Leaving A Narcissist: All You Need To Know

If you are not sure whether your ex is a narcissist, read this post first: Was My Ex A Narcissist? 1 Rule For Judge & Cope. Compared to the post in the link, we conducted a more in-depth discussion on “narcissistic relationships” in this post.

If your ex was narcissistic, then I can almost guarantee that, even if you’re out of that relationship, it still had a massive effect on you, didn’t it? Because those types of relationships are so destabilizing, so chaotic, so inconsistent.

It might have started out with you being loved, and bombed, but it didn’t take long until you were being called names or being dismissed or worse, and it’s perfectly normal for you to feel confused and frustrated with yourself and angry at them. It’s also normal for some of you that you still love them, don’t you?

2 Dangers of Narcissistic Relationships

Maybe they broke up with you and you feel the sense of rejection or discarded, like you weren’t good enough, even for someone who you know was mistreating you. That can make moving on and healing so hard.

I just want to remind you that it’s normal for that type of relationship to have a massive impact on a psychologically and emotionally. But if we aren’t careful enough, we can fall into one of two dangerous camps.

1. Repeat The Same Pattern Again

Maybe by getting back with our ex or even starting a new relationship with someone else who ends up being toxic as well. I’ve seen plenty of people say they had a narcissistic ex and then they found themselves stuck in the same Dynamic, even with a new person, and they don’t know why.

And I just want to reassure you: it’s normal for you to not really trust yourself during this season, but I promise you can learn to trust yourself again.

You’re not a failure. You don’t need to beat yourself up.

We’re going to talk in just a minute about the red flags that we need to pay attention to next time around and learning how to set healthy boundaries, so this doesn’t happen again.

2. Sabotage A New Healthy Relationship

The second issue is, that even if we got into a healthy relationship after a toxic one, if we aren’t careful, we could sabotage that relationship because of how much we were affected by the toxic one.

I mean, let’s just be honest. We used to be trusting of people. Now we’re not because we know how badly someone can trick us or hurt us.

We used to be open and vulnerable and curious, and now we’re guarded because we know how some people can use those things against us. We used to love sacrificially, but now we protect ourselves because we know what it feels like to be walked on, and all those responses make sense.

I’m just saying, that sometimes, when we aren’t aware of them, we can overcorrect and push someone away who’s actually a good partner for us.

4 Ways For Healing After A Narcissistic Ex

So that’s the question we’re trying to answer today. How can we have a healthy relationship after a narcissistic ex?

Let me first acknowledge that if you were in a trauma bond with this person, regardless of who broke up with who.

It’s normal for you to miss them. It’s normal for you to still love them. It’s normal for you to think maybe things could be different the next time around. It’s even normal for you to blame yourself, especially if they broke up with you. It’s normal to feel rejected. I’m just here to remind you that this break is actually a really good thing for you.

Some of you know how toxic that last relationship was. You know you want to move on from that person completely, but others of you secretly want to get back together with them.

You want them to come back and tell you that they miss you and they love you, and you would accept them back and forgive them.

Right, but I just want to say in the most loving way possible:

You’re broken up for a reason, something wasn’t working, and this is a time you need to take a step back and reflect and get clear on what you were really feeling and needing and deserving in this relationship.

Because once there’s a little space, especially if there’s a little rejection mixed in there, our minds have a way of playing tricks on us and thinking: maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe I was being a little too needy, maybe things could be different the next time.

And when we chase emotionally unavailable partners, it actually ends up causing way more harm, because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They don’t treat us right because they were ever going to, which only confirms our narrative in our head that we’re not good enough, that no one can be trusted, or that we need to work harder to be loved and accepted. None of which are true.

1. You Deserve Selfless Love

The truth is, you deserve someone who actually has an interest and capacity for selflessly loving. You deserve it, and it is entirely possible that that very good person, who is a perfect match for you, will appear in your life.

You deserve consistency. You deserve reciprocation. You deserve the same respect and kindness that you give out to others. You deserve someone who can actually listen to you and resolve conflicts without demeaning, belittling, or screaming at you. You, can miss them and love them, and still admit and recognize that they weren’t a good partner for you.

Their relationship did not align with your core values. It didn’t meet your needs. You weren’t asking for too much. You were probably just asking the wrong person.

Think about it. You gave them plenty of chances. You forgave them. You tried to move on. You accommodated. You bent over backward for this relationship, right, did they?

Did they reciprocate any of your efforts, or were you the only one who was concerned with doing the work to make the relationship work?

