Relationship dynamics

Fragile People — Psychology, Personal strategy

19 min readOct 12, 2024

These relationships often contain similar scenarios to each other, as they begin and develop between people with similar traumas. These traumas dictate particular forms of adaptation to the world and manifest themselves in narcissistic and masochistic traits.

Each partner feels the need to fulfill their own needs for intimacy and acceptance, and each lacks the healthy external and internal skills to build a truly intimate relationship.

Of course, at the entrance to a relationship, no one thinks that the other person is perfectly suited to be a partner who will bring pain because they resemble a parent and can reproduce painful situations. When getting to know each other and in the first stages of a relationship, we always feel anxiety, which is related to the unknown. Narcissistic relationships are characterized by a special dynamic of anxiety: it does not decrease, but increases as we get closer and get to know our partner better. Since each partner has difficulty recognizing their emotions, this anxiety can appear as falling in love, passion, excitement, attraction. There are times when this relationship arises from anxiety when the very context of the relationship or the dating situation is insecure and suggests further difficulties. There are times when a relationship that starts out rather dull erupts in passion when the first fight occurs or the couple encounters their first problematic situation. These anxiety attacks are interpreted by both or one of the partners as a “spark,” “love at first sight,” “I’ve never felt like this before.”

Ilona’s “fatal love” is a man who insulted her on the road, pinned her to the curb, and threatened to kill her. They drove home to Ilona’s house together. From the first seconds this man captured all her attention, her whole life centered on how his eyebrow was raised, with what mood he came home, how many brackets he put in the message. Ilona was beaten as a child by her mother, and now she sees her creepy anxiety as intense love.

And for Inga, the relationship becomes interesting when her husband’s previously indifferent friend visits their home in his absence, drunk, beaten, and in need of help. She starts thinking about this man, looking for meetings with him, eventually having an affair. Inga’s father is an alcoholic, and there is nothing more interesting for her psyche than another attempt to save and save. Inga’s husband can take care of himself perfectly well, he does not need help, this relationship is quiet and therefore unattractive for her.

This is also where the first division of functions takes place: who will be the rapist and who will be the victim? This choice is more often made by the victim, reacting with the first wave of pain to the behavior of the one who in the future will have the status of a rapist and narcissist. The stimulus can range from truly out of bounds unacceptable behavior to some domestic incident or familiar manifestation to another. Something that happens sexually, domestically, in public or in private hurts one of the partners so badly that they can’t handle it.

For Raisa it is intolerable to mention the ex-girlfriend of the lover in the common company in which they are together. At first she pretends that everything is normal, that she is interested in hearing about it, she even jokes about this topic. This is a feat and heroism for her, for which she expects the same tact and support from a man. When he first tells her that he does not like Rai’s friend and would not like to see her in their shared home, Rai has an accumulated anger and resentment ready for it, accusations that she is all for him and he is not even willing to put up with it for her sake. The man reacts to such a charge aggressively, Raya is hurt, she feels misunderstood and humiliated. She starts to meet her friend secretly, telling the man that she has fulfilled his request and now she communicates with her friend less often and on neutral territory. Relationships quite quickly acquire a narcissistic tinge, in which Raisa is the victim of a selfish and cold man, who deprives her of the right to have girlfriends.

Rita, on the other hand, feels normal and behaves appropriately until she meets her husband’s mother, who does not particularly approve of Rita’s profession and lifestyle. Rita keeps quiet and tries to be nice, bakes cookies for her mother, asks about her health, and lets her husband check on her. At another common meeting, the husband jokes about something concerning her work, and this provokes an explosion. At home, Rita screams that her husband does not respect her, indulges her mother in everything, does not put her work in anything. The husband leaves for his mom’s place. They will make up (after a long period of her silence), but the precedent remains — the fact that he allowed the joke, the fact that he is on his mom’s side, and the fact that he left her when she was hysterical.

In all of these cases, the narcissistic victim’s trauma mechanisms are activated and she runs, fights, freezes, or submits. In none of these cases is this a flexible adaptation, and in none of them does it solve the problem that has arisen. Because the victim cannot fully care for herself, she sets the first precedent of inequality and will have a moral advantage in such relationships from then on. If she is not in a relationship with a psychopath, it will matter. No one wants to feel bad about themselves. For someone with narcissistic traits, such experiences are intolerable in general because their psyche is traumatized and has to ignore shame in order to stay whole.

