Why Does The Narcissist Get Rid Of You?
The discard. Treated like refuse. Cast aside. Thrown away. Jettisoned. Abandoned.
As you know, the word Dis-Enagement is more accurate but for the sake of familiarity I will continue with the use of discard in this article, but do understand there is no finality associated with this act.
You may actually be told that the Formal Relationship is at an end.
More usually, you are left wondering if the end has come, a further parting coup de grace to add to the cocktail of bewilderment, anxiety, misery, pain and carnage that has been left behind by our kind.
I have explained what triggers the discard, a variety of different circumstances which give rise to you being dropped, but whilst you may understand how those circumstances cause you to be discarded, there remains certain nagging questions. Why go to such effort to only leave you in the dust? Why get rid of you if we need you for fuel? Why get rid of you if we are only going to come back and hoover you?
Once again these apparent contradictions only serve to prolong your confusion. Indeed, so much of our behaviour is inherently contradictory because in being so, this allows us to generate misunderstanding and misery on your part. That equates to fuel, that equates to stopping you moving forward and escaping us and it equates to creating something that we will come back to.
Why do we go to such effort to seduce you if all we are going to do is fling you to one side?
First of all, when we seduce you, we see the manifestation of our enduring hope that you are The One, that you possess the unlimited supply of fuel which will put an end to our seemingly never-ending quest for fuel. You will provide fuel which is potent, plentiful and permanent. This is what we want. The person that means never again shall we have to seek fuel from another source. No longer need we engage in so many manipulations to keep our lifeblood flowing. Everything that we have ever wanted and ever needed is finally within our grasp. Such a promise means that we must go to such lengths to seduce you. You are our Holy Grail, restitution will be poured on our lips from that chalice and in so doing, you will grant us freedom. Freedom from the hunting, the chasing, the harvesting and the extracting. Relief from this burden that we carry – some of us doing so far more effectively than others – each and every day. This prospect is why we must seduce you, bind us to us and keep you as ours. We do not set out to discard you. That is furthest from our minds when we look into your eyes. It makes perfect sense for us to give you everything that we know that you want if that means you will remain with us and give us our precious fuel. It is a transaction. We grant you the illusion of the perfect love and in return you are to provide us with our perfect fuel. It is the ultimate deal.
Why get rid of you if we need you for fuel?
When we dispose of you, it is precisely because of our need for fuel that you are discarded. You no longer provide us with the fuel that we desire. It does not matter if from your perspective you are just as loving as you are now as you were when we first met. It does not matter that you have crawled across broken glass to fulfill our needs. It becomes irrelevant how much you continue to adore us, worship us, beg us and strive each and every day to accord with what you think that we want. You are second-guessing us to the extent that you no longer even know who you are. Your thoughts become dominated as our thoughts – what will he say to this, how will he react to that, what is the best thing to do now, should I stay or go? You can give and give and give but when the discard comes, it just is no longer enough. From our perspective, you have failed us. We must place all of this blame on you, for we have to remain blameless. Most of our kind do not recognize any culpability because they have no insight, but there are those of us, the highers, the greaters, who know you have done all you can but it is not enough. Still we must blame you, because that is the way it has to be. We are to remain superior, you are to remain inferior, because if we allow that balance to shift, then we are no longer in control and if we lose control we lose ourselves.
Yes, the rampant paranoia will cause even those of us who are greaters to continue to blame you, you are but an agent of the vicious world, a manifestation that has been sent to topple us from our lofty perch. But we also know that we must continue to blame you, even when we recognise there is no blame or perhaps less blame, because we must at all times, in all circumstances exert control. We dare not countenance what would happen if it were any other way. To do so would be to entertain the unthinkable. Extinction.
Thus, your failure is both believed and manufactured and you must be discarded because we need the fresh, edifying and invigorating fuel from elsewhere. The shiny, new and exciting appliance that has been successfully embedded during your devaluation. If this has not happened, then it is in progress or quite possibly, although rarely, about to happen, if the discard has occurred as a consequence of an emergency measure.
Our need for this glorious and fresh fuel means you have to go. We do not care if this seems unfair from your perspective. This is what has to happen. We need fuel. You are no longer providing it as we require it. You are discarded. The positive fuel has lost its lustre, the negative fuel has dimmed and so because all is as the fuel orders it to be, we must attach to the new appliance and cast you to one side.
