A great way to achieve a goal is to partner with someone else so that you can support each other in keeping your commitments. Unless that person is highly narcissistic.
It was the holiday season and we were going to parties and enjoying a bottle of wine many evenings. The ex was complaining a lot that he wasn’t sleeping well due to the alcohol. For the first time I heard about “Dry January,” and suggested that this might be a good idea for us once the holidays were over. He agreed enthusiastically, and I thought, great! We’d gotten into the habit of wine before and with dinner and I knew it would be easier for me to stop if we were doing it together. Well, three or four days in to January and he’s sitting in the living room with a drink in hand. “I thought we we doing Dry January?” I said. “Yeah, well, I was stressed,” he responded. And that was that.
Now, he wasn’t an alcoholic. It wasn’t that he just couldn’t quit drinking. It was that he just had a very loose relationship with his own word. He may have even meant the commitment when he made it, but when life got a little bumpy, well then, he was going to do what he wanted. Period. In my rule book, when you make a promise you try your best to keep it, and if you make it to or with someone else, you try even harder. But, as I discussed in a previous post, the narcissist has their own rule book.
And this slippery view of promises is one of their rules. A friend told me he his narcissistic ex asked him to help make sure her son, who was failing in school, did his homework before playing video games. He said yes, but only if she promised to back him up if he laid down the law. She swore she would. The first time he came home and found the boy playing video games with no homework done, he turned off the wi-fi, telling him it would go back on once homework was complete. The kid ran complaining to his mom, and she immediately turned the wi-fi back on. Video games commenced. Thanks “partner.”
Why do they do this? A few reasons come to mind:
ONE: They want to think of and present themselves as a Good Person, this is part of the persona they present to the world. They know Good People make commitments. But they often have little staying power, because…see the next point.
TWO: Many are pathologically averse to discomfort. This is why they like the parasitic lifestyle and/or lying and subterfuge about their past rather than working hard to accomplish something themselves. So if a promise becomes uncomfortable to keep, it goes out the window as if it never occurred.
THREE: Narcissists are sensation and novelty seekers. Making a promise can feel exciting and interesting in the moment. “I’m going to read 20 books this year!” But as those of us who work hard for our achievements know, real accomplishment is a slog sometimes. It’s not always new, interesting or fun.
But we also know that actual rewards, whether it be strong relationships, professional success, health, or personal or intellectual development, come from making and keeping commitments. And not only to others, but to ourselves as well. And this is the true satisfaction in life that will always elude a highly narcissistic person.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann Betz is the co-founder of BEabove Leadership and an expert on the intersection of neuroscience, coaching, trauma and human transformation. She speaks, trains and coaches internationally, and writes about neuroscience and coaching as well as relational trauma. Ann is also a published poet who loves cats, rain in the desert, healthy relationships and the power of keeping her word.
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