The Narcissistic Relationship Cycle

narcissists actually do not do well in relationships that are stable and steady and free of drama the approach and the avoidance and the ups and the Downs are are kind of almost a draw for them and often it's sadly the only thing that keeps them engaged the drama kind of keeps them hooked in and today the term we're going to take on is love bombing so hold on to your hats because many of you know what this feels like when we think about love momming we're reminded that we were raised on fairy tales and we grew up into watching rom-coms romantic comedies as it were these themes create unrealistic expectations and skewed our perceptions all of those fairy tales and all of those romantic comedies can often sort of twist what we think a courtship is actually supposed to look like I've heard this story so many times boy meets girl or boy meets boy or girl meets girl however Your Story begins think about the themes I'm about to talk about some may apply for you but others may not love bombing has certain phrases that are typically associated with it so some of these phrases are things like we had a magical connection we had the most amazing first date it was a whirlwind courtship we took so many amazing trips we spent 24 hours a day seven days a week together for two straight weeks right after our first date before I knew it I was meeting his family I really thought it's because he was really seeing me as a keeper my lease is up let's just move in together because we're already spending 24 hours a day together and it would make more economic sense you remember some of those phrases some of you do at least love bombing can be very instagramable with people seeing your travel pictures from your new relationship or nights out at those impossible to-go places or extravagant picnics or amazing gifts love bombing really links into the fact that the charm Charisma confidence and cleverness of the narcissist all draw you in narcissists are so well put together in so many cases they tick the boxes and that's all part of the love bombing as well there may even be some Envy so flowers will be sent to word big vases on multiple days or flowers are sent to the apartment you share with roommates or your family people start gauging and comparing their ordinary relationships against what is unfolding to be your rather grandiose experience and everyone is sort of excited and maybe even a little jealous during the love bombing phase people will say that they felt like they were put on a pedestal and as we know pedestals are very bad places to live because you can fall off and get hurt it can be a fantasy for any of us to live on a pedestal for a minute but it's not good for us first of all it does hurt when we fall off and secondly it is simply part of the narcissist grandiose fantasy by putting you up on a pedestal they are not only creating a false narrative you become part of the unrealistic grandiose fantasy and since it is just that a fantasy at some point reality is gonna stick its head in and you I guarantee it will be knocked off of that pedestal for many people who have been love bomb falling off the pedestal and wondering if they would ever get back on that pedestal was a significant and memorable moment in the relationship and one that set a tone for the devaluation and the discarding that was about to happen but in the midst of the love bombing you were actually seeing red flags you already had the sense that the relationship was moving too fast you may notice that your narcissistic partner that you don't know is narcissistic yet was getting angry really quickly or that they were incredibly sensitive but you do what a lot of people do in these relationships especially when they're being love bombed you Gaslight yourself and other people Gaslight you too people around you may say things like come on you really are afraid of commitment finally you have someone who's paying attention to you and you still are suspicious of them they may Minify they may minimize your red flags because everything else looks so good you're living the fairy tale right who says no to that so you stay in the relationship and you start ignoring the red flags even when they pile up you deny your own instincts you recognize that it has been an amazing experience and obviously well relationships have hard parts to them right you've waited your whole life for someone who is attentive and romantic and now you're questioning it you're questioning the fairy tale after always wondering if it would ever come so people tell you uh come on this is your issue stop looking for problems you're living the dream uh but alas love bombing doesn't last forever one day you stop being tense while you're being love bombs because a lot of people really do think it's too good to be true and you start accepting the love bombing and you believe it is true and then you finally exhale and give yourself over to the whole love bombing fantasy you go all in and you start to actually believe in the relationship and the minute you do that the minute your guard goes down in that way it's like the narcissists have a homing device and then the climate shifts love bombing usually takes about six to 12 weeks sometimes less but rarely does it last much longer than that once it is perceived by the narcissist that you are all in that's the day the game changes what happens first is that the devaluing begins it seems that all of that Moonlight and Roses and nights out and attention start getting substituted by someone who intensely sees your faults who minimizes you who gaslights you who devalues you and then after that after devaluation always comes the discard the flowers definitely stop showing up the text may not be as frequent and when they do come they're sort of angry and questioning where you are and what you're doing the trips may still happen but they're probably a lot more uncomfortable but that bright sunny feeling that you had that you were caught in this once in a lifetime love story not only fades it is often replaced Now by someone who is off more often than not angry cruel invalidating gaslighting you know