Loving an abusive Narcissist is an experience that turns on its head everything you ever thought you knew about people and human values.  However, it also serves to teach the heart-led empath a number of crucial life lessons  – albeit lessons that the empath might have preferred not to see.  In this article we shall look at the 7 powerful life lessons that will help you navigate the rest of your life safely and happily.

By way of preface, let me say that one of the expressions that most makes me want to turn around and slap someone in the mouth (and I don’t actually regard myself as a violent person) is, “Everything happens for a reason.”  This is most usually uttered by the kind of smart alec who gets their kicks out of being clever about your life.  

Two important considerations

Of course anyone can find any number of possible reasons/explanations for everything that happens.  However I see things very differently.  For me, there are two important considerations here,

• You couldn’t know what you didn’t know.  This applies equally to things both good and bad.  If you had known how a thing would turn out, you would surely have made the appropriate decision as to whether or not to do it.
• Life, as I see it, is a syllabus.  We are here to learn the lessons.  Each time we do, we get promoted to the next grade of peace of mind and happiness

With these considerations in mind, let’s turn our attention to the 7 powerful life lessons that you can only learn from the experience of loving an abusive Narcissist.

#1 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – People want different things.  

Now, I would be stunned if this concept were news to you.  It reigns among the great platitudes of the Universe. Yet my work with thousands of women worldwide teaches me that an awful lot of  people don’t really grasp it.  

You and an abusive Narcissist want different things from a relationship.  You want love, togetherness, trust, loyalty and intimacy.  An abusive Narcissist sees you as fuel to throw into the furnace of their self-aggrandizement.  They have no problem in reducing you to dust and ashes, provided you serve to warm their massive ego somewhat.  

As a person, you simply don’t matter to them.  That is a hard truth to take on board. That is precisely what makes it an important, transformational truth.

The powerful learning for all future relationships is this, you need to be very clear what people want you in their lives for.  If their agenda – for you – does not fit with your aspirations, you can expect a very bad experience.  Remember the story of Lot’s wife?  You need to run.  Without so much as a backward glance. 

#2 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – Potential is not worth a hill of beans.  

If you have a child of school age who is underperforming in terms of their potential then, of course, you will care about nursing that academic potential into reality.  An abusive Narcissist, on the other hand, is a chronological adult.  They have not cracked the syllabus of being a decent  partner – and quite probably human being also – by now because they are not interested.  You, as a decent human being, need to honor their decision.  And throw them back into the Narcissistic Losers pond where they belong.  Potential schmotential, leave that hill of beans right where it is. 

#3 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – Trust the evidence.

Anyone can make a genuine mistake once, maybe twice or more.  However, someone who makes the same kind of “mistake” over and over again – when it is repeatedly pointed out to them – is not making mistakes.  Rather, they are following a deliberate game-plan.  If that “mistake-maker” make an art-form out of hurting and humiliating you, that shows conscious application not an emotional blind-spot. Instead of listening to their (sh*t)-weasel words, believe the evidence of your eyes and wounds. 

#4 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – They are allergic to your dreams.

The Narcissist may have promised you your dreams because that is how unscrupulous salespeople work – especially if they are selling a poor quality product.  Once they have closed the deal, the truth starts to come out.  They are, actually, allergic to the Happily Ever After.  

The  Narcissist is, also, allergic to the Happy Here and Now.  That is the only possible explanation for why they consistently destroy all manner of good times, especially moments of intimacy, family occasions and holidays.   Good times are red rags to the abusive Narcissistic bull.

#5  Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist -There are limits to empathy and compassion.

Maybe your partner faced a difficult childhood or other challenging circumstance in his life.  Instead of looking at that as a justification and excuse for bad behavior, you need to change your frame of reference.  

Sure, you might like another person to see you and know you with all your wounds and frailties. But that is a far cry from thinking, “I want someone to tolerate me acting like a total jerk as often as I please because I had a tough upbringing”.  

You have taken whatever difficulties you have had to face as a challenge to step up to the plate of being a decent person.  You did that despite the difficulties.   When you judge an abusive partner by that standard – which is what you need to do – that partner fails miserably.  The appropriate punishment is exile from your life.  

#6 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – You cannot afford to put yourself last.

As the abusive Narcissist so ably proves, there are some really toxic, parasitic people out there. Your selflessness offers them an ideal habitat. When you factor your own needs into the equation, when it becomes clear that what you want is at least as every bit as important to you as making a Narcissist comfortable, you cease to be the abusive Narcissist’s natural habitat.  The abusive Narcissist will not even settle on you in the first place.  

#7 Powerful Life Lessons from Loving an Abusive Narcissist – You have to listen to your intuition.

Recently, I spoke with a client who who told me about someone she had met who ticked all the good match boxes.  Except one.  The Intuition Test. Her intuition was trotting along behind her as her heart started to turn somersaults. Her intuition kept hissing, “Yuk! Yuk! Mega-yuk.” 

“But, Annie, it makes no sense,” she said, looking understandably disappointed.

Of course it didn’t.  

Your intuition is always light years ahead of your conscious mind. That is why your intuition throws up these unintelligible, seemingly misguided revelations.  Intuition sees exactly how things will play out.  It is just not suited to fill you in on the entire future course of the relationship. That leaves you with an interesting trust issue: do you want to trust your Inbuilt Early Warning System (aka intuition) or this person who you don’t even know?

The questions you have to ask yourself are,

1. Could I survive going through the whole ghastly scenario of emotional abuse all over again?
2. How can I possibly know that there is not something better than this Intuition-Antagoniser out there for me? 

Why you might as well learn the lessons

No decent person ever does anything bad enough to justify the suffering they go through as a result of loving an abusive Narcissist.  However, since that appears to be a significant part of your Life Syllabus, you might as well learn the lessons.  Otherwise, you will likely have to keep repeating the module.  

Once you do learn the necessary lessons from loving an abusive Narcissist, not only does your life get a whole lot happier, but you become much stronger and more able to manage whatever – and whoever – Life may throw at you.  Actually, you already are much stronger, more capable  and deserving of better than you likely believe.  If you are finding it too hard to learn these lessons on your own, get in touch.