Narcissism’s Relationship Trap

Before I knew anything about narcissism, before I entered therapy, before I realized that nothing I could do would make my mother love me, I got married to a man who I thought was a prince among men.

I had already been in terrible relationships with abusive, selfish men and in my 27-year-old wisdom decided that any man I could live with for a year and still feel good about would be The One. I had long since given up the notion that my partner had to be handsome or buff or Mr. Personality…I had settled on sober, dependable, trustworthy, intelligent, reasonably well-educated and having a steady job that paid well as indispensable criteria, and once I found a man like that if, after a year, I had not discovered he was a wife beater or a skirt chaser or mean and punitive, he would be a viable candidate for marriage. Nobody, after all, can hide their true personality for a whole year, ya know?

Well, I was wrong…in fact, not only could he hide the reality of himself for a whole year, in later years I found a friend whose boyfriend concealed who and what he really was for four years. I probably don’t have to tell you that my marriage didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.

What brings this up today is that I realized that, after figuring out that my mother was a narcissist, I recognized that my ex-husband was one too…and this weekend I realized that my present husband shares many traits and tastes with my narcissistic ex-husband.

But this is not a bad thing. You see, during that first year, my ex (who I will call “James” here to prevent any confusion) was exactly what I was looking for: he was patient and accommodating, dependable, trustworthy, and all of those other things I was looking for in a partner. He was an engineer, so he was technically minded, he was highly intelligent, and better educated than I was. His personal interests included finance and economics and politics, and he had little quirks like keeping a logbook of all of the money he spent on fuel and maintenance of his car, recorded with the date, reason for cost, and the amount. He also regularly calculated his gas mileage from this log. He could watch TV movies back-to-back for an entire day, movies he recorded on VHS tape…and he would watch those movies with a magazine in his lap, reading articles on finance and economics while he watched TV. He liked my cooking. He was a good earner and seemed to be good with money…all things that should make a good husband.

But, interestingly enough, everything I said about James in the previous paragraph also applies to my present husband! Even that quirky little thing about recording the costs for the car…James kept a ledger book in the glove compartment, my present husband does it on his smart phone. My relationship with James lasted 13 years and my husband and I have been together for the same length of time. But with James, after a decade I was a crumbling shell of the woman I had been when we met, broken, barely functioning, suicidal. Earlier this month my husband and I celebrated our 11^th anniversary and I am looking forward to another eleven and even more.

So, what is the difference? Why would I respond to these two very similar men in such a different fashion? The answer lies not in what is similar between them, but their differences. And not superficial differences but those things that go deep into a person’s character.

One of the problems we ACoNs may face is choosing friends and partners and inadvertently choosing to bring more narcissists into our lives. Narcissists are very good at mimicking normal, they are excellent at making themselves look like the answer to your dreams…until they have you hooked. And they have an almost unerring radar for finding those of us who were raised to be a scapegoat, a provider of NSupply to narcissists near and far. They find us like wolves find wounded prey animals and then they do whatever is necessary to get us into position for the kill. And we, deprived of the most basic love and nurturing during our formative years, are suckers for people who appear to fill our shamefully neglected emotional needs.

James knew I was burned by flaky men who took advantage and then took off. They got what they wanted by pretending to give me what I needed. Raised by a narcissist mother and a largely absent father, I was hypervigilant to the moods of my narcissist and learned quickly that anticipating her needs/wants and providing them before they were demanded was the best way to stave off the explosions of wrath. My mother was extremely volatile, emotionally, and had the terrifying ability to go from sweet and smiling to a full-blown screaming rage in the blink of an eye…and back to sweetly smiling just as fast. Living with her was like living in a mine field with just a few paths of safety mapped out…and one of those paths was to give her what she wanted before she demanded it.

This, of course, set the stage for my “operating condition” for the years that followed. I managed to hook up with men who, like my mother, had volatile personalities and, to prevent explosions, I employed my hypervigilance and anticipatory ways. Whatever, whoever they wanted me to be, I would be in their presence (just like in my childhood, however, the mouse would be and do whatever she wanted when the cat was away). This pattern of behaviour, however, was not conducive to the establishment and perpetuation of a healthy long-term relationship. Once the men got what they wanted from me, they abandoned me or abused me until I left them. By age 26 I had three children and had been abandoned by my last boyfriend when our child was only a few months old.

