Have you noticed that narcissists constantly push your boundaries?
They go around them, climb under and over them, and smash straight through them!
Boundaries simply don’t seem to work with narcissists. No matter what you do they continue stepping on your toes by doing something abusive, uncaring, or nasty.
Then they go even further and spin the blame back on you, argue with you, minimize you and belittle you by saying YOU’RE being argumentative and difficult.
It’s total craziness with zero remorsefulness.
Trying to get them to recognize and agree with your boundary WILL NOT WORK. There is a much better way to enforce narcissist proof boundaries and I share this insight with you in my latest Thriver TV episode.
Once you stop sabotaging your ability to lay effective boundaries you’ll begin standing in your truth and living the authentic life you dream of. Find out how in this video.
Video Transcript
Narcissists push on your boundaries, and they don’t just push on them, they go around them, climb under and over them, and smash straight through them.
How do you set boundaries with narcissists? How can you make them hold up?
Today, I’m going to explain to you how you can have effective boundaries with narcissists, and how you can also make yourself narcissist proof in the future.
Before we get started on this very important conversation, I want to remind you if you haven’t already, to like and subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you’ll get notified each time a new video is released.
To set the stage, I want to help you get really clear with why boundaries don’t work with narcissists so we’re going to get into that first reason now.
Number 1 – You Want The Narcissist To Agree With Your Boundary
The number one reason that a boundary will not work with a narcissist is because you want the narcissist to agree with your boundary. If you say no to a narcissist and tell them what your boundary is, don’t expect them to agree with it.
Let’s just look at the difference if somebody in your life was not a narcissist, because this will help you understand this better. Let’s say somebody in your life is not a narcissist and they stand on your toes metaphorically … they say something hurtful or they accuse you of something wrongly, or they did something neglectful or clumsy to you or your property, or they did something that wasn’t nice, and you said, “Ouch,” they would have the capacity to care about your feelings and realize they’ve done the wrong thing.
They could say sorry and be genuinely remorseful, and with their words and the care and their intention, tell you and show you that they’re not going to do that again to you, and they really don’t want to do that again.
In other words, this person has the desire, capacity, and the resources to recognize your boundary. They understand what is or isn’t acceptable to you. Because of this, your boundary allows the relationship to improve. As a result of this, everybody knows where they stand, there’s generally more understanding, and the relationship can up level into more respect and care for each other because there’s been communication.
That’s a healthy relationship, and it’s very necessary for a relationship to go that way, because everybody is human, nobody’s perfect, and we can all at times act in ways that are not wonderful.
Yet, humanity in these kinds of relationships can flourish. It can improve, and we can grow with people in our lives if, A) we’re honest about what we need and what we want, and B) the person has a solid enough Inner Identity and enough empathy to be able to do partnership and teamwork with integrity.
Now, here is how your, “Ouch,” goes down with a narcissist when they step on your toes by doing something abusive, uncaring, or nasty, which sadly is often with a narcissist.
First of all, the narcissist does not care about your feelings, therefore they’re going to spin the blame back on you, argue with you, minimalize you, and tell you that you’re just being argumentative. You’ve got it wrong. They’re going to invalidate your feelings because they don’t care about them, and they will give you a ton of excuses and justifications as to why your concerns are unfounded, outrageous, and you are actually the one attacking and abusing them.
They’re not sorry or remorseful for their behaviour at all, and they’re not interested in taking any responsibility for their behaviour or changing how they behave. Therefore, the narcissist is going to continually re-offend and do the same thing over and over and over.
So, by trying to get the narcissist to agree with your boundary, you are participating in the mindless word salad, which is defense mechanisms about everything and anything other than the real topic at hand, and you’re going to be emotionally abandoned, further invalidated, and further abused.
You’re at total risk of the narcissist threatening to leave you or wearing you down to the level where you’re being trained to accept unacceptable behaviour because of walking on the broken glass if you do speak up, and because things get worse if you try to lay boundaries.
