Enabling Is The Reason Narcissistic Relationships Can Last For A Lifetime
This is a collective problem and we need to address it.
When we have a narcissistic person in our life and we talk about their behavior with other people, we usually end up feeling even more confused and invalidated.
We’re told “that’s just how he is” or “she doesn’t mean it, she loves you” and, just like that, our feelings are minimized once again.
This gets even more traumatizing when you’re a child growing up with a narcissistic parent, and your other parent doesn’t seem to acknowledge the impact the narcissistic parent has on your mental health and well-being.
As a consequence, you carry this pattern into adulthood: you make up excuses for toxic behavior, you apologize for things you should never apologize for and you constantly second-guess yourself because you don’t trust your own instincts.
More importantly, you believe this is how normal relationships work. You believe it’s normal to feel unseen and unheard.
Guess what? No, that’s not normal — and narcissistic behavior needs to be called by its name.
Most Relationship Rules Don’t Apply To Narcissistic Relationships
You have probably been in a situation where you’re the only one who sees the narcissistic person for who they really are.
You’ve read about narcissism, you’re even doing psychotherapy. Then, you express your concerns to your friends, you tell your family how unhealthy some dynamics are and you’re overall honest about your feelings (finally!).
Surprisingly, nobody validates your perspective. Sometimes, you’re even told you’re being too cold, insensitive, or disloyal.
“She’s under a lot of pressure”.
“You know, his childhood was not easy”.
“They can’t help it”.
The worst part is, since you’re so used to having your reality denied, distorted, or manipulated, you may even end up believing them.
One of the reasons why this happens is that most people have no awareness of narcissistic relationships. They believe in second chances, they believe in giving the benefit of the doubt, and most importantly, they believe everyone can change, adapt and behave better.
As we know, these ideas don’t apply to narcissistic relationships. With narcissists, what you see is what you get. They’re not going to change — especially if everyone keeps enabling their behavior.
Excuses and multiple chances will only reinforce their feeling of entitlement and make them feel like they have indeed the right to manipulate you and do whatever they want.
This is why it’s not helpful to hear “normal” advice when it comes to narcissistic relationships. Unfortunately, most people will unintentionally re-traumatize you and re-invalidate your human, emotional experience.
Narcissistic Families Stay In Place Because of Enabling
In narcissistic families, there is no freedom to speak up and be honest about your true feelings. Speaking out against the family is considered a tremendous sin that will certainly have consequences.
When you do speak out, you’re scapegoated and gaslighted, as if there’s something fundamentally wrong with you for waking up and stop pretending everything’s normal.
I still remember when my mother told me I should “be more tolerant” of my father’s behavior and that she didn’t understand why I was so “intransigent” now. In her mind, I was the one being rigid and immature.
This is how it works in narcissistic families: the narcissist’s behavior is to be tolerated, accepted, and enabled, while you are not allowed to show any justified anger, disappointment, confusion, or basically any negative emotion that was caused by their behavior in the first place.
This cycle of trauma bonding and enabling will be passed down through generations until someone is willing to break it.
I want to encourage you to be that person. To be the person who has the courage to process the trauma instead of projecting it.
Difficult childhoods are no excuse. As a child of a narcissistic parent, you too have had a difficult childhood and yet you’re kind, empathetic, and considerate. You don’t control or manipulate others, nor do you feel entitled to tell someone what to do or who to be.
Besides, it’s always possible to have empathy and still set boundaries. You can love someone and still recognize the detrimental effect they have on your mental health and well-being.
Enabling is staying silent and normalizing unhealthy patterns.
The worst kind of enabling doesn’t always come from our families — societal enabling is also an issue.
We have this weird habit of overlooking toxic behavior and viewing entitlement as confidence, and grandiosity as assertiveness. We normalize narcissistic behavior until it affects us directly in our intimate circles and we’re brave enough to see it for what it is.
It’s easier to live in denial, but at the end of the day, healing always requires acknowledgment first.