If your spouse is a narcissist or has narcissistic tendencies, and you expect them to show remorse for the affair, you are likely to find yourself disappointed. As a group, they do not deal well with loses, including the losses associated with an affair.
Losses remind themselves of sadness and failure. The end of an affair always involves dealing with loss. With the narcissist, they do not like the finality of ending things, since it forces them to face loss.
These are some of the last things that a narcissist is willing to face. They view themselves as ‘special’ or an exception to the rules. Having to work through feelings like ‘common’ folks is unacceptable to them. They believe that they’re beyond such things.
Expecting the narcissist to feel sad or bad about what they did is setting yourself up for disappointment. At the most, they may admit that they were misunderstood, or made impulsive choices or that they didn’t think about the consequences.
That’s about as close as you will initially get in terms of remorse. Pushing the issue is likely to turn into an aggressive episode. If they’re not aggressive directly toward you, they will likely harbor aggressive thoughts and isolate themselves.
In such cases, you will likely be given ‘the look’ of disdain that is supposed to serve as a warning from them to you.
You may have read that the cheater needs to express remorse for what they did. When you are dealing with a non-narcissist, this makes sense. When you are dealing with a narcissist, the ground rules for dealing with affairs change. Expecting them to behave or think like other people is unrealistic, and they will take it as an insult.
Best Regards,
Jeff
