The mirror without a soul
On covert narcissism, recognition and the loss of the Other
Introduction – The shimmering emptiness
There was a time I truly believed I was being seen. Not superficially, but in my depth — in my vulnerability, my strength, my dreams and fears. As if someone understood my inner world without words and mirrored precisely that which I had never dared to hope someone would see. That moment of apparent recognition was enchanting. And devastating at once.
This essay is written from that place: where love seems to begin, but ends in confusion. Where closeness turns out to be an illusion and the Other turns out not to be an Other at all — but a mirror without a soul. I write about my relationship with a woman I loved, but who was never truly able to meet me. About covert narcissism and how it doesn’t present itself through arrogance or grandiosity, but through subtlety, projection, and invisible control. About how love can shift into a dynamic in which you slowly disappear.
But this essay is also about my search. For truth, for healing, for the deeper layers of what love truly is — beyond the longing to be seen, toward the capacity to simply be. And to let go.
The title 'The mirror without a soul' is one I previously used for an essay on artificial intelligence. At first, I had a different title in mind for this piece — until it dawned on me that there is a painful, unsettling parallel between AI and covert narcissism. A parallel I had already explored back then: the absence of interiority, empathy, identity and conscience. A form of mirroring without essence. Without soul.
That’s precisely why it felt right to give this essay the same title. I did add a subtitle to distinguish the thematic focus, but at its core, it is the same metaphor, brought to life once again. Because if there’s one image that captures the experience of being in a relationship with a covert narcissist, it is this:
The mirror without a soul.
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What is covert narcissism? – A glimpse behind the mask
Covert narcissism is a highly deceptive personality structure. The classic narcissist acts grandiose, dominant and loud — the kind of person I would naturally steer clear of. Not so the covert narcissist — who cloaks themselves in vulnerability, charm, subtlety and apparent empathy. The grandiose façade is replaced by a shadow play of neediness, victimhood and moral superiority. But beneath the surface, the same dynamic is at work: an inner void that must be filled with external validation, and an inability to truly see the Other as Other. The most dangerous thing about covert narcissism is that it disguises itself as love — as vulnerability, as depth, as authenticity. But what resembles love is often no more than a sophisticated echo of your own longing.
In such a relationship, this reveals itself in cycles of idealization, subtle devaluation, projection and emotional manipulation. You are admired, elevated, made to feel indispensable — as long as you conform to the image the other needs to uphold their own sense of self. But the moment you diverge, set a boundary, fail to provide enough validation or assert your individuality, you are — often in highly calculated ways — rejected, ignored or criticized. The pain lies not in open conflict, but in the invisible erosion of the self.
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The relationship as a hall of mirrors – My experiences
My relationship with her began as a homecoming. We had deep conversations, intense (eye) contact, thoughts that moved in sync. She understood me, she said. She sensed me like no one ever had before — or so I thought. And I — sensitive, searching, loving — believed her. Perhaps I wanted to believe her, because I so deeply longed to be seen. But deep down, from the very first moment I truly met her, I knew: She’s trouble.
Slowly, the ground beneath my feet began to shift. Her admiration turned into constant criticism and dissatisfaction. Her closeness turned into distance. And I grew tired. Tired of adjusting, of interpreting, of justifying, of pleasing. Tired of searching for the woman I had met at the beginning — the one who seemed to disappear more and more.
In hindsight, I see how I became trapped in a dynamic of projection. Not only her projections onto me, but mine onto her. I saw in her what I so desperately needed: vulnerability, connection, being seen, being touched. And so, I lost myself — hoping to be affirmed by her. But a mirror affirms nothing. It only reflects what already is — or what you hope to see.
From the very beginning, one thing stood out: her emphasis on honesty. She said it often, without being prompted, like a badge of honor: “I’m just very honest. I can’t lie. It’s not in me.” And although something in me raised its eyebrows — as if it was being stressed a little too deliberately — I chose to believe her. Perhaps because I so badly wanted to believe that this was real.
Now I know: it was precisely the opposite. Lying wasn’t the exception — it was the norm. Not just about big things, but especially about small, trivial matters. That’s what made it frightening — not the magnitude of the lies, but the ease with which they were told. The casual way in which truth was rewritten, distorted, postponed and denied. Slowly, a feeling crept in: she believes her own lies. And the lies kept growing — and getting more destructive.