the whole script but you saw some of this coming you saw some of the red flags but you thought maybe there's a red flag maybe this whole fantasy is going to last but now that day is here so you try to work backwards and you start blaming yourself and believe that there is actually something you can do to bring the love bombing days back and before you know it you are caught in the cycle of the narcissistic relationship it can almost feel like an addiction because you're still trying to run back and get that high love bombing can often leave people forever sort of stuck in the early weeks or months of the relationships for decades I have talked with many people who have been married for 10 years 20 years 50 years in neglectful cruel and invalidating relationships and they still hold on to those love bombing weeks and will acknowledge that they still wait for that person to show up again that they still think they're going to have those magnificent nights in Miami or that amazing night that they spent all night talking or the amazing picnic they think it's all going to come back if you're watching this will say there really wasn't a love bombing phase in your narcissistic relationship and that doesn't surprise me it's actually more common than you think that there isn't love bombing it doesn't always happen I'm not even sure that it always typically happens some narcissistic relationships pretty much suck and are mediocre from the jump from the very beginning and people who may hold narratives that they don't deserve any better from a relationship will often endure those sort of non-love-bombing unhealthy relationships from the very beginning here's the challenge that in many many narcissistic relationships love bombing doesn't happen just one time because so much of what happens in narcissistic relationships is cyclical for many people they may get really burned out or disgusted by how poorly that they're being treated in the relationship so they leave and in some of these cases the love bombing starts again it's sort of a form of hoovering right to draw you back in and in fact that can feel really powerful and sadly in a pathological way sort of loved I am actually so wonderful and so important to my narcissist that now when they sort of sensed I was slipping away they do really love me so now they're fighting for me not quite narcissists really don't like abandonment they don't like losing and they typically want to maintain the facade of a relationship so if you work for them they may want to keep you around their core insecurity means that you leaving them may activate them to start love bombing again but please notice that in none of this love bombing and none of these other Cycles have they attempted to engage with you in a meaningful empathic and intimate conversation or were they genuinely empathic or self-aware with you about the relationship you're having with them nope they just start love bombing again they say hey let's just go to a resort and try to have sort of like a second honeymoon or let's get this going again or they just start buying you expensive gifts and that is the thing that's meant to draw you back in once the love bombing starts again then you may forget that no you never did have those meaningful conversations and then you get sucked into it all over again you make the classical mistake that so many people make in a narcissistic relationship you make the assumption he changed she changed she finally gets it and then you go back in and here we go again devalue discard contempt you know the cycle for many people you would think that after the second love bombing cycle that you would get it but this can go on for years over and over again and you may even find yourself almost getting addicted to the cycle love bomb excitement devalue discard okay you're losing the height and you go back in one thing that does happen is that the love bombing starts to get weaker over time the initial six week love bomb the second time around may just be a few weeks and the third or fourth time around may just be a few days even the gifts and stuff start becoming less compelling the experience is all of that you've been living on crumbs for so long that even a few flowers and a mediocre dinner out and a handful of gifts is enough to keep you in this toxic game now another element to remember about the love bombing phase is that it may be a Prelude to a very controlling relationship love bombing isn't always just about gifts and fancy experiences it can also be about the all-encompassing required communication and time together in this kind of sort of controlling love bombing experience we'll see these sort of obsessive texting Behavior they may seem benign enough at first good morning every morning good night every night lots of texts in the middle how are you where are you what are you up to who are you with what are you eating what where you are where are you in the city what are you doing in the house it may even feel engaging and perhaps even a little sweet in the beginning someone wants to know all about your life but then you may find that they start getting angry when you don't respond to them in a timely manner they start behaving on almost suspicious and you just write it off as early relationship Jitters ah they're a little nervous they know that I am I live near where my ex-boyfriend lives or something like that these days so many people find dating so challenging because they're accustomed to Partners who ghost them and who disappear and who are non-communicated and and who are non-communicative and who go days without responding as a result the constant availability of a love-bombing partner can actually be experienced by some people as reassuring rather than being experienced as controlling or menacing the insistence of some narcissists that we spend our time with them all the time even to the neglect of spending time with friends and family may just feel like you're somehow in this intense sort of Runaway Love Story rather than seeing that what's happening to you over time is that you're becoming isolated from other supports and because most of our traditional