On Internet message boards, people claiming involvement with narcissists ask, "Must I leave him?"
Whenever I hear this question, I get two ambivalent urges at once. One is to reply, "Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!" And the other is to reply, "What the heck kind of question is that?"
Notice that the grown children of narcissists don't ask it. The mates of narcissists do.
Typically, when adults realize that a parent who troubles them is a malignant narcissist, they react to discovering that the relationship never was a mutual symbiosis, but rather a parasitic one in disguise. Their words convey a deep sense of betrayal. And relief — in the knowledge that it wasn't their fault, that something is wrong with their parent, not them. In their words it goes without saying that they will break this hostile and predatory relationship that is so hurtful and harmful to them.
So, what's with the mates of narcissists? Often the thrust of their reaction is complaint about how wronged they are. Then they ask, "Must I leave him?"
To some extent, this difference is to be expected, because the relationship between parent and child is different than the relationship between lovers. And it is much older — a lifelong, virtually unbreakable relationship of blood, not a mere recent contract like marriage. We can expect the children of narcissists to take some things for granted about them that the mates of narcissists find hard to accept. Yet, there is the same abysmal betrayal in both experiences. And the same liberating justification. So, why do the reactions of many mates seem so peculiar to the children? Why do they often lack reaction to that betrayal and liberation?
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