The Infidelity Weapon
Infidelity is a given when you are ensnared by one of our kind. We know that it is not pleasant for you to think of us in the arms of another, conjoined in sexual congress as we do things with them that we have done with you and then we return to you. We know that infidelity is something that someone like you abhors. You have a strong moral compass, you behave in an honest and decent fashion and expect us to do the same. That will not happen. You place considerable belief in the question of trust and the concept of monogamy. Our infidelity will manifest in lots of different ways: –
- Having sexual liaisons with third parties, some of whom will be strangers and others will be prospects who are looking to seduce;
- Sending and receiving text messages of a sexual content;
- Describing online what we want to do to someone and they to us;
- Sexual liaisons with your friends and family members;
Although I know it is scant consolation to you since ultimately it is the breach of trust which causes you the greatest pain, we do not commit acts of infidelity because we want the sex. Admittedly, the physical sensation is enjoyable but that is not the reason we are repeatedly unfaithful. In terms of our attitudes to sex and especially sex with you, read Sex and the Narcissist. For the purposes of this publication it is sufficient to explain that when are unfaithful the sex is not the primary purpose. It is the fact that in your world sex is equated with love, affection and attraction and as a consequence it serves a purpose as a formidable weapon in our hands. We use it to seduce so we can gain additional fuel from third parties. We use it to seduce a new prospect who will provide us with fuel and will ultimately replace you. Initially we will be covert about our infidelity as we do not wish to damage having you as our primary source and therefore our need to obtain fuel from secondary sources through infidelity will remain covered up. Over time we will continue to use sex with other people as a means of gaining additional fuel but we will also be doing this to seduce your replacement. Eventually when we start our devaluation of you, we will be far less covert concerning our extra-marital affairs and often we will not care if you know or not. Indeed, we may even flaunt a mistress in front of you for the purposes of making you try harder and to provoke you so that you provide us with additional negative fuel.
Infidelity is not about the sex. It is about fuel. It is about control. Being unfaithful to you abuses your trust, it pours scorn on the vows we have taken and makes a mockery of you and what you stand for. It is abusive behaviour and to expect a narcissist to always be faithful is like expecting the tide to stop advancing when you tell it do so. It just will not happen. Infidelity is second nature to us because the weapon that is sex is just too good not to use to gain additional fuel. If there was another device that was so potent we would use it instead. The fact that sex feels enjoyable is just a matter of nerve endings and a pleasant side-effect. For us, sex is all about using it to further our aims; gathering fuel.
We will be unfaithful to you at some point. That is a guarantee. When we are first seducing you, we will be in the process of devaluing someone else leading to his or her discard. We most likely will have withdrawn sex from the victim who we are devaluing and by having sex with you as the new object of our seduction. This does not mean that since you are the apple of our eye we will be faithful to you. We will have intermittent sex with the person who is subjected to the devaluation either as a means of giving them a short golden period again or for the purposes of extracting further fuel by subjecting them to humiliating sexual activities. We will also be courting other prospects also as well as you and therefore there is a strong likelihood we will be bedding that person also. We will, when seducing you, maintain an image of fidelity since that is what you expect. If you are conducting an affair with us, we will assure you that our current partner (whom we are devaluing) never has sex with us, we sleep in separate beds and so on. We will bemoan the fact they never have sex with us in order to draw sympathy from you as the new prospect.
By contrast, we will triangulate you as the new prospect with our current partner. We will drop heavy hints that we are being unfaithful or even actively admit it in order to further the hurt. Our rationale behind this is that monogamy is for the little people and this does not include us. That would make us less special and we cannot have that. We are entitled to seek sex outside of a relationship because this is our inalienable right to enable us to obtain fuel. We feel no guilt in doing this, we do not respect any vows we may have given to remain faithful to you and we have no qualms about coupling with someone else. The reason for this is that we have to do it and in a perverse way, the only reflection on you is that you are not giving us the fuel we need. It is not a reaction to what you look like, what you do, who your friends are or what your interests might happen to be. We will of course use them, as a method of lashing out at you should you try and question us about our infidelity because as I have explained in Manipulated we will deploy blame shifting frequently when we are under attack. It is often the case that when a partner learns of the infidelity of their partner that they will scrutinise their own conduct.
