How a People Pleaser Attracted a Narcissist
We were extreme opposites that’s why it worked
My husband used to say, “Everything will be fine if you just go back to being who you always were.”
He was talking about the woman who lacked boundaries, self-protection, and didn’t put demands on him. The one who was intent on making his world go round and placed him high upon a pedestal.
We play roles in unhealthy relationships.
I fell in love with a narcissist, but he was also a golden boy.
In counseling, I learned I was an overly caring enabler. That’s a deeply empathetic person who tolerates bad behavior. Not once or twice, but again and again.
I was also told I was a pleaser and fixer.
Narcissists are difficult personalities.
Certainly, an understatement, but pleasers are tolerant of troublesome individuals. We adapt our behavior to avoid conflict. We ensure the world revolves around the formidable person. We sacrifice and surrender to the control of someone else.
The pleaser doesn’t put demands on people. We want to lessen conflict, not increase it.
All while seeing the best in someone.
The rose-colored glasses syndrome.
I was told I saw the world through this pink lens.
The ever-hopeful, optimistic brand of a human being. My sister once told me, “Colleen, at least you got into your forties still seeing the best in everyone, that’s rare.”
My counselor termed it a different way, “Colleen, your rose-colored glasses have turned black.”
He was addressing my concern about my drastically changing personality.
I had gone from hopelessly joyful to hopelessly unhappy.
He assured me that though the pendulum had notoriously shifted, the emotional balance would one day return. Essentially, once a happy person, always a happy person.
But that would take action on my part.
I would need to concentrate on self-protection and boundaries. I would need to remind myself in my counselor’s words, “Kindness is forgiving bad behavior once or twice, enabling is forgiving it over and over again.”
The narcissist was who he was.
That would never change.
But I could.
I could learn about myself and attempt to avoid repeating any relationship patterns in the future. I didn’t have to overcompensate to accommodate a difficult individual ever again.
In my marriage, things went well as long as I kept the peace.
The minute I made a demand, all hell broke loose. This was the pattern. It was cyclical. If the desires of the narcissist were met and he was in control, our relationship was calm.
If I needed something, if something would make me happy, it was chaos.
I was out of line.
I was stepping outside of my role in the relationship.
The golden boy couldn’t come and go as he pleased or do whatever he wanted.
No one tells the golden boy he’s wrong. That he has faults like the rest of us. No one impedes the golden boy. We allow them to do as they wish. We ignore their indiscretions.
The pleaser and fixer, aka ‘the enabler,’ and the golden boy, aka ‘the narcissist.’
It worked for us.
Until it didn’t.
My uncle once told me, “Colleen, you’re a happy girl. All you have ever wanted is for everyone around you to be happy. But if the situation calls for it, you can be feisty.”
As I got older, I got feisty.
I tired of meeting his needs and none of my own. His control no longer gave me a false sense of security. It exhausted me. I wasn’t interested in fixing his unhappiness because it was depleting my own. I had no desire to make excuses for someone else’s poor behavior.
My rose-colored glasses were replaced by a woman who now wore black.
I asked my counselor about the type of person who naively and unwittingly gravitates towards a narcissist. I understood opposites attract, and we were two wildly opposing extremes, but I craved more.
The type of answers we desire after making such a lethal mistake.
“People pleasers are accustomed to overlooking others' blemishes,” he said.
A greater truth had never been spoken.
My rose-colored glasses discounted blemishes as a challenge.
If the narcissist is self-addicted, I was dilemma-addicted.
I never met a problem I didn’t love. I could fix anything. I could turn the day around. I could triumph. I could resolve the unsolvable. I could meet your needs.
Any and all of them.
At the expense of my own.
To be fair, I was affable and content.
My husband and I were two different extremes in our personalities and in the roles we played. He was selfish. I was giving. He craved control. I was used to being controlled. He was demanding. I was used to making people happy.
Do all people-pleasers fall for narcissists? No.
They might just fall for the average run-of-the-mill difficult and controlling personality. Lucky them. But not me.
The girl whose mom said she was born with Joie de vivre had surrendered her predisposition to be lighthearted. For a narcissist who would never care. Nor would his golden world be as irrevocably harmed as mine.
But my counselor was correct.
The pendulum hit an emotional center.
Once a happy person, always a happy person.
My husband used to say, “Everything will be fine if you just go back to being who you always were.”
He was right.
