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Dating a Serial Narcissist.

How to spot one and how to handle them.

By Katarzyna PortkaPublished 2 years ago 9 min read
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Dating a Serial Narcissist.
Photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash

I slept next to him. I shared breakfasts with him. I had fun in the relationship. He made me feel safe. He made me feel heard.

He also bullied other women. He felt inferior to my male friends. He manipulated his environment into dancing to his tunes. He crushed the self-worth of other people at his own expense of fun.

Narcissists will make you experience a myriad of positive emotions: from appreciation, feeling desirable and exceptional. However, it all serves a hidden agenda. Namely, to disguise his lack of empathy, arrogance, and cruelty of constant distortion of the truth.

It's easy to love a narcissist. They're never boring and are often physically attractive, charismatic and sexually appealing. We're drawn to their intelligence, entertaining personality, special talents, or professional success. 

- Psychology Today

Not all narcissistic partners need to be characterized into one box. The best advice is to follow your gut. To tell you the truth, I have already received red flags, the difference was, I chose to ignore them.

It wasn't love at first sight.

I felt drawn to his gaze but somehow anxious. I felt the appeal of the fairytale, but somehow knew he was not the right guy for me.

The image of him I have scripted inside my head turned out to be quite different from the reality that eventually bit me back. I was at a vulnerable point in my life, and a person with interpersonally exploitative techniques found it extremely convenient.

I felt attracted to his independent way of thinking, his mysterious demeanour, arrogance spilling from his firmly established self-worth. Only to learn it was all just a fake.

The game of exceptional seduction.

I presume that at some point in our lives, everyone has a pull towards narcissistic characteristics of our personalities, some to a larger extent than others.

Clinical psychologist and Harvard Medical School lecturer Craig Malkin argues that the core of all narcissism is "a pervasive, universal human tendency: the drive to feel special, exceptional, unique."

I wholeheartedly support the notion of self-love and celebrating oneself as an exceptional human being. The issue arises when we feel desperate to seek validation from external sources.

And indeed, he saw me as a special one and emphasized it daily. It was part of his seduction strategy. He also believed he was unique and thus felt entitled to be with "the special one".

I would lie if I said it did not flatter me. After struggling out of a cheating relationship, the arms of a narcissist were precisely what allured me. Not knowing they might be my downfall.

Narcissists are known to use the technique called "love bombing". It can be displayed as showering you with affections, expensive gifts, special treatment in order to win you into their favours.

They can be very passionate about their family, career and life endeavours in general, which is why it is so hard to cross them off in the first place. They are great at campaigning for your sympathy, and you might find yourself often pitying them even if they hurt other people. They are masters at their self-pity game.

Playing the victim card.

A narcissistic person may blame a previous romantic relationship for feeling hurt and unworthy, thus creating a great contrast between their previous relationship, and how exceptional your actual connection is.

Narcissists may as well allude to dysfunctional family patterns. (I am not saying that their accusations are not valid. I am emphasizing their need for playing the victim). They tend to build their identity upon being a victim while becoming the villain.

In my story, my ex-boyfriend pinpointed many mistakes to his previous relationship, frequently referring to his ex-girlfriend as "mental" when, in fact, the joke might have as well been on him.

Ghosting is the form of control.

Everything was going smoothly until rose-coloured glasses started falling off. Whenever I said something, not to his liking, I was being phased out, which seemed a convenient way for him to set boundaries. No text messages, no calls, just silence.

Little did I know that silence had nothing to do with my behaviour, and everything connected with how the proceedings of our relationship were believed to unfold in the first place. Whenever the situation was not evolving to his script, he could not manage to deal with it.

Whenever I voiced any confusion about the relationship, he turned it into a joke or chose not to listen whenever my doubts did not serve his impeccable image.

Narcissists are all about how they appear to others. I believe it is extremely difficult getting to know a narcissist, as their masks are always malleable to the conditions they find themselves in. Perhaps the only person who can get to know a narcissist is the hero of the story himself, but because he dislikes his true side so much, he prefers not to share it with others.

You start doubting yourself.

Sharing personal information builds closeness and intimate bonds between humans. It also serves as a devious, manipulative technique, as this illusion can be cunningly used against you.