The moment that has stayed with me the most came toward the end of the relationship. She had — once again — left us, only to have sexual contact with a colleague just a few days later. When she returned to me afterward, I already had a vague sense of what had happened. I sat beside her on the couch as she, with a smile that had no bottom, spun story after story. I felt the lies — not rationally, but physically. Everything in my body knew: this isn’t true.
But I was tired. Too tired. I stopped speaking.
And maybe that was even more painful than her betrayal: the moment I stopped defending myself against the lie. Not because I believed her, but because I could no longer carry myself.
When I began to understand what had truly happened, I realized it wasn’t just about this one woman, but about a deeper dynamic. A relationship to the Other, to love, to truth. To make sense of that, I turned to philosophers who helped me give language to the unspeakable.
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Philosophical deepening – Recognition, emptiness and the Other
The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wrote about the face of the Other as an ethical appeal: the Other does not appear to us as an object, but as a vulnerable mystery that calls us into responsibility. In a relationship with a covert narcissist, this call is continuously neutralized. The Other is not an Other, but a screen onto which desires and fears are projected. There is no real encounter — only mirroring and projection.
Martin Buber distinguishes between I-Thou and I-It relationships. In the first, the Other is experienced as essential and alive; in the second, as a thing, a function, a means to an end. The covert narcissist may seem to approach the I-Thou form, but it is an illusion. Because true Thou-ness requires mutual recognition — and that’s what’s missing. The Other remains out of view, except as an extension of the self.
Erich Fromm also points to this difference: love is not possession, but an act. Love demands courage, responsibility, attentiveness and knowledge. But in narcissistic relationships, love becomes a means of validation — not a space in which you can grow, but a stage on which you must perform.
Carl Gustav Jung, finally, speaks of projection: what we do not dare acknowledge in ourselves, we cast upon the Other. In a relationship with a covert narcissist, this becomes a mutual dance of shadow and longing. But where one is willing to look inward and grow, the other denies their inner world. The relationship then becomes not a path to individuation, but a labyrinth of confusion.
Psychological perspective – trauma, attachment and inner emptiness
Covert narcissism often has its roots in early attachment trauma. Children who are not loved unconditionally learn to protect themselves by developing a false self — a mask that is acceptable, admired or grants control over vulnerability. Instead of forming real connections, they survive through strategies: manipulation, projection, lying, deceit and avoidance.
The attraction between empaths and narcissists is no coincidence. While one tries to heal by giving, the other tries to heal by taking. The empathic partner feels needed, seen, indispensable. But what initially seems like love turns out to be codependency: a dance of emptiness and validation, of giving without return.
What made the relationship especially confusing and addictive was its unpredictability. Moments of closeness and warmth were suddenly replaced by distance, rejection or silence. This shift followed no clear logic, but seemed arbitrary — and it was precisely this that drew me ever deeper into the dynamic. In psychology, this is called intermittent reinforcement: a pattern in which positive reinforcement (such as attention, love, or affirmation) is delivered unpredictably. It is exactly this pattern that also sustains gambling addiction: the unpredictability of ‘reward’ makes it nearly impossible to let go.
I received just enough to keep believing: a sweet message, a vulnerable moment, a sudden gesture of affection. As if oxygen suddenly returned to something already suffocated. These rare moments acted like crumbs of love — breadcrumbing. Not enough to truly be nourished, but just enough not to walk away. And so I stayed. In hope. In longing. In search of something that might someday return, but in reality had never truly been there.
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Sex also played a crucial role. Not as a reciprocal expression of love, but as a tool of power and manipulation. The first year and a half of our relationship consisted of one-sided sexuality: I pleasured her — night after night — while my own desire remained unspoken. Eventually, I didn’t even undress anymore. Everything was wrapped in empathic reasoning that emphasized her supposed vulnerability: that sex with a woman was all new to her, that she needed time, that she had to adjust. What felt intimate and connecting at the time, turned out to be a controlled system of conditioning. My giving was not received — it was consumed. She exploited my generosity and my trust. The most painful part wasn’t her inability to receive me, but my own willingness to forget myself in the hope that she would one day see me.
The rare moments when she did give something back felt like a reward. Like hope. Like a signal that maybe — just maybe — this was love. And so I kept giving, hoping the tide would turn. But love that is postponed until after performance, is not love. And intimacy without reciprocity is not a safe haven — it's exploitation.
In the relationship, I felt constantly on edge. Every moment could flip like a switch — love bombing followed by silent treatment, intimacy after a week of rejection and withdrawal. Those rare moments when she did seem close, functioned as emotional rewards that gave me hope. Hope that things would get better. That she would return. That it was love.
