We’re sure that the 5 love languages and their significance are not news to you, but do you know how the love languages of narcissists and empaths differ from each other?
Gary Chapman, in his book “The Five Love Languages: How To Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate”, brought forth the concept of the “Love Language”. According to his theory, these 5 love languages outline how we experience and express love in romantic relationships.
These 5 Love Languages are:
- Gifts: giving and receiving them
- Quality Time: shared time with your partner
- Words Of Affirmations: statements like “I love you” or “You matter to me”
- Acts of service: doing something for your significant other
- Physical touch: physical closeness or intimacy
According to the tenets of the five love languages, people in romantic relationships, tend to give love or show affection in the same way they would prefer to receive love.
For example, if someone’s favored love language is Gifts, then not only they would love to receive gifts, but also they would naturally shower their love interest with many thoughtful presents.
So, to have better communication and a healthy fulfilling relationship, partners must do the following:
- Discover their significant other’s love language
- Observe how their partners express love, what they complain about the most, and what their partners request from them the most.
- Show care in the love language that the recipient partner understands and prefers
Sounds like a cheat code for a perfect relationship, yes? But, what if it’s an empath and narcissist relationship?
Read: Conversational Narcissist
Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Empaths and narcissists are infamous for getting enmeshed in toxic and dysfunctional relationships. These two personality types are polar opposites and have nothing in common, making their relationships doomed from the get-go.
Although empath and narcissist relationships are plagued with challenges, be it emotional, mental, or physical, these two have an undeniable magnetic attraction toward each other, which normally ends with either the empathic partner getting drained out and walking away or being replaced by someone new.
But what makes an empath get drawn to a narcissistic personality in the first place and what motivates them to stick it through all the abuse and trauma that are often unleashed by the narcissist? The answer is love language manipulation!
Yes, the five love languages that help healthy couples to strengthen their bond, can be used by a narcissist to manipulate their partner, and if that partner happens to be an empath, it’s a field day for the narc.
To better understand the love language abuse done by narcissists, let’s break down the 5 love languages one by one, and have a look at how the love languages of narcissists and empaths differ from each other.
5 Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Empaths and narcissists have their own version of the 5 love languages and this disparity in the love languages of empaths and narcissists gives way to a highly unbalanced paradigm.
1. Gifts: The Differing Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Narcissist
Presents are tools for the narcissists that they use to reap profits. Surely, they like flashy and expensive gifts for themselves, but when it comes to offering a present to their loved ones, a narc would select a gift with the sole intention of getting an upper hand over their partner.
The partner should be floored, forever indebted, and grateful to the narcissist.
Empath
Empaths appreciate the thought that goes behind a gift and they love to shower their partners with thoughtful presents. It’s their authentic way of showing their love and affection.
They can bend backward to gift their narcissistic partner all sorts of expensive stuff, just to make them happy, and a manipulative narc will egg them on.
2. Quality Time: The Differing Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Narcissist
People with a Narcissist Personality Disorder are by nature self-absorbed and conceited. They think that they should always get their partner’s undivided focus and attention.
To ensure this, they even can go to the extent of alienating their partners from their friends, family, and every other support system. However, they would never offer to do the same when their turn comes.
Empath
Spending quality time with their partner means a lot to empaths. They seek meaningful conversations and shared experiences as means to be more emotionally invested in their relationship.
When forced by a narcissistic partner to spend more time with them, empaths easily confuse it with love. As a result, they keep devoting all their time and energy to the narcissist and get nothing in return.
3. Words Of Affirmations: The Differing Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Narcissist
Narcissists can be silver-tongued when they are trying to hook a victim in for the first time or to get them roped back in after a spat. They can use the right words at the right time and promise the stars and the moon, by love-bombing or hoovering. However, in the long run, their words and actions will never align.
They are always prone to lose their calm, and thus it doesn’t take much time for their words of positive affirmations to turn into verbal abuse and derogatory remarks at the slightest trigger.
Empath
Empaths, on the other hand, attach a lot of importance to these verbal displays of affection. They use these affirmations to motivate their partners and make them feel good about themselves. Empaths willingly offer a good load of narcissistic supply to their toxic partners by boosting their ego through this particular love language.
4. Acts Of Service: The Differing Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Narcissist
Just like giving gifts, narcissists do acts of service for their vested interests. They would invariably bring up every small act of service toward their partner to make them feel guilty and obligated. Also, narcissists try to make their partners grow dependent on them by doing things that they know would be endearing to their partners.
Empath
Empaths have a compulsion to put others before themselves and this trait can be abused by their narcissist partners to a great extent. Narcissists expect that everyone, especially their partners should wait on them hand and foot, and empaths find themselves complying with these unfair demands.
5. Physical Touch: The Differing Love Languages Of Narcissists And Empaths
Narcissist
Narcissists are essentially selfish people and their selfishness is most evident in their fifth love language. When it comes to physical affection, closeness, and intimacy, they operate at two extreme poles.
They will demand physical affection from their partners when they are in the mood for it and they will withhold any kind of physical touch when they want to punish their partners for some perceived misconduct.
Empath
Empaths would give in to their narcissistic partner’s demands for intimacy even if at that moment they are not up for it. As a love language, they themselves crave affectionate physical touches, such as holding hands, hugs, and forehead kisses. But when they feel vulnerable and in need of some physical comfort, they might get brutally scorned by their narcissistic partner.
Read: Self-Gaslighting Quiz
Learn The Love languages
Empaths care about other people’s happiness and they always put their needs second, whereas narcissists are only concerned with their own happiness and pleasure. Empaths are givers, while narcissists are takers, and so their relationship is entirely one-sided.
When a narcissist and an empath meet, the narc might mirror the qualities that the empath wants to see in their partner by manipulating the empath’s preferred love language. This is why it is imperative that empaths must learn about their love languages as well as the love languages of a narcissist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to be an empath in order to be a victim of a narcissist?
No, although narcissists attract empaths and vice versa, you can become a narcissist’s targeted victim even if you are not an empath.
Do empaths fall in love with narcissists?
It has been observed that empaths and narcissists attract each other quite often.
How to survive an energy-draining narcissistic marriage as an empath?
The empath has to stop believing that they can heal or help the narcissist. As soon the empath stops pouring their energy into the relationship, the power imbalance gets shifted.
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