No Contact Suicide – Part One
No Contact can be difficult to implement. Even harder to maintain.
We are looking to batter down your no contact wall and breach your defences so that we can exert control over you once again. It may be because we want draw fuel from you, positive or negative or we may wish to draw fuel and pull you back into the Formal Relationship once again and attach you to us so plenty of delicious fuel is provided to us. Dependent on our fuel needs, the constitution of our fuel matrix and the school of narcissist that we are, we may dedicate considerable time and effort to knocking down your no contact.
Having worked hard to escape us or, if disengaged, build that wall before the Follow-Up Hoovers start when we turn our attention to you once again, there are many occasions where you commit no contact suicide and bring your own wall tumbling down with next to no help from us.
There are two main elements to this no contact suicide. I explained in The Wrong No Contact that you may think you have established no contact, but you actually have not. With no contact suicide, you may well have actually implemented a robust and solid no contact regime and then, as the song goes, you go and spoil it all by doing something stupid.
Keep in mind that we anticipate the commission of no contact suicide and therefore in certain instances our own behaviour will be adjusted to encourage you to bring about the demise of your no contact yourself.
The first part of no contact suicide concerns you ending no contact by simply contacting us. This is either by messaging us, telephoning us or even making an appearance in person.
This may seem an obvious thing not to do, but it repeatedly happens. Ordinarily, if you have escaped us you will receive an Initial Grand Hoover as we fight to bring you back into the Formal Relationship. This happens most of the time – however if it does not or if it has happened and the IGH failed, we may well be relying on you committing no contact suicide through you contacting us. Alternatively, when we want to hoover you weeks or months after your escape or disengagement and you have put in place no contact we recognise there are ways of causing you to commit no contact suicide. Accordingly, you need to be aware of the ways by which we will look to cultivate an environment conducive to this occurring and also the ways in which you are susceptible to committing no contact suicide.
You also need to keep at the forefront of your mind that we are relying on bringing about no contact suicide so that you contact us and once that happens we want your emotional thinking to surge (through repeated involvement with us following the commission of your no contact suicide) so that you reject logic and fall prey to just your emotional thinking once again. Then it is all aboard the emotional thinking train on an express route to Narc Town again.
- The Need For Closure
Victims have a huge need for closure. Understand this – we will never give it you. However, we know that you want it and therefore you have this need to interact with us for the purpose of understanding what has happened and achieving closure. You preferably want to speak with us, either on the telephone or in person. You are a truth seeker and the desire to find out why we did as we did, why we treated you in this fashion (and especially if you have not realised what you have been dealing with) means the chances of you contacting us to secure closure are high. We will also bait you in this regard, offering to speak with you so closure can be obtained. We will not grant it you and instead we will give you half-answers, riddles and provoke you so that you keep engaging with us. The repeated engagement will feed the emotional infection, cause your emotional thinking to rise and then we have you ensnared again.
Do not seek closure from us. Make your own closure by utilising my works so you understand what has happened. Ask your questions of me, not of the narcissist you were entangled with.
2. The Desire For Revenge
You have been abused, messed around and humiliated. It is time to kick some narcissist ass and get revenge isn’t it? Why not? After all you have escaped, you understand more about who you are dealing with and therefore suitably empowered you tell yourself that driven by this anger, this hatred you will now make our lives hell.
By all means bring it on.
This is an understandable response, but it will cause you to commit no contact suicide. If you are seeking revenge in the immediate aftermath of disengagement or escape (and by that I mean anything up to 4-6 months afterwards) you will not be applying logic. Your emotional thinking is raging and surging and all you will do is mess up the revenge and become ensnared by us in some form again. You may find yourself back in the Formal Relationship or more likely engaged in trying to land blows against us as we revel in doling out malign hoovers against you, smearing you and pointing to your behaviour as exactly the reason why we got rid of you in the first place.
The desire for revenge is often high. Resist it. If you wish to seek revenge 4-6 months later, when your emotional thinking is firmly under control and you are applying logic, then do so and you will be far more likely to succeed. Yet, if you seek it at an early stage you will commit no contact suicide and with no good outcome for you.
3Returning property/collecting property
We look to leave items of property with you and/or keep items of your property with us so that there is a hook by which we can contact you with the pretence of sorting out this outstanding issue. It is just a way of creating Ever Presence and then having a basis by which we can seek to hoover you.
If you have our property, remove it as part of your purging exercise. Arrange for it to be delivered back to us by courier or a third party. You do not need to contact us to ask do we want it back, you do not need to contact us to make arrangements to bring about a hand over and resist your emotional thinking which will be trying to persuade you to meet up with us like some romantic reunion at Checkpoint Charlie as you hand back a box of possessions and we use the interaction as a prime opportunity to draw fuel from you as you have just committed no contact suicide. We may not even take the goods off you, leaving them with you so we can use the excuse on further occasions.
If you have property with us write it off or make arrangements for a third party to effect recovery and if it is of significance you may have to go to law (either civil or involve the police) in order to cause us to relinquish our hold on the items. Again, our hold is not based on the items themselves (they could be your Barbie doll collection or a sports car) but rather that the item or items provide a basis for activating a hoover by way of Hoover Trigger and/or because we recognise it will cause you to commit no contact suicide.
Recognise how property will be used against you.
4. Your Replacement/ New Interest
In certain instances we shall parade your replacement (if you were the IPPS) or a new interest (if you are a Shelf IPSS or DLS) in order to cause you to break your no contact. Many times the narcissist, when with a new IPPS, does not want to hear from you as you have been effectively deleted but this parading may still occur because
a. We gain Thought Fuel from imagining your anger or upset at knowing we are with someone else so soon after your disengagement or escape;
b. We want you to break no contact to try to challenge us in some way. This provides us with fuel and enables us to either engage in facade management by being pleasant with you (sometimes the response of upper echelon narcissists) or allows us to engage in a malicious response to punish you and draw negative fuel.
c. We also want you to break no contact to try to challenge us so it supports the basis of our smearing of you. We gain fuel but we can also show everybody what a wild-eyed harpy you are and how fortunate we were to escape your clutches and find someone who understands us and treats us well.
This parading of the new interest may be done through announcements on social media, appearances at social events and even walking by arm in arm where you live. it is designed to cause you to commit no contact suicide by
a. Having a go at us for dumping you and finding someone else so quickly;
b. To invite your commentary when it is a situation of Have You Seen Who He Is With
c. To try to warn the new interest what they have got themselves into (which invariably fails and backfires)
d. Finding out more about this person
e. To see if we are truly happy with this person – a common fear of the former appliance
Your emotional thinking will con you by suggesting that you should confront us because we have treated you terribly and we should be made aware of this, that you have an obligation as a decent person to warn this fresh victim about us, to sneer at our choice of new love interest when you are far superior to this person and in other ways besides.
Recognise that this is your emotional thinking which is masquerading as logic and reject it before it reaches a tipping point and you become involved again.
Breaching no contact in these circumstances rarely results in you becoming ensnared in the Formal Relationship again (because of course we have someone new) but it provides benefits to us (as detailed above) but it maintains your obsession and investment so that your no contact has crumbled and may never be re-built so that when we do hoover you at a later stage to resurrect the Formal Relationship, it is easy.
5. Provocation Via Third Parties
We will not contact you direct. We want to remain aloof and draw you to us by causing you to commit no contact suicide. It reinforces our perception of power if we can cause you to destroy your own no contact and come to us.
A further way of bringing this about is to say something about you to a third party, knowing it will get back to you. It might be to a friend of yours, a colleague, the children you share with us, another family member or a neighbour. Examples would include :-
“I am rather concerned about Anne’s drinking at the moment and I wondered if you, as her sister, might have a word with her before it gets out of hand.”
“Yes, I have tried to be civil with your friend but every time I go past her house to get to work she opens the window and shouts dog’s abuse at me. I have no idea why she is being like this, but she clearly has some kind of mental problem.”
“You know Daddy tried to stop me from seeing you because he is jealous of what a lovely time we have together. That’s not nice is it.”
“Well, I do not mind if you go to the concert but your Mum has said you are not allowed to, so you need to take it up with her.”
“I hear she has been looking for jobs with Alpha Corporation. Yes she said she is sick of being taken for granted by you and her colleagues.”
Naturally these will be lies but the intention is for this to be relayed to you and your annoyance at our behaviour, your need to establish the truth and have others knows it (including us) will cause your emotional thinking to surge so you will send a furious text message or telephone us to confront us. Once you do and we gain fuel from your response, we will use various manipulations to keep you engaging as we draw more fuel and feed the emotional infection so you will not let the matter go.
No matter how annoyed you are, how tempting it is to want to put us in our place, this is a deliberate provocation through a third party to cause you to breach no contact and get in touch with us.
There are many other methods that are deployed in bringing about this form of No Contact Suicide but the end game is the same – we want you to make contact with us by message, by telephone and best of all in person so your no contact has been destroyed and we can get what we want from you.
Understand that this is a motivation on our part. Recognise that if we have not directly hoovered you (when you expected it to happen) that we may well be engineering you to commit no contact suicide and familiarise yourself with the ways that this comes about so you can tackle your emotional thinking and maintain no contact.
100 thoughts on “No Contact Suicide – Part One”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
SMH, haha I’m cracking up because one of the last things I said to my narc was “you are a crybaby child”…instant block. Well of course the blocked pissed me off so I went to email and said some pretty ugly things. I don’t feel bad though. Through the whole 7 years I never stopped to his level with the name calling but i had enough.
Like you, my narc was a lot of fun the first 5 years, he was respectful, interested in my life, my kids etc. But he never got too close which I’m thankful for. My kids hate him. They hardly know him but they know he’s not good for me. I never involved them in any of it but we are close and they sense my pain. But like I said, the first 5 years was pretty good (as good as it can be with a narcissist). I think I stuck around too long and witnessed too much. I just can’t bring myself to have compassion for him. Maybe I will someday. I never thought I’d get over wanting revenge and I did so maybe compassion and forgiveness is in the future. We’ll see
You said that my narc was probably disgusted with himself. I think this has some truth. I think they are all disgusted with themselves and the fact that they have to have fuel to be happy. That is why they can’t get close. We were close, he confessed things to me. Not just about us but about all of his relationships and interactions. As long as I didn’t judge him he was fine. But when I would call him out on something he was forced to see how disgusting his behavior was. I was his conscious and he didn’t want a conscious. They would rather ignore what is right and wrong. When I thought his primary was his ex and I hated her, he was fine talking to me about her. After I found out the truth and started realizing she was suffering abuse too, I would defend her. He hated that. He couldn’t stand that I pointed out the way he treated her.
