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Narcissist's Insignificant Other: Typical Spouse or Intimate Partner

Uploaded 12/11/2010, approx. 7 minute read

I am Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.

We can divide the spouses, mates, and intimate partners of narcissists into two categories.

Those who persist insist, try to maintain the relationship, preserve it, enhance it, and create intimacy, and those who, upon discovering the true face of the narcissist, withdraw, detach, and if they are married to the narcissist, divorce him.

On the face of it, there is no typical partner or mate who binds with the narcissist. They come in all shapes and sizes.

The initial phases of attraction, infatuation, and falling in love are pretty normal.

The narcissist puts his best face on, and the other party is blinded by budding love.

The natural selection process occurs only much later, as the relationship develops and is put to the test, and as the narcissist tires of maintaining the facade, let the mask sleep, discovers, and covers his true face.

Living with a narcissist can be exhilarating, but it is always onerous and often harrowing.

Surviving a relationship with a narcissist, maintaining a relationship, preserving it, insisting on remaining with a narcissist, indicates therefore the parameters of the personality of the victim, of the partner, of the spouse.

The partner, the spouse, and the mate of a narcissist who insists on remaining in the relationship and preserving it is molded by it into the typical narcissistic mate, spouse, or partner.


First and foremost, the narcissist partner or spouse must have a deficient or a distorted grasp of herself and of reality, otherwise she or he is bound to abandon the narcissist's ship early on.

The cognitive distortion is likely to consist of believing and demeaning yourself while aggrandizing and adoring the narcissist.

The partner is thus placing herself in the position of the eternal victim, undeserving, punishable, or scapegoat.

Sometimes it is very important to the partner to appear moral, sacrificial, and victimized. At other times she is not even aware of this predicament.

The narcissist is perceived by her to be a person in position to demand these sacrifices from her because he is superior in many ways, intellectually, emotionally, morally, professionally, or financially.

The status of professional victim sits well with the partner's tendency to punish herself. She feels comfortable in abusive situations.

She has, in other words, a masochistic streak.

The tormented life with the narcissist is just what she is after, and to her mind, just what she deserves.

In this respect, the partner is the mirror image of the narcissist.

By maintaining a symbolic relationship with him, by being totally dependent upon her source of masochistic supply, which the narcissist most reliably constitutes and most amply provides, the partner or spouse enhances certain traits and encourages certain behaviors which are at the very core of abusive narcissism.

The narcissist is never whole, without an adoring, submissive, available, self-denigrating, self-deprecating partner.

His very sense of superiority, omnipotence, omniscience, indeed, his false self depend on it.

His sadistic superego switches its attentions from himself, from the narcissist, in whom it provokes suicidal ideation, to the partner, thus finally obtaining an alternative source of sadistic satisfaction.

So we have a sadist and a masochist in a dyad.

It is through self-denial that the partner survives.

She denies her wishes, hopes, dreams, aspirations, sexual, psychological and material needs, choices, preferences, values, and much else besides.

She perceives her needs as threatening because they might engender the wrath of the narcissist's godlike supreme figure.

The narcissist is rendered in such a spouse's eyes even more superior, through and because of this self-denial.

Self-denial undertaken to facilitate and ease the life of a great man is more palatable and, by the way, more socially acceptable.

The greater the man, in other words, the narcissist, the easier it is for the partner to ignore her own self, to dwindle, to degenerate, to turn into an appendix of the narcissist, an extension of him, and finally to become nothing but an extension, to merge with the narcissist to the point of oblivion and of merely dim memories of herself.

The two, the narcissist and his spouse, collaborate in this dance macabre. The narcissist is formed by his partner inasmuch as he forms her.

Submission breeds superiority, masochism breeds sadism, relationships are characterized by emergentism, roles are allocated almost from the very start, and any deviation from the prescribed goals meets with an aggressive, even violent, reaction.

The predominant state of the partner's mind is utter confusion. Even the most basic relationships with husband, children or parents remain bafflingly obscured by the giant shadow cast by the intensive interaction with the narcissist.

