How do I come out on top after a narcissist breaks up with me?

Don’t write anything to him, anything you write or say will be used against you. Work, as you already have been on re-building your self esteem and boundaries, and work on some TLC for yourself. If you want to write something, write in a journal, write about things you like and care about.
It is good you are feeling this anger. You should be angry at him for disrespecting you, for lying, for cheating, but these things define him, they don’t define you. You didn’t disrespect, lie and cheat. And you should ALWAYS know that and remember the difference. Those are his terrible choices of he treated you, not your choices. Now that he is gone, protect yourself and rebuild yourself. You will come out the other end stronger and wiser and if and you will be able to recognize these people a mile away.
I’ve encountered many in my life and I’ve attracted them, but over time I have learned how to deflect them without much harm to me if not even manipulate them. They are nothing but pathetic, immature, insecure, sad people. They are miserable and sad children really.
Ultimately these people are mentally ill. Many are so miserable, so lonely, so depressed. They deserve our compassion, but surely they don’t know how to earn it.

How you come out on top is to say, “Wow did I dodge a bullet!”

And you very much did….be grateful…you could still be with him….

After having a narcissistic mother and then having been married to a narcissist for 11 years, I agree wholeheartedly with redcurleysue. You dodged a bullet.

As for last hurdle… I hope it is the case for you, but I’m not so sure. This dynamic was set in motion for some reason. My suggestion would be to dig deep and really look at how you ended up in this relationship so that the pattern isn’t repeated. I repeated my pattern after my husband, though it took me a lot less time to figure it out.

I’m the one that wants to contact him; I’m the one who made the effort. He was not receptive to my effort. I’m beating myself up for sticking around and letting him do this to me. I want to him to know that i am strong now and respect myself. that I now know about his narcissistic cycle and he was a fraud… With him not contacting me, I’m the one that has to go no contact. Seems weird. I do respect myself again. I don’t think he will give a darn if I just walk away and say nothing. I loathe that he can gloat and treat me so horribly without a second thought. I’m angry. And I guess my ego is bruised.

Waitwhat – My mother is also narcissist. I’m in therapy so I learn how not to repeat the
pattern. These relationships are all so “normal” to me.

The ONLY course of action is to do nothing and concentrate on moving on with your life which you are already doing. If you contact him you will not get the closure you are looking for and it will only set you back on your recovery. Sometimes doing nothing is the hardest thing but YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST in order to maintain your dignity and control. Silence is very powerful. Think how his silence upset you. Do not give him the satisfaction of you caving in and wanting to communicate. If you do nothing then he can only ever guess what you are thinking/doing and this is ultimately way more powerful.

I have come out on top with exes by finding out, years after we were together, they’re still the sad, unhappy and messed up people they were, whereas I’m in a far happier place.

Like Tallspicy said, he’ll just think you’re crazy if you say anything along those lines to him. It’ll justify his own feelings about himself and you. You can’t make other people “see the light”, so don’t even try. The best revenge is to move on and get in a happy, healthy place where he no longer has any power over you. He’ll still be that same person he is now.

Joel, well you can hardly call yourself a victim if you lied and cheated your husband for 4 years. It sounds like the karma has come back and hit you!

You also picked a husband who has anger victims and doesn’t work. That’s not back luck. It was your choice. You could leave today if you wanted to but you choose to stay.

We are victims of destiny to some extent but we also need to take responsibility for our decisions and not play the victim.

Narcissists rarely leave their victims alone forever. He will probably be in contact with you in the future and try to draw you back in. When you totally ignore him, THAT will be his revenge. It makes them feel invisible and can’t stand that.. That they aren’t that great and don’t have the power to draw you back in!

Lol. I think the word narcissist is thrown out too easily in these forums sometimes. Anyways, whether or not he was/is one, the best thing you can do is to build yourself up to a place where you’re absolutely unaffected by him in any way. As if he didn’t even exist. They have such an inflated sense of self that this is likely the only thing that gets a “reaction” from them. Even telling them they’re terrible people often stimulates and amuses them BC they can’t help but feel accomplished from their emotional influence over you. Good, bad, or ugly doesn’t matter BC it shows them they have control over your emotions & can manipulate them at will. It’s def difficult to fully remove yourself from that but the BEST revenge is a smile & success. Good luck!

If he is a narcissist he will get in touch when his ego needs a boost.

Mine dumped me in the coldest way 2.5 years ago.

He’s got in touch to have his ego stroked 6 times now. The last time only a couple weeks ago, after 1 year of no contact.

If I respond, he talks for a bit, has his ego soothed, then blocks me again. This last time I actually got in an blocked him first!

I started dating a guy in December 2016 that likd me in high school I hadn’t saw him in 20 plus years he started taking me really fast and telling me he loved me in less than a month he would tell me how bad his wide did him i fell for the lies and im the one that got burnt at the end.he hadn’t got a dive or even he told me he had been divorced for 2 years not true he didnt ever ask me but would through it out for me to reply like he needed tires he kept talking about tires until i finally got them then he started talking about rims but i didnt feed into that conversation then his daughter started the same pattern. He played the silent treatment broke it off with me wo telling me anything and it has scard me very bad. When i began to seek answers he says im crazy, bipolar and told his friend if i come around call the police on me. I only had his best interest at heart and he didnt appreciate if. He has downtalked me to his friend and lied too. Will i ever here from him and willl he treat the next gf any better than the way he treated me

I agree with the advice you’re being given. Don’t even try to ‘get back on top’, that is the narcissist’s game, they invented the rules, and you don’t even want to play that game. It’s a f__ed up game to beging with and no one ‘wins’.

You’re feeling like you lost some of your power perhaps in this power struggle. The first step is recognizing that you do have your power already. A narcissists game is to trick you into thinking you don’t….but you do. And the best way to piss off a narcissist is to cut them off and stop playing the game. Walk away.

I know it doesn’t ‘feel’ satisfying now, but that’s probably because this dude has really set off some wounds for you. As you say, the wound is deep, and your interaction with this guy has probably set off a land mine that you weren’t aware that was already planted there. Like Jamie said, you somehow continued to engage this guy long enoough for him to do some damage. Why is that? That is why I wholeheartedly agree with Jamie about putting effort not in revenge, but in looking at yourself and tending to your own wounds. The best thing is to recognize the pattern so this doesn’t happen again. I personally have found looking at attachment theory as eye opening when I had briefly dated a narcissist. He was avoidant and kept stonewalling, and I kept trying to “fix” things. Check it out, you might find it helpful.