A Stolen Love
Our victims have many things in common. Those shared traits are why they are chosen and why they become subjected to our incessant manipulations. The evidence of considerable empathic traits is of course one of the pre-requisites to gaining the attention of the narcissist. Exhibit a tendency to care, an ability to see another person’s point of view and a desire to help and you are issuing a neon-lit “Come and get me” to our kind. Your high-scoring on the empathic scale is naturally of considerable value to us. There is, however, another core principle that you all share which is irresistibly attractive to us.
This is your devotion to love. You believe in love, you are advocates of the act of loving, you give love and (although not always) you want to be loved in return. Love is all you need, love conquers all and love is a many splendored thing. Love matters. You see that the world can and will be a better place if more love is exhibited. You love with a depth that is beyond many people.
You truly give your all. Your love is perfect, selfless and based on a deep-seated notion that loving someone is the best and most wonderful thing one person can do for another. Such noble and laudable sentiments. Your status as a devotee to love means that you will strive to maintain that love once it has been gained. Love may give the appearance of having departed but you know, you believe, you always believe that it can be found and resurrected. That which has become dulled and blunted will be polished and returned to sharpness.
That beautiful golden glow will shine again and you are the person to make it happen. You are the healer and the fixer. That which is broken shall be mended by the application of your burgeoning heart. You are a disciple of love and as such there is nothing you can do but act in accordance with the principles of loving. It is second nature to you. You are so full of love you must find ways of allowing it to manifest in the world and of course the pinnacle of doing so is to find that special someone. You want to find the one so that all of this marvellous love can find its true home.
You are compelled to find your soul mate, your life partner and your best friend. Only then can your obligation to provide this amazing love be fulfilled and we thank you for being this way. On a daily basis we give thanks that you delicious and beautiful empathic individuals are committed to the promotion, promulgation and practice of love.
We come with the appearance of being that one special person who you can lay all your love upon. That person who will readily accept all of the love you have to offer and we will return it. Some of you would happily give this love in order to ensure there is an elated recipient and amazingly it would not matter to you whether that love was returned or not. Your sacrificial nature is stunning yet even more welcome.
We are of course content to reflect your love in order to bring about yet more from you. We understand the transaction and we are happy to oblige because we are giving you absolutely nothing. We have come to take. We have descended on you ready to strip you of every ounce of love that you can provide. We will slurp it from you, nibble it from your straining frame and gulp it down as we devour your love. We will take it away from you time and time again. Do not be mistaken and think that you are providing this love based on a reality.
You are doing so on a false premise. You have been conned into giving this love to us because we make you think we are the very thing you want when in reality we are anything but. We are fraudsters and we have come to take your love. If you knew what we truly were you would not offer your perfect love to us but we want it. We want it so much and we always take it. We make you unknown martyrs to the provision of love. We come without warning even though we appear with an explosion, all of it aimed to distract and misdirect so that we may pilfer your love.
Our thieving knows no limits or bounds as we take what does not belong to us and use it for our own warped purposes. We keep on stealing your love until you are left spent and wretched, sat amidst the ruins of the relationship which once seemed impregnable and infinite and now is little more than ash streaked across blunted stone. We gorge on your love, gluttons that feed at the banqueting table as you slowly realise that the sumptuous love we appeared to return to you is in fact empty, a puff of air and without any substance.
Yet this realisation comes far too late for by then the damage is done. Not only have we helped ourselves to all of your love we have, invariably ripped away and stolen your capacity for further love. Once you finally extricate yourself from our grip and eventually make sense of what has happened to you, even though it may take some considerable time, how often have your kind uttered the sentence,
“I do not think I will ever love any again, how can I after that?”
Words similar to such a question are regularly uttered by those who have been sucked into our malevolent maelstrom.
We are the love thieves.
We come and take the love to which we are not entitled but we are not done with that. Oh no. We rip out your heart in order to leave you so bereft that you can never love again.
We steal your love.
We are the love thieves of your past, your present and your future love.
Interesting article that touches on very valid points. I am in no rush to be in a relationship with anyone at this point.
Same. Interacting with a narcissist has put me off relationships in general for the time being. Maybe for a very long time. It’s scary when the first time out, after 10 years single, that’s the first person to come along. And, it makes me wonder if most single men, in my age group, would qualify as narcissists. If so, I’m better off staying alone altogether.
AV
Same here: after 7 years single (my choice), the first person who came along was a narc! I had remained single out of choice because I knew I had issues to deal with, but wasn’t sure that time out had enabled me to deal with those issues. How right I was: I didn’t know then that I was addicted to people like him, so of course I couldn’t come to terms with the recurring problems I had in relationships (99% with narcs).
