As a continuation from Part II of my blog on “What Narcissism Looks Like in a Relationship,” boundaries should make a person respect you, because after all, you have some. Narcissists know you are better for having boundaries; it reflects something about your character– something they seem to lack from a place of authenticity.
As the narcissist works to erode your boundaries, and if you budge on one of those a bit, now it is something they can use against you at an opportune time. To them, changing your mind or changing your thought process on a once held boundary opens you up for suspicion. Even if they know deep down you changed something because of them or for them, it won’t matter. Now you are inconsistent and are not to be trusted.
The goal is to move you closer to who they are, double-minded in thought and action. This is so that once you confront them about something they’ve done, they can bring those inconsistent things up about you, and in turn, nothing is ever truly addressed or resolved about their questionable behaviors. Hence, you will never get anywhere with a narcissist when you try to bring up something that they have done. Your questions will be dodged, your concerns and feelings won’t matter, and you will feel depleted after you’ve engaged them on the subject. However you go about trying to engage the narcissist for answers, you will never get full transparency. They will make you feel like you don’t deserve it nor that you’ve earned that rite of passage into their life– and all because of your doing! You will always be held at arm’s length as they must protect their persona at all costs.
As in the case of a narcissist, they work undercover as they are two different people in one– who they present themselves to be versus who they truly are. They juggle these two faces within and of themselves. It is the epitome of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One version seems kind and charitable; the other is a stark contrast of the ugliness most wouldn’t want to associate with in their life. You can’t risk that the good side of them is greater than possibly the bad side as you will never know who you are dealing with on a moment-to-moment basis. Who wants to live with that? In the battle of self in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde’s evil side eventually overpowers Jekyll’s good side, the one he had practiced for the majority of his life. In other words, mix in a little evil and know that you have turned over your soul; you’ve signed up as a member and accomplice with the devil. The devil is the author of confusion, and I have found that nothing is more confusing than being with a narcissist.
There is no way to sugarcoat this: With the way a narcissist operates, they are bound to a sort of enchantment and trickery. They use their deceptive charm as they work their craft, one person to another. In my case, the narcissist was able to navigate through many women at a time with the help of social media and dating apps. These means of technology only highlighted and, eventually, exposed his problem. With the handy options to hide and/or restrict bio information, comments, and followers, he played me and regulated how I showed up in his social media life; anyone from the outside looking in would surmise that he was single, available, and unattached to another. Of course bringing up any of this made me look like the jealous, controlling girlfriend as he called me “petty” for focusing on such things, although his deliberate actions were proof that he knew what he was doing.
If anything, narcissists deal in barriers, not boundaries. They will plugin phrases to program you into thinking more like them on certain things or by way as a warning to condition you so that you don’t do certain things they find disapproving:
-“I didn’t like it when my ex…”
-“Can you take trips on your own? My ex got so upset when I didn’t travel with her.”
-“When visiting family, do you think the other always has to be there, because I don’t.”
-“Most women want a boyfriend but can’t understand that I need a lot of alone time and want to be left alone.”
What a negative approach when revealing one’s self and starting a new relationship with someone! Instead of building fresh with a new person, narcissists reveal only those contentious moments from previous relationships. As far as their past, you will only hear of negative mishaps, never the positive that brought them joy and fulfillment because, truly, I don’t think they experience those components of a relationship. They can’t. They lack true intimacy with another person because they aren’t acting from a place of authenticity about who they are nor in their intentions in the “said” relationship. And as they are who they are, I believe that because of their own shadiness, they believe that everyone else must be just like them! They already enter into an arrangement not trusting you because they know deep down they are not to be trusted! Because of their chosen lifestyle, they lack the ability to connect to other humans and can never experience true oneness with another fellow creature in the world.
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