UniversallyUs.com is online and ready!! I have exciting news! Universally Us 2.0 has been refreshed. It is growing—and so is the conversation. We’re adding additional content that moves beyond the focus on narcissistic relationships to explore what comes next. How do we heal from the hurt and navigate the uncertainty? Where do we begin […]
We adapt: to the narcissist’s tempers, impatience, even to their contempt, yet for me, the worst thing about living with a narcissist is the emotional void of loving someone not only incapable of loving me back, but capable of such devaluing cruelty…sometimes covertly, other times with the fury of intimidation. Loving them is the worst […]
How can we escape a toxic relationship when we’re clinging for dear life? Why do we stay when logic, actions, reactions and the constant knot in our gut testify that our relationship is not good and not getting better? Doesn’t toxic mean poison? So why do we want to stay? How do we set ourselves […]
I was never good at setting boundaries. They were aggressive and that’s not how to handle a hot-headed narcissistic man or woman. Once I walked away, I set boundaries. We signed an agreement not to spend over a certain dollar amount without consent from both of us, not to sell assets, that kind of thing. […]
This morning a woman on Facebook stirred memories of those first months after I left my husband of 47 years. When we finally leave a narcissistic relationship, we can be pretty broken and emotionally battered. Not at the top of our game for sure. Leaving isn’t the fulfillment of our dream, it’s a last resort […]
Leaving an emotionally or even physically abusive relationship and staying away is often gut wrenching in the beginning. I remember wondering when in the hell the knot in my chest, that made it hard to take a deep breath, would let go. In retrospect it’s interesting how as I let go of him, that knot […]
I signed up for a four-hour, half-price whale watching excursion this morning with a Meetup group. I want to make fun of myself for getting ready, even though the fog or marine layer, whatever it is, has squatted like a too-fat-to-move toad, but I can’t find light or funny at the moment. A dear friend, […]
Stats suggest that we leave an emotionally and/or physically abusive relationship 7 times before we leave for good. That said, there appears to be seven rounds in abusive relationship bouts. Which indicates we answer the above question with a whispered “Yes” and we try yet again approximately S E V E N times. And seven […]
A friend suggested I title a blog, “Five Ways to Say ‘No’, so I just did. Problem is, we don’t need five ways to say that two-letter, single-syllable word to make it stick. Just say it. “No.” You don’t verbalize the period after it either. The period is a given after any complete sentence. It’s […]
This has been a strange morning. I stumbled on an email I’d written myself six months before I left my marriage. It was my way of journaling. It showed up in an ‘Unsent’ folder on my iPad email. I knew there was a folder for Drafts I’d not sent yet, but my old iPad didn’t […]