaming yourself. Also, you have to get out of fantasy world, right? We have to move out of fantasy world. And this can be really hard for a lot of people. It doesn't matter if you're gay, you're straight. It doesn't matter. This can be very hard to see the truth, to go past fantasy world. It can be very hard. And many of you are stuck in fantasy world right now because there's still some good times.

6:28 But then the bad times show up and the bad times are greater and more significant than the good times. But then all of a sudden there's a good time that really doesn't balance out anything. But you try to forget what just happened. But the thing is, is that the more honest you are with yourself, the more you can't unsee what's happening. And when you can't unsee it, it becomes this internal battle within yourself because you begin to get upset. You get confused. You get angry on a daily basis. Think about it. You're getting angry. You're internalizing this. This person is getting meaner and meaner and more intolerable. Maybe they don't want to hear anything about what you did that day. They're not compassionate. They're not empathetic.

7:15 They don't care if you got hurt or something happened. They don't really care. They don't really care at all about it. And they make it very, I don't know, they make it clear to you that they don't really care. And that gets more and more in your face to the point that it's hard to have a day-to-day life with them knowing that this is kind of what's happening on a constant basis. The thing is, you finally get up enough gumption and you realize, OK, the narcissist is doing this. This is what's really happening. And you're ready to basically confront it. And then that's the day. And they know it. They know what's happening because you become their gravy train. You become the person that can help them.

7:56 You become the gravy train. So that day they become super sweet. They show you how happy they are to have you in their life. And all of a sudden you're like, whoa, whoa, wow. And they'll do it long enough so that you get super, super confused. Okay. You're falling for it. You know, maybe, you know, there hasn't been any sex for a long time and now there's this wild sexual experience with them. And you're like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Or maybe they're so super nice and they go out of their way and they do all these things for you. And you're like, wow, this is amazing. But, you know, if you start really looking at the patterns of behavior, you realize that those days or moments come when you are about to basically leave the relationship. They wait it out because they know they don't want to do any extra. They don't want to lift a finger to do anything more for you.

8:51 They kind of know when it's time. They know when you have literally gotten to the last point, when you are ready to end the relationship or you're ready to call them out. That is when they're going to put the charm on for just another few moments so that they can basically get reprieved. And you see over time, though, when they pull back and they're no longer being nice, you see how they treat other people, how they don't care about friends and family, about how they don't really care about you. And the only times they care about you is when they have to, because, for example, maybe you're their financial situation. You are their finances. So they don't want you to die or anything. And if you do, hopefully you have an expensive enough insurance policy that they can live for a while without you. And that's really what this is about. A narcissist doesn't see somebody as an actual human or a breathing, you know, being. They see people as objects. They see animals as objects. They see everything as objects. You're basically like the same as, I don't know, a bottle of water. When they need the water, great. They're awesome. They need that water. When they don't need the water, they don't think about the water.

10:02 They're not thinking about you. So it's not like they don't have empathy. They don't even see you as really human. They just see you as a means to their absolute end of whatever they need in their life. And so you become just an asset. In a narcissistic relationship, when you are married or in a relationship with a narcissist, you are just an asset. You are not human. You are a thing. And then it's interesting because you look back at the beginning of this relationship and you realize that this person looked great on paper. They look great on paper. They seem to be this most amazing person, but it's really just quite the opposite. You've really signed a deal with somebody that's not going to show up for you in this relationship. It's interesting. It's like when I work with clients, a lot of these people, they get into these relationships with these people. And at the beginning, it seems like this person is just everything that they could possibly want. When in turn, it turns out to be nothing that they absolutely want. Actually quite the opposite.

11:05 And then it becomes this inner battle, because remember, you can see it and you can see the problems and you can see the issues. But inherently, even if you see the problems and you see the issues, you're usually still battling with an upbringing of a parent dynamic who is also narcissistic in nature, who made you question your value and your reality on a daily basis. So now we're in this conundrum of another trauma bond. So you understand we got into this relationship because we, you know, unconsciously We were unconscious in the fact of really knowing what was going on. And I don't know if that's really the case at all. I think that we actually see things. I think we actually feel it. One of the biggest indications I find when we find ourselves in a narcissistic situation is it feels like home. When you meet somebody that ends up turning out to be one of the biggest narcissists that you've ever met, usually when you first met them, you're like, wow, this feels really comfortable.

11:57 I feel like I've known this person for a long time. Well, you haven't known this person for a long time, but you've certainly known this pathology since you were born. Very interesting. So as you see this, like in the beginning, they develop, you know, they have this great persona that you believe. And they use that persona to get whatever they want. In the very beginning, you shared too much information with this person. You told them about your secrets and things that you would never tell. You told them about the secrets and things that you would never tell other people. And guess what happens? They begin to use that against you. Over a period of time, they begin to condemn you and put you down for things that you did. And they use your exact words to do it. It's almost like they remember verbatim. I wonder if they take notes in their iPhone to make sure that they write it down completely. Or maybe they're just recording you. Who knows?