Nadia finds it difficult with her child, it is difficult to live in a small and uncomfortable apartment, to bear the distance from her parents, unemployment and her husband’s long business trips. She feels that she has no right to talk about her feelings and needs, and she tries to be comfortable and not cause problems. Unexpressed feelings are manifested during one of her husband’s visits: Nadia has no strength to be nice, she feels bad, and against this background, repressed anger erupts. The occasion is accidental: her husband, accustomed to her demonstrated high spirits, says something like “why are you so sour”. Nadia tells him everything she thinks about everything that has accumulated, and does it in the form of reproaches: that he is not such a father, not such a husband, not such a man. It is difficult to react peacefully to such a flow of unpredictable anger. The husband is frightened by her affect and withdraws even more, she gets even worse. Gradually the relationship deteriorates: he comes home, sees her tired and dissatisfied face, they both fail to talk about it, and he becomes more and more aggressive to the one from whom he constantly needs to defend himself. Both are sinking deeper and deeper into their dissatisfaction with each other. She is unhappy, he is to blame. She is suffering, he is angry at her suffering because he is the cause of it.

Instead of getting the understanding and sympathy she so desperately needs, the victim is traumatized again. She gets even worse, and she blames her partner again. He, defending himself from the new feeling of guilt, again makes her realize that he is not responsible for her condition, that it is her own fault and that he is not going to accept her, because this already implies a game on unequal terms. Here it is no longer a question of equal relations: it is a question of who deserves or proves his right to be right and not to feel shame.

A war begins, which will be the content of these relationships for many years to come. There is a lot of anxiety in the war, which is heard as excitement and a lot of love. The forces invested in this war do not allow surrender, demanding justice and retribution. One partner sinks deeper and deeper into pain, psychosis, illness. The other becomes increasingly indifferent and aggressive. Both become increasingly wounded by the relationship and increasingly frozen in the certainty that they are right. Less and less intimacy, sincere care, honesty are possible between them. The relationship turns into a union of two enemies, each needing to outwit the other.

Olya and Vasya read a lot. Mostly literature on psychology and self-development. After that, they tell each other about what they have read, making assumptions about what is wrong with their partner. They go to the same therapist, who tells Ola that it’s about Vasa, and tells Vasa that it’s about Ola. When this couple faces some problem, it is more important for them not to solve it, but to find out who is to blame. For example, the couple discuss conflicting and inadequate neighbors from above not in the sense of finding a way out of the situation, but in the sense of who of them unconsciously attracted this situation and to whom they now mentally work it out.

And for Vera and Maxim, the war is a comparison of parental families: Vera’s parents are doctors and professors, Maxim’s are laborers. Vera accuses her husband’s family of primitiveness, Maxim accuses his wife’s family of arrogance. Rare general gatherings are full of provocations. Vera may talk defiantly to her parents about the refugee situation in Europe or discuss French movies. Maxim insists that his father show the repairs made with his own hands. Both pairs of parents feel awkward and almost do not communicate with each other: they already have little in common, they live different lives, and then there is this war. By the way, then the parents of both Vera and Maxim do the same thing — when the young family asks for help with the appearance of children, they withdraw themselves. Their adult children are hurt by this, but they continue to see the reasons in different ways: Vera — in Maxim’s parents, Maxim — in Vera’s parents.

If one of the partners withdraws from this game, distances himself, then the other one also quietens down for a while, offering to get closer. These are so-called “narcissistic pings”, when when one of the partners distances himself, the other begins to suggest going out, asks how things are going, shares funny pictures. It is traditionally believed that the narcissist pings, calling the victim to return to the relationship. But if the one with the narcissist status is suspended, the victim pings just as much. Except that his greetings and pictures she will regard as a sham and manipulation, and hers — as manifestations of sincere feelings and steps towards the partner.

Veronica can not stand the absence of a partner when it is not she herself pushed him away. If after a quarrel Veronica decides to punish him with silence — she does not answer the phone, does not read messages, does not open the door until she considers the punishment sufficient. If this time she is dumped (and this is a convergent-divergent couple, they separate every few months), she writes long letters, sets up random meetings or “accidentally” dials his phone number.

