Are you still friends with your ex? Good for you. I am not judging you, this new study is. According to this study, people with ‘dark personality traits’ (such as narcissism, duplicity, even psychopathy) maintain relationships after their expiration.
Even Psychology Today has time and again asked the public not to befriend their exes as ‘they are less emotionally supportive, less helpful, less trusting, and less concerned about the other person’s happiness’.
Oakland University researchers Justin Mogilski and Lisa Welling, who did this study, asked 860 subjects to list their reasons for being involved with their exes.
Previous studies have shown that people who score highly for these traits are more likely to pick friends for strategic reasons, and prefer short-term relationships.
-Justin Mogilski and Lisa Welling
But researchers also found that subjects who had ‘measures of dark personality’ were more likely to maintain relationships with their exes for ‘practical and sexual reasons’.
Dr Tony Ferreti spoke about this and said, ‘people who are in deep, close, healthy, and intimate relationships tend to be happier’.
But narcissists hate to fail or lose, so will do what they can to maintain some connection if they didn’t make the choice to end it. They can experience narcissistic injury when rejected by a partner and have difficulties letting it go or healing from it.
Dr Ferretti agrees with the findings in the study by Mogilski and Welling and says that such people ‘may stay connected to [to exes in order to] have access to valuable resources. They also have inside information about their exes vulnerabilities and weaknesses that they can exploit and manipulate which gives them a sense of power and control’.
So if your ex still wants to hang out or wants to be friends with you, it would probably be better if you don’t reciprocate. Always remember, there’s a reason why they are your ex!