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Narcissists will slander you and report back to your loved ones, their loved ones, and anyone who will listen. They create stories that depict you as abusive and pretend they are the victims of your abuse. They claim that you engage in the behaviors that they don’t want you to accuse them of. They will also deliberately abuse you so they can use your angry reactions against you. A smear campaign sabotages your reputation and slanders your name so that you won’t have a support network to fall back on if you decide to detach and cut ties. Smearing you hides their own abusive behavior while projecting it onto you.

He called my family many times over the years claiming to be worried about me, concerned that I am mentally unstable and bipolar.  He seemed so caring and so concerned about my well being to my family members.  But it was all a ruse – an attempt to alienate me from my loved ones whom I seldom saw because of our continuous moves.  He was setting the stage – a well-planned and calculated one.

When isolation doesn’t work, that’s when the narcissist will attempt to launch a smear campaign.  By doing so, their preemptive strike sabotages your reputation and slanders your name so that you won’t have a support network to fall back on — especially when you try to break free of that toxic relationship.

He even contacted my friends on numerous occasions attempting to tell his side of the story during our divorce.  He was so convincing that many of my dearest friends began to believe him, even knowing what he did to me daily.  A Narcissistic Psychopath can be very convincing.  He will sell you your own shoes.  That’s probably why he did so well in sales.

By this point, just a few months after filing, his family had totally cut me out of their lives, asking me to never contact them again after listening to his lies and tall tales. It broke my heart into shreds knowing that all those people whom I loved dearly, who knew me for thirty years believed the silver-tongued devil.  A leopard doesn’t change their spots overnight! My mother-in-law and I spoke weekly up to the divorce.   We went on numerous trips together, just the two of us.  When her husband died, I was the one there taking care of her.  She was my mother essentially, having lost mine many years previously.  Losing them hurt more than my marriage ending.  And that’s exactly why he did it.