Narcissists love boundaries about as much as honey badgers enjoy a good cuddle. As such, if you’ve drummed up enough courage to set boundaries with the narcissist in your life, you can rest assured that they’ll react badly to them.
Interestingly, it’s almost as though they all received the same “how to be a nightmare” handbook, and as such, they tend to respond to boundary setting in the same predictable ways. The reactions listed below are the most common ones, and we’ve offered tips on how to handle them when they arise.
1. Angry insults and degradation.
Narcissists don’t like it when people stand up to them. In fact, just about everything they do is calculated so they can maintain power and control over others. As such, they might start insulting and degrading you in an attempt to feel better about themselves, and they may stoop to various forms of abuse.
If their anger is within a “tolerable” range and you don’t feel threatened by them, simply remove yourself from the situation. Hang up the phone, leave the vicinity, etc. In contrast, if they’re behaving in a threatening manner, or if they’re in your space and refuse to leave, don’t hesitate to call the police to have them removed. Your safety and security are paramount here.
2. Immediate attempts to overstep your boundary to reassert their control.
Most narcissists will immediately try to overstep the boundary that you’ve established to reassert their dominance over you. For example, if you make it clear that you want space and that they aren’t to phone you, they’ll call you day and night in an attempt to break you down until you relent and drop that boundary. Furthermore, they may try to discredit the reasons behind your boundary-setting, such as implying that you’re unwell and need help.
You can handle this by standing your ground and not caving in. For example, when I first went no-contact with my mother in my mid-twenties, I had to move to a new apartment and change my phone number because she would call or stop by to harass me at all hours. I even had to give her photo to the security guards at my workplace because she’d show up randomly to bother me there as well. She ended up being banned from the building because she wouldn’t stop trying to sneak past them. Do whatever is necessary to protect your peace.
3. Guilt-tripping and weaponized victimhood.
If anger hasn’t worked to put you back into the place where they want you to be, they’ll turn things around so they can play the aggrieved party. This is also the preferred method of behavior for vulnerable narcissists, who manipulate others by acting like the wounded victim, expecting others to pander to them by coming to their rescue and making them feel better.
Don’t fall for it. Stand your ground and make it clear that you’ve established your boundaries for good reason, and that their attempts to manipulate them won’t be tolerated. Be forewarned that they may get extreme with their self-victimization and threaten to harm themselves. At this point, you call their bluff by sending emergency services to their home. They’ll either be humiliated by the experience or get placed in a temporary psych hold to determine whether they actually need intervention or not.
4. Complaints to those in your shared social circle.
Narcissists love their smear campaigns. Rest assured that when you set a boundary with yours, they’ll go above and beyond to poison your social network against you. They’ll twist whatever happened to paint you as a monster and them as a victim, so they can “win” everyone over to their side and leave you without a social net.
Your best defense in a situation like this is evidence. If you’ve been communicating primarily via text, don’t hesitate to share those exchanges with your social groups so they can see firsthand what kind of abuse you’ve been subjected to.
Another thing you can do is to communicate with your narcissist on speakerphone when you have several members of that social group nearby. You can’t be accused of being a lying monster when half a dozen witnesses have heard their vitriol towards you.
5. Retaliation.
The boundary you’ve set with your narcissist will be seen as a personal attack. Basically, anything they perceive to be a barrier to them getting what they want is something that needs to be destroyed. And the one who puts up said barrier needs to be punished for having the audacity to do that to them. As such, be prepared for them to do something truly awful in an attempt to make your life a living hell.
The best thing you can do is be proactive with your defense. Let people like your partner, their family, your employer, your bank manager, etc., know that you’re being harassed by an abuser (share the narcissist’s name with them), and to please let you know if they try to slander you or otherwise imply wrongdoing on your part.
Depending on where you live, you may also be able to file a pre-emptive police report about harassment. That way, if the narcissist tries to implicate you in some heinous wrongdoing, there’s already information on file about their abuse towards you.
6. The silent treatment.
Many narcissists think that it’s an enormous punishment for them to give you the silent treatment. They believe they’re so important in other people’s lives that their absence in yours will teach you a lesson about how much they actually mean to you. While this can be a blessing in many ways, it can also be difficult if you have to communicate with them for things like shared childcare, legal documents, and so on.
If you don’t have to communicate with this person, then let them stay away. You’ve been wanting space from them for a long time, so by all means — enjoy the silence. Alternatively, if you’re forced to interact with them for custody or similar reasons, then communicate through a third party if you can, such as a guardian ad litem who’s representing your children.
7. Promises to change as a means of getting close again (aka “hoovering”).
When it comes to a narcissist’s promises, their actions rarely, if ever, match their words. After giving you the silent treatment for a while, they’ll usually come back in tears, crying about the epiphany they’ve had about how their actions affected you, and how they’re sorry and want to make it up to you.
This is when you let them know that it’ll take a while for you to believe them, considering their previous behavior towards you, and that actions speak much louder than words. You’ll be willing to believe that they’re sincere about what they’re saying if they change their ways and remain changed. They usually can’t maintain this facade for long and will then get furious with you when they slip back into old behaviors, and you call them out on it.
8. Punishment.
If you decide to give them another chance because they’ve managed to convince you that they’ve changed and want to be better, they’ll behave for just long enough to get close to you again. Then they’ll stab you in the back in whichever manner will do the most damage to punish you for daring to establish any kind of boundary with them.
For example, if you agree to get back together with your narcissistic partner, you may come home from work one day to discover that they’ve sold all your belongings and had your pets put to sleep.
The best way to avoid being punished by a narcissist is to keep them as far away from you as possible. Even if you want to try reconciliation, do not give them access to anything important in your life. Don’t allow them into your home, don’t share any personal details that can be used against you.
Treat them like a rabid wolverine that is currently on its best behavior, with full awareness that it may attack you at any moment. On the off chance that you slip up and give them the chance to punish you, do whatever is needed to get the justice you need, and cut them out of your life permanently.
Final thoughts…
This is a difficult truth to reconcile, but it needs to be understood: there is no “winning” with a narcissist. You might be able to broker an uneasy peace for a little while, but they’ll inevitably try to gain dominance over you whenever an opportunity arises to do so.
As such, although it’s noble to finally set boundaries with the narcissist in your life, you need to be prepared to do one of two things: fiercely defend that boundary forever, never letting your guard down, or walk away permanently for the sake of your own safety and sanity.
