“I think my partner is a narcissistic abuser.”
Sometimes that sentence comes after months. Sometimes after years. And sometimes even before the coaching sessions have begun.
The person has read articles, watched videos, spoken with friends and family, discovered gaslighting, DARVO, flying monkeys, love bombing…
And suddenly, some pieces of the puzzle seem to fit together.
But a much more difficult question comes next:
All right. What do I do now?
Because identifying a problematic relationship dynamic does not necessarily tell you how to respond to it. (I also talk about that here)
And with certain people, our usual reflexes can even help keep us trapped in a game we cannot win.
“Narcissistic abuser”: what exactly are we talking about?
Let’s begin with an important clarification.
The French expression “pervers narcissique”, often translated as “narcissistic abuser”, is widely used, but it is not an official psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR.
There is, however, narcissistic personality disorder, which is diagnosed by mental-health professionals according to specific criteria. Having certain narcissistic, manipulative or particularly unpleasant behaviours is therefore not, in itself, enough to diagnose someone. Cleveland Clinic
And when you come to see me, my job is not to diagnose your partner, mother, colleague or boss from a distance.
What we can look at, however, is something much more directly useful:
What does this person do?
How often?
What happens when you say no?
What happens when you confront them with their actions?
What do they do when you set a boundary?
How does the situation end up being turned against you?
And above all:
what can you do in response to this dynamic?
You do not need an official “Premium-grade arsehole” certificate before you are allowed to protect yourself from behaviour that hurts you.
The problem is not only what the person does. It is the relationship system they create.
This is probably one of the hardest things to explain when you are living in a narcissistic or manipulative relationship.
From the outside, each event may seem relatively ordinary: a remark. An argument. A lie. A humiliation disguised as a joke. A forgotten promise. A slightly different version of events. A conversation that somehow ends with you on trial.
Taken separately, each event can be explained away.
It is their repetition and organisation that become important.
Little by little, you may begin spending more time anticipating the other person’s reactions than asking yourself what you actually think.
And your relational reality eventually revolves around one question:
“How do I need to behave to avoid the next disaster?”
At that point, there is already a problem, whatever the other person’s diagnosis may be.
“But they’re lovely with everyone else”
Yes.
And that is precisely what can make some situations extremely difficult to explain.
A person does not necessarily behave in the same way with everyone.
Your partner may be charming with colleagues. Funny with friends. Lovely with the neighbour. Caring with family. And completely different in private.
The reasoning:
“They’re wonderful with me, so they can’t be abusive towards you”
simply does not hold up. And it does not make you the local nutcase.
We all adapt our behaviour to different contexts and people. In an abusive or manipulative dynamic, that discrepancy can become particularly disorienting for the person experiencing it.
Because they no longer have only to deal with what is happening.
They may also have to convince other people that what is happening is real.
Flying monkeys: when other people enter the game
The term flying monkeys, borrowed from The Wizard of Oz, is used in popular literature about narcissistic relationships to describe people around the manipulative person who relay their influence: defending their version of events, passing on messages, guilt-tripping the target or sometimes participating directly in the pressure placed on them. Psych Central
And flying monkeys are not necessarily sinister accomplices gathered around a table in a basement.
That is exactly what makes the phenomenon remarkable.
Some may sincerely believe the version they have been told.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I know them; they would never do that.”
“You probably both have some responsibility.”
“They’re suffering terribly because of you.”
“You should still make an effort.”
Now imagine having to manage both the original conflict and the perception of five people who only have access to part of the story.
It is exhausting.
And trying to convince absolutely everyone can become a second trap.
DARVO: when you ask for accountability and end up in the dock
Here is one particularly useful mechanism to know.
DARVO stands for:
Deny – Attack – Reverse Victim and Offender.
In other words:
deny → attack → reverse the roles of victim and offender.
The concept was developed by psychologist Jennifer Freyd to describe a possible response when a person is confronted about wrongdoing: they deny it, attack the credibility of the person confronting them, then present themselves as the victim. Research on DARVO does not limit it to narcissism. Dynamics Lab
Example:
“You insulted me yesterday in front of our friends.”
Denial:
“I never insulted you.”
Then:
Attack:
“Anyway, you always twist everything. You’re completely paranoid.”
Then:
Reversal:
“Do you realise I constantly have to watch everything I say because of you? I’m the one living through hell.”
And twenty minutes later…
there you are defending yourself.
