Jealous of Your Contentment
Granting you contentment is part of our design when we seduce you and grant you the golden period. The provision of your contentment at that juncture in our entanglement provides the luscious positive fuel to flow in our direction and all is well. We truly do delight in seeing you content with the illusion that we have woven for you. It is when you and us move into the stages of devaluation and discard that we regard your state of contentment in a wholly different manner,
During devaluation if we witness you appearing content, we are overcome with jealousy. Why should you be allowed to sit there satisfied, happy and relaxed? Why do you not suffer the repeated unease of the desire to gain fuel when those supplies become low? We look across the room at you, your features composed in an expression of peace. The envy rises and we despise the fact that you are sat in pleasant repose, seemingly all at ease with the world. We invariably associate that your composed appearance is achieved in order to annoy and frustrate us. You know don’t you? You know that we have this churning fury inside us which shifts and slides. You know that we have the growing hunger for fuel and how this creates a restlessness in us. You know all of this and yet you sit there, revelling in our discomfort. If you cared you would not be enjoying that book, talking on the ‘phone to a friend or watching your favourite television programme. No, if you loved us properly then you would be ensuring that this restlessness was banished and that our sense of power and might was reinstated. Your content state is being bandied about in front of us, teasing and provoking. You are mocking us because you are achieving something that is denied to us at that time. How dare you behave in this manner? How dare you forget about our needs? This is symptomatic of the selfishness we knew you possessed and now you wave it in our faces suggesting that somehow we are inferior to you. This will not do.
Your contentment at this stage amounts to a provocation and is tantamount to a criticism of us. You have achieved contentment whilst we experience restlessness and you know this don’t you? Oh, we know that you will pretend to be unaware of what you are doing, but we know your game. We are not fooled by these protestations of innocence so when we fling the dinner plate to the floor, shattering the plate and silence, causing you to jump up in fright, you knew it was coming. The plate lies broken and your contentment in one swift move is similarly smashed. You are not allowed to be content unless it is by our say so. We want you on tenterhooks, your nervous eyes looking to us for approval and consent. Exhibit any sign of being relaxed, at ease or content and we will take action to destroy that state in an instant. We will pick a fight, create an argument, call you a name, break something, interrupt you with an insult walk out and slam the door and so many other actions all designed to remove you from your contented position. When we see you like that, you remind us of what we cannot achieve at that time and we hate you for it.
It becomes worse when the relationship has ended. Whether you escaped us or we discarded you, there will come a point when we turn our sights on you again in order to extract that wonderful hoover fuel. It may be weeks or months later but we will have been undertaking observations in order to determine the most effective way of hoovering you. If we see you getting on with your life, radiating happiness and an air of contentment it infuriates us hugely. How dare you seem happy without us? You are meant to be broken and distraught, that is how the aftermath is supposed to be. Admittedly, it usually is, but every so often we may find that one of our victims has seized the power and advanced his or her position, forging through the emotion and formulating their recovery. It may be the case that we have seen you on one of the few good days, the bad days taking place where the world cannot see, but that does not matter to us. Should we witness you looking well, smiling, having lost weight, or looking fitter, dressing elegantly, meeting friends with laughter and smiles it wounds us considerably. You seem to have forgotten us. You are bound to us, forever, have you forgotten that this is the case? You are at our beck and call until the day either of us breathes our last, yet here you are striding across the street, hair glossy and styled, posture confident and uplifted and meeting somebody with a kiss and a broad smile. This was not meant to happen. You exude contentment, a confidence that we thought was shattered and unlikely to be rebuilt for some time. How did this happen? Who has caused this transformation from the sobbing wretch we left without so much as a goodbye to the contented person we now look at from the shadows? It may be a one-off, it may be a glimpse of something that is a work in progress, but such considerations do not matter when we see it. We are wounded by this display. You appear to no longer need us. Where is the stooped figure? The haunted individual with dark-circled eyes and pallid skin? Where is the comfort-eater that we mocked so horribly? Where has the lank-haired, nervous shuffling person we tormented gone to? This was not meant to happen. Ever.
