"He’s Not All Bad" and Other Dangerous Fallacies

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It’s hard to admit, but…

You’ve been lying to yourself about your partner.

There’s an ever-widening gap between the person you want him to be and the person he really is.  You have an idea of what constitutes a healthy relationship, yet you forgive your partner when he commits serious relationship grievances because, after all, he’s not all bad.

It started out small, didn’t it?  You caught him in a “minor” lie, but he had a somewhat reasonable explanation for it.  When you put two and two together, his justification seemed sensible, so it changed from being a lie to a “slight misunderstanding”.

Then, when it kept happening, he turned your attention away from the fact that he was lying to your being “suspicious, needy, and insecure”.  So that when you’d catch him in another lie, he’d simply rage about your always watching his every move and how he couldn’t be himself around you.

When that got old, he began chalking up his bad behaviors to your having “let yourself go”.  Suddenly, you were overweight, getting old, uninteresting, and a clingy basket case.  Even worse, he claimed you’d become so “schizoid” that you weren’t good relationship material for anyone.  And so you decided to stay instead of being alone because “he’s not all bad”.

Now, out of a one-month period, you might have one or two “good” days while the rest of your time is spent in misery and complete disaster.  You survive day-to-day, barely staying sane, hardly able to function (or take care of your children) while waiting for the rare occasion that he might be “nice”.  Through all the tears, heartbreak, and sucking it up, you know he’s going to come around at some point because he’s just “a normal person who makes human mistakes”.

If this sounds like you, you are experiencing extreme cognitive dissonance, which is a symptom of C-PTSD.  Cognitive dissonance thrives on your chalking up your partner’s lies and infidelity to dangerous fallacies that we all come to believe in toxic relationships, such as:

  • There isn’t anyone decent out there
  • No one is perfect
  • Most people cheat
  • He acts that way because of his painful childhood
  • I can love him past his character disorder
  • Well, I haven’t been perfect, either

Of course you haven’t been perfect because you’ve been emotionally traumatized.  People who have been emotionally and psychologically abused typically display C-PTSD symptoms that can mimic bipolar disorder.

Judith Herman, author of Trauma & Recovery, describes C-PTSD as a form of trauma associated with prolonged subjection to totalitarian control including emotional abuse, domestic violence or torture—all repeated traumas in which there is an actual or perceived inability for the victim to escape. [1]  This may cause difficulty in regulating one’s emotions, explosive anger, and changes in self-perception which include shame, guilt, and self-blame.  All very devastating for someone who didn’t start out that way.

I’ve been coaching people for three years and the people who come to me for help generally share a specific set of personality traits (based on data derived from informal personality assessments).  While there are occasional deviations, most of my clients are INFJ (or generally Intuitive/Feeling), Empathic, and Highly Sensitive.

Knowing what I know about these traits, the person who possesses them is very caring, nurturing, over-conscientious, and generally NICE.  But sadly, they stop believing that about themselves because they’re in a persistent state of nuclear meltdown from being mistreated and manipulated by their toxic partner.

If your partner is constantly lying and being unfaithful, it’s a warning sign of a serious personality disorder – one that cannot improve.  When we forgive and accept their excuses for these behaviors, we inadvertently teach them to keep doing more of the same.  Over time, we lose more and more of ourselves while teaching our children that these events are normal in relationships, romantic or otherwise…and perpetuate dysfunctional relationship dynamics in the process.

And therein lies the danger in believing the common fallacies we come to accept in toxic relationships.  If you are accepting the unacceptable, are waiting for your partner to change, and experiencing cognitive dissonance via believing things will get better in the face of increasingly devastating emotional abuse, it’s critical that you go No Contact and get help before your C-PTSD symptoms get worse.

Stand up for yourself.  There are good people out there.  Don’t continue sacrificing your morals and self-respect for people who aren’t.

Need help going No Contact?  Get the Book!

Click to download from Amazon

(No gender bias was intended in the creation of this article.  The pronouns “he, his, and him” were used for ease of reading).

