How It Feels To Be In A Relationship With A Narcissist – Part II
“You do anything long enough to escape the habit of living until the escape becomes the habit.” – David Ryan
Now you’re in big trouble. The narcissist is not as nice as a typical drug dealer. He isn’t on call and available 24/7. He doesn’t respond to urgent text messages or phone calls. He knows that he can control you by withholding his affection. You have to earn it. Just when you think you’ve figured out exactly how to earn it, he changes the rules, without any notice to you.
You will always be left guessing. Unlike your average person with some issues, a true narcissist knows exactly what he’s doing. He is conscious of his tactics and conscious of how to play you to get what he wants. The withholding of affection, the half-truths and blatant lies, cheating, bullying, silent treatment, indifference, abuse, manipulation…all of it is conscious and intentional.
You see, he also knows, deep down, that he is not the unbelieveably sexy, intelligent, better-than-everyone-else, family-man. He knows that he’s really a pathetic, needy, life-sucking, inadequate, childish drain on you and everyone else. He doesn’t care as long as he gets what he wants from you in order to maintain his false image.
Patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) feel injured, humiliated and empty when criticized. They often react with disdain (devaluation), rage, and defiance to any slight, real or imagined. To avoid such situations, some patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) socially withdraw and feign false modesty and humility to mask their underlying grandiosity. Dysthymic and depressive disorders are common reactions to isolation and feelings of shame and inadequacy. – Healthy Place
He will forget things you say and then accuse you of never having told him. He hears and remembers everything you say because he is always listening for clues that you are still projecting the image he has created. Don’t believe me? Try insulting him. He will not only remember it, but will bring it up every chance he gets in order to make you feel guilty. He feigns forgetfulness and selective hearing as a manipulation tactic.
You will make excuses for his behavior and he will provide many to you. He will take no prisoners. No subject is off-limits. He will always go for the jugular. He must win. You will feel worthless and hopeless but think that the next time you will get it right. You never will. You are an enabler and you are in serious denial. You aren’t in love with an actual person. You are in love with the image he spoon-fed to you when you first met. You are in a relationship with the little man behind the curtain and there is no wizard. You don’t realize this image is false because you are too busy chasing your own tail, trying to figure out why you keep screwing things up.
…the narcissist abuses people. He misleads them into believing that they mean something to him, that they are special and dear to him, and that he cares about them. When they discover that it was all a sham and a charade, they are devastated. – Happy Place
Try taking a step back and just listening to him and observing him for awhile. Try to do this as an impartial observer. He has nothing of value to say or offer you. You aren’t actually getting anything good out of this relationship, emotionally speaking. He may be paying the bills or taking care of the house. That’s part of his image. If you watch and listen, you will notice that he rambles on and on about topics that don’t interest you or anyone else. He repeats stories over and over again. He believes his opinion to be fact. He is uninteresting, boastful, downright boring and obnoxious.
Most narcissists had a functioning parent, but one that was indifferent to them and used them for his or her own narcissistic ends. Narcissists tend to breed narcissists and perpetuate their condition. The conflict with the frustrating parent is carried forward and reconstructed in intimate relationships. The narcissist directs all the major transformations of aggression towards his spouse, partner, and friends. – Happy Place
If you have children, they are also just extensions of him. They were put on this earth to reflect that false image, just as you were. He will treat them deplorably and you will make excuses for that too. You will even use them as distractions and buffers between you, although you don’t realize you are doing it. You are dying and need some relief. Distractions and buffers can help with that. It isn’t your fault, but it is up to you to recognize it and stop it.
Some online resources:
Recommended Reading (yes, I’ve read them all):
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
Playing It by Heart: Taking Care of Yourself No Matter What
Choices : Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter
Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis.
Healing the Shame that Binds You
Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem
Codependence and the Power of Detachment
Smart Women/Foolish Choices: Finding the Right Men Avoiding the Wrong Ones
The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused and Start Standing Up for Yourself
Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Boundaries – Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries
Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control
Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out
Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love
The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem
Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love
Breaking Free of Addictive Family Relationships (Healing Your Own Inner Child)
Thanks for stopping by!
This is so cheesy that I read these and am picturing a person from a reality show, but it’s exactly Spencer from the Hills!
Question – his little “tactic” has been to take one by one, his fiance’s relationships of best friend, sister, and now mother and just break them town. He acts like ea. one of these ppl is against her and almost brainwashes her.
Is this a normal narcissist thing, too? Like – ulitmate control, by taking away all outside relationships so they can only live in “their” world? It’s almost fascinating to watch what a person will believe and be lead down.
Wow, you just described my father to a tee!
Something that I noticed my father doing often was mirroring others when he was trying to get on their good side. It can be quite charming to those who aren’t aware of it or aware of what they are trying to do since human beings tend to like other human beings who are very similar to themselves.
It’s an amazing series of posts you’ve got going on. I found myself holding my breath when I was reading. Not many things do that.
Strangely, my thoughts these past years that Narcissistic types are reptiles that look like mammals … The Jurassic Park quote chilled me to the bone. OMG
oh well holy goodness.
I seriously needed to read this and totally came to serendipitously.
I’m already way too well versed in NPD via the runboard NPD site.
I was reading my tweet updates and noticed that Morgan Brown mentioned you …
He is a super cool guy and I decided to take a break to check out your site.
Thank you for posting all these NPD stories.
I feel almost like I have a guardian angel who keeps putting NPD stuff in my line of sight…
Can’t escape the writing on the wall regarding the N in my life.
sigh.
Its sad that Narcissist people have to bully and cause fear to the family but to the outside world they are perfect.People don’t understand and I am constantly being told by people how great and I think to myself,”you have no idea”.
I keep my distance because of the heartache it causes.
I feel sad for them but keep away
Yep, they are just wonderful to those that don’t know the truth. Feeling sad for a narcissist is pointless, and potentially harmful…that’s how we get sucked into their BS in the first place. Truth is, they have no feelings at all so our sympathy is just another way for them to manipulate and use us.
Yep, that’s a textbook move. The narcissist cannot have you focusing on anyone but him and definitely can’t have your friends and family telling you what a loser he is. It’ll be in my next post.
In my experience, s/he will first do his best to seem like the perfect friend/partner/whatever, so that everyone will be telling you how much they envy you having the narcissist in your life while you are privately wondering if you even know the same person they do.
If that doesn’t work, however, isolation is the next step, like Cyndi said.
Mine too! Yes, they are master manipulators.
That is true, provided that they don’t see him in action and you keep your mouth shut about any red flags that you notice. EVeryone thought my father was wonderful because we all colluded to keep the big secret. He made it very clear that was expected.
I’m sorry about the N in your life but happy Morgan brought you here! He is a great guy.