There was a woman who loved a man. She loved him in the most unhealthy way. The more he rejected her, the more she wanted him.
He was cruel to her. He’d be nice one minute and then cold. He’d reel her in, and then disappear on her. He’d juggle other women and then introduce them to each other, so the women could fight over him.
She suffered so much. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t enough for him.
The whole thing was a disaster. She felt like a fool. Yet she stayed.
Her friends told her to leave him
She spent hours on the phone seeking advice from all the friends that cared about her. Hours wasted that no one will get back.
Everyone told her to leave him. Every single friend she had.
Why did she stay with him? What was wrong with her that she couldn’t see things the way they were?
We all have a friend like her
How many of us have seen someone chasing after someone who isn’t good for them?
How many of us have tried to tell our friends they deserve better? No one deserves to get involved with someone who makes them feel that they’re not good enough.
No one wants to hear their friend crying for hours on the phone.
All we want is our friend to be happy. But they don’t listen.
Why don’t they listen to reason?
Reasons why they stay
There’s a certain kind of person that puts up with narcissistic abuse. They’re called codependents. Often they had a parent who was a narcissist. Narcissistic abuse is familiar to them. They’re used to being treated badly.
Many people grow up and choose someone who was a lot like their parent. They’re not doing this on purpose. It’s subconscious.
The codependent person often enables people to keep up their bad behavior. Codependents have low self-esteem. They are over-givers.
And narcissists want people around that make them feel important. They are drawn to codependents.
Codependents will put up with emotional abuse that most people would never tolerate. So when their narcissistic partner is cruel to them, they often feel that they deserve it. They feel so worthless inside.
They keep thinking if they can just treat their partner better, their partner will start treating them better. But that’s not the way it works.
They can’t heal childhood wounds from a narcissistic parent trying to make another narcissist love them. Because they never will.
Codependents get taken advantage of. They get treated badly. They never find the love they want.
A good man who was devoted to a narcissist
I knew a man who was devoted to a woman who treated him so badly. All his friends knew she was stringing him along, but he ignored it.
He kept thinking if he took her to more fancy places, and gave her more expensive gifts, she would see his value.
Yet she never did.
She was hot and cold with him. One minute she loved him, the next she wouldn’t even answer a text. She flirted with other men right in front of him.
He’d buy her gifts and she didn’t even appreciate him. She’d act like it was his job to give her expensive things. And when his birthday showed up, she was nowhere to be found.
This man was a catch and didn’t know it. Other women tried to convince him of it, but he was so spellbound by the narcissist he was involved with, he could never see it.
He was a good man wasting the prime years of his life waiting for love he’d never get.
How to get someone to leave a narcissist
You can tell your friend for hours how awful a person is, and that they should leave them. They should end it and find someone better.
But here’s the truth. They will never listen to you until they’re ready.
Some will take months, and some will take years to let a toxic relationship go.
Most will need therapy to open their eyes.
The best thing a friend can do is to listen.
Don’t tell your friend to leave, unless they’re being physically abused. In that case, then definitely get them help.
Let your friend figure out for themselves that this person isn’t healthy for them.
Tell them they can always come to you for help. They don’t have to stay in a bad situation.
Encourage them to get professional counseling or therapy. Once the codependent builds up their self-esteem and learns to set boundaries with people, they may come to realize that they deserve better in life.
This is what her friend said that helped a codependent open her eyes:
A woman was in an on-and-off relationship with a man who treated her terribly. She was living in a fantasy world where she thought this guy was so wonderful.
Her friend knew this man would never commit to the codependent by his past behavior. She pointed that out but didn’t tell her friend to leave him.
She said that this man would never stop hanging with the friends the codependent didn’t like.
She asked, “Would you be willing to have those friends over at your home all the time? Because he’s proved he won’t change. Don’t think he will for you.”
“Do you think he’ll treat you better in the future? You tell me he’s been treating you worse over time.”
“You say you want someone who’ll take you out to dinner, buy you flowers and give you compliments. Yet you stay with a person who never does those things. What’s so great about him?”
Yet her friend never told the codependent to leave the man she loved. She listened, asked questions, and kept pointing out the obvious.
It took a long time but the codependent woman finally realized the truth, went no contact, and broke the spell the narcissist had on her.
In conclusion
It’s terrible watching someone you love being disrespected by a narcissistic person.
Realize there are deep reasons they keep putting up with the disrespect. Maybe they’re trying to heal some childhood wounds by relieving the pain they once felt from their parents.
Therapy often works to heal codependent people. Cognitive therapy and group therapy can help.
The codependent person needs to stop over-giving to a person who doesn’t care about them. They need to set boundaries with people and practice some self-care and most important — self-love.
Going no contact can help the codependents heal themselves.
In the meantime, it is frustrating to watch your friend getting hurt all the time. Be a loving, nonjudgemental friend to them. Listen, and encourage them to get counseling to help them through a bad time in their lives.
Your friend will thank you for it.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
—
Photo credit: ErnAn Solozábal on Unsplash