The final reason this type of narcissist chooses to stay in a long-term marriage or a relationship is image. Image means everything to a narcissist, and unfortunately, in some cultures, marriage is the finish line. If you’re married and have children, you are well-accomplished; you are socially acceptable. That means you will get a lot of validation, attention, admiration, adulation, and you will be put on a pedestal. You know how important that is to a narcissist. They don’t want to lose that; it’s a trophy they get to show to everybody. And not staying married means disgrace to them. So they stay in it not for you, but for the social validation, to avoid being ashamed and feeling disgust towards themselves, to avoid blame.
Let’s rewind a little bit and talk more about parentification, how a narcissist turns you into mommy 2.0 or daddy 2.0. At their core, a narcissist is nothing but an underdeveloped two-year-old kid stuck in an adult’s body. They may be biologically 20, 25, 30, whatever, but emotionally and psychologically, they’re not more than two or three. So when they step into a relationship or a marriage, they may say they want a partner, but they do not. They want a parental figure, a mother or a father who they can hate and at the same time get unconditional love from. This is the reason why you, as a narcissistic abuse survivor, may feel like you are dealing with a kid, not with a partner. You are dealing with a child of yours because you have to pamper them, give them attention all the time, validate them, and you cannot say no. You have to be there all the time; you cannot have your own personal life. It’s all about them, and that partnership is nowhere to be seen or found. Things become more complicated, and you take on this role of a parent quite easily if you have your own trauma, which leads to you having weaker boundaries or having this unfulfilled need of being seen. Probably you had a narcissistic parent of your own who forced you to please them, to serve their needs, to serve their ego, so you were raised as a caretaker. Now, there is nothing wrong with caring for others, but when it happens at extreme levels and at the expense of your own sanity and stability, that is when it becomes a trauma response. This adult narcissist that you are married to has tapped into that trauma and knows you have those wounds. So what do they do? They weaponize it against you; they make you please them the way you tried to please your parents, the way you tried to serve them. This may be your trauma bond with a narcissist, which is making it extremely difficult to leave, and unfortunately, years get wasted. Now, I’m not saying it’s your fault or you are doing it to yourself. Please don’t misunderstand me. What I’m trying to do here is explain the complex and complicated dynamics of such relationships and how the narcissist kind of becomes your parent, and they expect you to become their parent, but because you can’t, it’s impossible, they punish you. And because they could not take that hatred out on their actual parent who abused them, they take it out on you; they punish them through punishing you. Doesn’t make sense? It sounds really weird, but that is what we call transference in psychological terms. What is the need that you fulfill in this scenario? You give them continuous supply; you do whatever it takes to keep them happy. But they are never satisfied, and they do not leave you because they know you’re going to be there always for them, and you are going to play the role of that caretaker. That is what is in it for them.
Continue reading on the next page
Sharing is caring!
