A Narcissist Always Returns (The Hoovering)

Hey. I’m dealing with my narc bf from last 2 years. Recently he was replying to my texts after 5 or 6 hrs in a day which usually makes me feel very . I asked him many times about it but he always used to give me one or another excuses. I confronted him about this after a month when I thought that it’s enough and I can’t handle this. I said I’m dealing with this for last 1 year I can’t do thos I need to break up with you. He didn’t replied to me even after the msg was seen. Next day I messages him again that we need to talk . he still didn’t responded to my text . it’s been a week he is giving me a silent treatment . will he come back or he is just busy with another target ?
I’ll be very glad if u can answer this . please ☺

Hi Zari!

Thank you so much for your blog. Sheds a lot of light on a mess of a relationship I’ve had in my life for the past months.

II met a man abroad who I now strongly believe is a narcissistic person. We live in different countries and are of different nationalities.
I met him for the first time years ago by accident while I was traveling. He was everything I could dream of: charming, intelligent, handsome, had the same interests in life as me. It felt as if fate had put him in front of me. Nothing romantic happened between us back then but we stayed in contact every now and then until we met again this summer. My feelings for him hadn’t disappeared and they came on even stronger. I believed the guy sitting in front of me by a restaurant table was the man of my dreams. We both appeared to be fond of each other and started a fling. We had sex that night. The next morning the charming and caring man was gone and replaced with a cold and emotionally distant man who, heartbreaking to say, abandoned me at a metro station without any explanations. We were closely embracing and kissing each other, when he heard his metro train come and ran away without a word. (Reader, if you recognize yourself from this text: fuck you.) I was shocked by his cold-hearted behavior. Actually, I was so shocked that I started believing I had done something wrong to make him disappear like that. Typical for a victim of a narcissistic person, right…

Some days passed, I was already back in my home country and tried to sort out the situation with him. He bluntly said he didn’t see any sense in developing our relationship any further because of the distance. I was heartbroken, but after some weeks I was done with him… until after a couple of months of complete silence he came back. He messaged me to ask me if I wanted to travel somewhere with him, just like that. I was certain he was emotionally unstable and refused his idea. A week of silence passed, and he started sending me messages about how he misses me, how he wants to come to my country to see me again, and how he’s had feelings for me since we first met on the road years before. He brought up the idea of a long-distance relationship. This lead into endless chaotic conversations, on-off games and the typical hot-cold thing from his side, and many many sleepless nights and a lot of hopeless cry on my side. He kept disappearing and coming back with no explanations. I kept giving him chances because I believed he had feelings for me. Whenever I felt like I could start trusting him, he would betray me in “subtle” ways: promising to answer me “tomorrow” but doing it days afterwards, being late by many hours from our Skype talks, and so on. Eventually I was being really hard on him and said he would either come and visit me or I would cut all contact with him. The idea of not having me in his life visibly shocked him. Some days passed, he booked the tickets and came to see me.

We spent a great time together. However, too many things were bugging me all along. There were just too many hints of an emotionally unavailable personality. He gave no rational explanation for his bad behavior towards me in the past (he apologized many times, however). He didn’t remember even the simplest details about me (I guess he never listened). He was asking me a lot about my previous sex partners and romantic relationships and mentioning his ones rather often. He avoided eye contact. I craved way more physical affection than he could give. He would embrace me, kiss me, hold my hand in public, but in limited amounts. We discussed it and he claimed it was because he wasn’t used to things developing so fast. He “needed time”. I would openly cry in front of him at times. Most of the time he showed empathy, however I could see he wasn’t feeling the same. We discussed it and he admitted not being as much into me as I was into him, adding “he might get there one day”, thus trying to feed me with empty promises about the future. During the whole stay he kept telling me how he really liked me but how the distance frightened him: in his words, he has had several serious long distance relationships in the past and they have never worked out; hence the fear.

After his visit I had had enough. I decided for myself that it was over between us. I had wasted enough of my energy into this black hole. We Skyped and agreed to not develop our relationship further. I cried. He seemed very empathetic towards me. He apologized for all the pain he now knew he had caused me. He said he hated to see me cry. We mutually agreed that we quit contact and that one day, if I feel like it, I will contact him, but he won’t disturb me anymore. It felt as if he had finally understood how much his disappearing and reappearing hurts me. It’s been a while since and I have this fear of him contacting me again despite our deal. He did this “hoovering” so many times during the past months that I’m certain it’ll happen again.

I believe the guy is a narcissistic person. Everything always revolves around him. He’s extraordinarily charming. He gives empty promises, his words and actions don’t match. He has grandiose and unrealistic plans for the future and he brags about them all the time. He’s very opportunistic. He keeps coming and going. Status and money are important for him. Besides all this, the biggest red flag for me was the most intimate of things: sex. We first had the real deal, penetrative sex, when he visited me in my country. We only did it a couple of times. I was shocked by the complete lack of emotion and intimacy from his side. I felt like he was masturbating into my body. He was obsessed with making me orgasm, as if it was his personal achievement to make a woman reach the peak. He was rough. He asked me what I liked, though (at least he did something right…) Right after sex there was not a single gesture of affection. He ran off to the shower and avoided physical contact. Once he even pushed me off his chest after sex. I was openly very insulted and he didn’t seem to understand why. After I had explained it to him he simply said he doesn’t enjoy cuddling right after sex. I only found out long afterwards that all of this summed up together is typical narcissistic behavior.