It’s funny you said you knew you had gotten too close so you made an appointment with your therapist. “Well I’m happy things are good. Better schedule an appointment because shits gonna hit the fan soon”. Yep! Looking back do you see you could never be comfortable when things were good? I see that now. There was never a sense of security.
Mercy,
LOL – the pretty ugly things you said probably did not compare to crybaby! Yes his conscience. But then one turns into a punching bag. We symbolize what they hate about themselves, give them what they want and need, and then get punished. Our beautiful fuel is a constant reminder that they are not comfortable in their own skin. Can’t win for losing.
I did once try to point out how MRN treated IPPS – just like he treated me! Prompting this was his brother being caught in a 4 year affair. MRN’s brother’s wife left and MRN told me about it. He also told me that IPPS said her SIL was ‘difficult’ (another reason to dislike her – blaming SIL for BIL’s affair?) I was incredulous – you let IPPS bash your SIL for being ‘difficult’ when you are having an affair too? You don’t see anything wrong? He denied he was lying to IPPS and disappeared. It was impossible to hold him to account. Now I understand why.
I only felt secure right after he persuaded me into the affair. He was completely present for a whole month but then boom. Disappeared. Turned out he was away with IPPS. Why didn’t he warn me? It was like the wedding ring – he had it in his head that I didn’t know about IPPS?
Not only was he in denial about that. I think he didn’t want me to know how boxed in he was by family ‘obligations.’ This was all tied up with confusion or envy about the way I live and the fact that I don’t have to be furtive and secretive, as if I am a child stealing cookies from the jar and hoping mommy won’t notice.
The end began because of a family thing. He was to come over a week after the non-meeting with my son. Instead, he wrote ‘out on a walk, can’t come’ (distancing/stranger). I knew IPPS was gone but he hadn’t told me, so I was confused and annoyed that he was curt. Was he out on a walk by himself? He’d rather do that than see me? Was he out with another woman? Etc Turned out he was with a daughter. Again, why didn’t he just tell me?
His daughters (3 18-23), well, they are central because he triangulated with them constantly. They were all extensions of IPPS – sentries ordered to keep MRN occupied. They hovered, organized activities, held the family together, very aware of how fragile everything was and of their father’s weirdness. They might fail to launch because of their parents’ denial. I did point this out to MRN (conscience speaking).
Your kids sound protective. Mine is not that attuned to my private life. He’s young but has a professional job, travels, and is not nearby most of the year. He’s like MRN in many ways. He’s not a narc and is very genuine, but he is also left-brained, focused, calm, and unemotional. When I told him about MRN he looked at me and cocked an eyebrow because of MRN’s profession. MRN and I laughed about that because we also thought our relationship was weird, given that we were such opposites.
I hope you can get to forgiveness and compassion. I got there many times since I escaped and returned repeatedly. But it has always flipped back and forth with anger and then I get all tied up in knots realizing how impossible it is for MRN understand anything. I have no idea how to even properly communicate with him except in bed. It’s all circular otherwise.
Does yours have kids with his IPPS? How did you finally figure out her position in the fuel matrix?
SMH, yes he has a daughter. When I first met him she was still pretty young so he used her as an excuse to be gone in the evenings. Fast fwd 7 years, what teenage daughter spends every evening with their dad? She got older and his stories no longer worked.
I’ll give you a quick reply on how I found out. Some of this is embarrassing to admit but please realize this was years of manipulation that got me to this point. Around year 4 I wore him down. I suspected there were other women. He couldn’t resist triangulation and so obviously this played on my insecurities and I would ask questions and call him out on things that were obvious. After a huge blow out and a long silent treatment he told me he started to see other women but insisted he was faithful the first 4 years. I was devastated of course but continued to talk to him. I didn’t want to lose him completely so we decided to be “just friends”. Just friends turn into a very blurry FWB because he would still treat me as a partner. Eventually “just friends” became an excuse for him to do whatever he wanted. He would treat me as if we were in a relationship but when he did something hurtful (other women, disappear, cancel plans) his answer would be “we are just friends”. During this time he started to trust me with his secrets and I found moments when I could extract information from him. Eventually he admitted there was some sexual incidents with the IPPS but not during the 4 years we were exclusive. The rules to our open relationship was this. Full disclosure, no women will stay around. Basically if he wanted a fling once in awhile he was allowed (or men on my part even though I never became involved with anyone else) long story short he met another woman that he was able to easily manipulate and he ended up scamming her for alot of money. She was clueless about the scam and thought they were in a relationship. He played the same narc games with her and she found herself alone alot. She cheated on him and he found out (from her best friend that he had a fling with). Anyway nobody cheats on him and this messed his child ego up bad. He became obsessive about her. She was a very mousey girl, I’m surprised she had it in her to cheat. After he found out he pulled me in because he needed a “friend”. This is where our relationship took a very dark turn. The shit show as I said before. The abuse he put this girl through was exactly what HG writes about and I wittinessed it. He depended on me heavly to sooth his wounded ego. The confessions started. All the women, another woman that he scammed for money and was sued (and lost). He told me about his primary and that he has always been with her. His best friends wife who I’ve hung around with. Women that he said was before me turned into women he was with while with me. He is a typical mid ranger but has an endless supply of fuel sources because of his career.
This strong, intelligent man turned out to be a disgusting insecure pig. I am not naive, I always knew things were wrong with him but I had no idea the extent of it. The reason I say that it’s worse than what you think is that I knew all the ugly details but he still was able to top the last confession. It never ended and he loved to push me to my breaking point. I finally became callused and had nothing left to give him as far as fuel. I don’t think a confession of murder would have surprised me.
There is so much more in between all of that but I could never express it in a way that makes sense. Im trying to work it all out in my own mind.
The betrayal was huge and it has taken the last 2 years to decide I don’t need this in my life. I don’t want it either. I felt like I was fighting a fight I didn’t want to win. What was I doing? Why was I staying? Even if he decided he wanted a committed relationship I could never consider it. There was no reason to stay and waste more years with him.
Mercy,
That is very dark and twisted. Now I see why you commented about the depths of the depravity. I don’t think it is hard to sink into that – as I said elsewhere on here, it is like putting a frog in water and heating it up rather than dropping it directly into boiling water. The years of manipulation did that. Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone here knows how that happens. I can totally see how one would not realize until it is too late, making one concession and then another one until before you know it, you are drowning.
I am happy for you that you escaped and that you were so on top of things, as painful as it all sounds. Better to leave when everything is clear to you than when you have doubts about whether you are doing the right thing (another reason I went back four times). In that respect, it might be good that you stayed and saw all of the ugly details and his vulnerabilities, so you could lose respect for him. He is not a god. They are not gods. Nor are they dragons. They are broken little boys with an insatiable need for admiration and validation. I love the part about mousey girl cheating on him. That is a prime example of being able to dish it out but not take it, right? As I told MRN – you are like glass. There is nothing to grab onto but a pebble can crack you. I am like rubber. I bend but I do not break. Seems that you, Mercy, do not break either because what you have described would break most people.
In my situation, I moved countries half the year, which gave me built in breathing room and lots of time to think without mine making demands or keeping me online for hours (time zones). By the time I was ready to chat, he would have to leave. Or he would be traveling (he normally traveled 2-3 weeks out of the month) to even more distant locales. I now see the difficulty of maintaining a connection as a lifesaver. Thank god I was not IPPS. Thank god I did not live with him, thank god he was so constrained.
I don’t think he was nearly as dramatic as yours anyway. He worked with few women, so did not have an endless supply. He only tried to triangulate me with someone other than IPPS once, which is also when I learned about IPPS (he told me that she wanted to reconcile). I had been away for five months so had some distance. I didn’t even obviously react to the appearance of IPPS, whom I suspected existed anyway. I just said okay, ‘well I don’t compete with other women’ and bowed out. A few weeks after this quadrangulation he contacted me on a dating site – I told him he was psycho and went NC for two months.
There were no obvious women after that but it was enough for me to know to protect myself, which is why I made him swear not to sleep with anyone else while he was with me. When I agreed to the affair, I also knew that IPPS was keeping an eye on him because they had only recently started to reconcile. She even dragged him to marital therapy during our affair (I did not know this at the time but I was shocked when he casually let it drop). Between the two of us and his work, which sucked up tons of time, he didn’t have many opportunities, though I did once suggest that he was getting blowjobs at the world’s airports with his morning coffee. I know he didn’t lie about where he was most of the time because I could follow most everything on his and hers public IG :).
That said, I do know all you wrote is probable, so when I said that if he wanted me, he had to be 100% present, single, and stand on his own two feet. I know that will never happen and if I just keep that demand in my head, I will resist any hoovers.
As for the kids, yeah, I thought the same thing – what girls that age want to go for a walk with their father, want him to meet them at a restaurant for dinner on a Friday night, always without IPPS (though they did family things too)? Partly it was a way for him to triangulate but partly it was also the sentry thing. Maybe that was the case with your narc’s daughter too?
Dating update: I thought Irish guy had “ghosted” me (still some anxiety from narc, I guess) but he hasn’t. Instead, he has blown out both knees (he is a cyclist) and is waiting for an operation. I therefore don’t think this is going anywhere for awhile but I think I will stick it out because I like him. He’s pretty negative/too serious, even without the pain of the blown out knees, but he has endearing quirks and he’s not a narc!
SMH, the thought of an Irish man curls my toes a little. I’m a tad envious. I would love to travel to different countries like you. Now that my children are out of the house this is something I’d like to do. I think I read on another post that you live in NC? I lived there for about for years and also in Virginia for another 4. My youngest plans to move to the Charlotte are next summer. I’m considering following her. I love the east coast.
Your analogy of the frog in water nailed it. It was a gradual acceptance, like he was building my tolerance.
I agree about the distance in your situation. Unfortunately you had to share him with the primary when he was free. You deserve the full commitment of his time. Hopefully Irish guy will see how worthy you are!! I use to think that I wouldn’t like to be with someone normal. The thought of giving up the wild ride with the N was frightening. I thought I would compare everyone to him but truthfully the wild ride was just Him challenging my insecurities. Now I’d love to meet someone who wants to know me as a person, not something who want me around because I provide him a challenge.
Honestly you may be right about your N being faithful. I’m so conditioned to not trust and always expect the worst but after reading everyones stories I realize they are similar in their fuel seeking but they are not all the same. In any case it’s better to get out and not know. Like HG says, we are truth seekers but some things are better left unknown. I sometimes wish there was something I could have find memories about but unfortunately all of the good memories are tarnished by what he had going on on the side.
