Are Narcissists Unhappy In Their Relationships?
They start off happy. They start off thinking that you’re the one. And some of them will even try hard to make it work. These narcissists know that they have this propensity to devalue, so they will try hard not to.
When you do something that lets them down, or is substandard they will try to get past it. They will like shrug it off sort of and as long as you’re like showing effort that you’re trying.
Problem is eventually you'll get tired and never being able to do anything good enough or they will get tired of you not being able to do anything good enough — either way, the devaluation is inevitable.
Every negative thing that occurs is like a quarter that goes in a piggy bank and as time goes by you keep adding more quarters soon that piggy bank. Once it is full, then that's when they start showing outward contempt towards you — like it's a generalized seething contempt they display toward you.
Originally though, they were all in. They were telling their friends how awesome you are, every little thing that you did for them was appreciated.
They kept the things you gave them close by as a memento or trophy and looked upon them with satisfaction and happiness. They loved the little trinkets or whatever you bought them, the jewelry, the paintings, the little figurines — they loved all of it.
The only problem is, they can't sustain that. Not with the level that their elevated expectations they way they are.
Some of them are very particular. One assumption people often make is that narcissists need everything around them to be perfect. This is only partially true. They strive for perfection in themselves and their need for a perfect environment is a biproduct of that need to appear perfect.
They have to make sure that their environment looks perfect and that’s where you as their margin of error come in. It’s where you are going to start making mistakes and they inevitably will grow tired of trying to brush it off. They will try to let it go at first, but something about the inherent nature of the disorder and the perfectionism doesn’t really allow them to let anything go.
Instead they kind of suppress it and push it down and don't really deal with it. That is what collects into this growing pit of disdain that exists inside of them that disdain is evolving into contempt towards you.
Once the relationship has contempt in it, that’s it. You don’t stand a chance of repairing it or recovering it, you’re in a devalued situation.
You then must buckle up and try to minimize you damage because they will get more and more harsh towards you and some will even become abusive. Some will just take off in an instant and others will treat you so callously that you take off.
These typically are behaviors that are displayed by both non-disorders and disordered it just depends on the individual. All human beings exhibit these behaviors. It’s just that the people with the disorder exhibit the behaviors to the extreme and that’s what damages the relationships.
So, yes initially narcissists start off happy in their relationships. Over time when the devaluation starts there will be nothing you do that is good enough or isn’t interpreted in the worst possible way that it can be seen. They spend their whole lives unhappy with short inocculations of happiness with each new significant other.
