- A narcissist is likely cheating if they frequently lie using bad excuses, distance themselves from you, or engage in suspicious behavior online.
- They also may go back and forth between affectionate and abusive behavior in order to keep you insecure and uncertain about their cheating.
- Gather the facts and decide what you want in the relationship before you calmly confront your partner.
Signs a Narcissist is Cheating
They lie to you about everything, big and small. You find them giving suspicious answers that you later find out aren’t true. They’ll lie repeatedly about their whereabouts after work yesterday, about their childhood, or about their romantic history. Narcissists are prone to tricking people about trivial things because they use it to prove to themselves that they're smarter than other people. As a result, they might end up going overboard on their lies when they're trying to hide their cheating. These lies often turn into gaslighting, which is when they try to make you question your own sanity in order to get you to believe a lie. This could happen when you try to bring up warning signs of infidelity–they might try to make you believe you’re crazy in order to get you to back down. Lying is generally a trait of narcissism, but it’s a sign of cheating if you find them consistently lying about a friend of theirs or about where they’ve been recently.
They keep their distance from you. They don’t commit too much to you in order to provide plausible deniability if they get caught cheating. They might reject labels, refuse to make promises of exclusivity, or suddenly back away from your relationship and ask for more space. This could also be a sign of an avoidant attachment style, but if they also repeatedly lie, disregard your feelings, and imply they’re better than everyone else, it’s a part of narcissist cheating patterns.
They accuse you of cheating. Narcissists get defensive when they’re accused of something and end up projecting their own wrongdoing on someone else. If you tell them you’re worried they’re being disloyal, they may flip it back on you and tell you that you’re the one acting disloyal. This tactic is really frustrating, but it’s important to remember that you know what you’ve observed and that you’re not in the wrong.
They’re engaged in suspicious online behavior. They might always be on their phone texting someone, but then they lie and say they’re just scrolling through Instagram when you confront them. You might also spot them showering love and compliments on others on social media if they’re preparing to have an affair with someone else. Check their social media accounts and the social media accounts of the people they might be interested in if you want to see if they’re devoting their attention to another romantic prospect. Watch out for them smiling or blushing at their phone a lot, giving nervous looks to you while they’re texting, or quickly hiding their screen when you come by. They might get a thrill out of texting their other lover while you’re around since it reinforces their satisfaction at getting away with it.
They retaliate against you when you don’t do what they want. If you start to suspect they’re cheating and ask to see their texts, they might respond with even more controlling measures for you, like giving them all your passwords and asking them before texting other people. They could also try to get revenge on you by starting rumors about you being unfaithful when it’s really them who’s cheating. Their retaliation can be really scary, but the most important thing is to disengage and not react. They’re looking for a big reaction to validate their importance, so resist their manipulation without responding with vengeance of your own.
They give bad excuses rather than owning up to their mistakes. When you confront them with evidence that they did something wrong, they never apologize. Instead, they claim that it’s your fault, that they’re the victim of crazy haters or an elaborate conspiracy, or they try to delay the conversation. If you bring up something that someone said that contradicts a lie of theirs, they’ll insult the reputation of the person who told you that, saying they’re crazy or mean.
They make you doubt your own self-worth. When you question their loyalty, they lash out at you by insulting you, making you think that you don’t deserve love, or telling you that you could never date someone better than them. They can also make you feel insecure by ignoring you for long periods of time, making you lonely and reliant on their inconsistent attention. They make you feel inferior because they need to feel superior. It’s nothing about you; it’s about their insecure and inflated sense of self.
They're hot and cold. One day, they're almost too affectionate and loving, and the next, it's back to a cold relationship. This is called ‘love-bombing.’ They shower you with extravagant gifts and attention—so much it might make you feel uncomfortable—to manipulate you into staying with them. They also do this to reward you for believing their excuses and staying with them. Before long, though, their love will fade and they’ll go back to insulting you and questioning your sanity. They might do this to make you feel guilty about your suspicions and doubt your judgments of them as disloyal, but intense love-bombing is really just another form of manipulation. It’s not a sign of loyalty, love, or a healthy relationship.
