The Covert Narcissist and Their Victories The covert narcissist “gets away with it”, “succeeds in realizing their goals”, even achieves prosperity and economic stability through their acts of treachery. The covert narc and their “wins” give many, thankfully not all, of these creeps a very comfortable life and that comfortable life is oftentimes lived for years and decades. Yes, we are fully aware that the covert narc is a miserable human being who will never and can never be satisfied, no matter how much of the riches and pleasures of this world become accessible to them. But that is a different subject with different questions needing to be asked; the point to be made here is that covert narcs are oftentimes rewarded very handsomely for their evil acts and, at least for the narc, this confirms that their attitude towards the world and how to go about dealing with others is the correct one. So what exactly is defined as a victory for a covert narc? A narc investment advisor swindling an old lady out of tens of thousands of dollars? A Ponzi schemer living high on the hog? A helpful “friend” to an elderly person who lives alone and then inherits a good chunk of their wealth? A “buddy” that is there to help but somehow over the years always ends up benefiting from the association with an unwitting target, with little actual outlay on their end? The answer is: All of the above. Let's be clear, there are genuinely good people who DO help the elderly, the poor, and the needy and hardly ever, if ever, benefit from the kindness and charity they show others and not every friend that is actually just a user ends up being a covert narcissist. Yes every now-and-then something good comes the way of that person who sacrificed their time and efforts, but those instances are very rare. So why is it that “just by coincidence” “some people” who “help” others DO see rewards and financial or other gain and see it quite often? The best answer we can give to that question is those “helpful” people know where to put their efforts in, and no other creep on earth refines that talent better than a covert narcissist. The covert narc sees a person in a vulnerable position, or just someone that they can deceive, makes an assessment of the situation, then determines if a certain amount of effort will pay them back with “interest”, or with “dividends”, or any other type of “profit”. Simply put, the benefit has to exceed the cost to the narc and the greater the profit margin the more effort the narc will put in. This applies to one extent or another to EVERY relationship, EVERY friendship, EVERY business and work association, EVERY charitable organization activity the narc ever engages in. Sometimes people get hurt, sometimes they don't, sometimes people are even helped. The noteworthy part to emphasize is that the negative results are never a concern for the narcopath, whereas the narc is more than happy to receive and in fact wants public recognition for the actual good that they do. However, it should be noted that one of the pleasures (not guilty pleasures, just pleasures) that the narc gets the most enjoyment from is seeing the pain and suffering they cause someone that they have cheated, cheated on, or defrauded. How many times has it been said that the covert narc is a person whose psychological disorder ends up hurting others more than the narc themselves? It's a given that any sane person might doubt the existence of covert narcissism thinking: How could anyone who does these things look at themselves in the mirror? Well, what exactly does that narcopath see in the mirror? Do they see a hideous beast? an evil creature?, a person who doesn't deserve to share space with decent human beings? Do they see a near omnipotent evil mastermind that no one can stop, not even a superhero? The answer to all of these questions is NO. The narc just simply sees themselves as clever, as “smarter than the average bear”, as someone that is “street wise” or otherwise wise to the ways of the world. The narc sees a “winner”in that mirror, with many victories and accomplishments to their credit. Yes there are covert narcissists who had tough upbringings and maybe for those narcopaths they are simply “paying forward” misery and suffering to those they deem to have had soft lives. But then there are the “golden child” covert narcissists who were lovingly and carefully crafted, carefully hand made by parents who could do nothing but praise that child no matter what there actions. Those golden child narcs simply think it their naturally born right to take advantage of and destroy anyone who they can successfully deceive. Regardless of what created the narcopath, the bottom line is that these creeps feel totally justified in all that they do and their only concern is being caught, publicly exposed, or publicly shamed and humiliated. Never is there any guilt or remorse. The only emotion is pure pleasure at having “gotten away with it” and the added pleasure of seeing the suffering they have caused. That is a “win”, a “victory”. Yes these covert narcissists are sick, the lowest of the low and totally convinced that THEIR WAY is the only correct way. The way of a “winner”. That narc is totally convinced that the target is “lesser” than them and deserved everything that came to them, if for no other reason than the narc's simplistic assessment of the target's naivety, or what the narc perceives as the target's foolish belief that “people are basically good”, or that “you can find good in all people”. Most targets are very much aware of the safety and wisdom of being cautious and not trusting too easily, and many of these targets decided long ago to take a middle road, meaning that they would rather risk being occasionally “burned” by trusting too readily than to become jaded and to live in a world where “you can't trust anyone” and to become someone who is continually concerned with another person's intentions and motivations. That, in the target's mind, is an inefficient use of mental, emotional, and physical resources. To give an example: if an organization asks for a donation and due diligennce makes that organization appear legitimate, the responsibility and culpability for the misuse of those funds rests solely on the shoulders of that organization. In effect that scandalous organization has stolen funds from other organizations that do put that money to the proper use. Life experience often shows that some individuals who don't trust others are the main people to suspect as being untrustworthy themselves, but let's be clear, this observation never applies to the vast majority of those who have difficulty trusting other people. Many if not most people who don't trust have simply experienced severe abuse by others and have placed a protective shell around themselves. Certainly any person sucessfully targeted and victimized by a covert narcissist falls into that category. Keeping that in mind, it is one of the target's responsibilities to themselves to eventually break their own protective shell into a million pieces and go on with their lives. Back to the covert narcissist: Yes that covert narc has nothing but disdain and contempt for every person they ever target and successfully defraud into a fake relationship, a fake investment, a fake resume, fake goodness, fake compassion, fake love, fake friendship, fake altruism, etcetera , etcetera, etcetera. Even when the narc destroys themselves in the process of destroying another human being that narc still just weighs the damage done to themselves against the damage done to the target and continues to count themselves as victorious if the other person suffered more. Yes many a low life narcopath will clearly not be a winner or a success by any outside observer's standards, since some narcs actually do receive a fitting punishment for their treachery. But don't tell that to the covert narcissist who is a bonafide loser. Those narcs may well have a keen awareness of negative consequences in their own lives such as being indigent, having poor health, or finding themselves otherwise stuck in a terrible life situation, yet even when the obvious stares them straight in the face that narc will continue to delude themselves and still look to past experiences which directly effect their present circumstances as a “win”. Well that is the narcopath, what about the target? To contrast the target and the narc we have to speak more about the covert narcs who do have measurable, genuine, undeniable success by the world's standards. We also ultimately need to give a clear definition of what is and what is not genuine success or victory and defend that definition. We have already touched upon how the covert narcissist sees victory, but that so called success is either false or when seen as genuine, the spoils of treachery and degeneracy. A victory that is the result of rapasciousness may be viewed as genuine, but does this victory have any real value in the grand scheme of things? In contrast, victory for the target has and must have a very different definition and should be something that has lasting value, regardless of the judgement of the world. Did the seemingly successful narc really win when they betrayed , deceived, and defrauded the target? Yes according to the narc and when there is little or no consequence to the narc and all sorts of repercussions to the target the narc's assessment seems correct. With most if not all observers being unaware of the narc's private dirty dealings, even the world might agree that certain narcopaths have undeniably lived, and are continuing to live a seemingly successful life. But is that really the case? No it isn't and one of the only people who will ever know the difference between a narc's pitiful existence that the outside world deems successful and real success and victory is a healed target. How so? Well when the full realization of what had been done to them finally became clear, the target got a first hand chance to see what it is like to live with chronic intense anger, resentment, and animosity. The target knows exactly what it means to live with continual negative thoughts of vengeance and make no mistake the treachery and shocking betrayal of a covert narcissist DOES indeed merit and warrant all of the dark emotions that are stirred up in a person who spent all of their lives making an earnest effort to be kind and peaceful and be a true asset to anyone that they came in contact with. Let's make it clear that any given target wasn't always successful in living up to their own standards. No average human being should ever be thought of as or think of themselves as an angel without fault. No one should be expected to be a person who never gets angry or resentful, but a person should make the best attempt possible to ensure that negative toxic feelings are eventually overcome and never allowed to chronically be a part of a daily thought process, let alone part of the target's personality and even psyche. Yes negativity isn't easy to overcome, and it does take time to move on from abuse, but that difficult journey has to be undertaken if the target is ever to fully get themselves back. Healing from the incredible betrayal of a covert narcissist is all about purging those negative emotions even though at the time immediately following the narc's treachery that anger and resentment is all the target can still hold on to and sadly all that may be left of a world that the covert narcissist totally destroyed. Yes the narc may have obliterated years and even decades of the target's life, but eventually most targets DO recover, some fully some partially; it all depends on how successfully that toxic negativity is eliminated from the target's daily emotions and thought process. Yes some targets never recover, but with the right information, or meeting the right person no target is without hope. It's simply a matter of the target getting serious about learning and informing themselves. One of the most important skills to learn is the ability to spot people with genuine positivity and a genuine ability to feel love. People who have genuine compassion and genuine empathy need to be held in the highest of esteem by a target who has sadly witnessed and experienced “the other side of humanity”. Another important thing for the target to learn is that a complete, total, and fully satisfying relationship is possible without any drama, deception, bitterness and anger. A partner, no matter how the relationship starts, that eventually degenerates into a person who can't be satisfied and is always complaining is unlikely to ever be “fixed” by any other person's love, kindness, and patience. Yes love can change some people, but when a person shows disrespect and starts destroying their partner's self confidence and self image to a point of disabling that person's ability to live life, nothing good can ever come of that union. So that target has to be willing to get out when one red flag after another shows up in a relationship. If a partner isn't happy with your best efforts, let them go. Here is where many a target has insider information. They have heard every complaint under the sun about their narc partner's previous relationship or relationships so the healed target knows ahead of time how they are being portrayed to the narc's new “soul mate”. How is the narc talking about the target? Well part of the narrative is that the narc is being mentally and possibly physically abused, ignored, disrespected, cheated on, and lives with a tyrant who creates a hostile environment. These are all lies or half truths at best, since the real abuser is the narc themselves. But here is where those accusations become even more interesting: Try becoming familiar with the concept of projection. It is amazing how the narc uses every treacherous act they are guilty of and projects those actions and intentions onto the target. Want to know what the narc did that you weren't aware of? That narc tells you to your face. Just listen to all of their accusations and see those smears for what they are: the narc inadvertantly confessing all of their own sins. The narc's partner “was a fake”, “wasn't serious”, was never willing to commit fully, never respected them, was holding them back, etcetera. Well, OK. Then the real interesting revelations about the “disloyalty” and promiscuity and “serial infidelity”. In reality the narc was never serious, never committed, never respected their partner, never supported their partner, and was always looking for the next better option in a new partner. Yes that narcopath always eventually has a “plan B” and oftentimes part of plan B is a new partner. Lovely people these narcopaths. For the target knowledge is power, and understanding what actually happened in a relationship with a narcopath is the key. It should be stated again: NO target is without hope. The information containing the solutions to that target's problems is out there. A new relationship may or may not help the target, but the best way forward is to heal first, then find the right partner. So let's ask the correct person, a healed target, about how successful a covert narcissist is. Yes, some of these covert creeps end up trapped in a relationship or worse live in squalor and clearly Karma paid them a visit. But what about the seemingly fortunate narcs with wealth, a successful husband or a trophy wife? What about the narcs that people look up to? Well let's ask a person who has “been there, done that, and come out of the belly of the beast”: the target that HAS healed and purged those negative emotions and more importantly is intimately familiar with the reality of a narc's private world. The answer is NO. The covert narcissist is not at all a successful human being. In fact that narc has wasted their life, WASTED the very opportunity that the privilege of human existence gave them. Yes many a covert narc is active in the church and all sorts of other charities, isn't that a good thing? NO, before looking at all the “good” that narc did first look at the pain and suffering they caused. Since we are on the subject of “good works” let's first look at who suffered when the narc should have been focusing on their loved ones but instead decided to place their efforts into “saving the whales”. Those late night meetings or, in our modern time, social media interactions devoted to “good causes” somehow always gave the narc “fringe benefits”. That's not even mentioning outright disloyaylty and covert infidelity that was engaged in simply because there was a feasible excuse and an opportunity. But the real reason for the covert narcissist's full and TOTAL failure as a human being is all of that negativity they harbor. All of the anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy, and disdain they have. That narc HAS to live with themselves and believe the healed target when they say this: NO amount of wealth, NO relationship on earth, NO public acclaim will ever make up for being a person who is a wretched, negative, sneering, disrespectful sack of filth who can't ever see another person be happy or see another person have any faith. That target knows exactly how much energy was wasted on negative emotions. That target knows exactly what it is like to have absolutely no peace, no comfort, no rest mentally and emotionally. That target who has gotten themselves back HAS eliminated the negativity, animosity, resentment, and need for vengeance and along the way one day realized they again had joy, peace, and contentment in their lives. In short the target was infected by the narc's mental, emotional, and psychological virus that if it could would have even infected the soul, and somehow that target found a way to recover. The topping on the cake is that the target can and often times does find a QUALITY person and realizes that a relationship can be everything it should be with minimal drama, minimal complaining, realistic expectations, and ACTUAL genuine love, genuine respect, and genuine support. A good relationship with the right person is worth it's weight in gold. A real relationship is uplifting and empowering and more than anything else RELIABLE. The narcopath comes across as a very humble, even self effacing person, but whether that narc knows it or not, they have an arrogance that stinks to high heaven. For all of the narc's outer appearance of humility and possibly even self assessment of being a humble person, that narc secretly feels very confident about the person that they are, especially when they have wealth or beauty. After all the narc is totally self aware when it comes to understanding what tools they have at their disposal to deceive and manipulate. Ironically, there are genuine and good people out there that outshine these narcopaths by every parameter, and are at the same time imbued with the very important quality of having true humility. Yes the healed target was burned badly and did learn valuable lessons but really only two major ones: 1: covert narcissism exists and there is a difference between fake love, fake humility, fake concern and the genuine article. 2: A person can learn to be more vigilant and cautious when dealing with other human beings without becoming cynical and jaded. So the healed target can return to being a person who prefers to trust and prefers to believe in people, even though they have learned discernment. If one wants to make a positive difference in the lives of the people that surround us, some degree of risk is necessary and that involves some level of believing in, trusting, and trying to understand other people. In a sense genuine investment into other people requires some degree of making oneself vulnerable. But that risk of vulnerability has to be reigned in and limited and that is one key area that the target had failings. Being empathetic is a wonderful quality,but there MUST be an awareness of the wolves in sheep's clothing that purposely seek out empaths with the sole purpose of taking advantage. So, that target will be well aware of, and on the lookout for those wolves that impersonate and look like and on the surface even act like sheep and when a creep is suspected and confirmed of being a covert narcissist, cut that person out of their lives. But the target will always hope for the best and give the benefit of the doubt, within reason. There is no room for negativity. Negativity is inefficient, a waste of time and resources, and a waste of very life itself. For the target maintaining a positive mental outlook is success. There is no such thing as a personal victory for the target, if it comes at someone else's expense. That target doesn't “win” at the expense of others, they simply try to make a positive difference in the other people's lives and that is a reward in and of itself. For the narc in most cases it is either win or lose, a zero sum gain. Somebody has to lose for somebody else to win. As stated previously and worth repeating, there are of course exceptions to the narc's win-lose rule and when the narc actually does help; that activity, such as charity work or being and asset to an employer is simply “the cost of doing business”, and is primarily all about the narc having that highly desireable positive public image. Well, life isn't a game and although the narc sees themselves as a master “player” and defines that as success, the plain and simple fact is that despite all of the narc's worldly wisdom, they don't have a clue about the things that are really important. Or about the real world, for that matter. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you.

