How and Why Narcissists Weaponize New Partners Against Exes

Many narcissists race targets to win over the most allies and enablers. Their main motive is to discredit victims before the truth becomes public—to be the first to present “facts.”

Within communal contexts—e.g., families, religious groups, and workplaces—this calculated sabotage can look like collective gaslighting, public victim-blaming and victim-playing, public shaming, social shunning, spreading rumors, and even provoking-then-pathologizing to make someone look too reactive to be believable.

Yet, narcissists also often work undercover, during one-on-one, closed-door conversations about their targets. These secretive and defamatory discussions happen with authority figures and bosses, colleagues and peers, and, perhaps most intimately, with new dating partners who may be trying to learn more about the narcissist via their relationship history.

Narcissists often exploit in new partners an unspoken obligation to prove one’s commitment, loyalty, and protectiveness. They know that the beginning of relationships can feel tentative, probationary, and fraught with baggage in terms of trust issues. Thus, new partners—even if they are not otherwise gullible—can be unknowingly groomed to resent the narcissist’s ex-partner/former supply.

By victim-playing to a new lover who is eager to prove their emotional intelligence and capacity to be a safe space, the narcissist manipulates them into feeling that sharing enemies is a necessary rite of passage or sacrifice for the relationship to solidify.

Even worse, some narcissists can convince new partners that feeling resentment toward the narcissist’s ex isn’t enough—that they are not truly loyal unless they are actively surveilling, shaming, and sabotaging the narcissist’s ex-partner/former supply.

This guilt-tripping stipulation escalates the new partner’s animosity from discrediting, disbelieving, and distrusting the narcissist’s ex, to destabilizing and dominating them.

What is more, some narcissists successfully coach new partners to cloak disrespect and hostility with just enough thinly-veiled anonymity, indirect sarcasm, and passive aggression to evade accountability for instigating conflict.

By this point, it is likely that the narcissist not only has blamed, defamed, pathologized, and villainized their ex, but also projected their own nefariousness.

It is the narcissist who is dangerous, suspicious, and threatening; and yet, the narcissist likely has convinced the new partner that they need offensive, proactive protection from their ex.

Why the Deception?

Many narcissists see constructive criticism or feedback as an attack on their dignity and self-worth, rather than an invitation to reflect upon specific actions or behavioral patterns. According to researchers of narcissism, this hypersensitivity might emerge due to overindulgent parenting or—at the opposite end of the continuum, severe familial/relational trauma (e.g., abandonment, neglect, social exclusion).

Either extreme could leave a child, teen, or young adult ill-equipped to handle any degree of correction or rejection in adulthood, possibly leading them to confuse a boundary or limit with rejection/shame. Anything other than constant external validation can feel threatening, triggering either a demanding sense of entitlement, or low self-worth, from early life experiences.

The possibility of confronting their flaws and infallibility, especially in relational contexts, presents a real fear. To avoid this threat at all costs, narcissists often overcompensate by developing a grandiose self-concept where they are never out of control, never mistaken, never incorrect, never immoral, and never hurtful—and no one else is allowed to suggest otherwise.

Believing that this level of perfectionism is reality requires manipulation of self and others, which is why most narcissists are so invested in dictating perception and controlling people. In fact, a hallmark sign of narcissism is denialism and an impervious refusal to admit wrong in the face of evidence and facts.

Most narcissists will stop at nothing to rationalize why their hurtful and traumatizing actions make sense—they will rebut with excuse after excuse for why their abuse, bullying, and/or relational aggression is/was justified.

Glaring hypocrisy won’t embarrass them, neither will indisputable evidence that exposes their lies and embellishments, nor will backlash for toeing the line between villainizing and dehumanizing. Their only goal is to re-affirm their unrealistic self-concept that they are always the winner, and, most importantly, to squelch any personal or collective doubt by recruiting as many enablers as possible.

This is where the manipulation of loved ones—like family, close friends, and new partners—comes in. Research often refers to these individuals as the narcissist’s “supply” because they are who the narcissist uses to validate their embellished conflict narratives and inflated self-concept. Not only that, but the narcissist may use favoritism, flattery, gifts, or other rewards to groom them into believing that the narcissist treats everyone so well, and that any victim speaking out about a shadow side must be lying.

And many narcissists—even if they are lacking in emotional intelligence—are still socially astute enough to know that possibly no one will defend them from reality and the truth better than someone falling in love or wrapped around their finger.