GO AHEAD....TRY TO FIND A NARCISSIST WHO ISN'T A HYPOCRITE...

Here's a great exercise. Go try to find a narcissist who isn't a hypocrite. Go ahead. Give it a shot. As they say out here in the country, “Ain't no such.” It would be easier to find a Elvis alive than to find a narc who isn't hypocritical.

Now, the very essence of the hypocritical narcissist is that it's all a LIE....SURPRISE! Narcissists are huge liars. They are the first to act like they WOULD NEVER do...exactly what they in fact, do. They are a paragon of virtue, you know, and truly holier than thou. They hide their faults...but, no, it's worse. They INTENTIONALLY do horrible things since they have no moral values, in reality. To a narcissist the word “right” simply means “something I want to do”, although they know YOU actually have moral values and, since they want you to admire them, they pretend to have them, mirroring your beliefs.

Let's suppose you have a coin and heads is “integrity”....well, then tails would be “hypocrisy” , the flip side of integrity and it's opposite. To make matters worse, the narcissistic hypocrite doesn't just fake virtues, the narc will do try to make YOU or others seem worse than they are, so, by comparison, they seem so much better, so they inflate minor faults to major moral and personal flaws. They have a need to demean and degrade others, often in a very subtle way....”I'm not sure what's wrong with her”, for instance, or “I have to put up with a lot” said with a knowing look.

The narcissist's halo may be, let's say, tarnished by the fact the entire thing is an act supported by lies and manipulation. But, a narcissist's version of reality is not what's real and true, but what they can get others to THINK is real or true. It's all smoke and mirrors, lying and back stabbing.

You will suddenly find yourself on the defensive, spending a great deal of effort trying to prove the truth, but the narcissist can create lies faster than you can prove the truth, and they will do it one after the other, without end.

Here's the rule of NarcHypocrisy: The narcissist has extraordinarily high expectations for YOUR behavior, but not his own. In other words, the Narc would be furious if YOU cheated, but not if he cheated, and this is true, man or woman. It's always a double standard, about which they have NO shame at all. My NX loved to affect religious pretensions while lying and cheating constantly, and then, falsely accusing ME of doing what NX did.

All this is extremely confusing to kids, who see what's going on but have a hard time when they are young coming to the necessary conclusion that the NX is a liar and abuser. That was true of my son, but at age 16, he stood up to NX, resulting in his living with me rather than her. To this day he's angry and hurt at the constant lies and manipulation. It was always “do as I say, not as I do” with him, just like it was with me. YOU tell the truth, you be faithful, you be responsible, you be a good parent...while they PRETEND to do all that but actually do the opposite. That's the hypocrisy of the narcissist. They cheat while declaring they would never cheat. They are abusive to their kids, while proclaiming loudly they are against child abuse.

God forbid you'd call them on it. They get furious and indignant. I remember my NX saying, “You're saying I'd allow my BF to abuse our son. I would NEVER do that”, while knowing all the while that was exactly what she was doing. I just said, calmly, “But you do.”

I had gotten to the point that any fraud or fakery was just more than I could stand, and from then to this day I never allow the narcissist to get away with it. If the N is going to be a hypocrite in front of me, I'm going to speak up. Which is why my NX and also my now wife's NX aren't very comfortable being around us these days. But, that's how you take back the power from the narcissist.