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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The best revenge is a life well-lived. Now I know why they work so hard to bring other people down. Cheers, to happiness!
HG: I have a question. Just in the 6 months having become aware of narcissism and how my empathic traits make me a target, I’m still learning. However, if you are sharing all about narcissism as a way to help people, are you a recovered or recovering narcissist? I have not researched you but have read a number of your blog posts. Thank you for the insight.
No. Please see the About section.
another one I know very well…
Once it was very clear he would never change and I grieved for all I had hoped for in the relationship and learned to accept that he would never love me because he never did, never would be able to, I found friends online and his attempts to devalue and hurt/wound me failed because I found those friends and I broke free. I would sit on my laptop and he had no clue why I smiled or laugh and he would be across the room on his laptop and glare at me every single time… ooooh how he hated this soooo much but 2 can play the “you don’t get to know what I do online” game…
which led to some in-depth cyber stalking… and he could not understand, being in denial about stalking me, why he would get banned 🙂 that was sooo sweet… I loved being able to boot and ban him… it was therapeutic 😉 and it pissed him off soooo much…
Up coming scenario Hg please. MR discarded by two IPPS and one secondary sourse (me), all escapees will be having a lovely lunch/drinks together, (triagulation by MR came crushing down), so now we obviously compare notes…as you do. Enter MR, shock horror no doubt! Can we expect anything more than cold fury and him looking for his closest exit to flee from wound? Dare say it will be a big one yes? Thank you as usual… 😉
Yes he will scurry away abhorred by the lies you will be telling one another about him.
Thanks again HG. Ohh how I do like a scurry!!
You are welcome.
He’ll scurry away like the cockroach he is. lol
Ive seen this many times with the narc. If im overly happy he becomes quiet and passive aggressive comments or mild knit picking conflict will arise. Say for instance i say something he will say the opposite to try to get me to agree with him and back down from what i initially said. Its a tactic called “deflating”. He wants to deflate my balloon of positiveness and happiness. Deep down theyre not happy that in itself is why they function the way they do. They lack true joy and contentment and only feel it fleetingly thru fuel. The narc becomes envious when he sees me overly content bc that means to him im too comfortable an md equates that with his fuel level going down and him being taken for granted. You have to be on your toes to prove youre constantly trying to please them. Our very existance as a victim is to please the narc not ourselves. How dare we feel contentment and happiness apart from the narc! We are their extension we are not a seperate individual and we certainly can never have a life of our own that makes us happy thats an insult of the highest degree!
Hello HG, hope your day is going well. Thank you very much for all the knowledge and insight you provide us! 😊
I think this pretty much answers my question from a couple days ago that is still in moderation, on the post “But Why?” If I remember right. Would it be possible to go ahead and delete that question now? Thank you.
No problem and you are welcome.
Thank you Sir.
I prefer him not to know, one way or the other and take measures to achieve that now
I am a big fan of the saying ‘Living well is the best revenge’.
So true, I have seen that elsewhwere as well. Narcs can’t stand seeing us living well, and having their fuel lines cut via NC.
This is my ex narc. 1000 per cent. It is also true of my mother, the original narc. in my life. Only I never read it in words so clearly like this. It is simply something I have been feeling all these years. My “happiness” is a big no-no. grrrrrr
Never gave this a whole lot of thought…makes a lot of sense now. Explains a lot of the wacko behaviour. Thanks again HG.
You are welcome.
“Who has caused this transformation from the pissed off empath we left without so much as a goodbye to the contented person we now look at from the shadows?” I was more like Krakatoa than a crier.
Ironically, HG, you have caused this transformation and my ex has slinked off and wants nothing to do with me. He seems wary and I find it amusing. I have to say I am more content than not, lately. It is an odd sensation. I feel quite buoyant. The post, also, reminds me a lot about my childhood. My parents didn’t like contentment at all and would deliberately provoke each other, as well as, us children. It was very violent in my home. It all makes sense now. Thank you.
You are welcome K.
HG –
Would a Lesser or Mid-Ranger still behave in a similar fashion (slink away) as described if their discard of the victim had been a 1-2 yrs previous when they finally saw ‘contentment’?? Would they then possibly hoover since it had been a long time post discard?
Hello Elle, the effluxion of time has a diminishing impact on the issue of wounding and witnessing contentment. Thus, if the contentment was witnessed two years ago, its impact will now be far less. Would a hoover follow? It depends on whether there is a Hoover Trigger and whether the Hoover Execution Criteria is met, the issue of diminished impact being just one criterion to take into account.
Your fury is your work. Nothing anyone else says or does will ever do anything about it .
I’ve already given up a multitude of those I cared about who decided to camp with “them”.
I can do it again. I can survive it again if need be, however, I don’t think I will have to.
Watching for the red flags, being content with my own existence, & stepping away from being responsible for anyone elses emotions/feelings is my way out of the rabbit hole.
Diligently abdicating beliefs & behaviours that ultimately seduce the narcissist to me when in fact that is the last situation I would prefer to be found in, gives me not only a reprieve but an antenna if you will to see the narcissist in front of me before it gets inside me.
I used to crave to be seduced because it meant a distraction from the pain of my own insides. When we do this, the narcissist & the empath are doing the same thing for different reasons.
When I face my own fears, taking the narcissist out of the equation …it’s like putting caulking on those cracks inside & finding healing.
Searching for “my other half” because I feel incomplete is no longer a reality.
Currently i am in the hallway of transition uncertain where I will end up….at this point I will take “i don’t know” over going in circles continuously.
A. R. that post shows so much self awareness and growth. I have to believe you are on a great path to healing. A lot of what you say resonates with me. Especially being seduced as a distraction to other pains (such as buried grief).
Thank you for posting. Healing is a process. I have taken huge steps in the last 3 months to educate myself, recognize red flags and set healthy boundaries. As an empath, being aware is key.
You are welcome.
It hit me badly and i shut myself down completely at first. Then I displayed onwards and upwards attitude on the outside to not to give him satisfaction but also to convince myself that I was fine although I was broken .People close to me knew the truth.
Misery, does indeed love company, So another’s happiness is yet another igniter of fury. Is this related to anyone, or just intimate and non intimate sources?
Anybody, but it is more likely with the primary and secondary sources.
Does this include seeing us happy on Facebook pics ?
Yes.