Tales from the divorcee trenches: how to co-parent with an emotional abuser Emily* had been married for 10 years when she discovered her husband was having an affair . It had been going on for a year, since their youngest child was a newborn. Sure, their marriage was beyond repair but she knew that once he apologised for the hurt he’d caused, she could eventually forgive him .
“But there was never an apology, not a sincere one anyway,” she says. “It was like he felt sorry but only for himself. He wasn’t actually apologising for hurting me and for hurting us and our children , or for destroying something that was so precious.
” Emily didn’t suspect her husband was a narcissist until much later – it’s a buzzword that gets tossed around all too easily, she says – but she would soon come to realise he fitted the bill, and that his extra-marital indiscretions were to be the least of her concerns. In the 2024 book , It’s Not You, How To Identify and Heal from Narcissistic People , Dr Ramani Durvasula says narcissists expect others to honour their boundaries even if they don’t always reciprocate the respect - the trust inherent in a solid marriage included. “The lying and the betrayal typically occur together,” she writes.
“Narcissistic infidelity can be particularly painful, and the narcissistic person may be unapologetic, blame you, and quickly fly into self-preservation mode so they do not look bad to others.” Post-divorce, Emily’s ex still hasn�.
