How do they react to your attainment of fame, wealth or social status, or your accomplishment of an aim or purpose?
They will most often give up whatever they're doing, whatever they're trying to accomplish and they will then take on the supportive role in your success. They will act as though they are trying to support you. They will even portray this image that they were the reason for your success. They will then use this as an excuse to take control of what you're doing. Now they're the ones making the decisions, they're the ones who are deciding what happens next. Because they're envious of your success, they want it for themselves, they want the fruits of your labour without doing any of the work.
They portray this image of being the reason for your success, as though you couldn't have done it without them. They will lie about it to people, to the point where they begin to believe it themselves and then they will even expect a share of your success. They will feel as though you owe them something, even though they never did anything to support you. They have a strong sense of entitlement. If you do not hand over a share of your success, they will find a way to take it from you. Because deep down they don't even believe that you deserve it. They believe that they are more deserving than you are, even if they did nothing to earn it. They have an exaggerated sense of their abilities and importance. They believe that they brought more to the table than they actually did. So now they expect an exaggerated return
on their exaggerated investment.
If you don't give in and just hand over whatever they're looking for, they will then resort to sabotaging your success. They will try to find ways to sabotage whatever you're doing. They might steal your money or property, they might start a smear campaign and turn everyone against you or your work. If they cannot be in control of it, they might as well run it into the ground. That's just how they see it. They don't want a piece of the pie, they want the entire thing. They expect you to hand it over to them and if you don't give it to them willingly, they will find an underhanded way to take it from you.
When you don't hand over the reins to them, they see it as though you're attacking them. You're not letting them benefit from from your hard work and success. This is something they feel that they're entitled to, they believe that you owe them the world. So when you refuse to give them that power and control, they feel like you're deliberately trying to make their life inconvenient and you're trying to hurt them. That is when they will do whatever it takes to rob you of your power, even though it is rightfully yours. They believe that they are inherently deserving of it, just because they want it. Once they have stolen your success, they will then become haughty or disdainful. They develop this sense of being arrogantly superior, proud and vain. They show an excessively high opinion of their appearance, abilities and worth.
Even though they've just stripped you of your power, they will expect you to validate their false self and the illusion that they're trying to portray. They will expect you to associate your success with them and even hand over the fruits of your labour to them. If this is something that you're not capable of doing or something that you just don't want to do, they will then try to take your success and remove you from the equation. So now it's just them and your success, but they're telling everyone that they earned it and it's feeding their ego, making them feel really nice. But it isn't real, it's all a lie and deep down they know this. In some cases they might not go as far as to actually take your success from you, but they will be leeching off of your time, energy and money. To the point where your work ethic begins to fail. You're no longer able to work as hard as you once did, you're no longer getting the same results.
People see the image of the narcissist supporting you, but what they don't see is how they're actually taking up all of your time and draining the energy out of you. There's really nothing you can say to the narcissist. They're not flexible to your needs, they cannot adapt to your situation and what you would require from them. Because they're only focused on themselves, they're only focused on their own needs and over time this begins to affect your results. This begins to take up your time, until you have no more time for yourself. No more time for your work and no energy to do the work. Now there's more money going out than
there's coming in, there's less money for your investments, less money for you to live the life that you deserve and the life that you rightfully earned. You're supporting someone who is not supporting you. You're supporting someone who is taking from you and giving back the bare minimum or nothing in return. But if you were to ask them, they would say that they are supporting you. They would say that they're the ones keeping it all together and that is why everything stays the same, that is why nothing ever changes. Because they cannot acknowledge what they're even doing, they have to protect their false self.
So now you're stuck with no time for yourself, no time to do what you need to do to maintain your success and no energy or motivation to do anything. Gradually the money is depleting
until you're left with nothing. But just because you don't have anything now, it doesn't mean the narcissist is suddenly going to acknowledge everything they did wrong. They're going to blame you. They're going to see it as though you failed them, as though you're not good enough. They will then use that as an excuse to discard you and they will then usually find someone else to do the same thing to all over again.
If you try to rebuild and over a period of time you are successful in doing this, the narcissist may come back. They might re-idealize you, but that is only so they can do the same thing again. They will use up all of your resources and then blame you for being unable to provide to them. Nothing ever changes because they never self-reflect, they don't look at their own behaviour and how it affects the people around them. Because they're too preoccupied with
their own interests or needs.
Excellent example of a narcissist.....Thanks NS!!!