Love doesn’t destroy us. A lack of love Destroys us. Narcissism is the antithesis of love.
How?
Here are 5 Ways Narcissism prevents Love in relationships:
1. YOU CAN’T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS IF YOU CAN’T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
The foundation of love is truth. A whole person will insist on having an honest connection with themselves. A person who can love has the desire to live with integrity, be true to their identity and values, they know who they are and respect themselves and others. Whole people possess the desire to adhere to their personal ethics. All these traits stem from a strong connected relationship with yourself (and a higher power).
You cannot have a relationship with someone who is wearing a mask
Narcissists are lacking this relationship with “self” and a higher power. They’re floundering inside, looking for a cure on the outside and flit aimlessly about from source to source gathering up approval. They use this adoration to piece together an image of themselves as worthy (perfect) and entitled to receiving applause, approval and validation.
This convoluted relationship with self and their fluid identity is NOT a firm foundation for loving or simply being in a position to give to anyone else: Their Children, “friends”, mates, coworkers, neighbors, and mere strangers. Each time they head into a connecting encounter, they approach it with a calculated and predictable pattern of “owning” and working the crowd, focusing on themselves, paying attention to who’s watching, noticing the nuances and vulnerabilities of others and ALWAYS on the angle for a position of power or taking from the encounter. They also can behave in the extreme opposite: being cold and withdrawn when they don’t “feel” like being ON but will nevertheless need to feel that they are in control in the situation. What is guaranteed is that a narcissist will be focused on themselves in every interaction and whoever they are at any given moment is dictated by their desire to use others in order to feel good about themselves and extract what they can from others without giving anything of value in return.
We get to know who people are by what they consistently DO. It lets us know who they are. We tend to like people with similar values. When the narcissist is changing to fit every person and situation, you can’t really know what they truly stand for. If you say black, they’ll say white and then next time, If you say white, they’ll say black; just to frustrate you. When narcissists play to all our passions and values, we don’t get to know them as honest, separate people, but rather those who are mirroring and aping us with sinister, selfish intent.
We can’t love people we don’t know; not genuinely.
After this smoke and mirrors relationship ends, survivors find that they go through two grieving periods: One where we mourn the relationship as we lived it with genuine love for a person we thought we knew, and one for mourning the person we didn’t know: the narcissist unmasked; the REAL person in the relationship.
2. VIEWING PEOPLE AS OBJECTS TO USE IS OPPORTUNISTIC, NOT LOVING
Narcissists don’t enter into relationships with the same ideas about Love, one’s readiness or preparedness, level of responsibility sharing, equality, suitability, fairness, partnership, etc that neuro-typical people think about. Instead, narcissists are very underhanded, myopic and opportunistic. You are either a possible source of supply (+) and will be favored and pursued or will be regarded as incapable of being a source of supply (-) and will be passed over.
If you have very strong boundaries, are assertive, are able to spot all the very obvious signs of narcissism that they display, you will not be an attractive mark for the narcissist and will give off a signal of being “turned off” to them; which they, with a heightened sense of rejection, will snuff out in a moment and move on to more vulnerable, fawning marks.
If you are offered entry to the “orbit” of a narcissist, the narcissist will work you, tell you everything you want to hear and you’ll be kept there while their self seeking agenda feeds off your energy and keeps their egos boosted until your replacement comes along and they always will. You’ll likely be entirely drained of your once bountiful life force at that point. If you think I’m exaggerating, then you’ve never encountered a true narcissist.
The very different “motives” for being in a relationship between a person who desires warmth, intimacy, trust and commitment and the narcissist who approaches the union in an opportunistic fashion, causes some serious and major misunderstandings (fights) or long brooding silences, when these two worlds collide. The empathic partner will be frozen out, disconnected, and saddened while the narcissist will be aware that although you may be complaining alot, you are still USEFUL for things. The result is that you won’t feel LOVED by them, you’ll feel like an object to be used, because despite what they’re telling you and you’re denying at this point, this is all you are and will ever be to a narcissist.
Every single one of your concerns, feelings, needs and desires are entirely ignored as an unimportant obstacle to the narcissist getting their way; an impetus to their “gain” and their frustration of purpose will result in shaming, blaming, and then punishing you. Your sense of confusion will grow and you won’t find it easy to illustrate why or explain to others what’s going on. The detached narcissist will stand firm in their belief that power over you is their “right”, winning is admirable, and abusive and manipulative strategies perfectly usable tools under the premise “All’s fair in love and war” The problem is that YOU view this relationship as the opportunity to “love and be loved” and the narcissist regards it as a war / competition to “win”.
3. COMPROMISE IS IMPOSSIBLE; THE NARCISSIST ALWAYS GETS THEIR WAY
When a power loving person feels entitled to always feeling “good” or “winning” the goodies in interactions, it makes sense that they would be entirely reluctant to compromise. Giving “in” feels like giving up power to a narcissist. If they concede, then YOU’VE won, and “You don’t deserve to win! They do!!!” Just ask them.
We find ourselves in a constant state of NEVER getting what we want, or if we do, we get the passive aggressive ploys to ruin it for us. We don’t get the feelings of pleasure that come from team work, compromise and reciprocal love. Love shouldn’t be such a struggle, but because the narcissist’s me me me, all grandiose entitlement to being the supported and not the supporter or the loved and not the lover, love becomes one power struggle or lack of compromise after another.
