When Love Is a Lie: Narcissistic Partners & the Pathological Relationship Agenda

[Now includes a 14-page excerpt from Zari Ballard's new book Stop Spinning, Start Breathing]

When our committed relationship involves a narcissistic partner or someone with a narcissistic personality disorder, it is inevitable that the experience, at some point, will take a very dark turn. Pathological liars, chronic cheaters, and masters at passive-aggressive punishments (i.e. the silent treatment), narcissists follow a specific relationship agenda where every deceptive move is deliberately calculated to confuse and abuse the people who love them. And, as crazy as it appears, those who love the narcissist will stick it out, thinking they can fix this person or love them out of their bad behavior...but the truth is that neither is possible. Narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths can never be fixed - not with love, therapy, and not with any magic pill. I know...because I stumbled down this very path for twelve long years.

Do the behaviors of your partner continually cause you to feel suspicious? Are you subjected to silent treatments and other forms of controlling punishments? Do you find yourself choosing to overlook these behaviors rather than face a confrontation? Does your partner appear to create chaos just to keep you feeling anxious and insecure? Are you obsessed with trying to figure it all out? Answering "yes" to any of the above indicates that you may be involved with a narcissistic partner...a person without a conscience...a pretender...someone who is manipulating your life to suit his own purpose. You may even feel an agonizing codependency - not only to the narcissist but to the drama itself - and this, too, is an intention of the narcissist's pathological relationship agenda.

When Love Is a Lie is a personal, non-clinical narrative that exposes the typical manipulative behavioral patterns of narcissistic partners. Based on my own 12-year experience, this book deliberately offers no excuses for narcissism (medical or otherwise) nor does it encourage readers to cut a narcissistic partner any slack whatsoever. This book is about the reality of the situation, about why we become codependent to the drama, and, most importantly, what we can do about all of it to save our own lives.

Learn how/why a lover or partner with a narcissistic personality...

• can never have - or even pretend to have - the love-worthy human qualities (the undeniable truths!) that make up the beauty of life.

• can - and probably has - deliberately and methodically managed down your relationship expectations so that you expect less and he gets away with more

• will use the Silent Treatment and similar demoralizing methods of control to punish those who dare to call him out on questionable behaviors

• will create chaos even during "good" times as a tactic for keeping you in a constant state of codependent anxiety

• will juggle many relationships at once and often for years with no one being the wiser...not even you

• lies even when the truth is a better story