But it doesn’t need to be scary anymore: with the knowledge you acquire here, you have all the chances in the world not to put up with another narc ever again once you have sussed them out. And it gets easier and easier to spot them if you apply HG’s work, with lower ET.
I think as you begin to feel better, you don’t worry about being in a relationship again one day or not. This fear (of remaining single) might be more prominent when you are freshly out of a ‘relationship’ with a narcissist.
But what makes you think that most single men in your age group would qualify as narcissists, A Victor?
Yes, I had the same experience Fiddleress, thought I was in a good place, didn’t understand my addiction issue. It is getting better by leaps and bounds now though, yay!
I don’t know what I was thinking exactly with the “single men in my age group” comment. Maybe because most men I know that seem like decent people are married, the single ones often seem questionable. But, I don’t know many single men to begin with so who knows. Thank you for your encouraging reply, I really enjoy the success stories from those of you who’ve been here a while very much.
I used to think “love conquers all” was cliche, silly and condescending. It’s not though. It’s truly the only way.
To be unable to love another human being is profoundly sad to me. The narcs don’t feel that sadness of course. Can’t miss what they never had. The fact that they can’t bond or connect to another person is something that has taken me a very long time to understand. It’s tragic. However, the damage they do to loving, kind souls, is much worse.
Delaney – your ability to love doesn’t go away. It’s behind a wall right now but it’s there. Waiting. Hoping. Always looking for a chance to express itself again. Your good heart doesn’t disappear and the narc can never take this from you.
Learn about narcissism and be open to loving someone who ISN’T disordered. Once you are aware you can spot them fairly quickly and will pull back your heart earlier in the game to avoid this from happening again.
I didn’t have any love left to give latest ex narc and knew something was wrong from the beginning… I guess I was just plain stupid. Oh well, live and learn.
Dear HG the Saviour and God!
An empath keeps throwing herself at him and he prefers me. I have more potent fuel and I fulfil his prime aims.
Anyway, I’m glad he has her so I can escape more easily. I was worried he’d kill himself and he’s showing up at my shop again.
I was his primary source in devaluation. He wants to pick up on that.
What’s happened to the saucer? Has there been a fight? Where’s the sugar? all over the floor I suppose…..
Every word written here is true. It made me feel sick to my core. I’m 50 y/o & condemned now to a life alone because as you said, the capacity to live, to give to that level again, is gone. It’s wrong. So wrong. People like you should come with a warning attached.
You are not condemned to live a life alone at all, you are only 50 years old. You’ve years left.
What do you, the self-confessed narcissist know of my pain?
What do you know internally of being broken?
You know nothing of the internal pain of an empath. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
1. Diagnosed, not self-confessed.
2. More than you. I listen, observe and study. I have interacted with a vast number of empaths and they have repeatedly articulated their internal pain to me. I assimilate that information and utilise it.
Hi Delaney, I felt from HGs previous comment that he was trying to be supportive of you.
How much you are hurting right now is obvious from your comment in response.
While HG cannot literally feel our pain, he goes out of his way to acknowledge and try to support us here with information, consultations, and also creates this forum for us to offer support to one another. From what he writes it is obvious he has a great deal of insight.
He is not the one who hurt you. But he is the one who can help you.
I hope you will let us all support you now that you are here.
Delaney,
I think when we are in pain, it’s all we can think about, replay, dwell, ache, sink, replay, dwell, ache, sink a little further. It’s a downward spiral and it’s all consuming. All of the empaths here have felt similarly to a lesser or greater extent, some still do, in part, not in all.
The thing is, when you are locked in that tailspin, when the hurt feeds in on itself, when you lose time and you realise you haven’t moved for the last hour, that you were sitting, staring at something but entirely drawn in by your thoughts, when you realise that this is where you are, something or someone has to happen for you to pull out of it. Actually the best person to do that is someone who will not get sucked into the sadness with you. Someone who sees clearly, thinks clearly and knows that actually, what you really need to pull out of it, is just to understand. To understand what happened, why it happened and to understand more about the person that did this to you.
HG understands it. He has read and heard the pain of all of us here and plenty more besides. Similar yet different, similar thoughts expressed in different orders and different ways. He doesn’t need to feel it to fix it. In actual fact, in some ways, and bizarrely, we need to hand him the keys, because he’s the only one clear enough to find the way home. He knows why we react the way we do. He knows the traits that drive us and the ones that held us in place for far too long. He certainly understands the person that hurt you and how it was done. Most importantly, he knows how to make the pain stop.
Please stay. Read the articles, question and vent. The empaths here do know how you are feeling, HG does know how to fix it. Give us a chance to help x
Truthseeker, you stated this so perfectly, so beautifully! Thank you!!
What she said.