Why get rid of you if we are only coming to come back and hoover you?
This suggests that we may as well keep hold of you if we are only going to return to you at some later juncture. Why don’t we just maintain a grip on you and save ourselves the bother of hoovering – and you the pain of discard – and keep the Formal Relationship going?
There are four elements to this answer
- Punishment. You let us down and we must maintain the façade that you let us down – part of the maintenance of control which I describe above – and for that you should be punished. We should not be let down. We should be given what we want, after all we consider ourselves as so entitled, therefore in failing to give us what we want and need you are in the wrong and we know only too well that if you are wrong then punishment follows. That is the way that it always has been. By discarding you in such a harsh and callous manner, we are able to dole out a punishment to you and thus we feel in control once again. You took away our fuel, that means you exerted control over something that belonged to us. We do not like you to do that, in fact we hate it. Thus, the discard allows us to punish you for this heinous act and assert control once again.
- Shame. Whilst our kind would never admit it outside of this arena, shame follows us like some spectre through our lives. Shame drives many of our behaviours and it is sufficient to state no more about that in the context of shame’s role with your discard. We thought you were The One and we got it wrong. This makes us feel ashamed because this failure is a reminder of something we would much rather forget about, the weakness that threatens to escape and consume us. We are ashamed that we chose badly, we are ashamed that we have been fooled again by picking The False One. Of course it would never do to admit this to you or somebody else and thus you have to be discarded. Like some diseased limb which shames the rest of the body, you must be amputated, like some infected clothing you are torn away and thrown to one side, our revulsion at our own shame causing us to fling you away. Once you have been discarded, the shame abates and we can be what we want to be once again, grand, superior, omnipotent and brilliant.
- Contrast. If you have not had sex for some time, when you eventually do, is it not usually the case that the sensation is all the more heightened, the orgasm more intense and the experience all the more rewarding? If you abstain from your favourite chocolate, do not drink for a month, refrain from smoking, or attending your favourite restaurant, is it not the case that when you reinstate these things it is so much better? Indeed, it is and this is just as applicable to you. By discarding you we are also allowing us to experience fuel from elsewhere so that when we hoover you, your fuel becomes delicious and amazing once again. If we remained with you, drawing the fuel that has become stale, this would never happen. We need to discard you to prime the pump for the future need. At the time of the discard, we do not envisage returning to you, but invariably it must happen because of the rule of fuel.
- Potency. If we had not dis-engaged from you, we would not be given the opportunity to flex our hoover muscles and demonstrate our power by drawing fuel form you once again, with or without the restitution of the Formal Relationship. Hoover fuel is potent because of the contrast and the break from your fuel, but also because we are drawing it from someone who may well have resisted our overtures – or ought to have done so – and this provides us with a huge sense of omnipotence. Imagine, we treat someone disgracefully, fling them to one side and then with our powers of persuasion and seduction we bring them back to us, to do what we want again. That is power. If we had not discarded you, then this we could not do this.
These are the reasons we dis-engage from you.
As ever you are blameless, but we must make you to blame.
22 thoughts on “Why Does The Narcissist Get Rid Of You?”
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I also remember asking my mid ranger why. Why did he seduce me, take me to bed and so on if he was just going to do a 180?
His reply: “you were new and lovely and I couldn’t help myself”
Sometimes they do speak truth.
Indeed. 😕
It sounds sick to say it out aloud, but I realise my mother acted this dynamic out with me from a very young age. It was an incrstuous dynsmic I mistook her her being a unique individual doing her best to mother me.
I must have been pre-school age and she would create the push and pull, make me feel very special by noticing traits others didn’t, then discarding me and trying to make up. She even said she wanted to be around me more when I was cold. No wonder I don’t notice it in boyfriends as an adult.
She didn’t give a damn about me. She was a sick pervert with no brakes who should have been locked up.
I’ve had flashbacks too of both my father and brother asking to be my boyfriends. My father after seemed to have a shot of shame so I forgave him and went into denial but my brother was irritated he was denied something. My mother knew and said I was in my own to sort it out.
They are very, very dangerous people to interact with and it’s best treated as a cold business deal.
Enabling worked for me sometimes, but best just to exit.
Violet. I am shrinking in my very new and raw realizations about my mother too. It’s soooo difficult to see, admit or at least contemplate her being an N which in and of itself is just a “thing.” But to look back at it as me being the victim. Born. into it. Ugh. MY construct is in jeopardy.
