Benefit of Doubt - Dan Cassenti, Novelist

Concept: With their active ignorance and propensity toward lying, narcissists wage a constant battle against the truth. A perpetually skeptical person will take little time or effort to discover that a narcissist’s claims are untrue. However, Enablers of narcissists try to give the benefit of the doubt for these claims to remain in the trauma bond and not upset narcissists. This allows enablers to actively ignore reality, so they don’t have to face the reality of narcissistic deception.

How this creates more abuse: Giving the benefit of the doubt validates false narratives and thus further entraps the narcissist in a mental space at a distance from reality. The enabler also willfully occupies the same space and accepts the narcissist’s version of reality in which they are the infallible and all-knowing authority over the enabler.

Examples:

Even though he remembers looking at his watch and confirming that his co-worker was late for an important meeting, he vouches for the co-worker when the boss asks him about it, assuming that his watch was running fast. He later adjusts his watch to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“You’ve had such a rough time of it. I mean, every man you dated was a monster. What terrible luck!”
“Yes, I can see how you would need to date your ex while dating me. After all, you need more love than I do because of everything that happened to you. I’m ready to support you. Give him a call while I take a drive and give you some privacy.”

Advice: If your intuition tells you something’s wrong with what the narcissist is saying, don’t twist reality into a pretzel to make the claims true. Instead, presume the claims are false as your intuition directs and only change this when you have undeniable evidence that counters the presumption.

Narcissism Encyclopedia

Enabling