[1] Complex post-traumatic stress disorder. (2015, May 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:29, June 17, 2015, fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder&oldid=663915339


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54 comments
helen says December 21, 2016

Wow! really shocked by this article stating INFJ’s most often fall for these people.
is this true?

I’m INTJ or INFJ, T and J seem 50/50 on tests

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Martyn says September 25, 2016

I met a wonderful girl back in nov2015…….she was going through a divorce from an abusive husband………she was totally and brutally honest about her many affairs………she had not been treated well by men…….I fell in love with her honesty and willingness to learn and grow…….
Then she told me about a male “friend”……..she’d had an affair with him but he was transgender and confused and hurting……..he “needed” her…..
In my naivety and desire to please her, I encouraged the “friendship”……….over the months that followed whilst our relationship deteriorated to friendship (she was living with me)…….I watched him manipulate and control her……..him being the eternal victim who needed protecting from the world whilst reducing her to tears several times a week………eventually I had to kick her out…….she went to him.
We stayed in touch, perhaps foolishly…..I still loved her and wanted to protect her……..initially she was quite happy to admit his flaws (throwing tantrums, avoiding responsibility, total self absorption etc..)……and admit she may have been wrong………then she changed……..
She’s now “so in love” and totally happy……..never gonna leave him…….telling mutual friends that I was soooooo wrong about him……..while telling me about the attempts to leave, the arguments, the forced sex (she’s been sexually assaulted in the past)……….
Do I stay in touch……. do I let her go……..so confused……..still want to protect her (my father was emotional abuser too).

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Do All Men Cheat? | Let Me Reach with Kim Saeed says October 30, 2015

[…] She emphasized her statements by explaining, “It may not be a fairytale marriage…Prince Charming does not exist, but what exists is a man with issues and flaws”.  You know, the whole He’s Not All Bad fallacy. […]

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Lucy says September 16, 2015

Thank you Kim and everyone else for sharing. I am now starting to see my reality & it is terrifying. I started therapy a year ago thinking there was something wrong with me. There is…. I’m married to a narcissist. I’m going through the “he’s not all bad” phase right now. I have no idea how I am going to get out off this mess. I do not want to fight him. I struggle to get out of the bed in the morning because I toss & turn all night. It takes everything out of me to put on my happy face at work. He has realized I have caught on to his normal routine and it isn’t working, so he has changed tactics. He is trying to shame me now….. You won’t compromise with me. You don’t care about anything. etc. It hurts, but I realize he is trying to find new ways to dig in. I don’t have answers & I am confused. I even feel a little crazy. My goal is just to keep moving forward with learning, self loving, and waking up. If I cannot find a way to leave him, sooner than later I will not be attractive to him & he will discard me. Never in a million years would I believe that I would appreciate being discarded. I left him once before we were married and the emotional toll was awful. Full blown depression. I am building a network of support this time. Best wishes for everyone. Big hugs.

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kiki says July 21, 2015

I don’t understand why he’s done this… I’ve never been so hurt before in my life. I feel like im back to feeling confused. If he didn’t want the relationship anymore ok but to tear me apart and dispose of me like I have no worth to nobody I don’t get.

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    Liz says July 21, 2015

    Narcissists do this because they need to constantly devalue the person(s) they are with. They are unable to engage, they are unable to form attachments, they are unable to have intimate relationships. They are also enraged, chronically. The devaluation and discarding that they perpetrate on another enables them to justify their actions without regard to the feelings of others. They have no empathy for others. Much of their seemingly spontaneous and “normal” behavior and language, in the early stages of a relationship, is scripted. You have to remember–ultimately, he does not have real, lasting feeling for you (or anyone else, for that matter) and he never will. It’s not because of you. It’s not because of anything about you. Your expectations of a “normal” relationship that has give-and take, reciprocity, kindness are completely healthy. The narcissist in your life, however, has no such concept. Intimacy is dangerous, attachment is impossible, real closeness is to be avoided at all costs. You have to protect yourself, because a narcissist cannot “learn” or develop attachment. You cannot save or help him. Narcissists are also completely resistant to therapy. It goes against our deepest hopes and wishes and dreams, sometimes, but there is nothing you can do that will alter the fact that he has no feeling for you or anyone else. Get out, value yourself, realize that you are an extraordinary person. Better things will come from that.