***As ever you are blameless, but we must make you to blame. ***
Sometimes I skip to the end. And really need to hear this until it sinks in from head to toe. You’re our surrogate who can remind us of this. We live vicariously, or at least I do, through you(r) constructs and it is so helpful in the healing.
Skip to the end? How dare you?!
HG- Do you think most broken engagements involve at least one narcissist?
Yes.
Has there ever been a “prey” that you wish you did not diescard because she went no contact after and you can no longer Hoover?
No.
HG,
I was the “other woman” (in quotes bc I did not know he was married) for over 2 years (long distance). He pretended to be a divorced single dad who hated his “ex” wife. He told countless lies I discovered later – a complete pathological liar and predator. Then I wake up one day to an email from him saying that he is married. He confessed it that same day to his wife and then to me! Then he proceeded to be cold and disgustingly cruel to me on the phone after he discarded me like trash (he had texted me the night before and told me he loved me before bed). He actually told me that day on the phone after the discard that he had been researching narcissism himself.
Why would a narc confess to what he had done?
Thank you for your blog — it has been a great source of information.
Yep. #3 and #4. So very accurate!
This makes total sense from your point of view. I suppose when things are taken too far and we cannot be hoovered, there is always someone else who can be. There is always new supply. One of my exes mistresses seem to be hoovered over and over. I can look back and see what was happening. He even admitted to some of it. Of course this is the one I caught in my bed. I know after he started the next relationship, he tried her yet again! I have run into her a few times at a distance. Sometimes I just want to go up to her and say something. You hear stories about people getting together in these situations and talking. I am bold enough to do it, but then I decide why bother… she could have a disorder too! I know he will hoover her again, since she is the one he intended on leaving me for. He went too far with me. I know you say it can always happen and I am prepared for it. I understand him more than I ever did and I knew he had a disorder. I made the mistake of thinking he was BPD at the time. He eventually told me what he thought he was. Your articles and books have helped so much. There is no way I would ever let him back into my life. I am much too afraid of him. I was sucked back plenty of times, but now he pushed my boundaries to the limit. I think that was part of the discard as well… when you lose all respect for a person, it is hard to feel love for them anymore and I am not one to hide my feelings.
May I ask you, Tudor…
“We grant you the illusion of the perfect love and in return you are to provide us with our perfect fuel. It is the ultimate deal”.
I understand and agree with that statement. It is a “deal”. Fair deal, I would dare say.
But then we have a discard. “You no longer provide us with the fuel that we desire”. I agree with that statement also. It is a broken deal from our part.
But. Initially you give us ILLUSION of “perfect love”. If that illusion kept going on the initial level, I would dare say, no one would mind. Illusion. Not illusion. If the partner happy with it, what the problem then? Live and smile.
But. I guess, that maintaining the illusion is the pretty high energy consuming process for you. To hug, to kiss, to sleep, to care about, to laugh with a person to whom you feel nothing! It is a hard job…very hard job…
I know, that “everything is our fault”, but tell me, could the inability to maintain the created illusion for long run be the cause of diminishing the quality of fuel from your partner? Sensing that something is “changed” in you, the partner automatically do the same – “changes”. The lower quality of illusion, the lower quality of fuel…
Aside of our fault, honestly, deep inside, could it be your fault also? Thank you in advance for your reply.
No, you start the problem first.
I literally cried reading this, how can someone be so cold-hearted and cruel….. it hurst to see the reality!!
I was lucky in a way he told me both discards that he was getting rid of me of course he told me in a horrific critical manner why he was doing it there was a list if my faults that he categorically informed me of most were imaginary such as I’m an alcholic and I stole money from my daughters college fund that doesn’t even exist I dont drink either the second discard he said I don’t honor him and that there’s something mentally wrong with me . I don’t hurt anymore cause looking back I recognize both discards happened after I wounded him by mentioning the possibility of me being with or looking for another man
I should add he had been devaluing me for months prior to this so I knew my days were numbered
this is very important for one to understand, in order to move on, beginning with implementing N/C…. Well written… thank you…
Thank you.
Though a blessing in disguise, it is paramount to having my heart ripped out of my chest and watching the Narcissist play soccer with it as he kicks it around all over the place. It’s very painful.