“Is it something I have done?”
This means that you will examine your own behaviour and try to improve in some way because you will want to salvage our relationship. The fact of your addiction means you do not want to let us go. You will be mightily hurt and offended by our infidelity but you will try to find some way of fixing it because that is what you like to do. If our infidelity shows any risk of causing you to depart, we will hastily reinstate the golden period, as a Preventative Hoover, if you will, to stop you departing from us. Most of the time however, because of the way you are, you blame yourselves (often because we warp your way of thinking to do this) and you try to patch things over. Your need to resolve matters results in you clinging to us notwithstanding our infidelity. Indeed, in some instances you want to prove that you are better than the person we committed our infidelity with. You want to fight to retain us and ensure that our relationship triumphs.
We will also use infidelity as a means by which to control you and make you do what we want: –
“If you gave me more attention I would not go elsewhere.”
“If you put out more often I would not have to get it from someone else.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t let yourself slide I wouldn’t stray would I?”
“If you thought more about me rather than yourself perhaps it would not have happened?”
“I won’t leave you, I should, but I will stay but some things are going to have to change.”
You are the victim. We have committed the transgression but other than when we fear you might leave us and sever our supply of fuel, we will not apologise but pin the blame on you. You will have been subjected to a succession of manipulation wiles in order to browbeat you and lower your resistance so that when we unveil our infidelity we use it as a method of getting what we want from you, namely more fuel and more control.
Infidelity is bad enough in the context of a “normal” relationship. With our kind it will always happen, it will always happen with many people and will do so repeatedly. It is a further black flag of abusive behaviour.
60 thoughts on “The Infidelity Weapon”
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HG, when the Narc called me by the mistress’s name, do you think this was on purpose?
Unlikely, given that he is likely to be a Lesser or Mid Range Narcissist.
Wow. Thank you HG. 🤯
I was with a middle mid range sulking narcissist .
The saga unfolded exactly the way you described it in this post.Completely spot on !!!!
Cheers HG!!!
Hello sir,
happy I’ve found this article but there is something I really don’t understand about this whole infidelity thing.
There is the new IPPS, the golden period runs (first weeks so I think there is no devaluation yet), he takes her on trips ,introduces her to the coterie, gives flowers, gifts, love bombing at its best.
And at the same time he flirts with other women, he posts comments on their bikini photos, telling them they are beatutiful. Or he compliments something about their looks that is his IPPS’s weakness (for example she has short legs, so he compliments other girl’s long legs). He acts like he was still single.
Her reaction to it is just as you write in the article – she clings to him more, posts their pictures online, befriends his friends… she encircles him.
So I have some questions:
1. Is it because he isn’t 100% happy with her as his IPPS, has some doubts and tries to keep his options open?
2. Or is it because HE IS 100% sure, and flirting with others in front of her is just a “final test” – how much of control over her he has?
3. Will he stop doing it at some point and focus only on her? If yes – when? If she clings to him more and act like she doesn’t see it or if she breaks and tell him to stop?
4. Or will it get worse and worse? If he does it on the early stage of golden period and she accepts it now, can’t imagine what he will do when the devaluation comes.
Thanks!
1. When there is flirtation with others she is not the IPPS, she is the Candidate IPSS so gets the golden period but is not embedded as IPPS. The golden period has two stages in this instance – Candidate IPSS so the seduction and the love-bombing, then the embedded golden period as IPPS.
2. Yes, flirting is a test but he is also keeping options open. Someone else may become the Candidate IPSS and the original one becomes a Shelf IPSS.
3. Yes, when embedded.
4. It might if she loses Candidate IPSS status.
Thank you very much for the answear. Now I understand. But it seems that the whole process of embedding the IPPS (which we normals call “finding a girlfriend”) is very complicated. So many stages! For us – if we date you, sleep with you, meet your friends, meet you with our friends, declare love it simply means we are together, end of story. No flirting with others, no searching for someone better. But you can do all the things above and in your mind this girl IS NOT your IPPS – this is really really odd. And very difficult for the girl who doesn’t know about these stages, about your fuel matrix and thinks she is your IPPS.
