Being in a relationship with a narcissist for the first 1-3 months is actually incredible, but it starts to unravel very rapidly after that. Unfortunately by then you’re addicted to the “high” they give you and tolerate increasing levels of emotional abuse. https://twitter.com/jwildthingy/status/1296663285995986946

One of the characteristics of a narcissist in early relationships is “love bombing”. They lay it on THICK right out of the gate but they’re so confident it never comes across as needy. You will only perceive it as flattering.

A narcissist will tell you you’re beautiful & incredible all hours of the day. Your dates will be extravagant. You’ll feel like you’ve never connected with someone or been loved like this before. You’ll think THIS is what everyone’s been talking about it finally happened to you.

Right at the height of hour disbelief things will start to come undone. They’ll start taking forever to reply to text messages or actually ignore you for days. They might show up late or not at all for dates. If you complain they’ll insist you never hard firm plans.

When you bring up that you’re hurt or disappointed, they’ll flash their temper and you’ll back down bc do you really want a giant fight over being 20 minutes late? No, that’s crazy. It’s not worth it. Maybe you DID get the time wrong.

So they’ll do it again and again and again.

After a month or two you’ll start to think about leaving but if you get cold they go back to love-bombing until you’re sucked back in.

If you try to talk about things they’ll insist THEY are the victim and you’re actually hurting THEM.

Narcissists are professional victims.

This cycle escalates until you find yourself behaving in completely unrecognizable ways: constantly anxious and insecure, fights that become screaming matches, etc.

eventually the love-bombing isn’t enough to make up for the fights so you just feel bad 24/7.

Your narcissist will STILL try to keep you in the relationship. They will NEVER stop. It doesn’t even matter if they screamed they hated you and wanted you dead only 20 minutes before, they will *never* let you leave and they will pull out absolutely all stops to make you stay.

Normal emotionally healthy people don’t stay in relationships where they are hurting or being hurt. Narcissists will. In fact the more dysfunctional the relationship becomes, the more they will attach to it.

But early on you really only get 1-3 good months with a narcissist. The cracks show fast, but you have to look for them. Otherwise you’re stuck for years. Decades. Life.

Seriously narcissists are a life sentence. If you meet one, run.