Congratulations, you’ve decided to leave the narcissist. It won’t be easy, but it will change your life.
You never wanted it to come to this moment. You loved this person with all your heart.
When you fell in love with the narcissist, you never dreamed they would turn your world upside down. They dragged you from the heights of heaven to the fires of hell.
In the beginning, they turned on the charm, and you felt you met your person. Then after a while reality set in, and you saw the real person — the one that hurt you all the time.
After months or years of this up and down relationship, you’ve finally mustered the courage to leave and save yourself. But the narcissist will try to stop you, and it’s not because they care. They just miss having their biggest admirer around.
Here are 6 things narcissists do when you leave them.
They’ll throw a random text to get your attention or email
Once you get the strength to leave them, the narcissist will pretend your absence doesn’t bother them — and they will move on with their life. But they will not be happy. After all, your loyal love was a huge source of their supply. They will miss your adoration.
Instead of coming right out and telling you that they miss you, they will shoot you a random text about anything, just to see if you’ll respond. Or they will send an email. It won’t even mention that they miss your presence, and there won’t be an apology for their bad behavior. It will just be some random comment or an article they read. They are testing you to see if you are still around.
It’s all a game they are playing with you — throwing you a crumb to see if you will take it.
They’ll tell everyone you were the villain in the relationship
The narcissist will tell everyone they know that you were a crazy, psycho person. They will badmouth you, and act like everything wrong in the relationship was your fault.
They will play the victim and describe all the mean things you did to them. Of course, they will conveniently forget that it was actually the other way around. They were the ones abusing you.
Some will try to smear your reputation, and say things that aren’t true. They are angry that you left them, and scared of not having your loving supply anymore. Yet they will act like you never mattered to them to keep up their public facade.
They’ll get their friends to monitor you and report back
It’s bothering them that you left. Not because they truly loved you, because they loved what you did for them.
They want to keep you on their radar, just in case they need you again. So they’ll get their friends to find out what you’ve been up to.
In the world of the narcissist, their friends are called flying monkeys. Suddenly these friends will be commenting on your Facebook page and reporting back to the narcissist to see what you’ve been doing.
You will run into a friend of theirs and they’ll mention the narcissist has asked about you. Sometimes they won’t say anything about the narcissist at all; just ask about you to dig for information. Then they’ll report back to the narcissist.
Why is the narcissist doing this? They might need you someday for something, and don’t want you to forget them.
They hate knowing you’re fine without them. They don’t want you to be okay. They want you to be miserable without them.
They’ll try to get you back by manipulating you
If a narcissist is short on narcissistic supply, they will try to get you back by manipulation.
They’ll tell you they’ve changed. They’ve sought help for their issues and things will be different when you are back together. They’ll shower you with attention and treat you well for a little while. Your heart will be filled with hope, just to be destroyed again.
Then it will go back to the same vicious cycle of hurt. They can’t maintain their facade for long. They’ll go back to their cruel treatment of you, and it will even be worse this time.
They’ll get you to feel sorry for them
You will hear from either their friends or them that the narcissist isn’t well anymore since you’re gone. They’re suffering a major crisis or trauma. They’ve lost their job, or they’ve become ill.
The narcissist wants you to come back and give them all the love you have. Yet despite their promises, they have no intention of giving you any love back.
Sadly, if you return, things won’t be wonderful again. Once they have you back, they will go right back to the bad behavior.
Your purpose in their life is to meet their needs. They don’t care at all about yours.
Countless good people have returned to narcissists over and over again, hoping each time things will be better. Yet it never does. It is an unending cycle of hope and rejection.
They’ve already found your replacement
The narcissist found your replacement well before you left. Narcissists can’t stand to be alone. They always have someone else to give them more supply.
Don’t ever think you are special to them. Supply is interchangeable. Once you’re gone, or even before, they will enjoy showing off their new romantic interest, to torture you.
They are experts in triangulation. They often have two or more romantic interests vying for their attention. It makes the narcissist feel powerful and desired to have admirers fighting over them. They don’t care one bit how it’s hurting the people that love them.
Here’s the answer to the question
Do narcissists even care when you’re gone? No, they don’t. They always have someone to replace you. You’re replaceable.
Sometimes they will miss what you did for them, or try to get you back to help them again, but that’s all it is. It isn’t real love. Narcissists don’t know what love is. Long after you’re gone, they may never realize what they lost.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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