Ive hit a small milestone. 30 days GOSO. We’ve been NC before but I always hung on to the fact that I could have him back when I chose to. I don’t think he realizes I’ve escaped.
Mercy, 30 days NC?? Congratulations! That is a milestone. But I confess that I thought you’d been out much longer!! I’m into month 6. I’ve gone this long before but something’s changed this time and now MRN and I are permanently in different countries, which makes it easier.
You need to heal before you start trying to seriously date anyone. Give yourself at least 6 months. And you need to stay here and weaponize for when your N come back, because he will. Promise you will come here instead of responding to him? I wish I could give you my number. We need a real live Narcs Anonymous group 🙂
Funny but I was just reading something about Brent Kavanaugh’s wife’s body language and watching the video. I was like yup, looks like MRN and IPPS, even down to the daughters (though MRN’s are older). No need to spend more time around MRN to know what goes on. 18 months ago I would have been more curious but then I found their social media and spent a lot of time studying it. It was shockingly different from what I expected because he is not normal. I thought he was just odd with me but he is odd period.
Re: Irish guy seeing how worthy I am. That is very sweet but it should be flipped – I need to know that he is worthy of me. He passed the first test – me writing: these are the qualities I am looking for and if you are not on the same page, then I am not your person. No judgment, just trying to be sure that we have compatible goals. It is too early to tell, though, and I am leaving the country in 10 weeks anyway. He doesn’t know but no need to tell him unless things develop. Seeing as how he is about to have an operation and cannot walk right now, I am kind of doubting we will get very far before I leave. We’ll see but in the meantime, I am enjoying our interactions and leaving things open.
I honestly think we all need to go about this differently: figure out what WE want in a person and/or a relationship, and not compromise. I didn’t know what I wanted when I met MRN, which is partly what got me in trouble. I knew I did not want a full on relationship. I still don’t and probably never will again. With MRN, I thought it would be a fling. Instead, it became a complete mind fuck within a few weeks (I left him for the first time only a month after I had met him because I could already see that he was a control freak). Half the reason I stayed/went back was because I was so fascinated by his sickness and by my own reactions. I even said to him at the end, ‘Wow, I slept with a psychopath. Notch on my belt.’ No need to do it again and no need to know more about his shenanigans. I am more interested in figuring out all of the little puzzle pieces of what went on between him and me.
Narcworld is kind of an anomaly for me and now that I am out of the fog, I am here to tell you that there are better things out there. Stick to your guns and know your self worth. There are normal guys who will want to know you as a person and who are just as interesting as narc. The main difference is that you will laugh and smile more, you won’t always be doubting yourself, your emotions won’t be all over the place, you won’t be exhausted, and your mind won’t be consumed with him all the time because of his manipulations.
I did travel to NC (not far from Charlotte) and to VA the last few weeks but my home base is NYC, which is where I am now. Are you out west somewhere? Where in VA did you live? I lived in VA too for awhile but not in NC. Just went to see friends.
SMH, I’m sorry I thought I read that you lived in NC. We lived in Raleigh/VA beach area. 2 of my children were born there. I live in the Midwest. IA, corn fed and pig bred haha (altho I live in the city and the farming world is foreign to me).
As far as NC, yes it’s only been a month but I haven’t been in the relationship for much longer. Like you it was that fascination that tied me to him. I’ve been here on this site for over 2 years. I’ve known for quite awhile that I had to go but I really thought I could handle him. What I learned is that with knowledge of who they are, how they operate and why they do it, I could handle it. I could manipulate just as well as he could. He became predictable when he was once mysterious. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I also learned that even though I could handle him I didn’t want to. There was no satisfaction in staying.
I had him figured out long ago. There is no more mystery thanks to HGs writings and the readers but to go NC, true NC, meant I had to figure ME out and that is what held me back. The decision to go NC was the day I decided that he no longer mattered, I did.
I know that I’m not ready to date but the fact that I’m even considering a future with another man is a step forward. I miss the butterflies. I do know he will come back, mentally I’m prepared and I have not made it easy. He has no way of contacting me unless he physically shows up at my door or work. I think the fear of me rejecting him will hold him off.
6 months is definitely something to be proud of. I need to ask you this because it’s heavy on my mind. I see readers that have escaped like yourself and others longer but they are still recovering. Do you think that this type of recovery is forever? Some that have escaped have even married and created lives beyond their narcissist but they are still here or still suffering from the past. Do you think this is something we will carry around with us for a lifetime? The phrase “you’ll always have a place in my heart” has a new meaning to me. But I don’t feel like he’s in my heart. I feel as if he’s a benign tumor that can’t be removed. I’m angry that he is part of me and I fear he will be a shadow over my future happiness. What are your thoughts? Is HG right? Is it till death?
Mercy
“A benign tumor that can’t be removed”
I think that’s a good analogy. No emotional thinking about him keeps it benign, but there’s always the possibility of him popping back into your life until one of you dies.
Windstorm, I agree I have to keep my emotional thinking in check. The realization that the effects of his manipulation has taken a permanent residency in me is a hard one to cone to terms with. It’s one more thing
I didn’t give my permission to. Even after escape he still has a piece of control.
Mercy
Not really control. Benign tumors don’t control anything. They’re just slightly irritating ugly bits you don’t want. He has a possible way to connect, but you always are in control of how you respond.
Windstorm,
I like the way you see it. Thank you for redirecting my thoughts.
😊❤️
Mercy,
I tend to get over things quickly and land on my feet. I’ve had worse happen than MRN. My romantic relationships have generally been emotionally healthy. I’ve rarely been mistreated. The sex has almost always been good. MRN is an anomaly and I am pretty much recovered, but for the occasional trigger. The other day really was unusual. It would have been usual last year this time, but not now.
I am not so blind as to think if he came back full force I wouldn’t be sucked in again. But I also made it hard for him by 1) humiliating him; 2) telling IPPS- my last resort things for getting him out of my life. I knew that no matter how I thought I felt about him, he was not good for me. So I symbolically kicked him in the balls and ran away :). Seems that you have done a bit of that too and it is a step in the right direction.
During the two months or so of trying be friends, at no point did I long for him. Once I had control, I hung on for dear life, though he did a pretty good job of flipping the script. I geared up for the final battle (getting him to delete our emails). It took three weeks and a lot out of me because I wasn’t well enough prepared (I found this site during those three weeks). But still, I won. My instincts are pretty good when I listen to them, and I am generally not someone one wants to cross. Even less so now that HG has taught me how and when to stand my ground with a narc!!
So I don’t think I will carry it around forever in a way that will cripple me. I am excited to meet new people and maybe a new partner. I am happy to be alone too. I get great pleasure out of a lot of things, my career, my kids and friends, but I am even happy going to the gym. I was once diagnosed as hypomanic. I don’t know if it’s true but on the plus side, I have a lot of elevated moods, a healthy dose of narcissism (healthy being key here), and I don’t get depressed. I am also an addict and always will be. I am hyper-aware of those issues. I knew I was addicted to MRN. I just failed to break the addiction until I found the solution here.
I stay because I am curious, including about HG, maybe I can help someone else, and part of me still worries about MRN coming back (I am a big worrier). Maybe it will stop when/if I am ever in another relationship. Still, I wouldn’t think it weird to come here even if I am. There is only one HG. He cannot be replaced, and nor can you all. If I thought it was interfering with my life or if I got bored, I would leave.
We are like veterans. We’ve all had the same traumatic war experience we need to share with people who understand things that those on the ‘outside’ do not. To pick another example, right after the last time I saw MRN, my sister died and I took care of her during her final days. I now need a support group for people who have lost siblings prematurely. The Irishman lost two. It is one of the first things we each brought up so clearly it helps define us. But we did not need to talk about it at length because we understood what it meant.
This is all by way of saying that there are many things one never gets over completely – deaths, an alcoholic parent, sexual abuse, entanglement with a narc. These are what define us and might even make us more interesting than the person to whom nothing has ever happened. I don’t think we should forget in order to move forward.
You are strong and have already figured out a lot of what I needed to figure out when I found this site. Hang on to your control – always keep it in mind even when your narc comes back (undoubtedly he will) and tries to do what mine did – cause confusion and chaos in order to get more fuel! Remember that they will go to the ends of the earth for it and you might not see it coming (I did not because I didn’t know). It might not be such a bad thing for you to know for sure that you can resist him. This is not to say that it would be good if he came back but there is something satisfying about knowing that your boundaries are stronger than they were. That is what I discovered the last time MRN tried to get me back into the FR. I can only imagine they will be stronger if he tries again.
Keep control when you are ready to date again too. Think about what you want from someone and from a relationship. No one is perfect but you won’t become a control freak and you will have more of a say in how things go in your own life. Your narc might think he owns you forever but let him think that. It will affect you only if you are still caught up in magical thinking. As you say, he no longer matters. He doesn’t exist anymore. You matter and you exist. Shift your thinking to focus on yourself, even if you think you are being self-centered. You aren’t. You are just rebalancing and you can’t give of yourself until you get yourself back.
Phew 🙂
I don’t know VA Beach as I lived further inland – closer to central VA. But this diehard northeasterner thinks VA is one of the best run states in the country (NC not so much, though it has pockets such as R-D) and has a lot of fondness for it.
SMH, thanks for the little pep talk!! I agree this is something that defines us and makes us better people. I am sorry to hear about your sister. Tragedy like that puts thing into prospective and I can see that meeting someone who has knowledge of what you went through and are still living with would be a relief. Not having to explain, just them knowing has to be a comfort. In the midst of the battle with the narc, 2 children went missing in our area. One of the mothers worked in my building. I would see her and see the pain in her face and think to myself that my struggles are so small compared to others.
Like you I find a lot of joy in life as well. Beyond this site I do not talk of my past relationship. Most that know me have know idea what’s going on inside. They see a happy outgoing girl. I don’t dwell on this subject but its always something that is just there. Like white noise in the background.
I’m glad I got to know you and your story. I also wish that contact beyond this site was possible. There is so much more to all of us than this subject.
Hi Mercy
I just had to comment on your last statement. I was thinking the other day….it happens some times….wondering how many of us on this site actually have had interactions with other people’s narcs that we talk about
I know it is a strange thought but that is my brain
Kim e, haha I have thought about this too. As many followers that HG has I’m sure it is possible.
Mercy, Exactly. Like white noise in the background – at least now. I did in the past talk about it a lot but that was before I found anyone who understood. Now I don’t mention it at all to anyone I know.
