How in the hell do they do it?

The woman who replaced me was a psychiatrist! Her first date was the day-before I (his wife) moved out as scheduled (and she was aware of that). She was introduced by "mutual" friends who gave him a good rating. She moved in at three months into the house he co-owned with his soon-to-be ex-wife. Even though there had been abusive episodes so great that she almost abandoned the relationship. After living with him 6 months, she fled in the middle of the night during one of his rampages. Took her another 3 months to get her possessions out of his house -- broken, missing, damaged. And he's a tenured, university professor. How do they do it? They wear the mask of sanity. And, the manipulations & the abuses start small & then escalate & escalate. The tolerance fo the victim increases. And, once the intimate, physical relationship starts -- it is very difficult to break off even when there are some red flags. A psychiatrist was fooled. And she's not the only one. The web is full of stories of trained mental & medical health professionals caught in the web of the narcissist.

They are hunters. And they hunt for people who have not enough self respect , dignity or self love. They hunt for us because we are easy to be manipulated. Lets face it - N will never be with the strong , self confident person. This kind of person would not like to be with selfish N as N would never meet her/his expectations.

The more wonderful of a person you are, the easier it is for them to take advantage of you. Your goodness and compassion and empathy, all of your good qualities...mean that you don't have walls to keep others including these predators OUT. They slip past your radar because you are not a suspicious, mistrustful, selfish person. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has everything to do with your good character. Forgive yourself. It wasn't your fault. You are not responsible, you are not to blame for someone else's conscious decision to do evil! Do yourself a huge favor and let go of that thought that you should have stopped them somehow. You didn't know what you were dealing with, the only "mistake" you made was the same one that everyone here has made...thinking that these Ns play by the same rules as you, and think as "normal" people do. And as we all know now...they don't think as others do, they are disordered. To borrow the analogy that I believe Chris (donesourcing) used...they are like a vending machine with an "out of order" sign on it...to take that analogy a little further...if you want something from a vending machine, you put your change in it. If you didn't see that it had an out of order sign on it and you lost your change...you wouldn't beat yourself up over that, you would just move on and not put any more change in that vending machine. Don't waste any more of your precious time and energy ruminating over this, you didn't know any better. None of us here did. Now that you know better, you will do better. (((hugs)))

Good to hear you are doing so well. You were conned because they are master manipulators. Manipulating your emotions comes as easily to them as breathing. No matter how smart, anyone can fall prey. We are normally targeted for believing the best in people, having empathy and the willingness to give someone a second chance. The N knows this and has used our good qualities against us. It is how they live their life. Like a animal predator stalking his prey. It is instinct for them. It is not a lack of intelligence by any means that caused any of us to be targeted, we just weren't aware that such deliberate evil exists. The phrase wolf in a Sheeps clothing is so spot on- who would be scared of a sheep? You see it walking towards you and something inside you screams RUN but then logic prevails. Why run from a sheep? What could it possibly do to me? Im almost four months out now as well and doing really great. I have asked myself this same question- how could have done this? Slipped it past me unnoticed? The answer is, because I DIDN'T KNOW about such predators. And I am not the person I was in that relationship. I was beaten down emotionally until all my walls were crumbled at my feet and he had me. Do you think your narc would recognize the strong person you are now? I don't think mine would. I think something in his gut would be screaming him to RUN.