Number 4: You feel like you’re being manipulated, lied to, deceived, and controlled.
I often tell clients to start tracking when they feel they are being manipulated with a simple checkmark on a calendar. At the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist will be on their best behavior, so there may not be too many check marks on the calendar. But as things progress, and their mask starts to come off, those check marks will start to accumulate, and you’ll get a visual and a more objective picture of how frequently they are manipulating you.
Now, you might question whether they are actually manipulating you, whether this or that thing should count, but just be fair and honest. Don’t overthink it, if it feels like manipulation; count it because you know what? If you weren’t in a toxic relationship, you wouldn’t need this strategy to try to count how many times you’re being manipulated.
Number 5: Your boundaries are not being respected.
And instead of letting your guard down as you get further into the relationship, your walls are going up. With a narcissist, you feel you need more boundaries to protect yourself as the relationship moves forward. Where in a healthy relationship, the opposite happens… Trust and respect should be building up, so if you are with a narcissist, you need to decide within yourself and probably write it down what your boundaries are. What you are not willing to tolerate?
These are what I call your non-negotiables, and pay attention to whether those boundaries are being pushed. For example, if you say “I’m not going to tolerate being called names or sworn at”, then it happens once, maybe you justify it in your mind and excuse it this one time. Then it happens again, you don’t like it, but is it really that bad? Is it really a reason to end the relationship? So your lines are getting pushed back and you feel like you need even more boundaries to keep yourself safe.
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