Articles
China Elevator Stories
I was not asking for too much
Joris ist still violating my boundaries and has not stopped his abuse.
09/06/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
One common occurence in narcissistic relationships is that the narcissist may project onto the other person that they are asking for too much when they are simply asking for normal things.
For example, when I ask Joris to respect my boundaries, he will not accept even a single boundary and suggest that I am crazy for thinking that he’ll need to respect my boundaries.
After I realized that he had applied a different standard to me that would not apply to him, I told him that I would not accept a relationship that was not based on mutuality.
The relationship was set up in a way by him that would allow him to be able to cheat on me, or even have a second relationship with another woman behind my back without me being able to find out about it at all.
He thinks that he is allowed to do whatever he wants to do without me being allowed to know about it.
When I asked him for more mutuality, what I received was the opposite. There was very little mutuality from the very beginning, and after I had asked him for more mutuality in the relationship, he created the exact opposite of this, which was less mutuality.
What does this mean?
One example of this is that he thinks that because he is a star, certain rules that apply to all other human beings do not apply to him.
I tried to explain to him that if I had wanted to date a star, I would have been looking to date a star. But I was trying to date a real person* and not be with a star, and because he had wanted to keep playing ‘the star’ in private, instead of simply being a real person, I decided that I would not stay in a relationship with him.
Narcissists often lead a double life.
I had experienced this with my ex-husband, and I ended the relationship when Joris did not stop to lead a double life, even after I had asked him to. I had also repeatedly asked him to stop applying a double standard. This meant that he had rules I needed to adhere to – which, in his mind – only applied to me, but not to him.
You certainly do need to include the other person in your life, or otherwise this is really simply a one-way-street that can lead nowhere but to a breakup.
*I’ll add here that I was not looking to date anyone at that time, but if I were looking to date someone, I would have been looking to date a real person, and not a star.
Have you ever been coerced to accept less than you deserve?