Relationships, Narcissism

3 Glaring Signs That Your Partner Is A Closet Narcissist

There are raging red flags you should never ignore in a relationship no matter how much you love them.

“Maybe we feel empty because we leave pieces of ourselves in everything we used to love. — R. M. Drake”

I have only been in two relationships. One with my ex who was a closet narcissist, and the other with the awesome man I am lucky to call my husband.

With my ex, my emotions were always on a rollercoaster. I would feel the highest of highs, and then come crushing all the way down to the lowest of lows. With him, it always felt like the ground beneath me was bound to give way.

He was a master gaslighter.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” I recall saying over and over in my head like a broken record. He would look deep into my eyes and said, “I love you, too! Yes, I can read your mind and see all the emotion you feel for me.”

I would feel myself die a little more inside.

I did not understand how I ended up stuck in a relationship with someone I hated and loved in almost equal measure. I hated him more than I loved him, and yet somehow I stayed.

I do not want to say I was stupid — rather, that I did not know better.

You see, when you are a victim of a narcissist, it is hard to escape unless you know exactly what you are dealing with. You become a prisoner of your own emotions.

You keep wishing you could revive what you had before. Somehow, you believe there is something that you can do to rekindle the flame your relationship burned with in the beginning.

Alas!

Trying to fix your relationship is akin to picking up shattered glass with your bare fingers. The more you try to pick up, the more you end up hurting yourself.

Who is a Narcissist?

According to Mayo Clinic, a narcissist is a person who exhibits traits of narcissistic personality disorder. It is considered a mental health condition, one of many types of personality disorders, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.

Who is a Closet Narcissist?

A closet narcissist is more commonly referred to as a covert narcissist. Other times as a shy narcissist, or vulnerable narcissist.

Very Well Mind defines a closet narcissist as someone who has the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder but displays these behaviors in more subtle ways.

This paper by the Cleveland Clinic cites some causes of this behaviour as genetics, childhood abuse and trauma, upbringing and relationships with caregivers, personality and temperament, among others.

The reason I am sharing all these references is because if you have been in a relationship with a narcissist before, I want to affirm you — It is NOT your fault.

“Grandiosity is a cover for despair.” — Marianne Williamson

Experts advise that if you find yourself in such a relationship, the best thing you can do for yourself is leave.

Support groups of people who survived these kinds of relationships confirm the same thing. Leave while you still can. Yes, it gets harder to leave the longer you are together. You are NOT alone.

Do not ignore the glaring signs and red flags, no matter how subtle you feel they are.

And if you are wondering what the relationship would look like if you were in a relationship with a closet narcissist, look no further.

Here are 3 Glaring Signs That Your Partner Is A Closet Narcissist

According to Dr Michael G. Quirke, PhD, the narcissistic abuse cycle is broken down into three important phases: idealization, devaluation, and rejection. By understanding these key points, people who are struggling with narcissism or those who are in a relationship with a narcissist can get the help they need.

1. Your partner unrealistically idealizes you

“What we need is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.” — Francis Herbert Hedge

When I say idealization, I do not mean that you make an ideal partner for them and check most of their boxes. What I mean is that they idealize you and set you up to try and achieve unattainable standards.

In the beginning of the relationship, it might feel like you have found your soulmate.

In my case, at the start of our relationship I felt like I was constantly high on a cocktail of emotions — all the good ones. I was grateful that I had found the one I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

He bombarded me with love and smothered me with praise, vacations, promises of a future together, and even went on to declare that I was the most special person in the world.

He treated me like a goddess. He idealized me and was specific about what I should wear, who I could speak to, and anything that could provide non-verbal communication about me.

All the things I loved about him, he absolutely hated and was constantly saying bad things about himself. I should not have ignored that red flag because people who reject themselves tend to idealize others.

“Love has no place for idealization.” — Sudhir Kakar

What we had was not love. It was idealization.

If you find yourself in a place where you feel like you always have to raise your standards beyond what you can maintain just to please your partner, it might be an early warning sign that your partner is a closet narcissist.

A glaring sign that your partner might be a closet narcissist is when they unrealistically idealize you.

2. Your partner consistently devalues you

“You will never succeed with people who devalue you.” — Bob Beaudine

In a relationship with a closet narcissist, a time will reach where your partner consistently devalues you.

They will make little snide comments about your appearance, your personality, your character, your background — anything really. Everything they know about you can be employed as a missile in their arsenal of disguised insults they are bound to throw your way.

