Why You Should Leave Your Obviously Narcissistic Partner

Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight. When you first notice them they have already been going on for some time.

Everyone knows what good treatment is. It’s when you don’t have to question if you’re being treated well. It’s when you don’t have to question your partner’s conduct.

It’s noting that while the relationship isn’t perfect because no relationship is perfect, that excuse isn’t your first line of defense against those who have questions about the health of your partnership.

If you’re reading this, perhaps you’re in a relationship with someone who you suspect isn’t treating you the way you think you should be treated.

Maybe you think you’re being too sensitive. Maybe your partner has a point in what they are saying but they express it in an aggressive way. Maybe you really are the problem.

Or maybe, you’re codependent. You’re not totally sure of who you are and so you depend on others who seem confident to tell you who you are. You need others in order to feel better about yourself because you don’t take pride in who you inherently are. You are afraid of doing the wrong thing because you cannot bear to lose what you have, even if what you have is abusive.

So maybe you’re just half of the problem. That’s okay. Because as long as you know that you aren’t the only issue here, you can do your part to get healthy and to leave the toxic environment.

The Reason You Haven’t Left Yet

It is human to fear that which we do not understand. As a result, we do one of two things: continue to live in fear or try to understand.

If you’re dealing with a clearly narcissistic person and you haven’t cut that tie yet, it could be that you are too afraid to leave or that you are trying to understand them in order to justify their behavior. Maybe they aren’t as bad as you think; maybe you’re wrong. That way you don’t have to do the uncomfortable act of leaving.

However, the truth lies in the fact that you genuinely want to leave. But the stress of trying to escape seems more painful than staying.

Friends and family will look at your suffering and scratch their heads in utter confusion. Then we hear the famous line, “Why don’t they just leave?”

Emily Dickinson has a poem that illustrates the very reason:

“Crumbling is not an instant’s Act

A fundamental pause

Dilapidation’s processes

Are organized Decays.

’Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul

A Cuticle of Dust

A Borer in the Axis

An Elemental Rust —

Ruin is formal — Devil’s work

Consecutive and slow —

Fail in an instant, no man did

Slipping — is Crash’s law.”

Just like the frog sitting in a pot where the water is slowly increasing in temperature, so too is the codependent being cooked alive. It’s a gradual process.

The narcissistic partner starts out very loving, but eventually will put in a snide remark here or there. You notice that that wasn’t there before but it’s minor compared to the amount of positive reinforcement you’ve been getting.

Then the control sets in, but again, it’s minor. Not to mention that to leave now would make you look unloving and ungrateful. Plus you heard somewhere that you have to fight for love or something like that. But you didn’t stop to question if your partner is fighting for love.

As you continue to let things slide as the mixture of positive and negative reinforcement continues, you become trapped.

Now you live for the days when your partner treats you properly. You savor and cherish those times because they’re hard to come by these days.

Meanwhile, you’re just trying to do your best to appease them in order to treat you well. You don’t think of this as manipulation. You don’t realize that, in a covert way, you’ve become what you hated. Weren’t you the victim?

The thing is, many of us have maladaptive ways of getting our needs met because we don’t think that anyone could just meet the needs. The narcissistic person is no different. They learnt that in order to get what they want, they have to act in a particular way, but they do it unconsciously.

Similarly, you learnt that in order to get love, you have to act in a particular way and you also do it unconsciously.

However, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re caught in a web of mistreatment due to your partner’s unconsciousness.

And the reason you’re still there is that you think something bad is going to happen if you try to leave. Either they will manipulate you back into their arms, force you back into their arms or you are too afraid of losing what you have and replacing it with no relationship at all.

If You Address Your Wound, Leaving will Be Easy

The way I see it, there are (approximately) three ways that this kind of relationship will end:

1. You look at the fact that your low self-worth and uncertain self-concept is half of the reason you’re in this mess. You address these deficits and you change the things you allow to happen in your life.

2a. They do something that will absolutely crush you and force you to sever ties.

2b. They do something that will absolutely crush you, you leave, but because it wasn’t so bad, or because your self-worth is still too low, you will resume the relationship.

3. They leave you.

Obviously, you know which option I am advocating that you take, but let me explain why.

If you take options 2–3, it is very likely that you will continue to choose people who will treat you poorly. Why? Because the root of the problem has yet to be addressed: you do not give yourself the good things that you deserve and you believe you have to do certain things in order to earn love from others.

So the way I see it, if you improve your relationship with yourself, all your other relationships will improve.

You’ll drop the dead weight and pick up the people who actually value you for you. You’ll finally enjoy genuine connection and not some grand scheme from an unconscious con artist.

Or you will find yourself single and totally comfortable being single because you know that people don’t make you happy; they just bring their happiness and coexist with your own happiness.

And if the idea of being comfortable being single made you feel uncomfortable, I beg you to consider why.

—

This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

***