A Preventative Hoover
How many times have you declared that you have had enough? How many times have you vowed that you are no longer putting up with this behaviour and making a fresh start? How often have you put in place steps to depart and leave this confusing and twisted reality behind?
We hear these assertive comments from time to time. We have subjected you to a sustained devaluation, provoked so many heightened emotional responses from you which has given us fuel. At times you did not know whether you were coming or going, your head swam and that dull ache in the centre of your forehead never seemed to diminish.
You wondered who you could trust as you fought to establish what you believed was right against a backdrop of contradictions. From somewhere you mustered some strength, a bolt of fortitude sprang from the maelstrom and in that moment of clarity you knew it was time to go. This situation is not right surely? Nobody should be treated in this manner. Yes, it was the moment to depart.
Of course you could not do so without your parting speech. It was not borne out of spite or venom. Those are not watchwords that apply to you. Notwithstanding the horrendous treatment meted out against you, the repeated abuse and the incessant put downs, you still behaved with dignity and grace.
There was little doubt that you wanted to lash out. You wanted to flail us with stinging words and some home truths, just in the same way we had used our acidic tongues and savage words to berate you, yet despite how much you wanted to speak to us in this manner you did not do so.
Instead, demonstrating the empathy which attracted us to you all that time ago you explained how you still loved us. You fought back the tears as you explained that you loved us more than you did when we first became a couple and despite everything that has happened you still love us. You ought to have torn strips of us, levelling a lengthy charge sheet against us but you did not behave in this way.
That is not who you are. You talked about all the wonderful traits we have and how you miss them, you continued to praise us even after everything that we had done to you. You stood there bearing the emotional and physical bruises and rather than lambast us for putting you in such a state you preferred to talk about the magical times we had together. Y
ou clearly had committed each of those occasions to your memory as you brought up each event and occurrence as the tears trickled down your cheeks. You explained how wonderful we made you feel, how you had never experienced anything like that before and you consequently truly believed you had found the one.
You work through the golden period, talking about the trips we took, the days we spent together and the glittering and scintillating moments we created. We can see this is hurting you all the more yet still your selflessness continues. You are exhausted after the tortuous time you have been put through and yet still you only try to remember the good and thank us for those wonderful times.
You tell us that although they lasted a few months, the memories of that time are seared into your mind and you will always treasure them. You explain that you will reflect on those memories and not what came to pass afterwards as you still prefer to think the best of us, despite everything we have subjected you to.
Your nobility in behaving in this manner is most impressive and your admirable words continue to fuel us. You explain between sobs that you do not want to go but you have to. You do not want to leave everything that we have built up behind but if you do not do so then you will be destroyed.
You apologise, yes you actually apologise that you have not been able to help us, to steer us away from the destructive and malevolent behaviour that has marred the latter months together. You explain how hard you have tried but admit you have been defeated. You express your desire for us to change and to seek help because you truly believe that we are a good person who just needs to seize on that goodness and allow it to shine.
You tell us you have seen what we can do and achieve and you still want what is best for us. You stand there staring at us; some of your possessions already packed in the two suitcases which are waiting in the hallway. You tell us you will make arrangements with us to collect the remainder of your belongings once you have had a chance to think and breathe.
We rise from our seat and walk towards you. You are quietly sobbing and we take your hands in our hands and hold them in that tender manner you recall so well. The vicious squeezing that one day arrived out of nowhere is not in existence. Instead, we hold your hands and look you straight in the eye as we summon up a look we have practised before with others in the situation.
The look begins as sorrow and then morphs into hope as we search your eyes looking for that flicker of flame once again through the tears. You hold our gaze as we keep searching and then we speak, our words soft and gentle, just as they were when we whispered into your ear as we lay next to you holding you late at night.
“I am sorry, I know this time I have to change. Please help me be the good person I know I can be, that I want to be. Something is wrong with me and I do not know what it is, but you can save me, you are the only one. Please do not leave me. I cannot survive without you. I need you. I want to make you happy again because someone as wonderful and as loving as you deserves it. I will get help but I know I can only do it with you at my side. Please, please stay.”
The short speech is delivered with true brilliance as I gather the right inflection in tone coupled with suitable contrite looks and mannerisms. I continue to look into your eyes as you let my words sink in. The moments pass and then the light flickers, that flame of hope sparks into life and I know your next words before you have even spoken them and I begin to give you that enticing and winning smile again.
