Today's Tuesday • 8 mins read
Your friends stopped calling. Family visits feel tense. Somehow, the person who claims to love you the most has become your only connection to the world.
This isolation didn’t happen overnight, and it’s not your fault.
Abusive men, like narcissists, use a pattern of behaviors called coercive control to subjugate women, including domestic violence, intimidation, resource control, and social isolation.
Coercive control within intimate relationships refers to an ongoing pattern of behaviors which, taken together, serve to dominate, undermine, and restrict the freedom of an individual. — Evan Stark, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (2007)
How Narcissists Cut You Off From Others
Narcissists rarely start with overt control. Their subtle tactics seem harmless, or even loving, at first.
They gradually isolate you from your friends, family, and professional network. The goal is to make you totally dependent on the narcissist for validation, support, and connection.
This is how they isolate you:
- They Weaponize Jealousy Over Your Other Relationships
- They Discourage You From Attending Social Events
- They Track Your Messages And Conversations
- They Plant Doubts About People You Trust
- They Use Triangulation and Flying Monkeys
- They Reframe Themselves As The Victim
- They Impose Financial Control
1. They Weaponize Jealousy Over Your Other Relationships
A narcissist frames jealousy as proof of love: “I love you so much that I’m jealous when you’re with anyone else.”
They question why you need other people when you have them. They suggest that your friendships are threatening the intensity of your relationship.
They dress up this possessiveness as romantic devotion: “Don’t you want to spend time with me? I thought we were building something special.”
Actually, the narcissist is sending a message that choosing others means rejecting them, and your other relationships as betrayals.
Over time, this manufactured jealousy extends to everyone in your life:
- Your close friend becomes “too flirty.”
- Your sibling is “always causing drama.”
- Even your therapist might be accused of “turning you against” your partner.
Ultimately, you feel guilty for maintaining outside connections and move away from your support system.
2. They Discourage You From Attending Social Events
A narcissist rarely forbids you from seeing people. Instead, they create emotional consequences that make socializing feel impossible.
They pick fights right before you leave for events. They sulk dramatically when you return. Even make you recount every conversation and justify every laugh.
They schedule competing plans without consulting you, then express wounded confusion: “I thought you’d want to spend time with me. I guess I was wrong about what matters to you.”
Actually, the narcissist is teaching you that socializing comes with a price. You will be punished with silent treatment, emotional withdrawal, coldness, or accusations when you get home.
Ultimately, you decline invitations before they can become battles. Friends stop reaching out. Your social circle shrinks.
And all this without any explicit prohibition from the narcissist. You bowed out under the steady weight of knowing what awaits you if you go to your college reunion, friend’s birthday party, or an annual family gathering.
3. They Track Your Messages And Conversations
Your narcissist demands reasonably enough: “We shouldn’t have secrets.” So you hand over your phone password, social media logins, and email access.
They frame it as building trust. Then surveillance starts.
Your location gets tracked “for safety.” Text threads get read while you’re in the shower. Messages from friends disappear without explanation, or worse, get answered by someone pretending to be you.
The real damage isn’t the invasion itself. It’s how you adapt to constant monitoring.
You stop typing honest thoughts to your sister. You avoid telling your friend what’s really happening at home.
Every conversation gets filtered through an invisible audience of one. You become a curator of your own communications. You say or write only what won’t trigger suspicion or interrogation.
The privacy that normal relationships require is gone. And with it is gone your ability to ask for help or advice from anyone outside the relationship.
4. They Plant Doubts About People You Trust
Your narcissistic partner subtly erodes your trust in the people closest to you.
They meet your best friend and gush about how wonderful she is. Then two weeks later: “I don’t know, there’s just something odd about her that I can’t put my finger on.”
“Did your brother seem kind of cold to you today?” or “Your coworker mentioned your promotion in a weird tone, did you catch that?”
They say your family is toxic, your friends are using you, or your coworkers are jealous of you. But the comments come as observations, not accusations, that stick in your mind like splinters.
Meanwhile, they’re running a parallel smear campaign you don’t see. Your support system gets primed to doubt you.