conceptions of Love bombing are often focused on the big gestures we can forget that that sort of obsessive need for contact and where are you what are you doing and who are you with that also does fall under the rubric of Love bombing and the manipulative quality of narcissistic relationships can leave you so confused that in the blink of an eye you're trapped you don't recognize that they're ah why do you need to go out with your friends why do you need to do that why do you need to do that then before you know it boom you realize you're in the Box so why do narcissists love Mom because it's part of their defensive use of grandiosity and for this reason because it is a part of grandiosity many times covert narcissists who don't have such flashy grandiosity they're the ones who often don't begin with a love bombing phase their grandiosity isn't as focused on creating the fantasy their grandiosity is more of I'm so great and how come the world doesn't see it love bombing is very much a part though of the grandiose defense we see in narcissism if they turn the early phases of the courtship into a big fat fairy tale it serves several purposes it protects their insecurity and their fragile ego through the grandiosity so they're feeling as if the relationship looks good then it must be good also plays into a deeper and darker part of the narcissist's insecurity their insecurity that they will actually be rejected and so they get a sense of control if they really do a full court press spend enough money make enough fancy plans make the whole thing interesting engaging distracting and dazzling enough then nobody would say no right it's like that insecure little kid that has lots of great toys and the other kids are only friends with him because of the toys not because of him the love bombing then becomes a grandiose defensive play to quickly attract and trap narcissistic Supply and then because of the narcissist General contempt for any kind of deep intimacy they will then devalue and ultimately discard the narcissistic Supply that was willing to hang out with them and willing to stick around but they'll discard it when the relationship actually starts to go deeper or needs to go deeper or because the narcissistic Supply does get so stale so it often feels like an in and out push-pull sort of cycle also narcissists hate the idea that the only reason they're liked is because of money so it sets up a rejection Dynamic now the question is though are some people actually more vulnerable to love bombing than others Maybe some of this is related to how we portray romantic relationships the very fairy tales that people have been raised on and the gaslighting of the world in general in fact we tend to be more dubious about relationships that start really really slow and it doesn't help that people don't know about this Dynamic and this is why understanding love bombing and related Dynamics becomes so important once you understand love bombing you are so much bro once you understand love bombing you are so much better prepared to see it for what it is and also be able to drown out the voices and say oh you're so lucky to be in this romantic fantasy you start to learn not so much other vulnerabilities may be seen in people who come from families where they didn't feel seen or heard or they experienced narcissistic abuse in their families of origin against that backdrop of basically being invalidated and being invisible love bombing can be so so seductive because for the person in that relationship they feel overwhelmingly seen and heard in a way they never have before one question I often receive is why why do they love Mom again it is that core insecurity they're often not even thinking about it it's almost like they only know one game at a basic level just getting to know them as a person even by their deep unconscious estimation would obviously not be enough and again that's sort of the sad core insecurity so they put on that grandiose show to protect their insecurity another thing that's interesting is that the challenge in the gamesmanship that they always need to win win is what keeps them at it until they very confidently feel like they have you then once they have you they'll often engage in a sort of tragic dismissive contempt for you once they have you then there's a devaluation and then the discard many people might hear this and think it is actually quite sad that at the core of it the narcissist actually doesn't feel lovable but you turning yourself into a psychological punching bag isn't going to magically illuminate them to the wonders of love and I can almost promise you that in the long term it is going to psychologically harm you while love bombing almost always happens in romantic or Intimate Relationships when it does happen it's in those kinds of spaces believe it or not love bombing can actually happen in other relationships for example in work relationships in friendships or even in family relationships it is that Dynamic of trying to intensely drawing people in with grandiose gestures and then discarding them when it happens repeatedly in a relationship we can actually feel foolish it doesn't matter if it's a romantic partner or not it's like falling for the same stupid joke over and over and over again that idea of Love bombing is that intensive beginning that's followed Again by devaluation and dismissiveness and perhaps in some cases discarding the dynamic of Love bombing is a classical narcissistic relationship Dynamic so before you judge yourself for falling for it recognize that we're all vulnerable to this all of us all of us grew up with the fantasy of wanting the fairy tale sometimes it wasn't even just the fairy tale we just wanted someone to see us and get us but it's my hope that now that you fully understand it hopefully you can get ahead of it or get out of it before you get hurt as fun as love bombing can be and maybe you even want to write it out for a few weeks pay attention to this Dynamic particularly if it feels like it's quite controlling the earlier you can exit yourself from this Dynamic the safer you'll be and one day you're going to recognize