How to recover from a narcissistic relationship?

I lived with a man for 4 years. I just got the courage to leave but I'm constantly questioning myself, wanting to go back and hating myself for allowing this for so long. It's a daily struggle.
Asked by Tish
Answered
10/19/2022

First off congratulations you already took the first step which was separating yourself from a challenging situation.  Your next concern, if I am understanding you correctly, is the fact you feel you may have waited too long to do something about this, and there are days when you want to go back to what you knew so well.  That would be something one could label as normal for that type of a situation.

Some people tend to blame themselves (you mentioned hating of yourself). The feelings you mentioned are all normal responses to being emotionally manipulated over long periods of time. One may lean toward self doubt and the dependency that relationship created.

It becomes as the colloquialism states "the devil you know".  

It may take a  little time to strengthen your resolve and learn coping mechanisms that will help  guide you through practicing habits that will foster self efficacy and self love whereas you will stop allowing anyone to use or abuse you. You deserve to be happy right?

We can discuss what goals you see for yourself moving forward, and we can collaborate on the best objectives to meet those goals moving forward.  Typically objectives are the ways to meet the goals you set for yourself. We can collaborate on whether or not the objectives are achievable,  and whether or not they objectives are measurable in order to make sure you are going about this in a meaningful way. We would collaborate on all possible ways to help you keep a level of confidence and self efficacy as you know yourself better than anyone else right!  Our sessions would focus on self care, self efficacy, self discipline, and most of all, love of self.

The approach is collaborative, and educational. We will work together on ways to keep your confidence levels high; we can discuss how to identify and develop your standards; we can collaborate on identifying boundaries, setting boundaries, and how to keep boundaries in place. You will learn about coping methods and what are considered mature coping skills. Mature coping skills will better prepare you to communicate your needs in any relationship.