They suddenly change their intimacy patterns. They might seem disinterested in sex since they have a new sexual relationship, or they might start trying a bunch of new things in bed to try and distract you from their infidelity. Whatever the shift is, the key is looking for a sudden change in their sexual behavior that happens with no explanation. They could be using sex to control you one way or another.
They start fights for no reason. In order to cheat, they need time away from you, so they blow up out of nowhere to make you both upset. Then, once you both say you need some time apart to cool off, that gives them a window to pursue their affair for a day or two. Little disagreements can also be a false justification for larger problems in the relationship like their infidelity. By nit-picking and arguing about tiny things, they manufacture their unhappiness in order to feel like they're justifying their infidelity.
How to Respond
Gather facts about their behavior. Narcissists will always try to weasel out of an accusation, so prepare concrete facts to show them that you know what they’re doing and you won’t be gaslit. With evidence, your worries will be much harder for them to dismiss. You can take screenshots of their social media or texts to you, read back through your journals to remember how they acted on a specific day, and talk to other people that know them in order to gather facts. Be aware that they might react like you’re being nosy or controlling by gathering information. Don’t do anything too invasive, like hacking a social media account, taking pictures of them without their permission or following them without them knowing.
Process your emotions. You probably have complicated emotions about your narcissistic partner, so take the time to notice your feelings and the impact that your partner has on you. Understand where both you and your partner are coming from. Understanding yourself will help you make a decision and explain your feelings clearly to your partner when the time comes. Write a pro-con list for the relationship or create a bullet list of all the different ways that they make you feel. Note how often you experience the good or bad parts of your relationship. Which is more frequent? This might help you decide whether to stay or leave the relationship. Recognize if you’re in a toxic relationship. If they consistently care more about themselves than you, try to control you, and frequently devalue you, you’re better off without them.
Make a decision about your relationship. Decide once and for all to leave them if the relationship feels narcissistic, deceptive, and controlling. If they show real improvement for a sustained period of time, you can consider staying with them, but keep in mind that a narcissist might be manipulating you. If you decide to stay, set firm rules and boundaries for their behavior to prevent them from hurting you again.
Confront your partner about their behavior. Write down what you want to tell your narcissistic partner and then confront them, telling them what you are going to do gently but firmly. Don’t deviate from your plan, even if they protest or seem to say all the right things. Stay relaxed and non-reactive, even if they blow up and make a big scene. Don’t validate them with the big reaction they want. Once they realize you might leave them, they will try to tempt you to stay, but their promises are likely hollow. If they have been abusive in the past, be careful as you navigate leaving the relationship. Get help from someone you trust or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline to get assistance in leaving the relationship.
Go to therapy if you're having a hard time processing the relationship. Narcissists can cause you real trauma and make it hard for you to love yourself and others again after the relationship. A therapist will help you recover from their deception and abuse by rebuilding the way you see yourself and helping you recognize the ways you were mistreated. Even if you don't feel deeply traumatized, a therapist could help you understand how to build a healthier relationship.
Why Narcissists Cheat
They feel they’re more important than anyone else. Narcissists think that they're better than everyone else and that the normal rules of relationships don't apply to them. They feel entitled to more love and partners than other people. They also feel like they get a pass to disregard promises they've made their partner.
Narcissists enjoy manipulating people into loving them. Other people are just pawns in their chess game, and they like twisting the game to their advantage. A narcissist’s manipulations make them feel powerful and special, and cheating is one way to manipulate the people around them.
They often lack the empathy to feel bad when they hurt others. Narcissists have a hard time considering the negative effects of their actions on others and treating others’ emotions as important. They only think about what they get out of a situation, and cheating gets them more than what they had before. Other people’s feelings don’t get consideration, so they cheat.
They crave attention. Narcissists need a lot of love and praise to maintain their delusions of self-importance. As a result, they might need to cheat to feed their ego and get more attention than one person alone can give them. It's not your fault, though: some narcissists always crave more and more attention. Even the heartbreaking fallout from an affair can validate them by giving them more attention and a sense of power. Sometimes, negative attention still feeds a narcissist’s sense of self-importance.
They lack self-control. Narcissists often make impulsive decisions based on their split-second urges, which is a recipe for disaster when it comes to a committed relationship. If one day they want to have sex outside of their relationship, they might do it without a second thought.
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