What is this giant I am dating a narcissist red flag that often won’t reveal itself right way…..it is Cheating. Cheating can be anything from physical sex acts to emotionally bonding with other women outside of your relationship in an intimate way. While some women may not mind their partner having female friendships, in my experience, it has led to inappropriate behavior and bad results with one of them hoping it will eventually lead to sex.  While I have had many guy friends over the years, it was clear sex was something they would be interested in had I been interested in it.  Once that was off the table and they got in serious relationships, our friendships shifted into occasional texting (I also would never violate the boundaries of someone’s relationship and flirt/entertain a taken man).

Cheating with narcissist could look like this:

Intentional flirting with women in order to get the desperately needed ego boost and attention

Flirting with women in front of your partner then acting like it is just being “polite”

Ignoring your partner while having time and energy to go out with other women

Substituting porn for your partner

Going out on friendly dates claiming friendship, but doing things you know would make your partner angry and hurt

Searching online for someone else always half in and half out

Engaging with secret conversations with exes or women at work who you know are interested in you

Giving out your phone number and social accounts claiming “friendship”, but knowing you don’t have real women friends, only women you would want to sleep with

Spending money and time on other women vs your partner and family

Leaving the door open to other women to hit on you then saying,” not sure why she is trying to hang out with me”, she won’t leave me alone…

Cheating with Narcissist is less about the physical act, it is about lack of loyalty and lack of connection towards your partner. They get bored with themselves, bored with life and are unable to regulate their self-esteem from their own feelings of low self-worth. They look externally to lift themselves up and value things like beauty, wealth, power, status, control to help prop up their self-esteem. Often this means cheating as a way to chase, conquer, prove their attractiveness and desirability (doesn’t mean the woman is more attractive, it is that she makes the narc feel attractive, boosting his ego).

Feeling no true happiness perpetually empty inside, they look for outside fulfillment, which is often based on acts of cheating.  Many of us realize that happiness is a choice, and it must come from within- as there will always be challenges, and no one can “make” someone be happy if they are not happy with themselves. The Narcissists are like emotional and self-esteem hungry drug addicts, always seeking another hit and another high. Maybe the next person will treat them the way they “deserve”. Maybe the other person will “make them happy” and fill that emptiness inside of them.

Due to their lack of loyalty and lack of emotional attachment, they don’t consider the feelings, needs or wants of their partner. It is about THEIR happiness, often regardless of the consequences. Their partners needs and wants don’t exist in their minds.  

Like my ex would say after we had a child and we both worked full time (me having a longer commute, working longer by doing work staying up late at night or on weekends to cover our bills, doing all the housework, cooking, laundry etc.), “this is MY Friday night, and I will do what I want and I don’t want to be questioned!”.  He had no problem going out after work, eating out daily with women, going to happy hours with women weekly as “friends”, pretending he was coming home then not, turning off his cell, leaving me will all the parenting responsibilities, then complaining how tired he was and how he never got a break.  He was taking women out on a weekly basis (I had no idea at the time), but we never went out as a couple and rarely as a family. We had no budget for a babysitter, date nights, cleaning help, vacations, dinners out, and I kept things going by using my life savings built over working a lifetime.

What is loyalty…

Do you care about the other person?

Do you want them to be happy?

Do you include them in your life?

Do you work your issues out together or trash them to friends, family, coworkers?

Do you ask about their feelings?

Do you ask about their wants?

Do you care about their needs?

Do you put yourself first day in and out despite the work put on your partner or consider their workload?

Do you consider them in your decision-making process?

Do you keep your word and follow through with your promises and commitments?

Do you pay attention to your partner more so than others?

Do you seek to please them vs only pleasing yourself?

Narcissists will trade you in an instant if something else they want comes along and feel no remorse. You became unworthy, boring, demanding, controlling with your pesky needs and feelings. They will deny themselves nothing out of respect or consideration for you. Get up in the night for your sick child so you can sleep this time- no. Miss lunch to get you medicine if you are sick-no.  Leave work to get you from the airport- no. Help with extra chores when they know you had a long day- no. Tell the coworker hitting on them to stop-no. Tell the ex not to sext them- no. Turn off the porn and focus on your pleasure-no. Stay away from dating apps- no. Stay off social media looking at women vs have sex with you- no.

Narcissist actually don’t like anyone getting close to them despite their initial love bombing, mask wearing show.  They are not seeking true closeness, but control, money, status, comfort, support, unconditional admiration. When they are become bored or unhappy, which will happen, or feel oppressed by your “demands” of loyalty and support in return, they pick a fight. They use this fight as a reason to justify their cheating so you become the reason for it and are now the bad guy, when it was their issue all along.

Narcissist will cheat because they can. They may be attached to you as someone they need to make their life easier, but attachment is not true connection or love.  When you lack real love, then loyalty is a switch the Narcissist can easily turn on and off.

“Temptation usually comes in by a door that has been deliberately left open”- Arnold Glasow