The Narcissist Lover
May this love never find me (again)
We met at a coffee shop in TriBeCa when I was 27. He was perfect. They always are in the beginning. They have to be, that’s how they get you. They shape shift into the sparkliest, shiniest, most charming trophy on the shelf. The lure you in by being everything you’ve ever wanted. And once you’re inside, they slam the door and secure the locks.
We lived together in Miami, and our neighbors in the building called us “the hot couple.” We strutted the beach with perfectly sculpted bodies and tanned olive skin. We pulled up to restaurants in his G-Wagon, impeccably dressed, tossing the keys to the valet. In the morning we walked his Siberian Husky on the boardwalk with slick gym outfits and coffees in hand.
On the outside, we looked perfect. On the inside, it was a recurring nightmare.
I was weary when I first met him. Yes, he was successful and sickeningly handsome, he had that Fabio romance novel look that put women’s heads on a swivel. But where we compatible? Could I laugh with him? Could we crack jokes and build living room forts and spend Sundays passing a bag of chips back and forth on the couch with intertwined feet?
Two weeks after our first date, he took me down to his apartment in Miami for a weekend. I quickly realized that, not only were we compatible, he may be the one. Every moment was filled with giddy laughter. Inside jokes. Secret handshakes. Sprinting down grocery aisles and karate kicks in the checkout line. We laid our heads on the pillow at night and said, is this it? Did we find it?
It didn’t take long for him to convince me to move down to Miami with him. It was peak Covid, and I had nothing better to do. So I packed my bags and moved into his beautiful condo on the beach. And slowly, almost without me realizing it, this perfect life became a prison. One that I was constantly reminded that I should be grateful for.
It was a progression. A slow drip feed. It started with small altercations over little things. I thought to myself, that kind of felt like an overreaction, but shrugged it off. It’s not a big deal.
The cycle grew slowly over time. The event. The punishment. The reconciliation. The disputes became more frequent. The arguments escalated. The insults sharpened. Eventually, a lamp gets thrown across the room and just misses my head.
The first time I realized something was off was four months in. I told him I was going to rent a car, some cheap shitty rental. I told him I wanted a little autonomy and agency, that I wanted to be able to drive to yoga or meet friends without asking permission to borrow his car.
He was furious at the idea. “It’s a waste of money!” he bellowed at my hypothetical Honda. “If we are a unit, and we’re a family, we make decisions together. If you rent a car, I’ll be very upset.”
Disappointed, and slightly confused about this non-existent family unit he spoke of, I resigned the idea and decided it wasn’t that big of a deal.
A few days later he texted me. Come downstairs, I have a surprise for you. In the lobby of our building was a brand new Range Rover.
“Now you have a car you can drive!” he said with pride.
My heart fell into my stomach. I realized what it was all about. Control. Feeling nauseous, I smiled and said thank you.
A few weeks later I was heading to a SoulCycle class.
“Be careful!” he shouted as I backed out of the driveway. “And remember, valet only! You can’t park this car on the street!”
I was running late to class and parallel parked on the street like I always did. (I never intended on paying $30 valet for a one hour workout class) In a rush, I scratched the rim on the curb. Fuck. I searched for the nearest Auto Zone and frantically covered the scratch marks with a marker.
The marker wore off eventually. Must have been the valet! They got a verbal lashing.
The next few months became a rollercoaster that’s all too familiar for anyone who’s dated someone with narcissistic personality disorder.
The highs are high (idealization phase) and the lows are low (devaluation phase). A narcissist will point out ways in which you’ve done something wrong: a mistake you’ve made or ways you’ve hurt their feelings. And with that comes criticism, punishments, ultimatums, comparison, and stonewalling. They can even go as far as threats of self harm (I got a few of those). And when it’s all over, they build you right back up.
How did I get here? An educated, strong, confident woman. This doesn’t happen to women like me.
