A relationship usually goes through 4 stages. First you have two single people, next is dating, followed by a committed couple, which is then proceeded by marriage. People and relationships can stall out at any stage or remain at one stage for long periods of time.

I can recall, early in my dating career, many occasions where I really let myself down. There were plenty of cringe-worthy moments where I would let something slide or hold something in and never stand up for myself. My love interest would say or do something completely inappropriate and I knew if I spoke up it would mean a huge fight and the end of that relationship. It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was being disrespected and it wasn’t that it didn’t hurt me deeply, but my fear of rejection and abandonment was greater than my need to be treated with love and respect.

Kristie and Steve had been seeing each other on and off for almost 4 years. It has really been more off than on and she has even gone as long as 7 months without any contact, but, “As always,” she says, “He pulls me back in.” The relationship was full of other women, hot and cold spells, disrespect, using and an infinite number of lies. All good reasons in and of themselves to end the relationship.

Last week we talked about the ways in which a Narcissist creates dependency. This week I wanted to finish off the segment by introducing ways to break out of that dependency.

Nepoleon Hill, author of Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, calls it, ‘removing the

Denial is a big part of Codependency – denial that anything is wrong, denial of your feelings, denial about your childhood, denial about your romantic partners…whichever way you slice it there is a lot of incongruity between a codependent’s perceived reality and reality itself.

Last weekend was my ex-Narcissist’s birthday and I’m the one that ended up with the present. Let me preface this by saying I have no interest in what my ex is doing. I don’t care where he is. I don’t follow him on social media. I have no clue what he’s up to and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have made it very clear to friends that I don’t want to hear about his endeavors and they have all respected my wishes, except for last weekend.

For those of us who know we don’t have it, self-esteem is that ever elusive mystery quality that would magically make our lives better. We know all the signs of not having it – feeling not good enough, not worthy of love, we have difficulty accepting compliments, we sometimes want to hide away and be invisible, we allow ourselves to be mistreated….but we never