Many dumpees believe their ex was a narcissist. They strongly disapprove of their ex’s decisions and behavior and can’t fathom why a person they loved so much would stop caring about them and treat them so badly. They expected their ex to respect them and be kind to them—especially after the breakup.
They thought their ex would consider their feelings and patiently explain why he or she was leaving the relationship.
But instead, their ex lost his or her patience, turned into a different person, and showed them unattractive personality traits they hadn’t seen before. Their ex showed them how he or she treats exes who expect things he or she can’t and doesn’t want to give.
Such unprecedented and distressing experiences baffled dumpees and made them look for reasonable explanations for their ex’s rude, mean, and cold behavior. Because they couldn’t find any, they took the rejection and lack of care personally and branded their ex as a narcissist. They verbally or silently accused their ex of being a narcissist who didn’t care about anyone but himself or herself.
Many dumpees do this. They put a label on their ex’s mean behavior because doing so helps dumpees blame their ex rather than themselves. It helps them feel less rejected and hurt and allows them to love themselves more during their most difficult times.
However, just because they feel abandoned and mistreated, doesn’t mean their ex is a narcissist. Their ex could just be immature, impulsive, selfish, uncaring, unempathetic, impatient, stoic, or busy building a relationship with someone else.
If their ex was a narcissist, they would have noticed it way sooner. They wouldn’t have to get broken up with to discover their ex’s narcissistic traits.
Yes, people in love get attached and lose sound judgment. They overlook their partner’s flaws because their partner gives them affection and meets their needs. Occasionally, they disagree or argue, but they don’t call their partner a narcissist. They don’t do it because their partner still wants to be with them.
For some people, things change when they’re no longer wanted (when they get dumped). That’s when they choose to cope with pain by turning their ex into a full-blown narcissist.
I thought my ex was a narcissist too. When I got dumped, I had difficulty accepting the breakup and understanding why she would treat me so poorly. The least I expected from someone I invested years of my life in and stayed committed to was to understand my emotions and communicate empathetically.
I expected her to care about me and regret the relationship not working out. But instead, she ignored my texts, went out all the time, made new friends, and made me feel worse. I shouldn’t have checked her social accounts, I admit. But since I did, I saw a side of her I didn’t understand.
Her uncaring behavior on top of my separation anxiety and unmet expectations shocked, scared, and angered me and convinced me she was a narcissist who deserved all the karma the world had to offer. She deserved to suffer for having the time of her life while I was writhing in pain, holding my knees.
Narcissists don’t care about other’s problems and feelings, right? They focus only on their wants and needs and display no signs of affection. That may be true, but you know who else acts like that?
People.
Anyone who doesn’t know you, detaches from you, and finds other people or things more important considers you a done deal and expects you to handle your own problems. He or she doesn’t want to explain things to you and help you cope with stress and anxiety.
Only self-aware, understanding, and compassionate individuals sacrifice their time for an ex they abandoned and hurt. Such people were brought up to care about others or have been dumped and mistreated before.
That’s something I learned much later. For a month or two, I considered my ex a narcissist because she put in zero effort to ease the pain she caused by abandoning the relationship and ignoring my feelings and inability to move on.
I’m not denying the possibility that your ex was and still is a narcissist. But if you want to know if your ex was a narcissist, you have to look at his or her behavior from start to finish, not just how your ex behaved during and after the breakup. If you ignore pre-breakup daily interactions with your ex and consider only his or her negative post-breakup behavior, you’ll judge your ex by his or her worst traits and behaviors.
The worst traits and behaviors show what your ex is capable of at his or her worst (it’s nice to be aware of them), but they don’t define your ex as a person. Your ex probably got overwhelmed during/after the breakup and stopped caring about you completely. He or she prioritized his or her emotions and interests and refused to acknowledge the things you were good at.
This is extremely common dumper behavior. They want to escape the relationship so badly, they push their ex away by force. They don’t care how their ex feels at that particular time when they’re space-deprived, but they may feel guilty weeks or months after the breakup when they cool off and see their ex from a better perspective.
Many dumpers reach out and take an interest in their ex’s life and feelings months later. Some even apologize for their relationship mistakes and the way they treated their ex. As you probably know, a narcissist wouldn’t apologize. He or she would blame the dumpee for everything and continue to feel victimized for years to come.