Thanks!
Well then. Yes.
I hate the truth. Where can I turn in my truth seeker card. This is all way too true and powerful. I get that knowledge is power. It breaks your heart first.
Why does devaluation begin, HG? What does the primary source do to instigate that? What, if anything, can the primary source do to prolong the golden period? Or has the duration of the golden period already been determined before it starts?
It seems the golden period gets longer and sweeter as I have accepted him back, time and time again.
Hello Pretty,it begins because you let us down. You are perceived as not providing us with the potency, quantity or frequency of fuel that we require and as such the devaluation begins. You can prolong it by continuing to provide the fuel at the right level of potency, quantity and frequency but you are leaving yourself very much open to chance because ultimately it is all based on our perception and not your reality. It has not been determined before it starts.
If we are disobedient enough times, can that bring about the end of a year’s long golden period (as a DLS or otherwise)?
Yes.
The more the victim is submissive, the longer golden period? I started questioning his behaviours and motives and ideas after first date. He wanted to dominate all the time. He was kind, charming and seductive but acted superior – I didn’t like it. I don’t have a need to dominate others but I hate when someone wants to dominate me. So our golden period turned to devaluation very quickly, I think after a month. I had a feeling that he would be happy only with a trained dog as a partner.
I am at my wits end with my narc’s behavior and now I am in therapy. He is my coworker and is dating me and my coworker who works in the office next to me at the same time. He will put her on a pedestal, treat me like garbage. I can hear him calling her all day and hear them planning dates with each other. Then as soon as she leaves for the day, he is calling me asking me to come over his house and have sex with him. My self esteem has become non existent and I feel like quitting my job. Yet with all of this, I am still in love with him. HG, let me ask you, what if I were to mirror his behavior? Would a male narc feel jealousy towards another man if I were to start flirting with a male coworker? Would my narc devalue me if I were to start dating other men or would he take me back to the golden period?
Hello ILWAN, I appreciate that instigating no contact is going to be difficult for you since you all work together. You have options :-
1. Ignore him as much as he can. This will prove painful for you because he has infected your emotions. You will feel like you have let the other lady win and since you are in love with the idea of what he is, this will hurt. You may well struggle to maintain such a position and be susceptible to him coming for you again (as he will). I suspect that given where you are emotionally, you will find this difficult. Ignoring him will however reduce the fuel he gets from you. He will try to get more from you, but if you are able to resist, then over time he will begin to leave you alone but it will take a considerable time because you will keep appearing in his spheres of influence as you work together and the bar on your Hoover Execution Criteria is low, so there is likely to be an attempted hoover;
2. Ignore him and focus your attention elsewhere. Leaving aside the question of fairness in doing this to somebody else since you are doing it not because you are interested in them but because you wish to make the narc jealous, this is likely to serve you more effectively. You ignoring him will lessen the fuel. You taking an interest in someone else will amount to a criticism. This will ignite his fury. He will lash out at you in order to draw and gain fuel from you and this may be unpleasant. If he is a Mid-Ranger however this is most likely to be by way of a silent treatment and if you are focussed on the other man, this will give you some relief. You will have landed a blow. Be aware he will keep hoovering you and you will also need to process the emotion concerning him, out of your system, a la Exorcism, but the distraction of the other man and the satisfaction you will gain from landing a blow will give you the motivation to move forward. Yes, he will be jealous of the attention you give elsewhere and he will look to draw you back in by increasing the seduction. Keep in mind you may, given your emotional state find that hard to resist AND he will punish you down the line for your transgression in making him jealous. You can make him jealous but you must keep reading to bolster your resolve so that you are not drawn back in by him. Stay out and use jealousy and knowledge as the twin factors to keep you distant from him so that over time he regards you as an unattractive fuel source. You will keep appearing in his spheres of influence; your aim is to raise the bar on the hoover execution criteria so he does not execute the hoovers against you. It will take time and effort but it is achievable.
Thank you so much HG for your advice and support. I surely wish that I had found your site sooner because this would have saved me a lot of heartache and pain. I will continue reading and learning. This week my strategy is going to be ignore him like you suggested. It may seem that the other woman is the winning a prize but she will soon learn that the narc is a full-time fraud!
