In that sacred space where trust is earned—not by submission, but by integrity—the narcissist may begin to act differently. They might pull back from the games; they might quiet the noise—not out of growth, but because they’ve sensed something rarer: someone who won’t be conquered.
It’s in that strange tension where something that looks like love starts to form—not the pure, gentle kind that flows freely, but a tangled kind, one that clings out of awe, out of dependency, out of the realization that they are in the presence of someone who’s not just useful, but irreplaceable.
Now, don’t mistake this: what they call submission may not be surrender at all. It may be strategy; it may be survival. But even so, it’s still a shift, and that shift speaks volumes—not about their healing, but about your power.
Let’s talk straight about the heart of it: narcissists don’t love like others do. That doesn’t mean they can’t feel something, but their feelings don’t flow from shared trust or mutual growth. They’re tangled up in raw or relentless needs for validation, admiration, and attention—not because they’re evil, but because they’re empty. They’ve learned to survive by pulling from others what they can’t create within.
Yet every once in a while, someone walks into their life with something different—a rare mix of grace and grit. Someone who can speak life into their ego without selling their soul, someone who offers warmth but won’t play along with the delusion.
When you walk in like that, something cracks open in them. You don’t just reflect their grandiosity; you do something far more dangerous: you see through it, and yet you stay. You hold the mirror with steady hands, and that’s the kind of person the narcissist may start to lean on—not because they understand love, but because they can’t explain why they need you. And that terrifies them.
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