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    Anonymous says August 8, 2015

    Hi
    Mine disposed of me almost a year ago. The discard was going on for almost a year before that. Id been with him for 7 years. In that time he cheated. Cheated. Oh and cheated. Terrible lies. Treated me like rubbish. Unless he was in the mood to ‘ feel in love’ . And that wavered constantly. I cannot believe I allowed all this to happen to me. A mature sensible intelligent woman. We broke my marriage up… My kids ( adults) still haven’t forgiven me and he walked away when he realised I would not subject myself to his new ‘ sexual fantasies’ of him being penetrated . A total sicko. He is with someone else now .. And I too worry that he is happier with her? Yet I know it’s only a matter of time before she begins to see the monster within. I hope she gets away sooner than I did . I’m now going to try counselling when I realise that months after the end I’m still obsessed with him and what he is doing etc. I know it isn’t normal or healthy but I cannot stop thinking. This site helps so much. Love to everyone on here .

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Liz says July 7, 2015

This perfectly describes my reaction to discovering my boyfriend of two years was lying about his marriage. “Well, he’s not all bad,” I told myself when we got back together. A few weeks ago, after watching him email an apparent “other” lover, I kicked him out, telling him that lying is unacceptable. He said, “I always knew you’d be trouble.” I replied, “Why, because I won’t let you treat me like a doormat, the way you treated your wife for decades? I don’t want a liar in my life.”

Then I reviewed everything I knew, thought about the oblique hints he’d dropped over the last two and a half years, and then I went to various court files online to find out more. He was married for over 40 years, and in that entire time he was NEVER faithful to his wife. He went from one affair to another, sometimes having an affair during an affair (talk about needing a narcissistic supply!). He is estranged from his only child. He lies about everything from the small (“I never wear t-shirts” though I saw him in one just last week) to the large: “You didn’t invite me over,” though I had). His preferred method of dealing with conflict or knowing he’d been caught out was to give me the silent treatment for days.

Well, I’ve cut off all contact with him. I wrote some explanatory emails, left two voice mails, sent a couple more emails. He never responded. So now, after reading some of these articles, I can finally articulate what I’ve been through in just two and a half years. I’ve put him on the reject call list on my phone and he’s off my email list and on the reject list there too.

There is a small part of me that still wants to attribute some of his behavior to Asperger’s, which I know he has, based on symptoms since childhood (e.g., he still flaps when really anxious). But the countless affairs, the lying about everything, the silent treatment–that makes it impossible.

Thanks for these articles. They are helping a lot. I know he’s on to the next woman, who in reality I think he’d been seeing all along and whom he’d been seeing at the end of his marriage. She is affair number nine or ten. I feel very, very bad for his wife. They’ve been married for 45 years, she filed for divorce more than 4 years ago, he’s been delaying it with specious motion after specious motion (he counter-filed for a legal separation rather than a divorce—I found all this out by accident; he told me nothing and, in fact, when I asked about his marriage, told me that I had an unnatural interest in it and was becoming dangerously obsessive!)

In reality, I always knew he was afraid–I could feel it. I just couldn’t tell what it was he feared. Now I know. Honesty. Truthfulness. Real feeling. It’s so sad for his wife. I know more about his infidelities than she does. I wonder sometimes if informing her of them would help her case a little more. I don’t know, because that’s also too close to trying to take revenge on him. And I don’t know that it’s worth it. I don’t know that he’s worth it. It’s just another way to stay involved, and I don’t want that even though it’s really, really hard. I still miss him. I’m working on that.

