domestic abuse, domestic violence, emotional abuse, mental abuse, mental health, mental health blog, mental illness, narcissism, narcissist, narcissistic abuse

Do Not Set Yourself on Fire to Keep Your Partner Warm and Comfortable

save yourself memeYou do not have to tolerate unfair treatment and unreasonable demands from your partner. If you are not being listened to and your needs are not being heard then you will begin to lose your feeling of worthiness.

Your thoughts and feelings matter. You should have a partner that listens and cares about your needs. Your needs are as important in a relationship as the other person’s are.

The longer you stay in a relationship where someone else’s needs are always the priority the more you will become invisible. The more invisible you feel , the lower your self esteem will get. The lower your self esteem gets, the more you will become dependent on the toxic partner.

The more dependent you feel on them, the harder it will be to leave them. The more they realize that they have been successful in their efforts to make you become dependent, the more manipulative and abusive they will be to you.

no contact ribbon

If you have gotten out of the abusive relationship then keep the No Contact rule. The only reason for having to have contact is by court orders due to mutual children with the abuser.

If you must have minimal contact due to court order, keep the contact through email where you can keep documentation of everything they say and also what you say. That way they cannot make up lies about you.

Taking a phone call from a past narcissistic abuser will open you up to further abuse. They will try to hoover you back in with promises and lies. You are only being used and manipulated.

My ex contacted me 4 months after discarding me in a cruel way. He sent two dozen red roses. He put a note in the flowers about my being a wonderful person and that he misses me.

He wanted me to do something for him. It was the only reason he would contact me

Part of me wanted to believe that he missed me. I cried when I was arranging the beautiful roses in the vase. I wished he did really love me. I remembered his false promises of us working together and buying a house together. He even showed me pictures of properties he was considering in various states. Hours of looking at beautiful houses only to keep me doing work for him. I cried as I wished the flowers were from someone who meant them in an honest way.

He emailed me about how I was doing and said he hoped that I was okay. He said he missed me.

I emailed him back …breaking the No Contact rule…which was bad. I did tell him that I would not talk to him on the phone though.

I did however implement the Grey Rock Technique with him. If you do not know what this is, I will give a brief description.

When you are faced with interaction from a past abuser, who seems interested in seeing you again, you do not fight back. You act neutral and non emotional. You can say something vague to them, like you hope their life is good and that you are busy right now with your own. Act disinterested and unemotional, rather than angry at them or hurt by them.

Even negative “supply”  like your feeling angry at them, counts as “narcissistic supply”  to them and they feed off of that. They will like to see that they were able to make such an impact on you as to hurt you.

So, I did not say anything emotional in the email, but I told him that I had been very ill , which I had , and I was still very ill. I let him know that I was too sick to do things.

If he cared about me then he would have responded to that email about my being in the hospital and being sick. But he never responded. He could care less if I died in the hospital due to my immune system crashing over the stress of the abuse. It might even make him feel victorious. But I did  not suggest that I had been sick since he left me.

I merely let him know that I was not well enough to any work for him. I assumed that he needed some work done for his company. That is what he always used me for in the past. Marketing, web design, making phone calls, etc

But when I told him I was ill, he never contacted me again. I was Broken Narcissistic Supply. I was no good to him because I could not work.

You see the lack of empathy that any normal person would have here? Any ex that contacted you and they found out you had been ill, would at least respond with  “I am sorry to hear that you have been sick”

If they approached you in the first place, sent you flowers, and told you great you are, why would they not respond to you telling them you had been in the hospital?

Because they do not care. They were only lying to get something out of you. If you appear to be disinterested in them, then you are not good narcissistic supply. If you appear to be sick then you are also not good narcissistic supply.

They reduced you to an object, a property they are entitled to, a tool to be used. There is no emotion like kindness or compassion.

All interacting with will do is get you ending up being used again, or being hurt again when you see how there is absolutely no compassion for you at all. You will only be retraumatized by their lack of humanity. You will get hit in the face with all the lies they told you in the past and the false promises of a future with them.

Do what I say, not what I do…..

I made a mistake to respond to him. It only hurt me. But at least I did not let him manipulate me into working for him. If I had taken a phone call from him, he would have had a better chance to get my sympathy by crying and telling me how the business is crashing and I am the only one who can save it.

These were only games before. I have heard the You are the Only one who can save me before. Then I was replaced by others who he said were better than me at this and that. He suddenly criticized and demeaned my work that was previously amazing.

Lest we forget….narcissists  are all about the games,,,they will beat you if you play.

Why?

Because it is their  game and they have played it a lot longer than you have. They know they rules and they make up new rules as they go along.

They will always win because they have no feelings like the ones you have of compassion, guilt, remorse. They can do things and not carry remorse for them. How can you compete with that.

Just do not play. Trust me.

10 thoughts on “Do Not Set Yourself on Fire to Keep Your Partner Warm and Comfortable”

    1. I am sorry this was triggering to your memories. It is really bad how these guys treat people. They have no empathy or compassion. They feel no remorse for what damage they do. They just keep on leaving a trail of destruction …

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    1. My last boyfriend …I did not know he was a narcissist until after he left and then i began putting things together and learning about narcissism. We met in April of 2014. We were together right away because that is typical that narcissists will want an exclusive , latched on relationship right away. So, we were together from April until he just stopped taking my calls in March. It was on my birthday that he hung up on me. He said “I do not feel safe and I am going to hang up”
      I had been talking to him about his friendships and that his friends loved him and cared about him. He kept saying people were not his friends because they were not doing enough work for him. He expected everyone to work for his business but he got very angry about paying anyone. He wanted his guy friend to do about 30 hours of electrical work for him. HIs friend asked for 300 dollars and that includes his designing, going to the store to get supplies , knocking down the walls and running the lines which is a dangerous and hard job.
      I did not think 300 sounded that unreasonable and that is what we were talking about when he hung up.
      He did not say we were breaking up. He did not say he way mad. he just said that I seemed to being “triggered” by the conversation and that was causing me not to be a good listener ..which means to agree with him that his friend should do all the work for free…
      Then he said “I do not feel that safe right now. I am going to get off the phone for now”
      Then he never called or answered any of my calls or messages.
      There was a very short call the night after that, just so that he could hear that I was crying that he had not called me all day. He said “You do not sound good. You sound really hurt and sad” and then he hung up. It was a 3 minute call so that he could be sure that he had hurt me enough.
      Annie

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  1. He even TOLD me he is so good at manipulating me that he will always win. So I left.When I had a heart attack and he didn’t call for two weeks, I was sure that our 27 year marriage had been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

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    1. That is really sad that he did not bother to call you when you had a heart attack. I think that when we are sick they consider us broken and no use for narcissistic supply so they go elsewhere. They always have some other person or people in the wings just in case.
      I am sorry you had to go through that.
      Annie ❤

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