How to Explain Your Narcissistic Relationship to Others

This is “How to Explain Your Narcissistic Relationship to Others.”

Read carefully because support is the key to healing and moving forward with your life.

But while opening up can take you from where you are today to where you want to be.

It can also be the thing that keeps you stuck if you approach it the wrong way.

So, how do you explain a narcissistic relationship the right way?

To find out, I spent 32 days interviewing mental health professionals and speaking to people inside our community who have found ways to successfully do this.

22 pages of notes later, I discovered the people who get the most support all focus on explaining the “how” instead of the “what.”

And this episode will walk you through the six questions you need to answer to do this.

If we’re just meeting — my name is Juliana Akin. I’m a founder of Unfilteredd, and we help you overcome the effects of narcissistic abuse so you can heal and move forward with your life.

Our goal when opening up is to get validation, understanding, and support.

But there are three challenges we run into:

1.) The stigma and misunderstanding surrounding the term “narcissist” causes people to dismiss or invalidate our experience before it’s even explained.

2.) The subtleness of narcissistic abuse makes what we open up about sound like “normal” relationship conflict or “not a big deal” to those who haven’t experienced it.

3.) The narcissist’s carefully crafted public persona makes it difficult for others to believe someone so quote-unquote perfect could be so abusive.

Your best chance at avoiding these challenges is walking people through your lived experience (the “how”), instead of defining everything that happened (the “what”).

AND you need to do this while consciously avoiding buzzwords like “narcissist,” “gaslighting,” and “love-bombing” to prevent immediate skepticism, dismissal, or misunderstanding.

To do this, our community has found the most success by finding natural ways to answer the following six questions when opening up to someone.

Question 1

The first question is “Why didn’t I see it?”

To answer this, you’ll want to focus on their image management skills with something like:

They act like a completely different person around other people.

In public, they’re charming, funny, generous — even loving.

But behind closed doors, they are often cold, manipulative, and cruel.

So when I try to talk about what happened, people don’t believe me.

They only see the good version — not the one I lived with.

Question 2

The second is “Why didn’t you say anything?”

To answer this, you’ll want to explain the manipulation with something like:

You know that saying, “death by a thousand cuts”?

That’s what our relationship was like.

There wasn’t one big, obvious moment — there were hundreds of little ones.

When I told them something that really mattered to me, they’d roll their eyes.

When I got excited about something, they’d tell me to “calm down.”

When I tried to set a boundary, they’d say, “You always find a way to ruin things.”

When I shared an idea, they’d say it was stupid or didn’t make any sense.

And when I cried, they’d stare at me and say, “You just love to play the victim.”

It was like every time I spoke, moved, or simply existed, they found a way to make me feel:

• small, 
• dramatic, 
• selfish, 
• crazy, 
• or wrong

I felt like I couldn’t trust myself with anything.

And I was constantly second-guessing my thoughts, feelings, needs, and perception of reality.

Question 3

The third question is “If it was so bad, why did you stay?”

To answer this, you’ll want to walk them through the narcissistic abuse cycle with something like:

Our relationship kept cycling through these four phases.

In the first phase, they were warm, affectionate, and kind.

In those moments, I could see myself spending my whole life with them.

In the second phase, they were cold, manipulative, and cruel most of the time.

But out of nowhere, they’d show glimpses of that loving version from the first phase.

That stopped me from leaving — because it felt like I’d be walking away from the love of my life.

So I stayed, hoping that if I just tried harder, the loving version of them would come back.

In the third phase, they’d end the relationship or act like I didn’t exist.

It hurt so much, because I didn’t want to lose them.

Then in the fourth phase, they’d come back.

They’d apologize, say they missed me, or pretend like nothing ever happened.

And I’d accept it.

Because it felt stupid to leave the love of my life right before they were about to change.

And just like that, the whole cycle would start again.

They’d be warm, affectionate, and kind — but it never lasted.

It felt like a slot machine at a casino.

Most of the time, I lost.

But I kept pulling the lever anyway — because the wins felt unbelievably rewarding.

Question 4

The fourth question is “But why did you put up with that for so long?”

To answer this, focus on trauma bonding and cognitive dissonance with something like:

They were the person hurting me.

But they were also the only one who could make the pain stop.

The long stretches of coldness, manipulation, and cruelty felt so painful.

But at the same time, the moments of warmth, affection, and kindness felt so relieving.

That mental tug-of-war was so confusing — because they were both my torturer and my savior.

I didn’t know if I should run — or stay.

But I did know that I loved them.

So I stayed, because it felt less painful than admitting someone I loved was also breaking me.

Question 5

The fifth question is “Can’t you just talk to them?”

To answer this, you’ll want to talk about narcissistic injury and DARVO with something like:

People say, “Why didn’t you just talk to them about it?”

But what they don’t understand is — I did.

I tried, over and over.

But anytime I brought up how I felt, they acted like I was attacking them or out of my mind.

It didn’t matter how calm or respectful I was — it always turned into a fight.

Suddenly, I was the one hurting them.

They’d say things like:

• “That’s not what happened.”
• “You always have to make a big deal out of everything.”
• “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

Then they’d pull away, shut down, or explode — and I’d be the one left apologizing.

Eventually, I stopped bringing things up.

Because trying to talk to them didn’t lead to resolution — it led to punishment.

It didn’t feel safe.

So no — I couldn’t “just talk to them.”

It was too dangerous.

Question 6

The sixth question is “So you didn’t do anything wrong?”

To answer this, you’ll want to touch on reactive abuse with something like:

Sometimes I slammed doors.

Sometimes I said things I wish I hadn’t.

Sometimes I shut down completely.

I’m not proud of it.

But what people don’t see is how I got there.

Little comments that made me feel stupid or selfish.

Interactions that left me questioning my reality.

Being blamed for things I didn’t say, didn’t do, or didn’t even know about.

It just kept coming and coming — until I snapped.

Then they’d step back — cool, calm, collected — and say:

“I can’t believe I have to deal with this.”

And you know what? 

They’re right.

You shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of behavior in a relationship.

I’m not blaming them for my actions.

But I do think some context is important here.

Because what they leave out is how hard they worked to provoke it.

They take five minutes of me acting a certain way — out of two months of them tearing me down — and twist it into a story where I’m the problem.

And because I was constantly second-guessing my thoughts, feelings, needs, and my perception of reality — I felt like I had no choice but to believe it.

Final Thoughts

Answering the six questions we talked about today has been an unbelievably effective approach our community has used to get validation, understanding, and support.

But it doesn’t work one-hundred percent of the time.

There have been many times we’ve opened up to someone and they didn’t believe us.

I try not to speak in absolutes, but in my opinion…

If you explain your narcissistic relationship the way I showed you today, and the person still doesn’t support you, they are not safe to be around while you’re healing.

They might be an enabler.

They might be a flying monkey.

Or they might have something else going on.

But I genuinely believe any rational person who truly cares about you will hear what you have to say, understand the seriousness of the situation, and support you.

So if you do run into someone who doesn’t do this, in next week’s episode I’ll teach you an eight-step process for setting boundaries so you can protect yourself from them.

And I’ll link to it here once it’s posted.

Read Now: How to Set Boundaries After a Narcissistic Relationship

Thank you for reading today’s episode of the Unfilteredd: Narcissistic Partners podcast.

If this was helpful and you’d like to read the next one, please subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll let you know as soon as the next episode is released.

My name is Juliana Akin, your guide to overcoming the effects of narcissistic abuse — and I can’t wait to connect with you in a future episode.

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