The GOTCHA moment in the narcissistic relationship

If you ever see glee on the face of your partner,when you make an error,get out early. The meanness and contempt are life changing

Sexlessness. Sharing a bed with someone who doesn’t acknowledge you are a sexual being hurts so much. I was in a sexless marriage for years. Being a woman with a high libido, I felt inadequate. Worst I feel invisible. The man who was “supposed” to want me, just didn’t. We talked about it many times, more than I can recall now. It was always me. I wanted too much - once a week was too much for him. I didn’t initiate - he was always complaining of headaches, stomaches, always stressed, always tired. I was too sexual - when being subtle doesn’t work, what is next? Explicitly saying I wanted sex. Oh but then it was not appropriate. Conversations would end up with him saying he didn’t feel desired or I made him feel emasculated because he didn’t want sex as much as I did. Yeah, it was always me. I could never win. While we were dating we would have a decent amount of sex, it was good. The first huge red flag was not having sex in our honeymoon - which I ignored. It rapidly decrease to once a week, then every other week. Years gone by it was months in between, by the time we divorced it was over a year with no sex. I cried myself to sleep more times that I can count. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Was I that undesirable? Was I repulsive? After those conversations, I just stopped trying, initiating, mentioning sex. We were still loving - holding hands, hugging, kissing - but sex was off the table. He then cheated on me. Swore he had sex only 4 times in a year (or more) long affair. It didn’t matter. For years my self worth was damaged by him, years of low self esteem, years of feeling less of a woman, the marriage that was more than over, waiting in hospice, really ended. Funny how things are, I asked him for a divorce, he manipulated me into staying, next day his infidelity came to light. I was out as soon as I could. Best thing of my life. Additionally, That feeling when your partner cheated and you don't have the courage to leave him / her so you just death with the pain and live everyday asking questions about your worth. This pain is different from the cheating one_living and seeing him everywhere anticipating when he or she do it again. The best thing is to hire a private investigator [email protected] to help you spy on their cellphone remotely just like he did for me...

This is one of the reasons that toxic bosses micromanage everything. They want to find out your mistakes anyway.

When the leader pointed out my "mistake" in my previous job, I went DEEP with him immediately. I was confident I made no mistake. I remembered he had already shown a few red flags. 🚩🚩 I clearly understood he was gaslighting me. This is the GOTCHA moment on my own side. 😁 Eventually, I declined to renew the contract. 🏃💨💨

Narcissistic Personality Disorder means that your brain does not funtion properly. But instead of focusing on their brains, they rather point out the flaws of others, ignoring the fact that their whole brain is a error. Pointing out an error should be used to help the person improve that error, instead of giving the person that points out the error some sense of superiority.

This is so spot on. In an effort to get through to my now ex (were married 37 years) I made a Gotcha game were he picked cards of his expressions and put downs and he had to read out his own insults to me. He got very angry. I also wore post it notes once with his put down and asked him to pick just one to never say to me again. Just one out of at least 30, regular abusive things he said. He got very angry. Mind you, this was me thinking his disrespectful abusive ways were "not knowing",or poor upbringing , job stress or some valid reason for his nasty mouth, etc. Of course his reaction of intense anger helped me realize HE had no shame or embarrassment, but knew he was doing it on purpose and did not care. It was then I began making plans in earnest to leave the marriage for good, took me almost ten years to have a fool proof plan and make sure my kids were out of harms way (about to be adults) . He of course was in shock, and could not accept that his lies, and all manner of verbal, financial and other abuses were the reason. I was his 3rd divorce.

I know people like this. They often don’t answer my msgs for days, leaving me hanging on important things. Yet if they send a msg and I don’t answer them right away, they send another msg asking if everything is ok. It’s so annoying. Reminding myself it’s not me. Finding safe places. Thank you Dr Ramani ❤

This is the main reason I’m too scared to ever attempt a “confrontation”, with my generally patchy memory and neurodivergence I’d be WAY too easy to “gotcha” and gaslight even further. Whenever there’s a risk of making things even worse for myself I tend to err on the side of caution 😐 Btw this just unlocked memories of numerous times I was laughed at for mispronunciations and I’d get mimicked ad nauseum. But I learned a while ago that mispronouncing words can actually be a sign of intelligence because it shows that you read the word somewhere rather than just overheard it so ✌️

Wow! My narcissistic EX used to correct my word pronunciation all the time in a devaluing way!

