This Is What a Narcissist’s Smear Campaign Looks Like

Inmy last article, I discussed why silence is not the best method when it comes to handling a narcissist’s smear campaign against you, specifically a covert one.

I highlighted how suffering the consequences of the lies being told on you doesn’t actually help you, the victim, move on at all. It actually adds added trauma to an already existing one.

I used the Depp v. Heard trial as my prime example to make that point. Now, I’m going to tell you about the smear campaign I was a victim of in my last relationship.

It was happening behind my back while I was actually still with him. But once I found out, I got him to tell the truth, while exposing himself, without ever having to say a single word in my own defense.

And it all started with a question.

It Started Happening in Little Nuances

The disrespect grew in stages

One by one I watched different members of his family change around me and toward me. First, his brother started ignoring my presence whenever my ex brought me to his house. He’d walk in and wouldn’t even speak to me, only me.

Eventually, his wife, who I was really cool with, started brushing me off when I tried interacting with her. They’d even make underhanded comments about me to my face as if I wasn’t in the room.

On one occasion, I brought my laundry over and as we were packing it up to bring back home his brother said —

I didn’t know we were running a laundry service.

Here’s the thing about what he said — I didn’t hear it. I heard him say something but it was my ex’s visceral reaction that indicated something was very wrong.

He immediately got enraged and left with me, as we headed over to my house for the rest of the day. On the ride home, he told me what his brother said because he actually thought I had heard him.

He thought I heard it because his brother said it right in front of me in a room full of people, including his wife and their mother. I was so focused on putting my laundry back in the bag, I really didn’t hear him.

This was towards the very end of our relationship so by then I’d gotten so fed up with the disrespect that I also didn’t hear him because I was actively tuning him out. But my disrespect always happened right in front of my ex.

Sometimes they’d say things about me directly to him.

When this happened it would usually take a minute for it to even register I was being disrespected, but when it did I was thoroughly confused. When I’d ask my ex what was going on he never understood it either. Neither would I

Until we went to visit his cousin one day.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

This is how I found out what I was being accused of

We stopped by his cousin’s house one afternoon. I didn’t mind going because she was one of the very few members of his family who never treated me differently and was always warm towards me, no matter what.

As we were all talking the topic of his brother came up. His brother is an overt narcissist and this was always a topic being discussed among the family, which is why it didn’t surprise me that they were bringing it out now.

His disrespect and lack of regard for his family were today’s topic and I decided to share with her how rude he had increasingly been towards me. My ex also chimed in what he had noticed, and this is when it happened.

She said, “yea he doesn’t like her”.

I didn’t know why but my stomach dropped and I asked her, “he doesn’t like me?”, to which she confirmed, “yea he doesn’t like you”. But what was really weird about her statement was the fact that she wouldn’t look at me.

It was like her whole face got a little.. disproving and she looked like she knew something I didn’t know, something she was keeping to herself and keeping her cool about. And I was about to find out exactly what that was.

I asked her why he didn’t like me and the next few words that came out of her mouth started a war.

Because you cheated on (name redacted).

I looked at her in disbelief and disgust before looking over at him and immediately losing my temper because not only was this not true but I knew for a fact this lie came from the same man that was standing right by my side.

And I knew exactly where his lie came from.

It Happened on October 10th, 2018

I left him abruptly that night

We’d been together for thirteen months and he had become increasingly abusive. One of the main things he kept doing was stonewalling me. He’d get mad over every little thing and say he “needed space” before disappearing for hours.

On this night, while he was headed to a bar to meet a friend, I happened to send him a new song I’d just heard. Instead of enjoying the song he randomly asked me where I got it from and who sent it to me.

I thought this was weird that those were the first things he thought to say to me about it. But I told him the truth, a friend of mine who is a pastor and a musician sent it to me because it was a jazz piece. I love jazz and he plays it so he knew I would like it — and I did.

My ex’s response to this was that he “needed time” and then proceeded to say nothing for the next three hours, at this point it was 1 a.m. My gut was telling me something felt off about him wanting to disappear. I was also tired of him.

I was fed up with this “I need space” bullshit so I finally just texted him I was done with the relationship. I told him he has healing he needs to do and that I, personally, don’t want to deal with his attitude anymore.

All of a sudden he was very talkative

But now I didn’t want to hear it. Now, I didn’t want to talk. It was my turn to take some space. All of this had been accumulating for over a year and although he immediately tried apologizing and offered to come over, I didn’t want it. I was tired, so I left.

He Was Using My Words Against Me

I cheated in a previous relationship and this was his leverage

It was at this point I was on Youtube creating content and had put out a video of an unconventional perspective on cheating, based on an affair I’d had the relationship prior to this one. I never hid this from anyone, and I won’t hide it from you as that story is coming soon.

It’s important to note that I actually told his cousin about my affair much early on in the relationship. It’s important for two reasons.

