At a glance
The signs of a narcissist are easy to list and hard to use, because most people show several of them after a bad month. What matters is the pattern, how long it has run, and whether it has crossed into control. A pattern you are able to describe is enough to act on, with or without a label.
Clinical insights from 20+ years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 20+ years in practice.
- One person sets the weather. What my clients are usually describing is a long habit of one person’s needs setting the weather for the household.
- The last to name control. Where the pattern really is control rather than self-absorption, the person on the receiving end is usually the last to name it, and only after somebody outside the relationship has said it first.
- No diagnosis from outside. I do not diagnose people who are not in the room, and I am wary of anybody who does.
Clinical notes: These observations are anonymous and compounded from session notes since 2004.
What are the signs of a narcissist?
The signs are a lasting pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration and little empathy. The StatPearls review for the US National Library of Medicine sets out 9 clinical features and requires at least 5 of them for a diagnosis. The Gottman Institute summarises them for couples:
- Self-importance. Their story is always the bigger one.
- Preoccupation. Power, beauty or success fill their attention.
- Entitlement. Rules and turns apply to other people.
- Special company. They want to be around important people only.
- Exploitation. Other people are used for their gain.
- Arrogance. Contempt shows when someone disagrees.
- Lack of empathy. Your distress does not register, or it irritates.
- Admiration. They need to be admired, and they sulk or attack when they are not.
- Envy. Your good news lands as their loss.
The same article adds that many people display narcissistic traits from time to time. A trait is no disorder, and a bad year is no personality.
What does narcissism look like inside a relationship?
Conversations end with you apologising for something you did not do.
- What you see. The Gottman Institute lists passive-aggressive behaviour, stonewalling, gaslighting and an unwillingness to apologise or take responsibility.
- Sex as a lever. Nobody owes anybody sexual access, and what belongs on this list is sex used as a punishment.
- Doubting yourself. After years of being made to doubt your own account of events, the word you reach for matters far less than the fact of it.
- The word and the disorder. The word arrives far more often than the disorder does.
Read more about gaslighting in a relationship and about a partner who runs hot and cold.
Is my partner a narcissist?
You cannot diagnose a personality from the outside, and you do not need to.
- A label is an argument. A label applied from outside is usually an argument and seldom an assessment.
- What a diagnosis takes. A diagnosis takes a clinical assessment of the person themselves, and one side of the story does not supply it.
- Selfish or narcissistic. Watch whether anything changes when you say plainly what you need, and what it costs you to keep saying it.
- Write it down. Write down the most recent incidents: what happened, what was said afterwards and how you felt afterwards.
Read more about describing the behaviour and leaving the person undiagnosed.
When does a narcissistic trait become control?
It becomes control when one person decides what the other may do, see, spend or say. This line matters more than the label, and it does not wait on a diagnosis.
- The signs. Jealousy, control over what you wear or eat, your phone being checked, contact with your family limited, name calling and control of the money.
- On the receiving end. You watch every word, you feel weaker as the years pass, and you do things you do not want to do to keep the peace.
- The wrong room. Where one partner controls the other, couples therapy is the wrong room, and I say so in the first session.
- Why. Joint sessions ask both people to be honest and accountable, and under control the honesty is not safe to give and the accountability never arrives.
Read more about walking on eggshells.
How do you change the pattern with a narcissistic partner?
Start with what does not need your partner’s agreement.
- What you accept. Decide what you will no longer go along with, and stop going along with it.
- What you say out loud. Say plainly what you need, once, without a case for the defence attached.
- Who knows. Tell someone outside the relationship what happens inside it.
- Whether your partner changes. The Gottman Institute writes that real change requires a willingness to be vulnerable without defensiveness and to show empathy.
- The evidence. Look for sustained change: repair attempted before anybody asks, an apology that does not defend itself, and empathy that costs them something.
- If you are called the narcissist. Ask which behaviour your partner means, and ask yourself honestly whether you recognise it.
The apology after a row proves nothing. The months after it do.
These steps fail when your partner denies there is anything to change, or when saying what you need has stopped being safe. That is what the session is for, and where control is the pattern you come alone.
Questions people ask
Can a therapist tell me whether my partner is a narcissist?
No, a therapist cannot assess someone from one side of the story. A therapist helps you describe the pattern accurately and decide what to do about it.
Is it narcissism or just selfishness?
You cannot tell from the outside, and you do not need to. Watch whether anything changes when you say plainly what you need.
Is couples therapy right if I think my partner is a narcissist?
Yes, if the difficulty is self-absorption and both of you will sit down. No, if what you are describing is control or fear.
What if my partner says I am the narcissist?
Take the description seriously and set the label aside. A word thrown during an argument is rarely an assessment.
Can a narcissist change?
Only when the person wants to and tolerates being accountable. The proof is sustained behaviour over months.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- The Gottman Institute, Is My Partner a Narcissist?
- Mitra, P., Torrico, T. J. and Fluyau, D., Narcissistic Personality Disorder, StatPearls, National Library of Medicine, 2024
How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.