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Anita Dahiya says June 23, 2015

Thanks Kim Saeed for making me aware of the mess I am in. I thought this is the way he is and I should accept him the way he is instead of trying to change him because thats what true love is , they say. But I never ever realized that he is suffering from utter narcissism. Your every single word is my story as if I have confided each and every moment in you. I have broken off with him just few days before and I am totally shattered and emotionally ruined. I want to get back to life again and look after my work and family. Please help me and tell me how can I contact you for this as I am not able to cope with it alone and need your help.

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    Kim Saeed says July 1, 2015

    Hi Anita! I apologize for the delay in responding to you. I have a difficult time keeping up with comments here…I currently have almost 400 that I haven’t been able to read yet 🙁

    If you would be interested in working together in a coaching partnership, here is the link to my services: http://letmereach.com/no-contact-coaching-and-recovery-coaching/ I’m currently book through the middle of this month, but we could do an initial consult if you’d like.

    Wishing you all the best…

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secretangel says June 22, 2015

Kim, thanks for all that you share. Your posting is right on as always. The only way to heal from abusers like this is No contact!!

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Tina says June 22, 2015

I was doing good until I got to the part that completely describes, who am I kidding? All of it describes me, but this is what hit home the hardest, “hardly able to function (or take care of your children).” I am still a wreck after reading that! I hate this feeling inside of me.

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Amber says June 20, 2015

Hi Kim, Thank you for this post. I have been NC from my ex Fiance who was a textbook narcissist for almost two years. We were together for 4 years and with every year the lies got worse and worse. We were saving for a house, he was making me move my kids to his state so he didn’t have to disrupt his life. But I didn’t know he was gambling away all our money.. even my money. I was crushed, I forgave him over and over until one day I just walked. When I would tell him how bad he hurt me (to rhe point that I would throw up) he would just look at me and say .. I just can’t relate and admit that he was shallow. I went threw hell to stay with him I loved him so much. And he did so much horrible stuff to me and children that could write a book. After I left he started dating a girl immediatly. Asked her to marry him in 5 months and they got married less than a year after I left. I AM STILL in shock and struggling g every day to try and forget him. Even though I know what he is, he seems so happy with her and it hurts so bad I can’t breath sometimes.. when does this END?? How do make him go away in my mind??

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    Kim Saeed says July 17, 2015

    Amber, the best program for recovery is to see a therapist who specializes in emotional trauma, and also begin doing transformational healing activities. True healing lies within the subconscious mind. I would suggest beginning with guided meditations…

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mariaolsenbjoern says June 19, 2015

Hi Kim. I just want to say thank you for this post. I am proud of myself because I have managed to get out of an abusive relationship with a narcissist 2 months ago. I’ve also did this before, covered him up from my friends because “he’s not bad at all”. It was when he controlled me on what I should wear. My friends were alarmed and told me that my bf is not normal with being controlling, but I told them that he was ‘just’ being protective of me and that it’s a part of ‘adjustment’ in a relationship.
Months passed and he slowly controlled me with everything – from what I should wear, what should I eat, who should I talk to, until he finally isolated me from my family and friends.
His sister was a big wake up call to me. She revealed to me that he beats their mom. I tried so hard to not panic when I knew it and I stayed strong.
Kim, I am an ISFJ and he is ENTJ. It’s too obvious that we can’t be together.
I’m just happy now that I am living on my own and I am FREE. Finally.

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safirefalcon says June 18, 2015

CPTSD symptoms seem to mimic borderline symptoms more so than bipolar. It seems that the two disorders get mixed up a lot too. These symptoms/traits… and quoting you, “regulating one’s emotions, explosive anger, and changes in self-perception which include shame, guilt, and self-blame.” Those are borderline symptoms not bi-polar.

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    Kim Saeed says June 18, 2015

    Thank you for commenting, safirefalcon. Those statements were based off of the work of Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk. I agree, though, that the two disorders do get mixed up a lot.

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      safirefalcon says June 18, 2015

      Oh. Hm, I wonder if she’s got them mixed up as well. (?)

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        Kim Saeed says June 18, 2015

        I’m inclined to believe her theories…both she and Van der Kolk are experts in their fields.

