Leaving a narcissist or any abusive relationship is not easy but it’s also a necessary step in pulling yourself out of a traumatizing situation. Narcissistic abuse can have a profound impact on your emotional well-being and this makes the process of leaving complex and a challenging one.

Your mind, your body and flesh will feed you with various justifications and rationalizations on why you should stay.

From “hope that they can still change” to “you need to be a better communicator” to “you loving them” or “you will not find someone else” and many other seemingly legit reasons that will keep you in that familiar environment.

There’s a part of you which feels it’s not right to stay in that narcissistic relationship but you feel helpless and hopeless to do it. Your self-esteem has been ruined and you just feel that you can’t maneuver or navigate life beyond the abusive relationship. You feel so hooked to the abuser and you even think you can’t survive without them.

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In this article, I am going to be sharing 4 things you need to understand or know before leaving an abusive relationship. This will help you be better prepared for what’s to come and have a better transition once you leave the relationship.

1. Leaving is the Best Decision

Your mind will feed you with million reasons why you’re making a bad decision on leaving the relationship or even thinking about leaving.

You’re feeling pain but because of cognitive dissonance, your mind will lie to you and even feed you with reasons why you need to stay with your partner. It will feed you with reasons to delegitimize your decision to leave the relationship.

Your unconscious beliefs and conditioning want you to stay with pain and to stay with someone who is clearly not good for you. Some of your friends and family may also convince you to stay or even tell you that you’re making the wrong decision.

Whatever your mind feeds you with, just affirm to yourself and know that you’re making a great decision. It may not be immediately clear if you’re making a great decision or not but nothing great will ever come with staying in an abusive relationship.

Your decision-making has been ruined and shook by the traumas and manipulative techniques of the relationship, that’s why you find it hard to decide.

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The most important thing to do is you don’t have to dwell on the “rightness” or “wrongness” of the decision you’re making but instead side with the part of you that deserves kindness and respect. The best decision is the one which upholds your inner peace and safeguards your boundaries.

2. Expect Retaliation from the Abuser

Another thing which you need to be wary of is the fact that the narcissist may trick you when they know you’re about to leave them.

They trick they will pull will depend on the nature of the breakup or the relationship.

A narcissist wants to feel in control of the situation or of you and when they feel that’s slipping away, they may get angry and vindictive. They may threaten to alienate you from your kids, expose your nudes, threaten to terrorize your life, make you lose your job, take all your money or just make your life a living hell if you leave them.

They may pull many cards just so that they can reestablish their control over you and supply of their needs. They may also trick you that they’re going to change their behaviors, start going to church and that they’re even checking in for therapy or just something that will convince you that they’re changing.

They may go to the extreme end of shedding some tears so as to evoke sympathy and guilt from you. It can really be hard to get over this especially since you are such a caring and empathetic soul and you still care about them.

So, their retaliation can be soft or hard but all this will evoke an emotional reaction from you and you may choose to stay.

Whatever the manipulative tactic they pull, always prioritize your wellbeing and safety. It’s all a game for them and if you feel your life is in danger, look for ways to keep yourself safe.

3. Leaving Triggers Your Unhealed Wounds

When you leave, your unhealed wounds will come to the surface. The idea of leaving or the act of leaving with trigger some of your unhealed traumas. It will make all those traumatic memories or unhealed wounds of rejection and abandonment feel fresh.

Those negative emotions from the past were still lurking below the surface and the abusive relationship offered more like a band-aid from the abandonment wounds you were carrying deep within you.

When you’re triggered, you feel like you’re reexperiencing those past traumatic experiences in the present moment. It can be a very painful feeling and the thought of it will even keep you in the narcissistic relationship.

You will not want to ‘re-open’ those old wounds because they hurt and you may see the relationship as a better place for you. Your stuck identity will not want to face those uncomfortable emotions of rejection and abandonment.

Those are the wounds which have been keeping you glued to the abuser. Those unresolved traumas are some of the reasons why you may struggle with boundaries or may make you susceptible to manipulation because of your low self-esteem.

The relationship exposed those wounds and they’re now craving for you to work on them. The thing is the fact that your idea of leaving or you leaving is triggering doesn’t mean that they were not there.

Those unhealed wounds were there and once you leave, you can now take full responsibility and deal with them so that they may not unconsciously draw you back to toxic or unhealthy patterns.

Leaving may seem painful but it’s also an opportunity for you to transcend your past emotional baggage for good.

4. Seek Professional Help

One last thing you need to understand is once you leave, immediately seek professional help where possible. You will fall for many traps in your healing journey, your mind will try to employ various strategies so as to distract you from the pain you’re feeling.

You will think of going back to them because you can’t stand the loneliness and feelings of unworthiness. You will think of jumping into a situationship or even have friends with benefits. You will try to keep yourself busy with work. You may overindulge in sex, food or whatever kind of pleasurable activities just so as to mask the pain deep inside.

You will do countless things and the pain deep inside and your mind will tell you that those things are good for you. Your pain will try so hard to keep you in pain or even normalize the pain you’re feeling deep inside.

You will think you’ll be stuck with that pain forever and other survivors of abuse may even validate you claims. You will even overestimate your ability to deal with abusers. Your ego or your current perspective of reality will just try it all to keep you stuck in your current state of pain.

That’s why, I will always recommend professional help. You will be validated and empowered to grow through your pain and not let it keep you stuck. You will keep yourself safe from those traps of your unhealed self. You will get an unbiased perspective beyond what you currently think of yourself. You will have space to process those past hurts without spending most of your time in traps and in pain.

In conclusion, leaving and healing is a challenging journey but it’s also the best decision for you. You don’t have to do it alone, always feel free to reach out for help if you’re committed to go to that road less travelled, to go to those deep dark parts within yourself so that you can shine light on them and live a life of freedom and peace.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.