Navigating the Torment of Cognitive Dissonance

By my definition, cognitive dissonance is the psychological state that keeps us clinging to a narcissistic partner even when we know he is completely incapable of ever loving us.  By most definitions, cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort or torment a person feels when he or she holds conflicting beliefs about something simultaneously. In other words, we are torn between believing what we want to believe and accepting what we know to be the truth about someone or something. It happens to everyone numerous times in a lifetime and oftentimes will result in our making important decisions that ultimately work in our best interest or for the best interest of our family. Cognitive dissonance is not always a bad thing because it helps us weigh both sides of a situation and make (hopefully) the best choice based on the truth and on the facts.

Cognitive dissonance is not always a bad thing, that is, until it becomes the catalyst for our inability to leave a narcissistic partner or to remain in a state of “no contact” or to not give in to the hoovering or to recover from the whole ordeal when it is finally is really truly over.

Cognitive dissonance becomes a problem when it keeps us shackled to a codependency to hope that will never get us anywhere as long as we choose to remain chained.

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The hardest part about letting go of the narcissist is our reluctance to accept what we already know to be true – that nothing about anything we experienced in our own mind was real…..that he didn’t love us (never did and never will)….that every precious moment, every kiss and caress…all those times when we really thought it was coming around and oh-how-glad-we-were-that-we-stuck-it-out….that all those times were LIES. It was all fake, a fabrication created by the narcissist to benefit the narcissist.

In fact, the narcissist hates you. Oh, but that wasn’t true the whole time, was it, you ask? No, you refuse to believe it….but, then again, at the same time, you get a memory flash of that creepy night where he climbed out of bed early after great sex, giving you some illogical explanation, and then disappeared for two days…just vanished. What about that? In fact, he did that many times over the years. But no, you say again, we had such great sex he had to have loved me. Or did he hate me? And so it goes….our cognitive dissonance sends us to hell and back once again. Struggling to accept that your entire chaotic relationship was a fake even though you know in your heart of hearts that it was….wanting to believe that the narcissist must have loved you at some point in the relationship even though you know that no one who could have possibly loved you would have ever done the things that he did to you and behind your back.

The one belief that saved me from dying from a broken heart throughout my 13-years with a narcissist motherfucker is my belief that all things have to be logical in order to be real. During the last three or so years, I couldn’t take it anymore…the constant lying …the constant insult to my intelligence…and I started tossing out the same response: “I’m sorry, but that’s not logical, Wayne. It couldn’t have happened that way. You’re lying” and it absolutely infuriated him. He eventually resorted to mocking me about it – “Logical, logical, logical…I’m sick of your “logical” bullshit!” – right before disappearing out the door (and always at the beginning of a silent treatment).

You can’t argue with logic. You just can’t. I used logic to navigate my way through – and up and out of – the muddy waters of cognitive dissonance. And you can too, my friends. I’m not saying it’s easy but we can’t keep postponing our recovery based on conflicting beliefs about the narcissist – especially when we know the truth! To escape the grief and emotional torment of cognitive dissonance, you have to make a choice between the two and using logic is one way to ensure that you make the right choice…..for yourself, for your children, for your future, and for your sanity.

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