I was never a stupid person and I tried to learn from the events in my life. What I had the most trouble with was figuring out when a person was fooling me and when he was sincere. The father of my youngest child stayed with me throughout my pregnancy, supported me and was what I considered to be kind and loving. Once the baby was born, however, he began pulling away and by the time I had recovered from my Caesarean enough to return to work, he was gone. For a long time I wondered what I might have done to drive him away, but I later learned that I was the first of three women he did this too…he even married the third one but abandoned her and their baby when the child was just a few months old. Obviously, he had an issue but just as obviously, I seemed to be incapable of determining whether or not a man had an issue that would cause him to leave me—or abuse me—before getting involved with him.

James seemed like a breath of fresh air. He was a professional man, unlike my previous lovers, well-educated, well-read, well-spoken. One of the things I remember finding wondrous about him was his patience, something my mother and previous male partners seemed to have in short supply. I remember James taking me to a pharmacy to fill a prescription and I apologized in advance for the time it was going to take, for taking up his valuable time waiting around for me. He shrugged and said “No problem…why don’t you leave the baby in the car with me while you are in there, then you won’t have to deal with him as well as everything else?” I was amazed and I remember congratulating myself for finally finding a man with some patience and sensitivity. How could I have known it was just an act?

Well, forty years later, I have the answer to that question: if he seems too good to be true, he is. Real people have flaws and they show them. Nobody is perfect…oh, he can be “perfect for you,” as my husband is for me, but that means that he has flaws that you find acceptable, even endearing…imperfections that you can live with or even enjoy. A person with no faults is either faking it to impress you or s/he is a narcissist, being what will attract you until you are hooked and s/he can abandon the disguise.

James managed to last for an entire year and, against my better judgment, I married him. I say “against my better judgment” because I let my logical mind and my need for security overrule my intuition, which had seen—and dismissed—numerous red flags during the year. I had already failed at marriage and didn’t really want to marry again, but I had made the cardinal error of letting him know too much about my inner workings…he knew just how emotionally insecure I was and how badly I wanted a house of my own so I could feel secure (somehow I had equated the two…I believed when I had my own house, I would no longer feel as if the rug was about to be yanked out from beneath me). When I balked at his blandishments about marriage and he finally took on board that I was afraid to get married again, lest I fail at it another time, he bribed me with the promise of a house of my own. And that was the tipping point.

Superficially, James and my present husband are very much alike, but when you analyse them, what shakes out is that my present husband is the genuine article…he is, in real life, what James pretended to be for the year before I married him. My criteria were fine…what I wanted in a husband was not unusual or unhealthy…for the last eleven years I have had a husband who fits that criteria very well. They even share some quirky behaviours, like the log book for the car and where James watched TV with a magazine in his lap, my present husband has his tablet and is reading on-line articles about politics, economics, and finance while watching movies he has recorded on the PVR. The difference between James and my present husband is that I gave James enough information in our early days for him to figure out what kind of man I wanted and he recreated himself to appear to be that man; my husband was himself from the beginning and over time it became obvious that he really is what James pretended to be.

For the longest time I wondered what I did to cause James to change from the loving, patient, attentive man I agreed to marry into the monster I ended up with. For more than ten years I turned myself inside out, trying to find the magic key to unlocking the door behind which was hidden the wonderful man I married. I took the blame for his change, believing it was something I did or said that caused him to turn into a cruel, manipulative, short-tempered, selfish, inhumane excuse for a human being. I believed if I could discover what it was I did or said that caused him to change, I could have the man I married back. It was not until I discovered narcissism that I began to understand that the monster was the real man, the loving partner I thought I married was the fake.

