Why Do Narcissists Show Off Their New Supply?

When a narcissist gets a new supply, it is very common for them to show off their new supply so that others can see. They’ll do so in such a convincing manner that it will seem like they have found the “perfect” person for them. Unsurprisingly, their theatrics with their new supply is just as manipulative and superficial as they are. This can be really confusing but grasping a comprehensive understanding of why narcissists show off their new supply should help guide you through the complexity of it all.

Narcissists show off their new supply to get as much narcissistic supply as they can from others, to devalue, degrade, and invalidate their old supply, and because they are love bombing their new supply to make them feel special and unique.

In this article you’re going to learn about all of the different reasons that narcissists show off their new supply. For those of you who are experiencing a narcissist showing off their new supply right now, being replaced by a narcissist is never easy and you might be tempted to warn the new supply about how abusive the narcissist is so we’ve created a short video below that explains why you usually shouldn’t warn the new supply so you can stay as safe as possible.

Narcissists Show Off Their New Supply to Get Narcissistic Supply From Others

The emotional stability of a narcissist requires an excessive amount of narcissistic supply, which is the validation, admiration, and reassurance of others. In the beginning stages of a narcissistic relationship, especially romantic ones, there is going to be a lot of narcissistic supply because narcissists try really hard to make the relationship as profitable for them as possible.  

But given the nature of a narcissistic relationship, the amount of validation, admiration, and reassurance that the narcissist is able to extract from their victim becomes less and less as the levels of invalidation, devaluation, dehumanization, degradation, minimization, and manipulation increase because they are trying to gain a significant amount of power and control over their victim.

When narcissists don’t have a sufficient amount of narcissistic supply, their sense of self and emotional stability begin to deteriorate. For narcissists, a lack of narcissistic supply is a very, very serious situation. Without enough narcissistic supply all of their negative emotions that they work hard to suppress within their psyche will be triggered and cause them to adopt a very depressed, vulnerable, and needy personality, like a covert narcissist. 

To prevent this from happening, narcissists will often discard their old source of supply for a new source of supply that can fulfill their needs. When they find their new source of supply, narcissists will be extremely deprived emotionally and in need of a ton of validation, admiration, and reassurance.

We spoke about this much more thoroughly in our articles Why Do Trauma Bonds Feel Like an Addiction and Can a Trauma Bond Become Healthy but through manipulative behaviors like mirroring, future faking, love bombing, and intermittent reinforcement, narcissists are able to get a ton of narcissistic supply from their new supply. But it is also very common for them to need to get supply from other sources as well. 

Those were only a few of the ways that a narcissist could show off their new supply to get narcissistic supply from others but because of how badly it can make the old supply feel, it is important that they remember that the narcissist’s theatrics with the new supply is just as superficial and manipulative as it is with any other relationship that they have.

An important disclaimer is that not all victims of narcissistic abuse experience the love bombing phase. Depending on the approach that the narcissist had in the beginning of the narcissistic relationship, there are a variety of different experiences one might have. We strongly suggest that you check out our article Why Do Trauma Bonds Happen if you believe that you never experianced the love bombing phase.

Narcissists Show Off Their New Supply to Devalue, Degrade, and Invalidate Their Old Supply

We wrote a lot about this in our article Why Do Narcissists Devalue Others but when a narcissist invalidates, devalues, dehumanizes, degrades, minimizes, and manipulates their victim, it actually helps them regulate all of their suppressed negative emotions that they’re too emotionally immature and inadequate to manage in healthier ways.

It is believed that their emotional immaturity and inadequacy originates from an abusive upbringing with unavailable, unresponsive, and inconsistent primary caregivers who didn’t mirror their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and needs. This means that the narcissist never got the validation, admiration, and reassurance that they need to have a healthy cognitive development and a realistic sense of self. 

This level of emotional neglect also causes the narcissist to develop a deeply rooted hatred for themselves because their unavailable, unresponsive, and inconsistent primary caregivers made them feel inadequate, weak, unloveable, and unwanted. 

