You have found yourself in the early stages of a narcissist rebound relationship. Now, you’re wondering “How long will a narcissist rebound relationship last?” It’s a good question, especially since you or your new partner just got out of a major relationship.
So, you’re dealing with a rebound relationship on top of dating a narcissist. It’s natural to wonder how long it will last. While we can’t give you an exact estimate, we can give you some advice on why your new relationship will not be fulfilling.
These 8 reasons why your relationship won’t last long-term will help you to make the right decisions for your mental health and well-being during this difficult time post-breakup and at the start of a new relationship.
This post is all about, “How long will a narcissist rebound relationship last?”
What is a narcissist?
A narcissist is essentially a person who has an unnecessarily high opinion of themself. This leads to a lack of empathy and difficulty maintaining healthy relationships. Narcissists often need validation and require lots of attention.
When they don’t get the attention they feel that they need, they might react badly and hurt the people around them. This makes it difficult for them to meet the needs of the people in their life because they’re so focused on meeting their own, insatiable needs.
Certain types of narcissists, like the covert narcissist, may be better at hiding their symptoms so that they can gaslight you into believing that the problems in your abusive relationship with them do not originate with them and their narcissism.
What is a rebound relationship?
A rebound relationship is the relationship you enter right after you leave your previous relationship. Typically, your past relationship was a long-term relationship and it feels like the only way to get over the feelings and pain of it is to begin a new relationship.
This new relationship is referred to as a rebound relationship because it often doesn’t last long. The problem with rebound relationships is that they begin while at least one partner is still working through the emotions from a past relationship.
This does not mean the relationship is doomed to fail, but it does mean that at least one partner will struggle with meeting the needs of the other from the start of the relationship.
This is a weak foundation for a relationship and it’s difficult for such relationships to overcome that initial hurdle of one partner mourning the loss of their previous partner.
HOW LONG WILL A NARCISSIST
REBOUND RELATIONSHIP LAST:
1. They are not capable of being in a healthy relationship
A narcissist is not capable of a healthy relationship because they are focused on themself. They are worried about other people reinforcing the false beliefs they have about themselves to the point that they can’t reassure others from a place of genuine love.
Any love they show you is designed to ultimately help them in the end. Narcissists can’t love another person because they don’t love themselves. This is the truth that narcissists will never be able to hear.
It’s best to avoid bringing it up to them to avoid defensiveness and them lashing out at you. However, you need to hear it so that you recognize anytime they demonstrate love for you, they do it with the intention that you will then reinforce their false self-beliefs.
To be clear, narcissists may not intentionally do this because they’re doing it out of fear. Narcissists are driven by the fear of recognizing the truth that they don’t really like themselves, so they’re willing to do just about anything to avoid that happening.
They lie to themselves and they need others to maintain these lies at all costs. Unfortunately, and as painful as it is to hear, your relationship with them will never be a priority because their biggest priority is maintaining the lie they tell themselves.
2. They will prioritize their emotional needs over yours
For a narcissist, there is no greater need than attention. They want validation and attention on them. In the typical person, this is understandable and even respectable. However, for a narcissist, this need is unrelenting.
No amount of attention will be enough, especially when that attention turns to another person. Your narcissistic partner may give you some attention for a short time if they think it will ultimately end with that attention returning to them.
So, no matter what it looks like from the outside, you have to accept that narcissists, by definition, are not capable of prioritizing anyone’s needs but their own. While a relationship can exist even if both partners don’t contribute equally, it will drain the one who puts in more work.
The key to any healthy relationship is communication. However, a narcissist can’t have open and honest conversation with you because they’re not open and honest with themself and they refuse to acknowledge that.
Therefore, they have a surface-level understanding of their needs and rely on that to derive pleasure from all of the relationships in their life. No matter what they tell you, they will struggle to truly care about your needs.
Their fear of realizing how deeply their low self-esteem affects them will override your needs every time. You can think of it as their way to survive.