Indeed she will ILWAN and thank you for the kind words, do continue to read.
So if the old primary partner was discarded and the new one embedded, will you hold off engaging in any infidelity to the new partner while in the golden period until devaluation begins?
Yes.
Let me ask you something HG. What if I were to turn the tables on my narc and do the exact same thing that he is doing to me to him–mirror his behavior? What if I were to make him think that I was seeing another man? What would my narc be thinking and how would he react towards me? Let’s say that I wouldn’t come out and directly tell him that I was having sex with another man, but I would make him suspicious–like being less available, cancelling dates at the last minute–the exact same things that he does to drive me crazy. Trust me, These behaviors are not part of my character, but I am at my wits end on what to do with the narc in my life. I want him to feel the same pain and confusion that I feel! I am new to this site. This is a great article HG and every post you write is making me heal, one article at a time.
Hello Trapped, i understand your frustration. Mirroring works with a silent treatment but not with anything else as you run the risk of igniting our fury and suffering the consequences. See point two of this article
https://narcsite.com/2016/10/13/5-narcissistic-myths/
In terms of how to deal with him, the best thing is to understand why he is doing these things and spot them so you can then apply a counter measure. Thus if you have not done so already, read Fuel (to understand why), Manipulated, Devil’s Toolkit and Black Flag (so you can spot it) and Escape and No Contact for the counter measures.
Thanks for your kind compliment and do keep reading.
I’ve asked him: “How are we going to trust each other when we started this relationship based on infidelity, cheating on our partners?”. That was actually me asking him how I could trust him, knowing him, knowing his relationships’ history. I knew I would never cheat again. After all, it was “once-in-a-lifetime love”..I fought real hard against my intuition..But it was right – replacement(s) was there in a blink of an eye. It was there all along. And I still remember his words: “I have never told to any other woman I wouldn’t cheat on her. I am telling that to you.” !?!?
SuperEmpath— “I have never told to any other woman I wouldn’t cheat on her. I am telling that to you.” !?!?
^and that shit works
Question: when I was with the GCN, there was no sex. Thankfully for me as I found him repulsive anyway. And yet, I got called a whore, a slut, a f**king thing!! Why? I never understood it. I had NO interest in sex with him or anyone. As far as him having affairs, I doubted that he ever did because of his lack of interest. (HG says otherwise so it must be right I guess). I even suspected he was gay!! Was just an inner ‘feeling’ always. Any comments on this appreciated. Thanks. 🙂
You got called those things because labelling you as such is the precursor for drawing fuel from you by angering or upsetting you, by emphasising that you are worthless and therefore inferior to him. With regard to the affairs he may not have engaged in a physical affair but one can be intellectually and/or emotionally unfaithful, it is just that the world largely has been conditioned to think that sleeping with a stranger once is more heinous that pouring out your innermost thoughts and desires to someone else.
Lisa, I am so glad you asked this question! It was one I have wanted to ask for a long time, but wasn’t sure if I was ready to hear the answer. We had only had sex a handful of times within that year together. I blamed the lack of interest on his drinking problem, but after learning what he was and with the knowledge HG has given, I started questioning it more. Maybe he refrained as a form of control knowing that it was something I wanted, maybe it was a form of punishment, or even worse it was given to others. Very likely all of the above. It was very hard for me not to have that sexual relationship with him, but he was intimate in other special ways that kept me happy. The main one being the way he held me close to him at night. He never once took that away and it was the one thing that made me feel safe with him.
I do agree with HG in that there are other forms of cheating, all equally hurtful.
Thanks for the reply HG. Yes that does make sense.
And B, sounds like you were lucky to at least have SOME intimacy. We had none! It was luke warm….cold….colder….really quite cold….near freezing…..freezing! Not so much as a leg wrap! ☃️
Yes it was really weird how he could be like this while we slept, and like I said not one time did he not do this. Even when he was mad at me. It was almost like he forgot to hate me.
Either way B, Im thinking it was all part of the evil plan. Mine, to devalue me more than likely, yours, to bolster his ego? Fuel either way.
