Concept: People experience cognitive dissonance when they engage in behaviors, they believe they should oppose. Enablers don’t generally think they deserve abuse, but it can appear as if they welcome it. When confronted with feedback indicating this, enablers often experience cognitive dissonance and provide excuses for the narcissist, so they can also excuse their own enabling.

How this creates more abuse: Making excuses does the heavy lifting for narcissists by not just providing the excuse but also validating their false narratives. When the narcissist wishes to abuse the enabler in the future, an expectation of excuse-making paves the way for more abusive behavior.

Examples:

1. “I get why you cheated on him. I mean, he got too involved in his work, and we all have needs.”
2. “You stole the money because you really needed it. It’s okay; I can afford it.”
3. He didn’t like how his wife treated him, but she had such a hard childhood that it made sense to him that she would act like that, so he stayed.

Advice: Don’t do the narcissist’s job for them. If they have to justify their behavior, let them do so and evaluate whether the narrative makes sense. Also, when a loved one approaches you with feedback that you may be enabling a narcissist, recognize that the need to make excuses could be due to cognitive dissonance, then listen to what your loved one has to say and consider it.

Home | Rights Theory | Love | Toxic Personalities | Fiction | Charlton’s Ground | About Me

Narcissism Encyclopedia

Red Flags | Motivations | Fears | Techniques | Inabilities | Stages | Defenses Against

Enabling

Acceptance | Benefit of Doubt | Blame Taking | Confessions | Emotional Diminishment | Helping | Ignoring Intuition | Loyalty | Passivity | Walking on eggshells