In hindsight, I see how this intermittent reinforcement exhausted my system. It made me hyper-alert, dependent, insecure. Constantly waiting for the next moment of affirmation, the next ‘sign’ of love. But love cannot be rationed as a reward. Love is not a game. And those who treat it as such either lose the other — or the other loses themselves.
It took me a long time to acknowledge all of this. Because to acknowledge it also meant facing what I had allowed. Facing what I had let happen. Not out of stupidity, but out of hunger. Not out of weakness, but out of a deep longing for love. Only when I truly dared to look at myself, could I see how deeply my own old patterns were ingrained.
In my own therapy — and again later, after the relationship — I began to see how deeply rooted my old schemas were: the emotional deprivation schema, the inferiority schema, the abandonment wound. My modes whispered that I wasn’t good enough, unless I was indispensable. It was time to reframe them. To no longer see them as truth, but as survival strategies that no longer served me. In fact — they now put me in danger.
Love as soil or sinkhole?
What happens when love is no longer nourishing ground, but a trap that swallows you whole? When the Other only affirms you as long as you don’t show your own face? Then love becomes depletion. You reach out, but hit a wall. You offer yourself, but nothing is truly received.
Love requires vulnerability. And recognition. Not as a manipulative tool, but as a mutual act of visibility. In a healthy relationship, you can exist — even in your difference. In a narcissistic relationship, you only exist as long as you follow the other’s script. And every deviation is punished — not loudly, but silently. Not directly, but through subtle distance, passive aggression, moral reversal, projections, accusations and silent treatments.
And still — I loved her. Or rather, the image I had of her. The image she had managed to paint of herself in the beginning. Perhaps that was the most painful part: that my love was real — but she was not. And her reception of my love — wasn’t either.
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The Way Back – Self-restoration and truth
The break-up was a liberation, though it didn’t feel that way at first. Only later did I realize: I hadn’t lost myself because of her, but because of what I hoped to find in her. My longing to be seen had blinded me. But that hunger, I had to learn to soothe from within.
Truth became my salvation. Not only the relative truth of the story, but the inner truth of feeling what is. Of recognizing what didn’t add up — even when I couldn’t prove it. Of remaining faithful to my intuition, even when it was dismissed as “too sensitive.”
Therapy helped. Writing helped. Music, silence, nature.
But above all: learning to love again — not the other, but myself. With all my rough edges, my searching and my pain. And in that love I rediscovered something I had long forgotten: my right to exist. Independent of who does or doesn’t see me.
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Conclusion – The Memory of Connection
There is one thing I can look back on with a straight spine, no matter how dark the relationship sometimes was: I always put my children first. No matter how much she manipulated, lied, projected or accused — I remained, first and foremost, a mother. I stayed true to what I hold dear most.
Ironically, that was exactly what she could not bear. Not because I did anything wrong, but because my love wasn’t fully hers. Because there was a part of my heart she could never control and never claim.
In the eyes of the covert narcissist, true love is a threat — not a sanctuary. But in that conflict, I was affirmed in who I am. In what love truly is.
In the end, it were my children who saved me. Not because they did anything — but because they were there. Because their vulnerability kept my strength alive. Because, amid all the confusion, I knew: this is where my truth lies.
In their eyes, there was no projection, only presence. In their needs, no manipulation, but authenticity. They kept me close to the love that wears no mask — knows no lies, demands nothing, distorts nothing, and claims no one. And it was that — the unconditional love I feel for them — that ultimately gave me the strength to love myself again.
My ex broke me — in places I didn’t even know existed. But she didn’t destroy me. On the contrary. I needed this relationship to finally meet myself. To heal exactly those wounds that were still waiting to be healed, so that I could finally become my true Self. I’m not grateful to her — her actions and behavior can never be justified. However, I’m grateful for the experience, in the realization that life sometimes has to be hard — brutally hard — to bring you exactly where you need to be.
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What remains, is not the trauma. What remains, is not her. What remains is a knowing:
that love is not found in affirmation, but in presence. Not in control, but in connecti0n. Not in reflection, but in being real.
I do not write this to accuse her. I write this to remind myself. Of who I was — and who I have become. Of the connection I once sought in the Other, but which can only arise when both are truly present.
And of that one sentence that kept echoing, even through all the confusion:
You are love.
And you have been, all along.
