Narcissists & Repentance

According to merriam-webster.com, repent means:

1: to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one’s life
2 a : to feel regret or contrition
b : to change one’s mind

Narcissists are incapable of true repentance.  It’s very obvious to anyone who has been in any type of relationship with a narcissist for even a short length of time that their behavior looks nothing like the definitions of repentance.  They don’t turn from sin or dedicate themselves to change.  They don’t feel regret or contrition.  They don’t change their minds either unless doing so can somehow benefit them. 

If you expect such things from a narcissist, you need to know they will never happen.  They may put on a good show of repentance sometimes, but only if doing so benefits them.  If a victim wants to end the relationship, for example, they may promise change & appear to have regrets, but the problem is these things are only for show.  And, this show won’t last forever.  It only lasts until the narcissist realizes the victim is back in the relationship to stay. 

While narcissists are perfectly capable of change, the fact is they rarely want to, & when they do, they do only because it will be advantageous to them.  They only pretend to change when someone ends a relationship with them because they want that person back in their life, & to resume the dysfunctional relationship as it was.  Causing someone pain & suffering truly isn’t enough motivation for a narcissist to truly change.  The suffering of others is totally irrelevant to them. 

When dealing with narcissists, they seem to think they are above such things as true repentence.  So long as they say they are sorry, all should be forgiven & forgotten, & the relationship should return to its normal, abusive & dysfunctional state.  They believe that the fact they don’t really mean that they’re sorry shouldn’t matter to their victims.  The fact that the narcissist is unable to feel remorse for the pain they caused also shouldn’t matter, & neither should their unwillingness to truly repent.  In their minds, it’s simply the victims’ job to forgive, forget & tolerate the narcissist’s abuse indefinitely.

The problem though is that this is utterly unhealthy.  Not only for the narcissist who engages in such incredibly dysfunctional thinking, but in particular for their victims.

There is a saying.. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over while expecting different results.”  How true is that?  It makes perfect sense!  If a narcissist apologizes to you for something, then you forgive & forget, soon you can count on the narcissist doing that same behavior to you again.  He or she had no consequences for the bad behavior.  Then you forgive & forget again, & the cycle continues.

If you are expecting the narcissist in your life to one day to have an epiphany, realize just how terrible their behavior is, & truly repent, give up on that idea.  Yes, it’s difficult.  Yes, it’s painful.  However, it’s much easier than continuing to live life waiting on something that is not going to happen & be continually disappointed.  Instead, live your life without that expectation.  Maybe it will happen one day.  With God, all things are truly possible.  If it does, rejoice & be grateful!  But, if it doesn’t, you won’t be devastated if it never does because you had a reasonable expectation that it wouldn’t happen.

Encouragement For Those Who Pray For The Narcissists In Their Lives

Praying for people you love is easy & comes naturally as a Christian.  Praying for people who have done bad things to you is much harder.  Praying for a narcissistic parent who tried to destroy you is about a hundred times harder.  If you have taken it upon yourself to pray for your narcissistic parent, I want you to know that I truly get how hard it is.  I want to offer you some encouragement today to keep doing it, even when you don’t want to.

For many years after I became a Christian, I prayed for the salvation of my narcissistic parents.  Matthew 5:44 says we are to pray for our enemies, so I started praying for them out of obedience to God.  Honestly, my heart wasn’t really in it though.  Even before learning about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I realized their behavior was that of people who didn’t think they needed God in their lives in spite of saying they prayed & loved God.  Praying for them seemed pointless.  Not because God was unable to reach them, but because they clearly turned their backs on Him.  No matter what He did, if they didn’t want to hear or acknowledge His voice, they wouldn’t.  I got more lax in my prayers for them for a while.

As they got older & their health began failing, I stepped up my prayers more.  It was obvious they weren’t going to be around for a long time, so in spite of my lack of hope, I prayed for them daily.

The day my father died, a former friend of mine got a vision from God about my father.  The story is readily available on a link on the menu at the top of my website at http://www.CynthiaBaileyRug.com if you would like to read it.  Rather than repeat it here, suffice it to say that my father turned to God at the very end of his life.

Almost exactly eighteen months later, my mother died.  During the conversation with the funeral director, he asked my husband & I about our religious views.  Turned out he too was a Christian.  As we were discussing the final arrangements, he suddenly stopped.  He said God told him to tell me that my mother was with Him in Heaven!  A short time later, I found a tiny Bible in my mother’s house.  Apparently it was a gift to her when she was only 9 years old.  Printed towards the end was the Sinner’s prayer.  My mother signed it!  I believe that was proof that the funeral director was correct with the message he told me!

The reason I’m sharing these stories with you today is to encourage anyone who struggles with praying for the narcissist in their life.  I know it’s hard.  I also know that if you can do it, often you feel like a hypocrite because your heart isn’t in it.  There were plenty of times when I prayed for my parents I told God, “I don’t want to do this.  I don’t even care anymore what happens to them.  I’m only doing this because You want me to.”  Terrible, isn’t it?  Yet, not once did He make me ashamed of how I felt.  In fact, He understood that & was glad that I was praying for them in spite of not wanting to.  Clearly, He honored even those awful sounding prayers!

I also realize that it can be so disheartening to pray & see no improvement or hope that things will change.  Even so, please keep praying anyway!  All things truly are possible with God.  Just look at what happened with my parents.  And, just because you haven’t seen any change yet doesn’t mean that change won’t happen.

Please remember too, that you may never see the results of your prayers.  I didn’t.  When my father died, I hadn’t spoken to him in months.  When my mother died, it was just under 3 years since we spoke.  Just because I didn’t get to see the results of the prayers in this lifetime didn’t mean they didn’t happen!  Clearly, they did!

Lastly, if it seems as if God is taking too long answering your prayers, I know that can be frustrating!  Please don’t give up though!  Some people are very stubborn & close their hearts to God.  It can take a long time or something drastic to happen to break through that.  An answer delayed doesn’t necessarily mean an answer is denied.  2 Peter 3:9 in the Amplified Bible says,  “The Lord does not delay [as though He were unable to act] and is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is [extraordinarily] patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”