Have you ever cried and cried until your eyes became so sore and swollen? Yeah.
I had a woman tell me she woke up one morning and he was humming while making coffee. She said, 'Did last night even happen?' Sound familiar to you?
Living with a narcissist will do that to you, and at night, that's when they love to destroy you the most.
The worst part of that is not how you feel right there and then, but how depleted you feel the next morning, especially as you see them act like nothing happened. Right now, I'm going to talk about that more, because it's a subject we rarely discuss.
1 The denial of the night before
The first thing I want to address before we even start talking about the morning after, is the night before. The narcissist's brain will go there; it will revert right back to what happened, and they will erase it entirely. I don't even know what you're talking about. Everything's fine.
I'm fine. Quit making a big deal of it. Then you think, "What? What is happening here?
I had a client tell me her ex made her coffee the morning after screaming at her for three hours, and asked, cheerful as anything, "What's got you so quiet today?" Can you imagine?
I don't get it."
"Did I imagine last night?"
The answer is no, you didn't. And though you're questioning yourself, you're also asking yourself how someone who supposedly cares about you can do this, and treat you that way. You fell apart last night, and you didn't think you'd be able to piece yourself back together.
Even this morning, you're not convinced you're whole, and that won't be helped by the narcissist saying things that completely deny what happened, and the huge part they played in it. Dangerously, victims can start to then convince themselves that they overreacted, and that they were just too damn sensitive.
It almost serves to act as a form of self-punishment, as the way they've been gaslighted by the narcissist becomes an automatic thing they also do themselves. You think it's your fault, and that if you only just spoke differently, or not at all, none of this would've happened.
The side effect isn't you being confused; this was the narcissist's goal. And they smashed it.
2 "Oh my God, you're so dramatic"
Suddenly, it gets a whole lot worse. It wasn't even that bad. Why do you insist on making everything so dramatic? Do you enjoy going over old ground? Why are you obsessed with living in the past? God, move on already.
You sure know how to bring a new day down. Honestly, I have a thousand comments I could throw your way as examples, and they'd all suit this scenario. All you're trying to do is bring up what happened, wanting to sort it out and be happy again.
The narcissist isn't having any of it; refusing to care about you or your feelings.
I had a client tell me her partner literally rolled his eyes and said, 'Here we go again.' She'd only been trying to talk about him screaming at her the night before. Can you imagine?
Instead, they've moved on and so should you. Telling you that you're dramatic is their way of making you the problem, which naturally reflects their involvement in it. It feels as though the narcissist is slamming the door in your face, doesn't it?
You're trying to defend your tears from the night before, and you're being told to let it go and stop making a big deal of nothing. Only, it wasn't nothing.
It was a lot, and you had to deal with it, get very little sleep as a result, and wake up feeling like you've been in a battle. Then you say sorry for bringing it up.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseYou listen to the narcissist who tells you that you're just too much, so you stay quiet, you stay small, you stay invisible. Right where the narcissist wants you. If you're treated like the problem, you'll act like the problem.
3 You want to know what was really happening?
Let's get something very straight here. The narcissist wasn't confused or unaware of how upset you were. They know all too well what happened the night before, and it was sadly their choice to erase everything, go to bed, and wake up as if nothing happened.
The reason a narcissist acts this way is because imagine the other option for them:
Waking up, talking about it, taking accountability for what they did, saying sorry, and working to improve relations between you.
I had a client tell me her ex once walked in humming, made her coffee, kissed her forehead. The night before he'd called her worthless. She said the coffee tasted like poison.
Oof. Never going to happen! Accountability always comes with a hefty price attached to it, so you're never going to see that side of a narcissist. They'd rather deny than change altogether.
Skipping to the step where they act like none of it happened is really their best shot, and by design, you're then expected to carry all the weight of the night before by yourself, and the heavy feeling the argument left you with.
4 The performance the morning after
You'd better get ready for the performance of a lifetime, because that's what the narcissist drops the morning after the night before.
