Love to a narcissist is not like love to non-disordered people.
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.
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.
Love Bombing
Love bombing is all of the fireworks of the 4th of July in the form of attention and affection during those first few months of your relationship. They buy you special things. They take you special places. It feels intense and excessive but some people are thrilled to experience it. These people just don’t realize that it comes to an abrupt end arbitrarily.
They Devalue You
After the love bombing stage, the narcissist shifts to devalue you. Devaluing is when they no longer offer compliments and praise to you. Now the narcissist begins to offer very negative verbal attacks.
Devaluing sounds like:
“You should really go on a diet.”
“Are you going to wear that to the party?”
“You really are stupid.”
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.
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