The below is some interesting insights from someone who had been in an abusive relationship with a narcissistic family member for years. I don’t know if I agree with every point raised, but it gives much to be mulled over:
This reminds me of that thing people say about hate. Hate isn’t the opposite of love.
Separation is more like the opposite of love. No longer caring about someone or something. Harboring hate towards someone means that you still care in someway about that person or thing.
“The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.”
On the deepest philosophical level, I believe that everything in the Universe is caused by the equal-and-opposite functioning of two forces: power and love. Power seeks to separate things and to diminish everything other than itself. Love seeks to unite all things. Too much power destroys everything, but too much love restrains power and prevents anything from happening in the first place. So, the two forces need to be in balance for any individual, or any relationship, to remain stable and healthy. The core problem in any narcissistic relationship is that the narc wants to provide all the power while their victim provides all the love. My epiphany was this:
• If I don’t want anything from my mother (not her love, not her approval, not even her recognition of me as a separate human being) then she has no POWER over me.
• If I choose not to LOVE her, then there is no bond between us.
And I realized, for the first time in my life, that I could choose NOT to love someone. It was incredibly hard for me to do, but I convinced myself to do it. That doesn’t mean I hated her. Not at all. It just means that I stopped caring about her.
Temple of Zagan 