These 3 Secrets Outsmart A Narcissist

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano, Life Coach, and bestselling author will explain her three main secrets that can help you outsmart a narcissist. If you wish to be truly free of toxic, narcissistic personalities, you need to understand the agenda of a narcissist. It's not about getting them to let go, or winning, or proving them wrong. It's about you and you being willing to learn to let go.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

Today,

We're going to be talking about some of the best ways you can outsmart a narcissist.

When we're trying to outsmart a narcissist,

It's very important to remember these three key ideas.

Narcissists actually need you to react to them in the 3D world.

Narcissists require narcissistic supply.

Number three,

A narcissist is looking to dominate and control others.

Now,

Why would it be important for someone who is living with a narcissist,

Works with a narcissist,

Has been married to a narcissist to understand a narcissist's addiction to what is happening outside of them?

When you understand that a narcissist cannot live without interacting with other people,

Then it becomes easier for you to let go of some of the things your ego might find it difficult to let go of naturally.

What I mean by that is that when you are with someone who is argumentative,

Confrontational,

Punishing,

Ridicules you,

Has a sense of entitlement,

Exploits people,

When you're around someone like this,

It is natural for the ego to be on guard and like,

What's going on here?

It's natural to want to push back.

But when we're trying to outsmart a narcissist,

We really have to understand that the pushing back is what a narcissist needs.

And so somehow we have to become disciplined enough,

Mindful enough,

Wise enough to not give the narcissist what he or she is actually looking for.

This absolutely need praise,

Admiration,

Validation.

They need to be able to exploit you to get an emotional reaction from you in order for them to feel like their false self can stay in place,

Like their mask can stay in place.

Don't get the narcissistic supply that they need from the outside world.

When this mask begins to slip and it's very dysregulating for someone like a narcissist to feel like he or she is losing control,

Like others are not seeing them as powerful and successful,

As beautiful,

As the most sexual,

Whatever it is,

Whatever type of narcissist you're dealing with,

Whatever it is that they're craving and they're needing from the outside world,

When a narcissist doesn't feel like they're able to control and dominate and secure a source of narcissistic supply from the outside,

They feel very off balance.

This is a very dangerous place to be if and when you become a target for a narcissist when they begin to feel dysregulated.

Because a narcissist will not self-reflect and say,

Hmm,

I wonder why I feel this way.

In the sense where they're actually looking to be full of self-knowledge.

They're looking to understand self.

They want to and have a desire to notice what they notice.

The narcissist generally isn't the type of person who will use metacognition,

The ability to think about the way one thinks,

The ability to be more objective about the way one behaves or the ability to pluck out a negative intention and to really self-correct and self-police.

That's not what's happening when we're dealing with a narcissistic personality,

Which is why so many of us seem to be interested in learning all we can about this thing known as narcissism.

I also think a caveat worth mentioning is that not everyone that disagrees with you is a narcissist.

Not everyone that says,

No,

I don't want to watch your children over the weekend or no,

I prefer not to watch your dog or no,

I'm not going to do X,

Y,

And Z just because you asked me to.

Just because someone says no to us doesn't make them a narcissist.

When we're thinking about narcissism,

We're looking for pervasive patterns over a period of time that don't go away and they don't improve depending on who the person is dealing with.

Now,

If a narcissist bumps into someone who does praise them,

Does brown nose them,

Then the narcissist might want to keep that person around unless the narcissist thinks,

Are they trying to manipulate me?

That's a different story.

Narcissists and the narcissistic cycle is pretty predictable.

Not when you're in it because you are emotionally reactive.

You fall for the love bombing in lots of the cases.

You fall for the trauma bonding situations where there are these intermittent areas of your life that are actually pleasurable.

You have this intermittent validation from the narcissist.

You have periods with a narcissist where everything is just amazing,

But in time,

Narcissists tend to grow bored and they need another hit.

They need another source of narcissistic supply.

It really is like an addiction to the 3D world.

Narcissists absolutely need that source of supply coming in,

Coming in,

Coming in.

Admiration,

Validation,

Power and control,

Even fear.

A narcissist,

If you're afraid of a narcissist and you give into their condescending comments,

You're crazy,

Everyone thinks you're crazy,

You're a flake,

You're a wacko,

Nobody thinks like you,

You should be happy,

How dare you insinuate that I don't do enough for you,

And you get beaten down like this,

That's the source of narcissistic supply.

