Narcissistic Relationship Cycle

Narcissistic relationships tend to move through various stages that establish the power dynamic and dismantle the victim’s confidence and identity.

After the victim has been lured into the narcissist’s web, the abusive behaviors slowly start to emerge. They are subtle at first. The narcissist oscillates between being loving and abusive, which makes it difficult for the victim to know what’s happening and leave before it escalates.

Understanding the cycle of abusive relationships could make it easier to escape while it’s still happening.

Lenore Walker (1979) developed the cycle of abuse model to explain how abuse happens in a predictable pattern. This model can be applied to any abusive relationship, including narcissistic ones.

1. Tension Building

Tension builds, communication breaks down, and the abuser becomes more and more volatile and angry. The victim feels uneasy and tries to resolve the situation.

Idealization

Narcissistic individuals are skilled at presenting a false image to the world, especially when wanting to win someone over.

They ramp up their charm, mirror your body language and speech, and adopt your interests and attitudes to create a strong connection and bond between you. Idealization means treating a new partner as nearly perfect.

Narcissistic individuals are black-and-white thinkers, so when they first meet you, they idealize you and put you on a pedestal. 

In their eyes, you are an alluring target who will satisfy their narcissistic needs. However, no one is perfect and narcissists get bored easily, so the idealization phase does not last long. 

Love Bombing

Throughout the idealization phase, narcissists perform their love-bombing dance.

They shower you with compliments and gifts and want to spend all their time with you. They make grand gestures and statements. You feel as if you have met the person of your dreams.

The combination of being idealized and love-bombed makes the victim emotionally connected, dependent, and ultimately vulnerable to the narcissist’s games.

It’s like a thick fog that conceals the narcissist’s true intentions and renders the victim blind to the insidious manipulation that happens from the moment they meet.

Research links narcissism with Ludus, a game-playing love style. It is marked by deception, infidelity, and an aversion to closeness (Campbell et al., 2002; Lee, 1973). The aim is control and attention rather than genuine intimacy, even though it can feel like meeting “the person of your dreams.”

Devaluation

As tensions start to build, the first phase of the abuse cycle begins. You begin to experience the narcissist’s true colors, but it can be subtle at first. Devaluation is when the narcissist turns from praise to criticism.

They might make belittling or insulting remarks, wrapped up in an endearing voice, or excused with “I was only joking”.

Deep down you may know something is off, but because the narcissist has convinced you of their façade, you brush it off and may even blame yourself.

You try your hardest to please them and get back the person you first met, unaware of the fact that it was a front from the start. 

It’s all about power. From the very beginning, the narcissist is establishing a power dynamic in which they are in control and you are subservient (Vrabel et al., 2020).

This is further solidified during the devaluation phase when the manipulation and abuse escalates. 

Gaslighting

Gaslighting refers to making someone question their perceptions and sense of reality. It’s a tactic often used by narcissistic people because it puts them in a position of power. 

Gaslighting has a theatrical origin. The 1938 play Gas Light shows a husband convincing his wife that she is imagining the dimming of their gas lamps. It hides his theft of jewels meant for her.

Calef and Weinshel (1981) defined it as influencing someone’s judgment by making them doubt its validity (Klein et al., 2026).

Narcissistic gaslighting happens throughout the abuse cycle: when tension is building, when the abuse escalates, and during the reconciliation phase. 

It can start small. After insulting you, they might say “You’re so sensitive.” But as the relationship goes on, the gaslighting gets more frequent and severe.

They might:

• Dismiss you, e.g., “The way you’re feeling is not real.”
• Counter, e.g., “You’re remembering that wrong.”
• Block you, e.g., “Not this again.”
• Deny reality, e.g., “I never said that” or “That never happened.”
• Blame you, e.g., “I did that because you did this” or “You’re so paranoid/ crazy/ broken.”

Over time, this chips away at your sense of reality, and you question your perceptions and memory.

You become increasingly unsure and dependent on the narcissist. This is exactly what they want.

Therapist Esther Perel describes a “gaslit cycle” that keeps itself going. As Perel explains in her podcast Where Should We Begin?, the person being gaslit often ends up excusing, analyzing, and justifying the other person’s behavior.

That, she argues, is part of the cycle. It puts the burden of managing the partner’s feelings back onto the person being harmed.

2. Incident

Verbal, emotional, and physical abuse occur. The perpetrator blames, argues, threatens, and intimidates the victim.

Eventually, the abuse and manipulation reach their peak. This is the “incident” phase in the cycle of abuse model.

