I want to talk about the trust issues in relationships with narcissists. One big problem with narcissists is they never earned your trust. Let’s dive deeper into this.

Let’s discuss trust, it’s essential in any good relationship. Trust is built on being honest and dependable. Whether it’s with a parent, partner, or friend, you trust them to tell the truth, and they trust you back about where you are, what you’re doing, or your plans for the future.

If you’re someone who believes in others and their goodness but doesn’t know much about narcissism, you’re at risk. Narcissists often target caring people by learning everything about them like their past, dreams, goals, and current life.

They use this knowledge to control and manipulate.

At the start of your relationship, you probably trusted the narcissist. However, they didn’t trust you in return.

During the initial phase of idealization or intense attention, the narcissist may have already been distancing themselves from others, even ending previous relationships.

Narcissists need validation from multiple people because they expect that individuals may eventually realize their true nature and break off contact.

Understanding the Cycle from Love Bombing to Devaluation

Let’s talk about how narcissists handle relationships whether with friends, romantic partners, family, coworkers, or colleagues. They recycle people without feeling any shame or regret.

At first, they might praise you excessively and make you feel incredibly important.

This phase, called love bombing, can be misleading if you don’t know about narcissism. But once they’ve taken what they wanted from you like making money for the company, they change.

For instance, if your boss is a narcissist, they might not give you a promotion or a raise, even if you deserve it.

Instead of praising you, they devalue you and make your job miserable.

I hear stories like this every day in community about relationships at work or with family, friends, or others who turn out to be allies of the narcissist. You can never trust a narcissist. They don’t deserve your trust.

How Narcissists Manipulate Questions About Their Whereabouts

Imagine you’re in a romantic relationship and you ask your partner, “Where were you last night?” or “Where were you yesterday?” Often, the narcissist responds defensively, saying things like, “Why do you need to know? This isn’t an interrogation. I don’t owe you any explanations. My whereabouts are none of your business. You’re insecure, maybe you should see a therapist. I can’t believe I waste time with you, Ryan.”

Their aim is to avoid revealing where they’ve been.

Now, remember a time when you asked the same question innocently, not knowing they were a narcissist.

They might say, “Where were you last night? I tried to reach you, but you didn’t respond.” You check your phone and see no missed calls or messages. They quickly say, “Oh, I meant to send that text. Sorry, I forgot to hit send or my phone died.” They’re good at dodging questions to throw you off their trail.

Losing trust in someone, especially like this, is crushing.

You put effort into the relationship, believing they’d keep their promises, act right, and do what they said. You trusted everything they said about their plans, money matters like inheritances or selling property, hoping they’d keep their word.

The Double Standards of Narcissistic Relationships, One Set of Rules for Them, Another for You

The narcissist might say, “You pay for everything for the first 5 years, and when I get my money, I’ll take care of you and pay you back.” But that day never comes. Instead, they spend your money recklessly. They abuse you financially, verbally, physically, mentally, and even spiritually.

Your health, social status, friendships, and overall well-being all suffer.

You kept trusting that you could hold the relationship together. But everything falls apart around a narcissist.

Every relationship they have is doomed from the start, built on lies and manipulation. There’s no stability, no growing together, and no healthy communication.

Instead, you’ll face blame-shifting, silent treatment, and stonewalling.

You get blamed for everything, yet you’re expected to support and regulate the narcissist.

In a relationship with a narcissist, there are two sets of rules. One set allows them to do whatever they want, while the other set restricts you from doing anything they don’t approve of. You must follow their rules, or you’ll face severe consequences.

Manipulative Tactics, How Narcissists Use Triangulation to Create Insecurity

Imagine the narcissist wants you to go to an event with them, expecting you to drive and make them look good. They plan to use you to make someone else jealous or compete for attention.

If you can’t go, their plan falls apart. You won’t be there to help them show off or play their game. They might have to go alone or skip the event. This is just one example of many ways narcissists manipulate people.

Making others jealous, called triangulation, is one of the worst things they do.

Think about all the barbecues, holidays, events, or even simple conversations with neighbors.

You might notice the narcissist acting too friendly with someone else. You think, “That’s the look you usually give me like loving eyes, batting eyelashes, rosy cheeks. Why are you giving that to a stranger?” This behavior is part of their manipulation to make you feel confused and insecure.

The Confusion and Destruction of Trust in a Narcissistic Relationship

Imagine you see the narcissist getting too close to someone at a barbecue. You have two options. One, you confront them and say, “Hey, I noticed you were very close with that person yesterday. What’s going on?”

They might attack you, calling you jealous and insecure, and suggest you need therapy. Or they might dismiss it, saying, “Oh, that’s just an old friend. It’s no big deal.” Or you stay quiet, which is what the narcissist wants.

They don’t want you to express your opinions or doubts about their honesty.

In any relationship, once trust is broken, it’s hard to repair. With a narcissist, it’s impossible. They take the trust you gave them, crush it, and throw it away.

Narcissists take everything of value like love, empathy, trust, money, kindness and try to destroy it. They don’t want you to be yourself; they want you to be an extension of them. They even want you to distrust them, making you walk on eggshells and feel confused.

You know something is wrong, but without understanding narcissistic behavior, you can’t fully grasp what’s happening.

When you’re in a narcissistic relationship, you’re often confused because you can’t make sense of your experiences without knowing the terms. It’s only when you learn about narcissism that you can start understanding your experiences.

Recognizing the Narcissist’s Strategy, Creating Doubt and Discomfort

After being in the relationship for a while, especially after the initial phase of showering you with love and attention, you might have started feeling something wasn’t right. You couldn’t quite figure it out, but you felt uneasy and mistreated. This was all part of the narcissist’s plan.

