The Spouse In A Narcissistic Family
Selfless Victim Or Partner-In-Crime?
The narcissist’s spouse is their sidekick and most loyal ally, carrying out the narcissist’s menial tasks while helping put on a happy front for the family. The spouse reassures the narcissist of their grandiosity by always remaining at their side, or more accurately, orbiting them. As long as the narcissist knows that their spouse is at their whim, they feel reassured.
Yet the narcissist’s fear of losing control is never far away.
For this reason, the narcissist is careful to isolate their spouse from the outside world through psychological manipulation. Without an external support network, the spouse’s emotional needs remain unmet. This puts the spouse in a tough position; running on empty while caught between their children’s needs and the narcissist’s insatiable hunger for supply and control.
The questions which may arise to an outside observer are: How did they end up in this situation? Why do they put up with it? And above all: How do they find the strength to endure such overwhelming torture?
A Tragic Exile
The narcissist’s spouse possesses something in their core which acts as both their superpower and eternal prison: An inherent sense of badness; of being irredeemably flawed and unworthy of love and respect.
This bone-deep sense of being bad typically arose in childhood, where the spouse was raised by an abusive, authoritarian or narcissistic parent. Having been shamed, humiliated, dominated and stripped of their agency while robbed of the opportunity to protest or fight back, the pressure grew too much. Threatened with psychological oblivion, the spouse created a ‘bad child’ construct within themselves, and redirected all the accompanying shame, anger and fear towards it.
Finally, in order to survive such a terrible reality, the spouse disowned this bad child, exiling it deep into their unconscious shadow. What ensued was a pattern of seeking ‘redemption’ for their badness through fawning and absolute compliance. This began with their abusive parent, and culminated with their narcissistic partner — who proved to be a carbon copy of the abusive parent.
A Masochistic Love
To heal their bad child and move forward, the spouse would need to feel all of their repressed painful emotions while facing up to the full weight of what happened to them. The reason they disowned their bad child in the first place, however, was because they knew they could never survive such a process. And so, to maintain mental and emotional balance, the spouse is forced to keep their bad child in place.
However, like a beach ball trapped underwater, the bad child threatens to break into consciousness at any moment. When the spouse met their narcissist, they saw someone who was all-superior and all-confident. Wowed by the narcissist’s grandiose offer of salvation, the spouse gladly entered into the narcissist’s fantasy world, which promised to make all that was bad in the child good again. Redemption seemed finally at hand as the spouse committed themselves to the narcissist.
Such a fantasy is naturally a mirage. The spouse knows on a core level that there is no salvation in an illusion. Over time, the narcissist’s darker nature comes through. Yet rather than leave, the spouse finds in the narcissist a partner-in-crime; someone who can help lighten the load of keeping the bad child in place.
So as the narcissist shames, humiliates and attacks the spouse, the spouse feels an eerie sense of masochistic relief. The narcissist’s sadistic emotional abuse helps the spouse to reinforce their bad child, keeping them from having to face the repressed pain within it. While consciously protesting the abuse, the spouse unconsciously revels in it.
In extreme cases, the spouse will partake in projective identification, where they covertly work to trigger the narcissist into attacking and humiliating them. The spouse may frustrate the narcissist, or admit to being incompetent and weak, giving the narcissist a shot of grandiosity and encouraging them to pile on the humiliation and ridicule.
Meanwhile, the spouse continues to support and nurture their children as best as possible, maintaining a strict discipline of cooperation and selflessness. Compared to the moody and selfish narcissist, the spouse appears to be a saint, absorbing an endless stream of seemingly-unprovoked abuse while giving their all to the family, creating an aura of being a selfless victim.
The Venerated Saint
In many cases, this is where the story ends. Having been stripped of their agency from a young age, the spouse ‘martyrs’ themselves by silently enduring their hardship, typically dying before the narcissist due to the immensity of the stress they carry.
The narcissist’s spouse often develops physical illnesses, such as cancer, stomach problems or thyroid issues. These come about due to the overbearing pressure of family demands and crushing narcissistic abuse.
In other cases, the spouse seeks to release the pressure. As already discussed, projective identification is one strategy, where the spouse covertly provokes their narcissist, their children or their grandchildren into lashing out at them while playing dumb. This might take the form of repeating the same question over and over until they get the desired angry reaction.
Some spouses of a narcissist lean into their victim identity, lashing out at their children for their ‘selfishness’ while riddling their children with guilt at not appreciating “everything I’ve done for you”.
Early in the marriage, the spouse may protest about their abuse to anyone who will listen. Yet no matter how sound the advice which comes their way, they never action it nor take any steps to improve their situation, choosing to ‘endure’ the abuse instead.
Recall that the spouse possesses a bad child, as well as a belief that they are bad to the bone, and therefore ‘deserving’ of punishment. While the spouse consciously protests, they unconsciously believe they are exactly where they need to be. There is a stubbornness about the spouse which infuriates those who try to help them. Their words say one thing, yet their actions go in the exact opposite direction.
Eventually, that voice of protest disappears for good, and the spouse takes their position on the throne next to their shadow ‘king’ or ‘queen’ to see out the rest of their life. Unable or unwilling to face their bad child, the spouse remains stuck, while that masochistic voice whispers into their ear: “You deserve this. Doesn’t it feel good?”. Meanwhile, their physical health continues to take a toll, as they see out their final days having never faced the trauma which might have freed them from their prison in the first place.
Browse more of my articles:
Narcissistic Relationships | Knowing The Narcissist | Abuse Recovery | The Narcissistic Family | Exploring Narcissism | Borderline & Histrionic
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me & my wife couple therapy was stopped by the therapists when I started developing physical health issues: pending ear surgery, leg surgery, etc. They seemed to be focused on the fact I was getting ill but didn't get into any detail. And then I read this. Is there connection between therapy and physical health? Do modern therapy models believe in connection between mental and physical health. I.e. would they think that abused partner will develop physical illness? If yes, how come?
A Greek Tragedy indeed. This is so good JH! Selfless victim or partner in crime? The spouse identifies with both! And it makes sense that shame, a disowned child part, and an inability to face and heal from their own trauma would keep someone in what amounts to an abusive marriage. I think too, there is an erosion of selfhood that happens. Like literally the spouse no longer knows who they are, what they believe in, or what they like and don’t like after years of being manipulated and gaslit. But one has to also wonder how much a sense of “self” was there to begin with.
It’s interesting because people usually seek healing because they feel pain that they can no longer bear. But if you are in denial about your pain, then you keep running. And blaming others. And passing down the trauma.
I love how you describe the spouse taking the throne next to the their shadow king. It’s so eerily perfect.