When The Narcissist Says Don’t Cheat

The ex began to tell me, “If you’re going to cheat, leave before you cheat, as it’s disrespectful.” In my mind this came out of nowhere as I would never cheat. I couldn’t understand his sudden obsession with saying this line. I was baffled and confused.

Why would he say those things to me when I would never cheat?

Heck, I didn’t have time to cheat. I didn’t do girls night out. I was a Mom/Wife full time. Every once in awhile I met friends for lunch, but they were all married and part of our friend group. Seriously, when was I going to meet someone and start something like cheating? I was still in love with him…

Foolish girl…it was HE who was cheating..setting me up for when he suddenly left. Leaving clues that this clueless girl wasn’t ready to read, look at, nor process without hindsight and a good dose of narc research. But once I did? All the pieces fell into place.

The phone number on a post-it in his wallet that I found when he told me to get a $20 out for the kids to pay for something. When confronted, he said it was work. “See, it’s on a post-it!” as if that validated it. I have wondered if he knew it was in there and set me up to find it for his own amusement…

The sudden late nights at the office. “We have a deadline, due to go out in the morning and everything has to be perfect. There’s a team here and we’ll be working all night on it.” Ok, in his previous jobs these happened very occasionally, but suddenly it was every weekend. When confronted, he got mad.

But idiot me? I was staying up waiting for him because I felt badly that he was “working” and would call around 3am to check in on him. At first he would answer, then after a few of these ‘late nights’ he wouldn’t answer and that’s when I knew…suspected…began to imagine…

I had always thought of him as a man of his word. At least to me. I’d seen him lie to others often, exaggerating big deals, but never lie to me. And now I know, he lied to me the most. Or better said, he lied to himself the most…

I look back now and wonder how I had convinced myself that he was a good man. But remember, I had his narcissist mother and he working together in cahoots! She wanted her baby to be happy at all costs. I do not know if she ever knew about the cheating, but she has twisted so many lies to become like truths over the years that I am sure she would justify it if she knew.

That’s the way narcissists are…the rules they lay out for you don’t apply to them. Far be it for you to remind them of the rules…because they’ll conveniently add a loop hole for themselves. And if you’re blindly in love with them, you won’t see the full scope of what’s happening until it’s too late.

Eyes wide open…if it looks or smells like cheating, it probably is…

Narcissists don’t change.