“I knew there was evil in the world. I just never knew that it could be disguised as love.”

random person on Quora on surviving narcissistic abuse

Was your ex really a narcissist, or did the breakup make them look that way?

Recovering from breakups is never easy, but recovering from a narcissistic relationship is something else entirely.

If you’re going through this pain right now, I’m sorry.

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world. A relationship with a narcissist is a relationship filled with mental and emotional abuse.

Before we start, though, it’s important to consider that many ex-partners change so radically after a breakup that it’s easy to label them as a “narcissist,” “borderline,” “psychopath,” etc.

This is why it’s best to first figure out whether your ex is a true narcissist or just a normal person who started acting in unhealthy ways when faced with pain.

Breakups bring out the worst out of people

This makes many confuse the real signs of narcissism with the unpleasant new persona of their ex.

Right now, your ex may seem cold, mean, and indifferent to your feelings. Or they may act resentful and vindictive. While their actions shouldn’t be excused, it’s important to remember that everyone’s level of emotional maturity is different. Breakups reveal this more than anything else.

Breakup pain comes with a mix of bad feelings-hurt ego, loss of self-esteem, and the resurfacing of old traumas.

Some people respond to these feelings with aggression, blaming their ex for the breakup or trying to hurt them through indifference and insults. As bad as this sounds, it still doesn’t necessarily mean they’re narcissistic.

They may be immature, selfish, or have some narcissistic traits.

If you really want to figure out whether your ex was a narcissist or if the breakup just made them look that way, consider this:

• Was your ex generally caring and attentive before the breakup, or did you constantly feel starved of love and validation?
• Were they there for you when you needed them, or did they always have an excuse?
• Did they put you first, or was it always about them?
• Were they supportive of your goals and proud of your accomplishments, or did they criticize and put you down?
• Were they willing to communicate, or did they shut down whenever there was an argument?
• Did they take responsibility for their mistakes, or did they blame YOU for everything?

The answers to these questions will help you determine whether your ex was a good person or a full-blown narcissist.

If you suspect you were in a narcissistic relationship, I suggest reading this article .

Why breakups with narcissists hurt more than normal breakups

Narcissistic breakups are much harder to deal with because while normal breakups leave you with pain, nostalgia, and sadness, they don’t leave you with trauma.

Narcissistic relationships are built on trauma bonding.

They start intensely, as narcissistic people love-bomb their partners from the beginning.

They call and text constantly, shower you with compliments, give gifts, and do every small act of service imaginable. They mirror your behavior and traits, profess their love too soon, and act as if they’ve never been in love before-all within the first few weeks!

The sad truth? This special treatment never lasts more than 3–4 months. Because the novelty fades.

In a normal relationship, as partners get to know each other, they form a deeper bond. Infatuation turns into real love.

But because narcissists lack empathy, they can’t truly bond with others.

Every narcissistic relationship follows the same pattern, which is why it’s considered a disorder. Once a narcissist knows they’ve “won” their partner, they quickly get bored. They see no reason to make an effort anymore-so they stop.

To justify withdrawing the special treatment that got their partner hooked, they start finding flaws, criticizing constantly, and manipulating their partner into believing they are the problem.

Before you start blaming yourself for disappointing the narcissist, you should know that their behavior is inevitable.

A narcissist knows they can’t sustain a relationship because they never truly feel love or empathy for others.

Eventually, after a few failed relationships, they become aware of this.

But a narcissist simply can’t admit they’re wrong or be called out for their behavior. That would bring them too much shame.

So, the only way to justify their bad treatment is to make YOU the bad person!

Narcissists make huge promises that other partners wouldn’t-even early in the relationship. They make sure to find out what’s important to you and what you’re looking for in a partner.

Think of things like:

• Traveling the world together
• Moving in together
• Getting married
• Having kids
• Starting a big business together

Narcissists aren’t shy about making grand promises because they thrive on the admiration they get from them.

But they never seriously consider following through. And they don’t.

This behavior is so common among narcissists that it has a name—“narcissistic future-faking.”

Their partners eventually realize those promises were empty.

Or they notice that the narcissist never follows through on what they’re asked to do-because narcissists are skilled at making excuses for everything that doesn’t benefit them.

