Recognizing Narcissistic Behaviors In A Relationship
A Therapist’s Journey of Leaving a Narcissistic Ex
Part 1 of 2
When I scroll through the comments on social media posts about narcissistic abuse, I’m struck by how many people are navigating the same tangled web I once found myself in. Survivors are out there fighting to leave, trying to stay away or managing low or no contact with someone who once consumed their world. It’s a sobering reminder of how dangerous and soul-crushing these dynamics are and how much we need to understand narcissistic behaviors in a relationship to protect ourselves.
I’ve been there, and I want to share my story of escape — not as a therapist, but as someone who lived through it. I want you to see the red flags that became undeniable for me and understand the steps I took to break free. Survivors often stay trapped in these dynamics for decades due to the deep psychological toll they take. Here's how I left just three weeks after my narcissistic ex began to unmask, revealing a side of him that shook me to my core.
Here’s a look at what helped me leave:
Observe yourself for cues
Learning to ignore his convincing words and instead observe my own thoughts, feelings and behaviors for cues that narcissistic abuse was occurring. In the final stages of our relationship, I felt frequent feelings of confusion leading to obsessive overthinking, a strong desire to do detective work to figure out “the truth”, over-communicating by writing paragraphs in my Notes app, being attached to my phone in case he called because he had started to randomly go dark for hours and days at a time, feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted, being afraid of setting boundaries because I was afraid to lose him and afraid to lose myself if he continued to disrespect of my boundaries. This self assessment was helpful because of how intimately I know my attachment style: secure when I’m with someone secure and anxious when I’m with someone avoidant. When I become overly anxious in my relationships, I know something fishy is up and it’s not just me overreacting. I trust myself.
Set a deadline
Giving myself a deadline for tolerating his shitty behavior. We had spent (what I had originally thought was) a mostly wonderful 9 months together with more highs than lows and then, slowly but surely, he started to pull away. At first, I chalked it up to being out of the honeymoon phase. Then, in the final month we were together, the shitty behavior ramped up drastically. He started to behave erratically, shut down, and randomly accusatory. When I pointed out his behavior, he would vacillate between taking total accountability and minimizing my experience.
Use the Six Questions Framework to stay grounded
I used my Six Questions framework (outlined in my upcoming book), to stay grounded in where I was at any given moment, which helped immensely in the brain fog of the final stages, which lasted 3 weeks in total.
The questions are:
1. Have I communicated my need?
2. Do I feel heard?
3. Are they taking steps to meet my needs?
4. Is there evidence of positive change?
5. What is my part of the issue/pattern and am I working on my stuff?
6. Are all our efforts enough?
Once I specifically communicated my needs, I made a silent deal with myself (and my therapist) for how long I was going to tolerate and be patient while I waiting for changed behavior. I scheduled regular check ins with myself to ask myself questions 2-6.
Are all of the efforts enough?
I sat with question number 6: Are all of the efforts enough? This is usually the hardest question to answer in relationships because “enough” is totally subjective. In order for me to determine what was enough positive change, I did a cost-benefit analysis of the pros and cons of the relationship and I left as soon as cons outweighed the pros. After the honeymoon/love bombing phase was over, the pros slowly started decreasing while the cons slowly started increasing with frequency and intensity — a process that is very common in abusive power dynamics.
Once I took a step back, it was undeniable that there were major things I still wasn’t getting in the relationship that I had been waiting for and, on top of all of that, the day to day experience of the relationship had become largely negative. At that point, it was a no brainer even though emotionally it felt impossible to leave.
be aware of common narcissistic behaviors in a relationship
I stayed firmly in the reality of what was happening, not what I hoped would happen or what I wished we would get back to. Narcissists use a tactic called future faking to string their victims along. From the beginning, my ex created plans enough in the future that I was always one step, one experience, one conversation away from getting everything I had ever wanted. And there were always good reasons why the things I had asked for hadn’t happened yet.
Plausible deniability is also a common tactic used to gaslight victims — the excuses for why things are the way they are makes some sense. As the year wore on, I challenged myself to sit in the reality of what had actually occurred and realized it was simply different from the type of relationship I knew I wanted. Although we had regularly agreed that we were on the same page in regards to the type of relationship we both wanted, it was simply undeniable that the reality of the relationship was far different than the one we both said we wanted.
