What to Do If You’re in a Relationship With a Self-Centered Partner

Being in a relationship with someone who is highly narcissistic is fraught with challenges. You love this person, but you fear that disaster is just around the corner. You experience constant demands for attention along with the constant sense that you’re being manipulated, you wonder what the future will hold.

Kristen is in precisely this situation. She somewhat knew what she was in for when she fell head over heels in love with her partner, but she is also beginning to resent those constant demands. She also becomes both irritated and scared by her partner’s tendency to lash out when she fails to do exactly what she’s asked to do. Is Kristen’s relationship doomed or can there be hope?

The Effect of Narcissism on Relationship Dynamics

A new study by Friedrich Schiller University Jena’s Anna Braig and colleagues (2026) provides intriguing insights into the evolution of romantic relationships when one partner is high on narcissism. They began with the assumption that people change in socially desirable ways as they navigate the decades from the 20s to the 40s. What’s more, “romantic relationships are known to be a key driver” of this trajectory of change.

The undesirable traits that may characterize young adults, the authors propose, are best thought of not in terms of the now-criticized “dark triad,” but in terms of a constellation that they refer to as antagonistic/self-centered (ASC) traits. At its core, ASC comes closest to the “agentic” (i.e. active) qualities of narcissistic admiration.

It should come as no surprise that ASC-traits would not be exactly desirable for people in any kind of long-term romantic relationship. Like Kristen, having a partner high in these traits could foretell a rough path ahead. However, Braig et al. feel that because relationships can impact and perhaps improve personality development, one could imagine a scenario in which, should Kristen hang in there, she could modify her partner’s self-aggrandizing and aggressive qualities.

Testing the Relationship’s Impact on Personality Change

With a large representative sample from the German Family Panel (pairfam), the authors had at their disposal data from three times of testing, each two years apart on measures of ASC-traits and relationship outcomes. Both members of the couple provided data on their relationship (a method known as APIM, or actor-partner interdependence model), but only one (the “anchor”) provided ASC-trait data.

The three ASC scales assessed the qualities formerly known as the dark triad; specifically, Machiavellianism (“I tend to manipulate others to get my way”), psychopathy (“I tend to lack remorse”) and narcissism’s two dimensions of admiration (“I deserve to be seen as a great personality” and rivalry (“Most people are somehow losers”).

In addition to relationship satisfaction and commitment, two key measures of relationship quality, participants also completed a measure of reciprocity with items such as “When I do [name of partner] a favor, I expect something in return,” and “If I give up something or give into [name of partner], I expect him/her to show appreciation.” Measures of verbal aggression included items in which each partner rated the amount of “yelling at” or “insulting" lashed out at the partner.

The intensive relationship and personality data analysis produced a wealth of data, but overall showed that changes in narcissism, including its subdimensions of admiration and rivalry, was most strongly related to changes in relationship dynamics over time. The other components of the ASC-traits did not produce significant results, further supporting the idea that the dark triad isn’t a solitary unit. Overall, however, higher levels of ASC-traits in the anchor partner predicted lower levels of relationship satisfaction.

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Even more important in the findings were those involving reciprocity. An orientation toward reciprocity would suggest that you have a “tit for tat” relationship with your partner. Ideally, partners don’t have these expectations at the forefront of their relationship because they don’t mind doing things for each other. As the authors noted, “phases of imbalance are presumably common and may not be perceived as problematic” because partners think in terms of a “long-term equilibrium” instead of “immediate exchange”.

Overall, narcissistic admiration showed changes over time that correlated with changes in reciprocity orientation. This suggests that narcissism, unlike Machiavellianism or psychopathy, might be amenable to the feedback effects of the partner. Specifically, the highly narcissistic partner might change over time with partners who are able to “assert their own needs more explicitly in order to maintain balance in the relationship”.

Keeping the Narcissistic Partner in Line

If indeed it is possible to retrain the narcissistic partner by standing up for yourself, these findings would have important implications for people like Kristen. Apart from any of the nastier elements of narcissism, such as verbal aggression, it seems as if it is possible to deal with the strong needs for admiration that her narcissistic partner has.

Indeed, because the findings also suggested that the potential attraction a person might have toward a partner high in narcissistic admiration will fade over time, it would seem that Kristen’s best bet is to assert herself early on in the relationship to keep things from going completely downhill.

The findings also have more general implications for understanding personality change over time as a response to relationship dynamics. That the hard edges of the person high in ASC-traits could moderate or soften over time provides support for the idea that personality is not set in stone in your early twenties. Consider also that the Braig et al. study only looked at personality change in terms of relationship dynamics. There are potentially many other ways the highly narcissistic might be cut down, such as when job experiences fail to reinforce their inflated sense of self.

To sum up, although people high in undesirable traits may appear to be intractable, through the joint dynamics of interacting with partners who don’t reinforce those traits, it is possible for people to find fulfillment even in the most unlikely of partners.