Trying to get the narcissist to understand and recognize and agree with your boundary equals how to lose badly. There’s a much better way, which we’re going to get to shortly.
Number 2 – You Are Telling The Narcissist What They Are Doing Wrong
Now, the number two reason why your boundary isn’t working with a narcissist is because you’re telling them what they’re doing wrong.
Of course it’s human and normal to say to somebody:
“Don’t speak to me like garbage.”
“How dare you call me those names.”
“It’s disgusting that you lied to me.”
“I caught you with that person having an affair behind my back.”
“Taking that money out of my bank account without asking is not okay.”
But here it is when we’re talking to narcissists about what they did …
First of all, they do things that are not humanity, they’re not caring – like incredibly abusive name calling, insane pathological lies, malicious and even criminal actions, adulterous betrayals, things that make our head spin, overall really out of bounds behaviour.
Do you really think someone who has the capacity to operate in such a malicious, warped and twisted way has the consciousness and the mindfulness to accept having those actions brought up to their face to have them called out?
There is nothing more reactive and explosive than a narcissist accused of something that they’re definitely up to. The False Self, the fragile veneer that a narcissist has going as their motto is, “You need to agree with my narrative and my faultless version of myself or look out.”
The narcissist is incredibly skilled at doubling down on their lies and using all sorts of manipulative and gaslighting tactics to avoid any accountability. As well, they know full well what your deepest fears and triggers are. This is a time where they pull out that arsenal to attack you, to trigger you into emotional distress and explosions, because that allows them to flip the script, get the heat off themselves, and throw you well and truly into the person to blame position.
Usually it works, because narcissists have been perfecting these tactics for years. Trying to tell the narcissist what they’re doing wrong always backfires horribly. So, what we need to do is we need to look at how to set real boundaries with narcissists. I know you want to learn this because truly, it’s going to be life-changing for you.
Narcissist Proof Boundaries
Step number one is to know no one needs to get your boundary, only you do.
This is what does work with a narcissist, because it’s a given they’re not going to agree with you and they will not respect your boundary. That’s a given. This is not about the narcissist respecting you. It’s about you respecting you.
Your boundaries and your life (that respects you) is not somebody else’s job – as an adult, it’s your own job.
Where our life is traumatized, and we are hurt, and we feel let down and resentful about other people is because we are handing power away to others trying to get them to respect us and treat us healthily.
However, the truth is we are not yet respecting ourselves healthily. Let’s just park that, because I’m going to go through some examples so you can know the difference.
The next part that you need to know is stating your truth. It’s not about saying what the other person has done or should have done. It’s about your truth and then sticking to it.
Let’s put these two things into play. I’m going to give you some real life examples that work for any situation, any narcissist, no matter who they are at any time. This is the exciting thing, because it works. In all these real-life examples we’re going to look at what doesn’t work and then what does work.
My friend’s narcissistic father was in a nursing home, he was a highly abusive guy, and she was forever arguing with him and crushed by his abusive behaviour. It was ripping her apart. None of her attempts at boundaries worked with him.
My friend healed with the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP), and then she got really clear. She emailed him about her truth of what she would accept from him. So, only respectful conversation, no request for more money, because he was always guilting her into handing over money because he was hooked on paid porn sites. She told him that this was only what she would accept, and that she would hang up on him if he breached this, and if she was with him in person, she’d walk out on him.
In the email he responded with unrelated garbage. Narcissists love doing this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that when you try to have a serious thing with them or state something, they refuse to acknowledge what you’ve said. So, he did that, which is normal.
However, she got it, she meant it and after four phone calls and two visits where she hung up or walked out on him, he stopped the obscene behaviour. My friend had come to terms with, “Well, if he doesn’t stop the behaviour, then I’ll stop seeing him.” But he did. He stopped it because she stuck by her word, she hung up or walked out – no lecturing, no prescribing, “This is what I said I’ll do, and I’m doing it.”
One of our other lovely NARP members, had a narcissistic husband who she caught out cheating. He disrespected her, he blamed her for his affairs, and he was incredibly abusive.
