Women and Narcissism

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Narcissistic Personality Symptoms

grandiosity / exaggeration
fantastic thinking / romantic
believes special / unique
requires admiration
entitled / demanding
exploitive / manipulative
lacks empathy
envious / jealous
arrogant / haughty

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From a woman's blog about a relationship with a NPD:

"Why did she stay with that creep-a-zoid so long? Didn't she have a clue?"  The honest answer is yes and no. Yes I had a clue--from the first phone call. And no, I didn't heed the clue. The better question is, "Why didn't I heed the clue?"

 That requires a more complex answer. Some people call it karma, some people call it co-dependency, some people call it low self-worth. What ever you want to call it, this is the reason. I seemed to be irrationally drawn to him, and irrationally willing to stay under terroristic circumstances. Why would I do such a thing?

If we explore the karma angle, you might say that in past incarnations Lestat and I knew each other, and through our past relationships, we created karmic debts that needed to be balanced. In other words, I may have been the "bastard" to him in a previous life and so now, he was playing that role for me to balance the books. That is a rather simplistic explanation of how karma might be at work here, but you get the idea. This means that if karma was the driving force behind our relationship, I would not be able to leave him until the "debt" was fully paid - (or until I really got the lesson behind the experience).

If we explore the co-dependence angle, you could say that because I grew up with an alcoholic father (although he was never physically or emotionally abusive), I developed relationship patterns of co-dependence early on in life. Why? This is what happens in alcoholic families - the non-addict family members begin to "emotionally cater" to the addict because of their unpredictability, emotional instability and erratic behavior. In this case, one could say that Lestat was the "addict" and I was "emotionally catering" to him out of habit and an inability to see the sickness of my ways.

If we explore the low self-worth angle, you could say that the reason I stayed with him in the face of glaring evidence that he was a raging pathological liar and sociopath, was because I didn't think highly enough of myself to leave him. Why would this be? The question of self-worth has perplexed many hard working and successful people who struggle in love-relationships. Why can I succeed in the other parts of my life, but not in love? often becomes the question. One might say that I learned, probably early on, that I felt unlovable and did not deserve to be loved. This would also be the result of faulty upbringing and lack of attunement on the part of my parents.

No matter which angle you like, I chose to believe that the relationship had a purpose that had yet to be revealed to me and that I had to stay in order to learn something much more valuable about myself, about love, about relationships, about life. I know that is no excuse to stay in an abusive relationship, but it does help to make sense of it after the fact. I know I should have left him at the first sign of trouble, yet I was compelled by inner forces to stay and ride the roller-coaster again and again until I REALLY got the message.  