You tried to come up with all the right words so they didn’t feel triggered or get defensive or yell at you. You tried to love them in the ways that they actually felt valued, right, did they?

Did they do any of that stuff for you?

The truth we need to accept is that they showed us who they really were. Now it’s time for you to actually believe them. I only say that because I care about you. I care about your future, I care about your kids’ future. I’ve been married for 11 years and I know how difficult marriage and parenting can be.

If two people aren’t putting in the work to make a relationship work right, and if you’re saying that your ex was narcissistic, then by definition they were not interested in putting in the work.

That means that unless, in the rare circumstances that they start going to counseling on their own, reading books on their own, healing their stuff, truly exploring and taking accountability and validating the pain that they caused in this relationship, and consistently changing their behavior, not to win you back, but because it’s the right thing to do.

If they aren’t doing that, then you should not be considering getting back together with them.

2. Focus on Behavior, Not Diagnosis

And here’s a common question I get: how do I know if my ex was a narcissist or not?

In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter. Now people are going to say: Well, if I knew if they were a narcissist or not, then I could know that they’re not going to change and that I could move on.

My personal opinion is: I think we spend way too much time analyzing whether they’re truly a narcissist or not, and not nearly enough time answering the question:

How do I deserve to be treated in a relationship? Why would I tolerate so much bad behavior from someone who said they loved me? This is part of our stuff that we need to own.

We say things like communication doesn’t work with a narcissist, which puts the burden back on us to find something that does work with a narcissist.

In reality, we should say narcissists have no interest in communicating. We have to get out of this trap of thinking that it’s up to us to carry this entire relationship. I mean they weren’t interested in listening to you. Everything was interpreted as an attack, right?

Yes, we can learn to speak with respect and vulnerability and use eye statements. It doesn’t matter if someone simply comes back with it. What would they respond, your feelings aren’t my problem? Here are questions, the red flags to check if they were narcissists.

• Did I feel confused all the time?
• Were they hot and cold?
• Did I feel rushed or isolated from my friends and family?
• Did I feel safe to be vulnerable, safe to express a feeling or a need or, God forbid, a frustration?

Safe to say no, I don’t care if someone is diagnosed as a narcissist or not. If you didn’t feel safe with that person, if they had no interest in building a safe emotional connection with you, a relationship isn’t possible with that person.

Let’s just ask ourselves where our boundaries are respected:

• Did they even ever ask what they were?
• Did I feel like I needed to walk on eggshells or else I was punished?
• Was there any lying?
• When I had the courage to bring that up, was I gaslit and told that I had a bad memory?
• Was my perspective dismissed as crazy?
• Did I feel manipulated or invalidated?
• Was there any name-calling?
• Was my time, energy, and attention being reciprocated?
• Was there a tantrum?
• Anytime I gave any constructive feedback, no matter how kind or respectful. Were they able to take accountability for anything?
• Did they always play the victim and, worse, end up blaming me for their behavior?
• Did I commonly hear things like you’re too sensitive?

And their typical responses can be: You’re acting like such a blank. Your feelings aren’t my problem. No one else would put up with you. It’s your fault. I did that. Are you really going to make such a big deal about nothing?

• Did they always act like I owed them?
• Was there any actual equality in this relationship, or was there a double standard?

I mean just imagine what would happen if you treated them the exact way that they treat you. Do you see how? It really doesn’t matter if they’re a diagnosed narcissist or not.

The fact is, this person that I’m describing has no interest or capability in having a mutually respectful, healthy relationship with you. And we’re not talking about perfection.

No one is perfect, but you deserve a partner who sees you as an equal right. A narcissistic person will never do that. They are first.

There is no one else on the list, but the truth is, you deserve a partner who is consistent with their affection and attention. You deserve a partner who can say the words. I’m sorry, that was wrong. I care about how my words and actions affect you. Can we talk about it?

You deserve a partner who takes an interest in how you feel loved and valued and who actually wants to prioritize you in those ways. You deserve a partner who actually cares about your boundaries, because when we love someone, we don’t want them feeling overextended or exhausted or coerced, right?

You deserve a partner who cares to listen when you’re hurt, and who has an interest in your feelings and perspective. This isn’t about someone being dominant or submissive.

This is about love. When we love someone, we care about how they feel. We care about their inner world or experience, don’t we?

3. Setting Healthy Boundaries

A big part of the problem is that sometimes people who tend to get with narcissistic partners had a childhood with caregivers who either neglected them, dismissed them, or made sure that they weren’t a priority for them.

And this part is about your attachment patterns. Maybe you begin to learn from a young age that it’s your job to sacrifice for the people you love to earn their love or acceptance.

