Love to a narcissist is not like love to non-disordered people. They don’t understand reciprocity. Love to a narcissist is just an external form of validation.
What does love mean to a narcissist?
Love is narcissistic supply to a narcissist. Narcissistic supply is the admiration, envy, recognition, entitlement and special treatment narcissists must have and usually demand. Love feeds their ego. They are more in love with the idea of being with you than you.
When they say “I love you” what they really mean is “I love the idea of being with you. Soon, however, I will tire of you and go looking for someone else as you will never meet all of my demands and live up to my fantasy of you.”
When my narcissist was introduced to a woman over Facebook, he started the publicity campaign. He hadn’t even met her in person and he was already telling everyone who would listen that he had a girlfriend. She wasn’t actually important to him. The visual of people thinking he was in a relationship, his image, was more important than anything.
Love is conditional to a narcissist
Love is also conditional to a narcissist. They love you because you provide them with something in exchange or do something for them. Narcissists only choose to be around people who benefit them in some way. They will leave you when you no longer provide benefit to them.
I wrote about this in my book “Wrecking Ball Relationships: How to Identify, Live With or Leave the Narcissist in Your Life.”
“Growing up with a narcissistic father, Patricia felt being obedient was love, according to both her and her siblings, they thought it was what you must do. They didn’t love their dad unconditionally because he didn’t love unconditionally, they were only being obedient. One day, it reached a point where her dad met with her brothers and other people to discuss Patricia and her role in the family business. He told the brothers he didn’t know if he could trust her, so he decided to take away her title of corporate secretary. He also didn’t think she was doing the job well or correctly, so he was also taking away her title of vice-president administration. There was no nepotism in her family. Patricia worked extremely hard for these titles and was dedicated to her job. Her younger brother knew how everything affected her mentally and physically. He told their dad, “This will break her.”
Her father replied, “Let her break.”
When Patricia learned of this, she realized she put all her eggs in the basket of someone who could and would drop them at any time or hurl them back at her. He just didn’t care. Her dad didn’t speak to her for two months after firing her from her position in the family business.
When he finally spoke to her, he told her how wrong she was to leave. Patricia knew she’d be physically and mentally ill if she stayed. She also knew to maintain a relationship with her father, she needed to placate him. So, she told him he was right. It was always about him – he believed that she left him, not just the business.”
Victims of Narcissistic Abuse Keep Hoping for Change
As the victims of narcissistic abuse, we just want to believe so badly that they feel the same way we do, we are willing to accept so much less. We just keep hoping they will see what’s right in front of them and change. But they won’t. They aren’t capable of change. You deserve better.
Remember narcissists are terrible at relationships because they care so little about anyone else. They have very low emotional intelligence. They are only concerned about their needs being met and when they’re not, they must move on to a new source. Their love will never be what you want or what you need. It will always be a wrecking ball relationship.
If you’ve been in a relationship like this and experienced these stages, please talk to someone. Make sure it’s someone who understands what you’ve been through. You need to address this hurt before it bleeds into other aspects of your life. I get it.
You see, I didn’t get here by accident. I didn't set out to become a narcissistic abuse recovery coach.
But after I’d suffered this kind of abuse, I realized that my story and my experience could help so many people who’ve suffered similarly.
Often, we stay in these cycles of abuse because we don’t believe we deserve something better. I kept trying to make our relationship work, but he didn’t want me in his life. It took me a long time to understand that I deserved better.
You deserve better, too.
If you’re ready to change how you think,
If you’re ready to change how you feel,
If you’re ready to change your path,
Check out The Narcissist Slayers podcast https://www.youtube.com/@TheNarcissistSlayers/featured
You can find my book “Wrecking Ball Relationships” on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and lynncatalano.com.
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