The narcissist doesn't want you to be confrontational and actually with the intention to end the cycle,

To end the relationship.

A narcissist might welcome a confrontation with you because it's an opportunity for them to dominate you and to win.

These are ideas that we really do need to be paying attention to when we are considering outsmarting a narcissist.

Things that helped me very much in my life was realizing that when I was trying to get a narcissist in my life to change,

Then I was more similar to their energy than I realized.

Narcissists want you to get,

They want you to change,

They want you to bend to their will,

They want you to acquiesce,

They want you to fawn,

They want you to cater,

They want you to shrink,

They want you to admire them,

They want you to praise them.

They want something from you.

Now,

They feel entitled to exploit whatever they need to exploit in you and in the area to get what they want.

Let's say you live with a narcissist and your narcissist wants your grandchildren to see him or her as the rooster or as the chicken,

The main chicken in the hen house,

Right?

You're a little uncomfortable with the way this narcissist is speaking to your grandchildren,

Speaking to your children.

You're sensing that this narcissist wants to be seen as the ruler of your home or whatever the case may be.

And what will happen is a narcissist may enjoy a confrontation with your child as an opportunity to say,

What are you going to do?

Are you going to side with them or are you going to side with me?

Putting aside this idea that we should never be put in that situation by anyone that we're dating or any person that we're in a relationship with,

But this is the type of stuff that comes up when you're dating a narcissist or you bring a narcissist into your home.

The narcissist will wait a while,

But then in time they'll want to throw their weight around,

Right?

They'll want to play the victim card like,

Oh,

You care more about your kids than you care about me,

Or your grandchildren just rule you and you don't put your foot down.

But really what the narcissist is trying to do is get you to sway to their side of the equation,

Get you to give up how you feel about your grandchildren and the way you want them to feel in your home.

And so a narcissist is trying to get to change you.

They want to change your position.

And when I realized in my own life that through all of this conversation back and forth,

Arguing back and forth,

I was trying to change the narcissist in my life.

I didn't want him to say the things he was saying to our children.

I didn't want him to call me the names that he called me.

I didn't want him to do the things that he was doing.

So in essence,

I was saying,

I am in resistance to who you are and what you do and how you behave and your perceptions of this situation and the way you're going about dealing with your anger and your rage and your disappointment and even your sadness over the dissolution of our relationship.

So I could not control how he was reacting,

But there was a deep part of me that really wanted to.

And I remember when I had a long,

Hard look at myself energetically and I asked myself,

What is really going on here?

On both sides of the equation,

Someone's trying to control the other person.

And that is when I learned how to outsmart this person.

So what I did was I let go.

And so one day,

You guys may have heard me talk about this story,

I was working at a wellness center and I can't remember exactly how many text messages I got,

But there were a lot.

I would receive anywhere from 10 to 30 text messages and or voicemails in a day when things are really difficult and hot between the two of us.

And this one day I opened up my phone and I could see all of these negative texts and rather than react,

I just closed my phone.

At the time I had a flip phone and I put the phone back in my locker and I went to work.

And I thought,

Now I'm becoming a different energy.

Now I'm no longer engaging.

Now I am draining him.

Now I am not going to be that ball of yarn that he pushes all over the floor and gets a reaction out of.

And I can tell you from my toes,

I'm actually covered in goosebumps now,

That was one of the most difficult things that I have ever done.

It sounds so silly,

But turning my phone down,

Putting it back in the locker and choosing to disengage was one of the most difficult things I have ever wanted to do because I thought that his actions were so unfair and so over the top.

And all I wanted him to do was to understand that we don't belong together,

We don't work.

And it's okay that we acknowledge that and let that go.

Unfortunately,

Even though we didn't work,

He was okay with it not working.

He didn't want us to get divorced.

He didn't want the family to break up,

Right?

But I didn't want to live in a house that was so unhealthy.

We just couldn't make it work.

And so I wanted him to see that and he wanted me to just own my own reality and stay.

Ignore that my body was breaking down.

Ignore that we couldn't talk.

Ignore that physically there was nothing left between the two of us.

Ignore that we didn't even want to be in the same room with one another,

Let alone live the rest of our lives together.

He preferred that I ignore that and I just couldn't do that.