She tried to lay boundaries to get him to stop seeing mistresses, and it was horrible, and none of it worked, of course. Then as a result of healing with NARP, she took back her power, she realized boundaries were her job, and she stood in her truth for herself – that she would only accept kindness, integrity, honesty, and monogamy.
She stated this to him and of course he didn’t agree. He didn’t stand up, he didn’t have the resources to, and she left him. She left him. This was a true boundary, which is, “Here is my truth. Join me if it’s your truth. If not, I’ll go live this truth anyway.” I want you to feel in your body how powerful that is.
One of our NARP members, a great guy, was co-parenting with a narcissistic ex and she was continually blaming him. She was playing victim about everything he’d done to her, and she was bleeding him dry of time and money. She was controlling him, even though they’d separated, which is normal.
He was trying to lecture and prescribe to her about what she was doing and how she needed to stop it and all the stuff that were his old boundaries. Of course, it didn’t stop her behaviour. It just fed her more.
After doing the inner work with NARP, he got very clear on his involvement with the children as a parallel parent, rather than trying to co-parent. He told her what he would and wouldn’t agree to, and then he only responded to what he said he would agree to and he refused to participate or reply to what he wouldn’t.
It only took a few weeks before, without getting any energy from him hooking in, she stopped. She wasn’t getting a feed. There was nowhere to go.
What Can Derail Thriver Boundaries
So, what can derail you from stepping forward into Thriver boundaries, which is your clarity, you getting it, and you having your line in the sand? What can derail that?
Because you might think, and it’s really normal as you’re hearing this stuff, you might go, “Okay, logically, I understand this, but Melanie, that’s much easier said than done.” You’re right. It is easier said than done until you’ve done the inner emotional work. There are many things within us that can derail us and make us give up that position.
The first one, which is really normal, is of course you want this person to get it and you want them to care about you. Maybe this is a parent, maybe this is your child, maybe this is somebody that you really wanted to love and be loved by, and you want them to care about you. It’s hard to let go at that level.
But a narcissist doesn’t care about you and they don’t have the capacity. So, that part of ourselves inside that has a need for that must be healed and needs to be released so it’s not derailing you.
Or maybe you have incredible guilt about setting such boundaries. Will this person hate me? Will other people, like other family members, think I’m a bad person? Am I a bad person for taking this position? This needs to be healed within you.
You may be terrified, understandably, about having to let go because this person can’t change and can’t meet your boundary, and you’re wondering how you’re going to survive on your own, wondering, “How am I going to make my life work for me and my kids if I have to leave?” That needs to be healed within you as well, and all else that triggers you that’s sabotaging your ability to lay true boundaries. Which absolutely are, “I have to be willing to lose it all to get it all. If I don’t stand for my truth, I’ll fall for everything. What I accept is exactly what I’m going to continue to get.”
So, if you want to get aligned with all of this, then I really can’t recommend NARP enough, which is exactly what these three people did to get to that level.
I hope this makes sense, I hope it simplifies it for you, and I hope that you can really sense inside of yourself how much your life will change with Thriver boundary setting.
Hi Melanie!
These 5 lines below are part of something that I think you wrote about a few months ago that I posted on my kitchen cupboard. It has helped to have it there, serving often as a good reminder….😌
Here they are!
#1 I don’t look to you to define me. I know who I am, regardless of what you think!
#2 I enjoy what gives me joy and appreciation. I will do what I want regardless of what you think I should or shouldn’t do!
#3 People can think of me what they want. What I think of me is what is important!
#4 I am happy with how I am, what I think and do, if you aren’t, that’s not my issue!
#5 i’ll never be good enough for you, and that’s OK, because there’s plenty of people, including myself, who I am good enough for!