A suspension of judgment is part and parcel of a suspension of individuality, which is both a prerequisite to and a result of living with the narcissist.

The partner no longer knows what is true and right, what is wrong and forbidden, who should she associate with and who should she avoid.

The narcissist recreates for the partner and in the partner the sort of emotional ambience that led to his own formation in the first place.

Capriciousness, fickleness, arbitraryness, emotional and physical or sexual abandonment, and finally abuse and violence. The world becomes hostile and ominous, and the partner has only one thing left to cling to, and that is a stable rock of the narcissist.

In cling she does. If there is anything which can safely be said about those who emotionally team up with narcissists is that they are overtly and overly dependent.

They are known in psychological jargon as co-dependence. The partner doesn't know what to do and this is only too natural in the mania that is a relationship with the narcissist.

But the typical partner also does not know what she wants and to a large extent who she is and what she wants to become.

These unanswered questions hamper the partner's ability to gorge reality.

Her primordial sin is that she fell in love with an image, not with a real person.

It is the voiding of the image that is mourned when the relationship ends.

The break-up of a relationship with a narcissist is therefore very emotionally charged for such victims.

It is the culmination of a long chain of humiliations, subjugation, self-delusion and self-deceit. It is the rebellion of the functioning and healthy parts of the partner's personality against the tyranny of the narcissist and his collaboration with the pathological paths, psychological paths in the victim.

The partner is likely to have totally misread, totally misinterpreted the whole interaction.

I hesitate to call it a relationship so I stick to the word interaction.

This lack of proper interface with reality might be erroneously labeled pathological but it is actually a form of self-denial.

Why is it that the partner seeks to prolong her pain? What is the source and purpose of this narcissistic streak?

Upon the break-up of the relationship, the partner, but not the narcissist who usually refuses to provide closure, engages in torturous and drawn-out post-mortem soul-searching.

We will, I discuss this issue of Danse Macabre, the pathology at the core and underlying the relationship in a video titled Danse Macabre of the narcissist and his partner. Stay tuned and be sure to watch it.

If you enjoyed this article, you might like the following:

When Narcissists Become Codependents

Living with a narcissist can be harrowing, and the partner of the narcissist is often molded into the typical narcissist mate, partner, or spouse. The partner must have a deficient or distorted grasp of herself and of reality, and the cognitive distortion of the partner of the narcissist is likely to consist of belittling and demeaning herself while aggrandizing and adoring the narcissist. The narcissist is perceived by the partner to be a person in the position to demand these sacrifices from her. The breakup of the relationship with the narcissist is emotionally charged and is the culmination of a long chain of humiliations and subjugation.


Two Narcissists in a Couple

Two narcissists can establish a long-term, stable relationship if they are of different types, such as one being somatic and the other cerebral, as they can mutually provide the necessary narcissistic supply. When both partners are of the same type, competition for attention and admiration often leads to conflict and prevents intimacy, ultimately resulting in the relationship's collapse. The dynamic between dissimilar narcissists allows for a complementary relationship where each partner admires the other's strengths, creating a virtuous cycle of gratification. However, as they age and lose their primary sources of narcissistic supply, the relationship may face challenges, yet they can still rely on shared memories to maintain their bond.


Narcissist in Court and Litigation

Narcissists are skilled at distorting reality and presenting plausible alternative scenarios, making it difficult to expose their lies in court. However, it is possible to break a narcissist by finding their weak spots and using them to inflict pain. The narcissist is likely to react with rage to any statement that contradicts their inflated perception of themselves or suggests they are not special. They feel entitled to be treated differently from others and cannot tolerate criticism or being told they are not as intelligent or successful as they think they are.