Delaney
No, they can not feel the pain of an empath (or conversely the joy) but they sure do know about it. Think about it. It’s why they prefer to seek their fuel out in empaths as opposed to normals or other narcissists.
Also, many of them have known pain and have been broken and that is how the narcissism came to be. A defence mechanism against all the pain they did once experience and now reject.
I’m not saying we should excuse it or pity them. I’m merely saying they do know.
Delaney, you are in a good place for healing, glad you’re here.
First thought, a doctor isn’t required to have suffered the same illness I am experiencing to know how to fix it.
Also, HG does know what he does to people, he understands how he affects them, so though he can’t feel the pain of it, like we do, he does understand what he’s doing, and why, and therefore how to make it stop, for us. Learning the why is so helpful, along with the how.
I hope you will give it a chance here, you will be able to get on top of the pain you’re feeling right now if you do.
Delaney, partly for the legacy he wants to create with his work, and partly because HG despises other narcs (including the one[s] who hurt you, he has a strong motive to help you. You do not have to rely on some mythical virtue where he is concerned. He is exactly what he says he is, a narc who knows all the tricks, and he will do exactly what he says he’ll do, which is give you the knowledge you need.
I’ve been posting for a year and reading his work, both free and for purchase, and I already have a clearer understanding of not only narcs who broke my heart as an adult but also of abusive teachers and bosses going back years. The pain may not disappear entirely for a long while, but it’s amazing how much it diminishes once you know what you’ve been dealing with.
Delany,
I can totally sympathize with what you’re feeling! I fell madly in love with someone I thought was an empath-he was the sweetest most loving man I thought I had ever known! Now I know he was a MMR type A Narc-the false empath. I have known HG for 3 years through consultations and his work. This is my second narc and the most difficult to get over. It’s been over 9 months and the pain is just starting to subside. I speak to HG almost every week and I know that I could not have made it this far without him. Since then I have learned so much more than before meeting my ex. I am trying to listen and learn as much about MR narcs because I want to be prepared. We will always be attracted to them and vice versa. So for me knowledge is power and my only defense. For me, it is HG who has been the person who has helped me move forward-believe me, I was devastated; married July 2019 and he’s gone in Feb 2020-now divorced. I didn’t think I would make it-it’s been a long road and the more I read and listen to youtube Ultra, the most disgust I feel for my ex and his lies, infidelities and my residual benefits.
Like me, I know you will see and feel this in time-knowledge is power! Don’t let him win!!!
Hello Delaney,
I know what you mean. I don’t confide either, just that one time. I think when we are that hurt by someone it really is very difficult to see yourself with someone else again. I think that’s normal for us and actually that’s part of a good self defence mechanism. We need time to recover. To leap straight back in would be a bad move. Heightened ET would only up the chances of another ensnarement anyway. So your defence system in my view is working just fine.
Emotional Thinking can lead us to think that we won’t find anyone else, that we wasted years on the wrong person and that’s it for us. I don’t think it is. Once ET falls, and you start to feel better, you might well see things differently. Fully recovering, learning the red flags and then it’s very possible to find a non narc partner going forward.
There is no right answer though. It’s a choice. When you do feel better you might choose to stay single. You might decide that actually, your life is full enough without you having to go down that route again. The thing to remember though is that by learning what happened to you and why, then by learning how to avoid a similar ensnarement going forward, you will have control. You will in fact have a choice and you will make it through using logical thinking, not as a response to feeling hurt.
For some of us, myself included, it feels like a complete betrayal. I didn’t feel stupid, I understood fairly quickly what happened, why it happened and why I couldn’t go back. Betrayal though, that’s altogether different.
I’m sorry this happened to you Delaney, read, understand, comment when you feel like it, and bit by bit you will start to feel better x
Hiya, I can understand why you think / feel that way. You must have been very hurt. I was like that once.
You made me laugh though (thanks) “People like you should come with a warning attached” – once you have learned more about narcissism, you will be able to understand what attracted you to narcissists and also why they are “attracted” to you. You are right to be angry – majority of us bloggers were at one time or another – for someone like me, (I am laughing now), I have got angry loads of times but it’s better to let it out rather than bottle it in…… even if iut is to ‘F.O’ to nasty neighbours 😉
Age should not be a ‘factor’ as part of life & relationships……
Hello Delaney,
I understand how you feel, believe me. But I have a friend who is old enough to be my mother (she is 75, and she acts like a mother towards me too), who divorced her narcissist husband after years of abuse. She met the lovely man that she is with now, when she was 54. She has a friend who met her own current partner at 73! Like in the case of less pleasant things, it doesn’t only happen to others. Give yourself time and the very real opportunity to heal, here on narcsite, and life will take care of more encounters. As for the ‘warning attached’, narcissists do come with one – many, I should say: have you read HG’s book Red Flag?