Maybe you learn to abandon your own needs and wants to serve someone else, because if you didn’t, then love would either be taken away or you would be rejected or abandoned, and that belief has followed you right into your current relationships.

If that resonates with you, I would strongly encourage you to make sure you’re talking with a professional because they can help you navigate this, learn to heal, grow rebuild your self-worth, and learn how to set healthy boundaries.

Maybe for the first time, and if you forget everything else from this post, please just remember this: you’re valuable.

Your worth and value don’t rest on what someone else thinks of you. You’re valuable and you’re worthy of kindness and respect baseline. You’re worthy to be considered and prioritized, just like you do for others.

You’re worthy to be spoken to with warmth gentleness and kindness, and you never deserve to be demeaned or belittled or called names or yelled at or touched when you don’t want to be touched.

And I truly hope and pray that you get to the point where you believe that, deep in your soul, you aren’t crazy for feeling confused, you aren’t crazy for feeling taken advantage of, and you aren’t crazy for needing someone who was consistent and honest and safe and who put in the bare minimum amount of reciprocation.

In this relationship, you aren’t a burden, no matter who told you that or made you feel that way, and my role is never to victim blame you in this. No one deserves to be abused. Even if you missed all the red flags, you’re human.

We’ve all missed red flags, but it is my role to remind you of your worth and value, and from that place, we can reflect on how we got into the situation because if we don’t learn the lessons that we need to, we could find ourselves right back in a similar one.

The craziest thing about the science of all this is that your nervous system might be wired to find chaos and inconsistent love safe, meaning you feel more comfortable when things are toxic. Your nervous system is like that.

This makes sense, which means if you found someone who served you and appreciated you and loved you and cared for you and listened to you, your body is actually wired to see that as wrong and scary.

These are the type of people you’ll usually say: well, they were nice, but I just didn’t really have chemistry with them. The reason you didn’t have chemistry with some of them (not all of them) is:

Your nervous system told you they would actually be the right type of partner for you. They would accept you and love you and you wouldn’t have to earn those things. And that feels uncomfortable.

And of course, I don’t say any of this to shame you. Shame is not a part of this equation. Remember, Berne Brown says guilt is, I did something bad, but shame says I’m bad, and some of you have been feeling like you’re bad for a long time.

That has massively contributed to the type of partners you’re attracting or allowing into your life, and it’s my goal to remind you as much as I can.

I can’t heal your shame, sure, but I can remind you that you’re lovable, you’re valuable, and you’re good. You’re a human and sure. You’ve made mistakes. We all have. You’re still good.

What do you think you would tell a friend who is in your exact spot right now? You would tell them: don’t let this break you. Don’t let this relationship trick you into thinking that you deserve to be mistreated.

You can hold yourself accountable for the red flags that you missed. That doesn’t make you a bad person and that doesn’t mean you deserved any of the abuse. Let’s learn from this.

Let’s forgive ourselves and heal so we can move on and find the love that we truly deserve because you deserve real love. That’s exactly what you would tell them and that’s exactly what I’m going to tell you.

The sad reality is when we think about it, a narcissistic person needs a partner who sacrifices their own needs and desires, who has a really hard time setting any boundaries right, who is loyal and passive and submissive. It just doesn’t work any other way.

It’s not a coincidence that most toxic relationships include one partner who thinks: maybe I am the problem. If I could just get it right, then this relationship could work.

Spoiler alert: it’s not a narcissistic person that ever asks that question. It’s you, and they need that shame and self-doubt already established in your heart and head. So when they call you worthless or crazy or stupid, there’s a part of you where that makes sense.

I just want to remind you: you’re not worthless or crazy or stupid, and no one who truly loves you will ever make a habit of calling you those things. A truly narcissistic person manipulates you by understanding your triggers and insecurities. So they will bait you into a fight. They will call you those names, they will say those lies.

They will make those assumptions because they want to get aise out of you. It’s so hard for you not to defend yourself or fight back right. The problem is you’re fighting a losing battle. The only way to win is not to play, because they aren’t playing fair, only you are.

So they’re going to continue lying or calling you names until you finally had enough, you explode, you unload all of your anger, and your suppressed aggression that you’ve built up right back onto them.

The only problem is, now they have even more ammunition to tell people how angry or violent you were or the things that you do or say, and you won’t deny it because you know it happened.

And this only adds to our shame that maybe we are the problem. This is when people usually start to ask: am I a narcissist too? The answer is no.

While I certainly don’t condone any violence on either side, the reason you’re exploding is pretty simple: you feel trapped, disrespected, and devalued. Your boundaries have been continually walked on and you’re sick of it.