Narcissistic relationships have several variants of development. More often the victim still leaves, usually not immediately, and having had time to thoroughly destroy. Narcissistic relationships in general are rarely short: for the unfolding of neurosis takes time, the strength of needs in these relationships is great, and the strength of anxiety looks like love and affection, so the partners remain in mutual dependence even when it becomes quite bad. To a person who is used to living in a situation of suppression of his needs, this state of affairs does not seem something new and worthy of intervention. What is needed is a reason.
This occasion can be some “last straw”: adultery, beating, outright public insult. It is always a situation with an unambiguous interpretation: one is definitely right, the other is definitely guilty, and the one who is right leaves. Such an opportunity brings a short-term catharsis, a sense of liberation. Gaining the ability to act on one’s own will may seem healing. Alas, not for long.

As the old trauma unfolded in the relationship, the psyche took care to ignore the emotions and needs that didn’t fit the old picture. Now that the game has been played, those feelings begin to return. The victim longs for her relationship, grieves for a failed marriage, may feel tenderness and warmth and look at her partner differently. She may be drawn back with great force: the feelings were strong, the loss serious. She may think that her partner has changed, perhaps things will get better for them. Unfortunately, if this relationship starts up again, the same game is likely to continue. The victim simply doesn’t have the ability to build this relationship differently. She feels fragmented, in separate pieces: apart and close. The fragmentation of her personality prevents her from putting these pieces together and building a relationship based on a full inner life.
The one who stayed in the position of the abuser also feels many things and also in pieces: anger and contempt, shame and guilt, regret and relief. He has much less opportunity to get something back — his role assumes that resumption of this relationship is only possible when he apologizes, changes, repents, will now take care of his partner for life. This is a big burden, and so he also blames his partner to avoid blaming him. Often after this relationship, his self-hatred intensifies along with the intensification of all defense reactions and the deterioration of his quality of life.

Thus, both are traumatized.

For Renata, who married a foreigner, the marriage ends in a crisis center after another beating. It took her about a year to put her life back together piece by piece, regain her health, put her son from her first marriage through school, confirm her Russian diploma and start working. She sees this year as liberation, as a chance to breathe, as healing. Then the longing begins. Renata makes up an excuse to see her ex-husband and discovers that he is life-threatening. Renata has no intention of going back, she sees clearly enough the impossibility of a relationship and is already a little better able to take care of herself, but she has bouts of tenderness and gratitude — and then she makes up an excuse again, stops by, brings coffee, talks in passing about the benefits of therapy and cleans up a bit. The possibility of these feelings relieves the chronic suffocation and alleviates the phobias Renata came out of this marriage with. Then she leaves this town and loses sight of her ex-husband until news of the accident comes a few years later. Renata is genuinely grieving, but she doesn’t feel guilty: she remembers both her fear and her anger and forgives herself for leaving. The accessibility of all these difficult experiences gives her the opportunity to build a new family according to new rules.

Ivan, coming to pick up his son, notices his ex-wife’s new hairstyle, new shoes, and sees that she is still good-looking. He recovers from the divorce thanks to friends, work and the realization of his fatherhood. And Zhenya (the wife) moves in the other direction: she is becoming increasingly intolerant of her son’s company, increasingly weighed down by her motherhood, and finally offers Ivan sole custody and thereby exempts him from alimony. Ivan sees that something is wrong with her, but does not get involved in her life and takes his son away. On Zhenya he is angry, then misses her: it was a great love, and to realize himself a divorced single father is very difficult. But taking his son is an opportunity to no longer accuse his wife of being a bad mother and to blame all his son’s difficulties on her. He focuses on his responsibility to his son and his tasks. Zhenya gradually disappears from their lives.

The reason for the breakup can be not only the deed of the partner, but also a book, a friend’s advice, a clip on the Internet. This is often how the word “narcissism” first appears in a relationship. This always brings relief to the victim — awareness reduces anxiety, and the information available on narcissism legalizes the victim’s need to think of herself as innocent. Here the roles can switch altogether: the former narcissist, overwhelmed by devaluing and aggressive information about himself, can himself be victimized by his parter, who now has a universal argument.

