In Sickness and In Health (When The Sickness Is Narcissism)

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Jun 9

As someone who is faithful to your marriage covenant, it’s right that you don’t want to leave just because of sickness. After all, you did vow “in sickness and in health.” And if narcissism is a sickness (a mental illness), then the vow applies, right?

In Sickness and In Health

Let’s consider the full scope of what it means to stay faithful in sickness and in health. If your spouse gets cancer, that’s a sickness, right? You wouldn’t leave your spouse just because they got cancer. You’d stick by their side, love them no matter what, and encourage them to be strong.

But what if they got cancer and started getting violent? They frequently get angry and throw things or cuss at you. They’ve damaged walls or hurt the dog. They scare you with their behavior. And when you try to help calm them down or suggest that they figure out why they are acting like that, they don’t care and continue their episodes of rage with no attempt to quell them.

In a situation like that, you have a responsibility to yourself to keep yourself safe. If you leave, it wouldn’t be because of the sickness, it would be because of the wrongs committed against you. Leaving them wouldn’t be wrong, it would be wise. It wouldn’t be giving up on them, it would be communicating to them the impact of their behavior and their unwillingness to address it. That would be kindness. If it helped them recognize and address it, it would result in them feeling better and having better relationships. Perhaps it could even save them from having to go through cancer alone. What a gift!

You see, there’s a difference between an illness and the way someone treats another person. Even if the illness is the catalyst or reason for unacceptable behavior, it’s not an excuse, and there are only two options: the person addresses the problem and changes or you have to create safety for yourself by setting and enforcing boundaries.

Mental Illness

Let’s look at it from another angle that might make it even more clear. Narcissism is a mental illness. So is pedophilia (an adult who has sex with children). If someone with the illness of pedophilia wanted to work in a daycare, would your sympathy kick in so that you would feel sorry for him because he has a mental illness and shouldn’t be excluded from the relationships he wants to pursue just because he has a mental illness? Would you say that he should absolutely be allowed to work in the daycare? No! (I sure hope you wouldn’t.) Reasons aren’t excuses. Just because someone has a reason for why they are the way they are (even if it’s a good reason), that doesn’t mean that it’s an excuse for wrong behavior. Wrong behavior is still wrong - and people affected by it need to be protected from it. [Get my list of 40+ tactics that emotionally unhealthy people use]

So just because someone has the mental illness of narcissism that doesn’t mean that you have to tolerate it and that they can treat you however they want because they can’t help it. Reality dictates that if they can’t help it, then they are going to lose relationships, because you have a right to be emotionally safe. Their right to act out doesn’t supersede or negate your right to feel safe.

Keeping the Marriage Covenant

If you are concerned about keeping your marriage covenant, know that you aren’t breaking your covenant by leaving someone who isn’t safe.

First of all, THEY are the one breaking the covenant. They promised to love, honor, and cherish - and they aren’t doing that. They promised to remain faithful in sickness and in health - and they are sick and are not being faithful (lovingly devoted) to you. The covenant is between two people and they broke it. So there is no covenant left to keep.
Second, if you would rebut that by saying that your covenant was between you and God, then I would propose to you that you are still not breaking it. The promise you made was to be faithful in sickness and in health. Faithful means that you are devoted to someone and love them. Separating or divorcing doesn’t change that. You can remain faithful to your covenant even through and beyond divorce.
And to take it further, not only are you not breaking your covenant to God, you are honoring it. How? Because you promised to be faithful in sickness and in health. Faithfulness also implies that you will always do what is best for the person you love. And the best thing you can do for someone who is sinning is to make them aware of their sin. And if words don’t achieve that, then actions may. You have a responsibility in your faithfulness to your spouse to do what you can to make them aware of the harm that their actions are doing in an effort to help steer them away from the cliff they’re about to go over.
Third, your promise wasn’t to stay with someone no matter what - it was to love, honor, and cherish someone no matter what. And while the other person may not feel loved, honored, or cherished if you set boundaries or separate from them, the truth is that allowing them to experience the consequences of their actions is the most loving, honoring, and cherishing thing you can do. The alternative is to continue to follow them into the fire where they will be consumed and will lose all the goodness that would have otherwise been available to them - and that isn’t loving, honoring, or cherishing.

Having Godly Character In Sickness and Health

Staying with someone who demonstrates consistent selfishness, a lack of consideration for you, greed, malice, discord, jealousy, rage, sexual immorality, and the like does not reflect the character of God. God does not stay near to people who do those things. In fact, Galatians 5:19-21 says that people with those behaviors will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Yet, you are welcoming them into your life - even insisting that they stay and cooperate with your plan for a good marriage.

To have godly character, you must get to know God and what his character is like. When people treat God with indifference, hate, rejection, malice, etc. God does not pursue a relationship with them. He has already offered relationship to them (once, through his work on the cross) - he’s not going to chase them down and insist that they go to him or stay with him.

Throughout all of history we see that God has allowed people to go their own way - even if they’ve claimed to want to be his. God says in Isaiah 29:13 "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” They claim to want to be with God, but in their hearts, they do not. He goes on to tell what will happen to them: "The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down.” He doesn’t say he’ll keep loving them until they acknowledge the depth of his love. Yet, that is what you are doing.

In Jeremiah 3, God actually gives his people a certificate of divorce and sends them away because they broke their covenant with him. God didn’t break the covenant, his people did, but he allowed it to be broken, and he honored the breaking of it by setting them free to do what they desired to do, even though it was a rejection of him. It was their only chance of being able to see what they had done and to appreciate the God who loves them so much so as to let them go their own way. God has been like this since the Garden of Eden. And yet you are trying to be “better” than God: more faithful to your covenant, more forgiving, and more steadfast in your determination to make the marriage work. It may be time to concede and accept what it takes to have more godly character: giving your spouse the freedom to choose against you and not trying to force a relationship to work that clearly isn’t working.

Suffering Produces Maturity

God is not a softy. He loves perfectly. And sometimes loving someone well is painful to them. That’s OK. Pain isn’t something to be avoided. We learn from pain. James 1:2-4 says that suffering produces perseverance in faith which leads to maturity. Do the hard thing, and do not let yourself be burdened by a yoke of slavery to another (Galatians 5:1) and do not participate in the sins of others (1Timothy 5:22). And when you are mature, you will realize that…. hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it’s found in our situation….