A reader recently wanted to know “How a narcissist feels about his wife during the affair?” On reading it, my heart went out to the person asking it.
Living with a narcissist isn’t easy. Being in love with one is even more challenging.
You hope they think about you even half as much as you think about them. You assume that the narcissist values you and values their relationship with you in the same way you do towards them.
The shocker is that they don’t view relationships like you do. For whatever reason, they’re unable to engage in relationships like you do.
The narcissists often know what to say in order to keep the relationship going, albeit in a less than healthy manner. When they stray into affairs, they also view them differently as well.
They value their needs ahead of other’s feelings. When they have an affair, it’s not so much about rejecting you as it is about meeting their needs.
Their needs are so intense, they scream for satisfaction so loudly it drowns out any other voices or awareness in their minds. For them, relationships are more about validating themselves and their needs. For whatever reason, they see something of themselves in the person they’re with.
Typically, they are so caught up in their neediness that they aren’t even emotionally available to the lover either. Those inabilities to engage with you also applies to their relationships with others.
For that moment, they aren’t able to feel about you or anyone else when their own needs are screaming out loud. It’s when those needs are calmed down that they are finally able to think about you.
The world of the narcissist has a different center point of their emotional galaxy than you do. Their emotional struggle with feeling incomplete makes having a relationship with them difficult, it also means that the risk of affairs is higher than for other groups.
There are times you feel more like a ‘hostage’ in your marriage rather than as a spouse.
Living with such a situation may leave you feeling used and abandoned. Like an old toy put away on a shelf, you’ll be left feeling unwanted and unloved. Recovering from the affair needs to include you moving past this.
You need healing from those feelings as well. In the video on “Overcoming Affair Trauma“, I deal with the issues that often come with that abandonment and betrayal.
You still love them, yet they’re often unable to love you back similarly. It’s frequently one-sided relationship.
The imbalance leaves you feeling worn out and emptied.
You can move from dysfunctional to healthy functioning. The narcissist doesn’t have to dictate your mental and emotional state with their self-centered whims and needs.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