So when I began to understand these three key ideas that someone who has high narcissistic traits,

Whether they are narcissistic,

Full-blown narcissist,

Whether or not they have NPD,

Or whether they are someone who tends to be self-absorbed,

Reactive,

And tends to want to control others either through aggression or passive aggression,

Whether through a sob story or dominance and control,

Or even through their sexuality,

Right?

Because this idea of being addicted to the 3D world and needing a source of narcissistic supply is really at the core of what we're discussing.

But once they understood that there was a need to have me react,

I thought,

I've got to stop reacting.

And my ego was like,

Oh no,

We are responding.

We are fighting back.

This is dominance.

He's trying to control you.

He's calling you these names.

You have to clear your name.

You have to do this.

You have to do that.

But what about what he did?

What about what he said?

What about how he behaves?

It was all this,

Yeah,

But,

Yeah,

But,

Yeah,

But.

And my ego was on fire.

And it was just like,

This is reactivity.

This is programming.

This is not spirituality.

Yes,

I'm all about spiritual blowups when necessary.

Trust me.

I am all about setting a boundary and setting a fierce boundary when necessary.

But I'm talking about this automatic response of the emotional brain that really wanted me to push back.

And I was in resistance,

Right?

I was out of the flow.

And so if you want to outsmart a narcissist,

If you really use quantum tools and understanding energy is at the core of what's happening here and our physical bodies are manifestation of energy in motion,

We are all condensed of atoms and molecules and we are all made of dank matter.

And so therefore we are energy in motion.

And so if I wanted to end this relationship,

Then I had to stop being an equal energetic vibration for it,

Knowing and understanding now all these years later how shame-based he was and how shame-based I was.

That was another attracting angle that we had going on,

Right?

I felt very controlled by my mother as did he.

So neither one of us wanted to be controlled by the other,

But yet both of us were trying to control one another.

Although I came at it from the angle where,

Oh,

I'll be the caretaker and I'll take care of you,

A lot of that was me fawning in the hope that he would not abandon me.

And his coming at me trying to be dismissive and controlling and putting me down in his mind,

If he destroyed me mentally and emotionally,

Then I wouldn't abandon him.

So at a core vibrational level,

There was a lot more going on between he and I that was similar than I realized.

And it took a lot of humility to be able to see that objectively and be able to harness the tools of self-knowledge and really reconnect with my divine self and stop looking for other people's validation,

Ending my own addiction to needing validation and needing a connection with someone else in order to feel enough.

And that's what the crux of all of my work is,

Is to teach wounded people to believe in their divine self,

To help each individual love themselves so much that they don't need to play these games with the narcissist.

They don't need to get validation from the outside.

They really can learn to believe that they are enough.

Another caveat is that just because you are in a relationship with the narcissist doesn't mean that you were a codependent.

Narcissists will want to attract people into their lives that happen to be quite self-confident.

And what they do is they wear you down over time.

So just because you're in a relationship with a narcissist and you've been pulled in through the love bombing experience,

Through the dismissive phase or the discarding or devaluing phase,

And then you end up being discarded and then hoovered back in,

Just because you're someone who is in that relationship doesn't necessarily mean that you were codependent.

But more often than not,

At least I think so,

I haven't read any studies.

I don't know if any study has actually been done,

But it's safe to say from where I sit right now,

More often than not,

Many of us who end up in narcissistic relationships don't realize that,

I think it's Richard Grannon that says,

We're swimming in the same soup.

It's a shame-based soup.

And so if you are codependent,

The chances of you being in a relationship with someone who is more self-focused is pretty high.

Because codependents are other focused,

Which is still a 3D experience,

I still need something from the 3D,

Where a narcissist is self-focused.

But how a narcissist gets their source of narcissistic supply to support their false self-image is by controlling and dominating other people.

And that's through exploitation and a lack of empathy and a sense of entitlement.

And so remembering these key ideas that a narcissist is absolutely,

If you want to say it this way,

Addicted to the energy that they receive from the outside,

From the 3D world,

Because they cannot self-generate the energy.

They are not connected to their divine core.

And so they need energy to come from the outside.

The other thing to remember,

Number two,

Is that they require a source of narcissistic supply.

And number three,

In order to survive,

They really need to dominate and control others.

You're going to learn to need to do.

You're going to need to learn how to not respond to a narcissist.

You'll need to learn how not to be a source of narcissistic supply.

And number three,

You're going to need to learn how to hold onto your own energy.

