Number two: he appears to be a nice boy on the outside but is never honest. That’s how she trained him. He was always the well-dressed one, the one who said “please” and “thank you” to outsiders. His mother made sure of his perfection. Appearances were everything; they had to be because behind the scenes, everything was chaos. He was punished for being messy, shamed for showing anger, and silenced for crying. Every real emotion was extremely dangerous, so he learned to split himself in two: one version for the world, one version for the dog. That’s why the narcissist you fell for seems like two different people—Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One charms your friends, kisses your parents, and talks about marriage, while the other disappears for hours, lies compulsively, and turns ice cold the moment you get too close. That’s not by accident; that’s by design. He became a master of deception, not because he wanted to lie, but because lying was everything he was taught. His mother praised performance and punished authenticity. She didn’t raise him to be real; she raised him to be seen. Now, in relationships, he wears the same mask he wore as a child until the mask cracks, and when it does, you are left holding the pieces.
Role Reversal: Protector and Shield
Number three: your job is to protect me, not the other way around. The monster was conditioned to absorb, not receive. Every time she got hurt, he was her tissue. Every time she felt small, he was her hype man. She poured her pain into him as if he were a wall. He was never allowed to be the scared one, the tired one, or the hurt one. His job was to hold her together. So now, when you break down, he disappears, or worse, he makes it about himself. He feels disgusted by you. You’re sobbing on the floor, and he’s telling you how hard he has it. You ask for a hug, and he gives you nothing but silence. You crave intimacy, and he turns away because he was never taught how to be felt. He learned that love means service and that worth equals utility. He never got to be a boy; he was forced to be a shield. Now, every relationship feels like a battlefield where he must, in a twisted way, protect himself because no one ever protected him. Even when you are giving him love, he sees it as an ambush because he was never mothered; he was used.
I’m not justifying a narcissist’s actions; I’m helping you understand why it’s not your fault. I’m helping you see the situation objectively: damage caused and created by somebody else. You are being punished for no crime of yours.
Fear of Abandonment and Control
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