This can manifest in different ways. It could be intimidation and threats, verbal abuse, physical abuse, or a combination of them all. A few of the tactics the narcissist uses include:

• Emotional Abuse and Control: criticism, humiliation, monitoring, and control over your finances, appearance, and social life.
• Stonewalling: withholding love, affection, and communication as punishment.
• Triangulation: involving other people to provoke jealousy, competitiveness, and insecurity.
• Isolation: cutting you off from friends and family so the abuse can continue.
• Flying Monkeys: recruiting people in your network to take the narcissist’s side.
• Discard: suddenly ending the relationship, often with further abuse, so the narcissist leaves as the “winner”.
• Smear Campaign: spreading rumors and lies to damage your reputation and relationships.

Emotional Abuse and Control

This can range from criticizing everything you do, humiliating you in private or in public, insulting your appearance, dismissing or patronizing you, pushing your buttons, and shouting at you.

They might threaten and intimidate you, monitor your whereabouts and online activity, and control your finances, appearance, and social life.

Coercive control counts as abuse in its own right. It means isolating, monitoring, and psychologically dominating a partner, even without physical violence.

A 2025 study asked 135 people close to a relative high in narcissistic traits about abuse. Seventy-eight percent reported psychological abuse more than once, compared with about a third for physical abuse (Day et al., 2025).

Stonewalling

They might withhold love, affection, and communication to punish you and further solidify their position of power.

This can cause the victim to become insecure and anxious, while still holding onto the narcissist’s façade. They “walk on eggshells” trying not to upset the narcissist and win their approval back.

One relative put it this way.

“It was an endless mine field of eggshells. A word, an expression would be taken against me.”

Day et al. (2020)

Triangulation

Narcissists also use a strategy called triangulation, which means involving other people to elicit feelings of jealousy, competitiveness, and insecurity in the victim.

For example, they might compare you to another person: “My ex was much prettier than you.” They might also bring other people into an argument: “I’m not the only one who thinks you’re crazy.”

It instills insecurity and makes you doubt yourself. As a result, you change your behavior and appearance to please them and prove that you are “worthy”.

Isolation

It’s easier to control someone without a support network. Thus, part of the narcissist’s strategy is to isolate you from your friends and family and even turn you against them.

They may plant seeds of doubt about their loyalty and support or point out their flaws. Sometimes, they may even make you choose between them and your friends and family.

Without anyone to talk to, the abuse continues more easily.

Flying Monkeys

Another way narcissists isolate their victim is by using their “flying monkeys”. These are usually people in your network (friends, family, colleagues) whom they groom with the same tactics they used on you.

The narcissist gets them on their side. This strengthens their position.

For example, you might complain to a friend about something the narcissist did. Your friend might say “No way, she’s such a nice person, she would never do that!” This leads you into further self-doubt, confusion, and submission.

Discard

The narcissist may suddenly break off the relationship and discard you.

It might be because they no longer feel like they are getting enough narcissistic supply (attention, admiration, control) and/or because they have found someone else.

Often, the abuse escalates even further. The narcissist wants to leave the relationship as the “winner”.

This victim is often left feeling confused and devastated by the loss of the relationship and the harsh way in which they were broken up with.

Discarding the victim is also a way of asserting control. They want you to have an emotional reaction and cry and beg them to take you back.

Smear Campaign

To add insult to injury, the narcissist may launch a smear campaign against the victim.

This can mean spreading rumors and lies about you, telling people your secrets, and trying to ruin your reputation and relationships.

They want you to look bad in other people’s eyes. That way, they can take on the role of the victim. It’s another way of asserting control over you, even after they have discarded you.

3. Reconciliation

After the abuse has reached its peak, the reconciliation phase begins. They do everything they can to make amends and lure you back into their web.

The abuser begs for forgiveness, apologizes, and promises to change but also minimizes the abuse and blames the victim.

Two main elements of the reconciliation stage include:

• Hoovering: using charm, apologies, and promises to pull you back under the narcissist’s control.
• Turning the Tables: refusing all blame and convincing you that you are the one at fault.

Hoovering

Narcissists use their charm and manipulation skills to hoover you back under their control. They apologize, promise to change, and tell you all the things you want to hear.

It’s similar to the love bombing phase. They might take you on a lavish vacation, shower you with gifts and compliments, and make grand statements of their love for you.

Naturally, you want to believe what they are saying and promising because you still hold onto the hope that things can work out.

Turning the Tables

Throughout a narcissistic relationship, a narcissist will never accept blame and will always turn the tables back on you.

They might even try to convince you that you are the perpetrator and they are the victim of your manipulative and abusive tactics.