that those slow slow starting relationships things that start with a cup of coffee and maybe you don't need to be in touch every day that's often where the relationships that turn into Keepers happen so let's take on this issue of devaluing and discarding the classical narcissistic fairy tale starts with idealization and then moves on to devaluation and then discarding everyone thinks it won't happen to them and yet without exception The Story Goes Down the same way every time to feel thrown away by another person is an awful experience but yet it is sort of a universal part of the narcissistic relationship so let's start by taking a look at the narcissistic relationship cycle in most cases not all not all by any means but many most the idealization often takes the form of love bombing which is another video in this series so love bombing or idealization lasts just long enough to get you stuck in this relationship Dynamic just when you exhale and believe in the fairy tale then bam that's when the devaluation phase starts devaluation can start slow it's when the little criticisms begin when you start experiencing the contempt when the gifts and the big nights out go away when the narcissist's phone becomes much more interesting than you sitting in front of them and when the sideways comments like I don't know like are you really gonna wear that and other comments of that ilk start to creep into the relationship it can be a real time of intense confusion in a relationship because you can't figure out when the love bombing ended and when the contempt began all you know is it's though the weather changed it went from being very warm to very cold kind of quickly the devaluing phase tends to happen just as you start to feel more settled into the relationship as a real relationship you may have actually been resisting the relationship for a while and you might have even have been Savvy enough to think oh this love bombing is a little bit too good to be true I'm not going to be played and then just when you settled in when you felt like it was a real and whole relationship that is when the devaluation Begins the reason for this sort of shift it's a bit nuanced but it largely happens because at the deepest deep a narcissist self-loathing is actually so deep and so unprocessed that just as someone does see the good in them it's as though it activates their self-contempt which they then project onto you and then voila devaluation it's as though they project their devaluation of themselves onto you now devaluation can last for months years and even decades it becomes before you know it sort of a new normal your life tends to be punctuated by insults and by invalidation the discard is just what it sounds like discarding is honestly like throwing out the trash it's like they're done with you now sometimes discarding never really truly happens you may just kind of get stuck in the Purgatory of devaluation forever but discarding happens when they cast you aside and it this is almost like discarding is like it can be really cold and you can actually have a narcissistic relationship that keeps happening even when you've been discarded so for example your narcissist may have an affair an extramarital affair just cheat on you and so you were in essence discarded but you still stay in the relationship or they may take a job or take advantage of an opportunity that doesn't take you into consideration so either you have to leave your life behind to join them or be left behind so they're just kind of doing what works for them the discarding is often motivated for the narcissist from a place of both contempt and of boredom basically your narcissistic supply has become quite stale and narcissists tend to be very novelty seeking so it all depends on your story no matter what it feels awful to be discarded from a relationship that you actually believe that you're in many narcissists expect you often to do the Dirty Work and end the relationship so they can turn around and say oh she was the one who left me he was the one who filed for divorce she moved out and walked out on me and the kids ah he walked away from his family when that happens they get to look good to the world and since the narcissist is often going to turn around and tell the world a false story then you look like the one who is unfeeling or unkind or willing to walk away from something which doesn't feel good now the mistakes that people most often make during the devaluation in the discarding phase is to ask that killer question why during the devaluation phase they're going to Gaslight you and deny that they are devaluing you and in fact they may turn around and call you paranoid or hypersensitive or crazy now during the discarding phase if you try to make them accountable for their behavior again you're going to run into more gaslighting now people want to make sense of this process so asking why is understandable but there's really no sense to be made of it because the narcissist isn't going to cop to it the narcissist isn't going to turn around and say yeah I'm not capable of making healthy attachments and I'm deeply insecure and I have contempt for intimacy so I am actually yeah I'm rejecting you and I'm treating you badly to see and test my hypothesis that you will observe my insecurity and that you will leave me and my fantasy is that's the case and then let's see if that comes true now they are not going to say that to you even though that's the dynamic that's likely unfolding so asking them for an explanation is likely to bring more harm than good because they themselves aren't in touch with what's happening now the devaluing and discarding Cycles happen in families as well in general if you aren't just blindly going along with a narcissist agenda then they often think that you are against them and in a family this can happen when you just don't go along with the program with what the narcissistic parent or sibling or Aunt or grandparent want your family members the family members will find out that if you or they learn that if you appease the narcissistic family member then you will be able to keep them calm and stay in their good