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Narcissism in relationships

Navigating difference and making space for the other


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This is not a post on being in a relationship with a 'narcissist'. This is about the common difficulty we see in relationships whereby the partners struggle to tolerate the 'otherness' in the other and to make space for each other's individuals selves and differences. In all intimate relationships we constantly oscillate between 'oneness and separation'. Couples hold a tension between each partner's own 'narcissism' and how they each relate to the other who is a separate and different person. We all have a degree of narcissism. We all have a part of us that does not want to relate to and engage with the other, we want to hold on to our world view and beliefs and any difference challenges us unduly. We may believe that our view is the 'truth' or the 'reality' and anything else ranges from annoying to deeply disturbing. Couples often come to therapy with this underlaying difficulty.

All relationships need to involve relating and non-relating, over-relating can feel intrusive and invasive. However, the difficulty in making 'psychic space' in the relationship for both people's different and separate subjectivities is not the same as taking space away from each other. It is the inclusion of both love for the self but also holding a loving relationship to another (an object). On narcissism both of these are attacked. (Segal 1983)

Engaging with another as an 'other' whilst holding onto who we are without losing the meaning of our experience is a developmental task. This is why the difficulty of doing so, is linked to narcissism, not having successfully moved through the narcissistic stage of child development, around 3 years of age, where the child is omnipotent and the other are there to mirror her/his omnipotence, after this, the child is supported in becoming a normal and vulnerable but loveable and loved human and can hold in mind that others including care givers are also humans who are different and vulnerable too. If for any reason this early developmental task has been thwarted in childhood, we see the effects on this in adult relationships. We cannot expect or have perfect attunement in adult relationships. As Cohen writes: 'Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in' (Cohen 1992). Some couples expect that they should understand each other perfectly and that to now have this is catastrophic. One partner holds the truth and the other 'just doesn't get it', or 'lies', rather than holds a different truth. This difference can be felt as an attack at the extreme end, which can be linked to 'a failure of early maternal containment' in early infancy which is experienced as an attack rather than deficiency. Words are also 'polysemic', we may use the same word but mean two different things, even the definition of 'love' can be different amongst partners. Couples negotiate mutual understanding and sometimes they get there, they see what each other means that is ok, and some times the difference in understanding can become a major source of conflict with one partner trying to pin the other down, insisting that their meaning is the real one. A good functioning relationship can allow for fluctuating states of togetherness and separateness; to be an individual and to be a couple. Couples can be helped in therapy develop more 'psychic space' when there is not enough to hold both ends of the polarities and to shift away from the idealised understanding of the perfect creative relationship; a creative relationship can look very different to the perfect harmony, it can look very much like a messy interplay of losing and finding each other, the relationship and the meaning and constantly re-evaluating what the relationship is in a growthful and spontaneous, not pre-scripted process.

Ideas from Morgan, Mary. A couple state of mind: Psychoanalysis of couples and the Tavistock relationships model. Routledge, 2018.

 
 
 

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