Loving a Narcissist Can Be Detrimental to Your Health

While narcissistic tendencies have been on the rise due to the “everyone’s a star” aspect of social media, individuals with narcissistic personality disorder are different in that their narcissistic qualities are significant enough to disrupt their lives and prohibit them from forming healthy relationships.

If you’ve never been mildly attracted to or a little infatuated with a narcissist, you may wonder how someone could fall for someone who will always think more of themselves than their partners. Unfortunately, narcissists are often attractive, engaging, and able to convince someone that they are the perfect partner for them. Narcissists are not only convinced that they are the brightest and the best, but they can also convince others of this. They project an image of themselves to a partner too good to be true. While they are generous “love bombers” at the start of a relationship, once they’ve captured their partner or once they’ve grown bored with them, their behavior changes. The façade can’t hold for the long term, and cracks between projection and reality set in.

In the early stage of the relationship, when their partners are still enthralled by the narcissist’s projection of a stable and loving partner, the relationship will feel “normal.” However, when a partner begins to become weary of providing copious amounts of admiration, attention, obedience, and adulation, a cycle of narcissistic abuse may start.

Every Exchange Is a Transaction

Narcissists don’t love others unconditionally nor feel the kind of love that others do in healthy relationships. There is an absence of empathy, and they cannot understand what their partners are experiencing or feeling. Their self-esteem is paradoxically fragile, so they cannot bolster a partner due to their all-consuming efforts to keep their own egos stoked. While narcissists can overwhelm a potential partner with over-the-top displays of affection, this reflects a desire to “win” at a game, not build a relationship. Once they’ve accomplished their goal, the partner is viewed as an object or tool, not an equal. Narcissists use people to feed their narcissistic hunger or to help them get more of whatever it is that they want.

Narcissists will dole out “love,” using whatever tokens or language they believe comprises love based on what their partner gives them. The relationship is transactional in nature, and as more shoring up of the narcissist’s ego is required, the partner’s recognition of the inequity in the relationship is greater. Everything has a string attached, and these strings can tie the partner up in knots. And these knots are better known as trauma bonds.

The (Trauma) Ties That Bind

A trauma bond is the type of emotional attachment that forms between abusers and victims (Casassa, Knight, & Mengo, 2021). This type of bond often describes the attachment between a narcissist and their romantic partners. The hallmark traits that identify trauma bonds include an imbalance in power between the couple, a mixed pattern of both negative and positive engagement from the narcissist, and a confusing experience for a partner in that they are grateful for the narcissist’s positive attention but also feel responsible for and deserving of blame for any negative attention.

Other signs of a narcissistic trauma bond include making excuses for a partner’s behavior, even if this includes abuse. A narcissist may try to shame and humiliate their partner or “punish” them for imagined slights or having “upstaged” them, and when a trauma bond is formed, a partner will accept the abuse. They justify the abusive behavior regardless of its type—emotional, spiritual, physical, sexual, and so on. Trauma bonds have a way of destroying other healthier bonds to family, friends, and anyone else who might grow too close. It takes a toll to try and keep up false appearances of the “perfect couple” with a narcissistic abuser, and avoiding close relationships minimizes the amount of denial or defensiveness that is needed to brush away people’s concerns. It’s not easy, but some steps can be taken to extricate oneself from an abusive, narcissistic partner.

1. Learn as much as you can about healthy and unhealthy relationships. Recognizing the signs of a trauma bond as early as possible provides the best chance of breaking the bond.
2. Recognize that trauma bonding can be addictive due to the nature of the cycle of abuse. After you’ve been torn down by the narcissist, your need to feel their approval will lead you to do what you can to ingratiate yourself with them, and they’ll respond until they begin the cycle again.
3. Focus on meeting your needs and stabilizing your healthy sense of self.
4. Create clear boundaries that you are willing and able to maintain, especially if you share a home and cannot leave. When boundaries are crossed, restate the boundary, and don’t let yourself get drawn into an emotional response. Knowing that they have the power to get a reaction feeds the narcissist, so keep calm, cool, and disengaged.
5. Practice speaking up for yourself in all settings. This can build self-confidence and assist you in claiming your space and protecting your boundaries.

It is challenging to be in love with a narcissist, and it can be even more challenging to exit the relationship. Remember that a “happily ever after” ending is just a fantasy. Taking care of your own needs should be your priority—not pandering to a narcissistic partner.