Narcissists habitually move very quickly on to new partners. They seem SO loved up and happy with this new person!
Is it possible that your ex-narcissist can change and be different with someone else? And what is it about, when your ex seems to LAST with another partner for years or even decades?
Is your prior partner CAPABLE of having a healthy and loving relationship with SOMEONE ELSE?
If these questions burn you up inside with the terror that perhaps another person is GETTING the man or woman that you wished you did… Please read this article. I KNOW how much PEACE it will give you.
So many of you have asked, ‘Can a narcissist change in a new relationship?
I promise you this burning question used to be my own, too.
And understandably so, because when narcissists get into new relationships we believe they are totally loved up and everything is completely wonderful for them with the new partner.
But is this real?
Will the narcissist’s behaviour change and they become the wonderful partner who you missed out on?
In today’s article I am thrilled to be able to give you the REAL truths, in a way that can really help, about the question ‘Can a narcissist change In a new relationship?’
Let’s get started.
The Dichotomy of the Question ‘Can a Narcissist Change In a New Relationship?’
The answer to this question is both YES and NO.
The reason it is a YES is because narcissists can be distinctly ‘different’ from relationship to relationship.
The reason it is a NO is because happy, healthy, solid and durably loving relationships aren’t possible for a narcissist.
You will understand more about this soon!
Narcissists Being Completely Different With Different Partners
Let’s check out this example…
When Mandy joined the Thriver Community, I discovered she had married Sam three years prior and the poor lady had barely crawled away alive.
Sam, in his relationship with Mandy, was controlling, insecure and extremely jealous.
When Mandy went deeply inside to heal her trauma with Sam using the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP), she discovered many fractures from her childhood that were to do with her being controlled; having her boundaries violated; not being believed or trusted, and being continually questioned.
Growing up, Mandy had felt like she was constantly trying to prove her innocence, explain herself and reassure others in order to be awarded any freedom or rights.
When Sam, the narcissist, came into her life, he quickly worked out that she had been engulfed and distrusted, not just by her parents but also by other love partners. Knowing this, he professed he would trust her, give her space and never question her integrity.
Mandy thought she had finally hit the jackpot with Sam. She fell madly in love.
They got married within months, after a whirlwind romance, but before long the cracks appeared. Exactly what Sam had professed to be, became the exact opposite. He started hurting her with accusations, distrust and intense jealousy.
Mandy was devastated. At the time, she didn’t realise her original traumas were being ripped open yet again, with full ferocity. Mandy was trauma-bonded to Sam, fighting desperately not only for her sanity, but to get this ‘wonderful’ man, who had originally seemed to be the saviour of her traumas, back.
Of course, initially this was all deeply unconscious for Mandy. She just knew she was panicked and emotionally terrorised.
She felt like she would die, even after she did get away from him – which is how our big, unhealed traumas FEEL once activated by narcissists.
Holding ‘No Contact’ was originally very difficult for her, like it is for many of us when we still have trapped trauma within our subconscious programs.
Anyway, thank goodness Mandy started working with NARP. She found, released and healed herself from the exact traumas that needed healing, stayed away from Sam, and completely rebuilt her life.
Predictably, life her life was better than ever, and she never again was attracted to men like Sam. The men that she started to meet and date, were not love-bombing her and Mandy was VERY clear that any signs of possessiveness and control were not something that she would ever have in her life again. Mandy started a committed relationship with a beautiful man who DID genuinely allow her space and grant her trust.
Two years later a woman named Corrine contacted Mandy, telling her that she was Sam’s partner after Mandy and that she had recently been discarded by Sam.
Corrine shared with Mandy how he was detached from her in their relationship, was never home, played up on her, and even threw other women in her face.
Mandy was shocked that Corrine said this about Sam’s behaviour. She couldn’t understand how he had changed so much – from being so possessive with her, always monitoring her, to not being around or giving a crap about what Corrine was up to!
I told Mandy this was normal; that narcissists commonly behave completely differently with different people, and that Corrine’s wounds would have most likely been from an absent father, a man who probably played up on her mother and who was completely unavailable and disinterested in Corrine as well.
Mandy checked in with Corrine and this was the truth. Corrine told Mandy that Sam had initially appeared in Corrine’s life as attentive, granting her love and devotion, which was what she had desperately been craving for.
He had worked out EXACTLY what was necessary to hook her in.
Then, of course, over time, he started HURTING her with the exact wounds that he had said he would HEAL for her.
Narcissists do this with every relationship.
Narcissists are not real, solid people with their own energy and identity. They are whoever they need to be to get people to trust them enough to gain narcissistic supply from them. Identifying and then carefully granting the missing piece to someone, is the fastest and most sure-fire way for a narcissist to get their fix.
Then, when that person inevitably falls from grace as a result of not supplying enough A-grade narcissistic supply, the narcissists turns on them. They have worked out the weak spot to hit – their partner’s greatest unmet, unhealed wounds.
Why the New Relationship Seems SO Loved Up
Narcissists usually love-bomb their targets in new relationships.