This is no different during the reconciliation phase – they will find ways to blame you for their poor behavior and the breakdown of the relationship.

Therapist Esther Perel describes a familiar pattern after conflict. On her podcast Where Should We Begin?, she says an offending partner will often “be his best self for half an hour.”

She treats this as evidence of what is likely to recur, not as reassurance that it will not.

4. Calm

The abuse has stopped, and some promises made during reconciliation might be kept. Everything seems fine for a brief period.

The victim wants to believe the abuse is over and the abuser has changed. The narcissist plays nice for the time being. But not much time passes before the cycle starts again.

Idealization and love bombing come before the first cycle begins. The cycle itself is made up of many smaller stages, which are described above. These stages are a general pattern, and some may be absent in a given relationship.

The Cycle Repeats

Not long after the reconciliation, tension starts to build again until the abuse and manipulation are back in full swing. 

The more often the cycle repeats itself (and this can be very often), the more it chips away at the victim’s confidence, resilience, and sense of self and reality.

Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness take hold, leaving the victim unable to escape the narcissist’s tight grip.

Mental and Physical Collapse

The continued abuse, unpredictability, and deception have serious consequences for the victim’s mental and physical health (Howard, 2019).

It can cause chronic stress, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms, such as headaches or nausea.

Psychotherapist Christine Louis de Canonville lists further effects:

• Avoidance behavior and substance misuse
• Loss of emotion and feelings of detachment
• Loss of hope
• Difficulty sleeping and hypervigilance
• Psychosomatic illnesses, such as irritable bowel syndrome
• Self-harm or suicidal thoughts

Gaslighting and other manipulation tactics erode the victim’s identity until they no longer recognize themselves.

They lose their grip on reality and internalize the constant blame, judgment, and criticism. Leaving starts to feel impossible, not merely difficult. The narcissist’s narrative of “nobody else will want you; you’re useless, ugly, etc.” reinforces that belief.

This collapse increases the victim’s dependence on the narcissist. In turn, the narcissist gains more power and more narcissistic supply.

Awakening

Many victims of narcissistic abuse eventually find their way out of the relationship.

They wake up to the reality of what is happening to them and their life, often as a result of receiving help and support from friends, family, or professionals.

Leaving a narcissistic relationship can be difficult, and it’s important to have a support system in place before doing so.

Coping Strategies

A first step is accepting that you cannot change a narcissistic partner’s behavior. Focus on your own responses and choices instead.

Stay grounded in your own perceptions, even when your partner disputes them.

Three strategies can help while you are still in the relationship:

• Gray Rock: become as emotionally neutral and uninteresting as possible, which reduces the narcissist’s incentive to provoke a reaction.
• Boundaries: set clear boundaries and keep them consistently.
• Support: lean on friends, family, or a therapist to counter the isolation.

Support matters most because the relationship has usually cut you off from people who could validate your experience. A therapist or friend offers an outside view.

None of these steps changes the narcissist. They protect your sense of reality and your wellbeing.

Why Leaving Is Hard and How to Plan Safely

Leaving is rarely a matter of willpower. The cycle of idealization and devaluation creates genuine emotional attachment.

Many victims still feel connected to the narcissist and hope the relationship will return to how it began.

The narcissist also undermines the victim’s self-esteem over time. The victim may come to believe they deserve the mistreatment or could not find anyone better.

Isolation from friends and family makes a life without the relationship hard to imagine or arrange.

Several signs suggest it may be time to seek help. These include persistent anxiety, depression, or exhaustion tied to the relationship.

A loss of your own interests and sense of self is another. So is fear for your physical safety.

Where leaving is planned, physical safety comes first. Steps commonly recommended include:

• Gathering important documents and belongings in advance
• Planning departure logistics
• Telling trusted people about your plan
• Timing your departure for when the narcissist is least likely to react dangerously
• Securing your accounts and checking your devices for trackers
• Arranging for a trusted person or law enforcement to be present if you anticipate danger

Healing

Healing from narcissistic abuse tends to be a long road, but it’s entirely possible. It means building yourself up again, reconstructing your life, establishing boundaries, focusing on self-care, as well as deep introspection.

It’s easier when you have the help of a professional (e.g., a therapist) and the support of your friends and family.

Ending the cycle of abuse takes strength and courage. It’s not the victim’s fault they were subjected to the narcissist’s game. Narcissists are very skilled manipulators. They gradually gain more and more control over you.

Blaming yourself for what happened is normal and often a direct result of having been in a relationship with a narcissist.