In the same pair Ivan — Zhenya, Ivan was initially the narcissist; he devalued his wife’s occupations, blaming her for his failures, projecting onto her his inability to be in a close relationship. Zhenya goes to a psychologist who tells her about narcissism. Since this psychologist is a family friend, an environment forms around Ivan, who constantly notices his narcissistic traits and accuses him of being unhealthy. Ivan defends himself aggressively at first, but then thinks they may be right and tries to learn to act differently. He tries complimenting his wife, taking an interest in her work, spending more time with her, but Zhenya says that she is no longer ready for counter steps, that he has hurt her too often and that his narcissism has ruined everything. After the divorce, the accusations do not stop — Zhenya blames Ivan for the lost time on maternity leave, says that he did not give her the opportunity to realize herself, because he fully provided for her and she had no need to work, and therefore she believes that he should take his son to himself and thus atone for the harm done. Roles are reversed — Ivan is silent and tolerant, Zhenya distorts reality and traumatizes.

Rina comes in after her partner has watched lectures on narcissism and now insists that Rina is a narcissist. This is generally true, Rina has severe traumatization and narcissistic personality traits. She is beginning to learn to be more considerate and caring, to take responsibility for herself, to invest in the relationship. Unfortunately, Lena, the partner, does not support these attempts, and the relationship still remains destructive. Lena gets worse, she can no longer rely on the fact that Rina is bad and she herself is good, so gradually Lena falls into a psychotic state. The relationship ends with an argument over whether Rina is allowed to go out drinking with her friends. Lena beats up her partner and kidnaps her young daughter, writing to Rina’s therapist that she is going to commit suicide and that she has been betrayed by everyone. Tragedy is avoided — the daughter is located and the relationship ends, but Lena continues her self-destruction, blaming Rina and her therapist. She says: “I thought she would get help, she’s mentally ill, and it only got worse.” Rina now lives with a deep sense of guilt.

There are times, of course, when a narcissist leaves. For the victim, it looks like a final destructive act of aggression. A person with narcissistic traits leaves in a special way: abruptly, suddenly, often without an external reason or with insufficient reason. Often in this parting he devalues, blames, distorts reality, and leaves no opportunity to talk. Often the breakup is his sole choice that is not discussed.
The aggressive patterns of narcissism protect primarily from guilt and shame. The narcissist leaves when the victim has already broken down. In a psychopath, it’s a simple calculation: since I have nothing more to take from her, I leave. In a person with narcissistic trauma, it’s guilt: I can’t and don’t want to be with a person who is destroyed because of what I do or because of what I am. Narcissists’ personal histories often include the same kind of breakup with their parents: unambiguous, one-sided, based on an inability to make the suffering mom even slightly happier.

Anton ends his relationship with Tanya on the street after they have been shopping together at the supermarket. He yells at her in the parking lot that she’s annoying him, that she’s blowing his brains out, that if she were a normal woman, he wouldn’t be ashamed of her. He gets in his car and drives off, leaving a sobbing Tanya with no money and no phone across town. When she gets home, he watches TV and ignores all attempts to talk. Tanya packs her things and goes to a friend’s house. For the next three months Anton continues to remain silent, ignores her calls, does not open the door to her. This impossibility to say her word, to become active in this rupture causes Tanya great pain and strengthens both anger at Anton — for the fact that he hurt and insulted her so much, and the need to be with him.

Very rarely do such relationships end by mutual consent. Agreed solutions require skills that the couple usually don’t have. It is not the ability to fight, but first of all — the ability to surrender, to withstand failure, to give up hope, realizing their part of responsibility. You need the ability to want a better life for yourself and your partner. If a couple has common obligations and unresolved issues, financial, for example, or related to children, then you need the ability to negotiate, to respect your boundaries and the boundaries of your partner. All this is possible when the issue of guilt in the relationship is resolved equally.

In narcissistic relationships guilt is a “hot potato”, which the partners are furiously thrown over. Between adults, such a game is always built on illusions: in reality, responsibility is split 50/50. If someone has a need to avoid responsibility, there will always be energy in such a relationship because the balance will never be restored. Someone will always have the energy to throw the “hot potato” back in.

The messages involving shifting and sharing responsibility vary greatly.

“You cheated on me, betrayed me, I can not be with you and I’m leaving” — in this situation, the one who leaves, shifts all the responsibility to the other, who unconsciously wants to avoid such a burden, and therefore, to correct, to earn trust, to prove to the partner that he is not sinless.