“It’s like he had a hand in your brain,” said the therapist I hired after finally leaving the relationship. “A puppet master of sorts. Even the strongest people fall victim to narcissistic abuse.”
I typically challenge victim mentality in interpersonal relationships. Even in unhealthy ones, I always accept my role in it and take responsibility for the part I play. But when it comes to manipulation and abuse, as my therapist said, even the smartest people can fall victim to a narcissistic mastermind.
I remember watching in awe when he conducted business. The chess game he somehow always won. I just never realized that I too was one of the pieces on the board. He truly was a master at getting what he wanted.
We throw the word “narcissist” around lightly these days, but we mustn’t confuse vanity or someone simply being an asshole with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Some signs that someone has NPD is:
an obsession with power, status, and success
taking advantage of others to get what they want
feeling they deserve privileges and special treatment
a need for constant admiration and attention
victim mentality
reacting with rage or contempt if they receive criticism or don’t feel superior
difficulty managing their emotions and coping with stress
This unreasonable sense of importance and need for constant attention stems from deep rooted insecurity, which is why they get fiercely triggered at the slightest criticism.
The complicated part is, if you’re an empathetic and emotionally intellectual person who understands human psychology, you know this isn’t a bad person. It’s a broken one.
To be honest, I think this is a large part of why I stayed. Every time he lashed out, I didn’t see an angry 42 year old man. I saw a broken little boy who was desperate to be loved. Every time he yelled at me, I saw a child throwing a tantrum because that was the only way he learned to get attention. Behind his anger I saw his fear. I knew the eggshells I was walking on where just unhealed triggers from deep emotional wounds.
I saw that he did truly love me, and he was loving me in the only way he knew how. I never felt angry at him. I just felt sad. And with all the terrible things he did, I believed he deserved love. I still do.
He was excited for me to meet his father, who flew in to visit us for the weekend. I could write an entire piece about the weekend I spent with these two men who share the same name. (Maybe I will)
His 72 year old father stepped off the plane with a Louis Vuitton monogram suitcase and a Supreme logo hoodie. The first sentence out of his mouth was about how some young girl asked for his number on the plane. I laughed and shook his hand.
There it was. There it all was.
It’s been rumored that Narcissistic Personality Disorder is one of the few personality disorders that one can’t heal from. Something about the lack of self awareness required to perform the healing process. I don’t know if that’s true. I hope it’s not.
What I do know is this: It’s not our job to heal them. It’s not our job to fix them. Our love is not enough to heal those wounds. We can have empathy. We can have understanding. And we can run. We can run as fast and as far as we possibly can.
Leaving wasn’t easy. A narcissist loves to win, so I knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Except this time, the fight was a promise of peace. Of change. A promise that he would go to therapy and it would be different this time.
The last time I saw him was a few weeks after I finally packed my bags and left. He met me on the West Side Highway and we lied in the grass staring up at the leaves in the tree. We didn’t speak for a few minutes.
“I think I finally get it now,” he said, looking up.
“Get what?”
“That this is what you wanted the whole time.”
“Yes,” I said. “This is all I ever wanted.”
xoxo
Lily
Oh, Lily, this hit me SO deeply. Thank you for sharing your story with such honesty and clarity. I went through something eerily similar, and reading this felt like reliving my own experience of going from 0 to 100 and then crashing back to 0. That cycle is so deflating — it’s exhilarating, terrifying, and everything in between, as you perfectly put it. It takes immense strength to walk away, especially when empathy clouds the line between love and self-preservation. I’m proud of you for making that choice, knowing firsthand how hard it is. May this kind of love never find us again — and instead, may we find something honest, kind, and calm.
ᯓᡣ𐭩 Danah
This is so well written and so close to what I went through as well. You really hit the nail by describing how we look at them as a broken child who just needs love. And love is not all we need. It doesn’t fix anyone and we can’t waste our lives trying to fix broken people. So glad you got out. I’m 10 months out and still have so much healing to go. 💚🫶🏼