So, You’re in a Relationship with a Narcissist Who Lies and Cheats? I’ve been there and done that. Read on to learn more…
Introduction
Discovering that you’re in a relationship with a narcissist who repeatedly lies, cheats, and manipulates can be devastating to your self esteem, crushes your ego, and alter the direction of your life. The realisation comes with deep emotional turmoil, self-doubt, and confusion. It can be shocking to find yourself in that position. But here you are and the most crucial step is deciding what to do next.
I know how difficult it is to believe that someone so close to you, that you care for, maybe in love with, could possibly do so much destruction to you and your trust, but that’s why it is a disorder. It is not logical, it is heart-breaking and soul crushing. I’ve tried it all and made all the mistakes of believing the lies, the future faking, the promises to get help and to do better. The only real apology is changed behaviour. Most true narcissists have no intention of changing. Instead they find ways to hide it better, and continue with their gaslighting, crazy making, and deflection regardless of how that affects you. In fact, the more they watch you struggle, the more powerful they believe they are.
If you are in a state of panic and confusion about your relationship, this article explores the immediate actions that you can take, the emotional and psychological challenges that come with a toxic relationship, and the difficult choices you need to make. This is where you have to own it and take steps to either put up with it, choose denial, or walk, no, run, away. Be warned, if you choose to call out the narcissist in your life, be prepared for backlash, projection, blame and denial. Read on to learn the steps you can take to protect yourself and get out of there!
The First Step: Acknowledge the Truth
When you discover that your partner is unfaithful, disloyal, deceptive, and has many narcissistic behaviours, at first it is easy to doubt yourself and struggle with denial. Accepting that someone you love is incapable of true loyalty or empathy is painful. However, staying in denial only prolongs the suffering and keeps you trapped in a toxic cycle.
Consequences of Denial
- Loss of self-worth: Continually justifying a narcissist’s behaviour erodes your self-esteem and sense of self. It can make you look stupid to friends and family who are aware of what’s going on, losing their sympathies and friendship.
- Emotional exhaustion: The repeated cycle of hope, betrayal, and emotional manipulation drains your mental and physical energy, often resulting in physical and mental sickness and erosion of your own self-worth.
- Increased control by the narcissist: The longer you tolerate deception, the more power they have over you. The lower you fall the stronger they get in playing games with your heart and mind.
- Wasted time and opportunities: Every moment spent hoping for change is time lost on personal growth and healthier relationships. Months and years can go by, and with each of those you slowly cannot recognise yourself anymore. Even the strongest of people will be badly affected by the games narcs play.
If you catch yourself making excuses for their actions, such as blaming stress, childhood trauma, or other circumstances, please stop and ask yourself: Would I accept this behavior from a friend? Would I treat someone like this if I loved them? Is this the life I want to lead? If the answer is no, then it’s time to take action.
Prioritise Your Well-Being
Toxic relationships take their toll on your mental, emotional, and physical health. Narcissistic partners thrive on breaking down your confidence and making you doubt your reality. This is a tactic in their toolbox of abuse. They know what they are doing.
It is important to make your sense of self and your health your top priority. In so doing you will grow stronger and have more clarity.
Self-Care Strategies
- Establish a daily routine: Stability in your life helps counter the emotional chaos they create. For example, meditating for even a few minutes a day has shown to make a difference to your brain and body. Do it. Visualise yourself empowered, healthy, strong.
- Engage in therapy or self-reflection: Talking to a therapist can help you validate your experiences. Speaking to a neutral person outside of family and friends is empowering. It helps to gain more clarity and understanding of the reality of where you are at and find the tools to rebuild self-worth.
- Practice self-compassion: For a narcissist, it is all about them. Remind yourself that their behavior is their problem and their choice. It is not a reflection of your worth. Your remaining in such a relationship may well be a reflection of your own self-love, or lack of it. Do not surrender your health and happiness to appease someone who puts yours last.
By focusing on self-care, you shift your focus from them to you and slowly begin to regain the strength to make choices for yourself. Rather than reacting to them, choosing the Self and nurturing You is the first step in healing.