12:48 But it's interesting when they do have whatever dirt they have or whatever knowledge that they have that they want to use against you. That is what I have labeled and actually identified 10 years ago as forever ammunition. I came up with that entire terminology because I've had so much education within this situation, real life as well as book education, to understand how they use this ammunition to keep you stuck. And so think about it. You're in this inner battle. You can't unsee what you've seen. You can't unhear what you've heard. But we can't get back to the beginning of the relationship anymore. We try, but we can't get back. We have these crumbs, but we actually kind of begin to see. And as you pull back the curtain, you begin to realize that these crumbs are manufactured. And that really kind of sucks. So why is it so hard? Why does the struggle begin to be so internal? Why does the struggle of staying in this relationship or trying to get out of this relationship or figuring out who we are in this relationship, why does the struggle become so challenging to the individual who is not the narcissist? Okay, let's discuss that right now.

14:00 The first thing is that the beginning of the relationship was pretty much a lot of fun. And you were getting a lot of attention from the narcissist. And, you know, everybody likes attention for some, you know, most of us like attention. Come on. So that attention was great. It was consistent in the beginning. Many of us didn't get attention in some past relationships. And so we desire that. Many of us didn't get attention from our parents when we were growing up. Some of us were even neglected by our parents. Some of us didn't see our parents very often. And most of our parents had cluster B dynamic. Most of our parents have narcissistic tendencies, or at least they were very self-centered and self-absorbed where our life came next.

14:44 It came second, third, or fourth, but it wasn't first. And those are the things that I want us to think about because that's what leads us into these types of relationships. That's what leads us down this primrose path. And the second thing you want to think about is that you're romancing the beginning of the relationship, right? you're romancing it, you're thinking about it, and you're holding it in this higher level of thought. But in reality, it was only a mere amount of time. Many people, if you really look at it honestly, it's less than a year. The second thing that I want us to look at is romancing the beginning of the relationship and really looking at what truly happened. Well, the beginning of the relationship was phenomenal because it wasn't real. It was more like a film. And That's great and wonderful, but that's not true.

15:30 That's not reality. That's not, that's not reality. And so, yeah, it feels really good. And we want to, you know, look at that over and over again. But if you're honest with yourself, many of you would have to acknowledge the fact that the beginning of the relationship was definitely less than a year. I would have to say that an average of six months at max, six months in the beginning of the relationship was amazing. Many of you will say more like four months. Many of you might say more like three months. Just depends on how long they were able to keep the mask on. The love bombing stage in a narcissistic relationship usually lasts less than six months. In that six months, though, you have all these fun experiences. You have crazy this and that. There's sex.

16:20 There's this. There's excitement. There's a whirlwind romance. And then everything changes. And it's interesting because as everything changes, you can't seem to let that six months go. You keep holding on to that six months, hoping and praying that it's coming back. But it's not. And so some of you who are in this beginning Lumerence love bombing stage, I'm sorry to say, but... it'll be interesting because it's hard to get back into that situation. It's hard to let that go. And as it's harder to let that go, you begin to have more and more of an inner conflict because they're coming at you in one way while you're still hoping that they show up in another way.

17:11 And that's so hard. That's really, really challenging. It's like having somebody be this angel in the beginning and And then all of a sudden they become this devil. And you're still hoping for the angel to show up. But all we got is the devil. So there's nothing else going on here. But we hope for the angel. We think about the angel wings, but we don't have that anymore. We have a pitchfork now. We don't have any of that. And it's hard because your brain plays tricks on you. And also, we don't want to necessarily move on. We want to be the person that makes this work. And that's a big problem. We'll talk about that here in a second. The next aspect that I want to cover is how their promises are empty. Their promises are just empty promises. They might have promised you a lot of things in the beginning. Those promises aren't real. They have no desire to fulfill those promises. Those promises were never going to be fulfilled. Okay? Never. Never. And often a narcissist will get you into a relationship and tell you all these things they're going to do for you and this life that you're going to have together. And you know what? None of it comes to fruition. None of it.

18:32 And it's sad because you begin to realize that this was all an illusion that was created by a masterful manipulator who wanted to actually manipulate you. Again, remember, When somebody sees you as an object, they don't think about manipulation. They just think about what they want. And a narcissist only thinks about what they want. And the only time that they're nice to you is when they want something. Ultimately, a narcissist is only nice to you when they need you. Once they don't need you anymore, they will discard you. And they will find someone else to fulfill that obligation.

