I Loved a Narcissist but No One Believed Me

Somehow I needed the craziness validated

“Your husband is two very different people,” says my counselor. “But no one would believe you because he’s charming.”

I already know this because I live this truth.

The charm, humor, and success of the narcissist shields reality.

Yet it’s validating to hear these words. My marriage counselor is a psychologist who has met with us for eight months. My husband and I have been told he lacks empathy.

It answers the confusion my heart has felt for years.

A happy-go-lucky, seemingly laid-back guy with an unwanted emotional twin.

One that replaces my smile with tears, security with unpredictability, calm with chaos, warmth with cold, certainty with confusion, bravery with fear, and joy with sadness.

Only my counselor, family, and those closest to me have seen the beast.

The emotional Big Foot who stalks my inner world.

It’s enough to make me feel crazy. Why can’t others see my truth?

Good people can’t comprehend cruelty lurks behind a pretty face. We think cold, abusive, emotionally bankrupt evil should be physically disfigured. It should alert us, call to us, beckon a recognizable danger. It should frighten us and signal a necessary distance.

But the narcissist's exterior is tied up with a pretty bow.

Those of us who love them believe we’ve been gifted something special. A human unlike others, that captivates the general public yet belongs to only us. An individual who initially seems worthy of a pedestal. We place them on it. And our world looks good.

Exactly the reason I should never have believed others would spot the beast.

How do we expect the average person to recognize a narcissist?

When we never did.

But this didn’t deter me, I needed to not feel crazy. I wasn’t complaining about the exterior my husband presented. I was begging for the emotionally blind to witness his interior.

The drastic contradiction to the guy who was otherwise easy on the eyes.

So I talked and I talked, I begged and I begged.

For reality to replace illusion.

I foolishly sought to be heard. It was the only thing more exasperating than engaging the narcissist. And it was nearly as upsetting, frustrating, and disquieting. In some ways, it may have been more so. Because these were average people minus a troubling disorder.

And they couldn’t see the two people I knew.

The one’s my counselor confirmed.

I wanted them to validate the crazy.

Not greet him with a smile and a hug. Or throw back a beer and laugh with a man who disgraced his gender by mistreating a woman and children. A guy who projected a distorted version of himself that appealed to the crowd.

The two-faced narcissist.

The man I loved who no one else believed existed.