“What we don’t resolve, we often repeat” ~ Sigmund Freud
If you’ve been hurt in the past and/or have a history of choosing partners who end up being detrimental to your well-being, know that this cycle can be broken through committing to yourself and your recovery.
3. Silent treatments work best after you’ve isolated yourself from your friends and family
Once the honeymoon/love-bombing phase begins its dismal decline, the narcissist then starts blaming your relationship problems on your outside influences, which may include: parents, grandparents, siblings, other extended family, exes, best friends, and even children.
After the isolation stage has been successfully implemented, silent treatments can be employed with maximum benefit to the narcissist. After ensuring you have no emotional support, the narcissist can then criticize you without bias.
This is the same technique that was used in North Korean POW camps [1]. It was not uncommon for a soldier to wander into his hut, go in a corner, sit down, pull a blanket over his head, and die within two days.
Despite minimal physical torture, the death rate in the North Korean POW camp rose 38%, with half of the soldiers dying simply because they had given up.
How did this happen? The “ultimate weapon of war”. One that your Narcissist uses against you quite regularly.
The North Koreans’ objective was to “deny men the emotional support that comes from interpersonal relationships.” To do this, the captors used these primary tactics:
- Withholding all positive emotional support
- Criticism
They used negativity in its purest and most malicious form. The soldiers had nothing to live for and lost basic belief in themselves and their loved ones, not to mention God and country. The North Koreans had put the American soldiers into a kind of emotional and psychological isolation, the likes of which had never been seen.
Aside from the silent treatment, does the simple act of walking through your house to go to work seem to induce a psychotic rage in your partner? They want you to feel sorry for being alive. To be so overly anxious that you feel you’re always one minute away from tragedy.
“The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotion-less and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict.” ~ Sam Vaknin
If your partner punishes you by regularly utilizing the silent treatment while being overly critical on the days they are in your company, you can be certain he or she is a sadistic, malicious narc-type who doesn’t deserve your devotion, empathy, or compassion.
How to turn it all around
While there’s no way to turn it around with your narcissistic partner, there is good news…though it will require making some hard choices.
Perhaps, as a result of this part of your life, you will completely turn your life around for the better.
Maybe you will become more successful and find the perfect, non-disordered partner for you.
Perhaps this experience will allow you to tap into other areas of your life – allowing you to become more creative and fulfilled.
Maybe this happened so you could free yourself from your past and your wounds, and vow to never let another person to mistreat you…
But, it all requires detaching from the narcissist in your life. Once you’ve done that and created some distance from the relationship, you can move forward towards healing and see that black clouds often do have silver linings.
Copyright © 2016 Kim Saeed. All Rights Reserved
Want to know more about surviving narcissistic abuse? Check out How to Do No Contact Like a Boss! and 10 Essential Survivor Secrets to Liberate Yourself from Narcissistic Abuse. Join other ‘Let Me Reach’ Survivors and Thrivers on Facebook and Pinterest.
Become a Contributor at The Minds Journal
We Want To Hear Your Story. Share your work,thoughts and writings and we will make sure, it reaches the world! Submit Now
Number one—I’m sorry for the situation, your children and for the hurt and suffering you are dealing with. Prayer has been my saving grace, if you are a Christian, you know this. If you are not a Christian, I will pray with you or speak with a local pastor.
Number two—know that your boys are being brainwashed by the toxic parent. Do not sink to her level and belittle her to your children. Again, pray, pray, pray. When any opportunity arises for your influence, positive reinforcement only.
Number three—keep a journal that the toxic parent does not have access to. Keep every single incident from the beginning of your relationship through current. Document EVERYTHING. After doing this, have your journal notarized. If you can, have an additional copy just to be safe. If possible record every conversation with her. Also, if you can, press charges for slander, for defamation of character.
You may check with local attorneys for pro-bono.
Number four—keep you head and spirits up if possible. Do not engage with the toxic parent at all. When and if you have to, with children being involved-ALWAYS have a witness with you while recording also. With another individual with you, it isn’t your word against hers.
Good luck to you, and focus on the positive things, leave the negative up to her.
You loved this person at some point, I’m sure, pray for her to get better, she is miserably unhappy with herself, henceforth stealing your happiness.
I’m sorry for your loss of two brothers, know that this is not a forever situation, with Jesus on your side, there is always s better tomorrow.
I keep coming as cross these articles and wholeheartedly agree; but my question is what when it’s a female narcissists? A female narc who currently has the kids because she unilaterally decided they were going with her, who let’s me see them once or twice a week for an hour or two at a time? And everybody says take her to court and do this or that, but before she left me she called the people I was working for and started a bunch of stuff going there and then through MY mistakes because of everything going on in life I ended up losing my job, I had lost 8 close friends during a rough period of life and had just lost both of my brothers 6 months apart right before she went on her tirades… insulting my then dead brothers, insulting my efforts to memorialize them saying no gives a crap what you have to say about your dead brothers, punching me, throwing my brothers memorial books at me, belittling everything single thing about me, and just being devastating, she withheld sex for 4 years and i was still trying to make the marriage work for the sake of the kids. She hit me in the back of the head with a mag light flashlight and then called the police in me, I discovered she was cheating and she punched me in the face when I played the recording for her and said that I was creepy, crazy, and a stalker and she no longer felt safe because I had violated her privacy no word on the affair though… the fact is she cleared our accounts everything was joint and I assumed in the beginning when I was giving her money for her and the kids that she was paying the Bill’s but it turned out she was having a new house built and let everything in my name go unpaid so when I found out she was moving out every bill was 4 months behind and now I ca nah t afford to take her to court and she is toxic to those boys who she now says arent even mine and whether I believe her or not doesnt matter because in my heart they are mine… what do you do if you cant bring about justice because of situations she created but you cant sit back and just let your kids slip away either…any advice on this would be great from literally anyone
3.5
1
2
1.5
4.5
2.5
5