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An Important Key to Healing from Covert Narcissist Abuse: Compartmentalization

The successfuly healed target has placed every interaction with that covert narcissist “behind a wall” and by doing so has effectively purged all effects of the narc's past abuse from their lives.

Behind that wall is the full unfiltered, unadulterated, painful reality of what the narc did and how they did it. The truth has not been watered down to make it more palatable or digestible. There is no denial, just the cold hard unbelievable reality of what the narc did. That toxic poisonous malevolence was real, but the target has in effect “forgotten” the details while at the same time having full access to all of those details of everything the narcopath did when it becomes necessary.

A healed target might look back on the past and not even quite remember why they called the covert narcissist an evil sack of filth, the lowest of the low, etcetera, and that’s a good thing because that means that the target no longer has any ill will or malice towards the covert narcissist. That is because those negative feelings and emotions have no value to the healed target. Somehow that target has intuitively understood that the covert narcissist isn't worth even expending an ounce of energy on and in addition intuitively understands the value of having peace and stability in their lives which means hostility and bitterness can't be a part of that target's daily existence. Joy comes when the target frees themselves of the burden of having any concern whatsoever of what happens to the narcopath, good or bad. It simply doesn't matter. 2 Esdras 6:9: “For Esau is the end of the world, and Jacob is the beginning of it that followeth.” KJV