They might be:

• Busy,
• Overwhelmed,
• Not in the mood,
• “Dealing with a lot”,
• Or just procrastinating indefinitely—until you insist, and then they get annoyed and call you pushy

As the relationship progresses, narcissists start treating their partners worse and worse

They withdraw attention and affection and ignore their partner-all while making it about them, as if their partner did something wrong and deserved to be punished.

But if the partner tries to discuss the relationship, the narcissist goes silent.

With a narcissist, there is no “let’s meet halfway.” They only end conflicts when you apologize—even for things you didn’t do.

Over time, narcissists manipulate their partners into believing they deserve the bad treatment. (You can read more about narcissistic manipulation tactics in this detailed article. )

What keeps the non-narcissistic partner in the relationship is the memory of who their ex was in the beginning.

They keep hoping that person will come back.

But that person never existed.

Why then, don’t partners of narcissists just leave ?

Narcissists make their partners believe that if only they:

• Stop upsetting the narcissist
• Suppress their wants and needs
• Never call out bad behavior

Then the relationship will go smoothly.

Narcissists use the Pavlovian conditioning method—rewarding their partners with love when they behave “correctly” and withdrawing affection when they don’t.

Since being ignored is painful, their partner starts apologizing for things they didn’t do, just to be spoken to again.

Until they fully accept blame for everything wrong in the relationship.

Once a partner believes the narcissist is right and they’re wrong, they become a victim of psychological abuse.

They become trauma-bonded to their narcissistic abuser by justifying their behaviors, feeling loyal to the narcissist, and hoping the good treatment will come back.

In time, the non-narcissistic partner eventually realizes that the good treatment will never come back and the narcissist will never revert to “who they were” initially, simply because such a person never existed in the first place.

The realization that their whole relationship was a lie, along with the zero confidence that the narcissist’s victim is left with, can make leaving a narcissist and starting over extremely difficult.

The effects of a narcissistic relationship on the non-narcissistic partner

Narcissistic relationships cause major personality changes in the non-narcissistic partner.

Here is what narcissistic victims often experience:

• Feeling they’re incompetent, worthless, and undeserving of love
• Confusion about how to deal with life without the narcissist in it
• Difficulties trusting not only potential partners but people in general
• Paranoia that everybody has ill intentions toward them
• Shame for allowing bad behavior for a prolonged period
• Missing the narcissistic ex
• Catastrophic thinking that they will never find love again

Why narcissists’ exes feel extreme guilt and shame after a breakup

Luckily, the majority of people would never deal with narcissists, as Narcissistic Personality Disorder only affects between 0.5% and 1% of the general population.

But the problem is that if you were involved with a narcissist, you would never be understood by anyone who hasn’t had the same experience.

Your friends and family would stare at you in confusion when you tell them about certain situations where your ex treated you horrendously, and you still stayed with them.

They would ask questions such as: “Why didn’t you just leave?”

Or you might have left the narcissist but then went back to them despite the horrible stories you previously told everybody. Then they would be even more confused: “How could you go back to him/her after what they did? I would never take back someone who did this to me!”

They might start thinking that, after all, if you didn’t learn from your mistakes, you might as well deserve such bad treatment, and they may stop listening to you and supporting you.

As a result, you might be left feeling even more ashamed and alone in your pain.

This is the reasoning of a lot of narcissists as well: “If I treated you so badly, why did you come back?”

You must remember that narcissistic relationships are not like normal relationships.

Cutting ties with the narcissistic partner is extremely challenging due to the established trauma bond.

The destroyed self-esteem after a breakup, the confusion, the pain of losing a partner, and the fact that a narcissist will often break No Contact with their ex for various reasons, leave ex-partners of narcissists in a very vulnerable position.

Resisting the urge to communicate with the narcissist is very hard, especially when the narcissist’s partner doesn’t fully realize what has happened to them.

They may expect their ex to have realized how badly they treated them and hope they apologize and change.

It takes multiple breakups and makeups for narcissists’ partners to realize they are dealing with a disordered person and that the only way to save themselves is to go fully No Contact.