I know that you will stay. Again.
You end up stuck. Again.
This is a form of Preventative Hoover and when you roll out that supposed parting speech, you are leaving yourself exposed to such a hoover.
They often work as they target your empathic traits of guilt, sympathy, not wanting to give up, hoping for the best and wanting us to heal.
Tip us off as to your intentions and you will face such a hoover.
8 thoughts on “A Preventative Hoover”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I didn’t have many good times to remember. By the time I was ready to end it that was it. There was no going back. It took me two years to end it as the narc would step up the abuse. All I got towards the end were threats and he acted as though I had offended him.
Hi H.G
Thanks for the great site. You info is very useful.
I have some questions for you. You may have covered these in one of your books or videos but I have not come across these points so far.
Q1. I expect that all Narcs are atheists but of course not all atheists are Narcs (since I am an atheist but an empath). I expect that some Narcs might pretend to be religious if it suits their ends, but none would really believe in a higher power, or want to. Your thoughts?
Q2. Would Narcs exclusively vote right wing? Trump started out as a Democrat but I think this was a populist strategum rather than personal conviction. Your thoughts?
Q3. Why wife and I are couple friends with a couple where the wife is a mid range Narc. Our kids are all friends, I get along with her husband, who is completely ensnared. He is her third victim. We have enjoyed many social occasions as their primary friends out on their balcony overlooking the valley and drinking wine and so on. She has always boasted and lied and controlled and dominated, but otherwise has treated us reasonably well for 7 years. Her domination is more of her husband in front of us. He is beaten down, can never have relationships of his own with mail or female friends, he can never go out to meet me for a boys night of even just to have a coffee, and she fills every minute of his day with tasks for her. It is through observing how appalling her treatment of others, particularly her employees, that has made us question whether we should continue the couple friendship. As an empath, this is hard to get past, but leaving also means all the other positive things and long standing relationships will be lost. Should we just get out or can we continue on for the sake of the other relationships? What do you advise?
Q4. If Narcs think of people as appliances, and as weakened by their emotional thinking, how is it that you place value on our attention or praise? Surely you would consider our opinions to be of little value because they are formed through a worldview and thinking style that you hold no respect for? I guess I am trying to better understand what fuel is. It seems to me that fuel is not the praise you might receive that, in and of itself, reaffirms your false view of yourself, but simply that fact that you have managed to elicit that praise regardless of the merits of it, but that because it shows the person has bought into your false self, that gives you your power? Is it just a combination of having their attention and admiration that gives you the power hit or do you also buy into the content of the praise itself?
Lastly, on question three above, how can we get the husband of our couple friend to see who she really is and possibly escape her, or would you advocate abandoning him to work it out for himself?
Anonymous
Hello Peter.
1. Some narcissists will claim a belief in God although they do not, as a conscious manipulation (Greater or Ultra). I have done that. Unaware narcissists (Lesser of Mid-Range) may believe in God and do not see it as fabricated. The will of course use that belief in order to manipulate (unconsciously) see “Holy Narcissist”.
2. No. Narcissists are found throughout the political spectrum.
3. Where you are involved with a narcissists as a NISS you can have a less toxic relationship because you are part of the narcissists facade however
a. You are uncomfortable with her treatment of him, and
b. Beware the interaction with her amounting to Cross Pollution (see the item in The knowledge Vault)
Best practice would be to end the friendship. With regard to him, this is an expansive matter and you ought to organise a consultation.
4. A fair question and it is typical of our contarian ways that we require the emotional attention (fuel) of people we see as beneath us. Read the book “Fuel” and this explains it in greater detail.
Regarding 4, narcissists basically believe everyone else is beneath them, correct? And, the fuel is just as effective, from a narcissists view, if it’s negative emotion as positive, also correct?
This was a light bulb moment, my mother truly sees me as beneath her, now I understand her complete lack of respect for me, it really is just that.
Yes. Accordingly your failure to do things, the fact you do and say certain things offends our innate notion of superiority and amounts to a threat to our control.
I see. Thank you.
Took me long time to put in place.I finally did it and feels great.
Has a narcissist ever been sfucced by a Dyson? (no, not a spelling error, I just made it up!).