Re: Right & Wrong - N Cheating & Consequences per SamV

Hi all

I had 2 days of peace and silence
I hope he has accepted that it is over :)crossing fingers we are entering a new phase of this break up - acceptance by the both of us!

Some one here suggested I look up Sam Vaknin and read about Narcs and cheating.
I wanted to share what I found here as it may help someone else

I am sorry I forget who mentioned this - thank you though! :)

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One thing must be made clear: this is not a well thought out, previously planned campaign by the average narcissist. His behaviour is dictated by forces that he cannot master. Most of the time he is not even conscious of why he is doing what he is doing. When he is - he can't tell the outcomes. Even when he can - he feels powerless to behave otherwise. The narcissist is a pawn in the chess game played between the structures of his fragmented, fluid personality. So, in a classical - juridical sense, the narcissist is not to blame, he is not fully responsible or aware of what he is doing to others.

This seems to contradict my answer to FAQ 13 where I write:

"The narcissist knows to tell right from wrong. He is perfectly capable of anticipating the results of his actions and their influence on his human environment. The narcissist is very perceptive and sensitive to the subtlest nuances. He has to be: the very integrity of his personality depends upon input from others... A person suffering from NPD must be subjected to the same moral treatment and judgement as the rest of us, the less privileged, are. The courts do not recognise NPD to be a mitigating circumstance - why should we?"

But, the contradiction is only apparent. The narcissist is perfectly capable of both distinguishing right from wrong - and of foreseeing the outcomes of his actions. In this sense, the narcissist should be held liable for his misdeeds and exploits. If he so chooses, the narcissist can fight his compulsive inclination to behave the way he does.

This would come at a great personal psychological price, though. Avoidance or suppression of a compulsive act result in increased anxiety. The narcissist prefers his own well-being to that of others. Even when confronted with the great misery that he fosters, he hardly feels responsible (for instance, he rarely attends psychotherapy).

To put it more plainly, the (average) narcissist is unable to answer the question: "Why did you do what you did?" or "Why did you choose this mode of action over others available to you under the same circumstances?" These decisions are taken unconsciously.

But once the course of action is (unconsciously) chosen, the narcissist has a perfect grasp of what he is doing, whether it is right or wrong and what will be the price others are likely to pay for his actions and choices. And he can then decide to reverse course (for instance, to refrain from doing anything). On the one hand, therefore, the narcissist is not to blame - on the other hand, he is very guilty.

The narcissist deliberately confuses responsibility with guilt. The concepts are so close that the distinctions often get blurred. By provoking guilt in responsibility-laden situations, the narcissist transforms life with him into a constant trial. Actually, the continuous trial itself is the punishment.

Failures, for instance, induce guilt. The narcissist always labels someone else's efforts as "failures" and then proceeds to shift the responsibility for said failures to his victim so as to maximise the opportunity to chastise and castigate her.

The logic is two-phased. First, every responsibility imputed to the victim is bound to lead to failure, which, in turn, induces in the victim guilt feelings, self-recrimination and self-punishment. Secondly, more and more responsibilities are shifted away from the narcissist and onto his mate - so that, as time goes by, an asymmetry of failures is established. Burdened with less and less responsibilities and tasks - the narcissist fails less. It preserves the narcissist's sense of superiority, on the one hand - and legitimises his sadistic attacks on his victim, on the other hand.

The narcissist's partner is is often a willing participant in this shared psychosis. Such folie a deux can never take place without the full collaboration of a voluntarily subordinated victim. Such partners have a wish to be punished, to be eroded through constant, biting criticisms, unfavourable comparisons, veiled and not so veiled threats, acting out, betrayals and humiliations. It makes them feel cleansed, "holy", whole, and sacrificial.

Many of these partners, when they realise their situation (it is very difficult to discern it from the inside) - abandon the narcissist and dismantle the relationship. Others prefer to believe in the healing power of love or some such other nonsense. It is nonsense not because love has no therapeutic power - it is by far the most powerful weapon in the healing arsenal. It is nonsense because it is wasted on a human shell, incapable of feeling anything but negative emotions, which vaguely filter through his dreamlike existence. The narcissist is unable to love, his emotional apparatus ruined by years of deprivation, abuse, misuse and disuse.

Granted, the narcissist is a consummate manipulator of human emotions and their attendant behaviours. He is convincing, he is deviously successful and sweeps everyone around him into the turbulent delusion which he consists of. He uses anything and anyone to secure his dose of Narcissistic Supply and discards, without hesitation those he deems "useless".

The narcissist-victim dyad is a conspiracy, a collusion of victim and mental tormentor, a collaboration of two needy people who find solace and supply in each other's deviations. Only by breaking loose, by aborting the game, by ignoring the rules - can the victim be transformed (and by the way, acquire the newly found appreciation of the narcissist).

The narcissist also stands to benefit from such a move. But both the narcissist and his partner do not really think about each other. Gripped in the arms of an all-consuming dance macabre, they follow the motions morbidly, semiconscious, desensitised, exhausted, concerned only with survival. Living with a narcissist is very much like being in a maximum security prison.

The narcissist's partner should not feel guilty or responsible and should not seek to change what only time (not even therapy) and (difficult) circumstances may change. She should not strive to please and to appease, to be and not to be, to barely survive as a superposition of pain and fear. Releasing herself from the chains of guilt and from the throes of a debilitating relationship is the best help that a loving mate can provide to her ailing narcissistic partner.

http://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/na...