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garym6059 says June 18, 2015

Wow this is my failed marriage to a T! I can relate to everything in this, this is my ex wife word for word. Thanks for posting this almost justifies everything that was going on in my head last year and the months before!

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    Kim Saeed says June 18, 2015

    Thanks for sharing, Gary. I’ve heard some stories about Narcissistic women, and boy-oh-boy, were they some doozies! I’m glad you felt validated by reading the post…and by the way, thanks for the follow and welcome to our tribe! 🙂

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      garym6059 says June 18, 2015

      I got set up, played like a fiddle and damn near destroyed!

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        Kim Saeed says June 18, 2015

        Me, too, Gary…they’re all the same whether male or female.

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jacquelinelevett says June 18, 2015

Thank you for sharing this. I understand so much of it. I feel so fortunate to now be able to get on with life and can recognise how lucky I am to be me, and not stuck in that false world any longer. I am a bit shocked by all the lies that were uncovered but soon I won’t even think about it.

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    Kim Saeed says June 18, 2015

    Thank you for sharing, Jacqueline. You said something insightful – that it was a false world. I, too, lived in that false world for over 8 years. Glad we both made it to the other side 🙂

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cbled32 says June 18, 2015

Kim, I had written you a couple times in the past. Still a victim of major confusion. A lot of things you address are true but I find that he isn’t a liar. When he was unfaithful on one occasion there were lies but he is mostly honest. When I was doing No Contact he did sleep with an ex all the while saying it was me he wanted. I am just confused bc he is genuinely amazing to my children all the time and they are not his children and he says that he wants to have an amazing life with me and my children. There are times that I show him how much I’m in love with him and I try to show him I love him and times he acts like he believes me then times he acts like I’ve done so much wrong that it’s hard for him to believe me. To be honest I have done my share of lying and doing wrong but not to the extent treat him the way he tends to treat me which is real cold a lot of times. What advise can you give me on this bc I’m just a basket case bc I’m so so confused. It’s hard to concentrate or even make a rational decision bc I don’t know if I should try and work through this or go No Contact FOREVER!!!!! Thank you for any advise, Carrie.

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    Anonymous says October 30, 2015

    A liar is someone who lies. There is no mostly honest.

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    Kim Saeed says October 31, 2015

    Hi Carrie, I am sorry that I didn’t respond sooner to your comment as I’ve just seen it today.

    As an outsider looking in, I can say objectively that even though this guy gives the appearance of “being honest”, he is still manipulating you. He cheated when you implemented No Contact. People in love don’t do that. He was just using the excuse of your No Contact as a great reason for cheating – and also quite possibly as a way to make sure you didn’t do it again. Besides, the” one case” of cheating may be the only one you are aware of.

    If it was you he wanted, he would have tried to make sure you felt loved and secure, not continue to pretend that you’re his dream, all while making you feel horribly about yourself and hopping into someone else’s bed.

    I can only speculate without knowing more about the details, but what I can say is that what he had done to you at the time you wrote this message is the same, garden-variety narc-manipulations that I hear about all the time.

    Hope that helps…

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jacquelinelevett says June 18, 2015

Reblogged this on Jacqueline Levett .

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    Kim Saeed says July 1, 2015

    Thank you for sharing my article <3

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KtKat says June 17, 2015

Reblogged this on The House of Hale and commented:
Not much is going on in the House of Hale, at least nothing blog worthy. lol. I found this article in my daily blog pursuing and felt it was worth a share. There is a lot of important advice here. Thank you, Kim for taking the time to write this out.

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    Kim Saeed says June 17, 2015

    Wow, thank you for sharing, KtKat <3

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Jennifer says June 17, 2015

Thanks for this great post. My ex would often tell me he couldn’t tell me the truth because I would flip out in anger when he did – so it was my fault that he lied! Never mind that he did something wrong that he had to lie about. He was always telling me and others that I’m crazy, when he was the one making me feel and act that way with his constant cheating and lying.

