Love Is Never Enough
It did not dawn on me until years later that love is never enough in narcissistic relationships. I loved narcissists [just like I loved anybody else] with my whole being, and my love was never enough. I gave all of myself in my past narcissistic relationships, and doing so yielded me nothing but pain, agony, heartbreak, and many life lessons. My love was never enough for my parents, my siblings, certain friends, and even lovers. Love is never enough for narcissists.
My love never being enough for narcissists only led me to believe that I was never enough for them as a person either. No matter how hard I tried or how much love I gave, I was always met with indifference or resistance. My love did not seem to matter either way, and if my love appeared to matter, it was fought against on so many levels – not to be received by the narcissist I was giving love to. I fought for love, but why must love be a battle? Why must I fight for love if love should simply exist? Is love not peace?
Narcissists
The truth of the matter is that not all people are the same. I speak in reference to narcissists here. Despite each of the narcissists from my past having varying and unique personalities, none of them had any love to give to me – at least not the love I desired from them. They all gave a pseudo-love, half-love, or almost love. They “love bombed” me. They gave me feelings of euphoria that simulated love, but in reality, they gave me nothing.
Instead of giving me their undivided attention, narcissists gave me their physical presence without actually being attentively present with me. Instead of giving me their heart, they gave me their problems. They projected all of their issues onto me even when I had my own issues that did not even mirror theirs. In fact, they rarely even received my love when it is being so freely given to them. They resisted me at ever turn through their walled-silences, their narcissistic gazes of penetrating anger, and their hardened stance of resistance against softening their hearts towards me.
Frankly, narcissists do not understand the concept of love. They do not know what love is, and although I am not a narcissist, there are days when I am bereft of the understanding of what love is myself. For years, I have lived with the concept that maybe love as a word was simply evol (evil). In all of its true meaning, love simply cannot be defined very well, and that seems like an oxymoron. Yet, I do know what love is not and what it does not embody. I do know love when it is demonstrated by someone.
To me, love means to give of oneself – even sacrificially – to lay down one’s life if necessary for the sake of another. Love means to embody the characteristics of 1 Corinthians 13:1-9 which says that “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
In all of my relationships, I do my best to give the best of myself. In all of my relationships with narcissists, I gave the best of myself – the best of my time, my space, my energy, and my entire being. Yet, even in all the giving, it was never enough for narcissists. Do not get me wrong. Narcissists gladly received what I had to give them without much thought, but they received from me just to get.
None of the narcissists ever reciprocated love to me because they were and are void of love. They are deep bottomless pits of darkness. They are dark souls, and this for me was an agonizingly painful realization with every narcissist or narcissistic type of person that has ever been in my life.
Neither gradually over time or with change did it become easier to deal with because they were all individually unique in who they were and are as people. I mourned a loss each time I came to an understanding that the person I loved was indeed a narcissist or a person with strong narcissistic qualities that would most likely never change.
It is sad really … to go through this life never knowing nor understanding love. Aside from the spiritual aspects of God’s love for me, I have yet to comprehend the humanness of love because I have been surrounded by narcissistic types all my life. Strangely, even if understood by those that I have loved, my love has simply never been enough. For narcissists, love is never enough.
My Voice Unchained 