What the Covert Narcissist Owes the Target: It was a brisk early November morning, evidence of Autumn in the first cold temperatures of the fall, in the leaves, in the fragrance of the air. Jennifer had to bundle up for that morning coffee outside in the sun. But there might soon be an end to that ritual she so enjoyed during the Summer months. That wasn't the case 5 years ago, and for a brief moment she recalls what things were like 5 years ago to the day, when she went out into that cold November morning, and continued to do so well into December, bundled up, outside, with her coffee, staring into space. Nothing going on inside her mind, no thoughts, just emptiness with no activity and all that she felt at that time was intense anxiety, a sense of foreboding. That was no longer the case now. She was a human being again. She had hope. She regained faith in herself and in others. She could honestly tell herself that she was free of any toxic emotions and was at peace. Some truths remain unchanged regardless of the details that end up being perceived by the outside world. A covert narcissist, is a covert narcissist, is a covert narcissist. They are what they are, although they will be perceived differently by the different people they come in contact with over the course of their lives. Targets of covert narcissist abuse range from the hapless dupes that have a brief encounter with one of these creeps and are totally unaware of the danger they were in, to people who have their whole lives turned upside down. Luckily for the first group of prospective targets the narc saw another target they held in higher esteem or was a more convenient or easier catch, so the narc passed over the original intended recipient of “the treatment”. Other times the narc assesses the vulnerabilities of a target and begins playing their game and is shocked to find out that the intended target, who was skeptical of the mirroring and definitely never took the flattery seriously, refuses to go the next step and become the narc's Aunt Sally or punching bag. Yes some targets saw many of the narc's foibles a mile away but still entered a relationship with the narc because they saw the disingenuousness of the narc as cute or harmless. These targets weren’t naive though, and there was no way on earth they were going to allow manipulation or denigration. So these people got out of the relationship before the narc could do any major harm. Or the narc left for greener pastures, often in the most inexplicable and bizarre ways, leaving the target puzzled but nonetheless unharmed at the conclusion of a relationship that they never allowed themselves to be fully vulnerable in. So what about the targets the narc does eventually end up entrapping? An outsider might say these targets had a lack of vigilance and some might implicate that the target was actually “attracted” to a person who would eventually denigrate and use them. But its a vast oversimplification and somewhat unfair to chalk up a target that was duped by a covert narcissist as simply naive, a “daydream believer” or a “sucker”. These targets may have been uninformed about the concept of covert narcissism and they may have had a misguided belief that there was good in all people, but that doesn't mean they were taken in by a fraudulent offer of a relationship that was “too good to be true” and were therefore too foolish to spot the fraud. These targets may well have understood the flawed nature of the covert narcissist and their propensity to bend the truth, but they took into account all of those things and gave that narc the benefit of the doubt and believed that deep inside that narc there was a good person who had gotten some bad breaks in life. In retrospect it is clear those targets who believed in the good of the narc made an error in judgment, but that should be considered a forgivable mistake. Yes, those uninformed people with all of the best intentions never took into account the possibility or even existence of covert narcissism and because of this ended up being suckered into the narc's web of deceit. So let's give the target a break and realize that some targets weren't looking for trouble, it was trouble that came looking for them. Regardless of all of that, it is these targets, the ones who were sucked into the narc's deceit and then held on despite all of the adversity, that end up having actual real and even life changing if not life ending consequences from an interaction with a covert narcissist. Yes the narc's dark magic had different and varying effects on the people who surrounded them and there may well have been some people associated with the narc who saw that narc as a positive force, an asset, even someone that they were lucky to have spent time with. But let's be clear, a true covert narcissist is a person who has done grave harm to many people over the course of their lives and despite the obvious damage done, never lost a night's sleep over the pain and suffering they caused. The very fact that the narc is a “serial offender” proves that they never took any responsibility for any of their past treacherous actions or ever intended to improve themselves and stop hurting others. The sick fact is that the narc cherishes their “wins”, when they placed past targets in impossible situations, and looks back on the way they pulled off their deceptions with a sense of pride. So there is a very distinct underlying theme to a covert narcissist's life, an underlying attitude that follows the narc wherever they go. It is an attitude of putting on an act, pretending to be someone and something that they are not and convincing others that the act they are putting on is not an act at all. The narc gets a thrill and excitement out of walking into a new work environment and taking on the persona of a diligent, conscientious worker. The narc meets a new prospective partner, sizes them up, and pulls from the wide array of past experiences which run the gamut from movies watched to every person they ever came in contact with, to come up with a persona that will suit their purpose of making a target believe that they, the narc, are the person that target has waited a lifetime to meet. Yes that underlying attitude of the narc is one of evil disrespect of people, of wanton hatred and disapproval of anyone who has a clear conscience and an ability to feel love and compassion and to care. The narc feels no love, they don't care, they have no compassion, so the only satisfaction the narc will ever get is when they take away another person's ability to love, another person's ability to care, another person's ability to have empathy. For better or for worse, the narc's malevolence is usually reserved only for those closest to the narcopath, in the narc's private and personal world, and that is where they do their greatest damage: to the people closest to them. Yes the public will see only a person who portrays themselves as being a benign, gracious and even benevolent person. Surface appearance is all the vast majority of people will ever look at or see in an acquaintance or coworker and the narc is fully aware of this fact. It is amazing how people will be taken in by the flimsiest presentations of a fake persona and believe the lie. The narc's stories hardly ever match up. For example, in conversations a narc will be a person with one sibling one month and have three siblings they grew up with in next month's conversation and somehow people never even notice the discrepancies. Only a few people will eventually catch on to a narc and once they become aware of the narc's lies, the narc is easily seen for the fraud that they are. But those brief interactions with coworkers and acquaintances aren't where the narc's evil ways find their full expression. Only the people the narc pretends to love, only those who have fully invested themselves into a covert narcissist get the full benefit of seeing what the evil side of a covert narcissist is all about. Even the briefest study of covert narcissism shows that aside from the false persona the narc likes to bandy about with, these narcs in essence are liars through and through, intensely selfish, and as callous a human being as you will ever come across. These narcs have no loyalty to anyone and once the honeymoon phase is over and the narc gets comfortable with a relationship, boredom and infidelity, physical or mental, is right around the corner. It is only a matter of the narc getting an opportunity to cheat. A narc in any relationship that has actually gotten to the commitment phase has already started positioning themselves in their mind as a victim, as someone “stuck” in a relationship, as someone in need of a “savior” otherwise known as a new and different relationship. Money will make a difference and a narc living in luxury will certainly recognize where their bread is buttered and keep up a pretense of “being in love” for years on end, but those “secret desires” will take up plenty of real estate in even the most comfortable narc's mind and oftentimes translate into real and actual infidelity. These demonic creeps have such a twisted sense of right and wrong that even the most wicked act of treachery on their part is always justified in their mind, and because of this their capacity to do damage to those who love them and have unwittingly committed themselves to a narc has almost no boundaries. Under the right circumstances a person who has committed to a relationship with a covert narcissist will have major damage done to their lives. Sadly, these people are totally unaware of the danger they are in. The selfish narc lives in a world of one, a world where other people's feelings or what happens to those people is of absolutely no consequence. Sadly “other people” refers to the partners they purportedly “loved” until a better opportunity presented itself. Yes at the flick of a switch a partner of years and decades becomes a stranger and if that partner seeks an explanation as to what went wrong or why the narc left they will get every false accusation imaginable thrown at them. Of course the mere act of actually wanting to know what the narc was up to when they were in a relationship qualifies as an act of aggression by a previous partner. Let's illustrate the matter with a fictitious account and use some metaphoric hyperbole to emphasize the point: A couple is married for ten years and has two children. The husband is a business man and has in the past year talked about expanding the business and this requires him to stay at the office late two or three nights a week. The wife has suspicions after this goes on for three or four months with no actual evidence of any changes in the business. The wife has her mother stay with the children one night and stops by the office to check in on her husband and finds the doors locked and the lights on in the office. Her husband's car is in the lot so that is all she really wanted to know. The late nights seem to be getting later as the months role by and her husband insists he is about to unveil some major improvements in the business. He needs to concentrate and that totally explains why he doesn't answer the texts his wife sends him. In fact she is told not to contact him unless there is an emergency. Strangely though the husband is getting more and more emotionally distant and then a neighbor of hers drops a bombshell: her husband was seen out with another woman. Well there is no easy way to do it, but the wife asks her husband about the situation and adds to this the fact that she did check up on him a few months ago by going by the office. Well at this point the husband becomes irate and begins ranting about the wife not trusting him and smothering him and that behavior is making it very difficult for him to accomplish his business goals. As for the woman how dare the wife accuse him of anything untoward. That woman was helping him with the expansion. But then the wife makes a big mistake and actually wants some details, greater details of what is actually going on with this expansion and wants more information on this woman who is helping with the business. At this point the husband goes through the roof and says he needs some time for himself and that he can't live with someone who doesn't trust him. Well two months later the husband announces he is looking to formally separate and planning on a divorce and he really has nothing more to say to his former wife. The children will be taken care of and reasonable arrangements will be made for visitation. That's it. Well actually no, that isn't it for the wife. She wants to know what she did wrong. She wants to know what was really going on those late nights the husband was away at night. She wants to know about this woman and if he is with that woman he was seen with months previous and she is summarily told it is none of her business, she has no right to invade his privacy. Well the wife feels she has the right to an explanation, but she is told to no longer call her husband. She is told she has no right to know where her husband is staying. She is told it isn't any of her business what the husband does with his private life. Well the wife tells a few mutual friends about the situation and makes the comment that she suspects her husband of being with another woman. This gets back to the husband and he comes to the house and threatens his wife's life. How dare she publicly shame him and attack his reputation. Since she needs to know, yes he is now in a relationship with that woman but that is only because of the wife's poor behavior and disloyalty. She didn't trust her husband and her scrutiny of him was tantamount to abuse. Well now he had a woman who understood him and was an asset, a person who supported him and made it possible to achieve the success that he always wanted at his business. Yes the former wife was holding that husband down. Well, that was already plenty to absorb, but then the real abuse began and the “other woman” had the audacity to confront the wife and tell her what an evil person she was and how she had been abusing her husband throughout the duration of the marriage. Yes she was with this woman's husband and they were in love. So let's leave the story for a few moments and summarize. Those are the raw facts of this fictitious account so far. It's a painful account but many of the details are missing. That wife loved her husband. She believed in him and supported him. She had that man's children and was an exemplary mother and supportive wife. She gave up her career to support that husband of hers and now she is reduced to being portrayed as a witch who brought her husband down. She is the one with the self doubts, the self blame. She does some sole searching and asks herself: Was she holding her husband down? Was she being abusive? She is the one beating herself up and questioning if she could have done better. The man she loved is now with another woman and aside from feeling worthless and unwanted that ex wife is questioning the whole of her existence that past decade with her husband. But if all of that isn't enough she is given the heads up about the goings on on social media and when she views the pages showing her husband and this new woman it nearly breaks her into a million pieces. But she holds it together. Barely. For the children. Yes it's the holidays and the fawning of these two together leaves this poor woman contemplating the pros and cons of living. She thinks of the future her and her husband had planned and can't believe that future will now belong to someone else. Aside from the absolute minimal contact required due to the children and legal matters, she has no way of contacting that husband of hers, but one day when he comes for the children she asks how could you do this to me? Well her husband says he has “moved on” and she should “move on” as well. Mind you a mere four months previous that self same husband was telling his wife how much he loved her. By the way she had a year to move out of the house and the husband