This is long, but truly inspiring -

"Loving someone who cannot return your love is agonizing and difficult to accept. However, the knowledge that no matter what you do, this person will never change is quite powerful, in my opinion. Once you understand this fundamental truth and accept it, a whole new world opens up to you. Your new found knowledge should be liberating.

When in a relationship with a narcissist, we often lie to ourselves in order to keep going. We lie to ourselves that things aren’t as bad as they really are. We do not want to accept that the person we fell in love with is not who we thought he/she was in the beginning. No one wants to admit this. Why would we want to admit this without a fight? We have invested so much in this relationship. We do not want to believe that our soul mate is not real. We would rather exhaust every possible excuse or explanation we can before we admit this inconvenient truth to ourselves.

I lied to myself for years about my ex-husband, refusing to see the side of him I didn’t want to see. Unfortunately, lying to yourself like this forces you to disconnect from your true self just like the narcissist did as a child. Trust me, this is no way to live. When you disconnect from yourself, you die a slow death inside. You become your own worst enemy. Subconsciously, you know you’re lying to yourself. You know you are denying your reality, burying your head in the sand and living in the dark.

No matter how hard we try to fool the mind into thinking everything is OK, it knows the truth. The mind is amazingly powerful. We may try to avoid thinking about it by keeping ourselves busy with work or projects. We may even try to numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs, but at the end of the day, we know we are lying to ourselves.

In order to keep the lie alive, you disconnect from yourself. You then begin to get angry with yourself for not being strong enough to face reality. Anger turned inward turns into depression. So now, not only are you miserable in your relationship, but you feel dead inside, angry and depressed.

We cannot avoid reality. We have to be honest with ourselves. If not, we lose all trust in ourselves. We must follow The Six Steps on The Path Forward to "Get Real, Wake Up and Heal." Until we do, we will remain stuck. When I finally got real and faced reality, it explained everything to me and gave me a second chance at life and love.

The only closure you can possibly hope for in a relationship with a narcissist is the knowledge that this person is permanently disordered and disturbed. He/She will never change. You must accept him for who he is and all his limitations or move on and create a new life for yourself.

I believe in creating a new life. We owe it to ourselves. There is no question that we deserve real and authentic love. Life is short. There are people out there capable of genuine love and we deserve nothing less. In order to receive it, we must first be honest with ourselves about the reality of our situation and face the truth. This way we can make ourselves available when the real deal comes along.

Denying our reality just keeps us stuck and will only slow down our recovery process. We must look at our relationship, deal with the reality of it and get honest with ourselves in order to move on.

As you know, I believe life is all about how we RESPOND to it. We need to open our minds and heart to stay in the uncertainty where we don’t need to define who is right or who is wrong in every situation. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what you learn from it. What is your experience? This is living. This is open space. Everything is ambiguous and always changing, shifting. Finding absolute right and wrong is a trick we play on ourselves to think we’re in control. We think it helps us feel safe and secure.

Unfortunately, it does the opposite. It makes us more uneasy because we know we’re lying to ourselves. Subconsciously, we know this. Instead of lying or hiding from the truth, we must be compassionate with ourselves.

We tell ourselves we want unconditional love from another person, yet we can’t even give it to ourselves. Instead of acknowledging when we are wrong or when we have issues, we lie to ourselves that we are perfect and everything is fine in our lives. No one is perfect. To be with someone who unconditionally loves you means they accept you for who you are – they take the good with the bad and they love you unconditionally.

Why can’t we do this for ourselves?!

Until we can do this for ourselves, we will never live an authentic life. We must be honest and compassionate with ourselves. This is referred to as "Loving-Kindness" in Buddhism. We must go easy on ourselves to find love for the parts of ourselves that aren’t perfect. We must have an unconditional relationship with ourselves. If we can’t love ourselves, we cannot expect anyone else to love us.

You will remain in a state of pain, darkness or unhappiness as long as you continue to lie to yourself and deny your reality. You must have a total commitment to reality in order to heal. The more you resist the present moment, the more pain you create within yourself.

We must get to know the nature of our restlessness and fear. It is how we get to know ourselves on the deepest level possible. To live an authentic life, we must Get Real, Wake Up and Heal. Many people are afraid of the truth. However, to finally confront the truth is the most liberating and freeing thing you can do for yourself. It is truly magical". (by Lisa E. Scott)