All About the Relationship Between a Narcissist & an Empath

Who Are Empaths & Who Are Narcissists?

An empath is someone who understands and feels the other person’s agony as their own. This might sound nice, but this type of person does more than it needs for the other person, sacrifices their own self, and struggles to maintain boundaries.

On the other hand, a narcissist considers themselves better than others and feels like they deserve special treatment. They always want importance, have a deep need for admiration, and lack empathy for others. They manipulate people around them to fulfill their needs and desires without standing for the well-being of others. That’s why an empath becomes the perfect target for a narcissist.

Reasons Why An Empath Falls into A Narcissist’s Trap

1. Empathetic Nature: Empaths are naturally emotional and caring individuals who mostly care about others’ needs above their own. When they find someone who is struggling with something, they go to them and try to be the savior. A narcissist presents themselves as a victim who needs help and draws the attention of the empath. Here, the empath slowly starts to develop feelings for the narcissist.
2. Charm & Manipulation: Narcissists are very good manipulators and charming in nature. They know how to charm and manipulate an empath to make them feel important. They complement, show positivity, and give green signals to the empath. For an empath who is naturally tuned to positivity, they feel a genuine connection with that person. An empath gradually falls for the charm they see in a narcissist.
3. Love Bombing: A narcissist engages in love bombing because they know its impact on the empath. In case you don’t know what love bombing is, it’s a technique to awaken the feelings of love in someone by displaying affection and attention. A narcissist overwhelms the empath by showing excessive affection and care. For an empath who is excessively sensitive to care and affection, they get seduced and fall for the trap.
4. Lack of Boundaries: An empath struggles to maintain boundaries, especially when in the presence of affection, care, and praise. Narcissists take advantage of this by pushing boundaries, crossing lines, and taking advantage of the empath’s willingness to compromise, forgive, and forget.
5. Gaslighting: A narcissist engages in gaslighting, which is a form of mental abuse where the gaslighter changes the whole scenario and questions the reality and perception of the empath. An empath, caring for the other person’s emotions, compromises and sacrifices in the name of bringing happiness to the situation. By doing this repeatedly, the empath starts to be manipulated, leading them to self-doubt.

In order to catch the empath, narcissists usually love bomb or share sad stories about their life to get more care and attention. The empath feels like maybe this person has only been mistreated all their life, and they’ll be their savior and show them what real love is.

Why Is It Hard To Get Out of That Toxic Relationship?

1. Emotional Manipulation: Narcissists are very skilled at manipulation. Their main tactics are gaslighting, blame-shifting, and emotional blackmail. To control their partner, they use different tactics, and over time, the empath starts to lose their ideology and perception. As time passes, they start to feel guilty, self-doubting, and believe that they are the problem in the relationship.
2. Dependency: Narcissists slowly create a dependent personality in their partner. Though the relationship isn’t healthy, they don’t end it completely; rather, they do it in a way so that, over time, the empath becomes dependent on them. The empath starts to think that they can’t survive without them. As the empath has shown empathy from the beginning of that relationship, they also think that maybe this person (narcissist) will also not survive without them. This becomes more difficult for the empaths who have already sacrificed many things in life to satisfy the narcissist.
3. Trauma Bonding: In an abusive and unhealthy relationship where only one person is always compromising and sacrificing things, a strong connection develops, making the empath confused between staying in the relationship or breaking up. Staying in that relationship feels hard, and leaving that person feels even harder.
4. Isolation: During the relationship, narcissists isolate empaths from their family, friends, and surroundings. The narcissist becomes their only world. When there is unbearable toxicity and pain in that relationship, empaths fear getting out of it as they fear becoming isolated from their world. They fear losing that emotional support, which complicates the process of leaving even more.
5. Hope for Change: Empaths are mostly positive by nature and are the kind of people who want to become better every day. This good habit for positive changes keeps the empaths hopeful and unable to leave the toxic relationship, despite the repeated toxic pattern of behavior in that relationship. They hold onto that person and keep trying, which dangerously makes them fall more into that person.

And even after abuse, an empath cannot move on because they keep waiting for the narcissist, hoping that one day they will understand what true love is. But ultimately, the narcissist doesn’t care about the empath, and the empath sacrifices themselves in the name of toxic love.

What’s The End Result of This Relationship?

The end result of this kind of relationship can depend on various factors. In my case, I had my breakup in a very short period of only 6 months. But I have also seen empaths and narcissists ending up being married and then suffering after marriage. After the breakup, an empath may feel empty in mind and a lot of types of pain and agony in their heart. These feelings are not only mental but also physical. One may feel like someone is squeezing their heart, cutting with knives straight-cut, chopping inside the chest, burning at thousand degrees, breaking everything inside like an earthquake, and a lot of nameless feelings. The empaths feel emotionally empty and exhausted from constantly giving into that relationship without receiving anything genuine in return. The feelings of emptiness, burnout, and hopelessness feel heavy on the empaths. But the good thing is all these pains and agonies are curable. It takes time. But all those pains are worth it. An empath becomes cooler than ever and emotionally stronger.

What’s the Solution Then?

For someone who is in this kind of relationship, I must say breaking up is the best solution. I know it is hard to take this kind of decision, but think about it more transparently; the relationship is very much toxic, and both persons are unhappy in it. If someone thinks marriage might be a good solution, then that will be the greatest mistake that an empath can ever make. Yes, people change after marriage. But a relationship that is already filled with this type of problems is very poorly likely to be fixed. It’s better to get detached before it’s too late. The narcissists will surely change and become better persons, but it will be only for another person, not the partner they have in the present.

I have seen a married couple of this type & they also have a child. Their situation is horrible. Life for both of them and the child has become a living hell. And my experience says that it will never change until separation. These two types of people living under the same roof troubles not only their life but also the whole family and relatives.

The ever-best solution to this is breaking up from this toxic bonding where love only exists on one side and try to heal from its effects. The very first step is to acknowledge the whole thing and try to break the bond. We have written another blog on the stages of detachment. You can read that out.