Relationships with narcissists are hard.  It can feel like an uphill battle where you never seem to make progress but this progress is quickly lost.  Things may go well one minute and you think you are headed for positive changes, and then the narcissist acts like a narcissist again and you think things will never work out. You make changes for improvements, but the relationship seems to continually fail.  Can a narcissist relationship work?

Today I will discuss narcissist relationships and as I discuss the relationship, this can be any type of relationship with a narcissist, to include dating, friendship, or parental. The narcissist is a narcissist no matter the context and they will behave the same way throughout their relationships.  They may have some relationships in their life that seem to be working better, but this isn’t because the narcissist is able to have a successful relationship.  This simply means that a relationship is better because that is what the narcissist needs.  They control and manipulate to maintain the upper hand so if they need a relationship to work then they will do what they can to ensure it does.

That last statement is very important when considering whether a relationship with a narcissist can work.  If the narcissist needs a relationship to work, then they will do whatever they can to make it work.  This isn’t done for the other person, but solely for the narcissist.  The narcissist is largely in control of how a relationship plays out and they manipulate the relationship in their favor.

The narcissist must always be in control because of their unstable sense of self.  While they try to present themselves as competent and with high self-esteem, this is all a lie they live in order to protect against being exposed for their true selves.  They have low self-esteem and fragile senses of self.  Because of this, they must surround themselves with people who make them feel better about themselves.  This may be people who they feel they can take advantage of, or those whom they think are higher performing than them.  Either way, the narcissist associates with someone based on what they provide the narcissist.

If the narcissist feels like their narcissistic supply is waning, they may belittle and emotionally abuse someone as a way to boost their narcissistic supply by hurting others to feel better about themselves.  Or they may associate with someone who is more successful because they believe they are equal to this person who is successful and this might boost their narcissistic supply.  

As you can imagine, the relationship with the person they abuse is unlikely to work because they are mean and degrading to that person.  While the relationship with the person they want to relate to because of their success might work out better because they are going to be positive and supporting of this person. 

The narcissist decides which relationships work and which ones don’t.  If you have a relationship with a narcissist where you are being emotionally abused, you might try harder thinking if you change then the relationship will improve.  This type of thinking helps you feel more in control of a situation for which you feel out of control in, however, it doesn’t really have any impact on the relationship.  The changes you make for the betterment of the relationship means nothing to the narcissist.  They will change if it benefits them, and they don’t consider you or your wants and needs.  The narcissist is self-centered and only thinks of themselves. 

So, the narcissist relationship can work if it is something the narcissist wants and benefits from. This can change daily and there is no predictability in what the narcissist wants because they never even know within themselves.