1. it shows I never lied about the horrible indiscretion I had been guilty of in the past.
2. it’s the excuse he would later use to crucify me to his own family members because technically I’d done it before, to someone else.

You can watch the original version of that video here.

He started cyberstalking me

because I cut off contact with him and found my YouTube channel and on my very public platform he commented:

“You’ve been cheating on me?”

I went off on him because he knew this was referring to the previous relationship. I told him about it, myself. Yet, here he was trying to make this narrative all about him just to play the victim — when he definitely wasn’t.

Knowing what I know now he most likely pulled that video and showed it to his brother, and probably others.

Looking for sympathy for being left after running back to his family, saying I was cheating on him and had been the whole time when that just wasn’t true.

This was where his brother got this from.

Why Did He Do This?

Because this was about him saving face at my expense

His brother and mother thought I was weak. They figured I was one of those submissive women who loved him so much that I was a doormat. They saw me as being so in love with him that my whole world was him.

In other words, I’d never cheat on him.

They knew because of my love for him I was treating him right. Therefore, my leaving him would not only shock them but would shed an uncomfortable light on him because why would someone like me leave him? What did he do?

These were now questions he was going to have to answer and there was no way to do that without exposing himself. So, he blamed it on me as a way to dismantle the image they had of me in their heads.

Although it was already a shitty image it was shitty because they thought I was “too soft”. They thought I loved him too much that it made me stupid. They believed my kindness was a weakness. Now they thought I was a cheater, and that’s what he wanted them to believe about me.

But everything done in the dark comes to light.

When the Truth Comes to Light

This is how we dismantled the smear campaign

Once his cousin said this to me I lost it because now some of the pieces were instantly coming together to explain why I’d been treated the way I was. I looked at him and yelled —

Where the fuck is he getting this from? You told him that shit?

My ex looked guilty and scared and immediately denied he ever said that before clearing my name in front of his cousin, just off the strength of his facial expression.

He said, “no we broke up because I was being abusive towards you and you got tired of how mean I was being to you.”

Hearing this, his cousin looked very surprised and intrigued. Almost as if she was confused at his response and curious about mine. Then, she started looking at him suspiciously as she put the pieces together for herself.

He was telling his family that because his brother and I never talked, even when we were cordial. I wasn’t on any social media and there was no way for him to ever assume that about me.

The only logical way he would ever draw that conclusion would be if he got it from his brother, my ex. The irony was the lie told on me because of him being debunked, by him.

Think about it, if I really did cheat on him why would he deny the accusation in front of anyone if it were actually true? Why deny it only to confess his own indiscretion, in front of one of the people who were aware of what I had been “guilty of”?

If he was really the victim and if I really did cheat, that never would have been his response.

She knew it, which is why she immediately began looking at him suspiciously. The best part? His family likes to run their mouths. This was going to make its way through the grapevine, automatically clearing my name,

And he did that all by himself.

I Wasn’t His Only Victim

He ran a smear campaign against his cousin — a very dangerous one

That same cousin we saw that day was someone he said molested him when he was younger. What confused me was the fact that he chose to be around her, and when he was he acted like they were the best of friends.

Most people I know are very uneasy about being anywhere near someone who molested them. Yet, he seemed to be immune.

That was the day I started questioning if she ever did anything to him at all and if she didn’t then what kind of many was I sleeping with? That answer was very simple,

a covert narcissist.

Having dated each type of narcissism I would personally say they actually need it the most. That’s why they are covert, to begin with. They care about how they will be perceived. It matters to them to have everyone on their side. My ex was absolutely no different.

He had an ugly and immature tendency of running to each side to bad mouth the other. Whoever his “friend of the week” was is who got to hear all about how shitty everybody else was.

Once they fell out of favor with him, that would change. Immediately and drastically. Before I left him, I can’t tell you how many times he came to me smearing the same brother he was suddenly buddy/buddy with.

I’d learn throughout the relationship that it was the people he spoke the worst about that he would turn to when we fell out of favor with each other.

Covert Narcissists Need to Be Liked

By any means necessary

I say this because the overt narcissists I’ve known tend to have a lack of care about how they are seen by others because they already feel above us all. Covert narcissists, like my ex, are quite the opposite.

They need to be praised and adored, almost constantly. They are trying to fit into a world where they want to be deeply liked and accepted. This is relatable. What isn’t relatable is how they go about doing it.

Covert narcissists care about how they appear to the outside world because they constantly live in a state of having to prove to themselves that they are good people. One main reason for this is because they know they’re not.

In a very twisted way, they are people pleasers — but only in order to manipulate people into liking them enough to please them. That’s why they do things behind the scenes instead of upfront.

The problem with my ex’s secret smear campaign against me was it being destroyed by the truth being revealed — by him. Which planted a seed within his own family that he was lying about me the entire time.

Which he was.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism

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Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race

What We Talk About When We Talk About Men

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