graces and this can be particularly profound if the narcissist has some kind of power so for example the money that they may use to control family members so if you do lay down some real boundaries that's when often in a family the devaluation and discarding cycle can begin now for scapegoats in a family system the discard and devaluation cycle is an eternal part of the scapegoat's role in the family system they're constantly being devalued constantly being devalued and if the scapegoat tries is at a boundary boom they'll be discarded now devaluing and discarding can also absolutely take place in workplace settings and in those cases it's in which narcissistic bosses and narcissistic managers and leaders devalue the people that they think aren't their team players basically these are the people who are not the Yes Men or the yes women and then ultimately they may make life so miserable for the people who don't just sign on with whatever Twisted agenda they have that those people actually end up leaving or may get fired now the devaluation and discarding cycle is sadly enough often followed by hoovering that's why it's a dysfunctional cycle some people get so disgusted by the discarding cycle that they do ultimately leave but it's not unusual for that insecure narcissist who wants to keep control to try to Hoover them back now if you fall for it and allow yourself to be sucked in that whole cycle is going to begin again idealization devaluation and discarding it's just sort of this eternal cycle that's really only going to end if you're the one who's going to be courageous enough to break it and it can really be quite addictive lots of people confuse the excitement of hoovering and idealization with love it's really not it's abuse and therapy becomes a key tool to at least start thinking about how to end the confusion and the conflation that love and abusive relationship Cycles are the same thing no narcissists devalue and discard for many of the reasons mentioned but also because they devalue intimacy and because they have very limited empathy They Don't Really Care how these Cycles are hurting you or impacting you they just do it without thinking and in some ways the chaos it feels comfortable for them they don't have any regard for how it hurts you but they do kind of like the excitement and the roller coaster nature of this cycle now these toxic Cycles take a tremendous toll on the people who get stuck in them basically this turns relationships into roller coasters and almost like addictive cycles and these can often perpetuate Early Childhood patterns you may have had around rejection in some ways these toxic Cycles keep their relationship exciting for the narcissist and it's very easy to get sucked into their Vortex and cycle and for some people this cycle strangely enough becomes sort of a reenactment of trying to win over their unwinnable parent in childhood it almost feels familiar to be rejected and it can feel exciting when you are hoovered back in and idealized for a minute and in that moment you're almost taken back to Childhood where you feel like I've won that parent over but then when the devaluing and discard Cycles happen and it's inevitable that they will sadly those Cycles feel familiar too and your ancient script of feeling like you're not enough gets activated again now some people allow these devaluation and discarding Cycles to happen because they'll often buy into the narcissist narrative about how difficult their lives were and the narcissist's lives may very well have been quite difficult The Narcissist will often share a story about having never seen love when they were growing up and that it was so terrible for them and you endure the narcissist cycle because you believe it's the loving thing to do that maybe you're going to correct it for the narcissist and it's not allowing yourself to be harmed in the Name of Love isn't love their tale of Woe or abuse or trauma it may be very very true they may have actually had a very rough childhood and it is you're sorry about that but it's not your responsibility it's not your responsibility you can't change their history and remaining there as an object that at times they value but more often reject is not only you know not doing the narcissist any favors it's taking a tremendous toll on your mental and physical health there are no winners here now being discarded is an awful feeling it can raise tremendous triggers around abandonment and rejection and lots of people will fight for the relationship at that point they want to maintain that fantasy of the happy relationship or the happy family the fact is in some ways we are really stubborn creatures we human beings and we fight for those things we can't have we get stuck on the things we can't have and things often become much more interesting when they're slipping away or we're just not allowed to have them we're all the kids who want the thing in the cookie jar and don't fall for that trick if you have been devalued and then you're being discarded receive it believe it or not as a gift I know that sounds paradoxical but it's a chance to get away from a relationship that is likely making you sick but to do that you have to Value yourself first and that requires a deeper dive into where those scripts about self-devaluation come from and flipping yourself over into a space of self-compassion now keep in mind that self-compassion is like Kryptonite against the charms of the narcissist once you have self-compassion honestly the narcissist is rendered powerless and you can finally walk away it's interesting to think that in a discard in a devalue cycle that you could actually get that kind of power you often feel like you're stuck at the whims of the narcissist when they will devalue you when they will discard you whether that's a partner family member or even a boss but the fact of the matter is ultimately believe it or not in these Cycles you have a lot more power than you think in the form of self-compassion self-compassion not only allows you to say yeah no I'm not doing this cycle I see what it is it's not good for me and allow you allow your step allow you to