You’ve seen his new profile pic or the tagged photo from last weekend. Or maybe a mutual friend accidentally let it slip to you 👌
And now your stomach’s doing somersaults because you know exactly what she’s walking into. You’ve lived it, survived it, got the wounds. And every part of you wants to grab this new woman by the shoulders and tell her to make a run for it.
I know that feeling well. Because when I found out my ex had moved on, the need to warn his new girlfriend felt compulsive. It came from a good place though; I didn’t want her to go through what I did (therapy ain’t cheap, bro).
But I also secretly hoped she could confirm that my ex was in fact a dick. And I wasn’t the problem.
Which is the bit you and I need to have a chat about. Because the desire to warn the narcissist’s next girlfriend is rarely just about protecting her. It’s also about proving something to yourself. And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting that validation, chasing it through his new relationship will cost you more than it gives you.
Why do you want to warn her so badly?
The urge to warn the narcissist’s new girlfriend usually comes from two places: genuine empathy for another woman, and an unmet need for external proof that what you experienced was abuse.
When you’ve been through narcissistic abuse, one of the most destabilising aftereffects is self-doubt. You question everything. You wonder whether it was really that bad, whether you overreacted, whether maybe you caused it. So finding out that he treated someone before you the same way – or that he’s already doing it to someone new – feels like evidence. It feels like a dose of relief. Because if it happened to other people too, then it definitely wasn’t just you.
And that logic makes complete sense. But the problem is that getting that evidence means you stay connected to his world. It keeps your attention fixed on him rather than on yourself and your recovery. And that’s where it starts to work against you.
Would she even believe you?
Probably not. When someone is being love bombed, warnings from outsiders feel like jealousy, not protection.
Think back to when you were in the beginning of your relationship with him. The love bombing, the intensity, and the feeling that you’d finally met someone who really saw you. If a stranger had messaged you at that stage and said “this man is an abuser, get away from him” you probably wouldn’t have believed her.
You might’ve mentioned it to him. But he would’ve explained it away. Probably told you she was bitter, or unstable, or obsessed with him still. And you would have believed him, because at that point, he’d given you no reason not to. All the chemicals were flowing. And the love bombing felt like a rare, authentic connection. So a warning from a random woman would have felt threatening, confusing, and like proof that he was such a catch that his exes just couldn’t let go.
So when you picture yourself sending that message to his new girlfriend, remember where she’s at right now. She’s in the stage you were in. And no amount of truth from an outsider is going to override what she’s feeling in her body when she’s with him. It might plant a seed. But she’s likely to stay loyal to the person standing in front of her.
Does a narcissist abuse everyone?
Usually, yes. Abusive patterns tend to repeat across relationships because they’re rooted in the abuser’s behaviour, not in anything their partner did.
This is one of the most common questions that comes up after these relationships.
There are some cases where someone has been abusive in one relationship and behaved differently in another. But that’s rare.
And more importantly, knowing either way doesn’t change what happened to you. If he abused you, the responsibility for that sits entirely with him. Full stop. Whether he does it again to someone else, or whether he magically becomes a different person, that doesn’t retroactively make your experience more or less valid.
The thing is, finding out the answer to this question requires you to dig. To reach out to his exes. To stalk his new relationship online. And all of that is keeping you tethered to someone you’re trying to move on from.
Why contacting his exes can backfire
I’ve seen people reach out to their abuser’s previous partners looking for validation, and it rarely goes the way you’d hope. Because you have no idea where that person is in their process. They might not even recognise what happened to them as abuse. They might still be loyal to him. Or they might’ve spent years healing and your message could set them right back.
You also risk looking like the “crazy ex” he probably told his new girlfriend about. And that plays directly into the narrative he’s likely already built about you. Narcissists are very good at controlling how other people perceive them. So reaching out to people in his orbit – even with good intentions – can end up reinforcing the story he’s told about you, rather than dismantling it.
