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In adult romantic love, there is an unconscious precedent to utilize relational tendencies and strategies of attachment that were initiated in childhood. Another way of saying this is that we don’t just love in a straightforward way – we love based on issues we have not yet resolved from the past and with adaptations that originated in our past.   Narcissistic and codependent patterns in romantic love relationships are perhaps the best and most obvious example of how relational adaptations originating early in life continue into adulthood, and usually with profoundly negative consequences.

 

Let me unpack this a bit.

 

Early in life, even the first weeks and months, the infant forges an attachment bond with the primary caregiver, usually the mother, upon whom the infant relies for all of its needs. At the core of this bonding experience is the infant’s reaching out for the caregiver – for warmth, support, empathy, and comfort, … and the caregiver responds.

 

Of course there is never a perfect connection in which the caregiver responds exactly how the infant needs and wants. And under certain conditions the infant’s needs with regard to the caregiver may be responded to that are profoundly inadequate. I am not talking here about obvious trauma such as physical abuse, but, rather, more subtle misalignments in which the infant is left feeling NOT “reflected” by the caregiver– that is, the infant’s emotional states and needs are not mirrored by the caregiver nor appropriately managed.

 

If this continues across time and becomes a consistent pattern, the infant begins to feel as if his or her experience is flawed in some way, or that what the infant needs is too much for the caregiver or does not correspond to what the caregiver desires to give. If this occurs, developmental psychologists and other theorists believe that the infant suffers what is called a narcissistic injury – that is, during the early period of life when the infant’s experience is supposed to be fully reflected by and responded to by caregivers (providing the child with a deep sense of affirmation and validation — what is called narcissistic grandiosity) – the infant in turn is left feeling narcissistically squashed – not being “seen” or validated as worthwhile, good, important, and of value.

 

For the narcissistically injured child, it appears to be the case that what then develops is a psychological defensive strategy. Given the failed responsiveness of the caregiver, the child’s mind forms an adaptation, a defensive style of relating to prevent future injury.

 

This defensive style of relating originates in the incomplete or failed mirroring by the caregiver and takes shape in one of two distinctive relational strategies: one strategy, the narcissistic strategy, is to simply give up needing anything from significant others in one’s life so as never to be disappointed again by an invalidating response. This involves disconnecting from any dependency needs or mutual investment in others, and instead always seeking to elevate oneself over others and to criticize and disempower others so that the individuality and unique significance of others (what actually triggers narcissistic vulnerability in a narcissist) can be reduced or eliminated.

 

The other strategy involves a kind of corollary position in comparison to the narcissistic strategy – that is, unlike the narcissist who attempts to diminish the importance of others while elevating oneself, the codependent strategy involves a commitment to appealing to the needs and wants of others while simultaneously sacrificing the needs of oneself.

 

In essence, the codependent abandons his or her own needs instead of trying to get them met, and instead focuses all attention on complying with the other, endorsing the other, and censoring oneself in deference to the other. In the most severe codependent character structures, the codependent literally becomes the other – thinking and believing what the other thinks and feels, in essence turning into the other, much like what may occur in a cult in which the cult leader implicitly or explicitly demands from his/her followers an overhauling and censorship of any expression of uniqueness or individuality, anything that deviates from the leader’s contentions.

 

In your adult romantic relationships there is the opportunity to reflect on the extent to which you may unconsciously utilize narcissistic and/or codependent strategies to negotiate interpersonal connection, and also the degree to which you may gravitate toward people who evidence narcissistic or codependent qualities and characteristics. Most of us are never entirely narcissistic or entirely co-dependent — in fact, many of us fall somewhere on the continuum between narcissistic and codependent tendencies, and at certain times and under certain conditions we may even adopt relational tendencies that are uncharacteristic of our dominant style. Nevertheless, to the degree to which you do utilize these relational styles, it is hard but profoundly fulfilling work to extricate yourself from these defensives and discover that relationships may be more manageable and fulfilling when more appropriate boundaries and acts of assertion are employed.

 

It is also the case that most of us, due to our own childhood histories, seem to be drawn to people (romantically, professionally) who are themselves dominated by narcissistic or codependent tendencies. For example, if you’ve ever had a narcissistic director, manager or boss you’ve encountered in the workplace, you are well aware of how difficult it is to work with such a person, a person who must see in you — not you — but them. Disembedding from personal and professional relationships with individuals like this is challenging and takes tremendous fortitude but can encourage tremendous growth and self-affirmation.