While there is no excuse for disregarding the needs of someone you claim to care about, narcissists think in terms of maintaining their fragile sense of self at all costs.
You can think of this as a form of survival mode. Only through true accountability and therapy can a narcissist begin caring about someone else’s needs and unpacking that fear.
3. They will tear down your sense of self-worth
When a narcissist feels threatened, they will resort to hurtful tactics. Since they are often driven by fear, they will be defensive and lash out at you. They may insult you and verbally abuse you because you threatened their sense of self.
When a narcissistic individual does this and you leave the situation, they may respond by love bombing you. Love bombing is the act of overwhelming you with love and affection, and it’s a form of abuse.
It only takes place when someone has hurt you, verbally or physically, and you leave. The purpose of it is to overwhelm you with enough “loving” comments and messages that you will take your partner back and forgive them.
Love bombing can look like your partner saying, “I’ll never hurt you again,” “You know I love you,” and “I only did that because I was scared of losing you.” These statements excuse their behaviors and are designed to make you feel loved enough that their actions seem acceptable.
However, abuse is never acceptable, so recognize any instances where your partner does this to you. This is the ultimate form of tearing down your sense of self-worth because they abuse you and love-bomb you until you come back.
Then, the cycle repeats. This cycle can also involve gaslighting, which can escalate the situation even further until you question the reality you are experiencing.
4. They will take away your sense of security
It helps to think of a narcissist as someone who is constantly afraid. On top of that, they refuse to acknowledge that they’re afraid. So, they experience this ultimate fear of realizing what they truly think of themselves and disrupting their grandiose sense of self.
When you think of this as the motivation behind their actions, it’s clear that any relationship will be another way for them to avoid that fear at all costs. This means that they’ll do whatever they have to do to keep from recognizing that fear.
If you get close to that fear, question them, or criticize them, they will turn on you. Most narcissists don’t appear harmful when you first meet them. They may be overly interested in themselves, but they don’t seem malignant.
It’s only when you get to know a narcissist better and spend more time around them that you realize how much attention and validation they demand. The more time you spend around them, the less attention you’ll likely want to give them.
This means they become a defensive, terrified, mean person. Narcissistic people will resort to cruelty in many different forms when they feel threatened. This can look like abusing you mentally and physically.
If you leave them, they might send you angry texts or spread lies about you to your family and friends. A narcissistic relationship will strip you of any sense of security because narcissists are ruled by a false sense of self.
So, the narcissist in your life will abandon all compassion for you the moment it gets in their way. It may sound scary to think of your current relationship as turning abusive very easily, but it’s worth considering it.
Narcissists won’t hesitate to abuse you the moment that you challenge their superiority or fail to validate them.
That superiority, unfortunately, will always mean more to them than you will. They will abandon you far easier than they will work through the issues behind their personality disorder.
5. They don’t want unconditional love
People with narcissistic personality disorder don’t do well with unconditional love. Their love is anything but unconditional because it relies on you validating them. The way that a narcissist stays happy is by their partner giving them all of their attention and exalting them.
This is difficult under the best of circumstances because we are all people with our own lives. However, this type of conditional relationship is even more difficult when it’s the narcissist’s rebound relationship or your rebound relationship.
A rebound relationship can easily become a toxic relationship because of the recent breakup that led to this relationship forming in the first place. When you introduce a narcissist relationship into the mix, it’s even more difficult for a romantic relationship to be conditional.
You will notice the red flags early on. If you are the one on the rebound with a narcissist, you will quickly realize your new partner requires a lot more than you are willing to give this early on with your own emotions about your former partner so raw and challenging.
So, not only are you dealing with a conditional relationship, but you also have to cope with the idea that you will never have unconditional love with this person. It’s debatable whether a narcissistic can truly love someone else.
However, it’s almost impossible for them to love another person who doesn’t play into their entitlement and superiority complex. And that’s not what a relationship is, so you shouldn’t expect yourself to do that.