I hope that I am right! It seems that all of those statements can be used as a kind of guidlne for establishing boundaries with someone who needs boundaries! 💪
If I live to the fullest all of those above I’m thinking that I will have boundaries and it won’t matter what kind of trickery or evil the narcissist is up to! 🙏
As I said earlier, this particular topic today has really resonated with me and I am so appreciative that you put so much effort into getting this out in all these different ways… thank you so much, Melanie! ❤️🦋❤️
Thanx Peter, I wrote it down and now its on my fridge ! Simple and easy ways to set boundaries.🙂
Here, Melanie offers and describes to us the really tasty super-sauce on an already delicious burger!
Um, I’m “Man from California.”
Melanie you are amazing and so thankful to have your advise and guidance.
Hi Belinda,
thank you for your lovely words!
Please know how welcome you are 🙂
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Mel,
Because of you I discovered parallel parenting. It gave me my life back from a malignant narc ex who promised to destroy me and who kept forcing contact.
This monster is now on “love of his life” # 5 or 6 and I couldn’t be happier.
It’s my little one who can’t opt out. When Narc’s not neglecting him he’s hitting him into submission then calls him a liar. The courts? They’re worse then him because they’ve seen enough of this now to do much better.
Still …I’ve survived, I’m stronger, and happy again. My baby has mom back when I thought I’d never find her again after such evil.
Thank you Mel. You’re the best ! 💕
Penny
Penny, you are doing great!
Where you go lovely lady, your little one will follow.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Great work ” Peter”
Love what you have written👏👏👏👏👏
Another one is ”
WHAT SOME ONE THINKS ABOUT” ” ME” Is NONE OF” MY” BUSINESS….
Keep that firey spirit alive ..
What a wonderful message. It seems so straight forward, like of course we should always be grounded in who we are and own it. But for us people who had less than stellar parenting and childhood wounds, it often is difficult to set boundaries. As I have been healing, trusting myself more & more, I have been standing up to these narcissists.
As a child, there was no explanation. You were just in trouble and then punished. When I look back on that now, I kind of gasp. I was only 5 or 6! Of course I wanted to play, or didn’t clean up my toys when I should have. But did that mean I deserved harsh punishments? No. I did not deserve harsh punishments.
I think because of this, I learned to try to please those “in charge”. Continually handing away my power because that is just what you do right? Just do what they say and they may not punish you too bad?
Well, I am so grateful to have found this program because it is making me challenge this belief. I am pissing off narcissists and for the first time in my life learning to be ok with that. I know they will have a tantrum, but oh well. I held to my truth, and if you don’t have truth then nothing much else matters.
As always, wish everyone well in the journey. You are not alone. And you all sharing, makes me feel not alone. Take care! Sending love and light.
It’s awesome Molly how well you are doing!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Thank you so much, Melanie.
Another short and powerful reminder tool of what to do with a Narc!
The “NO” is more for us than for them. When we really mean “NO” – we walk away without the endless explanations. The message is clear at that point only, to ourselves.
What joy and freedom and liberation to have a clear, sharp, powerful “NO” (never again) in the arsenal.
May be all be true to the “NO” we know must be willing to live by especially when it comes to Narcs.
Matthew 5:37 Jesus said, “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
Enough said. 🙂
Love it Iris!!
Perfect …
Yay or Nay it is exactly THAT!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
In other words, you have to be willing to walk away.
Exactly Michael!
Choosing YOU, not them and what they represent.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
It is my understanding , that none of us have had an ideal childhood.
We are born into an imperfect world .Therefore we are going to struggle
Some of us are more advantaged than others,but still deal with childhood issues
There are no perfect parents!!
From my persective ,I see most people have dailly issues to deal with.
Some people maintain huge financial gain out of others misery!!
. Others are happy to support with kindness and Love because they have compassion and care for others,” Treat others how they would like to be treated.
Be that as it may.We learn through experience ,hurt,disappointment ,struggle make us who we are today
For those who have read ” A fortunate Life” by A,B Facey ,may have found it a story of sadness and dispair,others ” what a wonderful way of dealing with hurt,abuse ,and utter hardship,and still come out a sucessful person”
How we view the world is totally up to the indivual.All comes back to freedom of choice !!