That is terrible about those kids. I hope they were found?? My mother is still alive but she is a narc, we are not close (neither was my sister close to her) and so she has been really difficult to deal with…I only figured out her narcissism when I figured out MRN through this site. I also see that my exH, to whom I am still technically married, is a Lesser. It is complicated but those are the three narcs that loom large, though Lesser and Matrinarc don’t affect me so much so I only write about them occasionally.
Keep on smiling!
I feel compelled to comment after nearly a year, thereabouts, since I’ve been on HG’s site…
I broke NC August 2017 after I’d had a few drinks and dialed – fatal! Then strangely, for the best part of ten months things were good between us, better than I could have hoped for in some regards, then in June this year, the bombshell; he humiliated me by reading out private texts and emails I’d sent to him to his misogynist, so-called mate during a work meeting. If that wasn’t bad enough he repeated a private phone call from the previous evening. When I pointed out that the texts and the phone conversations were private and he was putting those details out of context (lies), he yelled, ‘The next time you call me I will record our conversations!’ I was shaking with the shock, but replied, ‘Please do! It will prove I’m telling the truth!’ He shut up instantly, crossed he leg over his knee and calmly carried out discussing the business as if nothing untoward had taken place. It was unnerving as it was baffling.
I got the silent treatment for two days and thought nothing of it. When I contacted him about a meeting with a potential business partner, he told me I should have received an email (I hadn’t at that point) so he helpfully(!) read it out to me, and what did it say? In the main: ‘You are no longer our business partner, just come and collect your stuff when your ready.’ Nothing prepares you for such blows. I’d been betrayed by triangulation with women, public and private humiliation, but this was a new sickening low… I believe there was fresh meat hovering on the horizon and he needed shut of me. It worked. My last conversation to him was, ‘In our three-year relationship you have been a complete Bully!’ There was shocked silence followed by his shaky voice, ‘Oh?’ (Proof he believes he’s innocent of any wrong-doing.)
‘Yes’, I said, ‘and I’ll be taking advice.’ That for me was the closure I’d been seeking. Exhausted, I listened to my own advice: Stay NC; un-friend and block him from Facebook and phone. I did these things. I stay away from his friends, his haunts we both used to frequent, but you know what? I know he’s gone for good this time. The wounding I gave was too great for him to shake off, I know it and feel it, and unlike the first NC suicide, I no longer sense he’s around; I can’t ‘feel’ his presence, I’m not looking over my shoulder around town because I know I won’t see him. He’s a coward; a total shit. It’s been 3.5 months now and there hasn’t been a peep or a squeak from him. As long as I stay NC he will stay away for good. It’s in my hands and I know it. I know there will be days when I will undoubtedly feel weak and lonely, so no alcohol this time to put the chink in my defences!
It really is true; our silence kills them.
Look after yourselves, folks.
Scout
I’m sorry this happened to you, it made me queasy just reading about it. Good luck with maintaining NC and moving on with the rest of your life.
Thank you, Wissh, good luck to you too.
Scout, sorry to read all of that but it is very instructive so thank you for posting your story. This is one reason I made mine delete all of our e-mails in front of me. Who knows what he would have done with them. Read them out to his mates? Yikes. Deleting those emails also helped to delete his ever presence.
When you feel weak and lonely, come here!
Kim e, haha I agree. Blocking them doesn’t seem like a loud enough statement on our end. Especially when you still have so much anger and you’d rather lash out and witness their reaction. I went back and forth with my narc for a long time before I truly went no contact. There were times we would be in conversation and what he was saying would piss me off so I’d block him or go silent for a day or two. When things were civil with us he’d say when I block him it feels like the ultimate fuck you. Now when I’m in doubt, and I’m thinking he doesn’t give a damn if I contact him or not I remember those words. Silence is so much louder than our words.
What caught my eye about your post is you said you were bored so you googled. My God I’m soooo bored too. I’m in the middle of remodeling my home and I have been non stop working on it for months but I’m still insanely bored. I will go hours working and when i go to check my phone I have no notifications. Haha it’s so crazy how much I relied on his constant conversation. Even worse I think “when did my friends stop texting and calling?” It has made me realize that I’ve distance myself from so many people for so long that they no longer reach out. This is something I’m trying to remedy.
Hi Mercy. I would have gone back and forth with mine but I will be damned if I will be put on the shelf and ignored. I do not hate him as I know he can not help who he is or what he does.
Would be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t take him back but know for my own peace of mind I needed to block him. I am still healing from going back a 2nd time and not real sure how strong I would be if I heard from him now. There has been no contact since August when the last crumbs came. They only were tossed my way because I changed up my habit and he pretended to be concerned that he had not seen me. I had already warned a girlfriend of mine that if anybody asks she has not seen me.
I lost my mind when hevtextvsnd answered it. That was the last time I heard.
I said F it.
Kim e, this is where we differ. I do hate my narc. I believe he knows right from wrong. He may be driven to seek fuel but destroying lives is a choice he makes.
Was bored coming home tonight so I googled what the person you blocked on an iPhone see if they try to text or call you
I am SO DISAPPOINTED!!!! If they try to text it just looks like the text never went thru. It says delivered but delivered stays blue like when you are out of range (that part works)
And if they call it goes to voicemail
I wanted a big announcement that says YOU ARE BLOCKED. GO AWAY. F OFF AND DIE. EAT WORMS.
Just so anticlimactic
No fear. I am not going to unblock.
Hi Kim e
You satisfied my curiosity and made me laugh.
Good job!
I thought of how being blocked on the phone would be depicted in a cartoon:
a big boxing glove would suddenly and rapidly be extended from the screen of the phone and punch the N in the face, making them see stars.
On the glove would be written GO AWAY.
Can’t write F OFF in kids’ cartoons.
Caroline R.
Thanks. I think I just wanted to be able to see just one thing the way he saw it
The unfortunate thing is I might not ever know if he sees that the message was never received.
Oh well……..
“We look to leave items of property with you and/or keep items of your property with us so that there is a hook by which we can contact you with the pretence of sorting out this outstanding issue. It is just a way of creating Ever Presence and then having a basis by which we can seek to hoover you.”
This is so true. The malignant narcissist former side chick spent a ridiculous amount of money on another woman’s husband. I happened to find a t-shirt from an event she had put on that they’d been at together the day before he ended it their affair and I ripped it to shreds. The day after he ended it, I had a hunch and asked him if there was anything else in my house that she’d given him, and he started pulling item after item out of our closet, our jewelry box…I saw red. I told him to box it all up and take it immediately to a donation center near our house, which he did. Including those $1,200 boots she bought him, what a ridiculous fool she was and is.
I agree that trying to exact revenge in the heat of the aftermath of a breakup isn’t usually a good idea. Too emotional, and that’s exactly what the narcissist wants. It doesn’t matter if it’s rage or sadness or desire, any emotion means you lose.
But this was the perfect unwitting revenge. I wanted that shit out of my house. I knew she’d probably ask about it but didn’t realize she’d totally lose her mind…I didn’t yet know that we were dealing with a narcissist who seriously believed that my husband now belonged to HER. Those gifts were an excuse to show up where he was working, under the pretense of asking for them back. It’s actually pretty low to ask for gifts back, but that’s of no concern when the gifts were given with this specific purpose in mind, to have a reason to cause a no contact suicide.
She lost her composure completely when he told her all of her gifts to him were gone. I felt somewhat sorry for my husband because her towering rage was acted out in public and witnessed by strangers and his coworkers who were there, but oh my GOD it was sweet revenge when he related her reaction to me. Sweeter still because she’d handed me the means to hit back hard.
There’s always a way to use the narcissist’s weapons against them. You just have to be able to execute without being emotional about it. And sometimes you just get lucky.
Writeitout, Im not familiar with your story I can only relate from what I’ve experienced. I know if I was with a man and I gave him expensive gifts only to find out he destroyed them or gave them away to appease another woman I would feel betrayed and that would cause me to lose my composure. I would be hurt and outraged. Is it possible that she gave these gifts as a act of love, not as a act of control?
Mercy, she’s a malignant narcissist. Nothing she did was done out of love.
If I were a woman involved with someone else’s husband, and he ended our affair, if I truly loved him I would not post pictures of the two of us all over social media where we have hundreds of mutual friends. I would know that this is not love and if I truly loved him I wouldn’t try to destroy his marriage and reputation. That’s just a snippet of the things she did after he very respectfully broke up with her.
If you found out that your gifts, given to a man who had a wife who then found out about you and all those gifts, had been disposed of, I would hope that you’d realize you had that shit coming. But she’s a stupid bitch who uses things to lure men and try to bind them to her. She bought the guy before my husband a motorcycle, and brought all the clothes and boots and other crap she bought him to a night club to sell out of her car after they broke up. Of course announcing to everyone how badly he’d treated her, etc.
She’s a narcissist. Her goal after he broke up with her was total destruction of our marriage. I have no doubt she was outraged by the fact that I ordered all her shiny crap be donated immediately to charity, because she thought she was in control of my husband. She thought that he’d continue to engage with her on the sly. Her rage came from being thwarted by me, someone she’d never considered would be any issue for her.
It came from her seeing me as being the one in control of him now, which is the only way a narcissist can see things. To believe that he made his own choice and she wasn’t it is not how a narcissist thinks.
Writeitout, thank you for your response. Your story interest me and thats why I asked. It’s funny how our relationship with the narc can blur or even change our prospective on what’s right or wrong. Before I met the narc my opinion of cheating was so black and white. If you cheat you are bad. If you are with another woman’s man you are bad. I was with my narc for 5 years before I found out he had a IPPS. Subconsciously I think I knew but it was HG that confirmed it. After that is was like a slap on the forehead “duh why didn’t I see?”. So when you say if I found out he disposed of the gifts I gave him (I didn’t give him elaborate gifts like you speak of) I should realize I had it coming, that is not the case in my situation. He made me believe he was loyal to me and that we were rock solid for 5 years. His manipulation through the year’s was so thorough that even after finding out he had a primary I felt I was entitled to a shred of loyalty. Then there were other IPSS in the picture that came after me. When they found out about me he made them believe I was the “other woman” when in reality they were. Triangulation and manipulation was his weapon. He was good and he had many of us turn on each other for his entertainment. The other women haunt me because they don’t understand they are just like me, victims. They see me as the enemy when in reality I’m suffering as much as they are.
Can I ask how long the affair went on? Is this something you just found out about or have you been dealing with her for awhile? Im sorry you are having to go through this. To deal with your husband cheating has to be devastating and takes a lot of work to trust again. Having the other woman as a narc would make everything so much harder.