It was an epiphany and the implications were huge. It wasn’t my fault…he wasn’t a monster because of something I did or said…or didn’t do or say…he was a monster because that was the real man, the man behind the mask of kindness and patience and love. Where I was at fault was in letting him know early on what I needed or wanted in a partner so that he could create himself to be that person. In seeking to evoke his empathy with my sad tale of childhood abuse and bad luck in adult love relationships, I gave him a detailed blueprint of what he needed to pretend to be in order to win me. And, in my tales of a life of woe, I confirmed to him that I was a well-trained scapegoat, a well-skilled provider of N-supply, a person who would subordinate the very essence of herself to obtain even the merest crumbs of approval and affection. I was as irresistible to a narcissist as a wounded hare to a fox, and he was determined to not only have me, but to bind me to him through marriage so that I couldn’t just pick up and walk away when his abuse became too much.

In my epiphany, I further discovered that I was a willing accomplice in my victimization: I told him everything he needed to know to entrap me. I let him know what hurt me, I reacted to probes into my feelings so he knew what my triggers were. I ignored the red flags that popped up regularly, even when my conscious mind knew better…I ignored them because they got in the way of what I wanted. If I acknowledged them, I would have to end the relationship and start all over again with a new man and a new set of unknowns. The idea of going it alone, with no man and without wanting a man in my life, never occurred to me.

It took ten years for me to really wake up and see what had really been going on. Even then, I knew nothing about narcissism, but I knew I had married a male version of my mother and that was a bad thing. My fear of my mother coupled with her hostility and indifference to my feelings led me to contemplate suicide for the first time when I was nine, and to my first attempt when I was seventeen. James and his cruel indifference led me to the same brink. And when I finally put them together, thanks to a heavy hint from an insightful therapist, I was horrified: I had married the male counterpart to my mother and had been trying to resolve my issues with her by trying to find ways to make my marriage work. I had taken on all of the blame and responsibility for the flaws in the relationship, believing I was somehow provoking his gaslighting, triangulating, and fault-finding. And as long as I believed that, I was trapped in the web, a willing but unwitting prisoner.

My present husband, on the surface, is much like my ex. The difference is simply that James was pretending to be what I wanted in a man, my present husband actually is. And at the time I married James, I had neither the knowledge nor the self-confidence to actually see that James was pretending and because I lacked those abilities, I set up a hurdle for him to leap, reasoning that if he could succeed, then he would be a good husband. In theory there is nothing wrong with that, but in practice I made a critical error: the hurdle I created had nothing to do with reality. I could have set up “he can knit potholders” as the hurdle and gotten just as accurate a result.

We who were raised by narcissists are especially vulnerable to them…they can pick us out of a crowd like a cutting horse can cut a calf out of a herd. And we respond to them because we have been conditioned to do so…they fit seamlessly into our “comfort zone,” especially if we haven’t done any real work to redefine that comfort zone. And while we can design little rat mazes for them to run through to prove to us they aren’t going to hurt us, if our little mazes aren’t based on reality, it isn’t going to work. And even if the mazes are based on reality, if we allow ourselves to dismiss those red flags, if we explain them away, then we still end up at the end of a narcissist’s specimen pin.

Coming from a narcissistic upbringing makes us vulnerable to choosing these kinds of partners…and friends, too. We need to learn to put what we want to see in people secondary to what we really, uncomfortably, observe. When we can start acknowledging those red flags and not dismissing them, when we can put the fairy tale relationship we carry in our heads away and stop trying to fit the most recent lover or friend into the role, we begin to make progress. Key to this is to stop trying to find reasons to find a person acceptable…to give up the idea that we can or should remake a person to fit our ideals…and simply accept or reject a person based on whether or not they already fit into our own personal scheme of things.

And that brings me back to my husbands…obviously my criteria and my tastes have held constant and what I wanted was neither unreasonable nor unhealthy. My mistake was in ignoring the red flags and not allowing myself to recognize that James really didn’t fit my needs, he was just pretending to. My present husband, though, fits the criteria admirably: he is, for real, what James merely pretended to be for a year.

In retrospect, it turns out it was not all that difficult to do. If you start with a realistic and healthy set of expectations in a partner, pay attention to the red flags in the people you meet, avoid the temptation to try to change people to fit into your criteria, and have sufficient patience, your odds of successfully avoiding the relationship trap set for you by your narcissistic upbringing are excellent.