They ‘seem’ to have the same interests, values and want the same lifestyle as you.
They will say and do what pleases you to make you fall in love with them and trust them. They appear as your soul-mate; the life-partner who you have always dreamed of. This is so that they can quickly get into your bed, body and life.
All the while, they are being this delightful person only so they can identify your inner wounds and appear to be your saviour.
Narcissists, like fishermen with not much bait, have to hook a fish for a meal quickly. Otherwise, they starve.
Narcissists can’t manufacture their own emotional energy. They have No Self on the inside, which means the energy they expend quickly requires a payoff. This is a precarious balancing act. Narcissists will go over and beyond to do all that it takes to get their next love partner hooked. Champagne, flowers, trips, exotic experiences and expensive effort are extremely seductive to new potential partners.
And it doesn’t stop there.
When a drug addict secures a drug – they often binge on it. And it’s no different for a narcissist. He or she can get totally carried away with the high, the drug – you supply them with. But what this is really is self-medication for an inner tormented reality that the narcissist (drug user) doesn’t want to face – their true feelings about themselves and their unresolved trauma.
For the narcissist, narcissistic supply is their escape from the inner annihilating feelings of being defective, empty and self-loathing.
New partners are an excellent source of heady and high narcissistic supply, and a narcissist initially milks it for all it is worth.
If a narcissist has secured you as their next target, then they will be telling themselves that you are the BEST thing since sliced bread. You will be idolised to the point of the ridiculous, and the narcissist will tell you gushingly, and everyone else too, how you are the best sex, the most attractive, the smartest, the most successful – whatever it is that the narcissist is getting off on.
Of course, you are going to fall off this lofty pedestal – get thrown off, actually. It’s only a matter of time. A narcissist’s False Self is NEVER appeased for long.
This happens to all new sources … eventually.
But WHY Have They Lasted So Long?
You may think, because a narcissist was, or is in a long-term relationship, that they must have been successful in the relationship and maybe they really loved or love this person.
Please know, as I know, how wrong this is!
I know of so many people in this community who had been with narcissists for up to thirty plus years and had a horrific time much of the time.
The length of a relationship is absolutely no indication of its success. In fact, many Thrivers have had to dig very deep to heal the long years of abuse and painful programming.
Generally, the ending was terrible in these longterm relationships. Because of being discarded, often brutally, by the narcissist for new and fresher supply, or they became so sick, including serious illness and emotional and financial devastation, that they had to get out to save their lives.
That is nothing to be envious of.
And I know that if they had stayed in the relationship, their lifeforce would have continued to be sucked out of them.
Okay, enough about the narcissist and the ‘what’ and ‘why’ – let’s now take your power back by talking about what YOU can do.
I hope I can help inspire you by sharing with you what I NEEDED to do.
Your Necessary Focus and Healing
Most of us have been through the agonising feelings of being replaced and someone else getting the life we were having or thought we should have.
This used to be VERY big for me – just the thought of it threw me into a panic both before and after narcissistic abuse. I had to dig deep and really focus on healing the parts of me that were:
- Stalking exes on social media to see who they would hook up with next.
- Trying to dissect the new partners to see what they had that I didn’t.
- Obsessing painfully, and even having nightmares, about new partners and the wonderful life they were having with ‘my man’.
‘Can a narcissist change in a new relationship?’ used to be such a loaded and distressing question for me.
I KNOW, how many times I previously hung onto bad relationships because of the utter TERROR of being replaced by someone else.
And yes, ‘being replaced’ happened to me.
The first time it did, I felt like I was going to DIE, the grief and trauma was so bad.
I had to go inside and FACE these fractures and HEAL them. (As well as the ones that had led me into narcissistic relationships in the first place!)
Like many women, I carried deep in my DNA the fractures of my female forebears. Fractures that were primarily based around: ‘Without a man, I can’t survive.’
Supporting these deep fractures was the fact that my mother and her female relatives had NEVER not been in a relationship. And it was the same for the females on my father’s side.
Every time a relationship had ended in my life, narcissistic or non-narcissistic, my terror of being alone or replaced was off the Richter scale – no matter how successful, financially sound and capable I was.
When you heal your fear of being replaced and alone, as myself and other Thrivers have, you will know THIS following truth:
Your ex-narcissist’s new partner is doing a soul contract dance with the narcissist just as you did – to have their unconscious wounds become conscious so that they can heal them.
And you will deeply bless his or her journey with the ex-narcissist, and hope for their soul’s sake that they awaken – just as you have – to not only relief from trauma with that person, but also to no longer needing to play out your same unhealed patterns with other people in their future.
For you, the relief that this relationship is NOT WITH YOU any more is indescribable! And you can become INCREDIBLY grateful that finally you can go inside, heal what has been limiting you and generating terrible trauma in relationships (just as Mandy did in our example today) and get free into a whole new Love Code that is healthy and happy for you.
Are you ready to heal and get out of the agony of being replaced?
It’s wonderful on this side, let me tell you! I and SO many Thrivers are here, and we want nothing less for YOU than to help you get here too!
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