I agree Lisa. Even before I knew what he was I never would tell him how much that meant to me or how safe I felt wrapped in his arms. I knew if I told him then he would take it away as a form of punishment. I learned very quickly how he operated…. just not quick enough.
Thanks HG. Yes I can see that. He always considered himself to be far more superior intellectually than anyone. (sometimes I thought he was just plain stupid however). I used to wish he actually had an affair. It would have given me reason to lash out some, and get my own back. But now I know it wouldnt have worked anyway. Quite the opposite in fact. Thanks again.
You are welcome Lisa.
Yes. Ex was having online sex with his new target, at the same time he was distributing photographs of me ( without my knowledge) on Cuckolding sites asking for men to sleep with me while he watched … His ” new fantasy” as he called it & for months & months he chipped away at me telling me that if I loved him I’d do it ..
Because at that point I had no idea what he was doing I came sooo close to agreeing to it.
Thankfully I had a brief moment of clarity & said no to it after he came to bed one night & said that he’d spoken to someone who lived just 50 miles away & had offered to pay . ” drum roll”…… HALF the petrol costs !
I think I can be sure that it was the turning point for us both. He knew then that he wasn’t getting anything more from me, he’d squeezed every ounce of fuel from me physically , sexually & emotionally there was nothing left .
I was discarded very soon after & he flew out of the country to seal the deal with his new supply .
Great article HG . Thank you .
Hi SoSad,
I can relate to almost doing something that I didn’t want to do. I was sooo close also. And it would have just led to more and more. I would have completely lost myself. It still makes me sick thinking about everything I agreed to. I am glad that you said no and didn’t have to go through with it. Until someone is in our shoes they can’t imagine the things that we consider.
Xx
Thanks Snow White.
I’m sad to read you almost considered something similar .
I knew something was very wrong, but he was pulling me back & forward with repeated golden periods, silent treatments & hoovers .. I was an emotional mess.
At the same time the violence increased on a massive scale & I lost all sense of identity . I just wasn’t me anymore .
But that night something happened , enough for me to stand up to him for the first time in a very long time and say NO.
I’ll never forget the next morning when he came down stairs and said if I wouldn’t agree to it he would have to find a new ” fantasy” .. That was the last time he asked and as I said, a few weeks later he was gone .
I dread to think what would’ve happened If I’d agreed, but I’ve been told that many women in such relationships end up as prostitutes .
As you say until someones walked in our shoes Snow White ………….
Always nice to talk to you .
Take care .
NNS xx
SO SAD— totally relate. great image too. thankyou for sharing that.
Btw, the stitching on your tailor made suit. Very nice ☺
Your kind seems to have a perversion in punishing the IP with infedility. I think it goes beyond devaluation. It appears there is a sadistic pleasure you obtain when you do it. The bed you share with the IP is a favorite place of yours to punish. No, hotels are not good enough. The act must occur in the most intimate place of all. What better place but the bed to defile your union. You don’t cover your tracks. There is always a tell-tale sign. You leave the IP a single rose each time (I.e. a different strand of hair, different colors). It is similar to the signature that serial killers leave on their victims.
Mr. Tudor, was the bed you shared with the IP your preferred place for cheating?
Not especially, if infidelity had taken place in that shared bed it may well be used against the devalued IP at a later juncture for the purposes of drawing fuel.
As in you would eventually tell her you were intimate with someone else on that bed? Did none of the IPs suspect in advance? In my experience, your kind loves to leave a little ‘love note’ of their indiscretion. Like ‘look what I just did!’. Then they deny it vehemently. Its actually amusing.
Indeed. There were suspicions but as you rightly identify, those suspicions only arose because I allowed that to be the case, otherwise they had no clue.
LOVE—a sadistic pleasure you obtain when you do it.
^agree to that.
As usual, this is perfect timing. I appreciate the reminders. It helps to strengthen the wall.
My ex narc did exactly everything you’ve said here. And I played the fool by letting him come back (very briefly) once, until I realized it would never work. He’ll never change. As much as I loved the person I thought I was married to, he didn’t really exist. It was all lies, smoke and mirrors. He still tries to hover sometimes. I call it testing the waters….