But because of their emotional inadequacy and immaturity, they’re incapable of managing these negative emotions so they construct their sense of self out of the validation, admiration, and reassurance that they can get from their external environment and use all of that narcissistic supply to suppress their negative emotions.  

There’s a lot more information about this in our article How Are Narcissists Made but this is the reason that narcissists need so much validation, admiration, and reassurance, and it is also the reason that narcissists show off their new supply to devalue, degrade, and invalidate their old supply. 

By showing off their new supply to devalue, degrade, and invalidate their old supply, narcissists are reassuring themselves of their grandiose sense of self-importance, fulfilling their need to win or come out on top, chasing their fantasies of their ideal love, and soothing their insecure need for power and control. 

A narcissist’s need to show off their new supply to devalue, degrade, and invalidate their old supply is one of the clearest manifestations of how emotionally inadequate and immature narcissists really are because what they are doing is projecting all of their negative emotions onto their old supply by showing off the new supply. 

They are trying to devalue, degrade, and invalidate the old supply so that they feel inadequate, weak, unloveable, abandonable, unwanted, scared, and alone, which are all of the negative emotions that they feel about themselves. 

Projection is a defense mechanism where we take aspects of our own identity that we find unacceptable and place them onto other people. You can read a lot more information about this in our article Why Do Narcissists Use Projection but narcissists rely heavily on projection because it helps them protect their grandiose sense of self by helping them avoid acknowledging their negative emotions.

Narcissists Show Off Their New Supply Because They Are Love Bombing Their New Supply

One of the reasons that it can be so hard for victims of narcissistic abuse to watch the narcissist in their lives show off the new supply is because of how abusive, depressing, scary, and oppressing their relationship with the narcissist was.

Throughout the eternity of the relationship, narcissists are projecting all of their negative emotions onto their victim. This means that their victims become repositories for all of their suppressed negative emotions. 

By the time the narcissist decided that they want to find a new source of narcissistic supply, it is very common to see their victim defeated, feeling helpless and hopeless, neglecting their own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and needs, exhausted, and terrified of life without the narcissist because of the intensity and addictive component of the trauma bond.

When a narcissist begins to show off their new supply, victims of narcissistic abuse who are still feeling defeated, helpless and hopeless, neglecting their own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and needs, exhausted, and terrified, can be retraumatized by the narcissist’s “happy, healthy, and secure” new relationship with the new supply. It can make them feel incredibly inadequate, and plague their minds with self-doubt and self-blame.

But the truth is that the narcissist is showing off the new supply because they are in the early stages of the narcissistic abuse cycle, love bombing. While there are many different types of love bombing, it is often described as magical, special, unique, a once in a lifetime experience, fulfilling, and intense.

We covered this thoroughly in our article What Do Narcissists Do During the Love Bombing Phase but narcissists are using mirroring to absorb an extraordinary amount of information about their victim’s identity so that they can create a falsified identity that is designed to fill a void in the victim’s life. They are trying really hard to make the victim feel special, unique, and to be exactly who the victim needs them to be so they can manipulate them in the future. 

The amount of effort and attention to detail that narcissists put into their new supply often leads to them showing off their new supply to make them feel special and unique. It can feel horrible but it is important to remember that the narcissist is showing off their new supply because they are love bombing them. 

As time goes on, the relationship will go through the same abusive cycle that all narcissistic relationships go through until the narcissist decides it is time to find a new supply or the victim escapes the narcissistic abuse cycle.

What Should You Take Away From This Article?

Being replaced by a narcissist can be invalidating, devaluing, and degrading, but that is entirely up to you. Instead of wondering why the narcissist looks so happy with the new supply you should focus on educating yourself on narcissistic abuse so that you can get the answers and closure that you need because they come from within, not from the narcissist.

You should work really hard on regaining control of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and needs and our article How Do I Stop Thinking About My Narcissistic Ex is a fantastic resource to help you do that. Healing is a long and difficult journey so you should work on limiting the amount of distraction that you could potentially run into on your journey.

---

Disclaimer

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for clinical care. Please consult a health care provider for guidance specific to your case.