Many couples say that their narcissistic partner struggles with empathy or compassion for them and cannot take into account their emotional needs.
According to James Masterson in his book, The Therapist’s Guide to Personality Disorders: The Masterson Approach, those with a narcissistic personality and traits have an inflated, false self that functions perfectly to cover up a true self that appears flawed because it is not perfect. The false defensive self attempts to win over others for supplies in order to inflate greatness
Narcissism is a lack of emotional understanding of what others are going through, and instead feel criticized if someone draws attention to their behavior.
Any attempt to draw attention to their behavior causes the narcissist to change their behavior and blame others for causing the problem. It is often easier to try to please them to avoid being attacked, which exacerbates the problem for the husband.
Narcissists may avoid listening to their spouse when they feel hurt or criticized, in order to protect their vulnerability and avoid getting hurt.
They cut off their feelings or become vindictive rather than taking responsibility for their problems. They can’t handle criticism or criticism of their behavior when they feel judged for not being perfect, so they devalue those who shame them.
When others confront the narcissist’s mistakes, he or she will often try to prove the other person wrong in order to defeat them and win the argument. The partner often doubts themselves, and often backs down by giving up their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
If you are married to a narcissist, or in a relationship with a narcissist, you need to know the real reason why they struggle with showing compassion and empathy – because they feel inadequate when they are exposed as imperfect.
In order to protect themselves from feelings of inadequacy, they devalue others, leading to narcissistic abuse, even if they do not realize it.
This can happen when they are not a priority and when others do not reflect their greatness. They feel critical of themselves, are hard on themselves deep down, and believe that others are criticizing them.
Therefore, they lash out and downplay the threat of narcissistic injury to protect themselves from feeling these harsh feelings within themselves. They project their feelings of inadequacy onto others and try to find things wrong with them.
Here are some examples of signs of a narcissist and how they experience empathy through the way they interact with people around them.
His wife wants mercy when her father dies, but he finds her complaining.
His child hurts himself while playing sports, but the narcissist berates him for not winning, instead of attuning to the child’s feelings and expressing empathy.
He tells his child who is being bullied at school to become tougher and not be weak.
His wife raises problems in their marriage and he tells her to move on and that she is the problem, instead of discussing and resolving their problems as a couple.
His wife is suffering from trust issues because of his infidelity, so he tells her that she is the problem because she brought it up and that she was wrong. He has no empathy and takes no responsibility for his role in the betrayal. He blames her for not having sex with him after the children were born.
To avoid making mistakes, he will prove himself right, impose his own views and pressure others to agree with him so that he feels important. Often times, he expects others to do things his way without considering how others feel or seeing things from their point of view.
The striking thing is that the narcissist lacks the insight in understanding the other person’s point of view and lacks empathy for what that person feels.
According to Margaret Mahler in her book, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation, the narcissist is stuck developing in the substage of the practice of infantile dependency. Therefore, they suffer from a single-minded psychological state, by believing that others share the same mind, and not seeing others as separate individuals.
Narcissists lack a separate sense of self and therefore cannot understand other points of view. They expect others to be aligned with them and on the same page with them. So, trying to express your point of view will lead nowhere, until you get on the same page with them and listen to their point of view.
It becomes all about how the narcissist feels because they feel so hurt when others don’t share the same opinion as them.
Any time a narcissist feels inferior, he reacts in a way to make himself feel better in order to avoid these weak feelings underlying his true personality. Thus he avoids dealing with the problem.
To avoid feeling inferior, they quickly externalize these feelings and project them onto others so that they can be blamed. He believes that his partner is selfish because she does not meet all his needs and agree with his opinions, even though he cannot listen to her point of view.
Because of the damage caused by imperfection, narcissists cannot handle the blows to their self-esteem and will not be able to tolerate light feedback or criticism because they feel it so acutely.
The narcissist lacks empathy and compassion for others because he is busy protecting himself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt.
The narcissist defends himself against feelings of inferiority and weakness by proving that he is always right, and finds fault in others who expose him.
Related: 11 Lessons I Learned From Falling In Love With A Narcissist
If you confront or expose their narcissistic behavior directly, they will not empathize with what you say. Instead, they will project their feelings onto you and insist that you are wrong through exaggeration, devaluation, and stonewalling.
Many are afraid to say anything that might hurt the narcissist, to avoid dealing with vulnerability. Narcissists avoid confronting the things they do wrong to avoid judgment, shame, or humiliation.
Narcissists hide their hurt. Their partner will want emotional connection, and the narcissist will feel criticized for not being able to be perfect for her, or for not being able to adapt to her emotional needs.
As a relationship therapist, the biggest complaint I hear is that the narcissistic partner doesn’t empathize with her. When I observe these couples, I see how the narcissist’s wife tries to get over it by pointing out what he’s doing wrong, so he can learn.
