If you’re in a difficult (read, impossible) relationship you’ll recognise it by these hallmarks. There is no accountability over the other side of the fence; it will always be your fault, especially when you resist. Not only do they make abuse significantly worse by denying it, they demonstrate in the moment that they won’t/can’t change.
Yet, we hold to the ideal that they might and that they can. It’s our hope because it’s a reflection of who we are, for if we were the cause of someone else’s pain, we’d do whatever we could to alleviate that pain.
Our antagonist, however, does not think like we do. If they did, we wouldn’t be in this intractable bind. Indeed, proof that we aren’t dealing with a narcissist is their ability to listen and to work within a reconciliatory frame.
But our narcissist masters the dichotomy of appearing winsome and charming all the while proving the tyrant. They’re controllers of image. How they’re seen is their driving motivation, so they have no time for doing the deeply relational work that will only ever be experienced by us, one-to-one.
The biggest part of our challenge in getting to the decision-making step is to recognise that unaccountable people never change. It is folly to hold onto a hope that would only be possible for an empathic person. Again, we project this hope into our reality—that reason will begin to function in them eventually—without ever thinking that the hope is birthed in possibility because the hope came from within us.
The moment we begin to see this hope in conversation with our narcissist, we can begin to see them with a wry smile, thinking, “Wow, what on earth are you going on about?”
People who don’t think like us won’t act like we do. Of course, this presumes we’re accountable to God; that repentance is our continual practice. If it would pain us that someone has been hurt by us, enough to seek reconciliation, enough to refrain from placing our gift at the altar in order to chase after them to win them back to ourselves (i.e. Matthew 5:23-24), then our narcissism is well in check.
We must let go of the dream. It’s possibly even a dream we’ve nurtured unconsciously. The dream reconciliation won’t happen if we’re dealing with a true narcissist. (Let’s praise God for the times that reconciliation has occurred; times when the other person proved us wrong, or we proved them wrong and softened hearts reunited!)
Letting go of the dream that either justice would swiftly come or that their heart would be softened to the truth isn’t easy. It requires a requiem. And true requiems are formal enough to bring about the closure we seek. Yes, we’re talking about a funeral for the false hope.
If a person has shown no desire to be accountable to anyone, let alone done so, we should reasonably expect they will never change their heart toward wrongs they’ve done. Whilst this might be sad, and even if it makes us angry, it won’t shift reality.
It’s good for us to finally own where we’re at. What may, or will, never change we then have the task to accept. And, once we get started, that’s sometimes easier to do than we think.
Photo by Raul Varzar on Unsplash
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