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We have all heard of narcissistic traits and of narcissistic relationships, many times.

It has become trendy in some ways. We have all, I bet, wondered at some point if we were in fact dating an actual “narcissist”—or just somebody we are having, as many couples, issues to solve and learn from with.

The question is often the following: do we just need to work on ourselves, to grow together, and see our relationship as a pathway toward more personal evolution—or, is this relationship a “no go,” a definite red flag, a space that one shouldn’t be in?

In fact, it’s often said that people diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder will most likely, or only in rare occasions, heal. As a consequence—and mental health professionals, love coaches, and so on would agree with this—if you are certain somebody is a narcissist, it’s best to leave them at arm’s length; in other words, it’s truly for your highest good to not live with them, sleep with them, marry them, and so forth.

But, how to make sure somebody is a narcissist?

The 11 points below come from my experience as a coach, what I have seen in my clients lives, what I have studied, and what I have experienced myself.

So, they are a narcissist if they have more than six of these traits:

1. They are never responsible for anything, plus it is always your fault.

They “gaslight” you and your sense of reality. Whenever there is an argument, you just never know how you got there, but it’s always your fault. Plus, they show no sign of true accountability. They will not admit what they did wrong. Worse, even—when they apologize, which is rare, it feels forced, not authentic. They want you to carry the burden of all the mistakes. They are not even responsible for 50 percent of the relationship’s turbulences.

2. They practice “silent treatment” or “stonewalling.”

When they are unhappy with your behaviour, or they don’t like the way you stood up for yourself in an argument, they will just stop talking to you. For hours, days…they simply ignore you, behave as if you were transparent. For them, you are just not there anymore. They are trying to make you feel pain by dismissing your attempts for conversation, for resolution. By not talking anymore, they want you to feel bad about what you did or said. It’s like a punishment.

Often, they will wait for you to come back and restart the conversation. This a way of asserting more power over you. You like peace; they don’t truly care. You come back because you prefer peace over tension. So they teach you that to get peace into the household, whatever happened before, you are the one supposed to take the first step toward harmony. Sometimes even, you see yourself accepting poor behaviour from them or not truly voicing what you wanted to express, simply in order to retrieve harmony.

3. They punish you in subtle ways for being too powerful, too light.

They secretly envy you. You’d think your partner would support and encourage your wins. They would celebrate you for your dreams, your big visions, your tangible achievements. Instead, a narcissist will do all they can to diminish what you’ve accomplished, make it feel smaller or unimportant. They will discard your vision even before you start walking toward it. If you write, when you share with your friends that your book is out, they may tell them, “The book is out but it’s truly not a bestseller!” They will try anything they can, even in public, to attack your sense of joy or inner power.

4. They have sudden bursts of anger, as if they were always trying to bring chaos in the room.

Their energy is just specific to them; they carry a form of unresolved tension. Sometimes, you wonder if maybe they like conflict. They may even try to create it because they know it steals your energy, your sun, your joy—while for them, it’s the opposite: seeing you reacting so intensely and losing your temper shows the power they have over you. What are they looking for? Power over you—yes, you read it right.

5. They love creating reactions in you.

They love pressing on the biggest triggers of yours, only to blame you afterwards for being “crazy.” For example, they bring out third parties in the story to make you feel jealous. They go to this or that person, in front of you, or they inform you that they did, in order to create a reaction from you, make you feel jealous or insecure.

It can be anything else. For example, they may know about a deep family wound, and they will use it against you and unexpectedly to create pain or self-doubt when you are sharing something vulnerable. Once again, it is the same process—it’s about triggering your own emotions, seeing you react, and most likely telling you afterwards that you overreacted…even if they created the whole thing themselves.

6. They make fun of you, humiliate you, or denigrate you in public.

A narcissist individual will make “jokes” about you in front of your family or theirs, friends, communities. They might share intimate details about you that they learned by living with you, exaggerate something they saw, and make a general funny statement about you such as: “She sleeps until noon!” or “He doesn’t even know how to slice tomatoes. I have to teach him everything!”

7. They have a different behaviour with you only (cold) and with anyone else, including complete strangers (warm).

You go to a party; they are the light of the room. Loving, friendly, smiling, compassionate. Interested in others. Then, you jump in the car with them, and everything is suddenly different. No words for 30 minutes; they act cold when you speak. Once home, they tell you “Good night,” and just drift away to bed. It’s cold, freezing, even if it is summer outside and it was summer on their face 30 minutes ago. They have “two faces”—one for the world, one for you.

8. They show no compassion and understanding for you if you are in pain.

They are capable of leaving you destroyed after an argument; they are capable of going to bed as you are crying. Not just once. They prefer protecting their own honour, pride, and ego over being there for you, compassionately. They are, actually, highly self-centered. Sometimes, you wonder if they can even truly feel. Also, seeing they may have caused distress within you is not acceptable to them because it would make them face the reality of their own shadow. So, they simply completely disengage and close their eyes on what they generated.

9. It’s impossible to have a mature, nonviolent, conflict management with them, and to talk about things calmly.

You always try to talk, to explain your point of view during the argument, to bring ease, harmony, and resolve. You see the “thing” causing friction as something you can both solve together. But for them, it’s you against them. Period. Everything turns into madness; there is no other way of saying this. The evening can be ruined for a piece of broccoli. At the end of the day, you don’t remember how a disagreement started, why this moment turned into chaos, how they got to this level of anger and rage. You don’t remember the path you both took to get here; it all feels confused as if you were taken by a storm, how that small thing that would remain a minor argument or situation with anybody else could possibly turn into a wildfire.

10. Their behaviour goes hot and cold.

It’s impossible to predict who you’ll see tonight and in which emotional state they will be! One day, they are upset with you and treat you poorly. The next day, they buy yourself flowers, so your heart reopens and builds trust again. But the following day, they go see a friend you wanted to see without telling you that they are going, and you won’t hear from them for the whole day.

They are inconsistent. They blow hot and cold. You don’t understand, so you start walking on eggshells. They are understanding, and then not. The worse part? It’s not logical, their cycles. It just is. This gives them immense power: you end up thinking, in the first stages, that their behaviour is your fault. That you are responsible for their anger, you are responsible for their joy—for their mood. So, subconsciously, you start doing all you can to avoid making them upset. You try and preserve the peace. You try and avoid giving rise to the other side of their personality.

11. They threaten you, directly or indirectly.

Whenever an argument arises, you hear statements like: “If you don’t stop I’ll leave” or “If you keep talking, I’ll put your things out.” It’s their way or no way. It’s with them having control and power over you, or not at all. In other words, either you accept their conditions and you are fine, or you don’t settle for the way they want to relate with you, and so they pretend they will leave you. But actually, it’s a threat more than something they’d actually act on. They are trying, once again, to make you accept their relational conditions, to make you not protest, not talk, not ask for more. Also, to have you believe that your behaviour is what’s not acceptable, and so this is why they’d rather leave.

Dear ones, that’s how you can know. I hope you don’t see yourself in these descriptions, of course, but if you do, you are fine. You’ll find your way out of this, when you are ready. 

Of course, we are looking for repeated behaviour, only. If someone gets upset once in five years after losing their job and gets crazy, to me—this doesn’t count. What counts is repeated behaviour, without any major life event (death, job loss, illness, and so on) able to justify their character. If you notice these traits as happening often, I’d say at least every week, and if you notice your person shows more than six of them, you are walking in a red zone. You may be—or you are—in a relationship with a narcissist.

I hope this is of service.

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