A Narcissist Man Gives Us Tips On How To Spot A Narcissist After Cheating On His Wife For Eight Years

A self-confessed narcissist has revealed the signs you could be dating someone like him.

Ben Taylor, from Chesapeake, Virginia, now educates others about the personality disorder on his TikTok accounts (@rawmotivations and @bentaylor300) where he has more than 30,000 followers, alongside his full-time job.

The 33-year-old admits he gaslit his exes and cheated on his wife for eight years, before realizing he was a narcissist.

Finally, someone holding themselves accountable for their actions! I've never seen this man on Tiktok but I've seen a few like him - these "self confessed narcissists" trying to explain their point of view on how the world works from their eyes, and why they're acting like assholes. They're actually kind of refreshing - there are very few excuses to act like a dickhead, but being self aware about it certainly helps. Narcissistic personality disorder is defined as the following:

Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.

Absolutely real. And absolutely something that needs to be considered, especially when getting into a relationship. He continues:

Growing up, I found I was always in relationships, starting another as soon as one ended – or even before it had. In August 2013, I got married and hoped these habits would change now I was somebody’s husband. But they did not. After the first year of marriage, I found myself in an affair – cheating with multiple women over the next eight years. During those years, my wife experienced the worst of me as I would gaslight her (make her feel crazy for the truth), manipulate, lie and cheat, all while maintaining a good and prestigious image at work.

This is literally every girl's dream. A man admitting to gaslighting?!? That word gets thrown around a lot - gaslighting. It's a "bad word" and I do think it's used in situations unnecessarily, but when it's happening, it's always nice to hear that you're not just insane. The cheating stuff - that sucks, but this guy is telling us he has no idea why he does this. It's not that he WANTS to hurt people, he just is. It's a condition, it's a problem, and he's here to bring awareness to the people who can't help being jerks:

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One day, while talking to my wife and in a rare moment of vulnerability, I said, “Maybe I am a sociopath or something.” We talked about it, Googled the definition and she said maybe I was narcissistic. 

I became defensive, insisting I was not a narcissist. But I was curious and over the next couple of weeks, I started discussing it with the women I was having affairs with. They too insisted I was not a narcissist, so I continued to gaslight my wife and deny it.

But as much as I denied it, deep down I realized I was a narcissist. I still didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t even want to believe it, but the facts were staring me in the face every time I read another personality attribute.

I'm honestly blown away by this guy telling this whole story - to be a narcissist, and to actually admit it, for some reason feels to me like enormous growth in itself? Does this man being an actual self-aware narcissist make up for the feelings he's hurt along the way?

My goal now is to raise awareness of narcissism. To help people know and understand that it is real, it is valid, and it is vital to know how to deal with it. I try to help others like me see it is possible to change and grow into better people.

I want to offer closure and healing to those who have dated narcissists, and never got the answers they were after in the relationship.

But I also want to change how people see narcissism and show the importance of getting people into therapy.

Who knows. Maybe this will result in a lot of people making excuses for bad behavior, or maybe it will help a lot of people navigate their own lives/relationships. I've always said honesty is the most important thing in a relationship, regardless of if it might hurt some feelings. Being able to process reality and move on is all anyone ever wants, right?