Seeing you so content post escape or post discard is a massive criticism to us. The lesser or mid-range of our kind will most likely slink away, regarding this show of strength (temporary even though it may be) as evidencing somebody with defences high and radar warily sensitive. Any hoover would be doomed to hoover and might even result in further injurious harm. No, the lesser or mid-range will retreat and return to the new prospect that has been acquired and other sources of fuel and make a mental note that a hoover at this juncture is unlikely to meet with success. The Greater of our kind will seethe and glower, dismayed and wounded by this peacock performance. Unseen, we will send baleful glares your way as we formulate a way to pierce this shield of contentment. Schemes will be concocted once again in order to hammer this contentment into nothingness. The Greater may, if sufficiently motivated, spring forward and unless malign actions for the purpose of drawing negative fuel, preferring to adopt such a tactic rather than seek to draw the target back in. It is time to lash out and destroy rather than capture. Our fury is ignited and our calculating minds will ascertain that this can only be a veneer. It is far too soon for you to appear to content again, no matter how much it appears genuine. We want to halt the recovery before it gathers any more momentum and thus the Greater will unleash a savage malign hoover, smearing and hurling insults, dredging up those historic vulnerabilities in order to break the contentment again, just as we did those many months ago during devaluation. The ignited fury drives the Greater forward to shatter, break and destroy and if successful, then he or she knows that further malign assaults can be rolled out to cripple the recovery. Once the recovery has been derailed, the contentment eradicated and the veneer of confidence stripped, then the golden period can be dangled again before the quivering victim.
It never does to see you contented. This is why when we see it during devaluation you will suffer and adverse reaction. Following the cessation of the relationship it wounds us considerably and will generate a certain response dependent on the type of our kind that you were entangled with. The maintenance of contentment is indeed a blow against us.
32 thoughts on “Jealous of Your Contentment”
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Contentment, well it’s temporary. I mean it is achieved over quite hypnotic matter. I think it gives a little break from the empathic-fear, as it lurks in our souls reminding us of all the pain and the injustice in the world we need to find solution for. If there wouldn’t be that pill of content, we would just vanish. Thus when you grant your victims contentment as part of your design when you seduce them and grant the golden period — you give us a break from our creature. With you it feels we can achieve the solution, for a while. (weirdly we do)
What’s fascinating about this: we basically engage with the source of the pain in the world — the narcissistic construct — as it coats the human being in front of us. We want to free you, but we don’t have the tools to do so because we’re not free ourselves. (well now we have the tools!)
Free ourselves first, and then free you? Or is it now, somehow the other way around? ..unintended it’s you.. freeing yourself by freeing us ? !
(omg my truth-seeker lol. goodnight!)
I am fairly sure his friends have told him how happy and good I look. I ran into them right before I left for the holidays and I hope they told him that she is fit, vivacious, and loving life.
Hi HG,
After nearly 2 years of No Contact by either party, my ex narc emails me (out of the blues) that I must be happier with my life, rather than staying with him and he thinks of me every day. He also wishes me a happy belated birthday. (WTH?) When I was living with him as his girlfriend, he never wished me a ‘Happy Birthday.’ He also faults me for the breakup; that I ran away and left him hurt and mad. (Helloooo…..he kicked ,me out for the umpteen time, told me he stopped loving me for the past 4 years, and gave me the silent treatment for months on end – I had no choice to leave; I felt so unloved and discarded). Just as I was healing and getting on with my life, he had to rattle things. He also called, which I didn’t answer the phone; he texted me that he accidentally called me and sent me an email. I texted back, pretending I never got his email and I changed carriers and the work email he sent to, I don’t work there anymore (that’s true) and told him it doesn’t matter anymore and he should move on with his life as I have with mines. Also, I texed to take my phone # off his directory so there won’t be a repeated occurrence of him accidentally calling. What is his motive for his reappearing 2 years later.
