#498: Ditch The Narcissist & Stop Entertaining BS

The Mark Groves Podcast

Mark Groves

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.9 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2026

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode I speak directly to anyone stuck in a manipulative or emotionally abusive relationship and wondering why leaving feels so impossible. I unpack how empathy, hope, and old attachment wounds can keep you bonded to chaos, and why compassion without boundaries turns into self-abandonment. This episode offers a clear, empowering truth: the moment you recognize where you’re still consenting to the dynamic, you regain the power to choose differently. If you’ve been doubting yourself, questioning your reality, or waiting for someone else to change, this is your invitation to reclaim your agency and become the safety you’ve been searching for. Resources: —Get My Breakup 5 Day Audio Series and Workbook: www.createthelove.com/breakupaudio Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book —Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses Follow me and my work here: —Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv —Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com —Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/itsmarkgroves —Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove Have A Question? —Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast If you want to dive deeper into Mark’s content, search through every episode, find specific topics we’ve covered, and ask him questions, go to his Dexa page: https://ask.markgroves.com Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've ever been in a relationship with someone who is narcissistic, psychopathic, sociopathic,
0:06.1	serial cheaters, liars, like the people who just make you question your reality.
0:11.3	And you might be watching this video being like, oh my God, just help me escape.
0:16.5	Like it feels like a drug that I cannot say no to. So I first just want to speak to the level of
0:24.3	effie that you've had to go through. Like your nervous system is probably just fried from all the
0:29.7	BS and up is down and left is right. Now here's the thing about the common thing I notice about
0:36.5	people who tend to be susceptible to
0:39.2	this type of dynamic.
0:40.9	One thing that I noticed about all of them is they tend to be really bright lights.
0:44.7	They tend to be good people.
0:46.2	They tend to really believe in the possibility of someone.
0:49.5	And it's actually that very thing that creates the hook for this type of manipulator. What I mean by that is it's not
0:57.0	your fault. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that your belief and in the
1:03.3	possibility and potential of this person is actually what keeps you trapped because there's likely,
1:10.1	again, no one's fault. I'm going to just
1:13.0	explain it to you so you can see what happens, is that usually there's a template created from
1:19.4	childhood where we have a hope, a desire, something for one of our parents, if maybe both of
1:26.6	them, but usually one of them, especially
1:28.6	one more than another, where we wish they'd notice us, maybe they were hyper-reactive,
1:33.9	alcoholics, narcissistic, abusive, whatever it is. We ended up, our nervous system, ended up
1:39.8	really dancing around them. We became hyper-vigilant, maybe more anxiously attached. And we really wanted
1:45.8	them to get better because if they got better or they were emotionally happy, then we were safe,
	...

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