The secret to outsmarting a narcissist is to understand their neediness and their actual requirement for a source of narcissistic supply that's outside of them.

So if you think about a narcissist as an extension cord,

A narcissist cannot survive unless they're able to plug their extension cord into an outlet.

They need this to feel stable.

And so when you refuse to be that outlet,

So you plug up that outlet,

You say,

No more,

No more,

No bueno.

You can't plug into me anymore.

You're not getting energy from me.

Then it becomes easier for you to understand what it takes to outsmart a narcissist.

So the goal is to become the one a narcissist cannot attach to.

What does this mean?

This means that you're going to have to have and develop,

If you don't have it yet,

A willingness and a desire to not respond to a narcissist.

You must develop a desire to no longer argue,

Punish,

Try to win an argument with,

Or change a narcissist.

It's a pretty tall order because being pushed around lightens up or activates the amygdala.

It activates the survival mechanism like,

No,

This is a threat.

I have to push back.

So overriding that impulse to want to push back and win can help you outsmart a narcissist.

How is this achieved?

Well,

You can achieve it through a number of different ways,

But some of the simplest ways to achieve it are through meditation and journaling,

Exercise,

Therapy,

Maybe even coaching,

Support groups online or in person,

Starting a business,

And finding the flow.

All of the above suggestions pull your attention and your energy away from the narcissist and helps you refocus your energy on the divine self.

So here are the practical things that you can do.

Number one,

You really have to stop trying to change someone.

You have to stop wanting to change a narcissist.

Your life will begin to change when you start accepting what is.

I mean,

Really accept what is.

So if someone is derogatory,

Accept it.

I don't mean you accept it like,

Yeah,

My husband and wife's derogatory.

Yeah,

They embarrass me in front of the kids,

The in-laws make fun of me at work.

Yeah,

They have absolutely no respect for me.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is you surrender to the idea that this person does these things and you know there's not a doggone thing that you can do about it to change it,

And you are going to cross your arms,

Hold onto your energy and no longer try to change it.

So in essence,

You're not resisting this person's energy anymore.

And remember,

What you resist persists.

So when I dislike something about someone and I try to change that something and that person just like something about me and they want to change or control me,

Our energies are very similar.

The second thing that you want to do is you want to eradicate any idea in your head that if you give up and you let go,

The narcissist wins and they think they've won.

This is an ego issue.

When we stay in arguments because we want to be right and we think we're right,

Like so let's say your narcissistic acts as cruel to the kids.

He picks out one kid versus the other kid.

He praises the one kid for being athletic and he puts down the other kid who is not athletic,

It's more into reading.

This happens.

So let's say you think that this is wrong.

I agree with you.

If we're going to have a moral conversation,

That's inappropriate.

But if we're going to have an energetic conversation and we're trying to outsmart the narcissist,

I have to look at this at a different angle.

So if I think I'm right and I want to win the argument with the narcissist to the point where he or she says,

I know I'm wrong,

I know you're right,

Then I don't always recognize that the narcissist argues back and fires back with the same mindset.

I'm going to prove her wrong.

I'm going to tell her she's back crazy.

I'm going to tell her that she's inappropriate.

I'm going to tell her that this kid should listen to everything I say and he should be afraid of me when I walk in the door.

But at the end of the day,

If you really slice it deep to its core,

We have one person who thinks they're right and they're trying to prove the other person wrong,

And on the other side of the equation,

We have the other person that's trying to prove their spouse is wrong and that they're right.

So at the core,

The energy is the same.

You can't have a moral conversation around this because you're not going to be able to win an argument with a narcissist.

They're not open-minded.

So if you have any idea in your head that you think that you're afraid to let go because the narcissist wins,

You really have to confront that idea and let it go.

That's how you outsmart the narcissist.

Let them think that they won.

Let them think whatever they want.

Pull back and retract your energy from trying to control what happens between their ears.

The third thing you can do is stop reacting every time they throw a grenade.

The grenade only goes off if you pick it up when it comes to a narcissist.

So I use the shutty-shutty method or you can use the gray rock method.

So these two ideas work hand in hand.

So shutty-shutty is I say nothing.

So if you call me a name,

I say nothing.

I don't even give you a few words.

I literally say nothing.

I surrender to your faulty perception of me.

I allow you to say and think and feel whatever you want to feel.

