They paint the picture so clearly you can almost see it. The trips you’ll take, the apartment you’ll share, the wedding, the someday. You hold onto those promises through every let-down, sure that the future they described is just around the corner. Months or years later, you realize none of it ever moved past the talking stage.
That gap between the words and the follow-through has a name. Future faking is the act of promising someone a shared future you have no real intention of building. They use the picture of that future to keep you invested while the present never actually changes. In this blog, you’ll learn what future faking looks like, why people do it, how it connects to narcissistic abuse, and how to protect yourself and start to heal.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
What Is Future Faking?
Future faking is a manipulation tactic where someone promises a future they don’t plan to deliver, usually to get something from you right now, like your time, loyalty, or forgiveness. The promises tend to be big and emotional, like moving in together or getting engaged, but they never come with a real plan or a date.
Here’s what makes it tricky. Most future fakers mean it in the moment they say it, so the feeling behind the promise can be real even when the commitment behind it isn’t. They mean it when they say it, and they stop meaning it about as fast as the promise does its job of keeping you around.
Not every broken promise is future faking, though. People miss goals, plans fall through, and circumstances change for everyone. The difference is the pattern. With future faking, the promises keep coming, the follow-through never does, and the hope they create is the whole point.
Future faking isn't only a romantic thing, either. A friend who keeps promising the trip you'll finally take, a parent who dangles approval that never comes, or a boss who holds out a promotion to keep you working late can all run the same play. The setting changes, but the move stays the same: a promise used to get something now, with no plan to deliver later.
Why Do People Future Fake?
People future fake for different reasons. Some do it on purpose to control you or get something they want, like your attention, money, or commitment. Others do it to avoid conflict, reaching for a promise that calms the moment without meaning to follow through. For people with narcissistic traits, the fake future keeps you invested and supplying attention.
It usually falls into a few buckets:
Intentional control. Some future fakers know exactly what they’re doing. They dangle the future to keep you working hard, waiting, or tolerating treatment you’d otherwise walk away from.
Conflict avoidance. Promising a someday is an easy way to end an uncomfortable conversation. It buys peace now, even though nothing actually gets solved.
Narcissistic supply. For someone with narcissistic traits, your hope and attention are the reward. The future is the bait that keeps it coming.
Attachment patterns. Some people get swept up in the early excitement and make big promises they truly feel at the time. Reality settles in later, and they panic and pull back.
Knowing the why can help, but it doesn’t change what you’re owed. The reason behind the broken promise matters less than the pattern you’re left living with.
What Are the Signs of Future Faking?
The clearest sign of future faking is a steady stream of promises with no follow-through. You hear about the trip, the ring, or the big change, but plans never get concrete and dates never get set. Any request for specifics gets met with vagueness or an argument. The pattern repeats, and nothing moves.
Common signs include:
Big promises that always stay abstract, with no real steps behind them
Plans that get floated after a fight, or right when you start pulling away
Vague timelines that keep sliding, like “soon,” “once things settle,” or “next year”
Getting defensive, hurt, or annoyed at any request for specifics
A gut feeling that you’re always waiting for a future that never arrives
These promises often sound completely reasonable in the moment which is what makes the pattern so hard to catch. A few might sound familiar:
“We’ll start looking at rings after the holidays.”
“Once this work project wraps, I’m all yours.”
“Next year is our year to travel.”
Each line sounds like a plan. But the holidays pass, the project never wraps, and next year keeps sliding down the calendar. On its own, any one of these is normal. Stacked up over months with nothing behind them, they become the pattern.
At Anchor Therapy, we often see clients who can recite years of promises in detail but can’t point to a single one that came true. They usually arrive doubting themselves, not their partner, which is part of how the pattern keeps working. Putting a name to it is often the first moment things start to make sense.
Future Faking vs Real Future Planning
It helps to know what healthy future planning actually looks like, so you can tell the difference. Real plans come with movement. First, you talk about something and, then, you take steps toward it, even small ones.
Real future planning tends to:
Come with concrete steps, dates, or decisions, not just talk
Hold up under follow-up questions
Happen during calm, connected moments, not only after conflict
Match the person’s actions over time
Future faking does the opposite. The promises stay vague, they show up most at the moments you start slipping away, and they never line up with what the person actually does. One approach builds something real over time. The other keeps you waiting while nothing gets built.
Is Future Faking a Form of Narcissistic Abuse?
Not always, but it often is. Anyone can future fake, including people who simply avoid conflict. As part of a steady pattern of manipulation, control, and broken trust, it lines up with narcissistic abuse. Future faking also overlaps heavily with love bombing, a tactic commonly used by people with narcissistic traits.
