is this my ego??

I was thinking about your post again ssm. A lot of the time we talk about how the narc makes us stronger in the long run. I realised today that all the narc does is behave so badly that our strength is revealed when we have to deal with them. They don't develop our strength in any way, or work on us...your narc is attempting to take credit for the strength in you that your reaction to his behaviour has revealed. He admires your strength because he knows it is real whereas his is a just a performance or confabulation. He is trying to rationalise why he is always abandoned/explain it to himself.

i still see no bright side or positive result of once being with a Narc. I as a result of him, have only developed negative qualities. I'm less patient and loving. I blurt out rude things because he didn't communicate so now it's become a habit. I'm way less sensitive to others' feelings. I feel terrible about how he has changed me. I have become bitter and less likable. I resent this very much.

It's you that finds the wounded souls.........narcs. He was projecting is all. Your new life will be developed by you, and on your terms. BUT, don't lose site of why you are in need of doing this........it is because of him. You are a victim of a narcissist. It is important to let go of how you got here, and just know that you are here and need to heal. Keep focused on the bigger picture. It isn't fair. But than again, who said it would be? That old saying "All is fair in love and war" was probably said by narc. Keep focused and stay strong!

That is why the narc chose you, they sense strength in others as well as weakness. They wish to bend and warp your sense of self until you are drained, and broken. And yet, we come out stronger. It wasn't because of their behaviour, it is because we CHOOSE to get stronger. We CHOOSE to get healthy. You chose to get better. He did not make that decision for you. Ego? Thank goodness, there is healthy ego, the part that says, "I am worth more". "I deserve better." And the part that says "uh uh, you're not getting credit, I made these healthy decisions on my own." He does not own your mind. He may have rented it for a while, and he still may come and crash for the night (in your head only), but you OWN your mind. You are strong and capable. Tell him to go take up residency somewhere else. While he was a tenant, he didn't take care of the place and now he is evicted. That is your choice to evict him. You could have let him stay. You could have let him bring the house down to total ruin. You CHOSE not too. Strength and courage. PBF

A while ago, an older friend of mine told me I should actually be grateful and thank my Narc and wish him happiness with his OW - bc actually I'M the one benefitting from this terrible heartbreak. I'M the one learning my lesson and growing stronger and wiser. The Narc has learned nothing and is a miserable lost soul. I understood that intellectually, but totally couldn't accept it back then. Like you, I kept thinking: wtf -thank him? After all he has done I should be grateful??? He gets to walk away as the good guy? Not fair!! Well, this morning, on my way to work, as I reflected on this whole year, I suddenly felt immensely proud of myself. I have fought SO HARD all these months... I cried endlessly, faced my worst fears, realized I was addicted and needed help, got help, struggled with my thoughts and my emotions, day after day after day - while also somehow keeping my job and getting things done. Who did all this - was it the Narc? No! It was ME... he was just the trigger.A mirror showing me my unresolved issues. Would I have preferred to still be blissfully ignorant this year, only to be dumped next year, making me waste another year of my life? No. So am I grateful to have "escaped" so soon? I guess so, yes.

'he' hasn't done a damn thing. perhaps you will be better at seeing through manipulative b===shit but that will be because of the emotional heart within you. he is attempting to maintain a pattern of thinking within you that is like his own e.g. purely fixated on delusions of power/superiority/control. everything they say is sickened - remember that they are very limited individuals really.

ssm, You have to admit that all the relationships you ever had before him, have changed you for the better?...All of ours have shaped us to be who we are today both good relationships and bad. The difference I think here is that you had a self-centered, self-applauding N "announce" that he was going to be a part of transforming you for the better and a part of you believed him. Then he proved, as all N's eventually do, who he really is....that's what your mad at. Not that you might transform for the better and that he might have a hand in it. I think you just have the normal angry and WTF? just happened disposition that they leave us all in. Picture dangling off of a cliff. That's how they end up making us feel huh? No one can take away all that you have learned from other relationships and now what you've learned now having to deal with him. Knowledge is power. He can never take that away from you. Let him gloat with someone else, they don't know him yet -but you do;)