At some point in your life, you may have encountered a narcissistic lover.
They are the people who vowed to the stars above how much they love you.
Believing all of these to be true, you lay everything you have on the table without second-thoughts, only to find yourself torn and disoriented after the relationship ends.
Yup, we all had them.
While picking up the broken pieces you wonder how come you didn’t see it coming; how could you have been so naive; and countless other self destructing questions.
But the past has to be let go.
Avoiding the same thing to happen again is the best way you can do while moving on with your life. So here is how you can always know when a narcissist is plotting to abuse you:
Narcissistic Signs You Need to Watch Out For:
People who have Narcissistic Personality Disorder are more predictable than they think. They tend to show their Narcissistic side through a couple of signs, and all you have to do is pay attention to whether or not they show them.
Once you find your new lover is a Narcissist, it’s then up to you to decide whether you continue with the relationship.
You should keep in mind that they are not bad people or evil, they have a psychological disorder and deserve love as any other human being.
Here are the 2 most important signals that you need to watch out for:
1. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are low on emotional empathy.
Emotional empathy is the ability to feel what the other person feels.
If you have this ability, you are less likely to hurt others since you know the feeling of getting hurt.
But if you don’t have it, you are less motivated to consider how your words or actions affect your partner.
Narcissists have the intellectual empathy but lack the emotional empathy. They compensate with their intellectual empathy for their lack of emotional.
Intellectual empathy is the ability to be aware of how your actions affect others. It urges you to stop and think of how your actions harm your partner’s feelings.
Narcissists understand that they have caused you pain, but have no motivation of caring for your feelings because of their lack of emotional empathy.
If your partner shows signs for a lack of empathy even though they understand they have caused you pain, it is a sure sign of a narcissistic behavior.
2. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder lack “whole objective relations” and “object constancy”
“Whole object relations” is realistically seeing oneself and others as having both the bad and good qualities, some that you like, and others that you don’t.
But this does not prevent you from accepting others for what they are. You still value others for their good qualities.
“Object constancy” is maintaining the positive emotional connection you have with someone you care even if you feel angry, frustrated, disappointed, or hurt by the person.
This object constancy makes you refrain from hurting others during your fight. Without it, people tend to cause emotional or physical harm to their partners.
People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder abuse their partners differently.
Some of them may put you on a pedestal. But once they realized you are not the perfect person they imagined you to be, they devalue you by verbal abuse.
Others might try to control your every move from the people you see to how you spend your money to how often you speak with your family.
The more violent Narcissists might even try to physically abuse you.
If you catch your partner losing themselves and verbally and emotionally hurting you while they are mad, or trying to have complete control over you, it is a sure sign they are a narcissist.
Here are The 3 Stages of How Narcissistic Partners Abuse You:
While some Narcissists are players, they are not looking for a serious relationship, others want to settle down in marriage.
Only that their lack of whole object relations push them to be unrealistic about their expectations in a partner.
They may view you as either perfect or flawed.
You are perfect when you please their every want. You are flawed when you do 1 thing that they do not like.
This makes it difficult for them to find the perfect relationship and hence, result in their abusive pattern over and over again.
You may spot the typical stages of Narcissistic abuse below:
Stage 1. They chase you as if you are a Unicorn in their eyes.
Narcissists get attracted to you as if you are a Unicorn, the rarest of all imaginary creatures.
They are madly in love with you from head to toe. They are extremists and find you the perfect person who never disappoints them.
They shower you with gifts, flowers, flattery and all, just to get your attention.
They will do everything just so you give them a chance in proving their love for you.
Yet, they do this “Chase Stage” because they have not really known how it is to have an actual relationship.
They don’t see you as a human being but as a perfection that will save them or make them feel better about themselves.
The abuse of stage 1:
– They lose interest. The moment you stop running, they suddenly lose interest in you.
You feel disappointed and bewildered why the person who promises to make you a queen in his castle has suddenly become a ghost and would not even answer your texts.
– They are not realistic. One traditional rule of dating is getting to know the person you want to have a relationship with first. But Narcissists do not see it this way.
It’s really hard to become aware of this as they give you such beautiful compliments that go to so extreme levels.
But their unrealistic view of you is something that might harm you when they realize you are a human.
– They blame their former partners of not being who they thought they were. How they describe their former lovers is how they describe you.
If their former lovers disappointed them, you are likely to disappoint them too.
When they tell you that their former lovers were not the person they thought them to be, then watch out. It’s a sure sign that you will also be considered that way.
Stage 2. You are subject to a construction project.
Once you give the Narcissist lover a chance to be in a relationship with them, they start to relax and enjoy your company.
At this point, they slowly come to know you, seeing your flaws as flaws. They slowly realize you are not perfect after all.
Then their Narcissistic nature starts to become apparent. The Narcissistic lover starts their construction project on you.
Watch out when they suggest how you must change “for your own good.” They may want to change your hairstyle, the way you dress, your workout routine, and many others.
The abuse of stage 2:
– They act as if they accept your flaws. Despite their desire that you make slight changes to please themselves, they still accept your decision to stay as you are.
They still find peace in knowing that you can’t give them everything they want, though in some instances they still bring the topic with you.
– They feel insulted for not listening. The Narcissistic lover feels insulted and criticized when you resist their suggestions.
They take your decisions to be against them and start to get nasty, picking fights over little things and devaluing you.
It’s then when you start to wonder what happened to the sweet person you fell in love with.
Stage 3. You are stripped of your value.
At this stage, you are starting to realize that you are losing your value in the eyes of your lover.
The abuse of stage 3:
– You are vehemently criticized. All you hear are criticisms as if you cannot do anything right. The compliments are gone.
The criticisms are no longer suggestions to consider. They have become insults.
You hear words like, “You look like a clown in that dress.” Or, “When did you become such an old man wearing that scent?”
– They insult you in public. Your Narcissistic lover insults you in front of friends. They may even criticize you to them even when you are present.
– In extreme cases you are physically abused. Aside from the intense verbal abuse, your lover starts to hit you and treats you cruelly. You find yourself screaming, yelling, or crying hysterically.
Conclusion
You cannot control your heart.
If one day you find yourself falling for a Narcissist, you have to be prepared as to the amount of abuse you wish to receive.
But if you love yourself enough to leave such relationships, you might as well prevent it before you fall in love with them.
Source: Psychology Today by Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP;