I want to say that I'm almost impressed by their ability to just act the way they do, but I only mean that in a way that exhausts me. I mean, I can't believe how normally these people perform, especially right after something so destructive.
Expect to see the best mood. Maybe the narcissist is particularly chatty, whistling happy tunes as they go about their morning routine while you're feeling depleted.
I had a client describe it as watching an actor take the stage. Coffee in hand, humming, asking what she wanted for breakfast. Meanwhile, her eyes were still swollen from crying all night.
There may even be this automatic part of you that just wants to go along with everything just for the sake of peace, but I urge you to not ignore your own feelings. A lot of people don't. They just paint on a smile and pretend everything's okay.
They're worried that if they speak up, they'll be accused of making a fuss, or wanting to drag out drama unnecessarily. They want to become part of that performance, and by default, many do. Don't let that be you.
5 Over time, you'll be faced with the following
For starters, you can wave goodbye to your memory, because the narcissist will indirectly teach you to not be able to trust it. Think about it; you're waking up to a happy, smiley person who last night destroyed your emotions.
If this happens enough of the time, I'm pretty sure those who suffer will teach themselves to move on quickly and forget about all the pain they're in.
I had a client say to me, "Alexander, I genuinely can't remember what he said last night, but I know it broke me." That's the damage. Your own mind protecting you by deleting the evidence.
Your memory will cut out the worst parts and try to make space for 'everything being okay.'
That's no way to live, but this is exactly what the narcissist wants to achieve. Knowing that you are moving on means they can conjure their next plan to hurt you, while knowing you're simply going to take it and then forget it the next day.
And if you blame yourself? Well, all the better for the narcissist.
6 The truth about what you deserve
Disagreements occur in every relationship, but the key is how we as couples deal with them. Sometimes, you've got to stay up and talk the talk that needs to be out there.
You deserve a partner who stays up until you've both figured it out, who reaches for your hand under the covers, not one who snores while you stare at the ceiling.
Nobody should be making their spouse cry and then leaving them to sob all night while the other person gets up in the morning like nothing happened.
To feel the true weight of conflict while the narcissist lives as if nothing happened is to truly know what it's like to live out of balance with right and wrong. You deserve far better.
7 Why they can pretend it never happened
Ever wonder how they do it? How they scream at you until 2am, call you names your own mother wouldn't recognize, and then wake up humming while making coffee?
Here's the thing. It didn't affect them the way it affected you.
You were up all night replaying it. Crying quietly so they wouldn't hear. Wondering what you did wrong. Meanwhile they slept like a baby. Because for them, it was just Tuesday.
Narcissists don't carry emotional weight the way you and I do. They off load it. Onto you. All that rage, all that cruelty, it left their body and landed in yours. They emptied the tank and went to bed light.
And there's another piece to it. Admitting it happened means admitting they did something wrong. Their brain simply will not go there. So the memory gets quietly filed under "didn't happen" or "wasn't that bad" or "you're overreacting."
By breakfast? It's genuinely gone from their world. Not from yours, though. Never from yours.
8 The gaslight breakfast special
You come downstairs, still shaking a little from what happened last night, and there they are. Whistling. Actually whistling. Flipping pancakes like they're auditioning for a cooking show.
"Morning, sunshine! I made your favorite."
See also THIS is What Makes NarcissistsExcuse me? Sunshine? Last night I was a stupid, ungrateful mess who ruined everything, and today I'm sunshine over pancakes?
This is what I call the gaslight breakfast special. It's the plate of "nothing happened" served warm with a side of "why are you being weird?" And if you dare bring up last night, watch how quickly the whistling stops.
"Can we not do this? I'm trying to have a nice morning with you."
Oh, so now YOU are the one trying, and I'm the one ruining it. Again. See what they did there?
The breakfast isn't kindness. It's a test. Will you eat the pancakes and pretend along with them? Because if you do, you've just agreed that last night didn't count. And tomorrow they'll do it all over again, because you showed them the reset button works.
