It’s a massive diversion tactic. He is protecting his fragile ego by sacrificing yours. Now, let’s flip the coin and look at the aging female narcissist, a topic I do not discuss often. Her currency was often the gaze. Her power came from being the object of desire. She was the woman who stopped traffic, the one for whom men competed for attention. She lived for that validation; it proved she mattered. Aging for her feels like a slow-motion eraser, as if donning an invisibility cloak. She walks into a restaurant and finds that heads do not turn anymore. Imagine what that means for a female narcissist. The bartender serves the 25-year-old girl first. The cashier does not flirt with her. The world stops reflecting her image back to her. They no longer take her babylike voice seriously. Suddenly, she feels unattractive. This creates a vacuum of worthlessness inside her chest, and she experiences the emptiness she has been running from for so long. She feels as if she has vanished, and this worthlessness bleeds right into the bedroom. She becomes obsessed with concealment—this is what I call the “dark room phase.” She used to be flashy, possibly loved walking around naked and seducing you and others; that was her art. But now the lights must be off—pitch black. She undresses in the bathroom with the door locked. She wears baggy clothes to bed. She creates barriers: pillows, blankets—basically, distance. She is terrified that if the lights are on, you will scrutinize her. She believes that if you see her clearly, you will zoom in on the wrinkles on her chest or the cellulite on her legs. She projects her own hypercritical inner voice onto your eyes, imagining that you are dissecting her flaws just as ruthlessly as she does in the mirror. She withdraws from intimacy. Why? Because she cannot survive the inspection she thinks is taking place. She feels like a fraud, a phony—like a product that claimed to be perfect but is now damaged. She is terrified that you will call her bluff, so she shuts down. She becomes cold and acts as if she does not care about sex when, in reality, she is just trying to hide.
This leads to the most painful realization for the aging narcissist, whether male or female: the shift from being the prize to being the buyer. This is a deep psychological wound. In their prime, they received sex and attention for free. People lined up for them; they were the hunters. But as they age, they realize they have become the prey, or worse, the customers. They know deep down that their physical allure is gone. They understand that they cannot just walk into a bar and pick someone up based on looks anymore. To keep you or attract new supply, they realize they have to rely on photoshopping and manipulating their pictures and videos. They understand they need to use money, status, and gifts—essentially the security of the house you live in. They become sugar daddies or sugar mamas. I’ve seen that frequently. Even in their own marriages and relationships, the twisted part is they hate you for it. Even if you have been their loyal spouse of 30 years who loves them for their soul, they cannot accept it. They cannot believe you because they do not value their own soul, and they do not believe you value it either. They protect themselves from the humiliation of their own decline, acting as if they are better than that when, in reality, they are just incapable of reaching it.
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