Hello Confused and Baffled,
HIs motive is fuel. He either wants a decent portion from you or he is looking to resurrect the Formal Relationship with you and make you his primary source once again. Your situation is useful testimony to how we will hoover some time after the end of the Formal Relationship, in order to extract more fuel from you. He evidently had something trigger the hoover and the Hoover Execution Criteria was met so he hovered you.
1. By stating you must be happier without him is both an attempt to gain pity and ascertain how you would respond to this comment.
2. His contradictory stance re the birthday is entirely consistent with the way we behave. He never wished it you before because it served his purposes not to do so, he wishes you a belated one now because it serves his purposes to do so.
3. He faults you for the breakup because everything is your fault in his mind irrespective of the facts.
He wants fuel. Raise the Hoover Execution Criteria bar by making yourself difficult to contact and do not give any fuel if you have any interaction with him. He will move on when no fuel is forthcoming and it is too hard to hoover you.
Great article. However, the title has a fundamental error. You wrote “jealous” but meant “envious”. See psychologytoday.com/blog/joy-and-pain/201401/what-is-the-difference-between-envy-and-jealousy (Hmm, I really wonder….. Will that also be considered as a “massive criticism”?)
We do not wish to harm to you or offend you . This is not what we are doing . We only want you to be happy and what is best for you . We want you to overcome this disorder and we want you to be happy .
Thank you Starr, you truly are a super tanker.
Well you think the world is out to get you or something but it’s not . Do you think you have to hurt or get us before we get you in your own mind ?
That is part of it, yes.
I wish you could see the world through my eyes
I always thought it was jealousy!!
Ever so recently, my narc “friend” has launched the silent treatment, but, if we happen to cross paths – he always asks why I am so happy? How could I not be? He is gone. Out of my spectrum. He so wishes he could have drained me of all the happiness and light is right. That was his ultimate goal. To devalue me to the point that I questioned myself. That would not happen and he should have known that. He has known me long enough. I hold myself in high regard which completely makes him insane. He has been watching me for 8 years and I think thought he knew what buttons to push in order to kick me off my “Ivory Tower” as he used to say I would sit in.
He would always say that he wondered what I was devising in my Ivory Tower. I never knew what that meant until he tried removing or taking my power by ignoring me and making me non-existent in his world. I am being punished for not accepting his advances and for shattering his already low self esteem. He would tell me I was a dangerous woman. When I asked what that meant, he said I didn’t need to know. Now I know thanks to HG and our consult last week. Dangerous means he couldn’t take me down in all the ways he thought he could.
Great truth there! Couldn’t it be wonderful if only the greater narcissist found doing the right thing so easy and the wrong thing so hard they would not have to be filled with rage and hatred at our contentment or renewed energy and how we bounce back from the pit so well.
Strange- we can take a large and most powerful horse one with a history of trauma or distrust of humans and learn to talk the same language and that bond once established through no domination of the said horse but support or to give them the space they need for however long to recover from a kill pen etc rewards us with an unbreakable and unmistakable relationship where respect and trust are mutual. Why do we have such issues relating on the human spectrum when we have clashes between empaths and narcissists that cannot be resolved, ever?
Bizarre, yet a narcissist can scream they want peace and quiet and the empath can advise the narcissist that peace does not necessarily mean quiet, if that quiet causes long stretches of dehumanisation or connection.
Fair dinkum, give them what the want and they whine about it- Will never get it, no matter the explanations it is a really bizarre way to relate.
hmmm but You’ve put us there and when we picked ourselves up You are jealous? Oh G… it’s like some kind of paranoid world… maybe change of thinking would help? understanding that we love You and as an empath we don’t do stuff deliberately to hurt You? I do hope one day You will get to the point that You will stop fighting with Yourself that you will embrace Yourself…that someone will erase all the things You’ve be tought and seen as a child and that You will get to the point of exhaustion thinking: I wish I could stop…
much love to You dear G… painful post but beautiful
Jealous hey ? what a shame . Next .
This story reminds me of a life sized care bear I had. When my ex was playing video games I would position it on different chairs around the room as if it were staring at him and smiling. He would eventually see it from the corner of his eye, throw the controller and punch the bear across the room. SO FUN. So how long am I grounded? Fuel is the rule right? You know I’m good for it. Just like you knew those hoovers were benign, you can smell it from where you sit.
