Living with a narcissist is a harrowing experience. It can tilt one's mind toward abnormal reactions (really normal reactions to an abnormal situation). The capriciousness, volatility, arbitrariness and vicissitudinal character of the narcissist's behaviour can facilitate the formation of paranoid reactions. The less predictable the world, the more ominous and precarious it is and the more paranoid the pattern of reactions to it. Sometimes - through the mechanism of narcissistic mirroring - the partner adopts a way of reacting to a prolonged period of emotional deprivation and stress by emulating the narcissist himself. The latter is then likely to reproach the partner by saying: "You became I and I became you!!! I do not know you anymore!"

The narcissist has a way of getting under his partners' skin. They cannot escape him because he is part of their lives and part of their selves, as internalised as any parent is. Even after a long sought separation, the partners still care for the narcissist greatly - enough to be mulling over the expired relationship endlessly. It is this that the partner should clarify to herself: she may be able to exit the narcissist's life - but will he ever exit hers?

A narcissist's partner wrote to me these heartbreaking words:

"I have made him sound like a monster, and in many ways he really is. At the same time, I have always seen a vulnerability in him, the small terrified hungry child (almost split-off from the rest of him) and I suppose this is why I tried so hard with him. I knew, almost intuitively, that while his (False) Ego was constantly swelling, his heart (True Ego) was starving"

I tried as hard as I could, in as many ways as I could, to feed the real person inside (and I believed there was a fragment of that person still alive, represented by the child). In a way, I think the violence of his reactions near the end was due to my coming so close, in arousing those ordinary needs. When he realised he has become dependent on me, and that I knew it, I think he just couldn't take it. He could not finally take the chance of trusting me.

It was an orgy of destruction. I keep thinking I could have handled it better, could and should have done things differently. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, but I will say that there was a real person in there somewhere, and a quite delightful one.

But as you pointed out, the narcissist would always prefer his invented self to the true one. I could not make him see that his real self was far more interesting and enchanting than his grotesque inflated grandiose superman construct. I think it is a tragic loss of a truly interesting and talented human being."

next: The Narcissist's Reaction to Deficient Narcissistic Supply