How Hope Keeps People Trapped in Narcissistic Relationships

I truly fear the word ‘potential’ now.  It makes me double-take my patient in dismay.  Why?  Because I have heard it too many times coming from the mouth of an intelligent person with reference to a toxic person, often a partner.  Normally later in a relationship, and normally once there is enough despair to present for therapy.

Hope, disguised as ‘potential spotting’, is one of the most powerful forces that keeps people stuck in abusive relationships.  It’s a stubborn, sticky, kind of hope that clings on to the idea they might change.  Despite all evidence to the contrary.  This pattern is dirt common in abusive intimate relationships but is also par for the course in many workplaces, families and friendships.

My client Nita was typical in how she described this kind of hope: ‘The early days with Guy were magic.  He was always thinking about making me happy, and he was so funny and affectionate.  I thought I had won the jackpot!’  This typically describes the honeymoon phase, the weeks or months when the relationship seems so wonderfully full of promise!

Yet somewhere along the line, Mr or Ms Wonderful gradually disappears.  Instead of adoration there is criticism, perhaps unpredictability, selfishness, manipulation, or outright cruelty.  Usually, there will be just enough good stuff sprinkled in to keep kindling that ‘hope’ forever and a day.  The closely held desire is for things to revert to honeymoon, and hope says maybe this time it will!

Nita said ‘I tried to losing weight, I would keep the kids quiet, do the boring work around the house.  She was people pleasing, walking on eggshells and burning herself out trying to draw forth that potential she saw in Guy.  And so, began for Nita the long and exhausting project of trying to change another human being.

Instead of concluding that the recent relationship behaviour is the real relationship, people in this situation nearly always try to work it back to honeymoon.  And the really cruel thing is, just to keep us hooked, we will get an occasional brief visit to that magic land.  It’s like a poker machine randomly paying out, it’s just enough to keep us with some skin in the game.

This toxic cycle is a standard strategy, straight from the handbook of ‘how to keep people hooked when you don’t really feel like treating them fairly, kindly or authentically’.  It goes like this.  After honeymoon, act like your true self (unless there are witnesses who would disapprove and they have power over you), then when the other person is finally fed up and giving up on you, sprinkle in the ol’ honeymoon magic dust.  Once dominance is reestablished and all seems peaceful, go back to acting like your true (unpleasant) self.

 And yes, toxic people are normally aware of how much they drink, how they speak to people, how much effort they don’t put into relationships, and the fact that they break promises.  If they wanted to change those things, they would have started already.  Honestly.  They don’t want to.

How about a reality check? Here is a simple question I often ask people: How is your return on investment?  Look honestly at the time and emotional energy, you have spent trying to improve this relationship, to draw forth the potential.  Has it worked?  Not after a dramatic crisis where promises were made, but in the long term.  For most people, the answer is painful.  And not affirmative.

Often the results of all of that fabulous effort will look like:

  • Vague, half-hearted attempts at change to get you off their back
  • Arguments about why the behaviour isn’t really a problem
  • Promises that change will happen “later” when life is ‘less stressful’
  • Counter-attacks about your own faults, such as being ‘too picky’ or ‘sensitive’

Meanwhile, the emotional and social (and often financial) toll keeps accumulating.

So, ask yourself: if your person had not changed in five years’ time, would you still want to be in this relationship now?  Have you left any stone unturned to change relationship?  How much are these efforts costing you?  Who else is suffering or being neglected in your life because of your efforts?

You can bet that it might be time to explore ‘potential’ after all: the potential for you to have a better life.

PS. Nita did not leave Guy, but she did leave him alone. She stopped with her fruitless change attempts and used that energy wisely to improve other areas of her life.  Can you guess what happened within their relationship?

Don’t forget, situations like these are ones I love to work with.  Get in touch if I can help work you nut out any tricky relationships you are experiencing.  We do it together: using your expertise about the people involved, and mine about dynamics.