Set and Enforce Boundaries
Narcissists hate boundaries and often agree to change but it is only in the moment, and those boundaries will always be overstepped. It is all about control. Boundaries are not set for them, they are for you. To protect yourself. To set standards that you are willing to accept and reinforce. They are crucial to protect yourself. How to Set Effective Boundaries
- Be direct and firm: Clearly state what behaviour you will no longer tolerate and what behaviour you will accept. Example: to say: “If I find out you’ve lied again, I will leave.” is more of a threat than a boundary. Instead try, statements such as “I do not accept being lied to or cheated on from those I should be able to trust. It is a dealbreaker for me”. Here you have set out the standards you will accept and owned your values.
- Expect pushback: When you set boundaries, people often get offended and a narcissist will test your limits. Remain firm in your resolve to reinforce those boundaries. Stay firm.
- Follow through on consequences: Empty threats only reinforce their behaviour. It emboldens them because they understand your stated boundaries are merely words, not actions. You must follow through.
Dangers of Calling Out a Narcissist
Be aware that narcissists react poorly to being confronted about their behaviour, even when you have the evidence. They will turn it around on you, accuse you, to make you angry and defensive, explaining and defending yourself to them. Calling them out may lead to:
- Rage and retaliation: A narcissist will lash out verbally, emotionally, and physically. They may retaliate by stonewalling and disconnecting. If they sense they are losing control it can become very dangerous.
- Smear campaigns: It is common for the narcissist to spread lies. Their accusations are admissions. They will triangulate you between their conquests, family and friends, even your workplace. They are terrified of being found out and will do anything to keep the mask on, even playing the victim.
- Love-bombing: When they think they have been revealed, and may be losing control, they will shower you with gifts, attention, “love-bombing” to give you false hope that they will change. It will ot last. They are just trying to regain control and some trust. They will revert to their ways.
If you have called out a narcissist only for them to deflect, become enraged, or stonewall you, even if you have evidence, don’t do it again. You are simply feeding them information to hide their betrayals better. Accept that you are in this alone. They will not help you unmask them.
Seek Support
Isolating you and breeding self-doubt are two of the narcissist’s strongest weapons. They want you dependent on their validation, on their acceptance of their version of reality. Breaking free of their coercive control starts with building your support system outside of the relationship.
Who to Turn To
- Trusted friends and family: Confide in those who will offer support without judgment. Choose carefully. If they are both of your friends, they may already have had their loyalties swayed by the smear campaign of a narcissist.
- Support groups: There are many online resources and in-person communities such as this who have experienced narcissistic abuse, and have educated themselves. Often just knowing that others are going through the same thing will validate you and empower you.
- Therapists specialising in narcissistic abuse: It is important your therapist understands, even has personal experience, in narcissistic abuse to truly understand the dynamics of control and trauma bonds. They can provide specific coping strategies tailored to your situation.
Document Their Behaviour
If you anticipate a messy breakup, legal battles, or gaslighting attempts, keeping records is crucial.
How to Document Effectively
- Keep a journal: Record instances of lying, cheating, manipulation, and abusive behaviour. Over time things can get blurry, especially as your mental and physical health suffers leading to confusion. Hard cold evidence will remind you of the truth.
- Save texts and emails: If they try to deny their actions later, you’ll have proof. Be aware though, they are also saving any retaliatory texts, voice calls or emails you may send at a time of distress when you react to their abuse and use it against you.
- Talk to witnesses: Many narcissistic friends know how to behave in public. It can be hard to convince others of what you are experiencing behind closed doors. However, if friends or family have observed their behaviour, or have expressed concern for your health, noticing a change in your level of happiness or confidence, being honest with them and gaining their perspective could be valuable. Beware of the flying monkeys.
Documentation, witnesses and journals may be helpful in cases where you may need legal protection, to gain a restraining order, or during divorce proceedings.
Forgive, Move On, or Stay Stuck?
One of the hardest choices you’ll face is whether to forgive and stay, leave and move on, or remain in limbo. In my experience, you cycle through all of these thoughts and plans before you finally break away.
Choosing to Forgive
First, often you’ll try to forgive but it is hard to forget. The narcissist will promise to change. Will tell you “they’re just a friend” or “we only did it once” – a classic line!
The truth is, narcissists rarely change, at least not for long, and only promise to unless forced by extreme consequences, that is, they have to hit rock bottom first. Forgiveness without accountability or changed behaviour allows them to continue their deception and abuse of your trust.
