I’m getting the impression from my experience, and from those of other NF friends, that NFs may be particularly vulnerable to emotional abuse. By that I mean not only that emotional abuse may be particularly damaging to them, but that they may be more likely to find themselves in such situations or to stay in them even against their better judgment.
Yes, yes, and YES.
3 examples.
A close friend I have, NF, stayed in a friendship with a man she was in love with who did not return the love for years...She remained devoted and faithful to him. He told her he could never love again. Yet after several years of her supporting him, spending a great deal of time and energy on him, He married another woman, not long after he met her. The woman he chose to marry was more than a decade older than my dear NF friend. This was all insulting on so many levels, and literally broke her heart. The worst part is that my NF friend told me that the man had said terribly rude, abusive things like, we should get you pregnant by me. In a lab, by in vitro... when in convos ppl mentioned how nurturing and loving and caring my friend was.
A family member, NF, an older generation than mine, pretty much every single romantic relationship she was ever in was emotionally abusive. Some physical too. Terrible stuff, and yes, I hate to say it but I think she somehow attracted that...I've always tried to tell her, you don't deserve to be treated that way, but she seems to think she did deserve it. She also was easily seduced into relationships with men who were "bad" men and she wanted to love them all better. By bad, I mean drug dealers mostly... and all that goes w/that.
An NF who has just recently come into my acquaintance in the past months told me she was involved in a relationship with a heroine addict who subsequently stalked her after she called it off for 6 months. She has a restraining order.
Me
I've felt myself slipping into emotionally abusive relationships on several occasions, but have fought like hell...I swear the only way I am in a healthy relationship now is bc I saw the importance and put it as a priority above all else.
Why (imo)
We as NFs want to see the best in everyone. We want to believe that the world is full of hurt people who, if just loved the right way, would be whole... we wanna change the world, with love. This doesn't have to be done via romantic relationships of course... sheesh, if I were to catalogue to you those emotionally abusive relationships of NFs that were of a nature anything but love/sex/romance, I would be writing for literally years.
People pick up on this. They take advantage of it. If you want to avoid this sort of thing, you have to really be ahead of the game...
Avoiding emotional abuse
Additionally, I've found that the right kind of passionate relationship, the healthy one, when the other individual is healthy and you are too... that passion feels very different than an unhealthy relationship in which the other person NEEDS you emotionally. People NEEDING us emotionally feels like the best thing in the world...until the shit hits the fan.
I've found I had to be less Idealistic. Not less of an Idealist, not lose my identity... just less idealistic.