How A Narcissist Undermines You in Your Relationships
Narcissists are very clever at how they manipulate others, especially when it comes down to their family members.
This blog has been a long time in creation, because even now 6 years no contact, I have struggled to identify the very subtle ways that my father undermined my relationships.
A narcissist knows exactly what your weaknesses are and will use them to their advantage.
Each time they manipulate you, you think that it’s your thoughts and you have reason for them. It’s like they crawl inside your mind and manipulate you from there.
It so very clever because the narcissist can deny it.
Some narcissists, I’m sure, are much more overt about their machinations. They are happy to tell you exactly what they think. Their tactics are not so difficult to identify. As they are easy to identify, it’s easy to see how you’re being manipulated and to see the truth.
A narcissist makes you question a friend’s loyalty
Your narcissistic parent or partner may not even know your friend they are seeking to cause trouble with.
However, they know you very well and your vulnerabilities, and they use this to their advantage. They’ve had your lifetime (or the length of your relationship) to finetune how to manipulate you.
They may simply point out that friend is spending a lot of time with another friend. Or mention that they saw friend’s parent and spoke about you.
It’s just the slightest hint of something amiss, that is enough to make you question yourself.
Afterall, you’re encouraged to question yourself and made to feel at fault by the narcissist and your toxic family. All the narcissist is doing is further re-enforcing this.
All the narcissist has to do is plant that tiny seed of doubt and off you go! Then it starts the spiral.
Maybe there’s a part of you, that is always expecting that someone will betray you. It’s only a matter of time.
These doubts are the seeds of doubt planted by your narcissistic parent. This seed has grown into a plant and been watered and nurtured by the narcissist.
So, they’ve only got to hint, and this doubt is reawakened and you start to ruminate, reflect, until all you can see is the betrayal that you feared.
A narcissist knows exactly what they are doing.
Before you know it, you’re obsessing about it, remembering all the times when you felt insecure in your relationship. This last thing feels like the last confirmation of your failed relationship.
The narcissist uses their false concern and gives bad advice
Now is the time when the narcissist sees you struggling and they act concerned. They know exactly why you are having problems; they’ve cause it.
However, they will pretend to care about you and if you confide in them, will advise you.
This advice will always be to rush into saying something and confronting your friend.
If they can catch you on the peak of your insecurity and fear, then there’s a greater chance that you will do something fuelled by your emotions. Your hurt and pain will be the driving force.
When you’re coming from a place of pain you are less likely to listen, to comprehend, and much more likely to go off on a route which will cause you greater pain.
This is exactly what the narcissist wants.
If you rush off, you are much more likely to want to inflict pain on your friend for their perceived transgressions against you.
The more pain you inflict on others, the more chance that your friend will retaliate in pain too.
Things then will escalate into something neither of you saw coming, the possible fracture of your relationship.
All the while the narcissist sits back admiring their handiwork, how their machinations have paid off.
The narcissist is 100% responsible for this situation.
Their manipulations and bad advice have led you to this point.
‘They’re not good enough for you.’
This is a very clever manipulation tactic.
The narcissist will find something ‘wrong’ with your friend, something materialistic, financial or something about their image.
They will then use this as the reason why they are not good enough for you.
It seems like they want the best for you.
However, what is really going on is that they don’t have control over this person, so they have to control your relationship.
It won’t take long for the narcissist to establish whether your friend is going to be manipulated by them. Sometimes they can even work this out before they meet them, by your sharing your friend’s behaviour.
Narcissists are very fine-tuned into working people out, if they will be a good target for their machination and abuse.
Those with unhealed wounds from narcissistic abuse are like people with a target on their back for narcissists.
As soon as they say that they are not good enough for you, your natural response will be to defend your friend.
In your defence, you give away so much the narcissist, so much that they can use against you and your relationship. The more you defend, the more the narcissist will insist, and you give them even more ammo to use against you.
The more you justify, argue, defend or explain (JADE) the more the narcissist has you under their control.
Not only that, but you are also giving them your attention and energy, something that a narcissist desperately needs.
As far as you’re concerned you want your parent’s approval of your friend, it’s very simple.
With a normal parent, they will be only concerned with how you feel. If that person feels good for you, then it’s all ok with them. Should things ever go bad, they will support you.
However, with a narcissist, they will deliberately withhold their approval. It gives them a position of power over you, and narcissists are all about power and control.
It all becomes about them, although it has nothing to do with them.
When they say that your friend is not good enough, not only is it a manipulation ploy, but it could also be because they fear this person reflects badly on them.
A narcissist is all about them and their image. As their child or partner, as far as they’re concerned, you reflect them. And anyone associated with you, also reflects on them.
So, if they value money, and your friend (or their family) don’t have money, the narcissist will seek to destroy your relationship just for that reason.
You have to be a benefit to the narcissist’s image, as do your friends.
Conversely, if you had a rich friend who was vile to you, the narcissist would encourage you to ignore their behaviour and suck it up. This rich friend reflects well on them and their image and that’s the most important thing to them.
The narcissist will always prioritise their image above everything else.
In extreme cases, the narcissist may encourage you to stay with someone who is abusive, purely because in some way they gain from the association.
A narcissist will encourage resentment of your friend
In another tactic, the narcissist will appear to favour your friend, to encourage your resentment and dislike.
Not only that, but it will make you feel that you are not meeting up to your narcissistic parent’s ideas and feel a failure for it.
They will compare you to them, often in such a clever and subtle way, that you’re not even aware.
Or else they encourage an unhealthy competition with your friend, knowing that this could be something that fractures the relationship.
This is the same dynamic that the narcissistic parent uses between their children, between the scapegoat, golden child and lost child.
If they are comparing you unfavourably with your friend, then this friend takes on the role of the golden child and you are the scapegoat.
The more that the narcissist can foster resentment, dislike or even hatred between you and your friend the greater chance the relationship will fail.
The narcissist doesn’t even need to have met your friend, but they will use whatever they can against you.
Perhaps you’ve shared things with them about your friend, in those moments when they felt like a good, caring and supportive parent or partner.
These times when they acted like this, is to gain your confidence to get information to use against you. This is the only reason why.
If you have not shared with them, they will use your weaknesses against you.
They are very familiar with your weaknesses they have enough experience of you to know your precise pain points.
So, whatever issues you feel insecure or uncertain about will be used against you.
Your friend will be these things and something that the narcissist likes or admires about them. Something that the narcissist approves of.
Having spent your lifetime (or period of relationship) desperately trying to win your narcissistic parent or partner’s approval, it will make you feel like a failure, and disappointment.
Narcissists are very clever because instead of any resentment being focused on them, they steer this to their targets.
Once the narcissist knows that they’ve got you where they want you, they will increase your resentment. So, this resentment builds and builds until you reach crisis point. Then the narcissist will act all concerned and give you the worst of advice.
Fear of others
Narcissists will always encourage a fear of others, outside the relationship if it’s a partner, or outside the family if it’s a parent.
Within the relationship and family, the narcissist knows that they have control. They control each family member.
Outside the family, they have less control over others.
A narcissist will encourage and foster a fear of others, because then their target relies more and more on them.
This reliance gives them more and more power and control.
Why do they do this?
Narcissists will deliberately undermine your relationships because they don’t want you breaking free.
If you are isolated, because they’ve undermined all your friendships and relationships, then you are less likely to make that break.
You are also not likely to see their behaviour as abusive, without outside input.
A narcissist wants you trapped, reliant on them and unable to leave.
So, they will do whatever they have to to isolate you, to undermine your confidence and to doubt yourself.
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Originally published at https://comebackbrighter.com on April 5, 2022.