I come to your blog to keep my head on straight. Thanks HG
You are welcome DK, I am pleased you are using the blog in that way. You are evidently seizing the power.
I am curious as to the thoughts on fidelity in a 20 year marriage. I cannot imagine now knowing his kind, that he would have been faithful but I have not caught him out. There have been a few occasions where I have been uncomfortable but he reassured me. Now he discarded me 8 months ago and he has still not admitted his new relationship which I know started within a couple of weeks of him going as well as the emotional affair I discovered he was having before he went. So why is he keeping it hidden. Is it because I have control of the money?
He is keeping it hidden for two reasons D.
1. For fuel – he keeps you onside with the non-admission and thus gains fuel. He keeps the infidelity to use as an admission at a later stage for more fuel; and
2. the residual benefit- the money as you have pointed out.
Ugh. Sounds like my first marriage.
Thanks again HG for that reality check! It seems like as soon as I allow my mind to think about him and second guess everything you have taught… Boom! You wake me up from dream land. Sometimes I think you must be reading my mind as your timing is always perfect with what I am thinking, but in reality you know what we are all thinking and we are all thinking the same things. You are much more than just a Hero to us. Heroes get remembered… but Legends never die! Writting your history and a truthful one at that 😉
B, He lives…inside….our head <3
How do we get them OUT of our head?
Debi, I think they will always be in our head, but we need them to be so that we are able to recognize their kind. We need the reminders of the pain caused by ignoring red flags that are waved in front of our face. It is the false image that we need to get out of our head. I don’t know if there is a right or wrong way of doing this. I think it all depends on the person, but here are a few things that seem to help me.
– Music. I can not and will not listen to country music. It is a reminder of him, especially with certain songs that he played a lot. I listen my music that I can relate to. I call it my angry music lol.
– Delete every message and text trend. Actually delete them. There is no reason to re-live those conversations or to second guess what was said. I did however use some of the cruel words and statements he threw at me in a drawing I did. I look at this drawing when ever I start to think that I miss him or that he loves me.
– Do not use social media!!!
– Remove any reminder of him. Anything that reminds you of him toss!
– Do not talk about him with family or friends. Do not mention his name… ever!
– (This is the number one for me and the one that works best of all) I look at my daughter!
Hope that helps. You just have to find what works best for you and apply it.
Free of Duress.
Sarah Who is he? GOD?
We all have HG in our head…the self…it makes us who we are. HG is a good reminder of that gear check although he takes it to an extreme I don’t personally agree with, but many times Empaths forget that healthy level within themselves as well. HG is a good reminder of that!
This was it for me. I knew in my gut that it would happen again. Not right off the bat, but maybe in a year or two. There were always going to be others. She even said that I wouldn’t have to know about it. Her other wife would have given her the green light if that’s what she wanted.
When I started this blog and started reading the books this is what kept me from going back. I really thought she loved me and still had it in the back of my mind. I would have never been able to accept and put up with all the women she would have wanted. Of course then she would say
“I only want you”
“You are the love of my life”
Everything that you write above is honest and accurate and helped not to go back. I learned more as usual today.
Great article and I’m so glad I listened to you.
You deserve so much better, Snow – you are always so pensive, kind, reflective, and sincere in all your posts – so glad you listened to HG…you are a truly sensitive one of a kind soul 🙂
Thanks Sarah for the kind words. What I didn’t expect when I came here was to learn so much about myself. Lol
Good luck with helping your stepson. You are the force that he needs in his life.
I know what it’s like to put in the time and effort in trying to make a difference in a child’s life. ❤️🍎
Thanks Snow. Thanks, Snow. I have learned a lot about myself too. I always look for your comments and appreciate your honesty and how you openly talk about your feelings and getting out of the FOG. Ironically, my stepson and I are doing better than ever before, but I have had to isolate myself off too and that can be awkward and a hard place to navigate. I think it comes from my value of acceptance and understanding. We shall see, but always learn from your comments and expressions related to the feelings – while my relationship is not romantic, there is an element of the same type of emotions there from those behaviors that I have come to identify and not take as personally. Maybe I will make a difference, but trying is what matters and all one can do.