Abusive narcissistic partners are masters of distorting reality and weaving stories to make others believe that they are the victims and that their partner is the actual abuser. Here’s how narcissists justify calling their victims abuse. Written by Dr. Elinor Greenberg

Note: I am using the terms narcissistic, narcissistic, or NPD as an acronym to describe someone who qualifies for a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Have you ever wondered why so many narcissists devalue and insult their mates and then claim they are the real victim in the relationship? Some even accuse their non-narcissistic companion of being a true narcissist. Many of my clients report that during a fight their narcissistic companion will lie and misrepresent what is going on in an attempt to grab the higher ground.

These abusive buddies easily forget the many bad things they said and did during the argument and instead focus on the harsh thing their offended mate said in their defense. Here are some examples of what I mean.

The following are examples of abusive narcissistic partners
1 – Carlos the complainant:
Carlos is a very controlling and critical guy with NPD. His wife Brenda, who was completely fine when she married Carlos, is now taking anti-anxiety medication and is considering starting antidepressants as well. They have been married for five years and their marriage and Brenda’s mental health are deteriorating rapidly. Here’s how Brenda described the situation to me:

I’m afraid to get up in the morning. I know Carlos will have a list of things I did wrong or might do wrong in the future. Carlos orders me next to him as if I were working for him. He gives me a list of the chores he wants to do for breakfast. When I come home after work, there is another list waiting for me and more complaints.

He always tells me what I did wrong. I get nervous now whenever I know I will see or hear from him. I used to look forward to his text messages and calls, but now I’m afraid of them because I know he’ll either have something nasty to say or more chores I have to do.

The crazy thing is when I get to the end of my rope and complain about his grievances, Carlos paints himself as his victim. He can say twelve bad things to me, and if I say one thing in my defense or I finally lose my cool and just tell him to satisfy his “f*ck and leave me alone,” he accuses me of abuse.

He will tell everyone he knows how he had to put up with telling me to stop working and look like a crazy shrew. He conveniently leaves whatever he’s been doing for months to provoke me!

Related: The Victim’s Cloak: How The 3 Kinds Of Narcissists Wield It

2. Willing to walk away:
   Will never learn how to give up gracefully. He is a very selfish narcissist, and in his mind, everything is always someone else’s fault. So, when his girlfriend Amy planned to go out with another couple, he reluctantly agreed to go. However, he was angry that Amy dared to plan anything without his permission.

On the way to dinner, he was so upset and walked so fast that he left Amy behind. This was business as usual with Will.

Whenever he was angry with Amy, he used to walk too fast for Amy to keep up. Leaving her behind was one of the ways he punished Amy for teasing him. When Amy complained and told Will to slow down and walk with her, he said:

You always tease me. According to you, I can’t do anything right. I’m going to this dinner because you wanted me to. Why is this not enough for you? Do you have to criticize how I walk? I can’t believe how much crap I have to put up with from you!

In Will’s mind, Amy was 100% wrong, the innocent victim who was forced out with a couple he didn’t know and then criticized for the way he walked out to dinner.

3. Janet the Cheater:
   My narcissistic client Janet tells me how she was deeply offended that the man she was cheating on had just dumped her. Janet had just told him that she would not leave her husband for him. He reacted badly to this news and ended the relationship. However, in her eyes, she is his victim. Here is some of what she told him in revenge:

I do not love you. I never loved you. I never intended to leave my husband for you. How dare you abandon me! I expected to be the one to break it off with you. You are not a real man. I just had sex with you because my husband is old and boring. I can’t believe you did this to me. I deserve better. I will take revenge on you by calling all our friends and telling them what you do to me. I refuse to be your victim!

What is happening? Why would these people with NPD claim to be the real victim in the relationship when it would be obvious to any impartial observer that they are completely abusive and difficult to be with?

Narcissistic behavior and shame

One way you can understand narcissistic personality disorder is to avoid shame. Narcissists invent a false persona in which they present themselves to the world as always perfect and correct to avoid feeling shame about their imperfections.

This is why the narcissists in the above examples shift the blame for their bad behavior onto their colleagues. They need to see themselves as completely right.

Related: Why The Narcissist Who Abused You Now Claims To Be Your Victim

Narcissists lack whole-being relationships

Narcissists need to portray themselves in this fake way because they lack full-object relationships. Whole object relations is the technical term for the ability to form an integrated, more or less stable, and more or less realistic picture of themselves and other people that contains both good and bad traits.

From a theoretical point of view of object relations, one of the criteria for diagnosing someone with a personality disorder is that they lack full object relations and can only view people in a detached way as either entirely good or bad.

Most people develop full-object relationships in childhood if they are treated in a fairly consistently positive manner by their caregivers and still show love even when they make mistakes. If parents have perfect object relations, children are more likely to develop this ability.

However, if the parents do not have it, the parents will go back and forth between loving and hating their children. This prevents children from developing a stable sense of self. It is as if children spend their childhood looking in two different mirrors, distorted equally. One shows them as perfect and the other as irredeemably flawed.

In the narcissist’s world, all good equals perfect, special, omnipotent, and never wrong, and all bad equals worthless, flawed, and stupid. If you are all good, you are entitled to special treatment and the usual rules don’t apply to you. If you are all bad, you are not entitled to anything. You are one of the losers in life.

This extreme form of dichotomy creates a situation where people with NPD are unable to acknowledge any failures without losing their ability to see themselves as always good, perfect, and right. Denying their flaws and blaming them for their mistakes is the only alternative for them to feel like worthless trash.

There is no middle point where they can have some flaws and make some mistakes without seeing themselves as completely bad. If they cannot avoid seeing their mistakes or publicly revealing them as imperfect, they are likely to fall into depression based on shame and self-loathing. In this case, they become less effective and may even become suicidal.

Parents of narcissists and abusers

Children need to feel safe, appreciated, loved, and cared for by their parents. If this is not the actual situation, many children use segmentation to maintain the feeling that at least one of their caretakers is a good person.

One parent becomes the designated good person and the other parent becomes the bad person. When you mean the actions of a designated good parent, this is interpreted as that parent’s response to being victimized by the “bad” parent.

As one of my clients said: “My mother was forced to surrender to my father. She was so afraid of him that she could not protect me from beatings.” The sad truth is that this client’s mother blamed her mistakes on my client so that her husband would punish him, not her.

The topic of victimization can also be dealt with by siblings. One child may be the golden child who can do no wrong, while another child becomes the scapegoat of the family. When the golden child hits the scapegoat, his behavior is interpreted. The golden child is the real victim who was only protecting himself from being abused by his terrible brother.