Inverted Narcissist Envies Narcissist Intimate Partner

Narcissists of the same type cannot maintain a stable, long-term relationship as they are consumed by their own narcissistic gratification and have no time or energy to cater to their partner's needs. However, a long-term partnership can survive if one narcissist is cerebral and the other is somatic. Inverted cerebral narcissists tend to pair with cerebral narcissists, while inverted somatic narcissists tend to bond with their somatic counterparts. In the long run, an inverted narcissist may seek to ruin their classic partner, despite them being their prime source of narcissistic supply.


Giving Narcissist Second Chance

Narcissists do not provide closure in relationships and will stalk, cajole, beg, promise, persuade, and ultimately succeed in doing the impossible to get you back. The narcissist will cast all interactions with you in terms of conflicts or competitions to be won. If you have resumed contact because you are manifestly dependent on the narcissist financially or emotionally, the narcissist will pounce on your frailty and exploit your fragility to the maximum. Ultimately, the narcissist will write the inevitable cycle of idealization and devaluation.


Signs Narcissist About to Discard, Devalue You

In a narcissist's mind, the sequence of idealization, discard, and devaluation is reversed compared to their behavior in reality. They idealize their partner, then emotionally discard them in their mind, and finally devalue them to justify the discard. However, in reality, they must devalue their partner before discarding them to keep them around for the devaluation process. This discrepancy occurs because the narcissist needs their partner to be present during the devaluation phase, which wouldn't be possible if they discarded them immediately after idealization.


When Narcissist in Tears, You Are in Trouble (Frustration-Aggression)

Years of abuse from a narcissist can lead to a moment of confusion when they display tears, which victims may misinterpret as a sign of vulnerability or a chance for redemption. However, these tears are often manipulative, serving as a tactic to elicit sympathy, control emotions, and reinforce the narcissist's victimhood narrative. When a narcissist cries, it signals a shift to a psychopathic state, where they may perceive any challenge to their grandiosity as a threat, leading to aggression and a desire to eliminate the source of their frustration. Victims should recognize that the narcissist's tears are not genuine expressions of emotion but rather a dangerous manipulation, and the best course of action is to distance themselves for their safety.


When Covert Narcissists Cross Paths, Swords

When two covert narcissists encounter each other, they engage in a mutual affirmation of their victimhood, enhancing each other's self-perception as helpless victims of malevolent individuals. This dynamic can lead one of the covert narcissists to adopt a more overtly grandiose role, becoming a pseudo overt narcissist, while the other assumes a submissive position. Despite their initial camaraderie, the relationship ultimately deteriorates into conflict, as both compete to establish who is the greater victim. Long-term coexistence between two narcissists of the same type is impossible, as they inevitably clash, similar to overt narcissists.


Why Narcissist Devalues YOU (Hint: Wants YOU "Dead")

Narcissists devalue their partners as a form of self-defense and control. There are two types of devaluation: preemptive and reactive. Preemptive devaluation occurs when a narcissist is in a transitional state between overt and covert narcissism, and they devalue potential sources of supply to prevent the overt side from using them against the covert side. Reactive devaluation is a response to a perceived threat to the narcissist's grandiosity or control. Both types of devaluation are harmful to the victim and serve to maintain the narcissist's sense of power and control.


Narcissist Sees You As TWO WOMEN Reframing Mortifications, Exiting Shared Fantasy

The narcissist perceives their partner as two separate entities, which complicates the dynamics of the relationship. Their love is viewed as a vulnerability to be exploited, leading to emotional detachment and potential infidelity from the partner as a desperate attempt to regain acknowledgment and connection. When a breakup occurs, the narcissist does not mourn the individual but rather the loss of the shared fantasy and the investment they made in it, viewing all sources of supply as interchangeable. The cycle of narcissistic abuse involves oscillating between external and internal mortification, where the narcissist reframes situations to maintain a sense of control and superiority. Ultimately, to escape the shared fantasy, the partner must take drastic actions that may include infidelity, as this is often the only way to provoke a response from the narcissist and reclaim their autonomy.

Transcripts Copyright © Sam Vaknin 2010-2024, under license to William DeGraaf
Website Copyright © William DeGraaf 2022-2024
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