Why didn’t I see the Narcissism before?

There are times you  ask, “Why didn’t I see the narcissism before?” This is a good question to ask and consider as you make your way through the affair mess.

Narcissists project a sense that they have it together. When you are attracted to someone, you often only see what you want to see.

When you feel in love, you saw what appeared as a person ‘having it together’. Whatever self-centered behavior you encountered, you likely dismissed it as them just being selfish.

Since we all have to overcome selfishness as part of marriage and family development, it is often seen as ‘natural’. The problem is that for a narcissist, the capacity to form lasting stable relationships is limited.

Since you were only focusing on how they responded to you, those limitations in their ability to have healthy relationships was not likely something that you picked up on.

It is as if you had blind spots that kept you from seeing who and what you are actually dealing with. Since narcissism covers a wide range of functioning, you may not have noticed many of the traits common to narcissists. Since they can be charming, you may have been so enthralled with their company, that you never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Since ‘narcissism‘ is now a trendy term, you want to know if you’re truly dealing with a narcissist. For starters, they tend to see view people and categorize them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

This tendency is not about seeing the world in black and white, which is often a moral or value system quality. In the case of the narcissist, it is about actually seeing people as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in terms of those that support and condone their actions.

When someone starts saying the truth about any issue, and it upsets the narcissist, such a person will be labelled as bad, even if they were presenting facts, or a moral truth, etc. The narcissist version of what makes a person ‘bad’ are those people who upset them, or remind them of their own inadequacies.

They don’t like being reminded of their inadequacies. They would rather believe a lie, and feel comfortable than to hear the truth and work through their discomfort. You have probably seen this whenever you have had arguments with them.

Narcissists also tend to ‘hold it together’ in most situations. It is only when they are emotionally elevated that you see their extreme behavior come out. They resort to extreme measures in maintaining their fragile cohesiveness.

They tend to take everything personally. The scary thing is that when they take something personal, they often react with a personal attack back. Their skill in maintaining appearances make it hard to notice their problems until they are under stress.

When people come into a restaurant, they are looking at them, when they are in a crowd, people are looking at them, etc., The narcissist is often accompanied by an ‘imaginary’ audience.

This audience approves all that they do. Since you probably don’t notice it or have grown accustomed to you, you’ll often hear references to “we’ or ‘us’ but they are not talking about the two of you as a couple. They are talking about their imaginary audience.

Since narcissists have difficulty forming healthy relationship bonds, they are often in and out of relationships. Yes, they can easily start up affairs, yet given their relationship skills, the nature of the relationship will not be healthy one.

Many times they seek out those persons who make them ‘feel’ whole. You may even hear them talk about needing to feel complete.

They  seek out people with similar attributes and qualities. Bear in mind, that when you are talking a ‘real’ narcissist, they are looking for people that are often a reflection of some attribute of themselves, be it real or perceived.

They may have told you about all their former relationships. In all likelihood, they have described them in terms of those people being ‘bad’. Since you were interested in them, and they were interested in you, the glaring clue about how all those former relationship were considered ‘bad’ probably did not give you cause for concern.

Most relationships have elements of good and bad combined. When past relationships are described in all negative terms, you can rest assured that some distorting of them is going on.

There are many reasons why you didn’t see their narcissism. This review gives you some of the possible reasons for missing valuable clues.

In the download “Affair Recovery Workshop” you can learn the skills needed for moving ahead with affair recovery. You don’t have to continue beating yourself up for not seeing the obvious.

When you’re ready for recovery, you can start putting that behind you and salvage your marriage.

Best Regards,

Jeff