trying to get over a narcassistic boyfriend...

xdude, Wow,'The Sunk Cost Fallacy' theory sounds a LOT like my "two dates to soul mate" rule....

If I am not absolutely smitten with someone (and they with me) at the end of our second date, I won't go out on a third date. I move on. A few years ago I figured out that when I consider all my failed relationships in life (quite a few, I'm in my 40s), I knew everything I needed to know about why the relationship would not work by the end of the second date. Which means, every date after the second date just set me up to feel like I'd invested "so much" in each relationship that I ought to stick it out and not throw away my time, energy, emotion, etc. that was already invested in the relationship!!

Dumb reason to stay in a relationship, but EVERYONE does it. Everyone. And, for me, it meant I married a man that at the end of our second date, I had serious doubts about, yet, he asked me out again, I accepted, then again, I accepted again, until before I knew it, we were engaged, then married, and by the time I came to my senses, I was in the middle of a living hell married to a bipolar man (didn't know he was bipolar until a couple months after we were married) who decided to stop taking his medicine after we got married and start wailing on me instead.

I know this probably won't help losthurtused today, but in the future, it might avoid doing the same thing again hoping for a different outcome. We all do it. We are human. We throw logic out when dating when we ought to throw emotion out and use logic only.

~A

Hi ana -

Okay well I don't know everyone so I don't know if everyone follows the pattern But yes I do see it a lot in myself and others. On some level it's okay because none of us are perfect and some very interesting people take time to get to know. Reserved types are sometimes not so reserved once you get to know them well. On the other hand there is a lot to be said for trusting our intuition as well. I really have no formula though, and don't think there is one. Relationships fail for so many reasons and there are always two sides the story.

The problem with meeting someone who has a cluster B disorder (for example, the narcissist type, that this thread is about) is that we only get to meet their persona at first. What lies below that, their core self, which is basically a hurt little boy/girl, doesn't come out until later in the relationship. As one gets to understand cluster B types better, there are red-flags though that can tip us off that something is wrong, yet since we can't be sure, or want to believe in the persona, our tendency as humans is to ignore the red-flags and see what we want to see. Then, often quite a bit later in the relationship, the cluster B's types true self starts to come out, and by then we're often past the point where it's easy to give up, especially when their inner self comes out slowly and we can't be sure whats going on in, was it us or them, both?

Unfortunately too when it comes to cluster B types, we reasonably believe that if we just give them more love it will ease their pain, and things will be alright. In a more healthy person love would be the best response. For someone with a severe cluster B disorder, their need/hurt runs so deep that love alone can't help. They actually need to come to the point of choosing to get some help, which likely means therapy, and to do that, they first have to reach the point of realizing/accepting that there is something wrong with them, and most cluster B types just can't do that. To go there, to see themselves as fundamentally broken, to give up their persona and coping mechanisms is damn near impossible. Some do though, and it's amazing when it happens, but it seems that it's rare. Most just don't/can't change.