Cognitive bias is real.

When a narcissist says you are crazy,

They have a bias that has them believing and justifying why they think you're crazy.

I cannot jump into that soup and try to change what that person thinks.

So I shutty-shutty and I say namaste.

This is a free will zone.

You get to think what you want.

You get to say what you want.

And as long as I do not jump into that soup,

I avoid your karma.

I'm not getting in the way of your karma.

So if you want to be derogatory,

If you want to be unfair,

If you want to be vindictive,

If you want to distort stories to make them fit your narrative,

By all means you have an absolute right to do that.

And I'm not going to get in the way of your karma.

And I'm not saying that from a passive aggressive place.

I really mean it.

You are allowed to come here and you are allowed to say what you say.

You're allowed to do what you do.

But there are laws that govern time and space and none of us are going to escape them.

And so when I stopped trying to win an argument,

When I stopped engaging,

When I stopped picking up the grenade,

My life incrementally began to shift.

That first day I shut my cell phone,

I realized I didn't feel so anxious after a few hours.

I actually felt better.

I put the phone down.

I didn't pick up the grenade.

I let him do whatever it is he needed to do.

And then at the end of the day,

Delete,

Delete,

Delete,

Delete,

Delete.

I stopped picking up the grenade.

One of the things that might help you is understanding that when someone refuses to change in your life,

It's an absolute opportunity for you to change.

And that was a huge aha and a huge breakthrough for me when I realized that,

Wow,

Because these people in my world refuse to change,

I was forced to change.

And so I'm getting goosebumps again.

What's really difficult to understand is that narcissists generally,

Unfortunately,

Don't change and they are on their own life path.

And hopefully in time,

They will learn what they need to learn in order to change.

In my life,

Pain was the greatest motivator.

I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I got sick and tired of playing by rules in my head that just didn't work.

Thinking that if I'm the good one,

Thinking that if I'm the people pleaser,

If I'm the rescuer,

Thinking that if I'm the one that has no needs,

Certainly this is the way to experience happiness and it's a bunch of malarkey.

It doesn't work when you don't love the self.

It doesn't work when you don't put the self first.

And if anything happens,

The opposite effect happens.

People disrespect you.

You save your entire life for your children and then you die and they get the pool in the backyard.

So you don't enjoy your life.

You don't enjoy your money.

You're,

Oh,

I'm going to save this all for my kids.

And then you die and your kids get the extension on their house.

Meanwhile,

You lived in this little tiny house or an apartment.

You have to learn to enjoy your life.

You are an heir to the universe.

You are divine at your core.

And the only reason so many of us don't experience the abundance we deserve is because we don't ask.

And we don't ask because we don't believe.

And we have been taught that it's selfish to put the self first.

We should worry about other people.

We should give people the benefit of the doubt.

We should allow people to walk all over us.

We should always forgive and always forgive,

Right?

We don't allow ourselves to set a boundary with other people.

And then we become rageful ourselves and then we become angry.

Then we exhibit symptoms of borderline personality disorder because nothing that we've done is working.

We keep throwing ourselves into the mouth of a lion.

We keep falling for the same love bombing.

We keep trying the same things,

Right?

What's the definition of insanity?

Doing the same things and expecting a different result.

And so yeah,

We're exhausted.

We're frustrated.

And it isn't until we really are sick and tired of being sick and tired and we start asking the right questions,

What am I doing wrong?

How am I keeping this energy alive?

How am I still a source of narcissistic supply?

Someone wrote me on Instagram and said,

What should I do when I know my narcissist is lying to me and he's getting all perfumed up to cheat on me?

I saw his text messages.

I saw the WhatsApp text messages.

I know he's going to meet this other woman.

What should I do?

And I'm thinking,

Leave?

Set a boundary?

Why will you continue to be a source of narcissistic supply?

Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

What do you do in that situation?

Confront this person?

He's not going to admit it.

And if you catch him red handed,

He'll blame you for why he's cheating on you anyway,

Right?

And your reaction and feeling belittled and feeling less than is a source of narcissistic supply.

So we have to start asking the right questions.

And so when we understand a narcissist's addiction to the 3D world,

Then we know we have to do everything that we can to not be that source of narcissistic supply.

So here are some things that you can do.

Start really thinking about what it means to find the stillness within.

Start really thinking about what it means to reconnect with those that you may have lost through your relationship.

