The Narcissistic Hokey-Pokey, Cycle of Abuse, and Narcissism Recovery

are they going to keep their foot out, or put it back in?

We’ve been exploring the role of personality type in narcissism recovery, and we’ve talked about the moving toward, moving away, and moving against personality types. As promised last week, today we’re taking a look at a common challenge you may be experience if you’re in a relationship with someone with narcissistic traits: You stay hopeful about the relationship, because although sometimes they’re an emotional 4-year-old, sometimes they’re an emotional adult.

One reason you may see this behavior is because personality is complex, and can’t be described in a single personality type.

Most people are a mix of moving against, moving away, and moving toward. Some people are a mix of moving toward and moving away; some are moving toward and moving against; and some are moving against and moving away. The rare exception is the individual who is all moving away.

Importantly, no one is all moving toward or all moving against. If you’re in a relationship with a moving against, they have a moving toward or a moving away side. That moving toward or moving away side may heavily influence their thoughts and behaviors—but only some of the time. 

And as we explored in last week’s post, narcissism runs on a spectrum, from too little narcissism to far too much narcissism. When you have too little narcissism, you fail to take care of your own needs. In healthy narcissism, you find a balance between how you think and feel, and how others think and feel. In unhealthy narcissism, you care more about how you think and feel than you do about others. The further into unhealthy narcissism you go, the more difficult it is for you to care about how others think and feel.

Some moving againsts, between their personality type and where they’re at on the narcissism spectrum, are on the cusp between healthy and unhealthy narcissism. They go back and forth between being an emotional adult and being an emotional 4-year-old. If things aren’t too emotionally challenging, they can be an emotional adult. But when they’re emotionally overwhelmed, they may engage in enough unhealthy narcissistic behavior to make it uncomfortable to be in relationship with them.

It’s as if they’re playing the narcissistic hokey-pokey, where sometimes they have one foot in healthy narcissism, and sometimes they put that foot into unhealthy narcissism. Because their other foot stays in unhealthy narcissism all the time, you go back and forth between being in relationship with an emotional adult, and being in relationship with an emotional child. Depending on what’s going on in their emotional world, they can be delightful to be with, or emotionally immature.

It’s important to note that this experience of going back and forth between healthy and unhealthy narcissistic behavior is different from the cycle of abuse, which many people in relationship with a person with narcissistic traits experience.

The cycle of abuse usually begins when the relationship begins—with the honeymoon phase, in which you’re being love bombed. The honeymoon phase fades into the tension phase, in which nothing bad is happening, but the other person is irritable, and you begin worrying about when they’ll explode. In the third and final stage, they engage in some kind of abusive behavior. They then return to the honeymoon phase, apologizing and promising it’ll never happen again. If you remain in the relationship, the cycle starts over again.

If you and your person with narcissistic traits are stuck in the abuse cycle, they have both feet in unhealthy narcissism all the time. What you’re experiencing during the honeymoon phase isn’t moments of the other person being an emotional adult.

We’ve talked about how people with narcissistic traits have all of the physical and intellectual capacity of an adult, but lack the emotional capacity of an adult. In the cycle of abuse, the honeymoon phase reflects the intellectual capacity of an adult, who has learned that apologizing, gifts, promises to change, etc., get them what they want—and what they want is for you to stay. They don’t have the emotional capacity to change.

If you’re stuck in the cycle of abuse, learning about the narcissistic hokey-pokey won’t be helpful. Instead, I urge you to seek support. Whether or not your person with narcissistic traits is willing to go to individual, couples, or family therapy, you will benefit from reaching out for support on your own.

The narcissistic hokey-pokey can feel like the honeymoon phase, because you’ll have times where the person with narcissistic traits is wonderful to be around. But unlike the abuse cycle, with its predictable cycles of behavior, the narcissistic hokey-pokey is unpredictable. Those wonderful or unpleasant moments are seemingly random. Clients report that their person with narcissist traits “was in such a good mood for no reason” or “all of a sudden was in a bad mood.” From the outside looking in, it’s hard to say what motivated the shifts from healthy to unhealthy narcissism and back again.