You’re not a narcissist because you’re willing to apologize and take accountability for the ways that you’ve messed up. You care about how your words and actions affect other people, don’t you?

But you need to pay attention to your anger because it’s telling you something your anger is telling. You need to set healthy boundaries in this relationship. The solution is to stop fighting with someone who has no interest in listening to you.

The solution is to realize you’re fighting to be seen heard and understood. The only problem is they have no interest in that. Now I get it. That’s really hard. When we’re trauma bonded to this person, we feel attached to them, right, we love them.

That makes sense, but it won’t solve the issue. You can’t change them and they don’t care about or understand that. Connection and closeness demand things from all of us.

They aren’t willing to put in that work and stop telling me that they don’t respect your boundaries. It’s not their job to uphold your boundaries, it’s yours.

A boundary is. I’m leaving the room for 30 minutes if you continue yelling or calling me names. It requires nothing from that other person. I’m not controlling them, I’m simply informing them of my boundaries.

The only way someone can refuse to honor that boundary is by continuing to yell and block the door, and that’s a serious issue. That’s a crime, and I understand how difficult all this is when you’re dealing with a toxic partner.

My advice would be: if you consider your partner so unsafe that they will punish you for setting healthy boundaries, then you shouldn’t be around this person. We don’t set boundaries with toxic or unsafe people.

We separate ourselves from them. Is that hard? Of course, it is, but read some of the comments.

I guarantee there will be plenty of people saying it was really hard to leave, but they had to protect their future, and it was ultimately the best decision. Sometimes we stay in dysfunctional relationships because, if we’re honest, we’re terrified of being alone.

Right, and I would just lovingly remind you that you will never feel more alone than in a relationship with someone who doesn’t care about your needs, wants, or desires.

We tend to bend over backwards and sacrifice ourselves, so we won’t be abandoned. And yet in the process, we’ve abandoned ourselves and even though we’ve tried everything to prevent disconnection in this relationship, that’s exactly where we are, isn’t it?

Because it takes two people who actually care about creating a safe, mutually fulfilling relationship, and you only have one.

4. Know Your Attachment Patterns

So, to have a healthy relationship after a narcissistic ex, we need to be honest with ourselves about our past, our habits, our defaults, and our patterns.

We need to be honest about our fears insecurities and shame. We need to take accountability for our side of the street:

How did we handle conflict? How did we advocate for our needs? How did we set any healthy boundaries? And if we didn’t do those things, are we blaming them for why we couldn’t do it?

That’s not the answer. No one is coming to save us. We have to be the one who saves us right, I’m not talking about abuse. We all need to be saved from abuse.

I’m talking about silencing ourselves and continuing to give to someone who doesn’t appreciate us or sacrifice for us in the name of loving them because that’s not love, that’s self-sabotage.

Building A Healthy Relationship In The Future

To have a healthy relationship after a narcissistic ex, we have to relearn how to communicate and be vulnerable. Because being with someone narcissistic kills your drive and desire to open up and be vulnerable, and you’ve been punished for it every time you do so.

First, let’s get clear on our non-negotiables. What do you need to feel close and connected to somebody? We need someone honest, right?

We need someone who we can depend on. We need to be able to trust this person. We need to be able to communicate in a safe, healthy way. Right, we’re all going to get into conflicts.

We’re all going to say things that we didn’t mean, but the first sign is that someone is unwilling to take accountability or apologize, or even have a respectful disagreement with you, and they start taking your vulnerability as an attack.

That’s your sign. You need to step away. What you need to work on is making sure that you’re bringing things up in a vulnerable and respectful way. You can be upset and still respectful.

We need to make sure that we’re not bringing up discussions with passive aggressiveness or criticism, blame, silent treatments, assumptions, or name-calling. Those simply don’t help anything. Those sound like you always, you never, you don’t care about me, or you’re so lazy.

I feel like all you care about is yourself. Do you know what was missing from all of that? Any actual vulnerability? You didn’t mention one feeling of vulnerability that sounds like hey, when this happened, I’m feeling disconnected from you, or frustrated, or angry, or hurt.

I could really use some reassurance or a plan, or just to talk about it. You need to hold yourself accountable to whether you’re bringing things up the correct way. Then it’s easier to hold them accountable for the inappropriate ways that they’re responding.

So when they get defensive, it’s not my fault. When they dismiss you and roll their eyes and they invalidate your feelings, your feelings aren’t my problem. When they counter blame, well, you do the same thing to me, and I never complain.

