People often become stuck in patterns within narcissistic relationships. From a psychodynamic perspective, the question is not only why someone stays in a narcissistic relationship, but what those patterns accomplish psychologically.
In Part 1 (HYPERLINK WHEN PUBLISHED 8/6), we explored how people can become psychologically organized around a relationship that no longer serves them.
Continuing that discussion, this article explores three additional reasons people remain attached in narcissistic relationships: the psychological function the relationship serves, the hope attached to the possibility of change, and the ways the relationship protects against painful internal experiences.
From this perspective, it is important to keep in mind that people are not simply attached to the other person; they are often attached to what the relationship represents in their mind. The relationship may be carrying hopes, longings, identity, and parts of oneself that became connected to it. Healing begins by understanding what the relationship has been doing psychologically, what it has come to represent, and what might be lost if it ends.
To explore this topic in further detail, listen to the full podcast episode of the Narcissism Decoder HERE.
Reason #1: The Psychological Function of Narcissistic Relationships
People often become stuck in patterns within narcissistic relationships because the relationship is serving an unconscious psychological function. One important function a relationship can serve is regulating self-esteem.
Rather than relying on an internal sense of worth, the individual comes to depend on the relationship to feel valuable, lovable, or significant. Being needed by the other person, receiving moments of affection or validation, or believing they alone can help or rescue the partner may temporarily restore a fragile sense of self.
For others, the relationship supports an identity of being exceptionally loyal, patient, or indispensable. In this way, leaving the relationship is experienced not only as losing another person, but as losing a source of psychological stability and a way of feeling like oneself. When self-esteem has become organized around the relationship, ending it can feel less like losing a partner and more like losing the psychological structure that has been holding the self together.
Reason #2: Hope Is Attached to the Possibility of Change
One thing that is important to understand is hope.People often remain invested in narcissistic relationships because they are holding onto the possibility that things will change. But the question is: what is that hope actually attached to?
People are not simply hoping the other person will change; they are often hoping for something much deeper. They are holding onto the possibility that the relationship will finally become what they have been waiting for and that something within themselves will change through that experience.
Sometimes the hope is not just that the relationship will become different. It is that they will become different through the relationship. If they finally receive the love, admiration, or recognition they have always longed for, they imagine they will finally feel secure, worthy, or complete.
The relationship becomes the vehicle through which the hoped-for version of the self is expected to emerge. It comes to represent the possibility of finally becoming someone who is lovable enough, someone who matters, or someone who feels fully seen and understood. Ending the relationship therefore involves more than grieving another person. It also means grieving the imagined future and the imagined hoped-for self that had become psychologically invested in the relationship.
Reason #3: The Relationship Protects Against Painful Internal Experiences
People often remain in relationships because the relationship protects against painful internal experiences. The relationship allows unconscious conflicts to remain externalized. Instead of asking, “What’s happening inside me?” the struggle stays focused on the other person: “If only they would change.” Painful internal conflicts, losses, or vulnerabilities are acted out in the relationship rather than confronted.
The relationship can also protect against the anxiety of uncertainty. Even when the relationship is painful, it may still feel familiar and predictable. The known can feel psychologically safer than facing the anxiety of an unknown future and the difficult emotions that may come with change.
By keeping the focus on the other person and the possibility that they will change, the person may be protected from confronting feelings of grief, shame, loneliness, or fear that the relationship has helped keep out of awareness. The relationship continues to carry conflicts, vulnerabilities, and losses that may feel too difficult to face directly. In this way, ending the relationship is not only about separating from another person.
Conclusion
Leaving a narcissistic relationship is often difficult because the relationship has become connected to much more than the other person. It may serve unconscious functions by regulating self-esteem, carrying hope for a different future self, and protecting against painful internal experiences that are difficult to confront.
People are not simply attached to the other person. They are attached to what the relationship represents in their mind. Healing begins by understanding what the relationship has been carrying—the hopes, longings, identity, and parts of oneself that became connected to it.
As these unconscious functions become clearer, it becomes possible to recognize what the relationship has been carrying and begin reclaiming the parts of oneself that were invested in it rather than held within oneself.
Dr. Anthony Mazzella is a psychoanalyst and psychodynamic psychotherapist specializing in narcissism, personality disorders, and relational dynamics.
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(1): Lavner, Justin A et al. “Narcissism and newlywed marriage: Partner characteristics and marital trajectories.” Personality Disorders vol. 7, 2 (2016): 169-79. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4688247/.