I am an INFJ and I know that I’m a caring, sensitive, nice person. But my ex would always tell me that I’m a selfish, evil person, and being the conscientious person that I am I started to wonder if he was right. And I was also determined to prove him wrong – which was part of his strategy to get me to tolerate what he was doing to me. If I protested his treatment, then I was a BAD person.

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    Melinda says July 2, 2015

    @Jennifer…wow, I had the same experience with my ex constantly telling me I was bad, selfish, stupid, evil, etc.

    And deep down I knew he was wrong. I knew I was kind, caring and sensitive. Maybe not perfect but I was hardly the monster he (and his family) made me out to be.
    His father, whom I actually liked, even called me “selfish” and “rotten” once just because I was forced to make a very painful decision several years ago.

    And yes, on the subject of cheating…my ex would cheat on me and deny it. But the one time I made a mistake he held it against me and even slandered me to people in our town.
    He cheated on me and caught gonorrhea, then denied cheating and…wait for this…told his PARENTS, of all people, that I gave him the STD.
    And being the ignorant people they are, they believed him. I’ve never had a sexually transmitted disease in my life. I don’t judge anyone who has, but I’ve never had one and since there is a stigma, that is a terrible thing to say about somebody if it isn’t true. To cheat and then blame me for the consequences.

    This is the same guy who loved to claim that I never take responsibility for my actions and blame everyone for my problems…hmm, really? Because I remember him doing that often.
    Also, he tried to suggest that I have a 3-way with him and one of his male relatives once; he couldn’t understand why I was hurt and repulsed by that. Apparently he was telling people that I was “crazy” and a slut behind my back, but somehow he still managed to make himself seem like the poor unappreciated boyfriend.

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Disillusioned says June 17, 2015

This is a really timely post for me to read. I have been questioning myself the last week, wondering if I got it all wrong. Maybe he wasn’t that bad? Maybe he had reasons for lying and deceiving me? Maybe it’s my fault for reacting badly to his lies? For questioning him and finding the cracks in the argument. He told me I pressured him (when I would check he was still coming to dinner, as he often cancelled last minute to supposedly baby sit his children….) and forced my love on him even though he was in complete control of any physical contact and initiated all intimacy, if I ever tried he would say I was misbehaving. In hindsight I see how ridiculous this was! He would say it was inappropriate to get physical some weeks, or more that I was being inappropriate, I guess now that those were weeks when he was active with the other woman (maybe even women). At the time I felt awful. But even now I don’t know what was true, his perception of reality or mine? I’ve been reading about cognitive dissonance and I think I’m smack bang in he middle of it, I can’t really believe what happened. How I was taken in. And even now some days I do think, maybe it was all my fault. He is happy with the new woman, he can’t be that bad, maybe I’m sour grapes because he cheated on me and then so thoroughly discarded and hurt me? Anyway this was a great post, thank you!

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preedy44 says June 17, 2015

Spot on, as usual, Kim. Thank you for an informative article. Over 4 years out now and I still sometimes question if it really happened. In retrospect, I can see that I made all sorts of excuses for his behavior. I lost me in the process, but fortunately I have regained myself and can even say I think I’m a better person than I was before the relationship. One thing I’ve learned from the horrible experience that I went through with him is to set boundaries and stick to them.

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Pamela Leach says June 17, 2015

MY DAUGHTER IS GOING THRU THIS AND ABOUT TO LOOSE HER KIDS. SHE WAS GOING TO REHAB BUT HE GOT HER TO DROP OUT WITH ONLY 3 WKS TO GO. HE HAS BEEN ARRESTED OVER AND OVER FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND DRUGS AND WAS ORDERED BY JUDGE TO HAVE NO CONTACT WITH HER AND THE PINAL CO DISTRICT ATTORNEY KEEPS DISMISSING THE CHARGES I NEED HELP FOR HER!

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[email protected] says June 17, 2015

Kim–he DOES seem happier with her. Will it last? Is he nicer to her than he was to me?

Sent from my iPhone

>

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    Constance says June 17, 2015

    Even if he is it’s fleeting and won’t last. It’s a “when” not an “if” situation.

