Heart blindness. A term you've probably not heard of before, until today. As some men have something so good, they will never see it. They refuse to register what love looks like, even when it's standing right in front of them.
If you've ever fallen in love with a narcissistic man and walked away in a confused daze, it's because these men are incapable of knowing what love is, and how to preserve and protect it. For them, they will never know it. They are 'heart blind.'
And no amount of your love, patience, or clever explaining is going to fix that. You could hand him the whole map and he still wouldn't read it.
1 Not seeing what he had is totally genuine
For the narcissist, you stopped your world. You became someone who showed up for them and your relationship where most people would've walked away. Despite that, the narcissist saw you as never quite good enough.
He saw how loyal you were and decided that calling you needy would be the best option. You were patient, and loving, and kind, and he saw all of that as some sort of weakness.
The love you gave him was treated like something he constantly expected and demanded from you, like you owed him a pile of money. It's understandable to not see that in someone at first, especially when you're so busy wanting to make it work yourself.
You give it all you've got, and for what? The narcissist won't make you feel as though you matter. He would much rather spit out the following phrases at you:
I don't even know why you're so upset right now. I haven't even done anything wrong. Why is everything so dramatic with you? Heart blindness is so much more than just someone who doesn't appreciate you, or see everything you do to keep the relationship alive.
It's this vast incapability of being able to see you at all. He genuinely doesn't know what he has, he cannot see the good because he cannot see real love. He doesn't know real love, and you'll never be able to teach it to him, either.
I had a client tell me once that she wrote him a letter listing every single thing she did for him in a week. He read it and asked why she was keeping score.
2 The toxicity of a narcissistic man will never be able to process a love that's true
Narcissistic men are all wired to do the exact same thing:
Scan for threats. Judge people on status. Look for supply.
They operate with these three things alive and kicking, and if you look closely, you'll notice that none of those three things have anything to do with love. There's no kindness. There is no respect when it comes to boundaries. They don't care about being vulnerable, or respecting your vulnerabilities.
There you are, coming along and offering them a genuine relationship, and he will process that request through the above three things. Are you a threat? What is your status? What supply can you offer him?
If you meet that criteria, he sees there is good in you, but it's not the good you want him to see and fall in love with. It's a sad filter, isn't it?
You are seen through a distorted lens from the moment you show up, and all you try to do is fix whatever he constantly tells you needs fixing.
He had no real idea what to do with your love, it was just there for convenience and whatever else he could get out of you.
Convenience is the word that keeps coming up when women describe these men. Not partner. Not lover. Convenience. That says everything about where you actually sat in his head.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their House3 You were the good woman, the good relationship, he could never keep
Here's a secret about all narcissistic men:
They ruin every good relationship they're in. The destruction doesn't come from hating the person, or the relationship, but from the relationship asking something of the narcissist that they know they can't give. I need your life. I need you to reciprocate what I am giving you.
I need you to be accountable. I need you to sit with my feelings long enough to support me, and not turn them back to being about you. I need you to show me that you are responsible for the role you're playing to keep this relationship alive.
You won't get that. You get:
I said I was sorry, what more do you want? Why do you keep asking me to show up? It's hollow, isn't it? It's like you're preaching to someone who just doesn't want to be present or around for you, and that's so hard.
In his world, he's there, and he's trying hard. In reality, he's doing nothing. If a relationship is to survive and be good, it needs to be worked at, not left to a complacent person who doesn't understand love at all.
The relationship had all the potential in the world, and it was left to fall apart because only one person showed up.
And showing up alone in a two person relationship is one of the loneliest things a human being can do. You feel it in your bones long before you name it.
4 Heart blindness is not a you problem
The part all professionals want victims of narcissistic abuse everywhere to master the art of knowing and believing:
Heart blindness is not a condition that you suffer with. This is all him.
He wants you to think it's a problem that you invented or brought to the table, but in reality, he has lived with it his entire life, and when you crossed paths, he made his condition your problem to deal with.
There was nothing about you that was ever not lovable enough, and when he started to list that long list of issues he associated with you, he wanted you to believe and take on board every single word. All those words? They are a reflection of him, and not you.
He doesn't want to criticize himself because he doesn't see any fault, and he doesn't even know how. Instead, it's your fault. He describes all the ways he's limited when he speaks about how you're never enough, and how needy you are. But you carry it, don't you?
You see it all as a fault lined in your own making, but in truth, you are shooting way off the mark because you were told to. Heart blindness does this to people, you know.
The idea is that yes, they're totally blinded to what they're doing and how they're treating you. He is never going to change, and you will never get what you want from him one day.
So please stop carrying a bag of faults that were never yours to begin with. He handed it to you at the door and you've been dragging it around ever since.
5 When you stop trying to be seen, this happens
There has to come a point where you need to stop trying to be seen. You realize it's doing you no good to hold on and wait for him to be who you need.
You've tried so hard to make him see you, but he is heart-blind, and he won't see your love and everything that love could do to improve your lives together.
When that moment comes where you stop trying, there is this fog that's sat over your eyes that begins to lift. You remember everything you did, and everything that fell flat because of him. How warm you were. All that effort you put in.
The days you lost to chasing him when all he wanted to do was be alone. Your steady love he could never hold and appreciate.
All of that and more still belongs to you, and at some point in your future, it will land on the doorstep of someone who is ready to love, and who sees you for the soul that you are.
And when that day arrives, you'll understand something quietly powerful. The love was never the problem. The person you were trying to give it to just couldn't hold it.
6 The Way He Talks About His Exes Should Have Told You Everything
Think back. Really think. What did he say about the woman before you? She was crazy. She was obsessive. She wouldn't leave him alone. She cheated. She was a mess and he had to save her from herself.
Every ex, without fail, got painted as some unhinged villain who did him wrong.
And you nodded along, didn't you. You felt sorry for him. You thought, wow, he's been through so much, I'll be the one who treats him right.
That was the trap. Because no man has a lineup of exes who were all secretly monsters. That's statistically impossible. What actually happened is he treated them exactly the way he later treated you, and when they had enough, he rewrote them as the problem.
One day, and this is the part that stings, you become one of those exes. Some new woman is sitting across from him hearing about how crazy you were. How needy. How dramatic. Word for word, the same script.
He didn't warn you about him. He was warning you about himself.
7 Why the Next Woman Won't Fix Him Either
There's a fantasy that plays out in the mind of every woman who has loved a narcissistic man. She imagines him meeting someone new and finally becoming the man he refused to be for her. Softer. Attentive. Present. Let me settle this for you now.
That woman is going to get the exact same man you got. Maybe worse, because he'll have practiced his lines by then.
Heart blindness doesn't leave when you do. He packs it up and takes it into the next relationship, the one after, and the one after that. She will cook the meals. She will smooth over his moods. She will explain him to his family and friends.
And she will lie in bed wondering why she feels so alone next to someone who claims to love her.
The fantasy that he's off being wonderful for her? It's just grief wearing a costume. Somewhere, another woman is writing the same letter you wrote, and he's asking her why she's keeping score.
