When ending a relationship with someone who is entitled, exploitative, and lacks empathy, you need to be careful how you do it.
Not all narcissists rage out at you when they fear losing control over you. There are many ways a narcissist will project that fear into you so they can regain control over you, to stop you from ending the relationship, at least until the narcissist can find a new supply and they end the relationship with you.
There are many methods a narcissist will use to keep you trapped within a relationship. Here are nine ways a vulnerable narcissist might use.
People not on the spectrum of the disorder can do these things, as they care about you because they desperately want the relationship to work. Narcissists use these to exploit you, to coercively control you, to deceive you and get their needs met by you.
Narcissists can seemingly sense when you’re about to end the relationship with them, so they can try many different covert methods to get you to stay.
1. Threaten to end the relationship.
As people can go through difficult times in a relationship and question if they should be in it, even when there is no emotional, psychological, or physical abuse, therefore when someone wants to end a relationship with you, and you’re not abusive, you can relate to the doubts they are having not realising when it comes to a narcissist they’re not having doubts they’re manipulating. So when a narcissist threatens to end the relationship with you, we can question what we’ve done, how we can improve ourselves, question if we are the ones causing those issues within the relationship, question if we’re trying enough because we were thinking of ending the relationship.
A narcissist might not straight out end the relationship. They might say things like. “I love you, but I think we need a break. Perhaps you should move out for a while. Maybe we should see other people. Perhaps we need space.”
So you fear the relationship ending, even though you might know within yourself the relationship needs to end, as you care for them, as you’re certain you are in a relationship. Change is hard enough on its own. It’s even harder when the choice is taken away. It’s very difficult to end a relationship with someone you thought you’d build your life with, someone you care for, even when they don’t care for you.
When a narcissist threatens to end a relationship with you, and you stay, you’re going to have to live up to their unrealistic demands of you as they punish you for not living up to their expectations and threaten to end it every time don’t hit their unreasonable demands of you.
A narcissist only finds it hard to end a relationship if they haven’t got a supply coming from elsewhere.
2. beg and plead with you to stay.
A narcissist might beg you not to leave. They might plead with you to give them yet another chance. They might beg you to let them put things right. They might guilt trip you with crocodile tears, and pity plays to pull on your compassion for walking away.
3. The guilt trip.
When a narcissist is committed to misunderstanding you, claiming you misunderstand them, then when you’re thinking of ending the relationship, they’ll say things like. “I thought you got me, I thought you loved me.” or “After all I’ve done for you to create feelings of obligation within you.
Remember, when dealing with a narcissist, they only do for you so they can get something in return from you.
If you have children with a narcissist, they will use those children to guilt trip you with their lines of “What about the children.” so you feel compelled to stay for your children. Not realising the narcissist doesn’t care for those children. They care to exploit the children to get their own way.
4. Promise to change.
A narcissist will suddenly want to buy your time with those false promises of change, or they’ll suddenly start wanting to do all those things you wanted to do with them that they didn’t want to do with you. A narcissist might promise to seek help and support to go to therapy. However, as soon as you give a narcissist a chance, they just change back into who they are, the person you wanted to leave. They find excuse after excuse to justify why they haven’t gone to therapy, and haven’t changed.
A narcissist’s future faking Hoover, when they promise to go to therapy in the future to get their own way in the present, then when the future becomes the present, a narcissist will claim, “I never said that.”
Once you stay or go back, they don’t change because they got their needs met.
5. Future faking.
Narcissists will ask you not to break up with them over a silly disagreement. They might appeal to popular opinion claiming relationships are hard work, people fall out all the time and claim you’re going through a rough patch. Things will get better. However, when you are with a narcissist, things only ever get better temporarily while they meet a need of their own, and then once their needs are met, things only ever get worse. Narcissists might promise to get married, look at buying a house, have a baby, go on holiday, and ask what you’d like, yet as soon as they suck you back in, their behaviour gets worse.
6. Start encouraging you to do all the things you love to do.
Where once they started random arguments to stop you from doing the very things that make you who you are, the things you enjoy, the things that fill you with joy, suddenly they’re going to encourage you to do these things again, they’ll keep you that tired through conflict through sleep deprivation. They’ll get you drained that you no longer know who you are, no longer feel like you have the time to see your friends and family, they devalue your hobbies, they get you to question yourself, “is that course really for you.” then when you’ve finally had enough of not being able to live a free life, they’ll say, “perhaps you should go out more, maybe you should look into that course, I can help with the children/home while you study.” the narcissist wants to appeal to your dreams, to give you that false sense of hope.
7. They start doing all the things you wanted to do.
In the beginning, when they were selling themselves to you, selling your dreams to you, future faking with you, and because they were selling you an illusion to get their needs met, once their demands were met, they stopped doing these things with you, to then breadcrumb you back into the relationship to give you the false hope, they’ll start doing all the things they said they would do. As soon as their feet are back under that table, they change the game on you.
8. Play the victim.
When they come at you with. “How could you of all people do this to me.” they might threaten to take their life. They will do all they can to guilt-trip you into helping them. They might have a sudden life-threatening illness that, later down the line, you discover they didn’t have at all.
It’s hard to walk away from someone you care for who is threatening to take their life. A narcissist wants to use this so you feel responsible and fear what they might do if you leave, call ONE of their family members or ONE friend, report to local authorities to help them, and ask yourself if they would genuinely be there for you if you needed them if there was nothing in it for them?
9. They suddenly need you.
When in the relationship you couldn’t do right for doing wrong, then when you want to end the relationship. The once seemingly independent narcissist might suddenly need your help around the home to fix their car. They’ll be full of gratitude and praise towards you. They will play the victim to get you to come and help them. Once they have open communication with you, they’ll go overboard with flattery, telling you how well you work together, and look at what you could have together. To keep you trapped in the relationship.
As soon as you take a narcissist back, they change back into the person you were trying to leave.
You can not help those who are only using the fact they need help to exploit you, not to get the help they need to change.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