That doesn’t mean all non-narcissistic people apologize and take responsibility for their actions. But those who do clearly aren’t narcissists. They’re capable of reflection and have at least some understanding of right and wrong.
If you want to know if your ex was a narcissist, you should evaluate all your experiences with your ex – from the moment you met your ex to the last interaction after the breakup. The whole experience with your ex determines if your ex was a narcissist and continues to be one.
This post will help you determine whether your ex had a narcissistic personality disorder, displayed some narcissistic tendencies, or simply exhibited occasional self-centered behavior.
How do I know if my ex was a narcissist?
First of all, who is a narcissist? A narcissist is a self-centered person who cares only about his or her wants and needs. He or she is someone who entered the relationship just to fulfill his or her emotional, sexual, and other needs.
If your ex was a narcissist, your ex didn’t care about you from the moment he or she connected with you. Your ex may have been into you a lot at first and seemed like a decent person, but that’s only because the narc felt excited and craved your attention and validation. As soon as the relationship got old, though, the narc stopped love-bombing you and put almost no effort into the relationship.
He or she took the relationship for granted and denied you basic relationship needs, benefits, and feelings. Your ex made the relationship about him or her and took from the relationship significantly more than he or she put into it. In terms of percentages, it was probably 90/10. Most of the time, you felt emotionally unfulfilled, frustrated, unloved, unprioritized, misunderstood, and confused.
You weren’t getting what you were expecting, so it took a toll on you emotionally and made you want to give up. You told your ex you weren’t happy with his or her behavior, contribution to the relationship, or amount of attention you received—and made your ex blame you for it. He or she responded by saying you were too needy, clingy, demanding, insecure, jealous, and difficult to please.
Your ex ignored your problems and desires to bond and tried to convince you that he or she wasn’t the problem and that you had some things to work on.
Narcissists often project their own problems onto others, accusing them of the very things they themselves are responsible for. They gaslight their partners and make them think they should have changed themselves or expressed themselves better if they wanted to change their behavior.
They fail to see that they’re responsible for their attitude and that a relationship requires two equally-invested individuals.
Narcissists can’t empathize (put themselves into someone else’s shoes) and sympathize with that person. They don’t have the self-awareness necessary to imagine how they’d feel if the same thing happened to them. They usually need to experience similar (uncaring) behavior from their partner to understand how it feels to be ignored or mistreated.
Hence, they tend not to question their motives and behavior. They instead scrutinize others’ behaviors and react negatively to them. They live by double standards and convince themselves that no one but them behaves properly and can do their job right.
At work, narcissists consider themselves the most productive and their coworkers incompetent. In school, they think they’re the smartest and believe they don’t receive the recognition they deserve. And in relationships, they regard themselves as kind and patient people who tolerate their partner’s emotional behavior and fulfill their partner’s unreasonably high demands.
If your ex was narcissistic, your ex considered himself or herself superior to you and others and felt entitled to special benefits and treatment. He or she put his or her feelings above you and used various manipulation techniques to achieve personal goals.
Manipulation techniques such as:
- gaslighting
- the silent-treatment
- name-calling
- insecurity-targeting
- playing dumb
- self-victimizing
- guilt-tripping
- whataboutism
- generalizations
- threatening self-harm/suicide
- crying hysterically
Narcissists are master manipulators. They know how to affect people emotionally (often by making them feel sorry for them) and change their thinking and behavior. They’ve been doing it their whole lives, so they have both knowledge and experience.
Your ex would have tested his or her manipulation techniques on you if your ex was a narcissist. He or she would have done it due to a lack of moral values and impulse control.
Narcissists also love being in the center of attention. They like to know they’re the prettiest, smartest, and most successful. External validation is extremely important to them as they need it to boost their fragile egos. Most of the time, they appreciate only superficial traits in people, such as their looks and money.
They value people only for what they can gain from them. If they can’t gain enough, the relationship weighs them down and makes them want to escape it. It tells them they’re unhappy and that they must look for happiness elsewhere.
Hence, superficial traits are one of the biggest signs that your ex was a narcissist. The more shallow and transactional your relationship was, the bigger the chance that your ex used you for personal gain and discarded you when he or she got tired of it or realized you could no longer reach his or her emotional, physical, or financial expectations.