Mercy, five years is a long time to be involved with someone so toxic. You’ve been through a lot. I wasn’t talking about you when I responded, I would feel the same way you do if I were in your situation. This woman knew my husband was married when she targeted him. I don’t blame her for having an affair with my husband, it was his responsibility not to get involved. I do blame her for everything she’s done since he respectfully ended the affair. He told her that he wanted to make our marriage work, and she decided right then that she was going to do everything she could to make me throw him out.
The affair went on for about a year before I discovered it. In time spent together though it was more like a few months if that because most of their time together was spent when my husband was working. Plus he didn’t do things like not come home all night, he works really late and would just come home a little later when I’d usually be asleep. But ohmigosh they texted and called each other multiple times a day…like a ridiculous amount of texting and talking.
It will be three years in April I’ve been dealing with this narcissist bitch. She only just took all of the pictures of them together that she posted on Facebook after he ended it down a few months ago. She still comes to many events that we have to go to, either because my husband is playing or social events. She seems like she’s starting to escalate her attention, as last night she showed up at one of my husband’s gigs and made sure to slow dance with her drunken boyfriend in front of him. Her behavior is so obvious and bizarre that people always notice and comment. Last night it was “Who’s that woman who’s been staring at you all night?” I had planned to be there last night but when my husband texted me and said she was there, I was glad I wasn’t. I was not in the mood for her malignant presence even though I know that it makes her see red to see me with my husband out having a good time together.
So I’m long past any feelings of insecurity and mistrust, especially because my husband has maintained no contact since it ended. He doesn’t interact with her at all when she’s there, not even a hello. He’s sick to death of her and she just reminds him of how he betrayed not only our marriage but his own moral code. He deeply regrets that he caused me so much pain. He really missed me last night because he would always rather I be there, but especially if she’s around. So we’re good despite her continued delusional behavior. She thought it would be a few months and we’d break up because narcissists always think that we can’t live without them. She didn’t realize that we are the love of each other’s lives and we chose to stay together after the affair because of that deep love. She went after the wrong married man but I doubt she’ll ever stop thinking she can win him back one day. This is the disordered thinking of all narcissists.
Mercy,
Very good points. I too did not know for awhile about IPPS. Once I did, it didn’t change anything because we were always in this little narc bubble anyway and I never wanted to be IPPS even before I knew about her.
I told IPPS a few months after I escaped. I don’t know what the outcome was because I don’t care and haven’t followed the aftermath but I was furious at narc for manipulating me post-escape – as I have said before, had he just left me alone it probably wouldn’t have happened. I thought it would be best for IPPS to know her husband’s m.o. As you point out, we (IPSS and IPPS) are all being manipulated. I am not furious anymore, but I would still tell her, but better because my ET is under control now, thanks to HG.
That said, I do believe from what I have read that WriteItOut is dealing with a narc IPSS, which does put a complicated/interesting twist on things.
SMH,
I read on other comments of yours and see you and I had similar situations being secondary and not knowing about the primary. I told 2 of his other IPSS but never the IPPS. It’s crazy but I like her. I only met her a couple times, we are not friends and we don’t talk but I feel connected to her. And I also feel very protective of her. If one of the secondaries ever tried to hurt her I’d step in. Is that weird? I just feel like she knows and has basically given up hope of real happiness without the narc. She’s figured out how to be happy in her own way and it would make me mad if someone tried to hurt her more than what she’s already dealing with. Also I feel guit for staying after I found out about her. The first 5 years I didn’t know…the last 2 I did. I have to live with that.
Like you, I never wanted to be IPPS. Not even in the beginning. I never thought he cared one way or the other about that but towards the end I could tell it made him mad. He would accuse me of wanting more than we had. He would try to convince me that I wanted more. I would reply with “why would I want a boyfriend that my children, friends, boss, or co-workers will see out with other women all the time”. He didn’t get that I had no desire to claim him. When that became clear to him he tried to force me to want the girlfriend title. Never in a million years. What I did behind closed doors is one thing, I certainly wasn’t going to make myself vulnerable for everyone to see.
How is dating going for you! Still blah or is it getting better?
Mercy,
I don’t think it’s weird that you liked IPPS and felt protective. It depends on what she is like and what you are like. I never met MRN’s IPPS but I know a lot about her. I was often angry at her for not keeping her predatory husband on a leash. I also began to really disdain her lack of direction/interests and stunted expression (like a teenage girl). She got on my nerves. I also think she is abused. That is where my mixed feelings come in. But I was also abused.
If I know what he is, why doesn’t she? She is willfully blind because she wants to maintain the facade. As a result, her husband goes around screwing with other women. Part of me therefore despises her and blames her for the hell I went through. Part of me pities her. But if she wants other women to think of her, then she needs to think of them. She doesn’t, so I don’t. It might sound mean but I am not obliged to her. I do not like her and don’t think I would have even had we met under different circumstances. She’s co-dependent, a ninny and a bore. Shall I say what I really think? 🙂
As for MRN, not wanting to be his IPPS was for distance and partly for the reasons you say – that he’s a cheater, I’m not interested in a man with 3 daughters etc. But when I told him, I made it about my deficiencies rather than about his. As soon as I told him, his tone changed.
I now realize what a turning point that was. Like yours, he wanted me to fight for him (I would lose, another reason not to go there). But at the time, I didn’t get why he wasn’t happy with what we had. Instead, he tried to wrestle me into submission by treating me like IPPS. I AM NOT YOUR WIFE! I would yell. YOU DON’T PUT A ROOF OVER MY HEAD, OR PAY FOR MY CLOTHES AND MY HOLIDAYS, etc.
He began to project onto me his feelings of ‘obligation’ to IPPS, his kids, his boss – he felt boxed in with me too. I guess my fuel was getting stale!
We had our first massive argument and agreed to end it.
Here’s something that I think I have just this moment understood: on his way over to talk about ending it, he messaged to ‘warn’ me that he was wearing his wedding ring. Huh? I said. Why are you telling me? I never noticed. Why would I? It is not as if I did not know you are married.
I think I now get that the ring was about me as (C)IPPS (I lost of course). His narcissism simply would not let him accept that I did not want to be IPPS!! He thought he was choosing between me and IPPS during the main part of the FR. Haha. It explains a lot about why I always felt that I had to instruct him on how to have an affair. What a revelation.
In any case, I left the country (my normal routine – nothing to do with him), returned 4 months later and was silent for another 2 months. He creeped me online the whole time. I broke NC. He wanted to resume the FR. Sheer insanity!
I saw him but then sent a break up email dissecting his marriage. Told him he was bored, could not explore erotically or intellectually with IPPS, and I was not the cause of his unhappiness. I basically said, I do not respect you, your wife acts like a child, you are a coward and your life choices do not impress. I am not the answer to your problems. This was a long way from when I would affectionately call him ‘superhuman.’ I did it all very nicely but knife to gut. Passive aggressive, just like him!
I never kept anything from him, however. I confessed to having creeped both of their (public) IG; he also knew that I wrote IPPS a letter that I never mailed – he had plenty of warning that I was at breaking point. Still, he hoovered so things continued as a ‘friendship,’ which was a disaster.
I have met someone! Thank you for asking! Our first ‘date’ for coffee was hours, he has been consistently in touch, is not blowing hot and cold, is not trying to impress, is not love bombing, is thoughtful, and we have good conversations. He is also Irish which makes him attractive to me. I have not reported because I only met him a month ago, was away for two weeks, and don’t know that we want the same things. He’s not a narc but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have other issues.
I’ve just told him the qualities I’m looking for without putting a label on the type of relationship. Consistency was the first thing. He might say he wants something else (say, ‘casual’), in which case we will both walk away. I will never again try to please someone who hasn’t earned it.
I haven’t read all of your posts (forgive but I have not been on here as much lately and wanted to respond to your comment). But you seem pretty solid and clear headed for having been involved with a narc for such a long time. It must have been an epic struggle. How did you do it?
Wow Mercy, my response to you almost made me want to break NC today for the first time in ages.
First, because I think writing it out like that allowed me to come to a greater understanding about the IPPS/IPSS confusion in MRN’s mind. I guess part of me still feels guilty and that I should explain why I behaved as I did. Not guilty about IPPS but about MRN. Second, because whenever I have tried to date and it seems like it might go somewhere, the walls go up. It is about that time with new guy…I hope I can power through it.
I wrote out the IPPS/IPSS thing to MRN in an email but did not send it or even address it, so I didn’t come that close. My fingers weren’t itching to send it. I wasn’t itching to talk to him. Instead, I thought about how he would react and if he would even understand it. He wouldn’t because his narcissism wouldn’t allow him to even entertain the idea that his ego was bruised or that I could love him if I only wanted an affair.
The feeling will blow over…
SMH don’t do it!! I’ve been wanting to respond to you all day but I have to do that stupid thing called work and it’s been crazy busy. I’ve been back and forth on this site for a long time. I see who the long timers are, I see the newbies that spend a few weeks then disappear and often wonder where they went then I see new ones that you can tell have the strength to get through the abuse given to them by the narc. Since I’ve been back this time I identified you with the 3rd group. You have a strong personality, your a leader not a follower and you have strength that shows in your story. We are all on different levels, some trying to come to terms with what just happened to them all the way to some being nc for years but have grown to respect HGs work. Not to mention the support system is like no other here because the average person will never understand.
Trust yourself! You know what will happen if you break NC. You came to this site to gain knowledge and you are healing because of it.
As far as the new guy, I totally understand what you are saying. Walls and all!! At least you’re getting out there. At least you’re going through the motions. I can’t even get to the point where I want to talk to another guy. I want to, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t want to put the work into it yet for fear of disappointment.
I want to respond to your earlier comment and I will this evening. I saw this and thought you needed some support.
Just delete the message. You know any response will not be the one you hope for. And worse, what if you get no response? That’s a hard one to handle.
Mercy,
Thanks for taking the time to jump in when you’ve had a long day. I won’t send the email but I wouldn’t care if he didn’t respond. He would read it. He recalls everything but acts like he doesn’t. I would really like to tape his mouth shut, pull out a whiteboard and write it all out in bullet points and charts, as I talk it in front of him with a pointer, without him able to say a word :-).
I look forward to your response to my rant about IPPS and you are right, I am pretty strong. But I have gone NC for longer than this, it’s always been my choice, and he is probably waiting for me to break. Grrrr.
Being on this site has definitely been a lifesaver. I got out on my own but I don’t think I could have stayed out on my own, and learning all I have here has been really healing (not to mention eye-opening).
We can discuss dating when you have some time. I’ve done it occasionally since I met MRN – two twice, one on and off the whole time (knew him before MRN), almost got assaulted by one in broad daylight, one died on me, etc, and MRN still might stalk me online. I don’t know!!!!
