You know something is very, very wrong when you’re staring at a grown, and let’s be honest, well past middle aged man with a dad-bod, receding hairline, and a retirement account, and think to yourself, “Did he really just throw a full-blown toddler-style temper tantrum because I said no to him?”
Yes. Yes, he did.
He might not be flailing on the floor (and then again he might) but the emotional outburst is unmistakable. Balling up his fists and jumping up and down, or storming out. The door slamming. The angry silence. The eye-rolling and muttered insults and name calling under his breath. The refusal to speak for days, followed by a demand that you apologize – not for something you did, but for how your feelings made him uncomfortable. Or worse, he didn’t demand it, but you felt compelled to apologize nonetheless, because he behaves like a petulant child until you do. Your apology reaffirms to him that he’s in control again. The balance of power is restored.
That’s the wild part of loving a narcissist. You end up apologizing for being hurt by them. For crying when you’re betrayed. For raising your voice after they’ve broken your heart. And that slow erosion of your right to have feelings and boundaries? That’s where the real damage to your psyche begins.
You start to believe your pain is the problem. You start to question if you’re the abuser for reacting, after all, that’s the lens you’ve been forced to see yourself with. You start to think that maybe if you could just be more “chill,” let him have everything he demands, he wouldn’t cheat, lie, manipulate, or gaslight you. But what if what he’s demanding is to cheat on, lie to, manipulate, and gaslight you?
Here’s the truth:
Your pain is not the problem.
Your boundaries are not the enemy.
Your tears and pain are not proof of emotional instability, or some dangerous mental illness. No, they’re evidence of your very humanity in the face of cruelty.
And let’s talk about the cruelty.
It seems innocent at first. You’ll see it in the way he “befriends” women half his age, maybe younger, who he engages in physical relationships with, without your knowledge or consent. He may even try to shoehorn them into your life, or into your family if you’re “poly”. Again without your consultation, knowledge or consent. There is no communication, only what he dictates for your life, and you’re ungrateful if you push back. He brings strangers he wants to force you to accept, again, without any consultation from you. Women who are all uncomfortably young, inexperienced and immature enough to still believe that attention in the form of lovebombing actually equals love, and usually, they all seem to have ‘daddy issues’.
He’s patient. It makes him appear respectful, but what’s really happening is that he’s studying them. Learning their values and dreams, but it’s not for connection. He might tell you that he has a growing love for these girls, but make no mistake about it, it’s not an emotional connection he’s fostering. To everyone else, it surely looks that way, but you know the truth. You can see through him – Because it happened to you, too, long ago.
He’s grooming them under the guise of the wise, generous father figure, while showing his vulnerability by smearing you in the background. He’s victimized by you, the long-term partner because you have boundaries he simply refuses to respect, but he won’t tell them that. Or even worse, he does it as a way to prove how victimized he REALLY is. By you, the woman who held his darkest secrets and carried their shame as if they were her own, and raised his children, is now the obstacle to his evolution. You have essentially become the mean cockblocking mommy in his worldview, keeping him from what he needs, (not you) and you must be destroyed for that.
He tells them you don’t understand him. That you’re emotionally cold. Controlling. Angry. Abusive. The whole problem in your relationship with him. He claims that you’re no longer intimate regardless of whether you are or not. He paints himself as the sensitive, misunderstood victim, trapped in a toxic marriage, and in doing so, he effectively uses you to cheat on you!
That’s not just betrayal. That’s psychological abuse.
And if you dare to call it what it is, he turns it around on you. “You’re just insecure,” he says. “That’s your mind wandering and making up stories. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
But he is. He’s rewriting reality. He’s gaslighting you into silence while playing the wounded saint to everyone else. And the emotional whiplash of that, of loving someone who hurts you and then makes you say sorry for being in pain… Is nothing short of devastating.
You lose your voice. You doubt your instincts. You stop trusting yourself.
But I need you to hear this: Your instincts are not broken. Your anger is not a flaw. Your heartbreak is not an overreaction.
You are not crazy.
You are not too much.
You are someone who has been deeply, repeatedly hurt, and you’ve been told that the damage is your fault.
It’s not.
And you don’t have to live this way anymore.
That’s why I created the Manifest the QHE Way mini course. It’s a trauma-informed healing journey back to your voice, your power, and the life you were meant to live – before the manipulation, the gaslighting, the tantrums, and the betrayals.
If you’re done apologizing for your pain, start here.