The Scapegoat Picks a Partner

It’s a bitch, growing up the scapegoat in a household headed by a narcissist parent. In addition to all of the other trouble we have to deal with, we are denied the opportunity to know what a healthy relationship feels like, how it feels inside to interact with emotionally healthy people, and how to recognize them when we find them. Worse still, we too often reject eminently suitable potential partners because we do not emotionally respond to people who don’t push our buttons.

This, of course, is of little assistance to us in finding emotionally healthy partners and engaging in fulfilling relationships. It is well known in psychological circles that the victims of abuse often find themselves replicating their original abuse dynamics with new partners, acting out the drama over and over again. But I don’t think very many of us do it consciously…I don’t think many of us say to ourselves “Oh, now there’s a guy just like my abusive mother…let’s see if I can change him into a loving, caring partner…” But on the subconscious level, that’s just what a lot of us do.

Why? Well, I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all, there is that feeling of familiarity, the recognition of his behaviours which give you clues as to how you are expected to act, react, behave, and feel. We are all creatures of habit, after all, and just like a song or a scent can invoke feelings of warmth and comforting familiarity, so can the behaviours of others. Secondly, I think that we subconsciously recognize the similarity to our childhood abuser(s) and hooking up with this person offers us an opportunity to engage the abuse and “get it right” this time. What “right” means is as individual as we are and could mean anything from prevailing over the abuse to somehow getting the abuser to have some compassion and empathy to us to even retaliating against the abuse. Whatever the definition, the whole premise of the relationship is unhealthy and pathological.

Emily Yoffe, writer of the “Dear Prudence” column on Slate.com says “…it’s a strange psychological quirk that people often unconsciously end up re-creating the situation they are seeking to escape. It is sadly common for people raised by abusive parents to find themselves involved with abusive partners…Of course you want to run away from your childhood and the people who populated it. But without exploring what happened to you, you may find yourself running around a track and ending up back at the starting line. You want to feel you’re moving toward something good in life, rather than forever fleeing the bad.”

Some of us are lucky (or subconsciously wise) and manage to find healthy partners in spite of our own dysfunctions. Unfortunately, I think people like that are in the tiniest minority and even they still have to deal with dysfunctional people in other aspects of their lives. Most of us, however, tread a treacherous minefield in seeking a partner, a minefield of our own subconsciousness and lack of awareness. And all too often we end up back at that starting line…

How do you find a healthy relationship with an emotionally healthy partner if you don’t know what it feels like or looks like and you seem to be attracted to people who end up bad news? Marni Battista (CPC, MA), who bills herself a dating coach, recently published an article entitled “6 Signs that he is ‘Mr. Boyfriend Material,’”and had the following to say: [my comments in violet].

1. He is truly in a place where he feels confident and secure in his ability to provide. Men are typically most confident, secure, and ready to be in an exclusive long-term relationship when they feel “settled.” They have spent time building their career and have the time available to invest in a relationship. They are financially secure. Remember, men who are not in this place in life are still worth dating; they are just not likely to be good candidates for a long-term partnership. If you are dating someone who is still climbing the ladder to emotional maturity and financial security, you will likely need to be extremely patient as he moves through these phases of manhood.

Basically, if the guy can’t support himself, he’s not a good bet for a long-term relationship; if he is only marginally self-supporting, he’s not a good bet for a long-term relationship; if he’s in a low-paying career, he can’t or won’t hold down a job for very long, if his lack of a job is somebody else’s fault…he’s not a good bet for a long-term relationship. Are there exceptions? Yes. Is the guy you’re eying one of those exceptions? Given our unerring proclivity for picking the wrong kinds of guys, probably not.

