After her second marriage failed and she experienced multiple turbulent relationships, Jamie began to notice a recurring pattern. She would quickly and deeply immerse herself in the new relationship, firmly believing that this person was her soulmate. Her emotional attachment was so strong that she lost sight of herself and often disregarded her personal boundaries. This caused her to miss important warning signs about her new partner, even putting herself in danger.
About three months into the relationship, Jamie realized that she was carrying the entire emotional burden for both of them. Her partner allowed her to express her feelings, took responsibility for maintaining intimacy, and became disproportionately attached to her, while he withdrew, mocked her sensitivity, and exploited her desire for connection. This unfair balance exhausted Jamie and often made her a victim of his abuse.
Eventually, a friend brought her out of her reverie and helped her recognize the unhealthiness of the relationship. But even this friend began to feel frustrated by Jamie’s continued pattern, despite the good advice she received to the contrary. So, Jamie sought help from a professional. Her therapist helped her realize that she was attracted to the same type of personality: a narcissist. While some people can cope with the selfish demands of this personality, Jamie cannot.
She longed for deep intimacy, emotional connection, and equal partnership—all things a narcissist is incapable of providing. Her search for connection with a personality type incapable of these things revealed an unhealthy pattern within herself. Part of her therapy involved examining how she got to this point. Here’s what she learned:
Jimmy’s father was a narcissist. Unfortunately, people are often drawn to the less competent parent, not the more competent one. That’s how an alcoholic’s son marries an alcoholic, or a narcissist’s son marries a narcissist. People often marry what they know and are familiar with. Narcissistic behavior, however dysfunctional, was familiar to Jamie. Although she consciously tried to avoid people like her narcissistic father, her subconscious was drawn to him. So, she ignored the similarities and indulged in it without thinking.
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Jimmy’s mother encouraged the relationships. Unaware that her husband was a narcissist, Jamie’s mother encouraged her to stay in relationships that seemed familiar to her father. Her mother thought her husband was wonderful and a perfect partner. Naturally, her parents supported Jamie in staying in these relationships and steered her away from people who didn’t resemble her father.
Jamie had unresolved issues since childhood. One of the healthy things her subconscious was trying to resolve was that she wasn’t the problem; it was her father’s narcissism. Throughout her childhood and even into adulthood, her father made her feel inferior to him. By marrying someone similar, Jamie’s subconscious was seeking opportunities to prove she could handle narcissism and, consequently, not be affected by it. This was a way of rewriting the past so that Jamie would be the victor, not the victim.
Jamie continued to strive to be the favorite. A common pattern in narcissistic parenting is favoring one child over another. Jamie was sometimes the favorite, and therefore received special attention and lavish gifts. But her first failed marriage left her feeling forgotten. In an attempt to regain her lost status, Jamie sought her father’s favor by finding a partner who resembled him.
Jamie fell victim to the “love bombardment” technique. Because she craved emotional connection in relationships, she was vulnerable to the narcissist’s “love-bombing” tactic. In the early stages of a relationship, a narcissist will act, say, or do almost anything to attract the other person. Once in love, the narcissist becomes insecure because they can’t meet the other person’s needs and withdraws. Unable to admit any shortcomings, the narcissist blames their new partner for the withdrawal and demands a different performance. Jamie would have happily agreed just to return to that initial, overwhelming love, but it never happened. As time went on, the narcissist’s standards became increasingly rigid and unattainable. Jamie was drawn to certain aspects of the narcissist’s personality. During therapy, Jamie realized she admired the narcissist’s charm. She also admired their focus on influence, money, possessions, appearance, and power. She found herself trusting them and naturally believed that narcissists exaggerate their success. Instead of questioning the reality of their success, she accepted it as fact, unwittingly reinforcing the narcissist’s illusion.
To overcome this attraction, Jamie learned how to spot a narcissist more quickly. Instead of avoiding him, as she had initially done, she engaged with him to confirm his narcissism. Then, Jamie set boundaries, allowing the narcissist only acquaintances, not even friends, let alone lovers. This prevented her from repeating the same pattern next time.
