My Friend Was The Trophy Boyfriend of a Narcissist

My friend Mark is a sensitive soul. Growing up, he battled multiple health issues including obesity and depression. Perhaps that’s why he has a strong empathetic side to him. I worry that his giving nature acts as a magnet for a certain type of people who can’t wait to take advantage of it.

Did I mention he’s also very good looking? Yet, he’s oblivious to the effect he has on women courtesy of leftover self esteem issues from childhood.

But that’s besides the point. The point is Mark’s one of the good guys and yet he believes he’s a complete failure at love.

His relationship with a narcissist left his self esteem in shreds.

According to Wikipedia “A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband.” Interestingly it was another sentence in this article that caught my attention “Referring to a spouse as a trophy wife usually reflects negatively on the character or personality of both parties. For the husband, it has a connotation of pure narcissism and the need to impress…”

I wonder if the same thing applies if the roles were reversed and the guy is the trophy boyfriend?

In Mark’s case, what he thought was going to be a meaningful relationship turned out to be a nightmare starring a female narcissist. She was someone who had the entire story preplanned to the very last wedding detail before she had even zeroed in on her perfect victim, which in this case happened to be Mark.

WebMd describes narcissism as “extreme self-involvement to the degree that it makes a person ignore the needs of those around them. While everyone may show occasional narcissistic behavior, true narcissists frequently disregard others or their feelings. They also do not understand the effect that their behavior has on other people.”

The Love bombing or Idealization Stage: “The lion is most handsome when looking for food.”

Celine aka “Ripley”(of Alien fame) was a few years older than Mark, with two major obsessions: maintaining her athletic physique and climbing the corporate ladder as fast as was humanly possible. She didn’t really want a boyfriend as much as she needed to acquire a husband to shut her family up once and for all about her being older and still single.

She needed to show them that she was capable of finding herself the perfect man. To her, that meant a man who suited her needs.

Mark met Ripley on a popular dating app and they made an immediate connection. Ripley was thrilled to finally meet “a man who was genuine” unlike the jerks she claimed to have come across on the app and couldn’t wait to see him face to face. She wined, dined, flaunted him in style and fawned over him like he was the guy she had been waiting for all her life.

Mark is a simple guy. He works with numbers and his all time fav quote is the “Numbers never lie” one. I guess he felt flattered that a stunning woman like Ripley would be taken by him but at the same time I feel he was too embarrassed to let on that he felt smothered by her. Or maybe it was the protective friend in me that got that vibe….

I remember Mark would barely be able to start a phone conversation with me before his phone would blow up with Ripley’s texts demanding to know where he was and what he was doing.

She didn’t care for his friends, much less me. Our friendship suffered and eventually we stopped hanging out.

Within a few weeks of meeting him, Ripley presented Mark, all trussed up (in a suit), on a platter to her folks and they deemed him a perfect choice. Everything seemed rosy for the world to see and yet one couldn’t help thinking what the heck the rush was all about.

And then just as suddenly Ripley changed her tone.

The Devaluing Stage: “It’s like one day you flipped a switch and became someone I never knew.”

It began with subtle put downs about Mark’s lack of drive and ambition (as compared to other guy friends of Ripley’s). And then moved onto his slacking about his fitness and non existent sense of fashion. Initially she would convince him that she was saying such things out of love and concern but then Ripley must have gotten tired of acting because the criticisms started coming hard, fast and unfiltered.

She found fault with everything he did. Nothing he did ever seemed to be enough to meet with her impossible standards.

He felt belittled and offended when she demanded to know how much he earned in a year and then was displeased upon hearing his answer. “That’s much less than I make but I guess we’ll have to make do till I can do something about it” was her reply.

During a rare phone conversation, Mark told me he was feeling lost and anxious about his relationship with Ripley. My response was :“Are you f**king kidding me?? That’s no way to treat a human being! You need to get the hell out ASAP!”

The Discard: When the narcissist discards you it’s often because you’re “woke” to what is going on and they can’t tolerate that.”

The day Ripley started verbally abusing Mark for calling her out on some of her lies was when he decided he had enough and walked out. My heart went out to my friend for having to bear the full force of a narcissist’s rage. Ripley wasted no time in launching a smear campaign to make her friends and family know that she had no choice but to dump Mark because he was crazy and that he scared her.

I commend my friend for escaping with his sanity intact. Some don’t. Even then the entire traumatic experience had such a negative impact on him that Mark had to go right back into therapy. A prolonged encounter with a narcissist can do that.

Even though it’s been two years since he walked out on Ripley, he still blames himself for not seeing the red flags for what they are and allowing himself to be manipulated. Because of his traumatic experience, an unloved part of him thinks he is a failure at love.

Therapy hasn’t been able to excavate and free that crucial piece of self worth yet.

“The soul crushing kind of abuse that is inflicted on the people who love a narcissist might not be visible to the naked eye, but it can leave devastating emotional scars that never go away”- Angela Atkinson

6 signs that you may be tangling with a narcissist too:

1. The narcissist tries to rush you into a relationship rather than giving it time to evolve as you get to know each other. In her article in Psychology Today, Suzanne Degges-White PhD puts the love bombing campaign of a narcissist in this way “Narcissists are going to do whatever it takes to get close enough to a romantic interest as quickly as they can before their target bolts.”

2. They pay little or no attention to your emotional needs in the relationship. Their needs take precedence over yours.

3. They don’t try to see your point of view. They also tend to be unapologetic for any wrongdoing and are quick to criticize.

4. Hearing “no” from you can set them off. Licensed family and marriage therapist Darlene Lancer JD MFT further explains the lengths a narcissist can go to when you disagree or deny the narcissist: “They manipulate to get their way and punish or make partners feel guilty for turning them down. Trying to please the narcissist is thankless, like trying to fill a bottomless pit.”

5, They demand your attention, under the pretext of love, to the extent that you become isolated from your friends.

6. They gaslight you. The goal of the gaslighter is to make the victim doubt themselves. The northpointrecovery.com blog describes gaslighting as a form of abuse and explains what happens as a result: “Gaslighting abuse causes a person to lose their sense of identity, perception, and worth. Gaslighting is a form of narcissism and sociopathic tendencies as they look to gain power over someone.”

The narcissist may initially hide behind a charming mask but sooner or later the mask slips. Pay close attention to red flags, trust your instincts and RUN.

Originally published on Medium.com