You are not a one-woman rescue mission. Your job in life is not to shore up some guy’s sinking self-esteem, to motivate his lazy ass, to be the patient, loving, uncritical other half…that is his mother’s job…or it was while he was a kid. Now it is his job to motivate himself and make himself into a secure human being able to provide well for himself and his (eventual) family. You don’t have to settle for less, so why even waste your time dating men who don’t meet the most basic criteria for self-care? (Rhetorical question: we waste our time on men like this because it distracts us from working on our own issues…)

2. His words match his actions. A man who is capable of a long-term relationship has integrity, and as a result his words and actions match. He will call when he says he will call. He will ask you out a few days in advance. He will follow through on the promises he makes. This is one of the most crucial signs a man is ready to be your boyfriend. If his words and actions match consistently, it is clear he is ready to play in the big leagues—possibly with you.

Augh! This was my big bugaboo! He’d say something nice and do something rude and I would believe the words…and excuses…and lies. I felt guilty if I didn’t, like I wasn’t trusting him. I felt I owed him the benefit of the doubt. Guess what? I was wrong!

I was so stuck in this, my therapist actually had to say to me, in blunt language, “If his words don’t match his deeds, believe the deeds…they don’t lie.” Any many who habitually says one thing and does another is not to be trusted…and no healthy relationship can exist without trust.

3. He doesn’t play games. He doesn’t apply the “Three-Day Rule” to the women he dates, wait twenty-four hours before returning your phone call, or “vanish” to draw you into his world. When he is interested in pursuing you, he will let you know in an appropriate way. Conversely, if you play games with Mr. Boyfriend Material, he will politely decline the opportunity to get to know you, and dismiss you as possibly immature, or worse, “psycho.” Don’t over-text Mr. Boyfriend Material with idle chit chat messages. Be gracious, kind, and authentic, because Mr. Boyfriend Material is attracted to a confident woman who, like him, is past playing games.

This is addressing his authenticity: not only does he not play juvenile, manipulative dating games, he doesn’t play the kinds of games you find in Transactional Analysis books…no manipulation at all, just straightforward (but not rude, crude, or insensitive) communication.

Yes, we have to make allowances for personality types…some guys tend toward shyness and reticence, others are more outgoing. But regardless of personality types, if he is being manipulative, using pick up lines, ignoring you to see how you will react or overwhelming you with too much too soon, the smart move is to move on. He’s not the last man on the planet, you know…

Too often, we succumb to a feeling of desperation and think this one guy is our last chance for love and then make unwise moves as a result. First of all, no man at all is better than one who manipulates, abuses, or ignores us. Secondly, until we love ourselves enough to become our real selves (not the love-starved survivor of a narcissist), just what kind of man are we going to be attracted to…or attract? Emotionally healthy people tend to be put off by the emotionally needy because they want a partner, not a responsibility. So, in our own desperation to find love and be love, we actually drive away the very people who would be best for us. If you aren’t in a good place emotionally, find yourself a therapist and get there…then start looking for a boyfriend.

4. He knows how to express his feelings directly. Mr. Boyfriend Material will not manipulate you with silence or criticize or judge you. When he has a need, or feels like he must discuss something pertaining to the relationship, he does not hesitate to bring it up. He will also be honest in telling you when he needs to spend time with his friends, needs to work, or wants to go to the gym. He will expect you to respect his needs and not see his independence as rejection.

Like everything else, there is a balance needed here. Direct communication is not rude or insensitive, although sometimes it can be hard to hear (and if we are hypersensitive to criticism or implied criticism, we may hear insensitivity or criticism were it does not exist or was not intended). Showing your insecurity through clinginess, monitoring him (his phone, email, location, time on his own, etc), constantly checking in, sulking or being hurt when he wants time to himself all are relationship killers. Conversely, if he spends a lot more of his free time alone with the TV or his video games, or in the company of his buddies than with you, then there is a message in his behaviour that you should be listening to.

Too often we “reinterpret” what people say to us, including people we love. A message that might be painful when taken directly can lose its sting when we reinterpret it: “He didn’t mean that,” or “He’s just reacting to a bad day,” or “That’s his mother talking, not him,” or whatever we tell ourselves to avoid hearing the real message. It is important not only for him to express his feelings directly, but for us to really hear him when he talks to us and not reinterpret his message to be more palatable to us.

