Narcissist and the Law of Reciprocity: Why Your Emotional Bank Account Feels Empty

You're in a relationship with a narcissist. Some days it seems like the relationship is going well. You are in the honeymoon phase. The narcissist is at his best in this phase. He soaks up your adoration and admiration. He beams with the inflated ego from all of your efforts at boosting his self-esteem. He seems to be meeting your needs, or at least some of them. You are finally starting to be satisfied with the level of affection and time he seems to be giving you.

You think everything is going great - then wham! You start to feel as if things are off balance.

Sometimes you cannot tell why things are off, but they are. The feeling creeps up out of nowhere and eats at you from the inside out. Your brain tells you that things are off balance. You feel the knot in your stomach telling you that you are giving far more than you are comfortable with. You give favors and adoration to many other people, but somehow they don't seem to make you feel the way that the narcissist makes you feel.

You wonder what the problem is because deep down you know something is wrong. Your intuition and your sense of wellness start to trigger the alarm bells that are going on in your head. Eventually you start to get upset. Maybe you blow up at the narcissist, but you don't know why.

There is a simple explanation for our inability to tolerate a narcissist's behavior. The basic reason why we start to feel off balance in our relationship with a narcissist revolves around something called the law of reciprocity.