One study of young adults found that love bombing, the rush of intense affection early in a relationship, was linked to narcissistic tendencies, insecure attachment, and low self-esteem in the person doing it. Future faking often rides along with that early flood of promises, painting a shared future to lock in your trust fast.
The harm is real and measurable. In a study of more than 1,200 people who’d been with a narcissistic or psychopathic partner, those partners’ traits predicted Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and manipulative tactics like love bombing showed their own significant effects. Living on a diet of broken promises wears down your trust in yourself, not just in them.
These patterns go deeper than one tactic. Our blog on the aftermath of love bombing and our post on how to deal with a narcissist break them down further, and our relationship counseling services help clients untangle them with support.
Why Future Faking Is So Hard to Walk Away From
Future faking pulls you in through hope, which is a powerful thing to be hooked on. Each new promise gives you a reason to stay, and the relief of believing it feels better than the grief of leaving. So you wait a little longer, and then a little longer after that.
This runs on the same loop that makes slot machines addictive, called intermittent reinforcement. The reward shows up just often enough, and just unpredictably enough, that your brain keeps chasing it. An occasional kept promise, or even a convincing new one, is enough to reset the cycle.
Here’s the part worth naming. The cruelest part of future faking isn’t the broken promise itself. It’s that it slowly trains you to keep auditioning for a relationship you were told you already had.
That’s also why “why didn’t you just leave” misses the point. You weren’t being foolish. You were responding exactly the way the pattern was built to make you respond, by holding onto someone’s word, which is what words are supposed to be for.
Over time, you start managing yourself instead of the relationship. You lower what you ask for, explain away each let-down, and quietly carry the work of believing for two people. That slow narrowing of your own needs is part of the damage, and it tends to outlast the relationship itself.
How to Respond to Future Faking
You can’t make someone keep their promises, but you can change how much you organize your life around them. The shift starts with watching what someone does, not what they say they’ll do.
A few things that help:
Watch patterns, not promises. Look at what’s actually happened over the last six months, not what’s been described. Behavior is the data that matters.
Ask for specifics. A real plan can handle questions like when, how, and what’s the first step. Vagueness or defensiveness in response tells you a lot.
Believe actions over words. Someone’s actions tell you more than their words ever will. Let behavior carry more weight than the next promise.
Set a boundary around waiting. You get to decide how long you’ll keep waiting on a someday, and what you’ll do when that line gets crossed.
Stop fronting the cost. Try not to give time, money, or energy in advance against a promise that hasn’t been kept before.
Talk to someone outside it. A trusted friend or therapist can reflect back what's actually happening since the pattern is much easier to see from the outside.
In our clinical experience, the turning point usually comes quietly rather than in a big confrontation. It tends to be the moment a client stops trying to win the argument about the future and starts trusting the evidence in front of them. That shift is hard to do alone, especially with someone who keeps reaching back in with a brand-new promise.
How Therapy Helps You Heal From Future Faking
Healing from future faking is partly about rebuilding trust in your own judgment which is exactly what the pattern erodes. Therapy gives you a place to make sense of the cycle without someone there to rewrite the story for you.
In therapy, you can:
Sort out what really happened, free of gaslighting or spin
Understand why the pattern hooked you, so you can spot it earlier next time
Work through the grief, anger, and self-doubt left behind
Rebuild boundaries and a steadier sense of your own worth
Our post on hoovering and our guide to telling if you’re in a toxic relationship can help you recognize the wider pattern. You don’t have to have it all figured out before you reach out. You just have to want something more secure than waiting.
Do I Need Therapy to Get Over Future Faking?
Future faking that leaves you doubting your own judgment, struggling to trust people, or stuck replaying the relationship is worth bringing to therapy. Hurt that touches your daily life, your sleep, or your sense of self is a strong reason to get support. You don’t have to be in crisis to deserve help with it.
There’s no bar you have to clear to be worth supporting. Carrying the weight of someone else’s empty promises is reason enough to talk to someone who can help you set it down.
Moving Forward After Future Faking
Future faking works by selling you a future that was never going to be built, and it can leave you doubting your own read on reality. The way out starts with trusting what someone does over what they keep promising, and giving yourself permission to stop waiting. You deserve a relationship where the future actually shows up.
Struggling with the aftermath of future faking? Reaching out to a therapist can help. Our team at Anchor Therapy works with clients in Hoboken, NJ, and virtually across New Jersey, New York, and Florida. You can meet our therapists on our Meet Our Team page, or get in touch through the intake form below.
Victoria Scala
is the Community Engagement Director, Office Manager, and Social Media Manager at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark and is currently studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the graduate level.
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