From love bombing to gaslighting, dating a narcissist often follows a predictable arc of manipulation and pain. And “monkey branching” is one of its most destabilizing turns.
“Monkey branching refers to lining up a new relationship before fully leaving the current one,” said Tina Swithin, author of “Divorcing a Narcissist: One Mom’s Battle.” “This behavior reflects a consistent and recognizable pattern. The narcissist moves from one relationship to another, similar to how a monkey swings from one branch to the next.”
Also known as monkey barring, this strategic maneuver allows someone to actively secure a new romantic attachment while maintaining their present relationship.
“While it isn’t a formal clinical diagnosis, this behavior is a hallmark of narcissistic relationship patterns,” said Marie-Line Germain, author of “Narcissism at Work: Personality Disorders of Corporate Leaders” and a professor of human resources and leadership at Western Carolina University.
She noted that monkey branching can involve flirting, sexting and/or cultivating secret emotional bonds ― and deceptively dismissing the situation as “just friends” if their partner inquires.
“Once the new connection feels secure, the narcissist typically devalues their current partner, treating them with increasing coldness before initiating an abrupt breakup and an immediate transition into the new partnership,” Germain said. “To justify the quick replacement, the narcissistic partner often rewrites the history of the relationship. They may say, ‘I was never happy with you anyway.’”
Monkey branching is a common behavior in narcissists, according to psychology experts.
“Narcissists need constant excitement,” said Virginia Gilbert, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in high-conflict divorce and attachment trauma. “Once the luster wears off of a long-term partner, the narcissist starts to feel restless and empty inside. Because they can’t tolerate negative feelings ― or just the reality of a stable relationship which healthy people find comforting ― they then start looking around for a new source of supply to regulate their self-esteem and mood states.”
A narcissist fuels their fragile sense of self and identity with “narcissistic supply” ― which comes in the form of constant validation, support and power.
“Relationships tend to revolve around attention, admiration and control rather than emotional connection,” Swithin said. “Being alone can feel destabilizing, which makes the early stage of a new relationship especially intoxicating.”
They chase the excitement of new admirers, which helps them feel more important.
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“Narcissists also tend to be novelty-seeking,” said Lauren Maher, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in anxiety, trauma and narcissistic abuse recovery. “Put all of that together, and you will often see an individual who is unlikely to sever one relationship until they’ve got another one lined up to replace it.”
Germain emphasized that malignant narcissists tend to view relationships primarily as strategic resources rather than emotional bonds.
“Because they lack genuine attachment, they feel no internal obligation toward loyalty, yet they paradoxically demand absolute fidelity from their partners,” she said. “They are driven by a constant search for a ‘better deal,’ whether in the form of increased power, wealth or social status. They often abandon current partners without remorse the moment a more advantageous opportunity for exploitation arises.”
Thus, people are interchangeable tools for personal or professional achievement.
“If a relationship is having problems, it can feel good to seek that elsewhere without working on resolving issues in the relationship,” said Karyl McBride, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of “Will the Drama Ever End? Untangling and Healing from the Harmful Effects of Parental Narcissism.”
Gilbert pointed to the brain chemistry behind the behavior.
“They will often end one relationship and start a new one amid drama and chaos ― an affair, a series of sexual acting-out behaviors that come to light in an explosive way, or moving on with ‘the perfect soulmate’ without any remorse for their former partner ― because all of this drama floods their brains with feel-good dopamine neurotransmitters so that they feel special, important and larger than life,” she said.
This behavior also allows them to maintain an illusion of power and desirability. It’s a sort of self-preservation tactic.
“I believe monkey branching is a common behavior in narcissists because it prevents them from facing their own vulnerable feelings and preserves a false sense of self that generates more feelings of entitlement and admiration,” said Hannah Alderete, a licensed mental health counselor and the author of “Break Free From Narcissistic Mothers.”
Dodging vulnerability and discomfort is another important aspect of this relationship pattern.
“By monkey branching, the narcissist avoids any process of separation and loss and ensures that they never have to experience separation or abandonment,” said Margaret Ward-Martin, a psychotherapist who founded The Grace Project to work with survivors of narcissistic abuse.
She noted that abandonment is a narcissist’s greatest fear, alongside exposure. That’s why they might choose to abandon their partner first to avoid the pain.
