This One Change Made Narcissistic Men Target Me Less
Have you ever felt like narcissistic men are attracted to you? That they seem to seek you out due to your personality traits or perhaps your past relationship or childhood wounds and trauma?
I have.
I spent years wondering why I attracted men who were interested in taking, but never giving and often using my feminine nature against me. I stayed in relationships too long and had to do deep healing work after leaving relationships.
This led me to study narcissism in men. Narcissism operates on a spectrum – often the men that I was in a relationship with wouldn’t always act deeply narcissistic – it just showed up some of the time in the way that they acted or the way they spoke to me, which of course created more confusion. But they would often show up somewhat narcissistic often enough that I knew I needed to make a change and attract different men.
Then I came across Psychologist Sandra Brown.
I became more aware of why I was targeted by narcissistic men.
The same positive traits that help a woman succeed in healthy relationships are the same traits a male narcissist targets.
Isn’t that fascinating – the traits you possess that allow you to create healthy, successful relationships are the exact same traits that he targets in you – to twist and manipulate and use against you.
Your positive traits nurture healthy relationships. But in a toxic relationship with a narcissistic man, those same traits make you more willing to stay and endure the relationship.
This got me thinking – do women need to develop different traits? Do we need to change our healthy characteristics? Do we need to act in a specific way so that we appear different?
No, we don’t.
The healthy traits and characteristics that you currently possess help you create the relationship you want - with a man who is not trying to manipulate you, future fake you, gaslight you, or control you. A healthy masculine man will amplify these positive qualities and not use them against you.
But you also need to be aware that these same traits can and will be used against you by narcissistic, abusive, and toxic men.
Let’s look at the positive traits you possess that a narcissist uses against you include:
- Ambition
- High Achieving
- Empathetic
- Flexible
- Loyal
- Tolerant
- Trusting
- Perseverant
- Agreeable
- Cooperative
- Harmony Seeking
- Open
So why can’t you spot the narcissist faster? Because this man is actually trying to keep his true intentions from you and is specifically playing the long game with you to get what he wants from you before he discards you. It takes time to notice the subtle ways he dismisses you, diminishes the value you see in yourself, or the ways his words and actions heighten your nervous system state. The narcissist reveals himself over time.
What can you do?
One of the most profound things I did was change how agreeably I showed up in the relationship and in my own life. .
What is agreeableness?
According to the Big Five Personality Test, agreeableness means that you have a tendency to be considerate, cooperative, compliant, and kind. You were conditioned by a male-dominated society to be this way. These are considered “light” or soft feminine energy qualities - and society has conditioned women want to please others and put herself last. Society has conditioned women to sacrifice, to over-give, to be accommodating, to please, to chase men and their attention, and be chosen. This behavior happens because women have been indoctrinated with the idea that being good and acceptable only means that they are to be compliant and nice.
This leads a girl and a woman to her wounded feminine energy, where she tries to preform for love, and where she feels the need to be saved, validated, or chosen by the masculine in order to be whole and in order to get the life she desires. What this does instead, is it leads her towards unhealthy relationships and it also leads to resentment and a lack of safety in her life.
When a woman becomes resentful of men, she moves into her distorted feminine energy, where she becomes emotionally distant, controlling, overly independent, and overworks herself because she feels like she is the only one who can give herself the safety and security she need.
Agreeableness in itself is not a bad thing. It’s good to be kind and considerate. But there is such a thing as being TOO agreeable.
Agreeableness operates on a spectrum. If you are high in agreeableness, you can learn how to put yourself first and lower your high agreeable nature to a more moderate level of agreeableness.
I am not suggesting that you become disagreeable and unpleasant. What I am suggesting is that you become less agreeable, so that you are living from a mid-range agreeableness. What this will do is it will allow you to stop trying to please other people, to stop putting others needs before your own at all times, it will allow you to create boundaries for yourself, and it will allow you to say no without feeling as much shame.
You have been conditioned to think this way in order to fit into society the way our patriarchal system desires - rather than you doing what is best for you.
By diving deep into your attachment to agreeableness and changing the degree to how highly agreeable you are, you can also manage how flexible you are in the relationship, how much you are willing to tolerate, and how hard you dive into the relationship when things get hard.
If you take your highly agreeable nature and move it to a medium level of agreeableness, your positive traits will not be used against you as easily, and you will be able to spot the male narcissist or partner sooner.
How do you become less agreeable?
There will be several things you will need to address in order to become less agreeable. All of the things I will suggest start with understanding that you were taught to act agreeable - by society, by your family, and by your community. Our masculine dominated culture teaches women to give and over-give - at the expense of their self-worth, their happiness - to keep women thinking that they are small and powerless. This creates an excessive need within us to fit it, to comply, and to over-give, to chase men, to fear being alone, and to fear not being chosen. This diminishes a woman’s self-worth and the value she places in herself. She mistakes effort for love.
To become less agreeable, a woman must first look at her history.
