Malignant Narcissists Will Tell You What You Want to Hear
Malignant narcissists are experts in emotional abuse. The most nefarious and effective trick that they use on people is in the careful exploration of the person’s deepest needs and desires so that they may weaponize them into a trap. They know that in order to get someone under control they have to find out what the target wants so they can bait them in a way that keeps the target coming for more.
After carefully mining you for information which you likely spilled out without any regard for how these details will be used against you, the Malignant narcissist will dangle those wants in front of you like a carrot on a stick. You’ll see what you want right there in front of you. You’ll think you can touch them they are so close, but just as soon as you reach forward to claim what it rightfully yours, they’ll pop it up and out of reach then slowly lower it until you’re tempted to go for it again. You’ll never be given what you want however, not now not ever.
The reason is simple. Let's say your main motivation is love and acceptance and they are aware that this is the thing you desire the most, then they will never allow you to actually feel like you’re loved and accepted in the relationship. They’ll let you get samples of what it would be like to be loved, but they’ll never actually deliver on any of it, and you’ll never get that feeling of ‘finally, I’m accepted, and this is my family.’
In fact, they’ll purposefully make you feel like you are not part of the family by comparing you to their brother-in-law, or telling you that they asked their sister if you should be allowed to come to some family gathering making it sound like everyone was wishy washy with whether it was appropriate for you to be there. Then if you do end up going, they’ll humiliate you and tell some secret of yours that gets everyone laughing at you.
If it’s a job that you’re after, then they’ll continually tell you how great you’d be at the job, and they’ll make some phone calls and see what they can do. As you grow frustrated, they’ll say, ‘let me reach out into my network and see what we can pull together for you’ and when you start getting fed up with it, they’ll say ‘well you need to work harder, you’re just not skilled enough. You don’t have anything marketable that people want.’ In other words, they’ll turn it and blame it on you as to why there is no job.
This is a primary strategy because it keeps you living on hope, and they literally have to do nothing to keep you trapped in this ‘go nowhere’ cycle that you’re stuck in with them. The longer this cycle goes on the more you are growing dependent on them for their approval and the more addicted to them you are becoming.
The more they deny you what it is you need the more they are on your mind and that is where emotional abuse gets its teeth from. The goal of the abuser is to keep themselves on your mind for as long as possible — good or bad thoughts, it doesn’t matter.
As long as they have you hoping that they deliver on something then frustrated with them about not delivering, then they are happily in control. They know that they are on your mind, and you are training your mind to think obsessively over them.
That my friends is exactly what they want and is exactly what will keep you trapped with them. You will go the entire length of that relationship and they’ll never really deliver on anything that they promise on.
You’ll be thinking of them night and day trying to figure out why they won’t do what they promised or why they won’t do the slightest ‘normal’ reciprocation that should be automatic in a relationship. You’ll find that you’ll have to perform some special service to attain that bare minimum. It’s all about what they can milk out of you on your path to being their personal slave.
By the end of it, you’ll be in such a fog that you’ll look back and think that there was so much substance to the relationship but as you sift through the ashes, you’ll see that it was all false hopes you had that were based on a con artist scam. They stole years from your life and thousands from your wallet while giving you nothing but abuse in exchange.