The reality is that a narcissist cannot love. They are simply incapable of this feeling. They do, however, use the notion of love as a bargaining tool to get what they want from their partner. Here by “partner” I mean a participant of any close relationship, be it a parent and child, a husband and wife, siblings, friends.
What is love? As I see it, love is a feeling of deep affection towards another. When we love someone, we are happy simply because they exist. That’s it. They don’t need to do anything else. Loving someone means accepting them as they are. They simply are who they are and that’s what we love about them. It is their essence we love, their nature, their being. Love is about seeing the other and being with them as they are and relishing in that.
Love is light and pure. It’s very peaceful. It’s easy. Most importantly, it is very safe. Love flows naturally and effortlessly. You don’t need to do anything. You just have the feelings of love, they simply arise in you towards the person. Love just happens.
A narcissist does not love. Their personality is built on strategies for physical and psychological survival. Love is simply not on their agenda. To love means to be yourself and let the other be themselves too. A narcissist cannot be themselves. With a fragile sense of self, being themselves is horrifying to the narcissist. Instead it is all about the mask that they call “me” and present to the world whilst making everything possible to survive and find comfort.
The narcissist uses the following logic. This, by the way, is often unconscious so the narcissist is not aware of it. Nevertheless, consciously or not, they do persist with using this strategy for relating to others. It is all about me: my needs, my desires, my comfort. I am the centre of this universe. Therefore everything and everyone should be serving and pleasing me. If you please me, I’ll treat you well. I’ll treat you well, only if you please me. If you don’t please me, I’ll either leave you or attack you. Either way you’ll know, I’m not pleased with you.
Another human being is treated as a resource for a narcissist to meet his needs. So then the logic is binary: this person meets my needs and I am therefore pleased or they don’t meet my needs and I’m therefore displeased with them. There is no love there at all. There is not even a glimpse of treating the other human being with dignity and respect. Because it is all about the narcissist, they look after themselves only. They simply don’t see the other as a human being with their own reality, feelings and thoughts.
Their treatment of you is conditional. Their objective is to control your behaviour to suit their needs and so they train you to behave a certain way around them through rewards and punishment. You go into the relationship expecting love. Instead you end up working for it. A narcissist is essentially a tyrant. It’s either his way or the highway.
And you think it’s something you’ve done so you try harder next time to please your narcissistic partner. This creates a precedent and tells them you are willing to participate in their scheme, even though you don’t know it is a scheme.
The love you want never comes and you feel you have to work harder and harder and the narcissist’s treatment of you becomes harsher and harsher when you don’t please them. They start treating you with contempt, resentment and disgust when you don’t comply. And you can’t possibly comply all the time anyway and you certainly should not. To comply with someone’s will means going against yours. This is not the basis of a healthy relationship. The healthy norm is to be equal partners who cooperate, discuss things and nurture their relationship together.
If you find yourself in a position where you have to earn someone’s love, please consider whether it might be healthier to walk away from that situation or person. Healthy relationships imply treating each other with dignity, respect and kindness. We should not expect or tolerate any less.