Narcissism in Relationships: Idealization, Devaluation, and the Struggle for Intimacy
Author: The Narcis editorial team · updated: August 2026
Clinical review: a practising psychotherapist
At the beginning of a relationship, someone with strong narcissistic traits may be intensely captivated by a partner. This is not automatically manipulation; infatuation can be sincere. Yet the partner may be experienced less as a complex separate person and more as an ideal object confirming, “If someone like this chose me, I must be special.”
What changes the picture
Difficulty begins when the real partner no longer fits the fantasy. They become tired, stop admiring, set boundaries, succeed independently, or criticize. Instead of integrating “I love you and I am angry with you,” the experience may flip toward “You are not who I thought you were.” Idealization then becomes devaluation.
Life scene. Early in a relationship, a partner calls you “extraordinary,” wants every minute together, and seems fascinated by the way you think. Six months later you are tired, decline a party, and ask not to be joked about in front of friends. He is genuinely disappointed: “You’ve become a different person.” This is not necessarily a conscious strategy. A narcissistic system can struggle to hold two truths at once: a partner can be valuable and still inconvenient, autonomous, critical, and ordinary.
Example: for months a man calls his partner “the only person who understands me.” When she asks for more equality in household responsibilities, he says she has become “just like everyone else.” His disappointment may be genuine, but the deeper issue is the loss of an ideal mirror.
Intimacy is difficult because it requires dependence, recognition of another person’s freedom, and tolerance of one’s own imperfection. Those demands can threaten a narcissistic self-esteem system. Control, withdrawal, competition, or repeated tests of love may follow.
Not every toxic relationship should be explained by narcissism. Look at behavior: Is there reciprocity? Can conflict be repaired? Are boundaries respected? Does the person take responsibility for harm? These questions tell us more about the relationship than a dramatic label does.
How it shows up day to day
Early in a relationship, a partner may feel ideal because they reflect back specialness. When they become autonomous, disagree, or disappoint, the ideal image collapses. Instead of ordinary ambivalence, devaluation may become abrupt: “I don’t even know what I ever saw in you.”
When similar behavior means something else
Even if this helps explain why someone reacts so strongly, it does not make humiliation, control, violence, or exploitation acceptable. Psychology should add precision, not remove responsibility.
What the work can look like in therapy
Psychotherapy can build tolerance for ambivalence: I can be competent and still make mistakes; someone can love me without admiring me; conflict is not the same as humiliation. Here, that capacity often reduces the need for grandiosity, devaluation, or abrupt withdrawal.
A practical frame without self-diagnosis
Instead of applying the label “narcissist,” build a pattern. Does the behavior described here persist across relationships and years, or appear mainly in one conflict? What happens under criticism, refusal, another person’s success, and the need to consider someone else? What is the actual impact on work, intimacy, and responsibility? What alternatives remain possible — anxiety, depression, trauma, another personality style, or simply harmful behavior? For loved ones, the most practical questions are usually not diagnostic but about boundaries, safety, and whether the person can take responsibility for consequences.
Books and sources
• Craig Malkin — Rethinking Narcissism
• Wendy T. Behary — Disarming the Narcissist, 3rd ed.
If this topic resonated — you do not have to sit with it alone.
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