They’ve done this before you, did it with you, and will keep doing it with others.

The narcissist wants you to feel uneasy and doubt yourself. They don’t want you to trust your own feelings or intuition.

In the relationship, you likely lost some of who you were, hoping to return to the initial phase where everything felt perfect.

But that perfect phase never lasts.

You might have moments that feel like everything’s great again, but it doesn’t stick. The narcissist’s mask, which seemed so perfect at first, eventually slips. They always need to change masks to control new people or reuse old ones.

Moving Beyond Narcissistic Influence, Reclaiming Stability and Self-Worth

The narcissist is always looking, but they’ll never find someone who can handle their toxic behavior without being harmed. That person wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me either. Like I said before, every relationship with a narcissist eventually ends.

When yours did and I really feel for you, it was probably because you set a boundary.

Maybe you asked questions like, “What’s going on? Who are you spending so much time with? Why are you always working late?” Or maybe you found an email or text meant for someone else, intentionally or not, which might have led to them trying to make you end things instead.

Before you met the narcissist, you probably thought most people were like you: stable, honest, and not playing games in life.

That’s what I thought too. But when you meet a narcissist, everything changes. At first, you might have thought you found someone great, only to realize they’re actually against you, trying to bring you down.

These people don’t want you to succeed or have a good life.

They resist others doing well. After the relationship ended, you needed time to heal. You took things slower, dealt with your feelings, maybe worked through old hurts from childhood, and used things like meditation, writing, therapy, reading, and more.

Eventually, you got to a point where you don’t care about the narcissist or anything to do with them whether it’s their friends, neighbors, or anything else. They’re all in the past now, blocked, deleted, and out of your life as you focus on moving forward.

Perceiving Relationships Through a New Lens

Once you’ve been through those experiences, your view of the world changes. Now, you can easily recognize toxicity in different situations. You understand that there are many possibilities in people’s lives.

For example, imagine seeing an older couple holding hands as they walk down the street. Before you knew about narcissism, you might have thought, “They look so happy. They must be soulmates, together for over golden years, living a great life.”

But now you think differently. You know there could be many reasons for their behavior.

Maybe one of them is cheating, and this walk is a secret meeting away from their real partner. It doesn’t matter how old they are, situations like this can happen at any age.

They might not even be a couple, just pretending to be one temporarily.

Another possibility is that one or both of them could be narcissists, putting on a show of a perfect life in public while dealing with abuse, anger, manipulation like gaslighting, and blaming behind closed doors.

These experiences change how you see relationships and interactions, making you more aware of the hidden complexities that can be present beneath the surface.

Learning Trust and Facing Reality

You know, things aren’t always as they appear on this planet. It was incredibly hard to heal and move on after escaping the cycle of narcissistic abuse because it changed us forever. People can be so different and surprising.

We don’t believe anymore that everyone is looking out for our best interests or that all relationships are perfect.

In a narcissistic relationship, we learned that the narcissist wasn’t just trying to hurt us but also couldn’t be trusted.

We lost ourselves completely, feeling lost and without any resources.

Whether we were left or decided to leave ourselves, we had to gather our strength, take it slow, heal, and accept that people can be very different.

Life isn’t always happy and easy, people can hide behind masks, not just narcissists, though they are who we’re talking about here.

The narcissist took advantage of our trust, using it to do whatever they wanted.

They kept breaking our trust, especially when they treated us badly during what some call the narcissistic fog.

We hoped they would change, get better, or keep their promises, but it was all just talk. When we weren’t looking or were gone, they went back to their bad ways because that’s who they are, it’s what they do.

Breaking Free, Protecting Yourself from the Narcissist’s Deception

They cheat, lie, and cannot be trusted. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they improve their façade. They firmly attach their masks and manipulate unsuspecting or repeat victims.

This destructive cycle continues endlessly, and regrettably, you’re no longer a part of it.

If you’ve left a narcissistic relationship or are planning to do so, that’s a positive step. Trust was never established from the beginning.

Did they ever reveal their true selves? No, they presented a false image, possibly acting vulnerable or concealing their troubled past.

Did they disclose their multiple marriages or other significant details? Probably not.

Did you genuinely know them? No, you did not.

Narcissists are so entrenched in their falsehoods that they’ve lost touch with their true identity. They change masks, manipulate others, and fabricate stories like a sinking ship or a ticking time bomb.

The best course of action is to sever all ties: block them, remove them, and avoid anyone associated with them. If possible, leave their presence or residence, it’s strongly advised.

These individuals will continue to deceive, betray trust, and exploit others. This behavior defines narcissists, highlighting the importance of safeguarding oneself from them.

Wrap it up

Back then, when we started that relationship, we didn’t know what we know now. You see, going through experiences like dealing with narcissistic abuse teaches you a lot.

It gives you wisdom and strength.

Now, it’s crucial to slow down, be careful about sharing too much, and realize not everyone has your best interests at heart. Narcissists are especially skilled at taking advantage of others, no matter where they are in the world.

There are others like them out there too, who won’t care about your well-being.

That’s the essence of this article. I enjoyed writing it for you. This is Ryan. Remember, true change begins with a spark. I genuinely care for you all.

Trust in narcissistic relationships was a big issue.

You gave them everything, believing in who they pretended to be and trusting their promises.

But they repeatedly betrayed that trust. They weren’t trustworthy then, and they aren’t now. So, the best way forward is to distance yourself from these people.

I hope you found my article informative and helpful.

Please let me know what you think, God bless you, Love you all, and take care!

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