Can Narcissists Love You
This question plagued me for years. I wondered if my narcissistic partner loved me or was even capable of love period. Knowing this was important to me. Have a listen to my video about what I found out about this question. You can also read the script below if you would like.
Sometimes it felt like I was experiencing the purest and most true form of love that ever existed across time and space when I was with my narcissistic partner.
Other times, well… he rained hell upon me, traumatized me, felt like he left me for dead, and I knew that no one who loved me could possibly ever have been able to inflict that kind of pain. But then I found out he was a malignant narcissist.
If I could understand how both of those things could have existed in the same person, maybe I could understand how everything else could have happened.
There’s a clue inside that question of whether a narcissist can love that starts to unlock the doors to almost every other question we have about the relationship: narcissists and pain, narcissists and closure, narcissists and betrayal, narcissists and rejection, narcissists and empathy, narcissists and moving on, narcissists and them meaning behind how humans are connected to another human.
We could finally make sense of our relationship.
Understanding Love in the Alternate Universe of the Narcissist
How could he love me and yet treat me as if he wanted to destroy me?
How is it that I could sometimes feel as if his love for me was soul-shatteringly powerful, like fire, but then he would deny and reject every genuine attempt at vulnerability and communication?
Why did he treat me as if all he wanted was to be in the relationship and it was all that mattered and the next he was not around and he acted as if he could care less about me or the relationship?
What is the purpose of going through such elaborate motions of trying to prove he was in love with me only to have secrets that jeopardize that bond and cancel out all that energy spent?
Why did he act as though he was my soulmate but it felt like he was not really connected?
It eventually became obvious that there was something very wrong and the way he treated me and love was not normal. Normal people do not turn their love on and off like a light switch. They don’t exploit the bonds with their partners for their own gain only.
Defining Love
Defining what love is will allow us to see if narcissists can actually love us or not.
How love feels stresses the two people as individuals, separate and distinct from one another, and is happening internally for each. What they do because of love emphasizes the connection between both of them and should confirm something external that will be shared between them even when the feeling subsides and returns.
How Narcissists Experience Love
My idea about what love looks like would be mutual compassion and support, pleasure and sensitivity, kindness and honesty, an open exchange of feelings and thoughts, comfort and help between each other- these all are healthy indicators of a high-quality relationship.
These are all things that demonstrate that a bond has been established. In the idealization phase of a relationship with a narcissist, there are neurotransmitters like dopamine, oxytocin, and others that are released in the brain during this time of infatuation. We who the narcissist has targeted will have formed an attachment and are invested in the relationship.
Normally, this is when the deeper stage of the relationship would take place, however, the narcissist never attaches to the relationship. As he returns to baseline, he may begin to resent the partner and see them as responsible for their boredom. Narcissists get bored easily.
So a narcissist has a very superficial version of what love is and this will not change. They will always act like this.
What Does It Look Like When the Narcissist Loves?
Once it became clear to me how a narcissist views the world and their capacity for love, however, I understood that these two things are not incompatible in the narcissist’s universe.
- A narcissist can feel love for you.
- A narcissist is capable of intentionally and knowingly causing you pain.
In a narcissistic relationship, the two can be true only by seeing the whole picture of what a narcissist means.
Once I understood that my narcissistic partner’s idea of what love is and it did not match my own framework of what love and a relationship are, I could then come to terms with his inability to love me or anyone in a way I could understand.
Summary
Narcissists can love you, but it’s not what we think of as love. The way they behave in relationships is not the way healthy relationships work.
Why was this important to me? To know if my malignant narcissistic partner loved me? It helped me to end some of the confusion I had about why he seemed to love me, yet his actions showed otherwise. I could stop wondering if his love was “real.” His definition allowed him to do things that I would never do.
I hope that this will educate you and be a helpful step on your healing journey knowing this.
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Love
Debbi