When they take your feelings as an attack, you need to tell yourself: that this person isn’t a safe place for me to be honest or vulnerable about my feelings, and that’s one of my non-negotiables.

Remember connection and closeness to and things from both of us. If one person isn’t interested in prioritizing humility and listening and trying to understand your perspective, then you won’t feel close to that person.

Plain and simple being with anyone after a selfish, narcissistic partner naturally makes you want to go into protective mode. So we have to resist that. You need to take the time to heal and get back to your normal self.

If you’re a giver, I think it’s great that you’re a giver, as long as you’re not abandoning yourself. Don’t let your ex steal that quality from you. It’s great that you’re a giver.

You just need to find other givers to give to. And you might say: but, Steven, in the beginning even a narcissist seems like a giver. True, that’s why in the next relationship we’re going to take things a little bit slower.

The narcissist loved and bombed you because they wanted you to bond with them as fast as possible so that when they took their mask off, you wouldn’t leave because you cared about them deeply already.

In this new relationship, we’re going to have some personal boundaries about how close we’re allowing ourselves to get to someone during a certain time frame. We’re going to take things slow so that no one can love bum us.

That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy dating somebody. It just means we’re taking it a little bit slow and intentional. That’s the only way to truly learn about who someone is without becoming completely attached or bonded to them.

First, you’re not missing out on anything by taking things slow, sexually, or just in general, but you are setting yourself up for a World of Pain by jumping in too fast.

We all know that a narcissistic person is allergic to taking things slow because they can’t pretend forever. They won’t even bother dating you, because they can tell that you have standards and boundaries and that’s just not their type of partner.

We have to get to a healthy place where, if this relationship ended, if they ended up not being who they said they were, we could be sad and hurt, but we know that we would be okay, going back to being single.

That’s called freedom, and when you feel free instead of fearful, you’re in such a better spot to find the right person for you.

So please don’t protect yourself to the point where you don’t want to be vulnerable anymore. Do the opposite. Be even more direct and more vulnerable, and open and honest, but set healthy boundaries and have a really good antenna for whether someone is a safe person to be honest with.

Safe people will be curious about your needs, wants, and desires, unlike the narcissist who just wants to use that information against you.

Safe people care about your boundaries. Safe people ask you questions about your preferences. Safe People remind you that we’re a team in this and you’re an equal. You’re not too needy, because that would somehow make me the judge. And I’m not the judge of what’s needy or not. I’m someone who loves you. Safe people take accountability when they mess up.

A narcissist might trick you in the beginning, but you never heard them say: I’m sorry, that was wrong. Tell me about how that made you feel safe. People are consistent. Their words match their actions. They prioritize you. They want to build trust intimacy and connection in this relationship.

Safe people communicate. They want you to be honest, even if it hurts their feelings a little bit, and give yourself some credit. Do you know what feels off?

Trust your instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Take a step back, re-evaluate, or simply say something and see what happens.

Hey, this didn’t sit right with me when this situation happened. Here’s the story I’m telling myself. Here’s what I’m feeling. I don’t want to make assumptions, so tell me your side of the story and just see what they say. Safe people can hold space for your hurt.

They can validate and empathize, not because they’re weak, but because they love you and care about you. And so often we equate vulnerability and empathy with weakness. But those are strengths suppressing your feelings like I’ve done plenty of, and letting that spill over into other toxic sides of your life or toxic reactions is a weakness.

Being able to express your feelings and receive your partner’s feelings (hurts, desires, or more) with curiosity and a desire to understand their experience, validate what they’re going through as real, reassure them, and repair any hurt that you unintentionally caused.

Take accountability and apologize. That’s strength. I know all of this can be so hard, but healing is possible. Remember what you deserve. Remember that you’re not alone in this. Remember that you’re not too needy.

Wrap It Up

So, please learn how to advocate for your needs without shame or guilt. Learn how to be vulnerable again. Learn how to express feelings and also how to receive your partners as well. Learn how love safety intimacy and maturity show up in a relationship and then refuse to tolerate anything less.

I want to remind you again that you deserve genuine love and respect. Don’t settle for anything less because you deserve more. With time, self-reflection, and possibly professional support, you can rebuild your self-worth and find the healthy, loving partnership you truly deserve.

Best wishes to you!

Further reading:

1. Was My Ex A Narcissist? 1 Rule For Judge & Cope
2. Why is Everyone so Mean to Me? 25 Reasons & Help
3. 23 Reasons & Help For When “My Wife Yells at Me”
4. 11 Reasons & Help for When “My Husband Yells at Me”