“Monkey branching is a prevalent tactic among extreme narcissists because it ensures they maintain total control over the relationship’s timeline,” Germain said. “By securing a replacement and initiating the rejection first, they effectively insulate themselves from the possibility of being left behind. This preemptive exit allows the narcissist to avoid the perceived humiliation of rejection while asserting dominance over the finality of the bond.”
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Chelsey Brook Cole, a psychotherapist specializing in narcissistic abuse, emphasized that narcissists take a transactional view of relationships and don’t seek true intimacy of connection.
“Ultimately, the new person is not a soulmate, but a tool,” she explained. “By swinging to a new relationship, the narcissist successfully escapes the emotional accountability and responsibility for the damage they’ve caused in the current one. The new branch provides a fresh start with someone who hasn’t yet seen behind the mask, allowing the narcissist to avoid the consequences of their own behavior.”
They’re not necessarily moving toward something better. They’re just choosing the dopamine boost of a continuous stream of attention, rather than seeking actual growth.
“I think it’s important to note that monkey branching isn’t specific to extreme narcissists,” Germain said. “It’s often used by people who can’t handle the feeling of loneliness, may have low self-esteem or have an anxious attachment style.”
For narcissists, however, monkey branching is a pattern to avoid accountability, she added.
“While people who aren’t narcissists also might wait to leave an unhappy relationship until they meet someone else, they would likely feel remorse and guilt for their behavior and the collateral damage to others,” Gilbert said. “But the narcissist is only concerned with what benefits them and will just blame their former partner for driving them away.”
But the monkey branching narrative isn’t the only way relationships with narcissists end.
“More often than not, it’s partners of narcissists who will start the departure from the relationship,” said therapist and “Disarming The Narcissist” author Wendy Behary. “And when they do, that’s a horse of a different color because that can set up the whole plot for vengeance, a common narcissistic response after this huge narcissistic injury.”
For partners who are unceremoniously cast aside through monkey branching, the fallout can still be intense, marked by deep feelings of deception and rejection.
“This experience is rarely just a breakup,” Germain said. “It is a betrayal that leaves them feeling discarded. The narcissistic person typically demonstrates a profound lack of empathy for the partner being left behind. This leaves the abandoned individual feeling less like a former partner and more like a disposable placeholder, forced to grapple with a sudden sense of being discarded once their perceived utility has expired.”
The narcissist might also take things further than pure abandonment, particularly in a higher-stakes relationship like marriage.
“They may have lied to this ‘original’ partner, having gaslighted them and even emotionally, financially and psychologically abused them,” Ward-Martin said. “This partner may become so ill that it serves as groundwork ensuring that family, colleagues and friends believe that the discarded partner is the problem because they are mentally ill or unstable. If the ‘old’ partner discovers this new supply and initiates an end, then the narcissist can become mortified and very destructive indeed.”
Fear of having their treachery exposed to others can lead a narcissist to escalate threats in a separation and/or divorce process.
Experts stress that monkey branching and other harmful breakup behaviors from narcissists are not a reflection of their partner’s value or the result of some personal failure on the victim’s part.
“It is vital to understand that this behavior has absolutely nothing to do with your worth,” Cole said. “There is no level of love, attention or perfection you could have provided that would have kept them from straying, because narcissists feel entitled to everything. They believe they have the right to keep you as a safety net while exploring new options, and they feel entitled to pursue someone else while maintaining contact with you.”
She added that their monkey branching is not a search for “true love” but rather “a manifestation of pathological selfishness and a desperate need to maintain power.”
If anything, it reflects the narcissist’s failure to tolerate rejection or loss of control.
“For the person on the receiving end, this behavior can be deeply destabilizing, often leading to confusion, self-blame, and trauma-bonding,” Swithin said. “Recognizing the pattern helps people depersonalize the harm and regain clarity.”
While you can’t control someone else’s behavior, you can take steps to better protect your well-being.
“While the behavior cannot be prevented, individuals can reduce their vulnerability by recognizing early warning signs, such as sudden, secretive communication with former partners or new ‘friends,’” Germain said. “By identifying these red flags, partners can shift their focus from trying to save the relationship to implementing necessary emotional and practical protections for themselves.”
