I’ve worked with countless numbers of women who started out engaged to or married to a Narcissist and then, through a twisted turn of events, became the “Other Woman”.
While the Narcissist’s infidelity itself is unfair, the really sad part is that when this happens to each woman, she feels extremely isolated because she thinks she’s the only one “crazy” enough to accept this arrangement. What she doesn’t realize is that this is very common among women who are involved in a dysfunctional relationship with a Narcissist. In fact, it’s one of the biggest indicators of the depth of pathological manipulation the Narcissist is capable of.
Logically, who would agree to allow their partner to have a primary lover outside of the relationship, and further, who only comes around when he’s bored or his main partner is “out of service”?
Shocking, yes? If you haven’t been through this experience, you may have felt a sting of indignation just imagining this happening to you. If you have been through this, you probably felt nauseated. These are all natural reactions of those who have high moral standards and empathy for other people.
The Narcissist doesn’t have morals or empathy. He couldn’t care less about how his cheating affects the people in his life who are supposed to be precious to him. To drive my point, I once received an email from a woman whose Narcissistic husband was out cheating while she lay in the delivery room about to give birth to their child!
If you’ve become the “Other Woman”, you are not alone. And while it may seem impossible right now, you can put a stop to this injustice and reclaim your dignity and self-worth. But first, I will explain how the Narcissist’s new love interest became his main squeeze and you morphed into the “Other Woman”, sitting around waiting for him to throw the proverbial bone.
1. The fall of the fairytale
At some point in your relationship, the Narcissist decided you weren’t good supply anymore. It may have been something simple, such as your asking him to put his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper, or being too tired to cook a four-course meal after working 12 hours. Narcissists are selfish and trivial that way. Or, perhaps it was something scandalous, like your catching him looking at porn or sending Facebook messages to other women. Either way, there was a definite turning point where you fell off the pedestal and he went looking for other sources of supply. You’ve seen his ugly side, and he can’t tolerate living under scrutiny. The whole crux of Narcissism is living as one pleases without any accountability.
2. The newer model
At this point, the Narcissist went out in search of a new source of livelihood. This is akin to someone going to a dealership and test-driving different cars. That’s exactly what the Narcissist does when he’s securing new supply. He doesn’t keep his focus on just one model, he wants to see what other models have to offer, and thus he literally went out (behind your back) openly flirting and hooking new victims.
After finding an acceptable replacement, he started the devalue and discard phase. All of your insecurities and weaknesses were manifested at once. He did and said everything he could in order to make you feel completely worthless. And it worked. Even worse, your feelings of not being good enough were amplified by the fact that he began to flaunt the new woman in your face.
3. The switch
This is where you converted to the Other Woman. The real OW became his new love interest and he discarded you. Often, this discard happens in front of the new woman. While she may gloat and have a holier-than-thou attitude about the whole thing, she doesn’t know that you were clueless about her until the last minute. Where you simply confronted your partner about cheating, she thinks you stalked him down because you’re bat-sh** crazy, as the Narcissist would have her believe. This scenario is often engineered by the Narcissist in order to deliver the final blow. Remember how you saw his ugly side? He has to overcompensate for that. And the only way he can accomplish this is by showing you how great he is to someone else, and what better way to do that than to tag-team against you with his new supply?
So there you were, utterly defeated and thrown away like yesterday’s meatloaf. The time and love you invested in the relationship was gone. Your self-esteem was at an all-time low, and you truly believed no one would ever give you the time of day for the rest of your life.
The reason you felt that way, and still do, is because the Narcissist brainwashed you into believing it. Much like Baby Elephant Syndrome, you remain trapped by your limiting beliefs.
You believed the Narcissist when he came around pretending to have second thoughts about the whole thing when, in reality, he realized someone else would eventually try to win your heart and that sure as hell isn’t going to happen if he has anything to do with it!
In the Narcissist’s mind, you are his property. Even though he doesn’t really want a relationship with you, he doesn’t want anyone else to have you, either. So, he threw out a few crumbs to see if you would bite, and you did. You gave him a key to your new apartment. You allowed him back into your bed. You started paying some of his bills again while he fed you soup about being “trapped” in the relationship with the new woman. According to him, the only reason he started a relationship with her was because she offered him something you couldn’t (money, social connections, fringe benefits, etc.) Furthermore, you’re not good wife material, but he still cares about you and doesn’t want to lose you…sound familiar? In time, you found yourself waiting endlessly for him to give you one minute of his spare time while he went about his days without giving you a second thought…until it would serve him in some way to do so.
It’s Not Love
You think you’re still in love, but it’s not love…it’s toxic attachment. If you’ve heard of toxic relationship cords, the two of you are connected energetically and because the relationship was so intense, these cords are thicker and more defined. Cords of attachment are negative and hold the negative energies that were part of the relationship. In this cord are stuck memories of betrayal, anger, hatred, sadness, fear, rejection etc. Even if you’re no longer seeing each other, because of this cord, toxic emotions affect your peace of mind, health and happiness.
Through a combination of toxic cord attachments and the Narcissist’s conditioning, you are energetically and mentally connected to your abuser. You are ensnared in a “trance of unworthiness”. And you look to your abuser to anoint you with value, but that won’t happen. Ever – unless he’s trying to hoover you back into his snare.
You are the only one that can acknowledge your worth, and it’s not something you have to earn. It’s something you already possess. It’s buried underneath your feelings of personal deficiency, and only through recognizing this and facing it head on will you begin true healing.
In closing, in order to truly heal you must cut all ties with the Narcissist. He will only leave you stewing in a swamp of shame. Regardless of what he says, he doesn’t love anyone…not even the new woman, in spite of what it may look like.