The original subject?
Gone.
Meanwhile, your brain is still trying to understand how you got from:
“Why did you insult me?”
to:
“I now have to prove I’m not a horrible person.”
That is precisely why recognising a mechanism can change so much.
The first reflex to develop: recognise the game before you play it
Once you have identified DARVO, the aim is not necessarily to become better at DARVO than the other person.
In fact, it is often exactly the opposite.
You learn to notice:
“Ah. We have just left the original subject.”
And you can develop responses.
“That isn’t the issue we’re discussing.”
“We can talk about that afterwards. Right now, I’m talking about what happened yesterday.”
“I’m not going to debate my personality.”
“I’ve heard your disagreement. My decision remains the same.”
These are extraordinarily simple sentences.
Holding onto them when someone knows exactly which buttons to press is another matter.
And that is where practising in coaching sessions becomes useful: to strengthen your responses and your ability to hold your ground.
Do not try to beat a manipulator at their own game
It is an understandable temptation.
Once you finally understand the mechanism, you think:
“Fine. Now I’ll do the same thing to them.”
Bad game.
Not because you need to be morally superior and float above the conflict in a white light.
But because you are then accepting their playing field.
Lie against lie.
Manipulation against manipulation.
Provocation against provocation.
You will spend a phenomenal amount of energy trying to control someone who may already be spending a great deal of energy controlling the situation.
And above all, you risk losing sight of your actual goal.
The question is not:
“How can I finally beat them?”
But:
“How can I reduce their power over my decisions, my emotions and my life?”
Dr Ramani’s strategies: stop feeding the dynamic
Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula has worked for years on narcissistic relationships. Her approach emphasises, among other things, that you cannot force a narcissistic person to change and that it often becomes necessary to redirect your energy towards boundaries, self-protection and rebuilding your own functioning. Doctor Ramani
Several strategies often discussed around her work fit here.
Don’t engage: do not enter every battle
Not every provocation deserves a response.
Not every accusation requires a twelve-paragraph dissertation.
Not every absurd version of your personality needs correcting.
That is terribly difficult when you feel unfairly accused.
Your brain screams:
“BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE!”
And yet sometimes, not entering the exchange is precisely the strategy.
Grey rock: become profoundly uninteresting
The grey rock principle consists of reducing the amount of emotional fuel offered in certain interactions: brief, neutral, factual answers, little personal information and little reaction to provocations.
It does not mean becoming an emotional rock throughout your entire life.
It is a contextual strategy intended to limit certain interactions.
Radical acceptance: stop negotiating with the person we wish they were
This is probably the most painful one.
Radical acceptance does not mean:
“This behaviour is acceptable.”
It means something closer to:
“I am going to stop building my strategy around the hope that this person will suddenly react like someone they have never shown themselves to be.”
Dr Ramani specifically emphasises giving up the constant attempt to change or appease the narcissistic person and beginning instead to rebuild your own boundaries and relationship with reality. Doctor Ramani
And that can hurt.
Because sometimes you have to grieve not only a relationship…
but the relationship you hoped you would one day have.
Knowing what to do is infinitely easier than actually doing it
That is the problem with all this advice.
On the Internet:
“Set boundaries.”
Wonderful. Thanks, Jean-Pierre.
Now try setting a boundary with someone who has known you for fifteen years, knows exactly how to trigger your guilt and may have access to your children, friends, home or finances.
Suddenly, the sentence:
“Just don’t react”
becomes slightly less brilliant.
These strategies can require nerves of steel.
Not because you are weak.
Because they run directly against extremely powerful human reflexes:
defending yourself when accused,
trying to be understood,
correcting an injustice,
convincing someone you love,
responding to provocation,
seeking repair.
And that is precisely why practice matters. Training your mindset. Strengthening your mental resilience. Consolidating your self-confidence.
Coaching: turning a theoretical strategy into reflexes
This is where my work really begins.
I am not going to teach you to diagnose your partner.
I can, however, help you work on what happens when you are facing them.
We can replay a real conversation.
Identify the exact moment it shifted.
Spot a DARVO.
Observe which sentence made you lose your footing.
Identify your usual reflex.
Then replay the scene.
You say A.
I answer B.
You try a response.
We look at what works.
We try again.
Again.
Until:
“I know intellectually what I should do”
begins to become:
“I can recognise what is happening while it is happening.”
Then:
“I now have several possible responses.”
