What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us!

“Are you sleeping with other women” I asked? Intuitively I knew the answer to be “yes” but I wanted to hear it from him. I wanted him to admit it to me!

“I’m not a hermit” he replied!”

“I’m not asking you if you are a hermit! I want to know if you are sleeping with other women! Yes or No! Can you just answer the question!”

“Well, I’m afraid if I tell you that I’m sleeping with other women that you won’t sleep with me!”

“Are you kidding me” I asked? Don’t you feel that I have the right to base my relationship with you on honesty? You’re right! I won’t sleep with you! It is my right not to sleep with a man who has multiple sexual partners! This is MY right! I deserve to have the information so I can make the decision that is right for me!”

For years I had been invalidated. I made the mistake of looking to my boyfriend to validate my intuition by asking him for his honesty. But he could never give it. What he did was manipulate the situation so that I would be the one feeling there is something terribly wrong with me. It wasn’t like me to be that insecure and jealous. But the insecurity came from knowing on so many levels that my relationship was out of integrity, yet I continued to pretend that he was being honest with me. I expected that of him! I don’t think he really flat out lied to me, he just manipulated the question so I never got a direct answer.

I think about this story as I work with so many women who struggle with having their intuition invalidated by their narcissistic partner. Her gut tells her one thing and he tells her quite another and she ends up trusting him rather than her gut. When she finds out much later that her gut was right all along she ends up feeling so betrayed. But the greatest betrayal is the one she feels for herself. She betrayed herself by refusing to listen to what she knew, on a gut level, to be true.

Trusting her gut would have meant giving up the illusion of her prince charming, the man of her dreams who would never lie to her. To trust her gut would mean seeing beyond what was being said and listening to what she feels.

Sometimes we avoid asking those difficult questions because we really don’t want to know the truth. Sometimes we will ask a question and be emotionally shot down for even asking. “Are you having an affair?”

“What do you mean, am I having an affair? How could you even think that! You are so insecure; your mind always has to be suspicious. I can’t believe you!”

Do you notice that the reply above never answered the question? He never said. No, I’m not having an affair. What makes you think that I am?” This question is either going to be a lie or genuinely invite conversation on the topic. Most narcissists won’t do this. They don’t want to open conversation in an area that might expose something secretive.

Narcissistic people are very secretive and often lead double lives. They are also very good at compartmentalizing and keeping one part of his life completely disconnected from another part. This enables some narcissists to have several relationships at once. When you feel suspicious or uncomfortable you may question your partner or even go snooping for answers because you really need to know. The intuitive part of you tells you something is wrong and this part needs validation. A narcissistic partner would never validate your intuition. He (or she) doesn’t feel you have the right to know the truth. He (or she) doesn’t care about your need to know what kind of relationship you are in. If you start to get too close to the truth the narcissist will often break off the relationship so that he is leaving you first, before you can leave him.

One thing we should all learn from being in a relationship with a narcissist whether the narcissist is male or female, is to trust our intuition. When you get a gut feeling, learn to trust it and follow it. Your intellect may often get in the way and you may find yourself concluding that maybe you are just feeling jealous, or insecure, or needy because he certainly can cause you to feel this way. But there is a reason you feel these feelings. It might simply be that you notice he isn’t paying attention to you anymore and is always gone. You start to wonder if you aren’t attractive to him anymore and question your attractiveness and your value. He might be telling you that you aren’t giving him enough attention and so you blame yourself that he is gone all the time. You try harder and harder to please him at the risk of losing yourself completely.

When a man or woman lies about being with another sexual partner he or she is telling you that you are unworthy of the truth. It is a manipulation! “If I tell you the truth you might leave and the new relationship is not that secure yet. I need you to be there for me until she, or he has committed to me. Because I don’t want to be alone!” It is all about the needs of the narcissistic partner without any consideration whatsoever of your needs.

Our intuition serves a very strong purpose! If we really learn to trust it, then we can’t go wrong. Our gut will always alert us to the truth, even if we don’t want to hear it. Its better to find out now and get out before any further damage can be done then to snow yourself for years and then end up hating yourself for not listening to what you knew.

I came out of my narcissistic relationship with laser sharp intuition. I realized that the things I knew, but never wanted to admit to myself were actually true. Once I honed in on my intuitive abilities I began doing psychic/intuitive readings for others by just telling what I knew in my gut. I found myself to be accurate most of the time. Giving a reading involves telling it like I see it or feel it without editing what I am getting. I don’t stop and question “gee why am I seeing this image. I just tell my client the image I am seeing.”

Intuition is a great threat to those who are dishonest because they know that you know and it is much more difficult to hide.

The conversation I started with my ex-boyfriend, many years ago, about his sexual habits with other women, was the first time I had found the courage to ask him a direct question. That was also the end of my relationship. Because I refused to be blind any longer. I began to honor that part of myself that knew the truth and listen to it. Once I did this my illusionary relationship was over.

I was a strong, confident, beautiful and talented woman but he didn’t seem to acknowledge or respect me for who I was! Because he couldn’t validate what was good and beautiful about me, I couldn’t either. I needed him to see those good qualities in order to believe they were real. I gave him the power to validate me! How foolish I was for this.

Years later I could see that it didn’t matter how strong, how beautiful, how talented and how successful I was, he would never acknowledge these things about me or any other woman. We were all just sexual objects to be used and discarded when he was not longer interested. The more beautiful and powerful we were the more he had to manipulate us to invalidate our beauty. This kept us questioning and doubting ourselves and kept him more secure in the relationship. This is why we often see a beautiful, strong, confident woman and ask ourselves, “what in the world is a woman like this doing with a man like that!”

Our only way out of destructive relationship patterns is to learn to love ourselves, put ourselves and our own opinions first and trust our intuition. We must always remember that when we love ourselves first we have more of ourselves to offer those who are deserving of our attention and affection. When we trust what we know, deep down inside we will always be guided to where we need to be.