When you’re a person who wants to share love, peace, comfort and closeness with your partner and realize that the person you’re in a relationship with is hell bent on power, can’t compromise and is quite fine destroying opportunities for intimacy by bringing up power struggles, issues you’ve fought about before, negative things people are saying about you, it sinks in at a deep emotional level that you’re in a relationship with someone who will likely NEVER be able to connect on the levels that we all desire in intimate relationships. We realize on a feeling level that to a narcissist, power and winning is actually more important than we are to them.
It would be better, if the narcissist was honest and gave you a chance to opt out – and said, “You know….Im only interested in getting my way here. If you go along with me, we’ll probably have a smooth time, well actually who am I kidding, I like starting drama …it won’t ever be smooth, but you’ll have less problems if you just go along with everything I want.”
They don’t. Instead, they SELL US (manipulate us) by pretending to want all the things we want, telling us all the things we want / need to hear to get us to stick around and allow them to feed off our energy. We are sold on their spin of reality that we have a committed, loving relationship, but that is not what we have. We are in a one sided, takership with a power hungry, broken person with an incurable disorder, incapable of telling the truth, and does not have the ability to compromise.
Whether they’re achieving the monopoly of feel goods in our “relationship” via slick underhanded (manipulative) means, outright aggressive bullying and threats or via the ice cold indifference of the silent treatment..you will be the losing enemy in every battle for a compromise with a narcissistic partner.
4. YOU CAN’T HAVE TRUST WITHOUT HONESTY
I could literally write one sentence here that will sum up the truth now, tomorrow and forever more and will entirely describe who narcissists ARE:
“Narcissists Lie”
Raise your hand if you trust known liars. Didn’t think so. It’s one of the ways attorneys use to discredit witnesses in court cases, because everyone knows that someone with a history of lying isn’t to be trusted. Narcissists invest a lot of energy into keeping the truth from the surface. Ever delusional in their psyches, they figure if they can CONTROL the truth from seeing the light of day if they can keep prisoners from speaking up then they can control reality. We become the escapees from their prison of lies that run off to tell everyone what they’re really up to, we are seen as a threat; a danger. The narcissist spends alot of time engineering reality & manipulating truth to fit the circumstances. If the word gets out that they have a criminal relationship with the truth, they soon won’t have many unsuspecting victims.
How on earth are we going to develop trust in a narcissist when we are constantly hearing half truths or full blown whoppers of lies whenever the narcissist deems it appropriate; and a narcissist ALWAYS deems lying as an appropriate “tool” to get what they want. We cannot communicate openly and honestly with someone who has a flexible relationship with the truth.
Think about the people you can and do trust. What feels different about them that allows you to feel safe and express yourself with them or causes you to trust them with your wife, home, kids, $? Is it a boss? A friend? A cousin? Look at the qualities about them that make them trustworthy people. They probably possess integrity, have made tough decisions, admit culpability, don’t claim to be “perfect”, will tell you difficult things out of honesty and won’t hold against you or use things that you’ve told them in confidence.
Is this how a narcissist makes you feel? Do you feel like they’re telling you the truth, the whole truth and NOTHING but the truth so help them…” Not likely. Your not trusting the narcissist will be turned around to paint the picture of YOU being insecure. You will be accused of being “jealous” / insecure / damaged / broken. All things you’re not – but things the narcissist is. You will begin to believe that you are insecure for not trusting them. You in turn, stop trusting yourself and your own perceptions and rely on someone who is lying to you.
5. ABUSE ISN’T LOVE
You cannot discuss how narcissism prevents love without discussing the reality that all the behaviors that narcissists inflict on the people closest to them results in a description that culminates with and rises to the level of “abuse”. Narcissists love getting their targets / victims so entangled in their confusing web of behaviors that they don’t have the clarity of being able to see the forest through the trees and call this relationship what it is: ABUSIVE.
In every way, It is not Love, what the narcissist does to others. It’s shameful. Cruel. Cold. Heartless. Evil. Debasing. Conning. Criminal. It comes in many forms: verbal, emotional, psychological, physical and sexual.
Cheating on a person multiple times for personal gratification is ABUSE. Having no empathy or remorse for the people they’ve harmed or downright defrauded and ruined is not a “slight”; it’s ABUSE.
It is not love to lie to, lie about, lie to cover up, lie to frame people, lie to get away with and otherwise defraud and deceive people that deserve your honesty and transparency. It is not just an oversight that a man or woman fails to mention that they had unprotected sex with a multitude of people outside of their marriage, but rather a huge intrusion of ABUSE upon that person’s safety.
It is not love to tell a person over and over again how worthless and unloving they are, how they’re only good for sex, or should just kill themselves. To chastise them for choices they make out of freedom as if they are their inferior, is NOT loving; it’s ABUSIVE.
When we are stuck in the vacumous atmosphere of planet narcissist, we can’t see the abuse for what it is. We call it Love and we try to get back to the feelings we had that were loving and felt as if the narcissist returned them. We try harder, making ourselves more vulnerable, more patient, more understanding, but the narcissist just reads that we’re available to take more supply from; certainly nothing more – the more we let them use and abuse us, they view it as tacit approval to continue to abuse us, and if we stay, that is what they will do.