That is exactly the difference between understanding a strategy and developing a reflex.
And sometimes you simply need to vent
I care a lot about this part.
Because you cannot spend your whole life in military-strategy mode.
Sometimes you held your boundary.
You did not answer.
You refused to enter the DARVO.
You stayed perfectly factual.
You left the room.
Well done.
And now you want to scream:
“WHAT AN ARSEHOLE!” or “WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT!”
Fine.
Sometimes you need somewhere to put that.
A space where you do not need to be strategic.
Where you can reconstruct chronologically what just happened.
Check your perception.
Understand why it hit you so hard.
And regain enough distance to decide what comes next.
That is not failing to manage your emotions.
Sometimes it is precisely what allows you not to unload them in the wrong place.
“Am I going crazy?”: when gaslighting makes you doubt your own reality
And sometimes venting serves an even more fundamental purpose: telling someone what happened and checking that no, you are not completely losing your mind.
That is particularly relevant with gaslighting, a form of manipulation in which one person gradually causes another to doubt their memories, perceptions or interpretation of events.
“I never said that.”
“You’re making it up.”
“You always interpret everything the wrong way.”
“It was a joke; you’re far too sensitive.”
“That is absolutely not what happened.”
One isolated occurrence is obviously not enough to call something gaslighting: we can all remember an event differently. What becomes problematic is the repetition of a dynamic that gradually erodes your trust in your own perception.
The term itself comes from a work of fiction that became surprisingly relevant.
Patrick Hamilton’s British play Gas Light, first performed in 1938, was adapted for film, notably in George Cukor’s famous 1944 Gaslight. In the story, a husband gradually manipulates his wife into believing she is losing her mind. Among the things she notices, the gas lights in the house mysteriously dim. When she mentions it, her husband denies it and pretends to be able to read the newspaper in such low light, which she observes and which contributes to making her doubt her own perception.
That is where the term gaslighting comes from.
And it is also why having a space outside the relationship can become valuable. Not to have someone automatically agree with your version of events, but to reconstruct a situation, distinguish facts from interpretations and gradually regain confidence in your own judgement.
Sometimes regaining control begins with an extremely simple question:
“Wait… what actually happened?”
What if no communication strategy is enough?
That is also a possibility we need to be able to face.
Sometimes the best wording changes nothing.
The clearest boundary is not respected.
Grey rock does not solve the problem.
Disengagement reduces some arguments but does not transform the relationship.
And no relationship skill can, by itself, make an unhealthy situation healthy.
Coaching can then help clarify:
What do I want?
What can I still accept?
What are my actual limits?
What resources do I need?
What decisions am I prepared to make?
But when the situation involves violence, threats, coercion, financial control, or significant physical or psychological danger, the priority changes. It is no longer only a matter of communicating better: appropriate specialised professionals and support services need to be involved.
You probably cannot control what this person thinks of you
And perhaps not what they tell other people about you either.
That is one of the hardest things to accept.
You can explain.
Prove.
Argue.
Show the messages.
Tell the story in the right order.
And some people may still choose to believe another version.
Trying to obtain universal recognition of what happened can then keep you attached to the situation.
The question gradually becomes:
“Do I need this person to acknowledge what they did to me before I can start taking my life back?”
The answer can be painful.
But it can also be extraordinarily liberating.
Leave the game instead of winning it
That is ultimately the change I am trying to create.
At first, the question is often:
“How should I answer them?”
Then it becomes:
“Why does this strategy work on me?”
Then:
“How can I respond differently?”
And finally:
“Do I even want to keep participating in this dynamic?”
You may not need to become better than the other person at their game.
You may need to regain enough stability, discernment and decision-making power to understand that you can leave the table.
And sometimes that is precisely where taking back control begins.
Coaching and narcissistic relationships
If you think you are in a relationship with a narcissistic person, if you recognise mechanisms such as gaslighting, DARVO, flying monkeys, blame reversal or repeated violations of your boundaries, we can work together on the behaviours you observe and, above all, on your options for action.
Coaching is not a substitute for psychiatric diagnosis, psychotherapy when needed, or specialist domestic-abuse services.
Its usefulness lies elsewhere:
understanding the dynamic, developing reflexes, testing responses, strengthening your boundaries, preparing difficult conversations and helping you regain your decision-making power.
Because ultimately, the goal is not to become an expert in narcissistic personality.
It is for that personality to gradually stop organising YOUR life.