Choosing to Move On
When you’ve tried repeatedly to forgive, to reason, to seek promises of changed behaviour that never lasts, leaving a narcissistic relationship is the next move. It is difficult but often the healthiest choice. However, the trauma bond is often well established and difficult to end. If you choose to leave:
- Have a safety plan: Leaving a narcissist damages their ego severely. Beware as this is the most dangerous time for a toxic narcissistic relationship. You must ensure you have somewhere to go if you are in fear of the narcissist’s’ rage.
- Go no-contact if possible: No contact is often the only way. Ceasing all communication including in person, by phone, email or social media will give you the space you need to truly start healing. Do not be tempted to reconnect. This can be hard. In my experience, once you start to feel better, you think you can handle them. You can’t. Nothing has changed for them, and you will go backwards and be angry at yourself for trying.
- Prepare for their attempts to reel you back in: Narcissits are chameleons. They change their behaviour to gain control. They may beg, cry, or promise to change. Don’t fall for it. Love-bombing, promises to get help, are all tactics to give them “one more chance”. They’ll claim they made “one mistake” (even if it’s the same “mistake” repeated for years) and try to convince you that they have learned their lesson. They haven’t.
Choosing to Stay Stuck
Here is a cold hard fact – every day you choose not to leave, you are choosing to stay stuck. It is hard. The trauma bond is well entrenched. The relationships with friends and family, the kids, the future plans (often fake) can keep you hanging on, hoping that sooner or later, they will see the error of their ways, and choose to stop. It rarely happens. Your health will deteriorate on all levels. Your ego just won’t give in, and the fear of change can be greater than the fear of staying. This often leads to:
- Chronic emotional distress
- Development of physical symptoms and disease
- Increased self-doubt and low self-esteem
- A cycle of endless betrayals and broken promises
Choosing to remain in denial only prolongs the inevitable and makes breaking free even harder. Unfortunately, many of us either surrender to the abuse, or much worse, suffer greatly before finally admitting there is no other choice but to break free.
It’s a process. It can be long. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t surrender your self-worth and health for what your whole body and mind are screaming at you – “This is not okay. It’s destroying me piece by piece. Who am I now?”
Protect Yourself If You Decide to Leave
Leaving a narcissist, especially one prone to being deceptive by lying and cheating, can be dangerous to your mental, physical and financial health, and even affects your other relationships with friends and family, as well as employers. Protect yourself by:
- Consulting a lawyer if you’re married or share assets, this can become a dirty fight. The need to keep records and journals will help. But be prepared for the narcissistic rage of a damaged person who has lost control – of you!
- Changing passwords and securing finances is necessary to prevent the narcissist from having access to your personal information and finances. They will do anything they can to cripple your attempts to leave. Typical of a narcissist, they will cheat you, lie to you, and discard you – but when it is done to them, expect narcissistic rage, which can be very very dangerous.
- Blocking them on all platforms to prevent them from trolling, spying, and to avoid manipulation and hoovering attempts. They will set up false profiles and try to friend you. They will use their friends to spy on you and report back. Beware of the friends who are manipulated into being the narcissist’s flying monkeys.
- Inform a trusted person that you plan to leave, that they are not to tell anyone your whereabouts. You may need emergency support from them, or at least a trusted friend who has got your back. I pray you have one such friend.
Conclusion
The shocking realisation that you’re in a relationship with a true narcissist, one who consistently lies and cheats is extremely painful. What you choose to do next will determine how long you suffer and how long you take to create your future happiness and well-being, free from the endless onslaught of narcissistic abuse. You must seek support, educate yourself and connect with communities like this. Know that you deserve to be in a faithful and loyal relationship that lifts you up, not tears you down.
This is your life. You have choices to make:
- Stay in denial and continue suffering.
- Forgive without accountability and endure more betrayal.
- Prioritise yourself, set boundaries, and break free.
It is not easy to leave an established relationship with a narcissist. The longer it goes on, the more ingrained the trauma. But sooer or later most people realise that staying is far more difficult, far more dangerous, and far too toxic. Every day that you do not leave, you are making a choice to stay in a toxic relationship. You deserve honesty, respect, and love. Choosing yourself is not selfish — it’s necessary.
If you’re struggling, reach out for help now. You are not alone, and you have the strength to reclaim your life.