Love Is Not a Competition
Competitions can be fun. They challenge the skill, stamina, and determination of the participants, they promote healthy comradery and social engagement.
Or at least they should.
Many times, however, competition gets out of control and becomes more of a power play, a one-upmanship, a display of vulgar and unwholesome opposition.
People with unhealthy narcissistic traits tend to view life as a competition—and they must always be the winner. If not—if they feel they’ve lost, or someone might be better at something than they are—all hell breaks loose. And that’s putting it mildly.
Love is no exception.
In one of the most well-known biblical quotes, St. Paul reminds us that “love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful” (1 Cor. 13:4-5).
In other words, love isn’t a competitive sport where there is a clear winner and a definite loser. Yet this, strangely, is just how someone with an abusive mindset views every aspect of his or her life—including love, romantic or otherwise. If you’re in a toxic relationship, this may sound familiar: your partner gets jealous if you show love or even friendship toward anyone else, no matter who that “anyone else” may be—including your children and other family members, or even your pet.
It's as if they see love as a commodity that could easily run out. If you give love to another, that means you have less to give to them.
And they want it all. Every last drop, plus more.
It’s exhausting to be in a relationship with someone who holds this attitude. It rips away at the core of your humanity because it makes you feel as if your love is defective or inadequate.
In the mind of someone who uses abuse to control their relationships, sharing your love with someone else means they’ll get less—and they can’t tolerate that.
I had a reader recently ask me:
My ex never liked me. I actually broke off our first engagement, because back then I was still strong enough to do that. But then he pursued me as if I was the love of his life, professing his devotion and begging me to take him back. Why did he do that, if he didn’t even like me as a person?
Anyway, I fell for his tactics, and ended up marrying him. As soon as he had me back, it was the same story. He didn’t treat me right during our second engagement, either. Deep down I think I knew he didn't like me, let alone love me. But it wasn't until decades later, after the divorce, that I finally faced it. My only question is: why did he marry me?
Sadly, what this reader describes is far more common than uncommon. I responded by telling her:
It sounds like your ex may have married you because he needed to win. You were a conquest, not a love. Think of it like a toddler. How many times have you seen two toddlers playing together, and one has a toy that he's focused on. However, after a while he gets tired of that toy, so he tosses it aside. Once he does that, the other toddler grabs the toy and starts playing with it. It's only then that the first toddler decides that he must have the toy back. He has to have it—not because he really wants it, but so no one else can have it and so he can claim to be the “winner.”
In the black-and-white world of someone with strong narcissistic traits, all of life is a competition–even love–and he has to be the winner, no matter what the cost. Even if the cost is you. Because, sadly, in the end, only he counts. And like a toddler, he simply cannot share.
Most victims become utterly confused when trying to figure out the mind of someone who uses toxic manipulation to control other people, yet the key is quite simple:
Stop trying to think about their motives from a normal standpoint.
Somewhere in their childhood, their emotional development was stunted. This means that they tend to perceive the world, and everything in it, as a toddler-like competition.