would be more than happy to take full custody of the children. OK then. That wife has been put into a deep hole. An emotional hole. A psychological hole. A soon to be approaching financial hole. The husband “moved on”, he “survived” that wife's “abuse” and now he finally has a chance to be the person he always wanted to be and achieve the things he always wanted to achieve. Yes that husband would finally realize his full potential. He “moved on”. He “got on a plane and he took no one's baggage with him”. Great. Good for him. The wife? Well she needs to move on. According to the husband and the “new woman”, the previous wife deserves everything coming to her and more. Just like the husband and the “new woman” deserve everything that has happened to them. OK. Do you think this man might be a covert narcissist? Well that woman doesn't even know what covert narcissism is and left to herself she quickly begins to understand the reality of what just happened to her. She does her research and begins to get the answers and begins to understand that she just became the victim of a major gaslighting campaign complete with a female flying monkey weasel. It takes time for that former wife to realize that the smear campaign against her was projection and that everything she was accused of was actually perpetrated by her husband. The facts are clear: Her husband grew tired of the marriage, had an affair with a woman and made every excuse under the sun how that new relationship was the result of the wife's so called wrongdoing. That man never took responsibility, never admitted any wrongdoing and in the early stages, when the wife had the audacity to complain that she suspected philandering it was the philanderer who felt HE was being wronged! Yes, out a covert narcissist in even the most innocent way for all of the right reasons and the narc will consider it the greatest wrong a person could ever do. An act worthy of total destruction or even death. Never mind the philandering and the betrayal of the marriage vows. That is minor according to the narc, since the narc is the one who did it and what the narc does is always justified. So there we have it, a thumbnail sketch of a narc's twisted logic and twisted contorted sense of right and wrong. According to the narc, justice has been served and everything is as it should be. The covert narcissist takes a wrecking ball to their previous partner's life and converts it to rubble and their opinion of the situation is that “justice has been served”. Well that soon to be ex wife and most sane people on this planet who won't believe the narc's lies will be of a different opinion. That poor ex wife has quite a journey in front of her and being that she is a woman with the ability to feel love, as well as the pain of losing something she invested over a decade of her life into, she can be forgiven for harboring deep animosity and anger. She can be forgiven for wanting to see genuine “justice served”. She can be forgiven for wanting to seek vengeance. Is this woman going to be “moving on” any time soon? That is absolutely ridiculous. Of course not. This person is in the psychological equivalent of an ICU. She can barely function. She is contemplating her next breath. Moving on is for the emotionally, the psychologically able bodied and it might well be many years for her to reach that level. The husband? Well he has proven himself to have never loved or cared about or respected that wife of his, EVER. That callous, self centered, selfish creep couldn't just have an affair, admit to it and give his wife a chance to get her life back together. No he couldn't do that. It would have required actually caring about his wife and that is too much to expect....from a narc. So much easier for the narc to lie to everyone, admit no guilt, and play the role of victim when the raw facts, facts that will often times never be known to outsiders, point to a very different conclusion. How the Covert Narcissist Uses Unwritten and Written Social Contracts: Let's be clear, the covert narcissist doesn't always come out of each relationship “fresh as a daisy” or free and clear. Targets don't always behave according to the narc's plans, so there is always the possibility of the narc sometimes suffering damage themselves. Yes the philandering husband above had all of the bases covered with his wife, but never took into account being seen by a neighbor with “the other woman” in one of those out of the way places. Similarly the philandering could have become common knowledge at the workplace as well, despite the discreet nature of the philandering couple's indiscretions. But the narc limits any damage to themselves simply by sticking to a false narrative that he has been giving voice to for years about a wife that “doesn't understand him”, is a “witch”, is “holding him down”, is “preventing him from achieving his full potential”. These false representations of his wife and how she behaves at home serve two purposes: First, it is a way for him to lure in prospective new love interests by subconsciously signaling the need for a new relationship with someone who does understand him. Secondly it gives the narc time to solidify and make fully believable the lying false narrative he will one day use to create an “alternate reality” of what his marriage was all about. Yes the narc may make many mistakes, but that false narrative is a safety net for him that doesn't have to be “created on the fly”. As for the philandering, the married narc gives himself many additional benefits by using his marriage status as a way to have flings that are purely physical with no commitment expected or implied, since he is purportedly “committed” to the wife at home. So the narco pathic creep “plays the field” freely and when he eventually does end up with someone who might be a “keeper” otherwise known as an uncommitted relationship that he wants to convert to a prospective long term partnership, he begins changing strategy. All of the sudden this covert creep will go to the next level and turn that prospective long term replacement for his wife into a “confidant”. Yes the narcopath will do more than discuss how his wife is keeping him down, he will begin slowly but surely making up a largely false narrative that includes all of the most intimate details of a couple's life and of course he will take special interest in those same details of the new prospective long term partner's life. Yes the cheating covert creep described above who suddenly dumped his wife did have a “Plan A” that would have included creating the narrative of a long term mental, emotional, and then eventually physical separation where the couple grew apart. Of course this “growing apart” and the narrative of the married couple discovering they had nothing in common would also be a purely fake construction by the narcopath and almost exclusively instigated by the narc. Yes for those familiar with covert narcissism this is called the devaluation phase that will inevitably be followed by the discard phase. But the married narc with children will do his best to keep up the appearances of devotion to their own spouse and certainly want to make sure the children the couple shares sees him as a noble, kind and even empathetic person. But out of the sight and earshot of the general public and the children a different personality displays itself and the married narc will have no mercy whatsoever denigrating his wife in private. That denigration makes the narc feel like he has power over another person and does have value to the narc in and of itself, but the real pleasure that incredibly selfish creep gets out of the abuse of his wife is that he sees it as a very necessary and important process for him to achieve his goal of “liberation” and “freedom” with a new idealized relationship. Yes, that narc already mentally leaves an existing relationship and “moves on” to a new relationship even before they instigate their wicked plan of destroying that existing relationship and discarding an existing partner they entered into a social contract with. To put it another way, if that soon to be discarded person does object to the bad treatment so be it, that will then be the reason, the foundation for a “mutually agreed upon” separation. In reality the narc saw an opportunity with someone else and slowly but subtly created the narrative of the couple “not being able to see things each other's way” within the relationship itself. So the game playing begins in earnest and for the first time ever his wife is told “she doesn't understand him” as well as he himself not being able to see things her way. This is of course the same false narrative the narc had been using for years outside of the presence of his wife. What a stark contrast to that narc privately calling his wife a “soul mate”, the “woman he had been waiting for his whole life” just years previous. Yes, that disclosure to the wife that she was a nagging hag was only new to the wife since the husband was imminently planning his departure and in reality had already “moved on” and was now in the process of “cleaning house”, otherwise known as getting rid of the problem of his marriage. Yes no one would suspect a thing if things went as planned for the narcopath: not family members, not the children, and perhaps not even the spouse who was being prepared for the discard herself. The narrative on display for the friends and relatives was dictated by the narc publicly stating full support of the marriage, publicly appearing fully committed to a marriage with problems, and publicly giving the impression that he is trying to make things work out, while at the same time privately doing everything possible to alienate his wife and submarine the marriage. If the narc got it all his way the separation and eventual divorce would be amicable and mutually agreed upon. Magically, months later after having suffered the “heartbreak of losing his wife”, the narc would “reluctantly” have a new partner since he was “not a person meant to be alone”. Yes, the illicit relationship he had that had been totally hidden from everyone would now be laundered and converted from the cause of the breakup to the result of the breakup. Neat and clean for the narc. Yes, if the wife had objections to the husband having a new partner so rapidly no one would be blaming the former husband for a thing. It would be the wife who confirmed to the world every bad thing the husband said about her in public for all of those years. Well unfortunately the philandering narcopath was found out and called out by his wife, so “Plan B” was instituted and this “Plan B” would include the total and utter destruction of the wife with no mercy. The scenario described above. Yes the above account refers to a couple that got married and formally made a commitment to each other. A “written social contract” so to speak. A pledge to love and honor each other in sickness and in health, in good and bad times. A pledge to love each other until “death do them part”. Yes the narc did enter a marriage willingly, either out of convenience or out of the prestige of being married or because he wanted to be seen publicly as a “family man”. But make no mistake about it, that narc NEVER had any real intentions to honor that marriage and that is borne out by how the narc used and abused their marriage status and extracted a maximum amount of selfish benefit from it. Did the narc think they were serious right before and for the few months after the marriage? Yes, the narc probably was excited about experiencing what it would feel like to be married, but that hardly qualifies as making a serious commitment, the type of commitment pledged at the wedding ceremony. As the saying goes “by their fruits you shall know them” and a person who uses a marriage vow to engage in debauchery has shown their fruit. Yes you can call these covert narcissists evil, vile, wicked, backbiters, disloyal, without natural affection, false accusers, truce breakers, incontinent and more, simply based upon what they actually do, based on their “fruits”. Of course there are other “norms of society” that aren't formally agreed to in writing and with today's culture, where non-committal relationships are the norm, it is open season for the covert narcissist. The narc thrives on innuendo and loves making false promises and rock solid verbal commitments over and over again that will somehow “never have been made” or are “falsely remembered” by the target when the narc decides to “move on”. Then of course the narc can also always go to the standby of not having anything in common with a partner once they have found a new flavor of partner they want to try out. Only in one case will the narc adhere to “an agreement” and that is when both the married narc and another married person engage in an illicit affair which is from the outset agreed upon to be surreptitious and of a limited duration. Give a narc an opportunity to cheat with low odds of being found out and they will. But that adherence to an agreement is simply because the narc had no need to lie, at least not about wanting to have a long term relationship. But the narc will lie in any situation a person can imagine and do it easily without any twinge of guilt even when lying is totally unnecessary, so it is totally understandable why they lie and feign love and commitment to get a relationship they want. Yes, it is these new types of relationships where there are no actual “formal contracts” in which the narc thrives. A decent person could lay down their boundaries and all of the ground rules before they would ever enter a relationship and the narc will agree to all of those rules just to get what they have to have. Yes the narc will even adhere to those rules as long as the current relationship meets their immediate needs and nothing better is available. But the underlying theme is very clear: The narc is keenly aware that any relationship that will have high yield for them requires that narcopath to find a partner willing to invest themselves into both the narc and the relationship itself, and the narc therefore fully understands that they need to seem serious, they need to seem committed, they need to both state and appear to be in love with a target. Yes the narc agrees to the ground rules and understandings of a relationship because they fully comprehend that this is what they need to do to gain the confidence of and then exploit the genuine love and affection and commitment of a target. So it becomes clear that the narc focuses on and relies on those unwritten and sometimes even formal social agreements to fully entrap a partner who enters those social agreements in good faith. Yes the narc relies on those agreements without ever having any intention of adhering to those agreements. Yes the narc takes everything good and ends up defiling it and using it for evil purposes, for their own selfish purposes. Other people's pain and suffering certainly are never taken into account by the narc, unless they can triangulate and feed off of that suffering of a previous partner. Yes if the former partner is no longer needed, that narc will have no problem whatsoever capitalizing on the vulnerability of that former partner who loved and committed to them. Yes the narc will call their wickedness, and the damage they do, as well as their new relationship with someone else, all justified. Just to underscore things the level of this incredible wickedness and callous cruelty is incomprehensible and frankly unbelievable to the average person. So that is how it is when a narc is found out by a partner they are in the process of “giving the shaft”. When the narc knows that someone has seen behind their mask they will fully destroy and show no mercy. OK well that was the story from the narc's perspective, the narc who does no wrong, the narc who has in actuality had nothing done to them but decided to “defend” themselves and unleash a reign of terror and total destruction on another human being. Well here is the