However, a better approach is to have compassion for yourself and what you have been through.

Research on Narcissistic Relationships

Much of the vocabulary above, including love bombing, hoovering, and gaslighting, comes from clinical practice and popular writing.

It did not come from a research program built around those terms.

Two bodies of empirical work still give the pattern weight. One records how people describe living with a narcissistic partner. The other tests what predicts serious harm.

How Partners Describe the Relationship

Day, Townsend, and Grenyer (2020) asked 436 people close to someone high in narcissistic traits to describe that relationship in their own words.

Most were current or former romantic partners. The rest were family members.

Two clusters of traits emerged. Participants described grandiosity, including a need for admiration, arrogance, entitlement, and lack of empathy.

They also described vulnerability, including hypersensitivity, insecurity, rage, and shifting moods. Sixty-nine percent described both in the same person.

The authors concluded that living with pathological narcissism means coping with large swings in mood, shifting attitudes, and contradictory needs.

As one participant put it:

“It was like pouring myself into an emotional black hole.”

Day et al. (2020)

Participants chose to take part. The study shows how richly this pattern is described, not how common it is.

What Predicts Abuse and Coercive Control

A 2025 study asked 135 informants, mostly romantic partners, about a relative high in narcissistic traits.

They rated the relative’s narcissism and overall personality functioning. They also reported abuse and coercive control.

Overall personality disorder severity was moderately linked to both abuse (r = .43) and coercive control (r = .53).

Narcissism alone told a different story. It was only weakly linked to coercive control (r = .18) and not significantly linked to abuse (Day et al., 2025).

Specific features, such as exploitativeness, grandiose fantasy, and entitlement rage, showed weak links to coercive control or abuse.

A partner’s broader personality difficulties mattered more than a narcissism label. That is a narrower claim than “narcissists are abusive.” The study was cross-sectional, so it shows association, not cause.

Limits of the Cycle Model

Walker (1979) developed the cycle of abuse to describe domestic battering in general, not narcissism in particular.

Applying it here is an extension by analogy. Not every relationship shows every stage.

Researchers also increasingly treat narcissism as a spectrum rather than a yes-or-no category (Pincus & Lukowitsky, 2010).

Matching a few signs does not mean a partner has narcissistic personality disorder.

Gaslighting research adds a caution. It questions the “powerful abuser, powerless victim” story. In one study, 298 people recalled a disagreement with a dating partner.

Those with either low or high power reported more gaslighting than those in roughly equal-power relationships (Graves & Samp, 2021).

The sample was general dating couples, not narcissistic partners.

The term itself has also broadened. A 2026 historical review found its use has stretched from a narrow clinical meaning to workplace and political settings (Klein et al., 2026).

That makes genuine gaslighting harder to tell from an ordinary bad-faith disagreement.

Sources

Calef, V., & Weinshel, E. M. (1981). Some clinical consequences of introjection: Gaslighting. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 50(1), 44–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1981.11926942

Campbell, W. K., Foster, C. A., & Finkel, E. J. (2002). Does self-love lead to love for others? A story of narcissistic game playing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 340–354. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.340

Day, N. J. S., Kealy, D., Biberdzic, M., Green, A., Denmeade, G., & Grenyer, B. F. S. (2025). Coercive control and intimate partner violence: Relationship with personality disorder severity and pathological narcissism. Personality and Mental Health, 19(4), Article e70038. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.70038

Day, N. J. S., Townsend, M. L., & Grenyer, B. F. S. (2020). Living with pathological narcissism: A qualitative study. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 7, Article 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-020-00132-8

Graves, C. G., & Samp, J. A. (2021). The power to gaslight. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(11), 3378–3386. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211026975

Howard, V. (2019). Recognising narcissistic abuse and the implications for mental health nursing practice. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 40(8), 644–654. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2019.1590485

Klein, W., Wood, S., Forget, A., & Bartz, J. A. (2026). A historical review of gaslighting: Tracing changing conceptualizations within psychiatry and psychology. Clinical Psychology Review, 126, Article 102742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2026.102742

Lee, J. A. (1973). The colors of love: An exploration of the ways of loving. New Press.

Perel, E. (n.d.). Am I being gaslit? | Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSuCS-5MSH0

Pincus, A. L., & Lukowitsky, M. R. (2010). Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 421–446. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131215

Vrabel, J. K., Zeigler-Hill, V., Lehtman, M., & Hernandez, K. (2020). Narcissism and perceived power in romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 37(1), 124–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519858685

Walker, L. E. (1979). The battered woman. Harper & Row.