Saying "Sorry"

This is good, it came out of one of Barbara's links:

"Saying sorry"

Just because he never believes he could possibly be wrong does not mean that the narcissist never apologises. He is capable of every kind of display of remorse imaginable, from tossing out a sarcastic or casual, "I'm sorry" right through to crying and pleading with you like a devastated child.

With most abusers and particularly with narcissists, this is not a real apology, no matter how remorseful he may seem. It is a means to an end and no more.

What it really means is, "let's pretend this never happened so that I can do it to you again".

One of the talents that children of narcissists in particular tend to develop, is the ability to see what is really being done and hear what is really being said. We have spent our entire lives dodging the bullets and sheer survival has forced us to expend a lot of energy in trying to identify them before they hit. We can never dodge them, but we're a bunch of real die-hards who never stop trying. We just need to learn to trust our gut. - If it feels insincere, then it is. If it feels unbelievable, then don't believe it.

Our downfall however is that we are hopeless dreamers. We believe in fairy tales and a narcissistic parent is the biggest fairy tale you can get. We keep wanting desperately to believe.

A partner of a narcissist is not much different. You want so much to believe them because if you have to admit to yourself that it is all a lie, the dream will be shattered. The dream is all you've ever had. If that dies, you fear your very soul dying too.

The reality is that your soul won't die. The dream will. Some of your innocence and gullibility will, but so will the conflicts, the deception, the games, the vulnerability and the constantly recurring pain.

Every time that you believe his empty sorry, you are giving him permission to continue.

If you really want to give the relationship an honest chance, accepting his sorry should have conditions attached: - get professional help, stick with the programme and achieve a real change in attitude that reflects in behaviours.

If you demand or accept any less than this, you're going to keep living through the same old nightmare over and over again.

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My personal experience:

I remember my ex-narcissist's shallow "I'm sorry's". Most of the time, he would say "I'm sorry", and his facial expressions only showed anger and hatred. I would tell him -"If you're sorry, please tell that to your facial expressions", so you can show that you are really sorry. The truth is he was not really sorry, and I chose to believe him even though I saw the forrest by the trees. I saw it in that his behavior never changed.

A few times he even cried in front of me, one of the last times he did this, it was such a loud cry that it really sounded fake, even at the moment, when I didn't know anything about narcissism, it sounded like an "act". I remember thinking: "Wow, that sounded like it's not real!"

From what I experienced, these "I'm sorry's" are just acts to buy themselves time, in the meantime that they find a "better supply" for their needs. Because they really don't like to be without supply, they are addicts of it. So they will do whatever it takes to have an uninterrupted flow of supply at all times.