narc's problem and it is a rather large one: That person they just disoriented and gaslit into near oblivion didn't jump over the bridge or leave this earth just to make the narc's life easier. They survived. They learned what happened to them and they ended up knowing in high detail what the narc did and how they did it. Yes that target is a human being with feelings and emotions, not a lifeless puppet or and appliance that just has someone abuse it and discard it when the damage done makes it useless. Yes what about that target? Well they do eventually wake up to reality and it is totally understandable why that target might be a bit unhappy with the covert narcissist. In fact the rage and need for vengeance can be overwhelming and this ends up being a major obstacle for the target and a major source of unhappiness. It is at this point where it is important to state that the clear path to getting yourself back is to do your best NOT to respond in kind or try to “get even” with the narcopath even if there is a possibility of doing so. Yes a 100 pound female narcopath knows full well what she can get away with when going up against a man, she understands fully how to leverage her apparent physical vulnerability to her advantage. Who wouldn't believe the female narc not to be a victim? So the male targeted by this demon will do himself no favors trying to make his case or trying to get people to see what this beast actually did. It goes without saying that the male target had better remain totally harmless, and never even hint at any “getting even”. A male target that is being victimized is in a no win situation since even the slightest hint of displeasure by him might be seen as an act of aggression or misconstrued as a threat. Yes the female narc can use all sorts of “proxies” (flying monkeys) to threaten as she pleases. This so called “petite and harmless” female narc might get savior thugs or the new boyfriend to terrorize a former partner . But that just makes the situation worse: both for the male savior thugs and for the female narc. Men don't take kindly to strangers making threats and when it is man to man all bets are off. The female narc will simply suffer the risk of potential additional exposure and that in and of itself could be devastating. But then we have the woman that was targeted and their life is no easier than that of the male target. Sadly, even women will turn against another woman if they can be manipulated by a male narcopath. But even aside from any flying monkeys, the female target will rarely ever succeed in making her case and every attempt at getting people to hear the truth will be seen as her lying, being crazy, being delusional, and proving the narcopath male was right for leaving her in the first place. We have to remember that the narc was weaving a false narrative long before the target ever knew that anything was wrong and part of that false narrative was to preemptively portray the soon to be discarded target as unstable. There are no doubt numerous ways a male or female target could get even, but in almost every case this would involve the target being as devious as the narcopath. Yes revenge can be extracted at times, but then the target forfeits their most important asset: the fact that they were honest players in the relationship and were unjustly accused. Pastor Chuck Smith said it best: You can get revenge on your own or you can step out of the way and let God give a better result. That is a paraphrase. So what happened to the fictional Jennifer? Well she was left with few options. Her primary concern was the children. Keeping custody of the children. That house would no longer be hers in less than a year. That house by the way was a quaint older building that was one of the mainstays of the community. Jen's father helped the new couple with that home. Every ground floor of that house was sanded and refinished by her weakened father who had been on dialysis for nearly 10 years, so that house contained the spirit and the love of her father in it. He passed away a little over 2 years after they moved in. Well Jennifer did the only thing possible in her situation and moved in with mom who lived a few towns away. There was nothing admirable about needing mom to bail her out and being constrained to a single room with only the barest minimum of her previous possessions. Jennifer went to work for a local hardware store that was hiring and built herself up day by day. She had to keep up appearances for mom and the kids and she did exactly that. For the six months after her husband announced his “liberation” and the subsequent triangulation with the former husband and his new partner, Jennifer ate only the barest minimum of food to keep up appearances for the children. She listened to no music and watched no television for 2 years. She took that time to learn about covert narcissism and slowly rebuilt her life. She kept working at the hardware store and put out that resume of hers, now over ten ears old, and for the longest time heard from no one. But two years later her luck changed and she left that hardware store and took the opportunity to work at a local law firm. That secretarial and clerical work was an absolute Godsend to Jennifer, a person who before the marriage was on track to becoming a lawyer. She left that hardware store with tears in her eyes. She invested herself into the customers as well as the store itself and tried to make a difference. She left a piece of herself behind in that store, but it was time for her to move on and leave a very painful chapter of her life behind. Was Jennifer angry and resentful, was she in disbelief day and night that another woman stole from her her entire existence? Yes of course she was. Was she hoping to hear that a major tragedy had befallen her husband and or his new partner? Yes she would have obtained so much relief knowing that “karma” had settled the score. But that didn't happen. Her husband was doing well financially and in fact decided to tear down that lovely old house and build a new McMansion in its place. Then the shocker of all but it did give Jennifer some relief: One year after just having bulldozed and rebuilt, her husband now decided he was relocating himself and his business to California. Yes that was Jennifer and her husband's dream, to move somewhere warm and yes, someone else would be living Jennifer's dream, but the upside was that she would no longer have to deal with the presence of these freaks in her life. The children could visit dad, but those weekly visitations would be a thing of the past. Yes, make no mistake about it, Jennifer had truly loved that husband of hers, and the thought of another woman having taken what was rightfully hers could have destroyed her if she didn't focus on learning very precisely about covert narcissism and knowing that she wasn't alone in the world. Yes every meal that new couple shared, every vacation, every walk on the beach, every kiss and every hug, every text message that rightfully belonged to her, was stolen from her. But slowly Jennifer understood about covert narcissism. Yes, you can read all about covert narcissism, and get a good idea of what it is all about, but to actually understand the implications of it and to actually somehow make sense of the twisted logic and motivations of a covert narcissist takes many years of study. So in the end Jennifer understood that she lost nothing when that creep left her high and dry. In the end Jennifer realized that she lost nothing when that so called husband of hers left except for the investment that she made in that man  and the home she made for him. She still had her children and after much work got back her self and her self esteem, as well as her self confidence. Yes Jennifer was in a financial hole but she had already dug herself partly out of that hole and had a clear path forward for being totally out of debt. Yes in the end it was all about the children and they were doing well. It would be another ten years at least of focusing on the children. But she had found herself again. She was alive. She had hope for the future. And more important than anything else she had overcome the resentment. Yes the Bible told her what God said about getting even: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay sayeth the Lord” and she left that narc and his new partner in God's hands. That meant it wasn't her responsibility to warn anyone about the narcopath or her responsibility to stop them from hurting others. God would take care of the situation and God would repay. If God chose to keep Jennifer in one room and without any partner for 15 years while her ex husband and his new partner were living in luxury in a warm environment so be it. God is God, He makes the rules and it isn't for us to try to criticize the outcomes God allows. In the end the Bible gave Jennifer the most important key to overcoming the resentment and that was the parable of the unforgiving servant found in Matthew 18 verses 23 to 35. That passage clearly shows that the vengeance that we are seeking, the need to see a person who wronged us pay is literally the same as someone owing us something, owing us a debt. Make no mistake, those treacherous narcopaths who, for no other reason than pure malevolent selfishness, decided to destroy another person who never meant anything but good for them, owe those targets an incalculable amount. An amount that after many years have passed and the damage was done and then repaired can never be repaid. Yes that narc could give Jennifer 1 Million Dollars and it wouldn't be enough. 10 Million wouldn't do it. No amount of money can repair the damage the narc has done. But that verse in Matthew clearly shows us the bigger picture. None of us is innocent, and if God is willing to forgive us of our sins, otherwise known as our “debt” to Him, which we can never repay, then we are required to forgive the debt others owe us, especially if they can't repay. If we aren't willing to forgive the narc's debt, we face a real possibility of having to pay our own debt to God as well. Yes the covert narcissist is all in with the above explanation that emphasizes that the target must let go of their grievances. Any given narcopath will very much like the concept of “never being able to pay the target back”. The narc is very comfortable thinking to themselves: Yes I can't pay, they need to go on with their lives and let me live my own life. That target needs to let me off of the hook. That target needs to “get over it”. That target “needs to move on”. Yes the narc is correct. They are off the hook. With the last target, in this case Jennifer. But otherwise that narc is as wrong as can be. The narc has no right to ever tell another person, especially the target whose life they destroyed, how they should be handling that abuse. More importantly, the narc hasn't looked at the grand scheme of things. They don't have to deal with the previous targets (yes, Jenifer wasn't her “husband's” only victim, there were more before) and they may press their luck and get away with victimizing a few more people. But eventually the narc's luck will run out. No that narc may never face their targets, but they will need to give an account of their lives to God one day. Yes that narc can live in luxury and in the nicest environment imaginable, but they will one day have to pay for what they have done. Yes if they have a conversion and accept Jesus maybe they will receive eternal life, but even that won't be the end of the problem for the narcopath. Yes we are assuming the narc has a genuine conversion. There are three possibilities of what occurs in the afterlife for a narcissist as far as the author can tell. 1. There may simply be total annihilation, with the narc simply ceasing to exist and never understanding that they lost out on eternal life in a far superior environment than our present Earth in a far superior body than our present bodies. 2. They will be in eternal torment. 3. They will make it to the new Earth to come, but live a very compromised life. Yes that narc may spend eternity living in a shack with the barest minimum of marginally palatable food and sweeping the streets for the whole of that eternity, while others live in mansions doing important, stimulating, and interesting work that produces true fulfillment and a sense of accomplishment. Yes, maybe one day that narc will be put on trial to account for their lives and the jury will consist of all of the people that they targeted over the course of their lives. No, those highly visible charities and causes that narc made sure every one knew they were involved in won't make much if any difference. Only TRUTH will be used to judge that narcopath and decide their fate and the narc will be fully aware they have no possibility of weaseling their way out of, or lying their way out of, or gaslighting themselves out of a just judgment. That narc will be fully aware that their wicked actions, all of their lies, all of their betrayal, all of their disloyalty, all of their treachery, all of their infidelity will be illuminated and no amount of projection, blaming others for what they themselves are guilty of, will make any difference at all. The narc made an active decision to be wicked, to lie, to be evil. They seared and eliminated whatever conscience they were born with. They hurt many people and never cared. They were told about Jesus and thought it all a joke or took the attitude that “they heard all of it before”. OK. Well after a while a person becomes a reprobate. The narc didn't want the truth, they didn't believe in or want Jesus. Well eventually Jesus won't want them. The narc wants to go it alone and believes they have done no wrong. OK then. They have been clearly warned numerous times in numerous ways that they are in grave danger from possibly the only person who ever cared about them. No one knows what will really happen after we die but the above scenarios are based on different people's interpretations of what the Bible has to say. Lest someone say “well that's the Bible's take on it”, remember this one very important fact: Jesus was God and demonstrated without a doubt that He had power over life and death, therefore He has the authority to tell us in His Word what we might expect. Yes the humans interpreting the Word may be incorrect, but one of those three possibilities as described above is our best guess as to what to expect when we “meet our maker”. If Jesus as God endorsed the Bible then we might want to take it seriously. So what does the covert narcissist owe the target? Nothing. Paid in full. That is how Jennifer found peace in her life despite the incredible burden of seeing the perpetrator, the “Wicked”, prosper after having caused so much pain and destruction. Her ex husband owes her nothing. Paid in full. Her reward? Peace of mind, joy, hope, a renewed faith in people while at the same time taking into full account that evil people exist in this world. Let those narcopaths have their wealth, their success, and let them enjoy their lives even though we know these people will never be happy or satisfied in any situation they ever find themselves in.  But don't forget that the possibility of the narc suffering for their missdeeds and ending up in a far worse situation, in shabby surroundings either alone or with a partner and future that makes them want to crawl out of their skin, and with no way out for that narc, also becomes the ultimate destination for many of these creeps.  The target, however isn't really interested what becomes of the narc in this life, they have a firm assurance that one day true justice will be served and the narc will receive the "rewards" they have earned in this world. Yes at minimum two witnesses will be required and for many narcs there will be far more than two to verify the nature of that narc's "character".    Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you.  End Comments: Covert Narcissism in a Nutshell: Pearls before swine Matthew 7:6