step away but self-compassion also allows you to feel compassion for the other and is difficult and challenging as these narcissistic relationships are as I said many times narcissistic individuals have had very difficult backstories in fact it's what explains a lot of their personality and why it's organized the way it is there is no need for you to engage in those kinds of toxic Cycles you don't have to devalue and discard from a place of self-compassion you can also let them go from a place of compassion and in your heart hope that maybe they can go and get the help they need to grow into a healthier future however that's not your job self-preservation is a right and if you're going to preserve yourself in these Cycles you've got to exercise that right and break the devaluation and discard cycle so have you ever been in a narcissistic relationship and finally find the gumption to send them packing to just sort of end the relationship or maybe you're in a narcissistic relationship and they discarded you perhaps it's a family relationship and you finally had the big Showdown with your narcissistic parent or your narcissistic adult child and you finally lay down the law and perhaps you even go no contact this can even happen with a narcissistic friend if you have done that then you know what can often happen they try to suck you back in like a vacuum cleaner and that is where the term hoovering comes from hoovering is a term used to describe how a narcissist may try to suck you back into a relationship whether or not you left them or they left you it works in part because they use the techniques they already have in their wheelhouse things like charm Charisma confidence or alternately they will use their own sense of victimization and how hard their life is to play upon your guilt or they do both but by the time hoovering happens they also have some definite advantages in terms of sucking you back in after you being and experiencing the utter confusion of a narcissistic relationship good days bad days gaslighting lies and guilt many people want to believe that the narcissist has finally come around has really finally made the changes it can be very powerful to believe that your words got through to the narcissist so let's say that you are in a relationship with a narcissist that got uglier and uglier and finally you decided I'm out and you even go no contact as part of that entire deterioration of your relationship you kept telling the thing you kept telling the narcissist the things that they're doing wrong the things that you need and you explained and you defended and you did all the things I tell you not to do and not surprisingly they didn't listen to a word you said so you had it and you decide I'm out of here I'm leaving I'm going no contact but you put an end to the relationship because you actually finally thought that they won't change good for you but then one day they come back with the words you desperately wanted to hear they say you were right I didn't treat you well Angels could not sing more beautiful words you wanted to hear those words for months or even years and here it is the smart part of you knows to doubt it but after that time away from the narcissist and after a little time under your wheels and you get that euphoric recall and you come back and you even might be feeling a little bit confident you may even want to believe them because you forget all the bad stuff and that's when the hoovering begins in this form of hoovering and something I call love bomb hoovering The Narcissist sucks you back in like they did in the first place they tell you what you want to hear and this time they know exactly what you want to hear because it was exactly the reason you left you did tell them you did show them but the same old red flags are there however now you're feeling a little smug like now you're finally Enough by the way you were always enough but now in their eyes you're enough and you're worthy of being heard by them you may now start love bomb phase two with them or phase three or phase four and they're gonna start all the usual love bombing stuff they did the first time maybe a work uh maybe a vacation maybe makeup sex you almost feel like you're dating again but the red flags are still there and before you can say Gaslight boom you are back in it with the same old invalidating patterns except that this time you feel more foolish but there are also other forms of hoovering there's also something that I term guilt hoovering despite how badly narcissists treat you part of the reason that many people stay in these relationships so long is because it's because of guilt they'll say things like oh I guess he did kind of try and she was going through a lot and she was going through a tough time and he did take me on vacation and she's really a secure she I'm sorry she's really insecure and she doesn't really mean the things she says and gosh we had so much fun going to the movies the vulnerable and covert narcissist is able to weaponize their sense of victimization and play upon that guilt of yours so even when you have hit your wall with them and you finally leave they will play on that guilt letting you know that it was so difficult for them since you left that they cannot find someone like you that they don't always know that they they know that they always don't get it right but they were always so grateful when you would give them a second chance and you almost feel like a little mini martyr like oh I guess I did I guess I am a good person I gave them a second chance guilt hoovering can Prey Upon Your need to be a rescuer your need to be a nice person or even again that personal martyr complex you may have inherited from your family of origin empaths in particular are very vulnerable to the guilt hoovering Dynamic it may have been literally a superhuman effort for you to pull yourself out of that relationship and after you did you were plagued by guilt so when the covert or even the overt narcissist tries to pull you back in he or she can masterfully play upon your guilt and before you know it you are right back in it listening to their angry Sullen resentful