My contentment is your perception. Care to step into my mind? I invite you. I don’t think you can handle it. No offense. I just don’t think you can handle it. You are invited. Accept or decline. If you decline…well then…okay.
I accept.
Hi HG, I will give you an empath’s perspective:
Emotional detachment is the key to healing, made possible by ‘no contact’. And the realisation that the narc’s behaviour towards you has nothing to do with you: his behaviour is a reflection of his self-hatred, caused by childhood trauma. All of us were shattered at discard. Yet, as you rightly point out, we want to know and understand, and heal. And while the narc will be forever trapped in endless cycles of hell he creates, we are moving on sooner or later. Not all wounds heal, and there will be scars, but at least we know what it means to be alive… carrying the hope that some day we will meet someone who shows us *what it feels like* to be loved, to feel safe, to be free.
Do you not long for peace in your soul?
Thank you Matilda, I do not long for something that I cannot achieve.
Hi HG,
You can find peace. If you want to.
Your entire existence is ruled by fear: fear of weakness, failure, losing control. In your grandiosity, you claim superiority and omnipotence, yet you are completely dependent on others for emotional survival. What a sad irony.
You think that all it takes is to cage the creature, the sum of all your weaknesses, failures and disappointments. Throw away the key and pretend it does not exist. This will get you nowhere, not in the long run. If you want peace in your soul, you need to unlock that cage and face the creature. There is no other way. And what is the worst that could happen when the ugliness washes over you? You think it’s death. But your heart will still be beating, and no matter how bleak the night, you will rise to see another day, another chance to change course. Face the creature, or be ruled by it! Your choice.
Anyway, I hope this does not come across as patronising or offensive, that is not my intention. We are all here to learn from each other, and you have been a great teacher, HG. Thank you.
Thank you Matilda.
This exchange broke my heart at bit. I hope you do find peace, HG. From what I hear, there is nothing like it.
I escaped after wrestling with two of you. I was almost drained. I made it out. I am not missing the illusion – I am loving the peace. This is my life. Hoover. You won’t ever get fuel from me again. Thank you for the insight provided in your books. I am finally free.
Hello Barbara, I am pleased you have found the insight useful and thank you for reading.
I love when you show me how much power or value one word has.
You are extremely correct when you say we are content. I am content to do most anything or many times, nothing. I am very laid back. I didn’t realize that being content was something some people didn’t experience. And I didn’t realize that was something else that provoked my ex.
Two weeks after I ended it, my ex texted my friend and was probing her for details. She wanted to know if I was happy. When my friend told her I was, she replied:
“so it was me”
“Why did this happen”
“I made her happy”
“How is she happy with him”
“Yes, I do want her to be happy, but I want her happy with me”
“How does she give up our friendship just like that”
“I just can’t believe she’s happy”
I recently found this conversation in my phone and I thought they matched everything that you are talking about here after we leave.
I also saw her backlash when she saw family vacation pictures that were posted online. She immediately smeared me online.
Great article HG.
Thank you SW.
I want contentment. This is what I ordered. I would like it medium rare.
Care to have some? I like to share.
Oh? You are willing to share your chaos. How is it prepared? Do you think you can sweeten it some? I have such a sweet tooth.
So I end my Contentment with a side of Chaos………….sweeten.
Reblogged this on NarcMagNet69x96.
You know what they say… You cannot have your cake and eat it too!!
My husband used to verbally abuse me, emotionally abuse me and he was an utter nightmare. I wish I had read your pages years ago. It would have helped so much. I was taken in by him so many times. But as a Christian I felt I should forgive him each time he hurt me….until one day…I sold the house and escaped. He changed….came to church with me. But I caught him being unkind to his daughter. Made me wonder if he could really ever change. Though id o believe God can do miracles.
HG, are you still reviewing writings on personal escape from our narc?
If so, may I have the email address to submit
Thank you
I am. It is awakened1909@gmail.com