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

Note what it says about the “swine”: not only don’t they appreciate the good things given to them, but they then turn around and attack you. Sound familiar? That’s covert narcissism in a nutshell, a total lack of appreciation for everything ever done for them and that includes all of the love, effort, and concern given to them. Then on top of it they turn around and do their best to destroy you.

Yes pearls before swine. The target cast pearls to the swine and that is totally their mistake which they take personal responsibility for. Yes the target was unaware that their partner was a “swine”, that was the target's error. The narc certainly appeared to be not just human but even good and kind and relevant and genuine. Well the target can admit to making that mistake and forgive themselves for not understanding. But now the target does understand and with that information does “move on”. Did the narc really “move on”? No, not really, they simply changed their surroundings and then went right back to doing what they do best. Acting the part of a wolf in sheep's clothing, being a “dog”, being a “swine”.

So the above is the situation as seen from the target's perspective, the only one real one that counts. But what about the covert narcissist's perspective? Well, we can only speculate but the most likely scenario is this: the narc sees themselves as a person who wants to be significant and have an impact in other peoples lives. The most dramatic impact they can make, is by destroying something that other people have created. So once the narc's “jig is up” they can't help themselves but to ensure they make a mark make themselves “relevant” to another person. The last thing a narc wants is to be forgotten. So that narc destroys. Well the narc will one day receive all of the recognition they ever craved to have. We call that judgment day.

 