How to start healing after narcissistic abuse

As your relationship with the narcissist has just ended, you may be in an emotional abyss right now.

The time lost, the broken trust, and the investment in another person who turned out not to care for you more than they would for a stray dog can be debilitating.

You may feel you are in a dark tunnel with no hope of seeing the light anytime soon.

But there is hope.

As challenging as it may seem to recover from narcissistic abuse, it is not only possible but comes with an added bonus.

The experience can give you the chance to heal your core wounds, something that you may have never done before.

While these actions may be challenging to take at first, as time goes by, the pain will lessen.

Cut contact with your ex

After an abusive relationship, your brain is addicted to the dopamine hits you got when your ex treated you nicely.

You miss your ex because the person who hurt you the most, is the same person who can take away the pain.

You need to break this addiction, or else the recovery process won’t start.

It is essential to remove your ex from social media, delete your chat history and photos, throw away the gifts, and get rid of any reminders of them.

Take a couple of months (or a year) off from dating

Narcissistic relationships have a great psychological impact on one’s mental health. They are, by nature, traumatic, but they also reopen old wounds and traumas.

As much as it hurts, overcoming a breakup with a narcissist is an opportunity to heal yourself on a very deep level.

Don’t interrupt this process by seeking out a new relationship to save you from the pain you feel now.

You are not in the right headspace to be involved with someone new. There is a very big chance the new relationship won’t work out, even if the new person is right for you.

You may:

• Act toxic toward them, similar to how your ex treated you
• Blame them for things your ex did
• Push them away with your constant insecurity.

Don’t seek out new relationships yet, but don’t refuse to go out with people

Say “yes” to friends’ invitations and don’t miss out on life!

If your friends want to introduce you to someone new, let them, as you never know what could happen. Just make sure you let this person know you’re not ready for a relationship yet.

You need to take time to fall in love with yourself again.

The real reason you attracted your narcissistic partner was that you didn’t love yourself enough.

Had you really loved yourself, you would never have allowed someone else to treat you badly. You would have set boundaries and left at the first sign of them disrespecting you.

If you really want your next relationship to be healthy, you need to fall in love with yourself first before you fall in love with someone new.

Journal

You may discover that after a breakup with a narcissist, your brain feels foggy.

Narcissistic people have a way of distorting reality until you question your judgment, sanity, or history itself. Hence, the best way to figure out your messy thoughts is to write them down.

You will notice how your perspective on the breakup and the whole relationship changes day after day as you continue journaling.

You may crave your ex’s presence right after the breakup. But as days go by, suppressed memories of them disrespecting you in various ways might come to the surface.

It may be “small” situations that you ignored at the moment because you didn’t want to believe someone you loved might act or say such things.

So you pushed those memories to your subconscious.

As you continue journaling, these will start resurfacing, and you will come to realize that

the relationship would have always ended.

Engage in new hobbies and don’t endlessly read about breakups and narcissism

I know that right after a breakup with a narcissist, it may be addictive to binge-read about narcissism and breakups.

While it may be self-soothing to watch endless YouTube videos or dig deep into Reddit and Quora, the truth is that as long as you keep doing this, you will live in the past.

You need to let the past go so you can start creating a new you.

For this to happen, you must redirect all your mental energy into yourself and your well-being.

Stop consuming breakup/dating content and start watching movies, playing video games, (see how video games can cure anxiety here), visiting new places with friends, and investing in your physical and mental growth. Enjoy single life – see the benefits of being single.

I guarantee you, you will feel better.

Focus on the things you can control

Whenever you start feeling anxious about the future, think about this:

There are things you CAN’T control in life, and one of them is whether you will find the right partner.

Worrying about this is unproductive, as it is beyond your power to predict.

But there are many other things within your power, such as:

• Going out and meeting people
• Choosing to love, respect, and prioritize yourself
• Deciding to live a good life

For all these things, you get to make a choice every day, so choose yourself and love yourself.

Need to read more? Get the How to get over your ex in 30 days ebook and start your healing right now.

Check out:

Why finding “the One” is a myth

How to change your attachment style from anxious to secure

How to be assertive in love

The plan that will help you achieve your dreams

How to never give up when things get hard

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