Evil versus Goodness….Choose you “this day” whom you will serve.
Molly ,may I ask you.Do you know of anyone who have healthy parenting?
Personally I do not !! But I see many who succeed regardless of their back ground.
In a nut shell it appears,it is up to ourselves!! ….to do the forward march.
The Narcs have taught us one of lifes ” many” less
I once had a friend to whom I said which part of NO do you not understand? Is it the N or th O ? … She hesitated,pretending she did not understand?? Others nearby chuckled .I made myself clear,but she still ” tried ” to manipulated…Her choice!!….Mine was ” out of my way”🙋
So it appears an endless battle ,especially when caught off guide.
One has to be very strong…Like Iris commented .Let your YES be YES and your NO be NO…
Appreciate your comments xx
Hi Fay,
Thank you for the comments and raising the question of parenting. I agree, that many people have not had “good parents”. But some of us had better parenting than others. I do know a couple of people who claim to have good relationships with their parents. And I have watched them interact- and they seem to have a good relationship! I can count them on one hand. But those are just the people I know.
I agree 100% that we have to at some point take responsibility for our own lives. Regardless if we had “bad parenting” or not. I’m not trying to blame my parents for the experiences I had. But as I am healing, this stuff is coming up. So I am trying to release it and trying to develop compassion for my parents. At the same time as I am releasing, I am validating my own feelings. Yes, what they did was not nice. Yes, how I was treated was not great. But that doesn’t mean I still can’t come home to my higher self and love and enjoy life.
We have to set boundaries with others. And I love how you asked which part of NO did your friend not understand….(lol). We all have to own who we are and what we are ok with.
I think this journey is raising a lot of questions, but equally I am receiving answers as well. Wishing you all love, happiness, joy, and healing. We can do this!!
I noticed over the years my husband has used other people to fight me and he is still doing this. He is never wrong in his own eyes no matter what he does i am the one at fault. I now know that no matter how he rationalizes what he is doing it is wrong. I see now that I have to set my own boundaries for myself. Thank you Melanie for giving some ideas on how to do this.
IT WORKED!! AND, my family is starting to do self reflection and healing as well!! I have been through a VERY LONG, HARD 2 years… from abuse, sociopathic husband, divorce, car accident, cancelled home owners insurance, roof falling apart, my child was hit by a car and had a plate put in his hip, shingles, COVID, fence needing repair due to weeds not on my property, went on disability, lost my management level job…. ugh. The list gets longer than that believe it or not!! In January I began setting clear boundaries for my Narcissistic Aunt and when she crossed them I chose to finally stand up to her and tell her that “I am my child’s mother and I will make the decision on when/what to do with him and the where/how is also my choice, NOT hers. Since she obviously did not like that she chose to post a very passive aggressive statement on Facebook that only I would know (because she used MY EXACT wording)… So, I responded to her statement by immediately shutting her down by using a few “no response required, thank you in advance for you cooperation” type words…. I then blocked her on FB. Her daughter called and told me to take my post down, and I said “I absolutely will not take it down because I meant every word of it. I will not be bullied anymore by her in person, on the phone, or on social media. She is a bully and I am not ever going to put up with it or allow her to do it to others while in my presence. I am NOT taking it down and I love you very very much, and I hope that you can learn to separate your relationships in life, because your mother will eventually run off every single person in your life that you love, or are close to, and she will make it look like it was their fault. But you are the only one that will be hurting, not her. She did it to me, my father, her mother, my brother and now she’s doing it to you and your significant other. If you do not put up clear boundaries with her, you will end up all alone, just like her.” Wellllll, my cousin didn’t speak to me for 4 weeks, but she came around and has started therapy herself and is doing major self reflection! Not only that, but by God, my aunt’s (new) husband packed up his stuff last weekend and called her kids! They talked to them both and actually made her see the wrong in her ways and told her that she should think about doing some self reflection on herself, just like they were beginning to do!! Her husband agreed to stay for now. BUT OMG, never in my life did I think that my journey to recovery from abuse and mental illness would ignite a fuse into my family! I also finally told my father what really happened to me and HE TOO is learning about abuse and mental health awareness!! I mean holy moly y’all!! Just by setting those boundaries, 4 different people are beginning to help themselves… My (very successful) brother showed up on my doorstep a few weeks ago and told me that he’d been a horrible brother to me and that he was going to help get me better and heal and get back to work, because he needed his sister back just the way that I was (but not so mean, lol)! I’ve lived in my home for 10 years, he had been no further than the front door ONE TIME. I want to thank you and whatever higher power that has brought me through these 2 years when I never thought it would end, or that I would make it. This is absolutely AMAZING to me. Unbelievable. Honestly, this is a miracle in itself, no joke…. Thank you!!