SMH, another thing…for the love of God don’t feel guilty! Do you think he felt guilt when entering a relationship with you having a primary source he was keeping from you? He lied for his own selfish needs. He will move on while you struggle to find happiness in another relationship. We are disposable as long as there’s more fuel to be had.
Mercy,
Yes, intellectually I know! I think he moved on a few months after I escaped, which is one reason I told IPPS (wanted her to know his m.o. and that he was still doing it). Then I think that fuel went stale/didn’t pan out, so he tried some indirect hoovers with me. Surely he has found someone else by now but who would be as stupid or reckless as I was??
He took huge risks because our kids went to the same school, where I was also an alum. We are a small and tight expat community and our kids are the same age range. We met randomly, but he knew all of this from day one. There are plenty of fish in the sea but he pursued me for some reason.
I knew he was lying about his name because I couldn’t find a match in the school yearbooks. I didn’t care much because I thought it was a fling but a few months later, I figured out who he was, had access to more info, and grew suspicious about IPPS. But I was overseas at the time and still not sure they were together. I said to a friend ‘if he is married then he’s a psychopath.’ Hahaha. I knew before he told me, but couldn’t believe the depths of his depravity. It just went on and on. It hurt me but it also fascinated me.
I have never had a relationship fail so spectacularly over and over. I also do not have a lot of experience with lying and cheating. I did have another affair long ago (him, not me) but it was completely different.
I was so confused by MRN. Who begs for an affair and then treats the affair partner like shit? That was the crux of the matter and you really helped me to figure out that I was not giving him what he wanted because I did not want to be IPPS. I used to say that he treated me like his “alt-wife” and now I know why I felt that way. In his mind, I was.
Just in case you think I am still blind, I do know that even had I given him what he wanted it would have still been a nightmare. Also, today I am not tempted at all to break NC. I knew it would pass and it did. Thank you for all of your support!
SMH, I never thought you were blind at all. Sometimes we think to ourselves that we can handle it. I did! I thought that as long as I had all of the information I could handle his games. It still hurt though. I understand when you say you were fascinated. After the narc’s confessions I had a front row seat to the shit show. I witnessed his manipulation and was able to apply the things I learned here to the tactics he was using. In my opinion this is where my fuel went stale. He was no longer able to resurrect an emotion. He tried though. The confessions and manipulation became so much darker than I could imagine. The last 2 years with him I had so much anger and all I could think about was revenge and getting control now that I knew the rules of the game. But we are not made like they are. We have a conscious where they do not. I sacrificed some of my morals for him but I could not become the monster he is.
Let me say this because I repeat to myself often. “When you realize it’s bad, know that it’s worse than you think”. No amount of confessions or information provided to us can prepare us for how bad it really is.
I’m past the revenge stage. It’s not worth losing myself. He’s so insignificant in this big world. He has a big name (high profile in our community) but now that I know who he is inside I think of him as a little child in a grown up world.
Talking to you has also helped me. Every day is a new struggle. You never know what will trigger emotions. They sneak up on you and slap you in the face. Thank you for Listening as well. We will get through this!
Mercy, Yes! I thought I could handle it. Though for my final escape I did tell him that I did not want to be in touch, even as friends, unless he left his marriage. But he hoovered and I thought he needed me. I was handling it pretty well until oops, I wounded him. The aftermath of that was the worst part of the whole time with him, and that is when I found this site and began to understand that it was Groundhog Day.
I shudder to think how bad it really is. I made him swear that he would not sleep with anyone else while we were together. We did not use condoms and he had no concept of STDs. I actually don’t think he slept around that much or with with anyone else while he was with me, because he knew that if I found out, there would be hell to pay, including that I would tell IPPS right then and there.
When I glimpsed another woman’s name in his email inbox post-escape, I suddenly saw the whole picture. That’s when I decided that IPPS had to at least be informed of his m.o. I am under no illusions that telling her was purely out of the goodness of my heart but I could never be such a monster either – I’ve been around the block but I’ve never even really cheated on anyone.
It sounds like your anger must also have stripped your N of his feelings of control, and in part he was probably also disgusted with himself. You laid bare the little child with the fragile ego and he felt shame. You saw inside him and as we know, narcissism is all about hiding that inner fragility/vulnerability (which is partly what also makes them so endearing – those childlike qualities)
You know how I wounded mine and my fuel also went stale (first ever ST)? I called him a man-baby, said he only wanted attention, and sent him a gif of Trump in a baby bonnet with the words ‘I just want attention’ 😇. I still laugh about it and to be honest when I did it, I was teasing – he was bugging me and not making any sense during a long, long day when I was working. You’d think I had shot him. Psychopath? Nah, doesn’t matter. Sexual abuser? Nah, doesn’t matter. Control freak? Nah, doesn’t matter. Man-baby? Boom. Smashed his cold little heart. 💔 That is when I became convinced he was a narc. Only a week later, I found this site Googling ‘why doesn’t he answer my messages?’
I am done with revenge too. I did not send IPPS the screenshots from a dating site 6 weeks after their reconciliation began (2nd time I left – I left 5 times, not 4, which is why he might expect me back), the dick pics, the emails, WhatsApp convos, the dates, times, places, or any evidence really.
And yes, we will get through this, including with a lot of laughs. It is the best medicine. When we are feeling maudlin and vulnerable, it is good to come here and laugh.
Mercy, I feel like I was on a negative roll and now I feel guilty (my weakness – guilt!). I want to add that MRN was not all terrible or I wouldn’t have stuck with him for so long. He was very calm, hardly criticized or judged me, rarely used STs, was smart and funny, often sweet, always did the running around, and wanted to know about my life – so different from his. He wouldn’t ask me ‘feel’ questions but if I was upset about something that didn’t have to do with him (say work stuff) he would listen. Right before the beginning of the end, he shocked me by wanting to meet my son, who was staying with me. (My son, who is in his mid-20s, did not know the situation. I was simply going to introduce MRN as someone I was dating.) They didn’t meet because my son was asleep but MRN and I had a lovely time just hanging out and talking. I knew, though, that we had gotten too close and I made an appointment with my therapist because I sensed MRN would pull away. Sure enough, the following week things went very wrong (this was all right before the 6 months of NC). I always felt like MRN was a wild animal and I had to stay very still or he would bolt. The pressure got to be too much…
I forgot there was one guy I dated four times rather than two right before I broke NC the last time. I even had him over to my place for dinner, though I wasn’t really attracted to him. Walls up!! If I really start dating someone, I am sure I will break NC again because I will forever be comparing to my wild animal.
Mercy, five years is a long time to be involved with someone so toxic. You’ve been through a lot. I wasn’t talking about you when I responded, I would feel the same way you do if I were in your situation.
The affair went on for about a year before I discovered it. In time spent together though it was more like a few months if that because most of their time together was spent when my husband was working. Plus he didn’t do things like not come home all night, he works really late and would just come home a little later when I’d usually be asleep. But ohmigosh they texted and called each other multiple times a day…like a ridiculous amount of texting and talking.
It will be three years in April I’ve been dealing with this narcissist bitch. She only just took all of the pictures of them together that she posted on Facebook after he ended it down a few months ago. She still comes to many events that we have to go to, either because my husband is playing or social events. She seems like she’s starting to escalate her attention, as last night she showed up at one of my husband’s gigs and made sure to slow dance with her drunken boyfriend in front of him. Her behavior is so obvious and bizarre that people always notice and comment. Last night it was “Who’s that woman who’s been staring at you all night?” I had planned to be there last night but when my husband texted me and said she was there, I was glad I wasn’t. I was not in the mood for her malignant presence even though I know that it makes her see red to see me with my husband out having a good time together.
So I’m long past any feelings of insecurity and mistrust, especially because my husband has maintained no contact since it ended. He doesn’t interact with her at all when she’s there, not even a hello. He’s sick to death of her and she just reminds him of how he betrayed not only our marriage but his own moral code. He deeply regrets that he caused me so much pain. He really missed me last night because he would always rather I be there, but especially if she’s around. So we’re good despite her continued delusional behavior. She thought it would be a few months and we’d break up because narcissists always think that we can’t live without them. She didn’t realize that we are the love of each other’s lives and we chose to stay together after the affair because of that deep love. She went after the wrong married man but I doubt she’ll ever stop thinking she can win him back one day. This is the disordered thinking of all narcissists.
WriteItOut, wow… just wow. 3 years and she still tries to torture you? What a little bitch! I’m glad you are past the insecurities . That cannot be easy to deal with. I have a friend that is going through the same thing. It’s been 7 years for her but she doesn’t have to see the other woman as often as you do. Its still sad the she has to deal with the emotions everytime she sees her
I’m glad you have a happy ending. Im sure it wasn’t easy for you to stay at first so good for your husband for fighting to save the marriage.
Thanks for sharing your story!
Mercy
Narcissists are incapable of love. You may find this article about gifts helpful.
https://narcsite.com/?s=gifts
K once again thank you for the link. I wasn’t implying that the narc felt love for WriteItOut’s husband and gave him gifts, I was wondering if it was possible that the other woman was not necessarily a narcissist but just a woman that got caught up in an affair and now she’s hurt and angry because he went back to his wife. I hadn’t heard her story and it’s interesting to me because it’s usually the cheater (husband) that is the narcissist, the wife and side chick that(IPSS) are the ones hurting. It’s an interesting twist from what I’m use to seeing.
One more thing do you know where I can read about the difference in the narcissist? Not necessarily lesser/mid/greater. I have a grasp on those. Malignant narc and I believe cerebral has been talked about by the readers. These are things I’ve glazed over in the past but now very interested to understand.
My pleasure Mercy
Ah, now I understand your comment about WriteItOut’s husband. Her situation is quite different from what we are used to seeing here, definitely a twist!
To get more information on the Cadres: victim, cerebral, somatic and elite, check out Sitting Target. That book has a lot of information on the Schools and Cadres of both the narcissists and empaths: Special, class and generic traits. It is an excellent book.
In the search bar on the upper right, type in: frying pan and you will find a short article about the Greater Narcissist (malign narcissist or the narcissistic sociopath) and the character strands. It is quite the eye-opener. Enjoy!
K, Perfect thank you! Thats exactly what I’m looking for.
You are welcome Mercy!
Writeitout
Good for you hon!
What an epic drama.
Thanks for allowing us to share the pleasure of that N-crushing. Very satisfying!
Question please for HG or anyone else.
Being a SIPSS that is no contact how worried do I really have to be in regards to being hoovered?
