Partners who do this should be left in the past.
Los Angeles-based psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula made a YouTube video with a dire warning about “future-faking,” a common manipulation tactic used by narcissists in romantic relationships.
Future-faking involves a person making promises to their partner that they have no sincere intent on making true.
Durvasula explained, “Future faking isn’t about talking about the future in a hopeful way, that’s just wishful thinking.”
“Future faking is trying to entice something from someone else on the basis of a future promise,” she continued. “Future faking is saying [that promise will] happen if the other person in the relationship just sticks around or does something.”
According to Durvasula, the future-faker’s “goal” isn’t to make their promise become a reality. Rather, they want to keep their relationship together or get whatever it is that they want — adoration, status and otherwise — from their partner.
One example of future-faking, according to Durvasula, is the narcissistic person telling their partner that they will move to a bigger house next year, as long as the partner doesn’t spend money on themselves over the next 12 months.
She also said the “ultimate future-faking” involves the narcissist promising to grow old with their partner.
Durvasula called that tactic “utter tragedy for many people in narcissistic marriages.”
“This concept of growing old together is a real roll of the dice,” she said. “Because for one person or the other, someone in the relationship is always going to get stuck doing some caregiving, whatever that looks like.”
Durvasula continued, “I have had the experience of dealing with many, many folks who have gone through and are still in long-term narcissistic intimate relationships. 40-plus years, even 50 and 60-plus years.”
She noted that society “didn’t talk about narcissism until relatively recently in the way that we do now,” so many people who are in their 40s and older “are tolerating toxic relationships but didn’t have any word or model for it.”
One of Durvasula’s overall points from her video was that narcissistic people “will never” take care of their partner as they age, regardless of their many promises.
“What could happen is the narcissistic person’s health could go downhill before yours, and then you will have the rather unappealing prospect of having to care for an ungrateful selfish person who has made your life miserable.”
“However,” Durvasula added, “the far worse option and frankly the more likely option is your health will deteriorate first, and you will have to count on them to care for you,”
“Your illness will be their inconvenience,” she concluded.