I’m sorry it is so long, but it had an effect on so many people!!
Hi Melanie,
Thank you for this excellent blog. I’ve experienced all of it with my ex husband and have done a lot of healing through many traumas with him. I have created firm and clear boundaries with him, and he’s ‘gone’ from my world. I have found peace.
However, my 19 year old son seems to be a narc 🙁 It is heartbreaking, and I swing from a denial and hope to facing a devastating truth. I cannot maintain any boundary with him (he is lying, manipulating, insulting, denigrating me, he’s disrespectful of me and the living space). He lives with me and I simply cannot change the locks even though I was there a few times but it only remains a threat.
I’ve asked him to move out, and didn’t let him come back (locked the door) a few times, when he brought me down to my knees and I feared for my health due to an ongoing stress. He was involved in some crimes even, and is a master of spinning and gaslighting, with utter cruelty and no remorse. I have been trying to explain to him the damage he’s done to me and his younger brother, but he blames me for everything, glorifying his father.
I feel I am going crazy at times and I remember his father doing exactly the same. I have no emotional charges with his father when he tries to hook me but I cannot evict my son. He doesn’t want to go to his father’s because he is in another city and I am so stuck. Can you please share some thoughts and give advice? Many thanks!
Hi Grace: My heart goes out to you for your situation with your son. I am “simply” another survivor of this sad sickness in others, and I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t have all the answers. Truthfully, I am “only” in the earlier stages of my NARP-based healing…it has been a many-years-long slog since I have “escaped” (was discarded, and now struggle with the same behavior slandering me in my own family) and it seems it will be months and years ahead for me to more fully recover and put my life back in order. But you know what? Even in my tender, wobbly walk forward in this, I can see that my own strength, my own composure, my own better understanding of what this is will be crucial components of how I find my way through this.
You have the perspective (and knowledge this gives you) of your husband with this same abusive behavior. This gives you a strong, fresh, solid place to stand in your resolution to offer your son a strong dose of reality. I can’t tell you the details of what to do, or how to say it, or whether you might offer him a “it’s me or you” ultimatum, but what I can tell you is that once you begin to apply the principles of NARP that Melanie offers us here (might be NARP, might be reading this blog…I’ve done parts of both and both are helpful in their own ways), you WILL (if not can do so already) find something new and powerful within yourself. You can consider it “the new you,” it’s “the old you,” but with the knowledge (and power!) of what this sort of abuse is, how it works (DOESN’T work), how it can be countenanced (with calm knowledge and “the power of being your true self”) and how you will see your way through this.
Please be prepared that your son might forever break with you as you offer him a “this is how it must be going forward.” Understand that this is his decision, not yours. YOUR decision is that you have chosen a life with good, healthy boundaries, you can and do communicate these to people who are in your life (your son) and might violate them, yet, violating your boundaries simply will not be tolerated. If he changes, and you find mutual respect, wow, what a huge win. If he doesn’t, and leaves (as he must), I urge you not to look at it as a “loss,” but rather another person making a choice that you cannot make for him.
