Impact on Children
Kids may cave, and frankly, depending on how severe the trauma, abuse, adversity, or whatever it is that child is having to pretend isn’t happening, this begins, or is the start of, other more significant patterns for a child, such as complex trauma reactions, dissociation, and lots of self-blame in the form of “I’m the bad one.” This gets worse if the child believes or is being made to feel that they’re being disloyal.
Some families may even have scary stories that they tell about people from the family who were so terrible as to be disloyal, like, “We don’t speak to Uncle Charlie anymore,” or “We don’t speak to Cousin Susie anymore because they weren’t loyal.” There will be legends of those who were shut out of the family because of their lack of loyalty.
The younger you are when you’re exposed to this mythology, it is it creates this real fear of being left out in the cold with no support. The idea of poor Uncle Such-and-Such wandering the world without a family because he is disloyal is a lot. But you now know that Uncle Such-and-Such was probably ahead of his time and may now be living his best life because he has nothing to do with this family.
Loyalty in Intimate Relationships
In intimate relationships, loyalty or lack of loyalty, or being branded as disloyal, is often used to isolate people. There is an assumption in some, not all, but many narcissistic relationships that you have to be “all in,” that the relationship has to be the most important thing in the world.
For example, choosing a night out with friends to celebrate someone’s birthday, going away on a weekend with old friends, or even choosing to spend time with family is labeled as disloyal a sort of retrograde positioning of, “Well, you’re in a relationship now; this should be the most important thing for you.” Having any kind of meaningful life or relationships that are separate in any way from the relationship can then be viewed as a betrayal of sorts by the narcissistic person you’re in a relationship with, and a statement on your lack of loyalty.
This can feel messed up when, in fact, the narcissistic person has betrayed you in the past, and yet they are calling you out on your lack of loyalty. I mean, hypocrisy is one of the love languages of the narcissistic relationship.
Your lack of loyalty in an intimate relationship may also come up if you agree with someone else, which may mean you’re not agreeing with your narcissistic partner. You agree with someone else’s opinion; you don’t agree with the narcissistic person.
Your narcissistic partner may then view you as taking sides and not being loyal. This can sting if you do value yourself as being a loyal person and as someone who hasn’t betrayed the narcissistic person, but you keep getting this disloyal label thrown on you.
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