19:14 Another victim. The interesting part, too, is that you realize that they are actually blaming you. So they'll blame you for what they haven't done. A narcissist is great about blaming other people for everything that they've failed at because they can't take responsibility for their actions. Empty promises and narcissists go hand in hand. They don't have any obligation to you. It's almost like they just speak out of one side of their mouth and they do the other. And some of them don't really do anything. i know that many of you might feel like you're actually babysitting someone like you actually have a child that you're babysitting it's not a spouse it's not a boyfriend or girlfriend it's a child you are babysitting a child and that child is not going to change they become a very petulant angry child It does whatever they want to do and just sees how far they can push you. How far can they push their situation? Because remember, I want to paint this picture so that maybe this picture will help you to see the truth and move forward. They see you as their cash cow. The narcissist sees you as someone they can dominate, someone they can take advantage of, and someone they can use. And until you see that, you really can't move on. Until you let go of the beginning of the relationship and see the manipulation, it's

20:46 hard for you to let this go. And it goes back to our childhood. And I want everybody to analyze that because I think a lot of people, you know, we go through this. So I'm not going to blame my parents and I'm not talking about blaming your parents. I'm not talking about that. But I do think we need to be honest about that. Even if you've gotten older and wiser as an adult, you still were a child. And as a child, you didn't understand what was going on. It's not like, you know, you woke up one day, mom and dad are really not present. Neither one of them are there for your school activities. They don't really care. They don't really talk about you in a high manner unless they're in front of other people to try to make them look better. You don't really realize that they're kind of just not there for you. They're really self-centered and in their own world. And you have to ultimately assume there's something you did wrong to get them to be that way. You couldn't think, oh, my parents are just neglectful and kind of poor parents. Most parents, and I'm saying a lot of our parents were great, but a lot of parents didn't know what was going on.

21:44 A lot of parents did the best they could. And then a lot of parents are very narcissistic in nature. They're very self-centered. And so if you were around this type of pathology growing up, this is commonplace for you. And what's happening here is not only are you trying to get the attention of this person currently, it's almost like you're still trying to win the attention from your parents. And you see, this is the trauma bond. is you don't see the trauma. So in a narcissistic relationship, you get in this relationship and then you're trying to win their attention and acceptance and approval from the narcissist. And it's almost compounded from parents and this relationship. So you're really trying so hard to get their attention, which makes them actually enjoy it even more because they know that you have to give more and you'll give as much as you possibly can to try to get them to love you when there's no intention of doing that. It's interesting also too, a narcissist will get in the way and triangulate other people in your life. And that's interesting because they will find a good friend of yours or a family member And they'll triangulate you and that person and them and make that person out to be this horrible person that you can't spend time with or they don't like or they can't stand being around. And it's almost like you have to give this concession of not being with this person. It's almost like, you know, this person's on the chopping block. Okay, well, I don't like you hanging out with John or I don't like you hanging out there. This person ruined our marriage or this person has done this or that or this person gets

23:16 in the way of this or that. All that is used. to take the blame off of what they have done. It's not like they've showed up as the best wife or husband or girlfriend or boyfriend. Quite the opposite. So they have to find an outside source that has contributed to the problems in the relationship and then try to sever that tie with you and them. That's part of the narcissistic code. They will triangulate you with a friend or family member and in the process blame that person for any problems in your relationship. And again, the narcissist plays the victim. I want you to think about this. Because again, they see you as an object and they don't want you to have friends and they don't want you to have family. They don't want you to have anybody except them. And then they can really go to work on you. then they can really hurt you. They can really take you down. They can really take you down to size and make you feel horrible. Because once you are on your own with them, there's nothing saving you.

24:22 There's no barrier to their abuse. There's no stopping it. And one of the things that narcissists do very well is they'll find the one person in your camp that sees them for who they truly are. That one person who sees them for who they truly are. And that person scares the shit out of them. They don't like that person. Because that person has their number. And they might not be going around telling everybody what's going on. That person might be holding it in. Not speaking that. Not talking about it. But knows the truth. And that person becomes enemy number one. And that person can be quiet as a church mouse. But that's the thing. They don't like that because they don't want somebody calling them out or speaking the truth because we have to live in these weird shadows. Because remember, the narcissist is able to thrive in shadows. They're not able to thrive in light.

25:26 They can't thrive in the light because they are not the light. They are the opposite. And in the process of being with a narcissist, you lose out on the things that you love if you allow it. Many of you are very strong. And to the strong people out there that have kept their friendships, kept their family member relationships, kept that, I admire you. Hats off to you. But you have struggled to do that. If you've been in a narcissistic relationship and fought to keep your friends and family, I respect you. You've gone that extra mile and you know that you need to keep them. But I know that the fight has been hard and challenging and every day.