What does no contact actually look like?
Proper no contact means removing yourself from every point of connection to your abuser’s life, including mutual friends and social media.
If you’ve been trying to go no contact, you already know it’s hard. Because it means more than just not texting him.
It also includes:
- Not keeping his number in your phone (delete it, don’t just block it)
- Not checking his social media or his new girlfriend’s profiles
- Not staying in contact with mutual friends who feed you information about him
- Not reaching out to his exes or his new partner
- Not going to places where you know you’ll bump into him
I had to do all of this. And it was one of the hardest parts of my recovery. Because no contact extends to everyone connected to him too.
Why I had to cut off mutual friends
You don’t just lose your partner after narcissistic abuse – you lose your whole life you shared with them.
I had to let go of mutual friends; people who probably didn’t mean me any harm. But every time I saw a story they posted, or got a snippet of info about what my ex was up to, it sent me downhill. I’d stew over it, wonder if they were talking about me. And I’d feel anxious, paranoid, and worse about myself than I did before I saw it.
So I made a clean break. And yes, it felt savage. But I couldn’t be part of their lives anymore because they chose to stay connected to someone who made me feel terrible about myself. I needed people around me who were going to support my choices, not keep me tied to his world.
That’s one of the hidden losses of leaving a narcissist. You lose the group friendships, the places you used to go to, the inside jokes, the shared interests, the family members you’d grown close to. It’s a massive change, and it deserves to be acknowledged as grief. Because that’s exactly what it is.
Why watching his new relationship on social media is self-harm
I say this with love, but it needs to be said:
Keeping tabs on your narcissist’s new relationship through social media is a form of self-harm. Because no good can come from it.
If they look happy, it hurts. You start romanticising what you had and conveniently forgetting the abuse cycle that nearly destroyed you. If they look miserable, it might give you a brief hit of satisfaction, but it still keeps your attention locked on him. Either way, you lose.
And you have to remember that social media is a highlight reel. Nobody posts the arguments, the abandonment and the tears.
Narcissists in particular are invested in how they’re perceived by others. So their social media persona is part of their performance. So what you’re seeing when you scroll through his new relationship photos, is exactly what he wants you (and everyone else) to see. And it has very little to do with what’s really going on behind closed doors.
How to sit with the discomfort of not knowing
You learn to trust your experience without needing external confirmation, and to give yourself the validation you’ve been seeking from others.
One of the hardest parts of this whole process is accepting that you might never get the answers you want. You might never know for sure whether he’s abusing her too. You might never hear from his exes that they went through the same thing. And that uncertainty can feel unbearable, especially when you know firsthand what he’s capable of.
But sitting with that discomfort is part of healing. Because you are learning to trust yourself and your own experience without needing someone else to confirm it for you. You already know what happened. You lived it. You don’t need his ex-girlfriend’s testimony or his new girlfriend’s realisation to make your experience real.
And the comfort you’re looking for, the “I’m-not-crazy-it-wasn’t-just-me-comfort”, that can come from you. It can come from your reflections, your healing work, and your growing ability to recognise what happened and name it. You’re going to benefit more from learning how to give yourself that validation than from relying on external sources to provide it for you.
What to focus on instead
Every minute you spend thinking about his new relationship is a minute you’re not spending on your own recovery. And I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Your healing depends on redirecting that energy back to yourself.
That means focusing on what’s within your control. Your boundaries, your emotional regulation and your support network. The things that actually move you forward rather than keep you circling back to him.
If you feel the urge to warn the narcissist’s new girlfriend, or check up on him, or reach out to a mutual friend for information, notice it. Acknowledge it. And then remind yourself that acting on it won’t give you what you really need. What you actually need is to keep building a life that has nothing to do with him.
If you’re struggling with no contact and need a clear, step-by-step plan for cutting ties properly and protecting yourself in the process, I’ve put together a free guide that walks you through exactly that.