and victimized rants it's obviously not as slick as love bombing when a narcissist pulls you back in with guilt hoovering but as a hoovering strategy it works like a charm again especially for people who tend to be very empathic hoovering can be particular particularly intense if they find out you had been dating someone else narcissists do not like the idea that someone could replace them they have no problem replacing you by the way but if they hear about you dating someone else the hoovering may come fast and furious in fact many people have told me that they found it somewhat validating or exciting when the narcissist heavily Hoovers them after they learned that you're dating someone else it plays into some unhealthy need to have people kind of have a duel over you like the olden days but sadly if you fall for it you're going to slide right back into the toxic pattern with the narcissist and you even have to ask yourself was I dating that new person to kind of Hoover back to get hoovered back by my narcissist hoovering works for a few reasons the first reason is Hope I have said it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more narcissistic relationships are often kept in place by hope the hope that it will get better the hope that the idea that it'll get better can really be a fantasy that keeps these relationships going hoovering plays on that hope because the person is now doing many of the things you wanted them to do during the hoovering phase they might actually pay attention for a little while they might listen they might even try to correct some of their past errors it is more seductive than a seduction but the second reason that hoovering works is fear another reason that people stay in narcissistic relations probably in fact the biggest is fear fear keeps people in these narcissistic relationships because people are afraid of being alone they are afraid of the unfamiliar they are afraid of trying to make it on their own they're afraid of the guilt they will feel if they leave and hoovering can play on all of that fear after a break from The Narcissist even when your life starts feeling better and even when your life starts feeling better and you start feeling better and you feel relieved and you feel more free there are still those old fears maybe you try to date and you're finding that it's hard to meet new people maybe you're having trouble making ends meet maybe you're just lonely and feel like even a mean person to watch TV with is still a person to watch TV with so when they start to Hoover those fears of being alone can really get delayed now you're not as afraid of that and you want to Hope that their intentions are good that darned hope is Raising its head again and then your fear of being alone can just evaporate if you go with the hoovering this relates again back to that third reason of guilt that some narcissists can be just pathetic enough and victimized as we've said talked about before and the fear of feeling guilty means that the hoovering works because then not only do you get to try again in a relationship but more importantly now you don't need to deal with that icky guilty feeling which is very uncomfortable for many people to feel guilty a fourth reason that hoovering works is that you still heal that you still hear the old stories in your head the rationalizations that you made for their behavior the importance of selling everyone on your whole happy family scenario if this is someone you're married to or the family you came from the image that you wanted to put to the world whatever it is those narratives and Second Chances were powerful enough to often keep you in the relationship for longer than you should have so it's not surprising that even when you got tough and you got out that there is enough of that stuff hanging out there to make you vulnerable to hoovering the concept of hoovering makes a lot of sense in romantic relationships right because uh you break up they try to suck you back in it doesn't always feel like it makes as much sense in other narcissistic relationships like workplace or family relationship but absolutely does and for those of you in those kinds of narcissistic relationships family or work you've probably already seen it let's say you put up a boundary with a toxic or narcissistic parent you know that there are many ways that that parent may try to draw you back in a family event a family illness discussions around probate or other Financial or legal matters a concern about a more beloved family member like a grandmother or an aunt family hoovering is actually very powerful and it may not just be apparent it may be a sibling who tries to Hoover you back the tough part of families and parents is that as time goes on the relationships have new needs and for many people it can get very hard to keep their boundaries when for example an older parent gets sick or when there is a major family event you want to attend and will you know need to be present at that because you care about the other people involved for people from narcissistic families the grief of missing out on a healthy family system can take a lifelong toll and the childlike hope and dream of having loving and normal parents can be a very powerful tool so if a parent Hoovers you back in it can be very compelling it can also be possible that this happens when there's a real family crisis such as an illness or a death at that time you obviously can be involved with your family as you need but you can also maintain your boundaries you may recognize that your mother will never change but you may need to interact with her to ensure that your other parent or a grandparent or someone else in the family gets adequate medical care you can keep your boundaries and still be able to circumvent the hoovering process and of course when it comes to family hoovering families are masterful at using guilt-based hoovering they may play upon Survivor guilt oh so now you're too good to spend time with us or just good old-fashioned guilt how can you abandon your family what kind of person does that or you have time and money now you have more of that than any of us