The Irresistible Allure of the Abusive Narcissist
The reasons you were swayed, and why you stayed
“If I was so damn awful all the time, why did you even marry me?”
Yes, even the narcissist asked me this question as we were splitting up. In an attempt to explain why I needed to go, I summed up the things that had become unbearable, and why I’d lost faith in them getting better.
I wanted him to understand what had eventually led me to have an affair, and how seeing a glimpse of love outside our marriage had made me realize that what we shared was everything but love.
He wasn’t the only one who asked this question. Three years later, friends and family still inquire:
— Why did you stay for so long? If he was so terrible all the time, why did you not leave sooner?
That’s exactly it; it wasn’t bad all the time. No one willingly sticks around for bad-all-the-time. Sometimes it was great, and when it was, he would be plain wonderful.
And, therein lays the problem.
Michelle Ann said it best, in a quote I’ve mentioned before:
When you’re dating someone that is physically or emotionally abusive, they don’t come out of the gate swinging and…