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    J says November 1, 2015

    It will seem great for a while, and then the same thing that happened to you will happen to her. The issue isn’t you or her. The issue is him. Narcissistic hetero men do the same thing over and over again. The women’s faces change, but the actions and words of the narcissist do not. I know because I’m just getting over one. He’s done the same thing to me that he’s done to at least eight other women, including his wife to whom he was married for 40 years.

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Ixchel says June 17, 2015

Reblogged this on Phoenix Rising and commented:
An excellent post from “Let me Reach” with Kim Saeed on Complex Post Trauma Disorder.

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    Kim Saeed says June 17, 2015

    Thank you for sharing, Ixchel! <3

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Kelly says June 17, 2015

This is exactly what I’m going through from a 3 year on and off again relationship with my ex. We are currently off because he swears I’m cheating on him even though I am the one who caught him at his exs or IDK i don’t even know if I wasn’t the one getting cheated on or the one he waa cheating with. Isn’t it awful the way I have allowed him to change me everyone says I’m not the same. He has me convinced I’m not a good person. I’ve never experienced this before and I pray I can over come it. I pity his next victim.

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    Kim Saeed says June 17, 2015

    Thanks for sharing, Kelly. Don’t be ashamed. That’s what happens when we’ve been the target of psychological manipulation. Wishing you all the very best in leaving…

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    Melinda says July 2, 2015

    @Kelly…I know you can do it. You will overcome what he has done to you, just take it one day at a time.

    You said that he has you convinced you’re a bad person. My ex did the same to me. But you know what? I realize more every day that it isn’t true. I might not be perfect, but I’m far from being “bad”. I am a good person with compassion for others and I’ve made mistakes and I’ve learned from my mistakes.
    The same is true for you, for all of us here who are seeking support and encouragement.

    You are not alone and it WILL get better at some point, I promise.

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    Rob says November 19, 2015

    Narcissists rarely if ever question their own behavior…..when you internalize and keep looking at yourself as the issue and try to fix yourself to make things better, these are indications you are not at fault.
    You are not the narcissist. They project their issues on to you…..start looking at their behavior more and you will begin to see the real issues are with them…..the shaming and blaming is not real. It makes us focus on us which is not the real issue…..we have to reverse our thinking and take a different approach and look at them and their behavior. It is the start of coming out of THEIR rabbit hole.

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      Shay says January 6, 2017

      I hace been separated from my peter for nearly 18 mths, i often think im i am insane, why after all the horrible manipulation that he put me thru do i still pine for him, and i keep telling him, i just look like an absolute idiot all the time I am struggling to move with my life, after 16 yrs i thought we had something special but it feels he don’t take a second look before he found someone else and again I feel like the failure the person who is worth nothing, easy to replace. I have tried he no contact several times, and each time i think im going to make it and he pulls me back, he tells me that we will never get back together and the last time i heard that i nearly took my own life, i realize how pathetic this all sounds as we’ll as disjointed but i have so many feeling thoughts and emotions rattling around in my head, i still love him so much

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Natalie says June 17, 2015

Spot on. I love your posts. I am an INFP and the narcissist in my life also tested as an INFP. I remember thinking at the time there’s no way we are similar. Is it possible he can feign his way thru a personality test?? We’re getting a divorce after 12 years and two kids. I’m a therapist so you can imagine this has been a nightmare but also the best thing ever. So grateful for your site.

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    Kim Saeed says June 17, 2015

    Thank you for sharing your story, Natalie. Yes, it’s possible that he may have “tricked” the personality test…in fact, he may have answered in ways that he believed you might answer (but, I only speculate). Thank you also for your encouraging words regarding my site!

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Pam says June 17, 2015

Thank you for the post. It was good but painful to read. It sounds a lot like how it was in my narcissistic relationship. Thankfully, I am no longer drinking the poisoned Koolaid.

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    Kim Saeed says June 17, 2015

    Thank you for sharing, Pam. It described my relationship, too <3

    Reply
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