Unequal Rules in Narcissistic Relationships: How Control Begins
- Elle Dee
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
One relationship can hold two entirely different realities at the same time. I don’t mean metaphorically.
When one-sided dynamics are running the relationship, that split isn’t accidental or situational.
Asymmetry in narcissistic abuse is structural.
A culture of duality is built into the system itself.
One set of rules, allowances, and meanings exists for one person.
A very different set exists for the other.
Living inside it feels like inconsistency. Confusion. Volatility.
But underneath the chaotic surface, there's order.
I couldn’t see that while I was in the relationship.
What I saw then looked like stress, misunderstandings, bad timing, personality differences.
Those explanations kept my attention fixed on isolated moments.
And kept me blind to the structure producing them.
What I’m examining here is a pattern that appears repeatedly in relationships shaped by narcissistic control.
Duality, not as accident, conflict, or power struggle - but as a necessary step in the systematic deconstruction of a human being from whole to fractured.
I’m looking at where this early inequity leads.
How it conditions us for what comes next.
How it functions as something akin to early narcissistic grooming.
In these types of relationships, inequity isn’t fallout.
It’s the mechanism that makes the fallout already coming, possible.
How Unequal Rules Are Tested Early
Extreme imbalance doesn't always show up because something healthier has deteriorated over time.
It can be the result of that.
But I don’t think it's how it always plays out.
I believe it starts long before anything recognizable shows up.
Before there’s cruelty anyone can bring themselves to name, there’s a quieter phase.
When the entire idea of an unequal relationship is introduced in small, ordinary ways.
Not as demands, but as context.
The idea shows up subtly.
It's consistent.
Incremental.
Tolerable.
And at some point, it starts feeling more normal than it should.
I remember noticing these patterns now and again.
But I never framed them as the mechanics of anything that might later harm me.
I thought of them as my own responsiveness to the context of our lives.
Circumstances.
Stress.
Needs that felt urgent.
All the situational considerations that make most of us give more than our share with no concern.
But over time, those unequal exchanges can stop feeling so temporary.
They starting feeling ambient.
Like the background conditions of the relationship itself.
That’s the conditioning.
That's the normalization.
It's a process our brains know naturally.
The nervous system adjusts.
The mind supplies explanations.
The self adapts in ways that feel reasonable, relational, even caring.
And without any explicit agreement, the relationship quietly reorganizes around unequal expectations.
This inequality isn't something I deliberately chose for myself.
I didn't agree to it verbally or even with awareness.
But I was willingly living inside it.
And it was quietly establishing roots that would eventually stretched into every corner of my life.
.
When Adaptation Becomes Implied Consent
Once duality is accepted, something subtle but consequential happens.
The imbalance no longer exists only between the two people.
It starts living inside the person carrying the greater share of it.
I learned which parts of myself created friction and which ones kept things smoother.
Then I adjusted accordingly.
I learned which thoughts I could share safely and which she'd likely ridicule.
I adjusted accordingly.
I absorbed her assessments of my selfishness, laziness, ineptness, neediness, intellect.
I adjusted accordingly.
My role had shifted to protecting her from every discomfort I could intercept before it reached her.
Preventing disappointment.
Anticipating reactions.
Softening requests.
Editing needs.
Over time, my decision-making processed morphed into something that had little to do with my own needs or priorities.
Choices stopped being about what felt right or sustaining.
They'd become little more than calculations.
What will disrupt the least.
What will cause the smallest ripple.
What will require the least repair afterward.
Even then, I was still minimizing the dysfunction of it all.
Telling myself it was more reasonable than it felt.
I know now that it never was. Never for a moment.
From Imbalance to Entitlement
Once functional inequity is genuinely normalized, there's no real need to keep the process subtle or unspoken.
What she’d built so carefully had proven itself out.
And the brakes I hadn't realized she'd been tapping were gone.
This is when the entitlement showed up on an entirely new level.
The relationship no longer asked whether it could take more.
It took what it wanted.
In response, my nervous system stretched further.
My creativity found ways to close more gaps.
My flexibility found ways to embrace more of what mattered to her.
My brokenness - at her hands - found ways for me to justify it all.
Ease was gone.
My endurance had become something I relied on daily.
And something that was failing me more often as mental fatigue deepened.
We'd become two full humans devoting themselves to the living of one life.
One center of gravity.
One direction of care.
The imbalance had gone far beyond emotional by then.
It was logistical.
Neurological.
Existential.
And leaving no longer meant anything as simple as ending a relationship.
It meant reclaiming the resources of an entire life.
What Seeing the Structure Changes
Seeing this pattern didn't immediately tell me what to do with it.
What it did was change how I understood what had already happened.
Moments that once felt confusing or personal stopped looking random.
The exhaustion stopped feeling like a failure of my own resilience.
The slow disappearance of my needs stopped looking like sloppy boundaries or misplaced generosity.
It became clear that none of this started at the point where things were obviously wrong.
It had all begun much earlier.
The relationship hadn’t drifted into strategy.
It had been strategic from the start.
It hadn't become willing to sacrifice me.
It was built around that necessity from the beginning.
Once I could see where that calibration occurred, the relationship stopped looking chaotic.
I could see the pattern.
The purpose.
The inevitability.
That clarity helped me understand why leaving felt so destabilizing.
And why staying had been so destructive.
Once the structure is visible, it gets harder to sell endurance as consent.
Or survival as choice.
🤎Elle
This post is part 4 of a 7-part companion series to The Narcissism Files.
This piece is part of a larger documented project called The Narcissism Files, which explores the aftermath of narcissistic reality distortion, normalizing asymmetry and all the came after.
I write more about unequal rules in narcissistic relationships and how they condition us for deeper harm.
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Want to keep exploring how unequal rules in narcissistic relationships can impact mental health over time?
A Related Project Some of the themes explored here - narcissistic relationship dynamics, gaslighting, and the slow erosion of trust - are examined more fully in The Narcissism Files, an ongoing written project about narcissistic abuse and neurodivergent vulnerability. It’s not a guide or a recovery plan. It’s an attempt to name what happened clearly, without fixing or reframing it. You can explore the project here: |
Process Statement
This post was written entirely by the author, without AI involvement. Every word, structural decision, formatting choice, and punctuation mark reflects the author’s own process and intent.
The formatting on this site is intentional. Short lines, generous spacing, and visual breaks are used to reduce cognitive load and reading fatigue, especially for autistic and neurodivergent readers.
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