Long story short, dated a covert narcissist for a 15 months. Broke up with her because our conflict resolution sucked. Getting a sorry from her was a pain in the ass. I felt like she was just not changing and that it was an uneven relationship. I knew nothing about emotional abuse, narcissism or whatever. Just that something was wrong.

Got back with her a week later after she convinced she would change. Three months later, I realized she somehow had gotten worse and I was really sick of her treatment of me and her lies. I remember asking her why she always refuses to say sorry, constantly gets mad at me when I tell her that she hurt me, and yells at me all the time. She said she wasn’t good enough for me then and that we broke up. (Still playing victim).

A few days later, I came across her Reddit profile to lurk and make sure she was doing okay. (Like I said, she’s really good at playing victim and making me feel bad). Only to find that she had been posting nudes to Reddit dating back to a week or two after getting back together. I called her out and ripped into her for 30 minutes. She sat in silence then she started crying about how her parents split up because cheating. Eventually manipulating me into spending the night. I offered to take her back if she truly was going to change.

She said “I’m this abusive, manipulative, evil person that hides it so well.” I didn’t know it at the time but she pretty much was confessing that she knew she was a covert narcissist.

We kept in contact for months and I realized she was never going to take me back despite her cycle of “I miss us, I wish I could make us work” to “We’re both single and I feel like this is too much”.

We finally went NC about 3 months ago and she was with someone else shortly after, predictably.

I’ve been working through the gaslighting. I’ve moved past blaming myself and thinking she’s going to save me. Although I still gaslight myself at times about the relationship.

The thought I struggle with is that all the good times were fake. I know it doesn’t matter but was I really lying to myself about being happy for THAT long. We were so happy as long as we weren’t having any confrontation. I felt like she was really smart, interesting, and funny. That our personalities clicked but she just was abusive when it came to being accountable.

I feel that my standards for girls are out of whack because the first person I was in love with doesn’t even exist. I know it sounds confusing but was in love with a fake person or just a person that had abusive behaviors and habits. I used to be able to talk to my nex for hours on end but I can’t seem to connect to anyone like that. It’s upsetting. Does anyone relate to this? Should I lower expectations? Sorry for the rambling but I’ve been gaslighting myself all morning :(