What Is *Duper’s Delight* in Narcissistic Relationships?

You know… That smirk they get.

Got you! Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Have you ever heard of Duper’s Delight?

When you are in a narcissistic or abusive relationship, you are well aware of this phenomenon even if you haven’t heard of the name before.

Duper’s Delight is when a manipulator has gotten away with something and they cannot help themselves from showing it. It is the “high” they get from being deceptive. They may smirk, twitch, wring their hands, laugh, deep sigh, etc… They cannot contain themselves when their lie is bitten hook, line and sinker.

You can see it most clearly in children. They are more pure with their reactions and have a hard time masking their feelings. They have no customer service skills.

If your child has ever asked one parent for a treat, was told no, then asked the parent and gotten a yes… You know that smile and dance. They aren’t thinking about the consequences when they get found out, they are too busy reveling in their successful scheming and win.

This is a normal thing that children do because they are still learning, building character and discerning the difference between right and wrong.

This is the same sort of behavior that an adult manipulator will use. It is immature and lacks integrity. They should have unlearned this behavior in childhood but instead, they added it to their repertoire of life skills.

Children are the micro. A selfish phase is a normal part of human development. It allows us to move away from our parents and explore the world so we can go off and make our own way as adults.

Adult narcissists are the macrocosm of what you see in a child. They have taken this stage and made it their identity.

2 Examples Of Duper Delight

I’m sure one of these may trigger a memory for you of experiences you have had.

1. When Picking a Fight

Triggers are a great way for someone abusive to control you. If they can trigger a response or emotion from you, they then feel better.

Triggers destabilize a person in the moment and surrounding amount of time. If you are on shaky ground, you are more easily manipulated. A narcissist will want you to react to the abuse they inflict with high emotions or Reactive Abuse.

Reactive Abuse happens when a person has been pushed past their tolerance limit. It is a flight or fight response to the abuse they are enduring. During this time they may physically assault, verbally attack, insult or demean as a way to make the abuse they are receiving stop.

It is not normal behavior for them. It is situationally dependent. Like the way a mother may assault a person who is attacking their child. They would never set out to harm the other person under normal circumstances, but they reacted in the moment to an extreme situation.

When a narcissist picks a fight, they often have a specific end goal in mind. They want the fight to happen to be useful. The reaction will get them what they want, either in the moment or in the future. A husband may pick a fight so he can leave “to cool off”, just to go see his mistress uninterrupted for a few hours. The fight provided a reason he needed to leave and was not in communication.

With an addict, a fight is picked as an excuse for why they need to use it. To handle the stress from all the fighting. If they can make you feel bad for them, you may give them money or continue to enable them in some way.

When they get their way you can feel the relief coming off of them. They got the prize. You lose your cool and give into the scuffle and they can finally take a breather. They can’t help but show their amusement at your defeat.

2. When They Convince You “It’s Not What You Think”

The scene: You see some sketchy text messages on your partner’s phone and you ask them about it. You know that what you saw was not innocent and you have questions.

Those were a miscommunication or you’re reading too much into it are often the lines that are fed to convince you that you are overreacting.

If they are successful in convincing you that you got it all wrong you will see the glee on their face or in the way they move. Maybe their shoulders drop and they stop picking at their fingers. They could take a deep breath and give a big smile. These actions alone are not enough to warrant alarm. But they don’t happen once, they happen repeatedly in any situation in which they are lying. You begin to learn their special lying habits.

What Kind Of Manipulation Is It?

Duper’s Delight often happens after an incident of gaslighting. They are convincing you of a reality that doesn’t exist. At the same time, they are convincing you that your reality is not real.

They hold the keys to reality. They know what you should believe. They love it when you fall for it.

Why Do We Fall For It?

Why wouldn’t we?!

We want to trust them

Most of us don’t go through life expecting the person we trust to be lying to us and trying to manipulate us. Most of the time we want to believe them because we want to love them.

We want the reality they speak to be true.

It makes total sense that we fall for it. It’s no fun to go through life with the belief that the person we are talking to is trying to get one over on us. That’s miserable. So we believe them.

Abuse blinds you

Abuse will erode your defenses and warp your boundaries. When you have been abused it is easier for someone to use confusion and twisted logic to convince you of a lie.

The brain fog and pain are hard to see through. A lie can easily slip through the cracks.

You may have grown up with it

If this is from your family of origin you were trained from birth to accept this behavior and to say yes to lies. It isn’t abnormal if it is all you have ever known.

What Can You Do About Duper’s Delight?

There is only one thing you can do about it. That is to recognize it. The realization often comes after the fact for a long time. Only after the idea has settled in your mind will it be recognizable in the moment.

Because in the moment, you are busy fighting for your life.

In the moment, you are on the receiving end of abuse.

Take inventory of some of the situations in your past where the narcissist you are dealing with has demonstrated Duper’s Delight with you.

These will be the clues you need to recognize it in the future. It will happen again if they are still in your life.