Those who know a narcissist know that feeling where there is a disagreement, tensions get high, and you get upset. Regardless of who was at fault, you have cooled off and wait to come back together and discuss what happened. However, the narcissist pretends like nothing happened or doesn’t want to talk about the issue. They move forward how they see fit and you are left feeling alone and confused. At a minimum, you would like an apology from the narcissist, but you wait and wait because the narcissist will never apologize.
Why don’t narcissists apologize? Apologizing is something you learned as a young child. It helps build connections and show the other person that you matter to them enough to acknowledge what happened and try to move past it. But for the narcissists, there is so much built into an apology that they can’t and won’t comprehend.
The first reason a narcissist will never apologize is because apologizing requires responsibility taking. To take responsibility doesn’t even mean you were actually at fault, but you are willing to take fault to resolve the situation. Regardless of whether the narcissist is at fault, they will never take responsibility. They are incapable of this because it goes against their beliefs that they are superior, entitled, and need to have the best of everything. To admit fault and take responsibility could mean they are seen as flawed in some way. A narcissist can do no wrong and they cannot be flawed; at least not in their mind.
The narcissist has an unstable sense of self and a fragile ego. They must always protect these aspects of what makes them a narcissist as a way to prevent narcissistic injury. A non-narcissist can recover from mistakes and thoughts from others that they are at fault. A narcissist cannot because of their unstable sense of self. Combine this with their lack of object constancy and you will understand why a narcissist will do anything to avoid apologizing. They will blame shift, project, and yell to get the attention off of them and onto you. By the end of the conversation the narcissist has gaslit you into thinking maybe it was your fault and not theirs. You then think no apology is needed from the narcissist because if you didn’t act in a certain way then there wouldn’t have been a disagreement.
The narcissist can effectively gaslight because they lack empathy, while you, the non-narcissist has empathy. Not only can they not understand how you feel in this situation of blame shifting, belittling, and lack of responsibility taking from the narcissist, they also can’t feel those same feelings as someone who has empathy. They are oblivious as to why you want to keep bringing this disagreement up. To them, it is in the past and shouldn’t matter right now. The narcissist is thinking only about themselves and no one else.
For the narcissist to discuss the issue, they run the risk of being seen as flawed, which leads to feelings of shame, and this throws the narcissist off and they cannot recover. Pretending nothing has happened and life is good is much more effective for the narcissist. What helps you doesn’t matter.
While the lack of an apology from the narcissist is enough to make you feel inferior and never good enough, the narcissist gaslighting as if you were the problem to begin with just further complicates the situation. In their game of control and manipulation the narcissist has effectively moved from issue A to each additional thing they feel fit to make you feel less of a person about. This gives them plenty of buffer in future interactions because they now have introduced new things for you to worry about regarding you as a person. Disagreements are not something the narcissist can deal with, but they do help the narcissist continue to add to their narcissist toolbox of punishments they can pull from in the future when needed the most. You won’t get an apology from the narcissist so move on from the disagreement and don’t give the narcissist more information to use against you in the future.
At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment. Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.