Instead, you should expect a relationship to come with negotiation as well as give and take without one party doing all the taking.
6. Their manipulative tactics are second nature to them
For narcissists, manipulation is second nature and a natural by-product of their disorder. They need to uphold their false sense of superiority and that naturally means that they manipulate people around them into believing it too and validating that sense of self.
Since a narcissist believes they are superior, they will fit you into that narrative one way or another. They may love bomb you after they abuse you and refuse to acknowledge that what you endured was abuse.
They may cut you off or send you a barrage of text messages when you leave them. In this case, they will tell themselves that you don’t understand them and are inferior to them.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder functions based on fitting everything that happens in a narcissist’s life into their superior, entitled, and grandiose sense of self. So, they will manipulate you likely without realizing they are manipulating you.
Narcissists are rarely self-aware. This means they are not aware of their disorder. Manipulation tactics are crucial to malignant narcissists remaining ignorant of their personality disorder.
You may not notice these tactics at the beginning of a relationship, but the warning signs will appear before too long and you will need to acknowledge them when they do. Regardless of where you are at in your rebound relationship, do yourself the favor.
Look for the signs of narcissism in your relationship and believe yourself when you notice them. Let that be enough for you to recognize that this relationship isn’t good for you because the other person does not value your needs.
7. They aren’t capable of developing a real emotional connection
Narcissists are not capable of developing a real emotional connection because they are focused on themselves. They are only capable of maintaining the needs dictated by their personality disorder, which is why a lack of empathy is one of the major narcissistic personality traits.
Not only do narcissists struggle to think of others, but it’s not a priority for them. As always, with treatment, a narcissist can begin the healing process to develop meaningful relationships, develop a desire to care for other people’s feelings, and put an end to whirlwind relationships.
However, it’s not your job to convince them to seek help and treatment to become better people who actively care for their mental health.
Instead, you need to prioritize yourself to the same degree that they prioritize themselves (without the entitlement and grandiose sense of self, of course). It may seem like your current relationship is reaching a deeper level.
You may also think that your relationship is an example of a great narcissist rebound relationship that defies the norm, but it’s not. Narcissistic Personality Disorder makes it impossible for the sufferer to be in a healthy relationship for any length of time.
The most painful part about being in a relationship with a narcissist is that you may believe your relationship is healthy at the start. You may not see the ways that the narcissist is masking their symptoms or the way their symptoms blend in with typical human traits.
However, as more time passes, you’ll have an increasingly difficult time avoiding the parts of dating a narcissist that cause you to become one of the victims of narcissistic abuse.
8. They lack a true self
When we are talking about narcissists, it’s not as simple as saying that narcissists lack a true self. It’s almost impossible for people to lack a true self. But, narcissists bury it deep within themselves so that it might as well not exist.
When you think of your true self, you can think of the part of you that you can access when you’re being truly honest with yourself. For example, when you get angry, you may tell yourself that you don’t understand why and dismiss it.
But, typically, you do know the reason why you and you need to dig a little deeper within yourself to find that answer. There are lots of reasons why we hide the truth from ourselves. We may be ashamed of it (i.e. we don’t want to admit we failed, hurt someone, or made a mistake).
Maybe we have associated trauma with the truth behind our actions and we aren’t ready to deal with that trauma. This is one of the big reasons that therapy is so helpful.
It’s a safe space to expose the deeper truths we’re afraid to reveal to ourselves without a challenge or push in the right direction. For a narcissist, this is also true. But, they will have a much harder time accessing this true self.
It will almost certainly fail to do so within the context of a relationship. So, when you think of your relationship with a narcissist, you need to remember that open and honest conversations will never really take place.
In narcissistic rebound relationships, it’s almost impossible to have a truly open, honest conversation. Everything a narcissist does and says is driven by their personality disorder and the superiority complex that drives it.
While you may be willing to address problems in your relationship and take action to avoid future problems, a true narcissist cannot do that without the proper therapeutic support.