To become less agreeable, a woman must address the root cause of her agreeableness and see if she needs to do any healing work.
To become less agreeable, a woman needs to access her dark feminine energy, not just the light feminine qualities that society deems acceptable. This also requires a shift in her mindset.
To become less agreeable, the feminine must cultivate her sense of self-worth and value. This requires her to dive deep into her internal dialogue - what she says to herself about herself - and change any negative or demeaning self-dialogue.
In her book “Why Men Love Bitches,” Sherry Argov interviews many men for her book in order to truly understand what healthy men are attracted to in women. Here is the interesting thing - only unhealthy men are looking for highly agreeable women whom they can use. Most men find needy, dependent, “choose me” women burdensome. According to Argov, men are looking for a woman who is a “mental challenge” - mentally and intellectually stimulating, yes, but more so a woman with a presence of mind. A woman who has her own life that she absolutely loves. The woman who won’t always change her plans or bend over backwards for a man. The woman with boundaries and a backbone. The woman who could take or leave the relationship and will walk away if the relationship isn’t serving her highest good and improving her life.
Does this woman sound too agreeable? No.
She often was a woman who was too agreeable in the past and had to work through societal conditioning and indoctrination. This is the woman who has a bit of an edge to her, and her positive traits aren’t being used against her in relationships anymore.
What to do
You have become aware that you attract toxic, manipulative, narcissistic, and unavailable men due to your positive characteristics. You may not be able to stop anyone who has bad intentions from approaching you and trying to get to know you, but you can be less agreeable.
Make a gentle commitment with yourself to focus on one aspect of becoming a little less agreeable at a time. It can be very overwhelming for a feminine woman to feel like she has to implement as many changes as she can all at once. There is nothing wrong with you. Do you have a tendency to over give? To put others needs before your own? Yes. And when you add in your positive relationship qualities like tolerance, openness, loyalty and perseverance, do you stay in relationships longer than you should? Also yes. But creating added stress in your life by trying to implement too many changes will diminish your feminine energy and will leave you depleted and with a lack of energy. It is important to go at your own pace and to make one change at a time, while deepening into your healthy feminine energy.
Part of knowing your value and worth as a woman is also learning to put yourself first. Not in a selfish way, but because no one else will and no one else is coming to save you. You must know how to meet your own needs. You must learn how to build habits so that you take the absolute best care of yourself that you can. This means emotionally, financially, intellectually, spiritually, psychologically and physically. You cannot put everyone else before yourself. When you do this, and you don’t give in to the needs and wants of someone you are just beginning to get to know, you stop sacrificing your happiness and fulfillment for a man. Toxic men notice this about you and become less interested.
Dive deep into the reasons why you may over give or put others needs before your own. Do you have any unresolved childhood wounds or trauma? Did you attach insecurely as a child? Did you grow up in a very religious home that taught you to serve and sacrifice for the good of others? Once you know some of the root causes, addressing your need to over-give or stay in a relationship you know isn’t healthy will allow you to release some of your old patterns and stories, and embrace the path you desire to take.
Look for opportunities to stay true to yourself by holding to your standards and boundaries, and by saying no. How do you want to feel in your relationships? How do you want to feel in your life, your body, your heart and your soul? If your feminine intuition is telling you something is off, it almost always is. Listen. Then cultivate standards and boundaries around how you want to feel. Anytime you consistently don’t feel the way you desire to feel, assess the relationship, use discernment, and determine what you need to do to return to feeling your best.
Work through any feelings of shame around “quitting” a relationship. Many deep feeling, deep thinking, and very perceptive feminine essenced women struggle with leaving a relationship because they have been conditioned to 1. put love and effort into their relationships 2. have personality types that stick it out through the hard times and 3. Therefore, they struggle to walk away from unhealthy relationships. They often think that with a little more time, effort, energy, and love, they can change the outcome. With toxic, abusive, neglectful, avoidant, and narcissistic men, this simply isn’t true. The woman gave what she could, and now she has to love the man from a distance, and work through her feelings of shame. Walking away is a way that allows you to put yourself first.
“Being a good woman will not be appreciated by a man with bad intentions.”
By choosing to put her own needs first, a woman begins to learn that she doesn’t have to chase anyone or run after love. She can say no and remain rooted in her feminine energy - both her light/soft feminine energy and her dark feminine energy. This is the woman who stands firm in her desires and knows that she is worthy of attracting and keeping good things in her life. This is the woman who sees the false mask the narcissist/toxic/avoidant man wears more quickly, so she stops investing in him and chooses herself.
Hi, I’m Allison
Writer, teacher, guide, podcast host, and founder of Create Love Freedom, an online space for women to reclaim their feminine, heal, transform, and come home to their feminine energy, feminine power, and feminine radiance. If you are a woman wanting to heal your past wounds and trauma, deepen into your feminine being, slow down, authentically know yourself, let go of societal conditioning, create the relationships and connections you desire, and to become the woman you want to be, you are in the right place. Start here.