5. He is single. This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s worth mentioning that a man who is worth your time is not in a relationship, going through a divorce, or in a relationship with someone who “just doesn’t seem to understand him like you do.” As a result, he is emotionally available to pursue a relationship with you. He does not have to hide you until the divorce is final, “call you later” under the guise of running an errand, or meet you in a hotel, his art studio, or at your place because he hasn’t yet moved out of the home he shares with his partner.

This is important for a number of reasons in addition to those cited above, especially for us. We are groomed from childhood to be victims, to be passive and wait patiently for whatever crumbs will fall from the table for us. Less-than-scrupulous men whose relationship attentions are otherwise engaged just love us…we are ready-made, pre-programmed playtoys! We so want to be loved, we will put up with anything, believe anything, forgive anything, just to believe we are. We make the ideal “other woman” because we are trained to wait…and wait…and wait some more, and to live on hope. And there are a lot of men out there who will take advantage of that.

We avoid being exploited by such men by absolutely refusing to get involved with a man who is already emotionally involved elsewhere…and that includes men who are separated or going through a divorce, and men who have recently experienced a breakup. Allowing yourself to be the other half in a rebound relationship is a guaranteed one way trip to heartbreak. And if we happen to find the man we are dating has lied to us and he already has a wife/girlfriend/fiancée/live in female that he did not tell us about, we accept no excuses or explanations, we cut our losses and move on.

Why? Because a man who lacks integrity in the dating stage will not suddenly find it when he becomes your official boyfriend/fiancé/husband. He will still be a man who lies to you when it serves him to do so. The old saw about “if he will cheat with you, he will cheat on you” is absolutely correct because it means this is a man who has a mindset that says “it is ok to cheat under certain circumstances” and he gets to choose what those circumstances are, when they have arrived, and whether or not you deserve to know.

6. He does not expect any kind of physical intimacy sooner than you are ready.

While Mr. Boyfriend Material finds you incredibly attractive, he does not expect you to kiss him at the end of the first or second date and he does not expect you to have sex with him until the time is right, once you two have gotten to know each other and determined that you’d like to advance your relationship to the next level. What’s more, if he does angle for physical intimacy early on (say, after the third date, for instance), he won’t mind if you refuse. In fact, he will most likely apologize profusely, respect you immensely, and be impressed by your self-respect, dating dignity, and confidence—all huge turn-ons.

This is something we need to get a grip on…not just him pressuring you for intimacy too soon, but us feeling the need to “clinch the deal” by getting him into bed (surely I am not the only ACoN who has ever felt/done that, am I?). It has to do with respect and boundaries.

If he respects your boundaries, he won’t pressure you. If he respects you, he won’t pressure you. And if you respect him and the possibility that a real, lasting relationship might be possible with this man, you won’t rush things, either. Emotionally healthy people are not interested in the needy and desperate…and rushing things may be interpreted as just that. Rather than planning the wedding after your first date, maybe you can slow things down and just learn to enjoy his company, spend time observing him and how he handles things, and discovering what kind of person he is. If you take your time and you are honest in your observations, you may discover he wants to control you, change you, or remake you into his fantasy of the ideal woman…and that would be a guy to jettison. The time to start fantasizing about your wedding gown is when he pops the question, which shouldn’t be after dating for just a few short months.

Some of you may be thinking “yah, but this is just about picking a boyfriend, not a husband. Why should we have such high standards?” Well, the vast majority of husbands (and ex-husbands) were, at one time, introduced as “my boyfriend.” My husband introduced himself to my coworkers as “her [meaning my] boyfriend.” Achieving boyfriend status is the first step on the path to husband status, so why let unsuitable candidates even step on the path? If he won’t make a good provider, if he doesn’t treat you with respect, if he is immature or plays emotional games…why do you want to associate with him in the first place? Because you are afraid he is the best you can do?

Well, if you think that way, then consider this: every night you spend with a man who belittles you, denigrates you, invalidates and disrespects you, mooches off you, lies to you, is a night you are not available to meet a man who would love, respect and care for you.

When you pick a partner, shouldn’t it be someone who is actually good for you just the way he is?