Are Narcissists Jealous When You Move On?

Narcissists are said to be highly competitive, envious, and jealous people and get angry and offended easily. Everything that happens to them and around them makes them feel inferior and triggers their insecurities. Insecurities or negative feelings make them ignore rational thoughts and force them to hurt people.

Because of their unhealthy thoughts, behavioral patterns, and the inability to break toxic patterns, they tend to take justice into their own hands and try to ruin the happiness of others.

By hurting others and making their lives worse than theirs, they eliminate competition and make themselves feel superior. Rather than leaving people alone or competing fairly (if for some reason they must compete), they put others down and make sure they’re the only object of admiration.

That’s how they manage to feel content about their achievements and gather the strength to carry on with their life.

You’d think narcissists stay happy after they’ve made an example of their victim, but narcissists are never happy. They have moments of peace and truce, but the moment something or someone triggers their superiority complex, they once again feel threatened and destroy that person’s reasons for happiness.

They always think that someone is out to get them and that they need to punish that person before that person or his or her behavior has a chance to hurt them. This kind of thinking makes them extremely reactive and incapable of being happy for others, especially for those they envy and feel jealous of.

Narcissists don’t realize just how vengeful and emotionally unstable they are. They think others are responsible for their behavior and that others should adapt to them and respect them before they get any respect from them. That explains why people need to earn their respect rather than have it from the beginning just for being human.

Narcissists’ biggest enemy is none other than themselves. They constantly fight their inner demons and struggle to accept people the way they are. As a result, they try to change people themselves. If they can’t change them and manipulate them to fit their needs and lifestyle, they feel they’re losing control and tend to do something drastic.

In their mind, people don’t deserve to be happy. They certainly don’t deserve to be happier than them. Especially the people they dated as their exes used to be close to them—and according to their belief, shouldn’t thrive without them. It’s too much for their insecurities.

If they get the feeling that their ex is doing great, they get hurt, adopt an eye for an eye mentality, and often do something to ruin their ex’s happiness.

Sometimes they contact their ex’s new partner and dissuade that person from dating their ex whereas other times, they try to directly hurt or confuse their ex. They can’t stand their ex moving on faster than them, so they try to affect their ex emotionally.

That gives them the recognition they badly crave.

Of course, not all narcissists are jealous people. Narcissists are jealous mainly when they get dumped and/or when they feel replaced and threatened. If narcissists meet someone else, they tend to fixate on the new person and pay no attention to their ex.

They occasionally think about their ex, of course, but they don’t get jealous just because their ex has moved on and found someone else. Narcissists have an uncanny ability to move on from the person they discarded. They don’t need to process the breakup because they’ve already done that and replaced their ex with a new supply.

Jealousy tends to kick in when their fantasy turns into a nightmare. When they see that the person they left their ex for or monkey-branched to shortly after the breakup is a player or someone who can’t commit and give them peace, they get jealous of their ex’s peace and stability.

That’s when they might decide to check up on their ex and seek validation.

Today, we talk about whether narcissists get jealous when you move on. We discuss narcissistic traits and point out some of the things a narcissist might do when he or she feels that you’re moving on.

What makes narcissists jealous?

Narcissists get jealous when their life goes wrong and they see that the ex they compete with is happy. Such a comparison tends to fire up their insecurities and fears and makes them wonder what’s making their ex happy.

If their ex is with someone new, they analyze that person’s (superficial) traits and try to figure out what he or she has that they don’t.

They essentially make it their life mission to compare themselves to their ex’s new partner and be better than that person. Sometimes they contact their ex and try to present themselves as more attractive individuals, but other times they post pictures on social media and try to make their ex jealous.

I’ve heard many stories where dumpers played jealousy games in person and tried to bring a reaction out of their ex. Maybe they weren’t full-blown narcissists but they certainly had some narcissistic traits. They considered the breakup a competition and wanted to look and feel attractive even though their ex was healing from rejection.

Such dumpers had absolutely no guilt or shame for playing games with their ex and didn’t care about hurting their ex. Their ex was already dealing with post-breakup blues, but they still made their ex feel anxious and worthless.

They did this because they assumed their ex was doing great and thought that he or she shouldn’t be doing great without them. Not without paying the price for hurting them and devaluing them.

Anyway, because narcissists are jealous, they want to make their ex jealous also. They want their ex to know how it feels to feel insecure and replaced. That’s why they try to prove that they’re doing better than their ex even though they haven’t resolved their problems and insecurities yet.

The reason narcissists are the way they are usually has something to do with their childhood (trauma) – the way they grew up and the relationships they had with their parents. Genetics play a big role too, but it’s the parent-child relationships and the attention they receive or don’t receive that give rise to their narcissistic traits the most.

Those traits typically stay hidden or partially hidden until they become adults and have relationships of their own. That’s when they no longer have to respect their parents and hide their true nature. They can go all out with their romantic partners.

Narcissistic parents often push their narcissistic beliefs and tendencies onto their children. They make them into mini-thems and leave them unprepared for the real world – which is the world that doesn’t bend to their will.

