Confusion

Every relationship has its challenges and strife. It is unavoidable and a natural part of life. Normal relationships will succeed or fail based off your ability to tolerate distress. But when you have one person making effort while the other has completely given up and torments instead of striving to reconcile you will have a bigger problem to tackle.

Trying to convince a narcissist that what THEY did was more significant than anything YOU did - is futile. Because narcissists see themself as either the victim or the hero. You spend so much time trying to convince the narcissist you’re NOT victimizing them. Narcissists repeatedly and convincingly tell you THEY are the victim. And this is easy for them to do, because their entitled mindset means they see everything as for, against, or about them.

So if you’re having a conversation about how much they’ve hurt you…They’re obviously not going to be the hero of that story. Which means they have to be the BIGGER victim. By chance, you *might* get them to acknowledge some ways they’ve hurt you…But this will be short-lived and very surface level. Because their entitlement and rigid defense mechanisms only allow them to hold space for a *tiny* amount of the pain they caused others. (And this is if the narcissist is actually trying, like after they hit rock-bottom or are feeling some sense of shame for their actions.)

Narcissists are experts at acting like the victim.

They take your best intentions and twist them to be something cruel. They take your sincere apology and claim it is inauthentic. They take your genuine desire to make things better as proof that you’re controlling and unreasonable. And they do this so often and so subtly that you get confused on what’s true and what’s been made up.

You start to feel bad about yourself, your actions, and your feelings. You feel guilty for things that don’t make sense. You internally berate yourself for every perceived misstep or misspoken word.

A lot of people remain blind to the narcissistic abuse they’re going through because they wonder:

“Is this my fault?”

“Am I asking for too much?”

“Is this a reasonable request?”

“Am I being selfish?”

In other words, you question your expectations. You question whether you have a “right” to ask for what you want. You doubt whether your feelings are valid. You wonder if you’re “worth” making these requests. And these doubts work in perfect harmony to what the narcissist is saying. Because they maintain control by affirming that everything IS your fault. They say YOU are the one who’s asking for too much and being unreasonable.

And since you’re a kindhearted person who doesn’t want to be “difficult” … You take their viewpoint into consideration. And adjust (AKA lower) your expectations. But honesty, loyalty, and consistency are NOT too much to ask. Kindness and respect shouldn’t be conditional. You should NOT have to earn decent treatment, especially from your loved ones.

But most of the time, as soon as you try to share how their words or actions negatively impacted you, The narcissist will blow up, turn everything around on you, and overtly or subtly make everything “your fault.” They will claim that they “had no choice” or “you drove them to that place” to treat you that poorly, because of what YOU did. That they tried for so long but YOU could never “let go of the past.” That “nothing is enough” for you and ask “what you expected” from them. These types of conversations turn hopeless, fast.

So if you have a concern about their behaviors (even if your concern is 100% valid)…. Narcissists effortlessly move to defend themself, blame you, and just like that; you become the “bad guy” and they are the “innocent victim.”

Because your point in bringing up your hurt isn’t to further shame them, but to get them to SEE and ADMIT the problem, simple validation so you can move forward. You think that if they “really knew” how they hurt you, then they would change. Because no one would hurt someone on purpose… right?

Well, this is why understanding narcissists is so important to dealing with them. Because narcissists either hurt you on purpose - or hurt you because they just don’t care. Either way, you’re hurt. It’s not that they don’t know that - it’s that they don’t care enough to change or stop it.

In a relationship, you shouldn’t have to fight for:

Your voice to be heard.

Your emotions to be validated.

Your opinions to be considered.

Your thoughts to be respected.

It’s time to take a pause and consider if this person or relationship is safe, healthy, good for you and pleasing to the Lord. I know that can be hard to hear, but I believe it’s better to know a hurtful truth than believe in a nice lie.

You can’t heal from what you don’t understand.