26:12 But I want you to think about that. The fighting that you're having to do to just keep your life in balance with the people that care about you. This is something that you should not be fighting. There should not be fights over your friends and your family. This is absurd fighting. This is evil. This is super negative. This is demonic. I need you to think about this stuff because this is the stuff that is very problematic because we fall into this trap of trying to explain ourselves, trying to do all these things to make the narcissist happy with us. And I'm so glad that some of you have the kahunas to stand up to it. Because ultimately, a narcissist will turn the entire relationship around. They will make it all about them. They will make you get rid of all your friends and family. They will take away everything that's fun for you, everything that you like to do. All of that will go into the trash.

27:06 And there will be nothing. And the interesting part, too, that I found is a narcissist will take you down all the way. All the way. They might stay with you all the way until you die and people go, wow, what happened to him? Well, I don't know. I mean, cancer or whatever this happened. Well, it's like you're around all this, you know, this narcissist negative energy all day. What do you expect? Or they will take you down to the studs. Think about this. A narcissist will take you down to the studs. And when they take everything from you, that's usually when they decide it's time to leave you. So for everybody out there that is fighting a narcissist to keep your family and friends around, keep them around you. Circle the wagons because once they're gone, you are the only target in town. You're it. And this is not a relationship. This is painful. This is like a hunting expedition, right? This is crazy stuff. And so I need you to see the truth because they're going to make it all about them. They're going to be the victim in their own play. They're the victim in their own narrative. And that's what's so hard to understand is they make themselves to be the victim. The narcissist victimizes you and turns around and makes themselves the victim and makes you feel bad for it. That's the game.

28:30 That's the game. Projection. You know, when we deal with narcissistic relationships, it's constant projection, which means that this person literally, one, has absolutely zero self-awareness. But two, they're going to blame you for everything. And three, you're never going to convince them otherwise because they don't see it that way. They are actually wired differently. They are wired completely differently. And that's scary. It's like two ships passing in the night. One has no idea what's going on. You're trying to figure this out. And that's why being in a narcissistic relationship is so unhealthy because that person doesn't see you as a human. They see you as an object. They're going to project on you and they ultimately will make you the reason for everything that's a problem in their life.

29:21 And they will believe it to the day that they die. Zero self-awareness. They project almost to a severe state of nonstop. And you're stuck in it. And so I guess. i want to ask a question of everybody listening to the podcast today is you know at what point do you feel that it has become so unhealthy that you must leave at what point do you feel that you can overcome this trauma bond and pull it together And this is what I work on with clients is to basically get over this trauma bond that we really actually have in this relationship based on the upbringing and the situation, being able to see it clearly and realize that this relationship is really, yes, it's a lot of the problem, but it actually happened because we haven't dealt with the issues from our past already. If we had gotten through that, We wouldn't be falling into this situation of somebody that seems to be perfect, who's not falling into this trap of all this attention that turns around and bites us in the ass. We wouldn't be falling for this. We would have seen the red flags a long time ago.

30:39 And so that's where I want us to get is when we get there and we realize that and we see it, the relationship with the narcissist begins to kind of wane because you realize this has all been, well, part of my life. upbringing. And it's really me trying to do a patterns of behavior and problems from the past and trying to right the wrongs. But I really can't do that with this person. But this is just showing me the pain and suffering I went through. And if I'm willing and able to stand up for myself in life, am I willing and able to stand up for myself, be the person I need to be and move forward? And I hope that y'all can think about these questions. I hope that you can think about these questions and honestly gauge how you feel because I want the best for you. And I know that for a fact, if you're in a relationship with a narcissist, a covert narcissist or a malignant narcissist, this relationship is not the best for you. And some of you may be married in this situation, but getting some clarity and some division and getting your friends and family back is number one to you getting some autonomy and understanding and being able to feel yourself again. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. We almost have 200,000 subscribers and we'd love to have more subscribers because it tells me and the team that we're doing stuff that's right. You know, between me, George and Rhonda, we're working really hard on everything.

31:58 And some of these videos, you know, it just depends. And we're just trying to figure out what everybody wants to hear, what we need to talk about, what's important, basically. What is the information that you want to hear for your life? Also, if you'd like to work with me, go to ashleybergess.com, ashleybergess.com. Click on that coaching section and set up an appointment right there. You can also contact me on the contact page on the website, ashleybergess.com, and I'll respond ASAP. In the meantime, I want you to live your true life. And in order to live our true life, we have to be honest and truthful with ourselves and in our relationships and see people clearly without masks or guises. You've been listening to the Ashley Burgess Podcast.

32:43 Thank you for tuning in. And check out the podcast this week, next week. And if you want to, you can look on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere that you want to listen to a podcast. Have a good one.