The challenge of the narcissistic hokey-pokey is that after the other person is kind, charming, and thoughtful—the way they were when they were love bombing you at the beginning of the relationship—it’s easy to think that finally, your person with narcissistic traits has changed. Hopefulness abounds!

But when your person with narcissistic traits goes back to being an emotional 4-year-old, you feel disappointed and hopeless. People usually blame themselves, then try to be “better” in whatever way they think will please the person with narcissistic traits.

In couples relationships, this often looks like “trying to be more understanding” of the person with narcissistic traits. Those efforts can range from being more supportive, being more helpful, or not talking about how narcissistic behavior is hurtful.

If that’s you, your efforts are highly likely to be ineffective. Your person with narcissistic traits is doing the narcissistic hokey-pokey because they lack the skills to be an emotional adult most of the time, rather than because of anything you’re saying or doing.

Sometimes people are able to leave relationships when they discover the person they’re in relationship with has narcissistic traits. Other times, people choose not to leave the relationship, or they’re not able to do so. If that’s you, and your person with narcissistic traits likes to dance the narcissistic hokey-pokey, then understanding the it and identifying the dance when it happens is essential for your sanity.

It’s draining to be constantly on edge, wondering whether your person with narcissistic traits will keep their foot out, or put their foot back in. When you understand how and why the narcissistic hokey-pokey happens, you can choose to stay solidly in your circle of control, and you don’t take responsibility for things you can’t change or influence.

Here’s how I talk with clients about this: Think of your person with narcissistic traits as being the owner of a small company. When you first started working with the company, you were working with their best and most charming salesperson.

But now that you’re working with this company on a daily, you’re dealing with different employees in different departments. You may find that the customer service rep is delightful, if not quite as charming as the salesperson. The employee in accounts receivable is polite, but not pleasant.

Continuing with this analogy, we know the owner of the small business is a moving against. When the owner isn’t an emotional adult, your experiences with the owner are far less pleasant than when you’re talking to the salesperson or the customer service rep! Because they own the company and don’t want to lose your business, your interactions with the owner are unpleasant, but they don’t cross the line to abuse or neglect.

So, if you know that the owner has narcissistic traits, and the accounts receivable rep is just polite, you won’t be surprised or disappointed when you call in to the company and your experience isn’t pleasant. In fact, you’ll be expecting that sometimes you’ll get an emotional adult, and sometimes you won’t. This makes it considerably easier to stay in your circle of control. And you’ll avoid the cycle of feeling hopeful, then feeling disappointed, over and over again.

Instead, you’ll be able to stay in the present—whether you’re talking to the charming salesperson, the delightful customer service rep, or the less-than-pleasant owner. Staying in the present allows you to appreciate and enjoy those times when your person with narcissistic traits has one foot in healthy narcissism. It also helps you stay in your circle of control when your person with narcissistic traits has both feet in unhealthy narcissism.

One last note: Whether you’re dealing with the narcissistic hokey-pokey or the cycle of abuse, being aware of first-order versus second-order change is essential. In short, first-order change is change that happens because of some outside force (like a partner insisting on therapy, or they’ll end the relationship). Second-order change happens because of an internal desire for change (going to therapy because you feel guilty about how you treat your partner).

People with narcissistic traits can get into therapy in response to an ultimatum from their partner (first-order change), and then, over time, decide that they’d like to change their behavior whether or not their partner stays with them (second-order change).

But because motivation is an internal process, it’s very difficult to tell from behavior whether change is first-order or second-order. Knowing the difference between them, and applying the patience necessary to determine whether change is first- or second-order, is imperative if you’d like to avoid being in a relationship with someone who isn’t sincere about making change. Check out my blog post on this topic here to learn more.

If you’re confident you’re in relationship with someone doing the narcissistic hokey-pokey, I encourage you to seek support from a therapist skilled in narcissism recovery. Just because the narcissistic hokey-pokey is different from the cycle of abuse doesn’t mean it’s easy to cope with it. And you deserve a lifetime of health and happiness!

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