That explains why narcissists struggle so much when people don’t give them everything they need. They blow up because they’re not used to getting rejected and not getting what they need.

So if your narcissistic ex is jealous and you’re wondering why, it’s probably not because your ex wants you back (unless you dumped your ex). It’s because your ex doesn’t like that you’re moving on and finding happiness without him/her.

Your ex expected you to be miserable and stuck in the past. But instead, you’re moving on from the past and enjoying your life to the maximum.

Typically, dumpers don’t get jealous as they don’t have any feelings for the dumpee. But narcissists aren’t typical dumpers. They take breakups very personally and feel that they need to beat their ex at the game of life.

If they’re doing better, they can focus on themselves and feel good about themselves. And if they’re not doing better, they often feel tempted to use various manipulation techniques and play all sorts of mind games.

That’s the only way they can compete with an ex who seems to be doing well and isn’t paying them much attention.

Narcissists need to be the best at everything. They need to be the happiest, the prettiest, the most validated, the richest—and have the best partners.

They don’t understand that real happiness comes from within (self-acceptance) and that the things they’re competing against won’t improve their lives. They’ll just give them a temporary ego boost and waste their chance to grow.

Here are 8 things that make narcissists jealous when you move on.

For a narcissist to get jealous to the point of taking his or her frustrations out on you, a narcissist must, therefore, think of you as competition, be vengeful, lack morals, self-control, and boundaries, and most of all, not be doing very well emotionally, physically, financially, romantically, or in any other way.

When these conditions are met, a narc will get jealous and do everything in his or her power to make his or her problems your problems as well. A narc will do this by trying to make you jealous, getting angry with you if you don’t react (or react badly), being extremely nice to you, or seeking validation in any way he or she can.

Expect a narc to want your attention very badly and not give up easily. He or she isn’t used to giving up control and being ignored and belittled by those he or she competes with.

Things narcissists do when they’re jealous

When a narcissist is jealous, he or she will usually not hold back and stay jealous. Most of the time, a narcissist will try to ruin your fun, get your attention and validation, or make himself or herself look and feel better.

A narcissist will do something that stops his or her jealousy and complicates things for you.

A narc will:

• delete you and block you
• fight jealousy with jealousy (try to make you jealous)
• try to ruin your reputation
• make fun of you and ignore or belittle your problems
• ask you to leave your partner and focus only on him/her
• refuse to give closure and blame you for everything
• try to make you regret losing him/her
• and try to control your emotions, choices, happiness, and direction in life

A narc would do anything to feel that he has a say in your life and that his words and actions affect you emotionally and behaviorally. By seeing that they affect you, a narc will feel that he has control over you and that he can manipulate you when or if he wants to.

And he wants to when his ego feels threatened.

Normally, this happens when he’s unhappy and you appear to be doing well. Your doing well trigger’s a narcissist’s insecurities and makes him compete with you for the first place.

Therefore, narcissists are jealous when you move on, when life gets tough for them, when they think you found happiness before them, or when they think you should suffer for hurting them during or after the relationship.

Narcissists lack self-awareness and an understanding that vengeance isn’t the solution to their problems and pain. They think they should fight fire with fire and that their life will improve if they complicate your life.

They only see short-term solutions that give them instant gratifications.

Don’t fight or compete with a narcissist!

Just because you can compete with a narcissist and trigger his or her insecurities, it doesn’t mean that you should. Other than a negative reaction and an enemy for life, you won’t get anything out of it.

You’ll just get dragged into a quarrel with someone who doesn’t deserve your attention, time, and energy. It can feel tempting to get angry and show a narc not to mess with you, but narcissists don’t learn lessons that way.

They see your anger and resilience as defiance and disrespect and the perfect time to get back at you for making their life difficult.

So whatever you do, don’t compete with a narcissist. He or she will take you on and beat you with years of experience.

A narcissist knows your weaknesses and will fight dirty when you fight back.

That’s why it’s best to mind your own business and refuse to react to anger with anger. Instead of trying to defend yourself and making things worse for yourself, walk away from the narc and focus on moving on.

It will take some time to detach from the narc because relationships with narcs are unhealthy and take longer to heal from than normal relationships, but if you focus on yourself rather than the narc, you’ll slowly recover and realize that your narcissistic ex isn’t worth your time.

He or he can stalk you and be jealous if he or she wants to, but you simply won’t sacrifice any more of your health and well-being for a person who doesn’t care about you. Not after everything you went through because of your ex.

Now’s the time to do what’s best for you. Do that by seeing your ex for the person he/she is and making sure your life is as great as it needs to be. You must learn from this ordeal so you don’t get involved with a narcissist again and let any other person manipulate your feelings and decisions in life.

The sooner you take your mind off the narc and focus on yourself, the sooner you’ll get yourself back and be happy again.

What’s your experience with narcissists? Are they jealous when you move on? Let us know in the comments below.

And if you’d like to speak with us about your narcissistic ex, sign up for coaching with us.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.