If you are lucky, they will jokingly warn you.

They will tell you all the mean things they intend to do to you (or others around you). And then will laugh it off and claim it was a joke. You might think they are misguided in their emotions and work harder at making your relationship a success.

In my case, he warned me, though. In a letter. A letter I reread with the pieces of my shattered heart and convinced myself he was misguided in his emotions. He warned me right before the devaluation process started.

He told me that I should run before I fell head over heels in love with him. I should have left and never looked back; pretended that I never met him. He warned me he would break my heart and feel no remorse for it. He promised he would act like he loved me deeply, that he would love me to the point of exhaustion. He would make my friends and family love him and give me hope for a perfect future. We would speak of marriage and kids.

He warned me, I did not listen.

Instead, I lost all sense of self-esteem and accepted the crumbs of empowerment he would give me with his sweet compliments.

In a relationship with a closet narcissist, they will eventually get bored of you. They will lose all interest in your touch, your words, your life.

Your closet narcissistic partner will pull away without explanation — leaving a vast space in his wake right where your heart used to be.

Even if you try to remind them of your good old days, you are wasting breath. Chances are they have already moved on to their new supplier.

You might feel the need to defend them to your friends and family — chances are, your closet narcissist will pretend they have never met them.

You believe in your heart love can right all wrongs. You think you of all people might have a shot of fixing them.

You are wrong. You should leave while you still can.

“If they truly loved you, they would not devalue you.” Shannon Alder

A glaring sign that your partner might be a closet narcissist is when they consistently devalue you.

3. Your partner eventually rejects you

“A narcissist does not reject you because of who you are, they do it because of what they are.” — Rumi Kaur

After they build you up so high, they get some sort of thrill from watching you fall.

I repeat, the course of events and the nightmare of the relationship you might find yourself in with a closet narcissist is NOT your fault!

Closet narcissists see people as either an enemy or a supplier.

They need the “supplier” to help them keep their sanity since they feed off of the emotions of others. Once the supplier rejects or offends the narcissist, they are rejected or turned into the enemy.

By this point, the victim is already too deep in the web to find their way out on their own.

In my case, this was my undoing. I thought I could change him and teach him to have meaningful relationships. I thought it was partially my own doing that he did not feel comfortable in his skin. I thought there was something I could say or do to help him see the amazing person he was.

In reality, he was reflecting back bits of me he had stolen. The parts of me he had learned to mimic so well and then morphed into while leaving me to wonder why I could never be perfect for him.

He did not care for me at all. He somehow managed to always be cool, calm, and collected despite the space he had left in my soul.

At this point, you are left with a broken heart. An emptiness. A void. A nothingness.

The closet narcissist will reject you.

“Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.” — Tavis Smiley

A glaring sign that your partner might be a closet narcissist is when they reject you and the mere idea of who you are.

What happens now?

The Emptiness

The emptiness. Being rejected or dropped by the closet narcissist feels like your heart has a void that could never be filled.

Final Thoughts

Over time, I have learned that most relationships can come back from anger and verbal fights because you can’t really be angry at someone you do not care about.

And trust that is damaged can be rebuilt.

But there is no return path from contempt — that feeling when you despise the very existence of someone you loved. A relationship can’t bounce back from that.

When someone no longer has it in them any longer to get annoyed because they just no longer care.

In my case, after the emptiness, I was finally at that point. All I needed was space so that space within my chest could find a place to expand — space from him, space from friends and enemies alike, space from … life.

I needed space from life.

“Narcissists are masters of pathologizing your emotions. They convince you that your emotional reactions to their abuse are the problem. Rather than the abuse itself.” — Shahida Arabi

I know that love may leave a memory that no one can steal, but love can also leave pain that no one can heal.

If you have been in a relationship with a closet narcissist, I hope you reach a point where you genuinely forgive yourself and realize most of what happened was not really your fault. You are not to blame for all the things they wanted to blame you for!

And if you reached that point of emptiness and still bounced back, you are an inspiration to all the other victims out there. Never lose sight of how amazing you are!

And now your thoughts…

Have you ever been in such a relationship before? What happened? Please share in the comments section.

Do you recognize these signs in a couple you know? Let me know in the comments section.

Wishing you loads and tons of love in your relationships.

May you discover true love, and might you fall deeply and incredibly in love with your partner over and over again!

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