A True Covert Narcissist Can't and Won't Ever Reform: The true covert narcissist is a lost cause. The notion that these people can actually ever understand the concept and value of empathy or ever have a conscience is simply wishful thinking. Every person they target that does believe in the honor and the value of these people, that believes that veneer on the covert narc's surface, ends up getting burned in the end. A person committed to a relationship with a covert narcissist in which the narc has no interest in leaving ends up being placed on a roller coaster ride of ups and downs laden with lies and broken promises and has to put up with their partner's bizarre self serving interpretation of reality. Every earnest effort by the target to stabilize things eventually ends up getting nowhere. Yes the hamster wheel that the target never wanted to be on and never can get off of, the constant moving of the goalposts, the endless complaining and discontentment of someone who can and never will be, and now we understand never wanted to be satisfied. All of this ends up wearing any sane person down. But the gaslighting then takes things to a new level and if the narc has their own way, the target will slowly lose themselves and their perception of reality. The line is often drawn when the narc's gaslighting is so obvious that the well meaning target actually wants to try to make the covert narc see where and how they are in error. Sadly the narc continues on trying to deceive and the target being unaware of the true nature of the beast in their presence continues to try to make the narc aware of their error. This effort is made again and again since the target feels obligated to be supportive. So it should be made clear that it's a false assumption that every target that stays with a covert narcissist is unaware of the lies and manipulation. No these targets simply can't conceive of the concept that a person such as a covert narcissist actually exists, let alone that their partner is one of these devils. Yes that target, as a result of the natural function of their love and commitment, holds on and tries to “make it work” in an environment that invariably becomes increasingly harsher as the years role by. Numerous examples can be given of the living hell the covert narc puts their targets through, but one example might suffice. Think of the philanderer who has a secret life right under their partner's nose for years on end. Is that how the disloyalty started? Is that the first incident of unfaithfulness? No the narc in their early days of inexperience was easily caught and if they lived in a tightly knit community their infidelity and numerous trysts became common knowledge to seemingly everyone but the target, who was busy supporting the narc financially. Conversely the “hard working” bread winner would use their “late night projects that needed immediate completion” as ready excuses for gaining a few hours of private time. Yes in the beginning the narc was as of yet inexperienced in the execution of their disloyalty and treachery. So they got caught and then promised never to do it again. In reality, they refined their craft and “did it again”. Then they got caught again, and the cycle repeated. Eventually some partners gave up and a mutual agreement was made to part ways. Yes love has it's limits and when the hope for change has met the harshness of reality too many times a target wakes up and gives up on the narc. Yes you can struggle with that covert narc, reason with them, love them and return kindness for the evil they perpetrate and it makes no difference. Pronouncements by the narc of being “reformed” and “changed” and even an admission of “being wrong” are empty words simply designed to continue the abuse in a more stealthy manner until that is also detected by the narc's partner. Every minute of interaction with a covert narcissist is abuse in one form or another. The narc lies continually, misrepresents all of the time and is always seeking to manipulate. They can't help themselves. The thing that strings along the target and makes them put up with all of this craziness is the belief that the narc is simply a flawed person that is basically “good on the inside”. No. The narc, for lack of a more concise word, is evil on the inside. You could make the argument that despite all of the narc's flaws they could be “tamed” and made manageable by a person who understands covert narcissism. Yes that is possible, but to make that work you are no longer in a genuine relationship with the narc, you are simply manipulating them and gaslighting them into staying in a synthetic relationship. That type of dynamic means the target has to become a dysfunctional narcopath themselves. A sane person who believes in love gets no pleasure out of being an emotional jail keeper. Yes a narc can be tricked into a relationship and a marriage and stay with someone for decades. The key is that the jail keeper of that narc, a greater covert narcissist than the lesser covert narc themselves, was more adept at manipulation and used financial dependence, emotional extortion, depraved indifference and denigration to manipulate that narc into a long term relationship. But one thing the greater narc could never prevent was the lesser narc's philandering. So even the greater narc eventually gets worn down by the lesser narc that they have “captured and restrained”. No there is no value for anyone in trying to hold on to a narcopath. Let them go. Heal yourself. Never look back. They can't change because they don't want to change. But the reality goes far deeper than that. We are using terms that really apply to normal people. Yes many a normal person can become addicted, lie, cheat, and steal. Many a normal person can have affairs and even more than one. But a normal person despite their actions will have feelings of guilt and remorse and that makes all of the difference. Yes that infidelity may well be coming from someone who once genuinely loved us and made a genuine commitment. Those circumstances make it more of a possibility that a relationship that was once genuinely great could be salvaged. However multiple episodes of bad behavior coming from anyone eventually means enough is enough. Yes even people who do love can become a “lost cause”. But that is describing the dynamics that occur with an average person not a covert narcissist. The covert narcissist is fundamentally different, and expecting them to change is unrealistic because the lies, the duplicity, the fraudulent presentation of who they are and what they like and dislike is literally an integral part of their persona, their “being”. What we consider “change” can be easily done by the narc, but that is simply altering the existing fake persona. It isn't real change at all since the very foundation of who and what we think the covert narcissist is, is fake and phony to begin with. The target, even after years of being in a relationship with a narcopath may still be clueless as to the true dynamic of that association, so the concept of “fixing” the relationship and “reforming” the narcissist are still very much considered feasible. Only months and years of studying and drilling the concept of covert narcissism into our conscience begins to make covert narcissism something discernible, something understandable, something possible, and more importantly something that we, the target, can accept that we have actually experienced first hand. So here is the stark reality of a covert narcissist, and to bring home the point we could engage in some story telling, creating a metaphor or a parable based on a real experience. Instead, let's just give an “opinion” of what is going on with a narcissist based on study, observation, experience, and contemplation. Just the raw facts to save time. The narc is a predator plain and simple. They don't love anyone or anything. They will never resist the opportunity to take advantage of a person that isn't wise to the depths of depravity the human race and covert narcissists in particular are capable of. Yes when you take away all conscience and guilt and place that into a game playing narcopath you have in front of you someone who will do and say whatever it takes to get a relationship. These creeps will knowingly make a lifetime commitment to someone they simply want the pleasure of deceiving. For a narc it's never about love, it's always about being able to deceive and get away with the deception. It's all about being able to manipulate. For a narc it's all about making their fake persona work and a fake future believable to the target. Yes take away any concern for the damage you do to a person and the potential promises made and sincerity feigned become endless. The narc has their “template”: mirroring, idealization, devaluation, discard, new relationship. The narc follows that template each and every time they engage in their deceptive practice of making someone believe that they, the narc want a relationship. It is always temporary for the narc: the relationship, the persona, the job, the home. Yes everything is simply temporary because the narc is too good for any situation they ever find themselves in. The narc is always actively looking for a better situation and will do anything necessary to make that new situation work. Loyalty commitment and love are simply meaningless phrases to a narc. So look at things from the standpoint of the narc. They find the whole concepts of “change” and “reform” to be ridiculous notions that they simply need to pretend that they believe in if that target still offers something they aren't yet ready to discard. Yes the narc will promise to change but those words aren't generated by genuine guilt or remorse. Those words of being “sorry” are simply posturing and or manipulation. The uninformed target wants and maybe even needs those words of the narc wanting to reform to be genuine. Think of the mother with a child dependent on one of these cretins. Yes for a narc it is always temporary but that doesn't stop them from getting married and it doesn't preclude the narc from living with someone for decades. But in the end it doesn't really matter how long that narc stays in a relationship, there is no love, there is no commitment, there is no bond or obligation or loyalty. As long as the narc sees an advantage for themselves and no better opportunity available, they will stay in the relationship. Yes, to a spouse or to a partner that may appear to mean that the narc is “someone who is very difficult but loyal and devoted”. To the target it may appear that the narc “does love, but can't show it”. No. That's not it. The narc is simply out of other, more advantageous options. But they do have a “Plan B”. It's just that their present partner is better than “Plan B”. Yes as long as the value of the relationship exceeds the value of “Plan B”, the narc is “loyal”. Try and change or reform that. Yes the incredible damage these covert creeps do to the target is incomprehensible and many times that damage done even would have been unnecessary. But what does the narc care. It isn't their problem or concern. But days previous that narc was the same “loving” partner they had been for years. How could they suddenly have a new partner and become so callous? Because they never loved, cared or were loyal in the first place. Yes the newly discarded target is still in the belief that the narc was a genuine human being who cared and is baffled and shocked by the narc's bizarre behavior. The pathway for that target is to fully comprehend what covert narcissism is and fully understand and believe that covert narcissism exists and in fact happened to them. That is the way out for the target, the road back to sanity and peace. Reforming a congenital perpetrator that is evil at their core is only seen as the fool's errand that it is when that target understands covert narcissism. Only then can the emotional damage be repaired and life go on. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you. End Comments: (Used in video) The target that witnessed a sudden discard by a narcopath coupled with a dramatic shift of the narc's loyalties to what the target considered a complete stranger received all of the information about the narc and the relationship with that creep that they would ever need to know. Someone who can turn off their loyalties and proclaimed love and planned future like a light switch in fact never loved or was committed or ever even cared about the person they targeted. The healing process of the target involved coming to grips with this harsh and unbelievable reality. Who can believe that years of their lives were based on a lie, a scam, a hoax? That narc had no justification or right to do this to the target. But the narc's bloodlust meant they took no prisoners and literally didn't care what damage was done to the target or if that target even survived the assault. Sadly some of these narcopaths actually feed on the additional misery they can cause a partner after the discard. So yes the message about what type of creature the target engaged with is very clearly presented in a matter of hours or days and occasionally over the course of a few additional weeks. Then the long undertaking of processing and healing and gaining insight occurs. At the end of this task the target learns to turn that narc off like a light switch as well. That “turning off” is justified, healthy, and necessary for that target to live a life free of toxicity and with a preponderance of peace and hope. The point of that light switch is that when the residual damage done by the narc in the form of toxic emotions come out on the surface, that light switch needs to be turned on and that nightmare of a relationship has to be revisited to understand and work on the problem. The target learned nothing at all from the narc and emulating the narc's denial or the pretense that “everything is OK” doesn't work for honest people and in fact will never even work for the crooked narcopath no matter how well they practice their own self deception. But that is the narc's problem not ours. We tried. We cared. We loved. We were genuine. No amount of love or concern or belief in these creeps made an iota of difference. Now we are off the hook. End Comments: (Unused) When the covert narcissist abruptly left the relationship without explanation, that discard came as mostly a total surprise to the target. No answers were given. No contact was instituted. Yes, that narc turned off the relationship like a light switch. So the target almost took it for granted that they had somehow failed in the relationship in a major way. The target was convinced that there was a logical explanation and they needed to know where they were in error. There would be no answers coming. But then at least one clue came. The narc had a new partner and the shocking part of it was the intimacy they shared with this person. How on earth could that narc totally shift their loyalty from you to what appeared to be a stranger that came out of nowhere in a few short weeks? Well the target did find out about covert narcissism and got their answers. That narc was living a double and possibly triple and quadruple life right under the target's nose. So that is how the narc turned off the relationship and never looked back. The detection of that new partner produced a slew of accusations against the target as the narc and their new partner decided to strengthen their bond by verbally tearing the target to shreds on social media in addition to making threats. But the target later realized that the bizarre phenomenon of projection, blaming someone for the things you yourself did to them, was real and that revelation gave that target even more answers as to what that narc's internal motivations were in the relationship. Yes the narc accused the target of being disloyal and not committed and went into many other details on social media and that narc unwittingly gave away so many more of their misdeeds when they projected them onto the target. So that abrupt departure did have an explanation in the end: that covert narc was simply discarding the fake persona and relationship that they had with the target and walking into a new, already constructed preexisting new persona and new relationship. Yes, the narc simply threw away the old, forgot about it in it’s entirety and went on with a new existence.

Due to the damage done by the narc, the target will take many years and possibly decades to be able to turn that narcopath off like a light switch. But that is precisely what the healed target can and needs to do: they need to be able to turn off that narcopath and all of the toxicity and only revisit that sad chapter of their lives as needed. Yes, occasionally that light switch has to be turned on when issues crop up that are the result of the abuse and damge the narc did to the target.

No the target can't pretend the relationship never happened but they also don't need to dwell on it. So the memories are turned on when things have to be worked on, then those memories are walled off. Being able to turn that narc off means there is no bitterness or resentment or anger or need for vengeance. When you turn off the narc you turn on a light in your life. You get a breath of fresh air. You get your life back in it's entirety. You see that narc for what they are: toxic and erosive of anything that had meaning, substance and value. That narc was a waste of your time and a waste of your life.

