So after some research, you have figured out who the narcissist is. After you figure out who the narcissist is you are going to wonder should I stay and if I do stay what will happen? Something that is common being a victim of narcissistic abuse is that you are told that you are responsible for the narcissist’s feelings, happiness, and are the reason why everything is wrong in the relationship. You are constantly blamed for everything and feel like the bad guy.
Because of this, it will cause you to seek help for yourself whether that is self-help books, therapy, or trying to figure out how to solve the relationship problems/yourself. You will carry the relationship and your partner on your back up the mountain and take full responsibility. You will wonder what you can do to improve yourself or the relationship so the narcissist will love you again and you guys can be happy.
First I want you to understand you are not responsible for their happiness or what goes wrong relationship like they have tried to make you believe. You can not take on all the issues of the relationship as well as what happens to the narcissist. No matter what you do, you can not please the narcissist.
Narcissists are not genuine people. They are a shell of a person, they are children stuck at the age they were abused at so they have never been able to form a sense of self. All they know is how to manipulate and control to feel validated. Because of this they use people as tools and always have an agenda. Usually, their agenda involves getting someone to conform to who they want so they can manipulate and control them aka the narcissist supply.
I’m sure as you have seen by now, you can’t really confront, criticize, or communicate with your narcissist in a healthy way. It always results in you being blamed, stonewalled, punished, or screamed at in some sort of way. This is because the narcissist can not self reflect and because of that, the abuse will continue.
So it starts where there is a period of build up. They may make little comments, be manipulative, blame you for things. Then an event happens where it causes them to go into a rage/a tantrum where they may become violent with their words or even physically. They may start a smear campaign and turn others against you or make you feel worthless and helpless.
Then comes the love-bombing stage where they may “apologize”, pretend it didn’t happen or give you the attention/sex/intimacy/gifts you have been wanting. It is basically a period of time to get you to forget how bad they just behaved so they can manipulate you to like them again. If they misbehaved all the time they would lose their victims, so they have to throw you a bone every once in a while. And Finally is the calm period where you may forget they aren’t healthy. It will be as if nothing has happened and they’re on their best behavior. Until the build up starts again.
And this is how it will be for the rest of your relationship. You will be stuck in this cycle that will never change. Even when you get a glimpse of hope and get tricked into thinking they’re normal, it will go right back to them controlling, manipulating, mocking, and hurting you again. You will question yourself and think there is a possibility that they’re different now…maybe it isn’t so bad? Maybe you are being hard on them? No, you are not wrong. It is part of the cycle.
Like I had mentioned before where the narcissist can’t self reflect and they only have one motive, the same goes for manipulating you and gaslighting you. They want you to stay in a form where you are easier to control and be able to manipulate you into who they want. They want you to fit in this certain narrative, maybe that you are the bad guy and they are the victim.
Narcissists will never stop the manipulation or trying to make you feel like you are insane and having you question yourself. The minute you start to have a voice of your own is the minute they know they will lose you and they don’t want to lose their supply. Narcissists want you to question yourself as much as possible as it makes it easier to get you to conform.
Narcissists do not care if you react to them and are giving them negative attention or praising them and giving them positive attention. That is all the same thing to them, validation and a stroke to their frail ego. So they will continue to do things to get you to react to them like start fights, mock you, make you feel crazy. And they will continue to try to get you to give them love and affection like hugs or compliments. Whatever it is they will try to get it from you as long as you are around.
This is especially major if you are codependent. As a codependent, you will want to fix, give, and please. And as a codependent, you are struggling with your sense of self, self-worth, and setting boundaries. So as you are trying to heal, they will try to knock you down, and put you back in the place where you once were before you had realized everything. They know everything that makes you tick and everything that makes you happy so because of this it will be harder to try to break free from the cycle.
Since narcissists act like little kids when they don’t get their way, you may have noticed you will always have to be the bigger person. You will feel like you have to be the adult in the relationship because they are not able to be responsible or consistent. So you may feel like you don’t have a partner when it comes to raising the kids or having house duties or even just being able to have an adult conversation.
After realizing that it was not you the whole time and you have been mistreated, it may form anger inside of you. You will want to lash out, be vocal about what they have done and the pain they have caused but they won’t be able to hear you. It will only make it worse if you tell them what you know. This is especially if you can not leave the narcissist. Not being able to be acknowledged or heard can start to form a lot of resentment which then makes it even harder to be around them and deal with them.
What do you guys think? What happens when you stay with a narcissist? Leave it all in the comments below!