Thanks all
More information is required to provide an accurate response and therefore a consultation is the appropriate forum.
Kim e,
This is just my experience: I was an SIPSS who escaped. I was hoovered almost immediately, though I did not know what a hoover was at the time. The hoovers continued because I responded, thinking we could be friends. Long story short, I went supernova, this time doing so much damage that I am fairly certain he will never contact me. However, even after that part, there were a few indirect hoovers via social media.
My experience is that the hoovers lessen/weaken over time with NC and as much distance as you can manage.
Think about it this way: if you don’t fuel up the car, it eventually sputters out!
Luckily, as SIPSS’s we have no need/reason to provide fuel because we have no reason to stay in contact.
Hi SMH,
Thanks for the reply. I guess you could say I escaped too as he doesn’t know I am gone and might not for months until he decides he needs some hoover fuel. I figure he has an IPPS and plenty of other places he can get fuel…he wont miss me. Other than 2 crumbs in June and August, I have heard nothing substantial since May.
Breaks my heart but I know he really cant help who he is, but I had to go NC for ME!
It is rough… last night…not sure why…. I almost unchecked the blocked on my phone. I stopped myself.
I just have this very anxious feeling…thought it would be gone by now.
Any hints to make it easier are appreciated.
Hi Kim e,
I wrote you a long response earlier but I lost it somewhere. My internet connection went just as I was trying to post it, so I don’t think it came through. If it did, sorry for the double comments!
I wanted to tell you that I left narc four times and NC was often a huge struggle for me. Once he broke NC but I did the other times. The thing is, I’d break it only wanting to check in or be friends, and he’d rope me right back into the FR again. Of course I always thought that things would change etc. It was only after 6 months NC that I had enough distance to stand up to him. I still did not know he was a narc at this point, though I knew there was something seriously wrong with him, as I did not find HG’s site until post-escape.
Those 6 months of NC were really rough. I didn’t contact him but I sure wanted to. Instead, I started to write down my moods – what I was thinking/feeling, what time of day it was, what the patterns were, etc. At first I wrote a lot but after awhile it tapered off. During this period he was indirectly hoovering but I still did not give in. Instead, I wrote.
Then I broke NC because I wanted to apologize for something I had done. He tried to get me back into the FR as per usual (for some reason, it always surprised me) but I resisted. Trying to be friends ended in May with me going supernova. Since then, I have found two fake FB profiles, which I have blocked. There are probably more but I am not going to leave FB because of him, so I locked my profile down pretty well. He wouldn’t be able to see much even if he managed to friend a friend of mine.
There have been a few other indirect hoovers (visits to my LinkedIn profile, for instance) and I’ve had one or two dreams about him. Around July I’d say I was pretty close to contacting him but instead I wrote a draft email and didn’t send it. I would recommend that too. Just tell yourself that there is always tomorrow. No rush. You don’t have to do anything ‘today.’
I now barely think about him except when I am on this site.
So my advice is to write it out and write it out again (don’t send it). Go out with other guys, see your friends and family, pour your energies into work or whatever holds your attention. It does get much easier after awhile.
I think this period is a good opportunity to really build up your defenses and strengthen your boundaries so that when he does come back (he will), you won’t find it too difficult to resist.
Hope this helps!
P.S. Mine had an IPPS the whole time. It didn’t change anything about us. The patterns were always the same.
SMH. Once again thank you for the reply. I have been writing stuff before I even went NC.
May I inquire as to what type of narc you were involved with? Mine is a MMRN who I really do not see has having the gumption, balls or energy to hoover me. I have changedbup my routine, we were never connected on any media and my pages were and are all so that I must approve new people.
Other than in person the only other communication was text which I have now blocked him on. I had gotten some no caller ID calls which I knew was him but they don’t bother me. Little boy games.
Maybe I am completely fooling myself but I just do not see a hoover. By the way I did allow myself to be hoovered back in previously even after knowing what I was dealing with. I just don’t see it Is this perhaps still emotional thinking?
Kim e,
Mine was an MMRN too – or maybe a UMRN (probably not – too easily wounded). I think quite a few of us have had this type and we stay connected for so long because they are passive aggressive. If mine had ever lost his shit or done anything blatant, I would have lost my shit and/or been gone. It’s the pa behavior that keeps one hooked/uncertain.
I was never connected on any social media with mine either. He has fake FB profiles but not a real one. I am not on IG (his main social media). We are both on LinkedIn as ourselves but we are not connected there. Instead, he stalks me there. He has also stalked me on a dating site (I have the screen shots, complete with profile pics) so I assume he stalks me on FB too trying to get me to break NC. I also know that at least one of his fake FB profiles is one that only I – out of all the people in the world – would be able to identify as him.
We mostly used email on our phones (his a fake name email, mine my real one). I have not blocked him because it would go into spam and I would see it anyway. We were also connected as our real selves on WhatsApp for a few months but only used it once or twice. He then switched countries (we have three countries between us, which helps with the distance – we’d be in the same country about half the year). I didn’t delete him from WA because I didn’t want to do anything obvious. When he switched countries/numbers, he deleted me and did not add me back. But the day I noticed he was gone (not before I sent our WA convos to my email!!), I also saw that he indirectly hoovered me on LI.
Here is my take: pa behavior is very low energy. They don’t have to do anything really to keep it going and they don’t have to engage. If you stay out of the spheres of influence, the chances of a direct hoover are pretty low. Mine might have 8 FB profiles for all I know (indirect hoovers), but I cannot see him sending me an email or calling me (direct hoovers).
So yes, little boy games – infantile, really. HG would say that a hoover will come and when I left mine, there was indeed a grand direct hoover, which continued because I responded. But once I blew up big time, he went slinking back into his hidey hole but for a few lame indirect hoovers designed to try to get me to break NC.
Best to take this time to build your defenses up in case a direct hoover does come. It can’t hurt to be ready. And I guess best to know the difference between a direct hoover and an indirect one, if you don’t already know.
I was in the process of being embedded as a DLS. I didn’t even sleep with him to be honest. When I tried to get closure shocked at what had just happened he dismissed me. I managed to wound him but that didn’t stop the Hoovers.
The unsettling thing about hoovers, especially third party ones, is that they can be explained away. Hang up calls or butt dials from unknown women are dumbed down to spam and accidents. This makes the recipients feel like they are over reacting and going crazy.
I posted a comment about an unsettling scenario which came off as an innocent innocuous event. It ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back and part of the reason I broke my own NC.
It got to the point where I started having mild panic attacks. I began listening to HG’s interviews on YouTube at work in my head phones in order to ground myself in logic.
I keep thinking that I wasn’t important enough for the Hoovers to continue after that, and they haven’t as of now. But logic reminds me that in his mind I am a piece of property and should I enter into the sixth sphere, there is ALWAYS a possibility of a Hoover.
Thanks everyone for the support..much needed and appreciated at this time ,all comments are so helfull keeping me on the right track …
I didn’t think I would ever get to the point where I have nothing to say to him. I know any response I received will be spritz of perfume to cover the smell of the garbage he throws at me.
I’ve read the articles over and over, read your books, listened to comments, refused to believe I couldn’t handle it, ignored what I didn’t want to hear, left this site and submitted to more abuse, came back and clung to every word, didn’t pay attention, didn’t apply or let your words sink in. Through all of that I knew without a doubt that the answers to my freedom were right here and my fear of letting go was the only thing holding me back.
I’m still no contact and no plans to change that. I’m fucking miserable but at least he’s no longer in charge of my misery.
Mercy
Thats a great point. Not that I want to see you miserable, but taking back control of ANYTHING is a start – even if its your own misery. In time you will gain even more of a foothold until one day you realize you are calling the shots again. You will get there.
Thank you NarcAngel, I see so many readers that have already worked through these painful moments and I can’t wait to reach that peaceful stage. One day at a time huh?
If it’s any consolation, Mercy, I’m right with you, still learning, still in the early stages of NC, still miserable. But I’m feeling strong and determined too. Out of all the books I’ve read these last couple of months, NONE have helped me as much as HG’s because I needed to understand this and none of the other books helped me in that respect.
I agree Wissh. I have seen post criticizing even accusing HG of taking advantage and it makes me laugh. I can see how his writings would be an acquired taste to some because its uncomfortable to face reality. Those of us who have worked through the denial relate to everything that is written. Most of us have been callused because of the abuse and need a tougher guidance than what other sites have to offer. We are not weak because we are empaths, if that were the case the narc wouldn’t consider us prey. Pretty words will not penetrate the walls we have built to protect ourselves. We can only heal when we can begin to trust, and we can only trust when we see truth. I personally feel that I have found truth in what I read here. It may be the ugly truth but it’s what heals.
As far as our misery, I too feel stronger. It’s more of a lost feeling like I don’t know what to do now. Everything is very quiet where I’m used to chaos and confusion. I’ve been NC many times before but always knew it was just a break. This time I’m done and I don’t know where to go from here.
We’ll both get through this. The qualities we have that make us the perfect prey for the narcissist are the same qualities that will get us past the abuse they’ve inflicted on us.
This article seems to be aimed towards the IPPS with the grand hoovers and such.
Is the same amount of effort put in to hoover a SIPPS?
I have been NC for about a month now but still very leary. Feel better but feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time.
No.
Kim e
There’s no reply under your comment that I’m replying to so I’ll try this one. Thanks for your support and understanding of my NC game playing. I do realize I need to stop as he couldn’t give less of a shit whether or not I’m still on this Earth. Today’s mantra: “you are an appliance.” It’s hard on the self esteem but I’m thinking I can rebuild that easier than I can evict narcex from my brain. On the other hand, progress, he’s not in my heart.
WISSH,
So true. The mind is the last piece of the puzzle. Mine keeps floating backwards and I keep pulling it back to the present. Still get that “feeling” sometimes when he drifts back into my thoughts and it makes me sad that the “feeling” doesn’t make me happy any more.
Good Luck to both of us….we got this!!!!
My X has stirred. He has received notice from my solicitor of intention to divorce him for unreasonable behaviour!
He has told our son to pray for me….I am under some kind of evil attack and affected.
He has texted our daughter and told her how much he misses me and her and even the dog and how hard it is being away from us.
He has sent me a card with a four lpaged letter. I did not read it. I got my sister to read it. She told me it is full of knots. Trying to provoke an argument. She then gave me the letter back taped up, with his return address on. I posted it off back to him.
He wanted to speak to me – sent text to Our daughter, ignored.
I have told both our children there is no going back. Their dad will just have to realise the ship has sailed.
what will he do next HG ? Any guesses.
thanks for he article. A life saver. xx
More information is needed to provide an accurate reply and therefore a consultation should be arranged.