“You cheated on me and it hurts me a lot. So much so that I am not ready to bear this pain. I can’t learn to live in a relationship with you, I can’t cope with dealing with this problem, I can only get angry and blame. It’s possible that I will never be able to deal with it. Let’s think about whether we should be together” — in this case, the one who wants to leave recognizes their responsibility for their decision and thus reduces the tension. There is nothing to fight about. Such a relationship can end, and after some time each partner will be ready for a new relationship with other people.

“You don’t pay attention to me, you don’t help around the house, you don’t earn enough, I deserve better” is an accusation.

“I have needs that are important to me: the need to be cared for, patronized, so I can feel important. You have different needs and a different view of relationships. I think we’re both unhappy” is the suggestion of an agreed-upon solution.

“I’m leaving you, and why, I could have figured out a long time ago” is an accusation. “It’s hard for me to talk about my needs with you. I don’t think the relationship will get better in this situation” is a suggestion.

When a couple becomes capable of making coherent decisions, it happens that the relationship gets a second chance.

Ulyana has Italian passions at home: her husband can break household appliances in the process of figuring out the relationship, and she can throw all his things off the balcony. These quarrels are Ulyana’s desperate attempt to honor her boundaries, to stay safe when her husband blames her parents for something, demands sex without regard for her desires, or forces her into philosophical conversations in which she feels ignorant. Her refusals are rude and aggressive because she is afraid that she will not be heard, and her husband’s response to them is also rude and aggressive. Unable to get something from the other peacefully, the couple separates after a prolonged scandal, and both are left exhausted and traumatized.

After her husband leaves, Ulyana begins to miss him. She is no less afraid of him than before, but he is far away, and they have contact only by phone. In these phone conversations, Ulyana slowly decides to talk about her needs and feelings — not when boundaries are violated, but when everything is fine between them. One day this conversation lasts three hours, and Ulyana talks about her resentment of criticism, her dissatisfaction with sex, and the fact that his philosophy is foreign and frightening to her. She just tells — not accusing, not reproaching, not devaluing the partner, and the husband at the next conversation tells her that he thought a lot about her words and why she did not tell everything before. The relationship gradually gets better. Ulyana learns not to be belligerent with her husband, he learns not to be belligerent in his desires. Both of them get new opportunities to make things work well for them in the relationship. The couple begins to live together again. They still have many challenges to work through, but now they have a solid base to move on from.

More often, however, it happens that such relationships do not end at all. There is too much energy in them, too many needs to just consummate it and move on. Being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be married to that person or see them at all. A connection that is many decades old may consist of two or three encounters at different times in life. But if there are feelings, thoughts, energy, tension, if we find time and space for it — then it’s a relationship.

Thus, the physical breakup and the end of the relationship do not necessarily happen at the same time. Partners continue to fantasize, second guess, ask themselves who did what wrong, react to the smell of perfume years later, compare new partners to “the one” and find their new relationship boring. The energy that is thus spent on maintaining the old relationship could have been used on the new one. But it doesn’t, and the new relationship doesn’t become fulfilling and healthy either. It is often the case that the former narcissistic victim behaves narcissistically in the new relationship, by her coldness and indifference rejecting her partner and not being invested in him, except for bouts of guilt.

Adelina has been married for ten years and for eight of those years she often thinks about another man. It wasn’t a classic lover: it was a work colleague with whom there was a flirtation and some kind of relationship started, and Adelina even traveled with him to another city for a walk and sightseeing. Then this colleague was transferred to another place, and he simply disappeared — stopped answering calls and messages and fell out of her life unilaterally and forever. Adelina is tormented by possible causes, trying to figure out what was wrong with her or him, and comes to therapy as a narcissistic victim of this relationship. Her marriage is neglected — there is no sexual or emotional intimacy with her husband for the same eight years. Adelina has a lot of anger at her husband, at how sedentary he is, at how he suppresses her with his inflexibility, but whenever she tries to talk about her husband, she turns the conversation to a former colleague (“I dreamt about Pasha again”). Trying to make sense of a relationship that lasted three weeks eight years ago, she leaves her husband with the responsibility of dealing with their family and condemns him for failing.

Relationship dynamics

Written by Fragile People — Psychology, Personal strategy

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