it sure is sad that you don't share it with all of us the people who sacrifice so much for you anyone from a narcissistic family system knows the lengths to which narcissistic parents and extended family will go to pull you back in and how hard it can be to resist it especially if it plays on your existing guilt but just as with all hoovering with family hoovering once they suck you back in not surprisingly they go back they go right back to their old patterns and this can often be more devastating than even traditional close relationship hoovering because it plays on lifelong guilt lifelong passive aggressive patterns you've observed in your family it may become even more complex if the family system was not just characterized by narcissism but also other forms of trauma and abuse the child part of you always gave your parents a second chance and that part of you may be at Play Again here so it can be quite devastating to get pulled back in and have it all go back to the way that it always was you may literally experience that childlike sense of grief and loss and helplessness and powerlessness that nothing you can do will make it better so that begs the question why do narcissists Hoover well there's multiple reasons is noted above narcissists don't like being rejected and if you do set boundaries or you leave them or you go no contact they not only don't like the rejection they hate the idea that they didn't win so hoovering can be part of their need to win and feel confident that they can get you back many times if they're hoovering actually works they're relieved that they won and then they'll pretty quickly discard you it's all about the win not that they want to keep you around they want to just think that they can suck you back in and another reason that they Hoover is control control and being controlling are key Dynamics in narcissism and narcissistic abuse again just like their need to always win they also don't like losing control and if you are stepping away from the relationship or leaving or frankly even when they leave you the idea that they can no longer control you does not work for them so hoovering not only serves the role of sucking you back in so they can control you but to feel the sense of control of Simply being able to suck you back in hoovering also feeds that entire addictive Dynamic of narcissistic relationships it's a part of all of them if you are a Survivor or a victim of one of these relationships then you know that your sense of being addicted to The Narcissist makes you vulnerable to the hoovering and the entire Dynamic of hoovering but for the narcissist their addiction to the cycle of highs and lows in the relationship absolutely feeds their addiction cycle in this relationship too narcissists actually do not do well in relationships that are stable and steady and free of drama the approach and the avoidance and the ups and the Downs are are kind of almost a draw for them and often it's sadly the only thing that keeps them engaged the drama kind of keeps them hooked in and narcissists also Hoover when they are running out of narcissistic Supply it may simply be that other people don't want to put up with their BS and so if you were a steady and consistent source of supply for them in the past they may come sniffing around again hoovering is very much a part of the cycle of the narcissistic relationship and and frankly of almost all abusive relationships the way it sort of plays out is tension abuse honeymoon the honeymoon period is the hoovering and also plays on the almost addictive cycle of these relationships the high you get from the ups and downs the hoovering is the part that comes after the Downs so it's very very seductive and very compelling but the fact is these Cycles are not healthy and as seductive as hoovering can be in some cases it is also very unhealthy you know unless I forget I also want to say a few words about workplace hoovering because it does happen it's a bit more of a rare Dynamic but it may be that you work in a place where you actually recognize that your value isn't being recognized you start to realize other people make more they have different responsibilities or better responsibilities or just better and so one day you say I'm out of here but it may very well be as often happens in narcissistic workplaces or with narcissistic bosses they may need you but they'd never admit to that but if you do step away you may have an interesting experience where they try to Hoover you back in they may offer you more money or the responsibilities or perks that you wanted but what ends up happening is you may get those things but then you'll go back to being treated the same way just making a few more bucks an hour you really have to ask yourself if that's worth it and because the narcissistic boss or supervisor or leader is a narcissist in other areas of their lives they also hate that idea of not being in control for example narcissistic bosses don't do well with having employees that work from home they need to control them they need to monitor them so if you're looking for that kind of workplace setup and it's sort of the standard for your particular kind of industry that that can be done it's the narcissistic bosses that often will not allow that they may try to Hoover you in and say sure you can do that but within a few weeks and months may use techniques like guilt and shame to pull you back into the workplace so please put aside the fantasies and pay attention to this Dynamic of covering because if you don't understand it you can easily get caught in a cycle that feels impossible to break and trust me you do not want to get sucked back in thanks again for tuning in again please hit the Bell please subscribe because this series is coming out in multiple parts we put up a new episode every day you'll get notifications about that as well as about all of the other content on narcissism you can find on my channel thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 462,452

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Id: dZ7vnbaKDFE

Length: 60min 9sec (3609 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023