How Do Narcissists React When They Can’t Control You?

The moment a narcissist's behavior changed my own

I liked myself better when a narcissist made me cry. I can’t believe I’ve thought these words, let alone typed them. But, it’s true. In the beginning I argued a bit, but acquiesced in favor of narcissistically inflicted tears.

The kind of violent saltwater that leaves welts upon your face.

It was a cycle with my husband. The passive-aggressive trademark of a covert narcissist made the behavior episodic. As long as things were going the way he deemed agreeable, there was no conflict. And, I was a pleaser which freed additional discord.

Here’s an example of early narcissistic interaction.

My husband stays out all night. I wake up at three in the morning terrified something has happened to him. It’s before the days of cell phones so I can’t reach him. We are newlyweds and I don’t fear other women. I think he has been in an accident.

Six hours later he arrives home.

I’m sleep-deprived and in a full-blown panic. And, ill-prepared for the anger that is about to be directed my way. He says he stayed up all night playing poker with our neighbor’s friends and then they went to grab breakfast.

I’m mad and I let him know it.

The man in front of me flips into absolute abusive anger. How dare I get mad at him. Who am I to tell him what to do. And so on. I protest and say any woman would be furious if her husband didn’t come home all night.

There would be no resolution. The first of many bizarre episodes where behavior that would be deemed even societally unacceptable would be turned around on me. I was the problem. I was overreacting. I was uptight.

For nearly a month he refused to speak to me.

I mean not even, “Can you pass the salt?” Nothing. Nada. I’d never experienced anything like it. The degree of coldness and abandonment. These were the early marital years of narcissistic interaction.

Ultimately, the silence would stop in favor of other punishing ways.

Twice a year I would cry my eyes out for weeks. And, then things would get back to normal. As my friend once said, “Things go back to status quo not because there’s been a resolution, but because you finally acquiesce and move forward.”

I left after eight years when I recognized the cycle.

The episodes were caused when I confronted him about something, got upset, or something was important to me. As long as I didn’t take him on or interfere with his day or his perception of how our life should operate, things were fine.

I mistakenly returned because he promised to go to counseling. There were about six good years before he began to escalate again. I think it lasted so long because we moved, and he didn’t have any other people in his life to hang out with.

I refused to go back and said I was leaving.

How does a narcissist react when they can’t control you? They escalate their manipulation and abuse to remind you they are the ones in charge, that you can’t leave them. If you try to leave them, they will punish you.

They will control you to the point your world feels completely out of control.

This is the moment I left the sweet girl I had been behind. The one I liked. The good person who didn’t yell. Who didn’t say terrible things and react. The one who retreated and cried. Not because she wasn’t strong, but because she didn’t like conflict and wanted peace. And, because she believed she married a man, not a narcissist, she was confused.

This was the moment a narcissist’s behavior changed my own. I was capable of getting angry and arguing, but this screamingly unbecoming version of me had never existed until now.

When a narcissist made me cry, I was reacting to his cold abuse.

I wasn’t doing ugly things myself. He was the only one who should have been ashamed of his behavior. Not me. Crying is a submissive action. It is not a combative or engaging reaction. It only reinforced his narcissism and ability to be narcissistically emotionally abusive.

Why did I start to yell?

When a narcissist can’t control you, they manipulate and sabotage. They gain their advantage by going after your Achilles’ heel. They attack whatever is important to you. It might be manipulating your children or damaging relationships. They withhold in order to get their way. It could be money for groceries or a car for transportation.

Or they make you realize your fears.

My father was an alcoholic, and my husband started drinking and scaring my children and me. It weakened me. Narcissists are calculating that way. They understand what they need to do to win and stay in control.

It’s a disturbing and frightening aspect of narcissistic personality disorder.

At first, I kicked him out, but once again, I foolishly took him back. He swore it would never happen again, but, it did. I began yelling at him to stop. I should have ignored him. I should have left, but he was successfully weakening me by bringing up something traumatic from my own childhood.

The scales tipped drastically, and my strength was diminished by a narcissist.

In the past, I may have cried, but I was whole. It was the narcissist who had something to hide. Not me. Now I had secrets. I was living with someone who was abusing alcohol, and I was reacting badly to it.

When a narcissist realizes they can’t control you, be prepared.

Be frightened. Because they are compulsively driven to control and win by nature of narcissistic personality disorder. The narcissist will absolutely go after what you hold most precious, rely on for resources, your innermost fears, or the relationships that sustain you.

Because narcissists are master manipulators.

It’s how they dominate and destroy.

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