"Gaslighting waterfall" That's exactly what happens. You can't come up with a better term than this! I've worked/lived with more than a few people who will ignore the hundreds of things you do right and the one innocent mistake you make they treat you like Mrs. O'Leary's cow and it's the Great Chicago Fire. Once you leave or go on vacation or quit THEN they realize the hundreds of things you did do right (because no one else took care of those details but you.) When I left such a place and kept in touch with a few ex-coworkers I found out how certain areas of my department fell into a state of disarray because nobody was competent enough or cared enough to do the tasks me and another coworker who quit before me would do so dilligently. Two words: Karmic. Justice.

I clearly remember the last time I looked for approval from my narc dad. Sophomore year, took all honors classes--all As. So I showed him my report card. He zeroed in on the one "flaw'--the one S, not E, I got in trigonometry (I was the only sophomore in the class of junior honors students, and I also got the highest score. The teacher had just given an S to everyone since behavior just wasn't an issue in a class like that). Anyway, I thought it was the one occasion when I might safely toot my horn and get a pat on the back. But no. After that, I was done. When I went off to college, I never looked back. Never saw him again for the remainder of his miserable life--42 years. Btw, he wasn't some insecure, uneducated guy: he had 47 patents. He was just a narc.

My narcissistic ex and I actually went to couples therapy while we were still married (what a mistake) and the therapist saw that I was miserable in constant gotcha moments (although that's the time I worked so hard to be the "perfect" wife and mom). She suggested we go home and every day write down just 1 good thing about the other. My then husband flat out said "I can't do compliments. I just don't." In retrospect I'm amazed at how pathetically entitled he was and so oblivious to the fact that his behavior was just unacceptable and obnoxious. I guess his father was even worse so for him it was just how a man is supposed to be. He did a LOT more terrible stuff but I'll spare you guys my tale of woe.. I'm still feeling like a fraction of the happy and confident person I used to be but I'm working on it. lots of love to everyone here. We'll be ok❤

My “best friend” brings up things I’ve done wrong even if it happened over 25 years ago for no reason except to shoot me down. Start dating a guy whose into cars? “Remember that time in driving school you ran over that big rock and scratched up the teachers car?!? I’m implying she is still a bad driver.”🤨

Interesting video. My relationship of 5 years ended a month ago. The love of my life decided to leave me, I really love her so much I can’t stop thinking about her, I’ve tried my very best to get her back in my life, but to no avail, I’m frustrated, I don’t see my life with anyone else. I’ve done my best to get rid of the thoughts of her, but I can’t, I don’t know why I’m saying this here, I really miss her and just can’t stop thinking about her

I have a family member who does this and I can’t stand it. He’s always correcting people, even on social media. I honestly think it makes him look pathetic and it’s embarrassing. An ex of mine did this too, I couldn’t do anything right. It was awful. A good reminder to not be this way myself and give myself lots of grace for ‘mistakes’. Thank you Dr Ramani ❤

"Pettility/ Littleness is a very bad character trait"~ philosophy. It ALWAYS occurs among wicked/ unjust people. The intention is to humiliate/ devalue...

Clinical anxiety is a deep pit of terror & hypervigilance, but narcissism is a bottomless pit of both. Narcissists never recognize the bottom much less hit it, never measure accurately how "deep in" they are, & they work hard to prevent anyone from recognizing that they are always falling, not flying. There's no limit to the fall, to the loss & shame they fear.

This definitely describes my brother. He loved to shame me and had this superior mocking laugh if I made a mistake. He would then would "love bomb" me. I got so addicted to his approval so he wouldn't mock me. It took getting into my 40s to realize how insanely toxic he is.

Narc boss tried to have me performance managed by secretly changing the font size by half a point (Calibri 10.5 rather than 11) in one small paragraph by half a point in a massive (several hundred page) document and asking me to final proof the doc for formatting. When I, predictably, missed the correction she hauled me into her office, took a piece out of me and then raised the issue again in a performance review as a reason to be performance managed - she had nothing else on me. Aside from me scoffing at her, the reason she backed down on the performance management was because I had a union rep in the review with me. Left that job as fast as I could.

my whole 22 years of that "corrections." & those gotcha moments were so annoying l. I am so glad I no longer have to deal with that.