Because so often we go into isolation,

We withdraw from our friends and our families.

We defend the narcissist.

We think,

Oh no,

You just don't know how perfect our love is and how unique our love is.

This is why he talks to me this way.

This is why she's so jealous.

So we've rationalized his poor behavior.

So begin to reconnect with the people that you've lost contact with.

Get back in touch with your body,

Perhaps through yoga,

Maybe EMDR.

Find things that allow you to reconnect with the energy in your being.

Start telling the truth about how you really felt.

Start telling the truth about the facts of your relationship.

This will help you come out of denial and it will also help reorient you to time and space and reality.

Consider writing down a timeline of actually what happened when you met the narcissist.

See if you can see the predictable pattern of love bombing,

Devaluing,

Discarding you,

Lies.

See what comes up.

See if the gaslighting comes up,

The triangulation,

The smear campaign.

See if you can actually chronologically put together a predictable timeline.

This will also help you heal and help you reorient to actual reality versus the reality the narcissist wants you to believe in.

Give yourself time to heal and grieve this relationship.

It has been up and down for you.

You may have been caught up in the fantasy future faking where the narcissist says,

Oh,

We're going to do this and we're going to do that and when we get married and when we have children,

We buy that house in the country and it never happens.

It's all to keep you on the hook.

It's all to get you to fear losing those future realities.

So it's the fear of missing out on some future reality that a narcissist has exploited and you are going to need time to grieve that fantasy.

The only way to outsmart a narcissist,

In my opinion,

Although there probably are many,

But when I'm talking about outsmarting a narcissist,

I mean outsmarting them energetically so that whatever bonds were created between the two of you become deprived of the energy they need to survive.

I really hope that these ideas help inspire you to look within and reconnect with the divine self so that you begin flowing energy inward rather than being a source of narcissistic supply where your energy is being pulled from you and supplying a narcissist who is actually addicted to the energy.

Reviews

🙏💐thank you for educating so many of us on narcissistic abuse. It’s so painful to deal with the highs n lows and the rollercoaster of emotions . He tells me he loves me but doesn’t want a commitment . 4 years of this madness . Everything you say Lisa is spot on and I appreciate you 🫶

Certainly learning, what a narcissist is🇨🇦

Very informative. Helpful to understand my past relationship. Wish I had this information years ago

Exactly what I needed to hear.
I was raised by a narcissist mother and also have three sisters that are narcissist s. I hope these rules apply to me too because before listening to this I finally chose to ignore a voicemail from my mom and simply deleted i t vs getting sucked back in. I guess I am finally sick and tired of being sick and tired. Thank you.😃

Thank goodness for you! Thank you SO MUCH for these!

Omgoodness I needed this! So eye opening! Ty so much!

Another useful, insightful, life-changing talk. I like the references used as well, particularly “3D world.” Thanks for sharing Lisa.😄🙏🏻

Been listening to you for a long time. Thank you for the strength to go in.

I am currently working on myself so I can leave a 30year narcissistic relationship. You described my life exactly. We have 2 kids and a granddaughter. He tells everyone he is the king. He left me on the side of the road in another state. Thank you so much! I have a better understanding. You are amazing!❤

Thank you thank you thank you 🙏🏾

This is exactly what I’m going through. I haven’t talked to my friends or family. And I couldn’t pinpoint why. I used to be a confident social butterfly.

Now I feel like I disappeared from life. I can’t even text people back when they reach out to me. I am trying to get in tune with what I feel, but I feel so off balance.

My Mom is always telling me don’t engage. It definitely is hard, but thank you, I feel like I have the strength to not engage and finally walk away.

Everything you said is what is happening. I can actually predict his cycles.

Wow! So full of wisdom and practical tips. I really learned a lot from this. Thank you!

Excellent advice!

Excellent information, detailed description and mindful plan of action. Thank you 🙏🏼

You have the answers and I am grateful for your sharing.

I agree with you, Lisa, that often co-dependent people are in relationship with narcissists. In my opinion, it's because a narcissist will start, along with the love bombing, to advance little tests during the initial stages of the relationship. A co-dependent person will tolerate this minor little tests (transgressions that would signal to others that there's something wrong) which indicate to the narcissist that this person is co-dependent and may be a good target for their abusive behaviors. And so the narcissist proceeds with greater and greater abuses as the relationship continues.

Very good. Thank you!