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Why Your “Promiscuity” Drives Narcissist Up the Wall

Uploaded 8/15/2024, approx. 10 minute read

Minnie's younger sister came to visit and decided to stay. At least she is much more transparent than Minnie.

Today we are going to discuss promiscuity. Why your promiscuity, real or imagined, drives the narcissist up the proverbial wall.

My name is Sam Vaknin and the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited and a professor of clinical psychology.

Okay, let's get to the point.

The narcissist considers his partner potentially promiscuous. Otherwise, why would you have been with him?

Now when I say him, her, half of all narcissists are women. The narcissist asks himself why would any woman be with me unless she is for example a gold digger and as a gold digger she's bound to be promiscuous or because she's a dyke, she is bound to be promiscuous. Or because she's a slut. Or because she is unboundaried. Or because she's damaged and broken and mentally ill.

No woman in her right mind, no healthy, boundary, grounded woman would be with me, says the narcissist to himself.

He imputes promiscuity to his intimate partner because in a way he devalues himself, at least unconsciously.

And then having decided that his partner is promiscuous, based on real world facts or on rapid imagination, it doesn't matter. Having attributed to her promiscuity, the narcissist goes haywire. He loses it. He utterly loses control. He becomes impulsive, reckless, defiant, a bit psychopathic.

The reason is that the partner's real or imagined promiscuity challenges the narcissist's grandiosity.

Now, stay with me for a minute.

In healthy people, jealousy is another name for the fear of loss.

A healthy person is afraid of losing his or her intimate partner. When there's a chance that your intimate partner will stray, will fall in love with someone else, will have sex with someone else, when there's a chance of permanent loss, the way we experience the fear of this loss, the way we experience the trepidation and anxiety attendant upon this kind of loss, this is what we call jealousy. That's in healthy people.

But the narcissist is not afraid to lose his partner. The narcissist's so-called intimate partners, what I call insignificant others, they are just internal objects. They are totally dispensable, replaceable, interchangeable, faceless and anonymous. The narcissist couldn't care less who is the warm body next to him, as long as he is provided with the four S's, sex, supply, sadistic or narcissistic, services, and safety. The partner's presence matters much more than who she is.

And so there's no fear of loss when it comes to the partner, but there is a tremendous fear of loss when it comes to the narcissist grandiosity. His inflated self-image, his fantastic self-perception, and his diffuse, disturbed and fluctuating sense of self-worth and sense of self.

So the threat is not to lose the partner. The threat is to be unable to continue to maintain and sustain a grandiose self-imputation, a grandiose self-image.

The narcissist's jealousy is fear of loss of grandiosity via mortification or via injury. It has nothing to do with the partner. Narcissist doesn't care about the partner. The narcissist is invested in a fantastic view of himself or in the shared fantasy, which is essentially a magical enchanted narrative where the narcissist is Godlike.

The role of a partner in all this is a prop, like in a theater play. She just has to be there.

And so the partners alleged or real promiscuity threaten the narcissist's sense of grandiosity.

For example, he believes himself to be irresistible. He trusts that his presence is addictive. No one would walk away willingly.

And when this is challenged, when this is proven to be counterfactual and is refuted, the narcissist is in a state of terror, not only panic, but terror. This grandiose self-image is irresistible, addictive, one of a kind, must be sustained and maintained at all costs.

But it cannot be sustained and maintained when the partner is disloyal and faithful, when infidelity is an integral part of the relationship.

If the partner is attracted to another person, it says, it means that the narcissist is not unique, is not irresistible, and that his personality is not addictive and that the shared fantasy is not immersive and not exclusive. It challenges, it undermines the very foundations of the precariously balanced house of cards that is the narcissist.

So promiscuity terrifies, promiscuity in the partner terrifies the narcissist.

Not because he is afraid to lose the partner. Not because he cares about the partner having sex with someone else. He couldn't care less.

But because of what it says about him, what it implies that he is not the one and only, that he is not irresistible, that he is not addictive.

And so the narcissist loyalty tests the partner.