Mutual friends hear falsified stories about your “violent outbursts,” “confused ramblings,” or “unstable behavior.”
When you need someone to talk to, you find the narcissist has already poisoned the relationships. You are now left truly alone.
5. They Use Triangulation and Flying Monkeys
Triangulation occurs when narcissists bring third parties into relationship conflicts to validate their perspective and further isolate you.
The narcissist might recruit mutual friends, family members, or new romantic interests to side against you, creating a coalition that reinforces your sense of being wrong or difficult.
These recruited allies, called “flying monkeys,” do the narcissist’s bidding by confronting you on their behalf, spreading gossip, or monitoring your activities.
Flying monkeys often believe they’re helping resolve conflicts or supporting a friend in need, unaware they’re participating in an abuse tactic.
This manipulation extends the narcissist’s control beyond direct interaction, making you feel surrounded by judgment and lacking safe spaces to process what’s happening.
5. They Reframe Themselves As The Victim
Narcissists portray themselves as perpetually wronged and forever hurt. They deliver emotionally compelling stories to elicit your sympathy.
They tell tales about exes who cheated, family members who abandoned them, and friends who betrayed them. These victim narratives serve two purposes:
- they explain why the narcissist needs constant reassurance, and
- they justify controlling behavior as self-protection.
When you spend time with others, they may claim to feel abandoned or unimportant. They might say they had a terrible day and desperately needed you, making your absence feel like a moral failure.
This emotional manipulation transforms routine social activities into acts of cruelty against your partner.
You begin prioritizing their feelings over your own needs, believing that a good partner would sacrifice their social life to ease their partner’s insecurity.
7. They Impose Financial Control
They seize control of your finances and resources, forcing you to ask them for money to buy anything.
Initially, the narcissist may discourage or sabotage your employment, claiming they want to “take care of you” or expressing concern that work stress affects your health.
They might create conflicts on workdays, causing you to miss shifts or perform poorly. They demand detailed accounting of your spending, while maintaining secrecy about their own finances.
Leaving a narcissist without financial independence is exponentially harder.
The narcissist controls money to restrict your mobility, limit your choices, and deepen your dependence on them for survival. You can’t afford to go out, maintain hobbies, or seek professional help without the narcissist’s approval.
Even wealthy victims recount how they faced this control. They met the narcissistic rage when they spent money independently, with demands that they justify every purchase.
Psychological Impact of Social Isolation On Victims
Narcissistic isolation severely harms mental health.
- Studies show links between coercive control and PTSD and depression (Lohmann, 2023).
- A 2025 study found female victims of narcissistic abuse had worse mental health and more dependence on abusive partners during the COVID-19 isolation.
1. Collapse of The Support System
Narcissists cut off friends, family, and professional supports, leaving victims unable to verify reality.
Without the outside perspective, the abuser’s version of events becomes the only truth, increasing depression, anxiety, and physical health risks.
Worse, the people who could help are gone.
2. Erosion of Individual Identity
Hobbies, interests, and friendships are dismissed or mocked until they vanish.
Victims abandon activities and adapt to the abuser’s demands. Their former identity erodes and they no longer recognize themselves.
3. Intense Trauma Bonding
The narcissist intensifies trauma bonding by unpredictable cruelty followed by brief warmth.
This creates neurochemical dependence, making victims crave approval from the person who harms them.
4. Extreme Difficulty Leaving
Loss of finances, social support, and self‑identity produces entrapment. Leaving feels impossible.
Research shows those who drew on spiritual beliefs and support networks were more likely to leave their abuser (Musacchio, 2025).
Final Words
Social isolation by coercive control is a form of intimate partner violence (IPV).
If you feel you have lost touch with your social support after meeting your narciist partner, realize that the isolation is due to your partner’s need for control over you, not any flaw in you.
Reconnect with your trusted people and reach out to domestic violence resources to break the isolation, even when it feels impossible to escape
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√ Also Read: The Fragile Narcissist: Covert Form of Narcissism
√ Please share this if you found it helpful.
