To the narcissist, you are simply a pawn they use to their benefit in their game of control and manipulation. The narcissist doesn’t care about you, and they most definitely don’t want to enhance your well-being. The narcissist thinks only of themselves and everything in their life is assessed from the perspective of how it will benefit them. Sure, there are times the narcissist can be loving and caring, but if you were to really analyze those moments with the narcissist, you will see the narcissist acted in a certain way because it somehow benefited them. Why doesn’t the narcissist care about you and why would they waste your time making you think they did?
The primary reason the narcissist doesn’t truly care about you is because of their lack of empathy. They can’t consider things from the perspective of someone else and this impacts their ability to truly care about someone else. They are inward focused and only think of how things benefit or hurt them. Even if someone is going through a similar situation to them, they still cannot understand how the other person may be feeling. Their lack of empathy is always apparent in a narcissist relationship.
It can be exhausting being in a relationship with a narcissist because you always must defend yourself, question yourself, or make sense of what they are doing or saying. It can wear on you mentally and physically. It is also like being on a roller coaster ride with the narcissist. Some days go well, and you have hope things are on the sustained upward path of positive change. However, other days are unbearable due to their use of narcissistic punishment tactics. And no matter how hard you work at trying to predict how the narcissist will act, they remain unpredictable.
This is where the narcissist’s lack of concern for you really shines through. They see you struggling and wanting to get to a point of resolution in issues that are present, but they provide no assistance in making things better. They will make changes only when it benefits them.
Sometimes the benefit to them may not be immediate, though, and this makes it all the more confusing. The narcissist will act nice to you today because they need something from you in the future. This is when you start to let your guard down and believe they might be changing. They might be nice for several days, weeks, or even months and this makes you think they have finally realized what they need to change. But you must remember that because the narcissist is being nice, it isn’t because they want it to benefit you. You need to ask yourself how this will benefit them if not now, then in the future.
The narcissist doesn’t care about you and for this reason they aren’t interested in working things out with you. If you do try to bring up your concerns or suggest they could be the problem, they will rage, use the silent treatment, or engage in any of their other narcissistic punishment tactics. The narcissist is cruel. Most people will want to make you feel better after they have done something to hurt you. For the narcissist, however, none of those matters. You are the enemy, and they have nothing to apologize for.
The narcissist doesn’t care about you and if you think they do, then you are easier to control and manipulate. The intermittent reinforcement from the narcissist is addicting but also maintains the trauma bond and you hang onto hope things can change. It may provide a sense of relief to see the nicer side of the narcissist come out, and a release from their abusive ways, but don’t take the bait and fall for their niceness. Instead, ask yourself have you been here before with the narcissist, and if so, were they able to be consistent and show they care about you in the long-term, or is this just a set-up for the eventual push off the pedestal the narcissist has placed you on, temporarily.