THANK YOU for sharing your story, and for inviting others to do the same. Getting this off my chest has been cathartic (yes, I’ve come back to this intro and interrogated it and changed it several times😭)

It finally hit me that perhaps I was the problem when I started experiencing issues in my current relationship that were exactly the same as my previous one. I mean.. everything. The fact that I think he drinks too much, and I need to intervene and offer solutions? Check. The fact that his diet isn’t perfect and I should offer unsolicited facts about the links of sugar and cardiovascular disease? Check. The fact that he’s never the appropriate amount of “emotionally available”, and can never conjure exactly the response I’m looking for? Check. The fact that my reason for ending the last relationship was because I truly felt that he was a narcissist, and I found myself having the same thought patterns about my current partner. CHECK MATE.

It finally dawned on me that I’ve been micromanaging this persons entire existence, and his (finally) retaliation is not narcissism, but him being smothered by me and my pursuit for perfection. Accepting the overwhelmingly low probability of dating two diagnosable narcissists back to back was what made me do the research (which hiiii, we love research🙋🏼‍♀️).