Where do I find the consultation link? Cant seem to locate it. Do you have a link please?
In the menu bar.
HG you may not want to publish this as it could give the wrong idea to recovering victims but you can add this to your files if useful. I read your previous post on Wrong No Contact and have been thinking back to the guy I knew prior to n-ex. I shall call him p-ex. Of course this was all before I knew about NPD. I’m not sure if p-ex is NPD but he certainly was a challenge. Initial great romance, but then mood swings, hot/cold, withheld sex yet would touch me when he thought I slept (one time I had dosed off on a long journey on public transport to find him with his hand under my shirt groping my breast – soon put a stop to that by ‘moaning’ and he nearly peed himself). Quickly escalated to physical restraint, threats, cig burns. I escaped which resulted in stalking, 3rd party threats/harassment, phoning me at work, phoning my roommates at all hours. I never met his family or friends. Stories never added up. I labelled him a fantasist and pervy and pretty sick. Why would anyone return to that. The distance stalking went on for years. I’ve always worked for multinational or national companies so it wasn’t difficult to trace me. Odd phone calls, 3rd parties would slither up to me at conferences and say something that linked me to p-ex, odd emails, He wanted me to know even after decades that he knew where I was, but no direct physical contact and hopefully many thousands of miles apart. Well, my point is, I left a former job and had to leave an e-mail to say who to contact in my absence. Within 3 weeks I had a perve phone call on my unlisted home number, but the caller id showed the number, I did a search and it originated from p-ex home town+country. Given his history, I didn’t think this was a coincidence. So, I left a message on a couple of these who-called-me sites to report this (the number was not formerly reported by anyone else). My plan was that if the calls continued I would leave further messages and provide a bit more info. In other words ‘I see you’ and I will create a shit storm if this recurs, so go boil your head and nether regions. If his number was subsequently recognised then it would raise questions and affect his standing in his town. Of course I now realise this is challenge fuel if he is NPD or just psycho. P-ex is living in a time bubble and wrongly thinks I am the naive young woman I once was … I may have been colour blind to the initial red flags, but physical violence and threats was very clarifying. If only I could have been so clever about n-ex but he was never violent. Oh well, we live and learn.
What the ever loving fuck?! Sometimes I feel like I’m transferring my rage onto you, HG, because YOU KNOW BETTER. You know yourself, you know narcs, you know victims, you know exactly why you do what you do, you’ve analyzed it all to death I’m sure. I’ve read so much, so many of your books, and your website, and still, when I sit in solitude and try to absorb it all, it’s still so difficult to accept that there are people (predators) out there like you, intelligent, well spoken, presumably normal looking, with full knowledge of what the hell you’re doing, who make the choice every day to hurt other people. It’s just mind boggling to me.
wissh
The dynamic is mind boggling and your rage is understandable. Although HG is intelligent and aware, he is wired to be a narcissist and he has no choice but to behave like one. Basic instinct.
Narcissism is a self-defence mechanism that compels (forces) him to protect himself and that mechanism impels (drives) him to act accordingly. He cannot not be a narcissist.
Empaths are wired to behave in a certain way and they have no choice either. Try removing your love, empathy and compassion and replacing it with indifference and hate. You can’t because love, empathy and compassion is wired/woven into your personality and it is part of who you are and you can’t change that.
K,
Explained beautifully. Can’t make the sun not shine. We are as we are….hurting or loving each other.
Thank you Kim e
I work in a school library and I see the children with NPD and they do not know what they are or why they behave the way they do; it is heartbreaking and all the love in the world cannot undo what their parents did to them. We just have to accept it and protect ourselves and our loved ones.
K,
Thank you for that. I’m working on this understanding many hours each day. (Damn retirement.) I’m getting there, I think (hope) and this simply stated explanation is really helpful. Thanks, I really appreciate it!!
You are welcome wissh
It takes a while for the dynamic to sink in, but eventually it starts to make more sense as the logic replaces your emotional thinking (ET).
I read your comment on Shoot You Down regarding empaths, The search bar is located on the upper right underneath “Knowing the Narcissist”, just type in: empath and it will pull up all the relevant articles.
I feel lack of compassion, numbness and lots and lots and lots of hate. I think it is not over until the fat lady sings and I hear silence so far. The “dark side” needs to lighten up, move out of the fucking path and stay out. The “light side” needs to see how much “darkness” we are holding and find the way to genuinely express it and accept it. It is not us, it is not ours, we took it in because “they” shoved it into us. This is ancient. This is the beginning, this is how we started way back, way back in the day. The Narc hates emotions yet they cannot live without them, the magnetic fuel we all need to operate. They hate the female aspect (magnetic, able to move into the darkness and see what is there, perceptive of what is going on and all sorts of stuff) The male side (these labels suck but will have to do for the mo, so yes these aspects can be either in males or females, you know it when you feel it, or sense it) did not accept the reflection they saw originally. It is their original hatred the female side took in (was smacked into them) and then thought it was them. The male side made sure to blame us, torture us etc. They did not realize they were looking at their own unevolved hatred being reflected to them. The female side has never evolved because of this. They were instantly rejected. The feelings/reality of rejection created the self hatred which keeps us trapped and stuck in the same destructive place. The internal self hatred is reflected to us externally and then we think we have “proof”. They feed off it because without it, without the magnetic energy they die. They have no idea or inclination to get thier own fucking magnetic energy working for themselves, or accept it in another. Our kind needs to go within and deal with it internally and privately to heal it there. Once we get to that, the narc will be naturally be pushed aside. Whatever happens then, I am not sure, because this has not manifested yet, in all this gruelling cruel and evil time, this has not happened yet, but it is about fucking time, it is about fucking time.
Wissh, there are times when I want to scream at HG, take out my anger at my ex Narc and project it onto HG, or insult him BUT just one of the tidbits I learned is that I cannot wound HG. Somehow that makes it okay for me to do those things. I doubt he cares at all if one of us vented. I say things to HG that I want to say to my ex because of NC, I can’t say to the ex. HG, tied to a whipping post.
Sometimes I get momentary insights and understanding of the narcs logic/way of viewing the world. But I tend to not remember because narc thinking–to me as a SME (new acronym)–makes no sense so I dismiss it.
I look at the narcs in my life as appliances because that’s what I am to them. Being complicit helps me feel better or more like a robot and boringly pleasant.
Wissh,
This is why my name here is SMH. When I found this site I was gobsmacked. So THAT’s what’s wrong with him! I was incredulous. But it all makes so much sense.
HG,
Prior to me breaking NC months ago I was being bombarded by odd phone calls/a taxi sent to my house etc. I consulted with you, and shortly after my consultation something occurred that I am hoping you could explain to me.
The narc was originally my boss. Post escape as we were waiting for someone to replace him I was talking to another manager about possible successors. I told her we had had a pretty good run of bosses at our store. She responded by telling me that she had heard the narc (insert name) was really good even though she had never met him.
That always struck me as out of place since it was well known he had moved out of state, therefore mention of him, especially if she didn’t know him, didn’t seem necessary. We were also alone when this was said.
She also made a point of becoming friendly with his (then) DLS. Maybe I was being hyper vigilant and reading this out of context but it didn’t sit well with me then and it doesn’t now.
Reads like a Hoover by Proxy.
Felt like one too. I’ve been suspicious of that for awhile. Thank you.
I just finished reading the book “No Contact”. HG, I read your antics against Alex. It made me wonder, and I don’t mind to sound better than her, but if I were leaving someone of your caliber, you better believe I’d plan my escape very carefully, as much as possibly could, especially if I had previous failures. Certainly I wouldn’t leave behind anything of value (material or emotional) behind. I read those pages 10 times at least…. and I felt the intensity of your fury. Of course, I don’t know the entire circumstance but that was my first thought: why leave behind valuables things?
I broke no contact got ignored ..feel awful now what else did I expect.warning to all dont do it not worth the tears…here’s to starting no contact again.
Aww that feels horrible ! . Good to go NC again . You may get ignored the first time but you’ll never what would’ve happened next .
Hope you’ll feel better soon
Thankyou DoforLuv…nice to know someone gets what its like going through this .
I broke no contact once, several months ago. He condescended to me, but left me unblocked. That was absolutely a valuable lesson. We make mistakes. Forgive yourself and remember every day is a new day. Delete/block everything you can. October is good weather for fire pits.
I’m sorry Blondie, I understand. I hope you’ll go NC again, sometimes it takes a few tries. In the meantime, take care of yourself and keep working on evicting him from your head so you’re not even tempted to break NC again.
Blondie, don’t be hard on yourself. We’ve all done it! It’s the hardest thing ever. Just keep reminding yourself each time you think about responding to him or getting in touch that it is just not worth it. Because you’ll only feel much worse after.
The good tbing is, you can pull yourself back together much faster this time. You know where you want to be and you’re on the right path. Sometimes we have to experience that pain again to make ourselves realise that it actually was as bad as we remembered. Huge hugs and love x
I fight the temptation all the time. Thanks for the reminder that this is what will happen. Just not worth it but it’s a daily struggle
I play it like a sick Russian Roulette. I unfriended and blocked so that’s irreversible, but lordy my cell phone. It’s so sick because it’s all me, he’s not even trying to contact me. And yet I block, get anxious, wonder if he tried to reach me, of course he hasn’t, so I unblock telling myself if he does call or text I just won’t answer and that’ll show him. 🙄 Over and over. I make my own crazy.
WISSH
Don’t beat yourself up. I am going thru the same thing now. Just keep reminding yourself of all the forward motion you have made with the blocks you have in place and how far back it would set you if he did make it thru.
I think the same thing….I want him to know I ignored him but that will play with your emotional thinking in the long run and set you back.
It is a process. How long it takes depends on the person. Hang in there.
Blondie
I broke NC more times then not. The last time I almost broke NC I found a pay phone as I did not want to call him from my phone. I was standing at the pay phone with the phone at my ear when I came to my senses. I realized I literally had nothing to gain but everything to lose if I completed the call. Don’t beat yourself up. It is all part of learning and healing.
Blondie I’ve done the same in the first 2 months of struggling to distance and then escape. Don’t be too hard on yourself. GOSO immediately. When you fall off the wagon, get back on the wagon right away. Learn from it–How rotten you feel and the regret. Chuck it off to experience. And fuck him.
The to-ing and fro-ing is thanks to the cognitive dissonance still holding sway over your mind where the reality checks happen.
You are seeing perfectly normal responses in perfectly normal women recovering from N abuse.
Be kind to yourselves.