It is not YOU who fails to “maintain a boundary with him,” it is him violating your boundaries. Please, see it that way, as that is what is actually happening. It may be that you are able to communicate this to him (as a crisis point, and maybe he can “bring things back to sanity”), it may be that HE cannot respect your boundaries, and there is nothing else you can do. Please, as difficult as this is, do your best to accept this, if it goes this way. It isn’t your fault, it is HIS choice.
I know I’m leaving out details and being vague, but I do wish you the best and hope this helps.
I guess that for a narcissist a boundary is nothing but a challenge.
This is my first time commenting on any of your blogs, Mel, but I just wanted to give you a very heartfelt thank you. I’ve been reading your blog, using your book You Can Thrive After Narcissistic Abuse, and your Empowered Self program for almost 3 years now. I have literally been inundated by narcissists my entire life, including my mother, my alcoholic father and stepfathers, my brother and my sister. Not surprisingly, I married a narcissist at 20, and have had to deal with him and his entire narcissistic family for 42 years. I had no idea what I was dealing with when I tried to leave my husband a couple years before reading your book, and was completely smashed down to a quivering blob by survival fears, unable to leave even though my life depended on it. My health issues, including chronic migraines, kept me so sick I couldn’t even take the steps to get myself financially independent.
It was then a friend told me my husband might be a narcissist, and I started researching. It took me a full year of watching his every move to finally get it in my gut, not just intellectually, that I was indeed dealing with a full-blown NPD. I had it completely backwards all those years: his nice guy behavior was the lie, and his abusive, raging behavior was the real him. Which was incredibly confusing for me because he is a covert altruistic narc, and could even keep up the nice guy facade for periods of time.
Once I found your blog and bought your book and Empowered Self Program I finally got the answers of how I got to this place (from the abuse in my childhood and epigenetics), and learned what I was dealing with and how narcs operate. This was incredibly important for me to understand in order to begin breaking free, coz the mind-bending and gaslighting were enormous. Thank goodness I found your work. I’ve been doing QFH every single day — haven’t missed a single day! — and the relief has been huge. I’m still hobbling on crutches toward my goal of leaving this marriage, but at least I’m no longer crawling. I have regained a lot of the inner peace and confidence destroyed by him, though life was always an incredible struggle due to the weight of emotional baggage I still carried even after 30 years of therapy, self-help books and support groups.
Leaving a marriage at my age is a daunting prospect, because I don’t have time to make up all the financial losses and give myself a secure future. Plus I’ve never lived alone, and due to the jealous and controlling narc, and my own health issues, I’ve become incredibly isolated. I will have to live in my trailer for a couple years, but I am now healed enough to know I will be fine. I am developing a belief in Source, where before I thought my place in the universe was to be punished, and this new belief in Source is a godsend (literally!) in overcoming my fears and having something to rely on as I prepare for the unknown. Things get worse when the narc knows you’re leaving, but this gets easier to handle the more I heal. I’m actually looking forward to the challenges ahead now, and am finally becoming the free, empowered person I always wanted to be but didn’t have the tools before to become. I have known nothing but abuse my entire life, since there wasn’t a single drop of love or kindness in my childhood in between the abuse, which meant I didn’t have any self-esteem or self-love, or even a single happy childhood memory to draw on while delving more deeply into QFH, yet it has become a fascinating journey into the depths of my soul and consciousness in order to rebuild my psyche on a foundation of self-love and self-belief one neuron at a time.
I just wanted others in situations similar to mine to know that there is more than hope, no matter how long you’ve been trapped in a narc marriage. It may be tougher for those of us who’ve been brainwashed for decades, but I absolutely believe now that rainbows and beautiful sunrises await us.
Also, thank you to everyone who posts here. Your experiences and wisdom about getting to the other side were what made me believe it was possible for me, too. Love and light to all of you!
Hi Dawn,
it is so lovely to meet you in this space after all of this time!
It’s so true beautiful lady that Source has your back.
You are safe, flourished and nourished and provided for by choosing Source and your Soul.
Always and in all ways!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Beautifull!!! Thank you Melanie, and congrats to the posters here on their great personal evolution. I feel inspired by you!