Once I left and the hoovering phase began, which included incessant harassment, my ex started to promise me everything I had asked for again. As frustrating as this was, it helped me see with clarity the blatant manipulation that was occurring. In fact, during our last conversation where I pleaded with him to stop harassing me during the hoovering stage, I imagined him gagging me as he read me love poems, because that’s exactly how our interactions had begun to psychically feel: suffocating, confusing, debilitating and abusive. I felt a complete double bind that occurs so often in abusive relationships: I can’t go, but I cant stay here.
let your values inform you
I valued my mental health above all and allowed this value system to inform my boundaries. This is a strong value and boundary for me to set because of my job. Because of the mental and emotional fortitude that my career requires, I literally cannot do my job if I’m mentally unwell. The last three weeks of my relationship, it was undeniable that I started to really struggle to be present for anything but thinking and feeling about the relationship. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s hard for me to take a stand when it’s just for my own humanity but when you start to mess with my career, a major purpose in my life, my boundaries get real strong and clear. The sign that I ultimately needed to end things was the day I brought my cell phone into the shower with me, afraid that if I missed his call, I had no idea if or when I’d hear from him. Once I reached that level of powerlessness, I knew it was time to go.
Take note
I kept a journal throughout the relationship and looked back on my entries to identify and understand the cycle of abuse which included the intense love bombing phase that got me hooked and the devaluing phase that started to confuse me with its inconsistency. These two phases create the trauma bond that feels like being addicted to the most intense drug. It mirrors regular addiction because most addictions start out reaping the rewards of the drug. Slowly, as drug abuse wears on, we start to have more and more negative consequences of the drug so we begin to get addicted to chasing the wonderful high we used to feel. In fact, we start to shift our behavior and discount our values and sense of self, just to set ourselves up for the next high that only our abuser can deliver.
Even though I still felt the intense magnetic pull of the trauma bond, the one that lies to you and says “you’ll never find anything that feels this good,” being aware of this pattern allowed me to move to the discard stage quickly and the unfortunate hoovering stage that followed post break up.
Understand your relationship wounds and triggers
I understood my relationship wounds and triggers and accepted that my childhood experiences with narcissistic abuse was getting activated. This partner may have been less activating for someone who didn’t experience what I did as a child but his behavior was simply too triggering for me to wait it out and hope for changes. This might sound like I’m apologizing for leaving but instead what I’m illustrating is that my childhood wounds saved me because they made it impossible to stay and that happened quickly. Many people stay for decades in narcissistic relationships, addicted to the cycle and pouring everything they have into their relationship while they lose their self-worth, sense of self and self-esteem.
I was lucky that my past trauma got so activated and that I have a professional background in supporting victims of narcissistic abuse that I could intellectually understand what was happening even though I was emotionally still very much entangled in the manipulative web. In this way, I knew something was wrong in my gut without yet knowing it on an intellectual level. Without these two protective factors, it is very likely I would have stayed for years longer. I often say in and out of session; love is not enough and boy, did I love this man deeply.
Beyond love — when in partnership, we need to be able to treat our partner’s childhood wounds with the same respect and care as we do our own. When our partners can’t do that, even if there’s love there, it comes down to compatibility and a strong commitment to self-love. Without a commitment towards change, there was nothing that would protect me from being collateral damage in his quest towards building accountability, if he was genuinely interested in changing his behavior.
Choosing Self-Worth
Accepting that I’ll never know what was possible in terms of change. There is so much out information out there on the fact that narcissists will never change. The issue with this take is that narcissism exists on a spectrum meaning that someone’s ability to change is also on a spectrum depending on how narcissist they are. There was no way for me to know what was possible in terms of positive changes without staying, and after a certain point, I simply couldn’t wait around to find out. I had to make a choice: him or me. Once I chose my deep self-love and self-worth, figuring out if he was a full blown narcissist, someone with narcissistic tendencies, or merely a deeply avoidant or unwell person became irrelevant. All that mattered in the end was: he wasn’t for me.
If you recognize these narcissistic behaviors in a relationship and are struggling to leave, you are not alone, you are not weak, you are not too far gone. Reach out and let’s work together. You got this.
Read Part 2 here, outlining how I stayed away when the hoovering began.
Want more guidance?
Preorder my upcoming book Healing Relational Trauma here.
This gentle guide offers an evidence-based approach to help you move past relational trauma and pain so you can achieve the love and connection you deserve.
