Two or three years after a narcissists discard you’ll notice that you’re healing, that you’ve grown and are growing in ways you could never have grown with them, that life is better and more peaceful, and that you’ve outgrown the version of yourself that was in that relationship.
The narcissist on the other hand is still doing exactly the same things, and experiencing the same problems, because they haven’t grown or done anything with their life; all they’ve done is just replaced you with another person that they’re now manipulating and repeating the same old story with.
They were never interested in growth; they were only ever interested in avoiding changing the things about themselves that they needed to change. That's why they traded you for another person because you had decent morals and values and you finally called out the lack of theirs, but they didn't want to be accountable, nor did they want to change.
It was easier for them to find someone else who is prepared to tolerate their bad behaviours and disrespect without ever questioning it. They didn't find better, they found someone with lower standards
You on the other hand eventually find peace.
When I look back on my own relationship with the person who I would come to realise later on was a covert narcissist, I realise now that I spent more or less the entire time I was in that relationship living in survival mode.
It was less than a month after this person entered my life that the storm clouds started circling and once they opened up, I never saw clear skies again until my life after them.
It was just one storm after another from that point on, until every single aspect of my life had been completely destroyed. It became a living nightmare that I had to try and rebuild from while standing in the wreckage of what they left behind.
It definitely wasn’t love that they brought with them; they brought with them the fiercest storms I'd ever known, and I'm not sure that's the legacy they wanted.
You can’t say you bring love, kindness, or peace to someone when your presence places them in a worse situation than before they were with you, and you place them in survival mode while you’re there, and anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
My life has been significantly better and far more peaceful without them in it, and I now value and protect my peace like it's the most precious jewel in the world.
Yes, there was healing and the truth of what they really were to have to come to terms with, and in some ways there still is; but life is better and far more peaceful without them.
Sometimes losing what we never wanted to lose opens our eyes up to the fact that we were settling for something that was so far less than what we deserve.
It was the storm that you should never have had to endure but that you had to walk through in order to see the sunshine come out again from behind the darkness of their clouds.
You’re not defined by where you stand today; it’s only a chapter in your story and it does get better.
What defines you now is knowing that you deserve better, remembering your worth and the love and kindness that lives in your heart, and that you’re worthy of reciprocity and more than what they gave you.
But most importantly, that you are worthy of a love that brings peace, not chaos.
Protect your peace, remember your worth, remember the good person you are, know what you're no longer prepared to tolerate, and don't settle for less than you deserve ever again!
~ Mark Smith