The narcissist engineers situations where the partner's fidelity, faithfulness, and sexual exclusivity would be sorely tested to the maximum. And she has to pass this test and if she doesn't, that's a deal breaker. That's reason enough to dismantle the shared fantasy.

And so there is this initial period where the narcissist is overtly and excessively, romantically jealous.

Only it has nothing to do with romance and it's actually not jealousy. It's a sense of menace, a sense of ambient threat to the narcissist's grandiose, fantastic, godlike self-perception.

This is the initial phase of the shared fantasy.


And then, with a partner having been acquired, with a partner professing her dedication, her love, affording and providing her intimacy, constantly present in the narcissist life, with a partner having passed the loyalty test with flying colors, the narcissist loses all interest in her.

Once the target is acquired, the narcissist loses all interest in the partner. Mission accomplished. Irresistibility established.

The partner's devotion to the narcissist, her love, her compassion, her affection, her sacor, her empathy, her presence, the services she provides, the sex, all these serve to augment, to prove beyond doubt the narcissist's inflated view of himself as realistic.

The narcissist says, look how attractive I am. See how irresistible I am. Unique, amazing, addictive, fascinating. No one would ever give up on me. No one would ever break up with me. Have a look at my current partner. She can't live without me. She loves me beyond words. She's almost self-sacrificial.

That's proof positive that I'm godlike, that I'm a perfect being or a perfect entity.

So the acquisition of the target, the entraining of the intimate partner, the conversion of the intimate partner into essentially a slave. That is the mission.

And the mission having been accomplished, the partner loses her utility, she is no longer useful.

At that point, she becomes an annoyance, a nuisance, bothers him, and the narcissist has to get rid of her. It's a relief to get rid of her.

So he encourages the partner to cheat, to stray.

It's not only to get rid of her, but it affords him with ways to blackmail the partner because she feels guilty. It's a way to degrade the partner and even sexually arouse the narcissist.

When there's a confluence of narcissism and sadism, for example, in malignant narcissism, degrading the partner is very arousing.

And it affirms the partner's sluttiness, or promiscuous, long suspected promiscuity, and allows the narcissist to seamlessly transition to the devaluation and discard phase.

And finally, it serves to minimize the partner's demanding and tedious presence. She's with other men and she's not in a position to demand anything, having thus betrayed the partnership or the dyad or the couple.


So there are two phases in the relationship, in a shared fantasy, there are two.

In the first stage, the narcissist is highly possessive, highly jealous, very inquisitive, intrusive, hypervigilant, paranoid, and then having proven to himself that the partner is his that she would never betray him or cheat on him that she is besotted with him that she's infatuated with him that she's limerent, she's addicted to him. She finds him irresistible and super sexy and so on.

Having ascertained all this, in other words, having buttressed and supported his grandiose view of himself, the narcissist loses absolutely, overnight and on a dime, loses all interest in the partner.

He couldn't care less what she does with who and where, with whom and where. He even encourages her to gradually fade away from his life and to find other partners for sex, for love, for intimacy.

He is relieved that she is out of his life because mission accomplished, utility is at zero and time to move on to seek novelty and adventures and she's now a burden she's a millstone she is dragging him down she's preventing him from self-actualizing and realizing his potential.

Encouraging his partner to stray and to betray and to cheat is also very useful.

Because as I said, the narcissist can blackmail her, can degrade her, which is sexually arousing, can affirm his omniscience he knew in advance that she's promiscuous and a slot and here he's been proven right.

And finally, consumed by guilt and shame, she's unlikely to be demanding. She's likely to give up on her boundaries and succumb and obey the narcissist.

And so her tedious presence is minimized, her submissiveness is maximized, which is how the narcissist likes it.

He has entered the devaluation phase.

The devaluation often revolved around alleged attributed promiscuity, whether there's none or around the betrayal fantasy, where the narcissist pushes his partner to cheat and to be unfaithful and to betray the couple.

So as to re-enact early childhood conflicts in a way that would lead to a resolution via separation and individuation, devaluation and discard.

Lots of fun being with the narcissists. Roller coaster, especially roller. Minnie says hi.

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

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