For narcissists, a relationship is a means of getting what they need. When they no longer need it or find someone else who could provide them with even more relationship benefits, they detach from their partner and attach to someone else. They monkey-branch and act like their ex doesn’t exist.
No one can figure out if your ex was a narcissist but you. But you have to look at the full picture and see if your ex was:
- Capable of investing in you even after the infatuation stage.
- Willing to do what you wanted or needed even if your ex couldn’t benefit from it.
If your ex did things for you occasionally, it may be that your ex wasn’t a narcissist or only had certain narcissistic tendencies. Your ex may have been extremely immature, selfish, arrogant, and inconsiderate, but not a full-blown narc. If that’s the case, you probably noticed that your ex cared about you at times, but not all the time or in ways you wanted him or her to care.
Oftentimes, your ex prioritized his or he feelings and desires over yours and made you feel unimportant and replaceable.
With that said, here are some traits and behaviors you might have noticed in your ex if your ex was a narcissist.
Although you shouldn’t ignore people, you can test your ex’s narcissism by ignoring the narcissist when he or she reaches out. You can see if he or she gets furious or jealous and throws a tantrum. Ordinary dumpers typically don’t care if they’re ignored and replaced. They can handle it just fine.
It’s the narcissists that take ignoring personally due to their high expectations and inability to accept people’s behavior. They usually get angry and accuse their dumpee ex of being uncaring or mean even though they could be described the same way.
Personally, I don’t think your ex’s narcissism is worth exploring. It’s better for your recovery to leave the narc alone and focus on your healing instead. You’ll heal faster if you distance yourself from people who’ve traumatized you and made you dependent on them for recovery.
Does it change how you feel?
If you think of your ex as a narcissist, you’ll probably feel a bit better about your ex’s uncaring behavior. You’ll take your ex’s behavior a bit less personally because you’ll associate it with a mental health condition your ex didn’t have much control over.
You might even pity your ex.
If your ex truly is a narcissist, branding him or her as one will essentially let you think negatively about your ex’s behavior and move on quicker. If your ex isn’t a narc, however, you’ll have to find other ways to accept the injustice that was done to you. You’ll have to focus on your ex’s negative traits and remember that your ex wasn’t perfect and that he or she made a lot of mistakes.
This will help you stop blaming yourself for your ex’s flaws and mistakes and encourage you to see things rationally. It would also help if you made a list of your ex’s bad traits and behaviors. Write down every time your ex disappointed or hurt you. Make sure to read it when you get nostalgic and scared and tempted to take all the blame.
Of course, you shouldn’t just blame your ex for everything and not take any accountability for your actions and inactions. If you do that, you won’t be any better than your ex. You’ll appear narcissistic yourself and ignore the need to improve yourself.
It’s extremely important to acknowledge your mistakes but not let them hurt you and affect your happiness and self-esteem. If you let them mess with your perception of yourself, you’ll need much longer to process the abandonment. You’ll need to forgive yourself for your mistakes as well as let go of false hope and unprocessed feelings.
Whether your ex was a narcissist, had narcissistic traits, or was an immature/selfish or decent person, reflect on the relationship and acknowledge your and your ex’s flaws and mistakes. Do it so you can grow from the breakup and avoid similar people and mistakes in the future.
The breakup is an opportunity for ex-couples to evolve. If you take it seriously, you’ll stop caring about your ex’s issues and start caring about yours. You’ll invest in parts of your life that need investing and move on knowing what behaviors to avoid in your next relationship
I know it helps to brand your ex as a narcissist and focus hard on his or her uncaring behavior, but try not to overdo it. Focus on it mainly when you’re blaming yourself and struggling to love yourself. When you’re in control of your thoughts and feelings, do your best to focus on more productive things.
This can be self-development, friends, family, work, hobbies, or anything that keeps you busy and makes you happy. Sooner than later, you’ll realize that narcissists don’t deserve your attention and that they’ve got a hard life ahead of them.
Do you think your ex was a narcissist? What were some of the things your ex did to reveal his or her true identity? Let us know in the comments below.
And if you’re looking for help with your narcissistic ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, check out our coaching services. We do email and phone coaching.
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.