 

4 Years and Counting: Dealing with the Aftermath of a Covert Narcissist Introduction: How long does it take to recover, to get yourself back, to get back stability in your life after a covert narcissist has “worked their magic”, their wicked magic, upon your life? It would take a whole video possibly spanning 30 minutes or more to begin looking at all of the different variables. Narcs may be all the same as far as the patterns they follow, but in the end each narc is still an individual and each target is an individual as well. Add in all of the different scenarios that come to play in the genesis and final ending of that relationship and it becomes clear there is no one answer. Some of the commenters in the past who had been kind enough to share their personal experiences reported that once they were certain that they were dealing with a covert narcissist and knew for sure what and who they were dealing with, they simply walked away and went on with their lives in short order. Yes it still took time to “deprogram” and “shake the dust off of their feet” but that narcopath would not be allowed to have any long term impact. Other targets were placed in ridiculous situations and had such severe deception, fraud, treachery, betrayal and manipulation perpetrated against them, that a decade or more was required to even begin to find themselves and gain stability. We haven't even mentioned the poor souls who were married to and raised a family with one of these incontinent creeps. Yes when children are involved and a marriage is involved a target who takes seriously their obligations feels compelled to try and make things work and when those efforts are then even further taken advantage of by the narcopath, the damage is severe. Of course the narc will eventually leave for greener pastures, avoiding most of the repercussions of their depraved game playing masquerading as a genuine relationship. Yes it will take time for that target to even realize that what they viewed as and believed was a committed relationship was actually a fraud and a con job from day one. So there is not one answer as to how long it will take for someone to recover from the abuse of a narcopath and no single outsider has the right to judge. With that in mind let's proceed to the video which is based on the experiences of one person who was targeted by a covert narcissist. 4 Years and Counting: Dealing with the Aftermath of a Covert Narcissist: Time and time again people feel the need to be “helpful” and try to remind the former victim of a covert narcissist that much time has passed since that covert creep left the scene. Yes, it was a scene alright, the scene of a crime. The outsider perceives things differently. The vast majority of outsiders can only believe that the target was simply in a bad relationship that ended in a catastrophe. Yes the actual details, the actual dynamics at play in that so called relationship with a narcopath are inconceivable to the average person. In fact the reality of the relationship was even inconceivable to the target at the time of discard, when the narc decided to engage in their prearranged and choreographed exit plan with a new life and partner fully planned and conceived as that narc's happy ending. Yes, in the end stages of the no longer valued relationship, when the culmination of that sick creep's plans was keenly and excitedly anticipated, the narc's adrenaline level rose to the point of euphoria. Yes their long laid plans would finally come to fruition. Yes tangible results were right around the corner and the damsel in distress or misunderstood rebel would soon be saved by a new relationship. Yes the cunning narc had for a long time covertly and carefully leveraged the situations in the previous relationship to suit themselves. The narc had catered things to themselves so completely, to such and extent, that they felt fully entitled and justified to be a perpetrator while at the same time pleading victim status to anyone outside of the actual private workings of the relationship with the target. Yes this was not the narc's first rodeo, they had been through the sequence of mirroring, idealization, devaluation and discard many times before. Part and parcel of the narc's refined final exit plan was the denigration and devaluation of the target all along the path of their wicked yellow brick road. Every single step that narc took along the way to their new persona and new relationship they slowly but surely, calculatingly and methodically burned their previous existence to the ground and bled the soon to be ex partner dry of every usable bit of energy. But the bewildered target was clueless, believing in their heart that the narcopath was actually a serious partner addressing legitimate concerns that had genuine impact on the future of the relationship. So the target took the abuse, thinking it to be constructive criticism. No, that wasn't it. Only later did the target understand this was a sick, warped creep with no conscience or regard for anyone but themselves playing a game, pretending, leveraging. Yes that covert creep had ulterior motives in that abuse and it was all about feeling powerful and in control and almost god like at another person's expense. Yes the narc verbally and in some cases formally, in the form of marriage, made a commitment to be there in sickness and in health, but those were all empty words and commitments that were made because the narc saw gain for themselves that outweighed their investment. The only exception to this rule is when a lesser covert narc is manipulated by a greater one. Yes sometimes narcs feed on their own kind. You see this when a balding fat narcopathic freak of average means ends up entrapping an overconfident beautiful female narc who thinks she is street wise. The predatory female version of this exists as well. Yes a whole video could be made on how to use the narc's mental illness against them. To be a “better” narc than the narc themselves. But what would be the point? Corrupt behavior is something we want to avoid, not emulate. The cost of doing this to a narc would be the loss of our own humanity. No, let's just give people the tools to detect and avoid covert narcissists. Let's just concentrate on repairing the damage. That is all that is needed. But back to the theme of what occurs in the period directly before a narc's departure, when they can almost palpably feel that new relationship and lifestyle and persona taking form and substance. A time when the old has yet to be fully destroyed and the new is just beginning to be “born”. A time when the target is totally unaware of what is going on and is fully convinced they are still in a relationship, even though they sense the narc is “slowly slipping away”. Unbeknownst to the target they are the only person in that relationship who ever made a genuine investment, who ever actually had skin in the game. So the target, with that emotional investment, does everything in their power to make things work, to satisfy the narc's demands. But in hindsight, we now know this was simply the narc getting pleasure out of manipulating another human being while at the same time building a rock solid case and justification for the new relationship they were planning right under the target's nose. The closer the narc was to realizing this new future, the greater the abuse they directed to the no longer wanted target. After all in the narc's sick mind they would never have to face the consequences or repercussions for their foul behavior, since they would be in another relationship by the time those consequences were felt. So the mental and emotional abuse intensified and in some cases progressed to other areas of abuse. Then when that date certain was planned, the narc went to the next level and theft occurred. That theft would only be found out later by the target, and the mere thought of the future chagrin and consternation this would cause the target sent a thrill up the narc's leg. On the other hand, the outright overt disloyalty that was purposefully perpetrated right in front of the target and in the same instance totally denied by the narc was done for the narc's immediate satisfaction. Yes the gaslighting was now to a point where it was occurring in real time. In the author's experience, the narc literally flirted with and lingeringly touched the hand of a complete stranger right in front of the target and not 10 minutes later pretended the event never occurred. To continue on with the autobiographical, in the end that narc pushed the target to the limit and then felt fully justified in walking out of the door abruptly. No need for explanations. It should be understandable that this left the target bewildered and in need of making sense of things. For the crime of actually confiding in a friend about the incredible and unbelievable behavior of the narc, the narc made a return days later. That narc threatened the target and their family in every way and made a credible threat on the target's life. Through proxies. They then, under a totally false lying pretense began physically assaulting the target and the target never lifted a hand, being made to believe they deserved the abuse. No they didn't, by the way. Yes more threats followed on the narc's hallowed social site and were now also being made by and ignorant arrogant creep who was the narc's sudden new partner. A fool who was spoon fed one lie after another by the narc and believed it all. A clown who never even met the target. A person who talked big then ran to the police when he was called on for a face to face meeting. Yes the target did get themselves back, but it was everything in between that initial departure by the narc, who was at the time seen as a normal human being, and the eventual recovery of the target that caused the major portion of the personal economic damage. The bulk of the psychological abuse and damage was perpetrated during the course of the actual relationship and that “hook” was then used by the narc to inflict additional psychological pain once the narc was in the devaluation and discard phase. Yes the abuse in the active relationship was subtle, and introduced major toxicity into the target's life, but that toxicity was by design covert and not detected and in that sense allowed the target to continue functioning. Yes the target was functional while in the relationship with the narcopath, but the function was gradually and imperceptibly being replaced by dysfunction. That relationship abuse was damaging in the sense that it created a surreal world for the target and warped the image they had of themselves and of the outside world. For a businessman the decline in revenues tells the real story, the story of someone who was being slowly destroyed and undermined piece by piece without ever even knowing what was going on. Yes, in a very real sense the psychological abuse, as terrible and all encompassing and damaging as it was, was still only fifty percent of the equation. Yes, when the narc was in the relationship, it was in their own interest to keep the target viable enough to provide a stable relationship and that allowed the target to make a living. But once the narc no longer depended on the target, all bets were off. Yes the covert narcissist who no longer has any need of the target shows their true nature, the true depth of their depraved calloused indifference to the target that they purportedly “loved” and “committed the rest of their lives to”. Yes in my case the damage by that narc that made the biggest difference to my ongoing economic existence amounted to less than 5 hours in total. The “mask” was partially dropped over the course of 3 hours of what I now see as serendipity. Yes a sequence of events that could never be accounted for by random chance alone allowed me to get a clear glimpse of the hideous creature behind that mask. That demon then unleashed and focused the full forces of her depraved wicked rotten core in a campaign to destroy me. Those threats nearly took me to the edge and in the end set off a chain reaction that put me in one of the most precarious situations a person could be put into. That struggle has been ongoing for 4 years and it stares me in the face day after day. Yes there is hope. Yes, I am healed psychologically. But there is more to the story and the details can't and won't be made public. That struggle means that the covert narc is still “with me”. I want that narc gone and I work each and every day to wipe away the damage that the creep did to me. To get back everything she took. But there are no guarantees. Only a degree of uncertainty and instability that I have absolutely no control over. It has yet to be determined if I become fully restored. I must leave things in God's hands. Yes I blame myself for having gotten involved with that creep, but make no mistake, that devil has much to answer for. However, they don't answer to me. It's out of my hands. They answer to God. When in the midst of the travail I often times think to myself the narc would never be able to tolerate the emotional distress and hopelessness, the pain and suffering their actions have caused me. But I can't imagine they haven't had some repercussions themselves and in the midst of that distress I hope that they never have to experience the pain and suffering they have caused me that are the direct results of their calloused indifference. But the reality is that narc has much to answer for and whatever mistakes I made that I am now paying for, that narc has made exponentially larger and more grievous mistakes. So it follows they will have exponentially greater suffering... and pain. Good luck to them, and I mean that sincerely. I never want to hear from, or see that person again. I have no interest in knowing anything about them, where they are or what they are doing or who they are doing it with. So yes: “Still”. Not by choice, but necessity. “Still”. Because even though much healing has taken place there is still more healing to do, more things to work out. But in addition the greatest portion of the current struggle is getting myself back on a firm financial footing. For the most part that person is gone from my active thoughts, but the repercussions of that creep's actions make it an almost impossibility to not think of that wicked narcopath on occasion. Yes there is still occasional anger and times when I want to see her suffer. There are times when I pray for her well being because it is inconceivable that the situation she set up didn't also severely damage her. There are still those moments when I want everything back that was taken from me, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, that includes her. But those are very brief moments. The focus is on rebuilding and keeping a positive attitude. Yes the narc created a void and that “void” will be filled by something and someone far superior. I already have assurance of that. Patience has to be learned and it will hopefully pay off. I have higher expectations of the people that surround me now. I have higher expectations of myself. Yes healing has taken place, but there is much uncertainty and until stability is achieved the aftereffects of that narcopathic relationship stare the target in the face and have emotional impact of varying intensity every single day. Things that can't be avoided an have to be lived with. Yes dealing with the aftereffects of a narc even 4 years later is still a reality that can't be avoided. Departing from the personal and getting back to the general it is important to emphasize to the viewer that the situation isn't as dreary as it sounds. There is plenty of hope for the target once they find themselves and get themselves straightened out. Just the knowledge and understanding of what an incredible destructive toxic mess that narcopathic relationship was when seen with a clear mind means that the target considers themselves incredibly lucky to be rid of the covert narcissist. Yes that good fortune came at a price since the narc's treacherous damaging vandalism destroyed nearly everything. But it didn't destroy the target. That healed target will have gone through a trial by fire and emerged stronger and more confident and more aware than they ever were before. That has value. Yes there is the potential for the target to receive great blessings and great rewards and personally witness an actual conversion of that narc's malevolent evil to good in their lives. Some targets have the good fortune of having friends and relatives that provide a supportive environment that aids the healing process. Other targets may have to mostly “go it alone”. But no target will be able to fully emerge from the pall, the gloom that envelopes them without some help from outsiders. Even if those outsiders are people who produce social media. On a personal note, when all is said and done, I would have to say the bulk of my own healing came from watching YouTube videos. To briefly continue the personal narrative, those great rewards spoken of above were real for me and they didn't come without expending energy and focusing that energy on the recovery process. Pain is a great motivator and sharpens your focus. Yes, those rewards were and continue to be earned by daily effort and a daily struggle that is an absolute necessity in the journey to get back something that resembles a real life. But it would be erroneous not to acknowledge the great help of those new people that now surround me and can be depended upon. So what about the narc? That narc will be a perpetual felon. That narc in perpetuity will be someone who physically and psychologically and mentally abused their partners. Yes, the trademark statement of a lowlife wife beater is: “Why do you always make me hit you?” In the same exact spirit these selfish psychopathic lowlife covert narcissists are so self centered they actually believe “it is the victim's fault”. These cretins actually believe their physical abuse was justified. NO. Not so. Sadly, many a victim will actually believe they deserved that physical abuse. NO, they did not. That physical abuser will never be able to erase or walk away from who they are or what they did. That abuser “went there”. They have tattooed themselves in perpetuity with the label of Physical Abuser. That fact can't ever be lied away. No amount of public charity will make any difference at all. They own the label and it owns them. That narc will always be someone who lied to their partners, who cheated on them, who broke their word and their promise, and who is a Physical Abuser. As well as a thief, even though that transgression pales in comparison to the rest of the narc's “crimes”. That narc showed themselves to have never cared or loved and they proved that multiple times in multiple relationships. That narc showed themselves to be a habitual user and abuser of people with many people victimized. Did the narc know what they were doing was wrong? Of course they did. Why else would they deny everything that they did while in the relationship. They don't ever want anyone to know the real creep that lies behind the mask of that phony facade of theirs. The so called “humanitarian”. Yes only a “chosen few” get the pleasure of knowing who and what that narcopath is really all about. Yes “Still”, but NOT forever for the target. That can't be said for the narc. That narc will “Still” be a physical abuser, a liar, a cheater and a thief for as long as they live and beyond. Why? Because they refused to acknowledge that they have done anything wrong. They “erase” the memory, conveniently “forgetting”, or double down on the justification of their actions using their age old ploy of projection. Blaming the target for what they themselves are guilty of. Both of those options are a “no go”. There is only one way out: Jesus. He will remove the narc's liability just as He can restore the target. Those two items aren't coupled. The narc and the target are separate entities. So, thankfully the narc's liability can be removed without the target ever having to see that narc again. It's between the narc and God in the same way that it's between the target and God. Yes, the target will heal and learn and hopefully do better in the future. The narc, on the other hand will most likely deny and continue victimizing as many people as they can get to believe their con. So the narc deteriorates and continues on in their sordid lifestyle. Yes it's a big country , with numerous places and people. That means nothing but opportunity for the narcopath. Let's spread the word and make it that much harder for the narc to “succeed”. Conclusion: So what are the “takeaways” from the unfortunate waste of time known as a relationship with a covert narcissist? What can be learned that makes a difference and that allows that target to fully move on whole and healed and ready to pursue another relationship? That investment of love and concern made on the narcopath can potentially pay back dividends to the target, but that return will come from another person who genuinely loves them and has empathy. Yes some targets were visited by a relationship with a narcopath and because that person left without incident, or made the target believe it was their idea to leave the relationship, or leveraged the situation to give the impression that the breakup was mutually agreed upon, that target was never even aware that the partner they had some concerns about was a depraved game player. Yes in that case the target moved on and hopefully got things sorted out in their mind as to what they had to offer and what they needed in a potential new relationship. That target may have had very specific ideas about having boundaries and not compromising their standards in the next relationship. That target may have come to the conclusion that no relationship is better than a settled for relationship. But none of that prevented another narc from lying their way through every one of those barriers and safeguards just because they couldn't resist the challenge. Yes without actual proof the target would just be left with a sense of having been manipulated by a previous partner, but there would be no way to know for sure if that previous partner was a narcopath. No you can't look inside of a person's head or heart and visualize their thoughts and motivations. You have only their words and their actions to go by. Yes, in the beginning that narc used all of the right words and the narc's actions seemed to confirm that they were genuine. But in the end their words were increasingly harsh and abusive and the equivocations and outright lies they spewed were no longer deniable. In addition to all of that, the narc's actions were beginning to tell a story of a disloyal and duplicitous partner who was growing increasingly detached from the daily workings of the relationship. But even with all of that, if that narc played it cool and left with a reasonable explanation the target would have no clue whatsoever of what had just occurred to them. Yes that target would have, despite their suspicions, believed that the narc at one time genuinely loved and had empathy and was concerned, but somehow the love had “grown cold”. That is the ideal scenario. The vast majority of targets have had a very different experience. Many and probably most targets eventually witness the narc's “dark side”, otherwise known as their true self or the “creature behind the mask”. The cheating, the treachery, the incredible cruel triangulation with a new partner and all of the other abuse the covert narcs served out with such calloused glee caused massive damage to the target's self image, self confidence, and world view. Add to that the potential economic cost that a relationship with one of these creeps levies and you have no doubt as to what kind of reptile you were dealing with. Yes for the privilege of “knowing for sure” that the previous partner was a narcopath, the target paid a very high price. But seeing that narcopathic snake for what it was, as painful as it was for the target, gave clarity and brought a preponderance of truth back into the target's life. No more living in a world of lies and deception. That was the first step in the healing process. Once that all sank in, the second major revelation was realizing that the entire narrative surrounding the narc's departure was fabricated from whole cloth. Yes that narc had the target convinced that they, the target “weren't the person they used to be”, that the target had somehow “changed” or disappointed the narc in some way that made the narc “feel differently” . Yes the target had said or done something or somehow misrepresented themselves and because of this the covert narcissist's love had “grown cold”. At this point the healed target will nearly break into uncontrolled laughter at the absurdity of it all. Yes it's pure nonsense. To give some personal perspective. The narc's ramped up personal demands and continuous changing of the goalposts made it a near impossibility to keep them satisfied. Sure it's mere coincidence that the narc had been “shopping” their social site for a new partner long before that departure. Inappropriate comments on the sites of members of the opposite sex were found by a brief web search. Sure it's a mere coincidence that they instantly found a “knight” in shining armor to save them on that same social site. Yes the narc truly believed that instant messaging was the greatest invention ever created. They were probably right, the greatest invention ever made for cheaters. That “innocent” time spent on the smart phone would never be questioned. Sure “anyone could look at their phone at any time and find nothing”. Well the target would have never dreamed of checking. They trusted. Well the truth did eventually come out. No that narc didn't realize her actions were easily uncovered. Yes the takeaway is clear for those of us who witnessed that cold hearted beast beneath the mask: That narcopathic creep never ever respected or loved or cared for the target from day one. The lack of respect and calloused disregard for the well being of the target when the narc viciously triangulated with the new weasel partner was the same exact disregard and disrespect that narco pathic freak had for the target the day they decided to entrap them into a relationship. Yes that fake “love” and “concern” was pure manipulation and entrapment. Nothing more, nothing less. It was game playing for the pleasure of the narc who would otherwise possibly be alone or “bored with life”. Yes, that same exact disrespect and disregard was present each and every moment that narc spent with the target while in the relationship. Yes that narc is as hollow an excuse for a human being you will ever come across in your daily walk of life. But of course the term “hollow” refers to the fact that there is nothing real or valuable inside the narc, nothing on the inside that actually bears any real resemblance to the person or “persona” the narc portrays themselves as being. However, the narc is “filled” with something: evil, duplicity, hatred, treachery, betrayal, shame, and every other vile, depraved, repugnant thought and emotion that ever took residence inside a being in human form. Yes that abusive narc “gifted” the target by showing them the truth, the harsh reality of what the years spent with that creep were really all about. What a sham. What a joke. When the target comes to that conclusion and can fully accept it they have come nearly to the end of the healing process. That is in stark contrast to the beginning stages right after the narc's departure. Yes in the early days of the departure the narc can make a mockery of the target's love and stomp that target's heart right into the ground. The narc can extoll the virtues and superiority of the new partner, the weasel that aids and abets the abuse, to devastating effects upon the target. But that narc has power only because the newly discarded partner actually thinks they lost someone of value. Yes that target did lose something of value, they lost their heart. They handed their heart to the narcopath as a sign of trust and the courage to make themselves vulnerable. That heart was bludgeoned beyond recognition, vandalized, then discarded...but it kept beating. The target retrieved that battered heart and it eventually recovered. In the process, the target discovered that heart's inner strength and resilience. So yes, once the target gets themselves back and sees the narcopath for what and who they were, that narc has lost all power to damage. But more importantly the relationship in it's entirety is seen in a new light, which effectively neutralizes much of the toxicity that the narcopath introduced into the target's life. Yes the narc was playing a cruel game, perpetrating a hoax, so why take anything they ever said or did seriously. Yes that narc is a small, sick, hollow human being. We see that now. We can and will do better. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you. End Comments: Remember: The covert narcissist is all about LEVERAGE. The covert narc seems humble because it gives them leverage (the upper hand) and makes the narc “relate-able” and allows the narc to elicit empathy. The covert narcissist lies because it gives them leverage (they know the truth, the target doesn't). The covert narc's false persona or “mask” gives them leverage, because all the target has to go by is the person that is presented to them that has the appearance of being a real person. Yes leveraging every single aspect of their lives, especially in a relationship, means the narc is “free” and the target has been placed into a “cage” of the narc's making. Of course reality dictates that any human being that bases their lives on lies and deception is the actual person in a “cage” and sadly the narc is so self-deluded they can't see that they have imprisoned themselves and are the actual author of their own miserable existence. Too bad for the narc. Self harm, no matter how severe is isolated to the person with the mental dysfunction but the narc's brand of mental illness always ends up harming other people more than the narc themselves. So how do you “tame” a narc without becoming one? LEVERAGE. But don't even make that attempt if the narc is a physically violent person. In that case, make the smoothest departure possible. Remember, guilt has no effect on these creeps and they have absolutely no appreciation or loyalty. You could give them your kidney and they would never hesitate to turn around and stab you in the back or betray you in any way possible once you had served your purpose. No the key is to grab these “snakes” by the metaphorical head and not allow them to have any leverage at all. No, you don't have to lie or be aggressive or even hostile, you simply refuse the con, refuse their lies. Call that narc out again and again. You treat the narc with the only thing they understand: cruel and unemotional adherence to the truth and to reality. You give that narc the harsh treatment they deserve and the only thing that they can respect. Kindness gets you nowhere with a narc, they laugh at it. In the absence of having leverage, most narcopaths will head for the hills. That may pose problems for a person financially dependent on them. So in that case the target needs to slowly extricate themselves. But for those in a relationship with a narcopath that doesn't involve marriage or children the best advice is to “let the narc go” and find a person you can live with IN PEACE. Fighting and struggling to maintain leverage is no way to live. Let that narc go if you aren't married to them and don't share children. The sooner the better. Liars, cheaters, evildoers, and thieves will sadly never change their ways. No a “leopard doesn't change it's spots”. The only tried and true way for a target to improve their situation is by getting these toxic covert narcissists out of their lives. Fresh air is good for the soul and a very nice departure from the “swamp” imposed upon the target by the narcopath.