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.

Are Narcissists Ever Sorry?

Many people wonder if a narcissist is capable of being genuinely sorry.  They certainly don’t act sorry or show signs of remorse like changing their behavior, but does that mean they truly aren’t sorry?

Yes & no.

Narcissists lack empathy, which means they won’t feel sorry as a normal, functional person will.  They won’t be sorry for causing pain & suffering.  They won’t feel sorry for disappointing someone who loves them.  They certainly won’t feel sorry for the fact that their abusive ways have come close to destroying other human beings.  In fact, not only will they not be sorry for what they have done, but usually they will blame someone or something else for their behavior, for “making” them do whatever it is they have done.

Narcissists are also incredibly self centered.  All that matters to any narcissist is that narcissist.  No one else’s wants or needs matter to a narcissist, so why feel sorry for failing to meet another person’s wants or needs?  Clearly they aren’t important, so there is certainly no reason to feel sorry.

This doesn’t mean narcissists don’t feel sorry sometimes, however.  They just don’t feel sorry for the things that the average person feels sorry for.

Sometimes, narcissists are sorry for things they have done.  Those things are usually especially egregious.  While the fact they have done something horrible should make a narcissist feel sorry for their actions, that isn’t why they are sorry.  They are sorry for what they did because if anyone finds out about it, that person may think poorly of the narcissist.  To eliminate that possibility, they often do things like scare a victim into not telling anyone with threats of violence or revealing the victim’s secrets.  They also will reinvent the situation in an attempt to gaslight a victim into believing their version of the situation rather than his or her own memories.

Narcissists are sorry when their victim figures out what they are up to.  This means they are losing control of their victim.  Of course they are sorry for this!  It wasn’t in their plans & now they must come up with some solution to this problem!  It’s so inconvenient!

Narcissists are sorry when confronted about their abusive behavior.  Narcissists seem to believe no one ever could catch on to what they are doing, let alone would have the unmitigated gall to confront them about it.  When it happens, they are shocked & horrified.  They are also sorry.  Not because they have hurt someone of course, but they are sorry they were caught.  Being caught makes the narcissist look less than perfect, which is something that no narcissist can handle.

Narcissists are very sorry when their victims end the relationship with them.  It seems to me that every single narcissist fails to realize that every person has a breaking point.  They expect their victims to tolerate the horrific abuse indefinitely & even with a smile.  It never seems to cross a narcissist’s mind that there is a very good possibility that their victim will get fed up with the abuse & abandon them at some point.  When it happens, narcissists are always shocked & very sorry.  They aren’t sorry for pushing their victim to this point, of course.  Instead, they are sorry they have no one left to abuse.  They’re sorry they have to seek out another victim & train that person to be a victim.  That’s a lot of work!  They’re also sorry they’re left alone, because narcissists cannot handle solitude & the possibility of seeing who they truly are.  They’re especially sorry that they have lost their precious narcissistic supply.

To sum it up, yes, narcissists do feel sorry sometimes.. just sadly, not in the same capacity a healthy person feels sorry.

Are Narcissists Ever Sorry?