Is Someone with Chronic Cheating Syndrome (CCS) a Narcissist?

Chronic infidelity or Chronic Cheating Syndrome (CCS) is a terrible thing for the person being cheated on. Even worse, does chronic cheating mean the cheater is a narcissist (narc for short)? Once I discovered my ex-husband’s extra-marital exploits that apparently were going on during most of our 42-year marriage, I began my reconnaissance into his “activities.” And I researched the heck out of infidelity.

The main thing I’ve gleaned, from several years of very focused research and joining support groups, is that a lot of information about narcissistic personality disorder when cheating on the level of CCS is discussed. My ex was never diagnosed — narcs rarely seek mental health assistance — but he certainly meets most of the criteria.

Some of my research involved videos by Melany Tonia Evans, The Little Shaman, Sam Vaknin, Fairytale Shadows, and even Dr. Phil. Quora is also a great source of information. I love Sophia Bell. Her take on narcs is spot on and very funny. Sometimes we need humor in these situations.

Obviously not all cheaters are narcs. There are a lot of reasons that people cheat on spouses or significant others. But those that cheat at every opportunity with no plans to leave their significant others seem to fall into a separate category. Entitled and predatory. And my ex-husband was in that category. I think one of the main reasons that I didn’t know about his cheating for so long is that he really had no plans to end our marriage and was doing this on the side because — why not? He traveled all over the world as a pilot and sought out and took advantage of every opportunity, with me none the wiser — until the evidence showed up.

There seem to be jobs that lend themselves to CCS. Obviously, pilots, truck drivers, sales, and any other job that is based on out-of-town travel. Those are exciting jobs complete with a lot of admiration for what they do along with boring downtime when in a strange town alone. I have also noticed that with a lot of the more exciting (as in adrenaline-producing) jobs such as police, firefighters, and first responders you find quite a bit of chronic cheating. Even physicians seem to gravitate toward this behavior. Perhaps they seek out these types of jobs to feed whatever their need for adulation and excitement is. Narcissistic supply perhaps?

Types of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

From my research I see that there are five types of narcissistic personality disorder: overt, covert, antagonistic, communal, or malignant. So, let’s break it down a bit.

Overt

• Outgoing, arrogant, entitled, overbearing, having an exaggerated self-image, needing to be praised and admired, exploitative, competitive, lacking empathy.
• The ex hits everything here except outgoing. He is a self-professed introvert (although he never has a problem yelling at anyone anywhere).

Covert

• Expressions of low self-esteem; higher likelihood of experiencing anxiety, depression, and shame; introversion; insecurity or low confidence; defensiveness; avoidance; tendency to feel or play the victim.
• Nothing here other than introversion. He claims to have low confidence, but I did not see that in him at all. He was proud of his good looks and physical fitness, and thought he was smarter than most people.

Antagonistic

• Arrogance, tendency to take advantage of others, tendency to compete with others, disagreeability or proneness to arguing.
• All of these fit. LOVES to argue and be nasty.

Communal

• Become easily morally outraged, describe themselves as empathetic and generous, react strongly to things they see as unfair.
• Nothing really fits here other than he did love to become morally outraged. All the political bickering that is going on right now is one of his favorite pastimes.

Malignant

• Vindictiveness, sadism, or getting enjoyment from the pain of others, aggression when interacting with other people, paranoia, or heightened worry about potential threats.
• Wow, this one is scary. Ex does not physically hurt other people, but he loves a good case of road rage, cutting people off who have inadvertently done something wrong (in his mind) while driving. Highway retribution is one of his favorite things. And he always carries at least one loaded gun in his pocket, has one in his car (maybe more), and probably fifty more stashed around his house. Just in case. Even though he has never been threatened or robbed and lives in a tiny community where everybody knows everybody.

And he is ALWAYS angry at somebody!

Narcissistic Supply

I determined through process of elimination that my ex is a narc (maybe even a sociopath). One of the first things I learned about narcs is that they have a constant need for something called “supply.” I thought it was a weird term at first, but it actually describes what is going on pretty well.

Most narcs grew up in families with insecure attachment styles. They were not protected and nurtured. This leads to a feeling of not being good enough, and they feel shameful and inadequate. Pretty sad, right? To compensate, they learn how to make themselves feel that they are actually better than others to defend against how they really feel deep down. This includes emotional manipulation and abuse. They degrade, deceive, and despise others.

My ex grew up in the 1960’s in an upper middle class home with an alcoholic mother and a step-father who abused both of them mentally and physically. He had to lie about going to the ER with a split lip and say he got it from being hit by a football, not step-dad. No mandatory reporting back then. Looks like the perfect recipe for developing narcissism.

Narcissistic supply is “a psychological concept which describes a type of admiration, interpersonal support or sustenance drawn by an individual from his or her environment. The term is typically used in a negative sense, describing a pathological or excessive need for attention or admiration that does not take into account the feelings, opinions or preferences of other people.” (Wikipedia definition). Narcissistic supply is a term which refers to the attention that narcissists crave. And they can never get enough.

The narc looks for reactions to their projected image, that “I’m better than you” feeling they developed as kids, from everyone. If they don’t immediately get it, they demand or extort it. Money, compliments, sexual conquests are all converted into the same supply in the narcissist’s mind. Any reaction is OK, positive or negative, as long as there is a reaction. That reaction, in essence, is supply.

Why am I Narcissistic Supply?

Narcissists are forever in pursuit of narcissistic supply. They are oblivious to the passage of time and are not bothered by any of the normal “rules of conduct” or moral obligations that society imposes. When a narc sees that someone is a willing source, they are bound to try to extract narcissistic supply from that source by any and all means.

This is a reflex. The narc would have reacted absolutely the same way to any other source because, to them, all sources are interchangeable, the same way that all reactions are OK as long as there is one.

There is the main supply, usually the spouse or significant other, and then there is secondary supply such as affair partners. I was my ex’s main supply and I must have been pretty good at it to have lasted almost 50 years. Narcs are especially drawn to empathetic people (empaths) because they are strong, altruistic, problem-solvers, sensitive, kind, dependable, and nurturing. And it didn’t hurt that I was considered attractive back in the day (I never thought so). I saw the sad, scared little boy in him and wanted to fix it with my love. Unfortunately, narcs are incapable of loving anyone.

For my ex, I was the most important form of supply. I gave him stability and the outward appearance of normalcy. I also took care of everything (houses, bills, kids, taxes, social life) so all he had to do was go to work and have his fun. I provided him with the greatest emotional reactions to his outrageous behavior; therefore, I was the person he spent the most effort on. I was a keeper — for the time being. Even after I left, he has been trying to hoover (vacuum or suck me back in). This is also typical narc behavior.

Interacting with the opposite sex is a great source of secondary supply. Narcs need a constant stream of validation and instant gratification, and what better way than to seduce someone new? New people are the ones that validate and gratify them best. So a narc will always be looking for new people. They are like addicts, always looking for the next fix and always needing more and more. My ex always had a main chick and a bunch of sides. And me, until I finally left.

I was super lucky. My narc ex did not really fight me during our divorce. This is somewhat unusual because they hate to lose. Perhaps the main chick was a good enough primary supply replacement.

Perhaps the saddest thing about narcissism is that it is permanent. There is no fixing it. If only I had known.