Your partner is a narcissist: Should you stay, and if you stay, is there any hope that they can change?

As a psychologist for the past thirty years, I have treated many people in relationships with either narcissists, or others with narcissistic tendencies. Forget the diagnosis. It doesn’t matter. If you are in a relationship with someone who says they love you but for some reason you just don’t feel it, someone whose commitment doesn’t feel certain, someone who you find yourself trying to please, or someone who is very different in a social setting from the way they treat you when you’re alone, you may be loving a narcissist. However, like I said, asking yourself if they are truly a narcissist, watching videos, reading articles, talking to friends, etc. will not help you as much as simply accepting that even narcissistic tendencies are red flags.

Now that you’ve established the fact that your partner has “tendencies”, you can run for the hills, or stay in the hope that they will change. But can they change? In my field, research shows that personality disorders cannot be treated. That is, if you have narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, or other personality disorder, you are doomed. However, I and many colleagues have found this not to necessarily be so.

Your person might actually have been reared by parents who were loving, compassionate, and informed. Your person may have experienced so much pain as a result of their personality that they are finally ready to take ownership and be committed to change. Your person may have enough interest in YOU that they do allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to do this. But remember that those narcissistic tendencies are red flags. If you’ve read this far, you know what those are. If you’ve read this far, you may know you don’t feel completely safe (emotionally) or secure in your relationship but you aren’t quite sure why. If you are not yet invested physically, emotionally or financially, it is time to be honest with yourself. If you are not getting any indication that your person is open to doing real work in therapy in order to be a healthier adult, its time to exit this relationship. The loss of the excitement, fun, and high of it is not going to be easy. In fact, that is exactly what keeps you hanging on to this person and probably other people in your past. Sitting in the pain, not reaching out, not coming up with some trivial question you just “need” to ask, actually doing nothing to get their attention can be torture. But it will be the healthiest thing you can do for yourself right now.

But you’ve decided to stay. You believe in your partner. They have shown you in too many ways that they care deeply about you for you to give up on them. Okay. You are ready. You’re going to face each red flag, without fear, tear it down, step on it until its black and shredded, and every loving word or gesture from your person will prove over and over again that it was worth the fight.

This would be a fantastic ending to your love story, but its not likely to play out this way. Unfortunately, all the passion, determination and strength that you have to make it work is not enough, unless your person who wears the red flags is just as committed to the goal as you. Your person’s challenge is to understand themselves better than you, better than any book, video, article or expert. With the help of an excellent therapist, your person can understand why they are wired this way, and that rewiring is difficult but possible. Wait. What? Rewiring is possible? Yes, it is. Most people who seem to have no empathy (a critical piece of narcissism) do have some empathy or compassion in specific situations or for specific people. With this, the right therapist has something to work with.

You’ve read up to this point, and this article has not addressed your situation. Your person will never own up to any flaws, weakness, or take any responsibility for problems in the relationship. YOU need to go for therapy. YOU have the problem. YOU are too needy. YOU are too emotional. YOU have the screwed up family. YOU YOU YOU will do the work, make the effort, make the changes that will result in a more loving, intimate partnership.

This is the most common situation that I have found in the people who come to me for help. More often than not, the partner seeking the help feels stuck because they are in a long term marriage, have kids, are financially entangled, dependent, afraid of what divorce will do to the kids, extended families, 401Ks, etc. If you see yourself in this type of situation, you will not be able to change your person. The hope you have is in managing your person. This in no way means you can control their behavior. However, you can change your emotional reactions, where you are not vulnerable to their narcissistic antics, and thereby, indirectly, change can occur. Your person is accustomed to the dance you do with them, and they are twenty steps ahead. They know as soon as the dance begins, where you’re going to spin, jump, lean in, lean out, and eventually fall. But you can choreograph a new dance. And this one may have you gracefully engaging, but being sure to stay upright, spinning and jumping only when you want to, all the while making sure your partner is an important part of the dance, but if he or she chooses to sit this one out, you’re perfectly okay.

This “dance” of course is the way you interact with your partner. The way you move, breathe, speak, and emote is all part of the dance. Your partner won’t do the work it will take to understand themselves? You can do the work to understand yourself, how you got where you are, and how to manage a life with your person because right now, you believe you have to.

The title of this article, “You think your partner is a narcissist…” caught your attention, and you took the time to read for good reason. Hopefully what you have gained from this is validation that if you’re feeling the discomfort in your relationship we discussed above, you don’t need to confirm your person’s diagnosis. They may or may not fit the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That’s fine, and irrelevant. You feel what you feel and you deserve to feel better. That said, you have options, of course. Depending on your level of commitment to your person, you need to carefully consider going through the pain of ending the relationship so that you can truly heal. If you need to stay and your partner is motivated to work to change, take the time to find the right therapist for both of you, to work individually and as a couple. If your partner won’t take responsibility, but you think you need to stay, make it a priority to get help from a therapist who has a boatload of experience helping narcissists and their partners.