I started questioning my reality. Whenever we disagreed, I doubted my judgment, tiptoeing the scale in his favour.

He was a master at hiding the fact that my priorities are insignificant to him by coating me with his attention and admiration of my appearance, personal skills, playing into my vulnerability and ego.

I cannot count how many times have I listened through conversations about his embellished achievements, problem-solving skills and other praiseworthy performances. No matter the topic of conversation, there always seemed to be a story about a dragon slain by his cleverness and wit. I am all for acknowledging one's value and success. However, lying is not one of them.

His overconfidence was just a disguise for his lack of belief in his own worth. He was masking his doubts about himself by complimenting his every step, even blunders, which he concealed with humour. Whenever he did not receive any praise from others, he was the one who granted it to himself.

I do not believe grandiosity to be the best cover-up, as whatever you do not believe about yourself, you cannot force upon others to discover. Besides, true confidence does not plead any validation from others.

Your circle of friends disappear.

He also trashed down any long-term and profound relationships I have cultivated with my friends or family.

It was a pattern to blame others in my environment for any conflicts that may have arisen. In his judgment, I was never the problem, but always the other person. This manipulation turned out quite convenient in tightening my bond with him and leaving me to his company.

The break-up point as the dealbreaker.

It wasn't until I tried to end the relationship that I started getting to know the real person behind the facade. The moment I started questioning my feelings and needs, I knew it was time to end this relation.

Guess what? It took me six more months to finally be done with it. That seems to be another trait popular for narcissists: they do not take 'no' for an answer easily. I have never experienced any physical abuse, but I surely did meet with an emotional one.

I have recognized how unsure of himself he was, and the masculine, sure-footed appeal started to fade away. By becoming desperate in trying to cling to our relationship, he unknowingly pushed me further away.

As soon as I have tried to break up, the more panicky and anxious he became. That is the thing about abusive relationships: the more you try to get out, the more force they will use to keep you in their life through schemes and manipulations to self-pity and grand gestures. He felt abandoned, hurt, betrayed, and the stalking began.

Functions like blocking callers or social profiles are a true blessing of the times.

However, bear in mind that just because somebody wants to keep strong ties with you, it does not necessarily mean they are a narcissist. It can imply a myriad of other issues like being desperate in order to escape loneliness, fighting for security identified with being in a relationship. Only you can sincerely assess the situation, whether the codependency became dangerous, and if there are any control issues involved.

Luckily, you wield all the power.

Narcissists are often compared to predators, lurking and awaiting the prey to fall into their lap. They are believed to set their eyes on weak people, prone to moulding into their wishes by being extremely persuasive.

I would not perceive myself as weak, although I might have been vulnerable at the time, thus susceptible to his charms. I believe I had underlying self-esteem issues, which made me a perfect match for narcissistic abuse. Due to shedding light on those problems, I was able to overcome and embrace them as part of my journey.

I want to communicate with people who have also been involved in such an abusive relationship: it is not your fault. Period.

You are not weak. You are not inadequate. You are not wrong. You presumably developed all the right traits like vulnerability, lack of boundaries and self-esteem issues which made you and the narcissist a perfect match at that time. However, such relationships can only make you stronger by grounding you in the new model of your reality: not accepting any bulllshit ever again.

A new life and healthy relationship is just a decision away from you.

I cannot bring myself to feel hatred towards the man, nor I would want to. I consider the behaviour as illness; that is how he chose to construct his reality as he was convinced about his right to do so. I simply refuse to follow the sickness.

He painted me exactly as he wanted to see me. People transform, and that is a natural predicament of life. You may wake up one day to find your wants completely on the opposite side of your partner's bed, and that is not a crime.

With that written, I am extremely grateful for the uncomfortable rollercoaster of emotions I got myself in.

However, one needs to take into account that every relationship will vary when it comes to intensity and extremes of situations. Yet, they all have certain core elements in common and leave the other person feeling emotionally exhausted with lessons to recover from.

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About the Creator

Katarzyna Portka

Mindset coach. Writer. Reader. Coffee enthusiast. Tolkien’s fan living in Harry Potter’s world.

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