For months the thoughts in my head were these: “We are the dream couple to be. The timing just isn’t right, the distance scares him, but one day fate will come knocking and reunite us, we will get married and have children and live happy ever after. He’s the love of my life. I need to keep the door open for him.” Now I can see that I fell for a narcissistic person. Distance is an excuse he keeps using to justify his push away – pull back behavior. I don’t want him in my life anymore. Yet there’s one thing that bothers me: why would a narcissistic person travel thousands of kilometers to a foreign country just because of a woman? Is it a sign that he couldn’t get his narcissistic supply anywhere closer? Or is the fact that there’s a woman adoring him in another country in itself a huge fix for him? I’m certain there were other women in the game all along, even though he claims the opposite. Nothing else explains the months long silences there was from his side between our messaging. His behavior almost drove me crazy. I became into a ghost. My friends and family were telling me to quit it all along. Actually, many of them were pointing out narcissistic aspects in this guy’s behavior, but time after time I found myself defending his actions. I only allowed myself to see his real colors weeks after he visited. I’m still in shock, but it’s getting easier by the day. At times I have these stupid thoughts that go: “What if he’s not narcissistic after all? What if he is just temporarily emotionally unavailable and one day he’ll be there for me? What if he is JUST a Mr.Big (as if it made things any better on my part)?” I can’t decide whether to block him on social media or just let him hang there. I can’t decide whether I should delete his contact details and destroy the photos I have of me and him. Even after all the pain he caused me it feels just too… final.

Hi Zari,

My story is pretty much like yours. I met this guy while i was in college – and he pestered me a lot but I never gave in. I finished college and started and we were not in contact for several years. One day when I was 30 I found a friend request from him on facebook. It was just Hi – and his number. I took about three months and I was kind of bored and remembered him and called him. He told me he was happy to hear from me that it was his birthday and that he was far away. I could tell he was drunk and disgusted with it – I made a resolve not to call him back. Then I experienced something I had never before. He would call me at midnight or 1am – he started to pester me and send lewd texts. He started to tell me things like I was the love of his life and so much nonsense (looking back) and I believed it all – as even though the things he said sounded ridiculous – it was hard for me to believe anyone in this world could be so good at lying. I chose to believe. I never questioned him. I listened to him and not myself. He played with me, he lied to me, he abused me called me names, he brainwashed me – he bullied me, violated me in every way. We have kids. We are not married – and I went mad 3 weeks ago. I have never been so enraged before. I threw him out of my house. It is my house. I screamed and shouted – he wouldn’t leave and the security guards came and got him out. If it wasn’t for them – he would never have left. I don’t know where that anger came from – I was livid – I don’t regret it – I am thankful for it. Being the coward I had become in that relationship – I would never have dared. He is also an alcoholic. He has been emotionally abusive. During one of those episodes he broke all my stuff – with no provocation from me. I am so angry at him. I am scared and sometimes I am lonely. I am willing to go through any and every emotion just to get better and grow. My only problem is that even though I have custody of our kids – he demands to see them every Sunday. My youngest is still nursing. He can’t come to my house – but whatever the location I have to meet him and endure him as my kids are still really young. How do I work around this and not compromise myself or get entangled again. The last time we met – as we needed to get the baby to hospital – it wasn’t deliberate but I forgot he was with me. I really did. I didn’t talk – at the waiting place I just took a magazine and read it. I was like spaced out. when he talks to me – I have never been like this I get enraged I have to control myself and just answer – but deep down I want to take a rolling pin and hit his head till its just a pulp. Where am I in this journey to recovery? Is this normal?

Hi Zari,

Thank you for your posts and for sharing your knowledge and experience.

Yet right now I really am confused. I don’t know what to think and I hope you can help me. Apparently after years and years my N has acknowledged something was wrong with him at the time we were together; after working it out (by himself, not with a psychologist… I asked) he is a “brand new person now, whom I don’t know”. His objective analysis quite shocked me and really put me in doubt… Please tell me what you think.

I’ve known my N for 10 years (first time together was really short, just 5-6 months or so then I decided I’d had enough) we were 17 and 18 yo at the time… It was a true roller coaster, after just a few months I already literally couldn’t take anymore and didn’t want any more of him. He managed to convince me that he wanted me in his life and could not do and he was so persistent that, finally, we became friends. He then told me he was in love with a girl, clearly it hurt but I never showed, then got used to it and there were no problems. For 4-5 years we were friends, so he was not a problem of mine I would say. Sometimes he was strange with me, but nothing alarming. Then when he split up with his gf (poor girl. He complained she was getting mad at every little thing, but I even remember telling him I thought it was his fault if she had come to that point) we started to see each other even more often. I didn’t find it weird since I really considered him a friend. Soon he started to hit on me and I even told him I really thought he should get back to his gf. I pushed him back. Finally, after weeks like this, flirting, calls in the middle of the night, texts (or, should I just say, love bombing?), not to mention the goddamn extraordinary attraction that there has always been between us and I had been resisting to, I fell for him. He made me feel so special (I know you can understand me) but still, I knew him. I knew how he was with girls, especially in that period when I was always pushing him back and he was seeing other girls just because, just to lie with them, BUT one thing I was damn sure of, is that he could never throw away 5 years of friendship and affection just for something like that, something he could easily get anywhere. It was not because I was better than the other girls, of course. It was because I was so sure he would never treat me like shit because of all the affection and respect and everything between us since we were (at least) longtime friends. My, I was SO fucking wrong.

We started to see each other, then I discovered he had seen his ex. He told me that in that period he was confused, and I have never been so mature and understanding as when I said “ok, let’s forget this, let’s get back and just be friends again then”. He was often drunk (he’s not an alcoholic, just a 24yo who wants to have fun) and we started a crazy period. Sometimes we went out and got drunk and he flirted like crazy, saying he could not resist me, and it was so hard for me too to resist him. I was the only one trying to, of course. He told me he had lost his head for me and I was the only one who could not see I was the reason he didn’t get back to his gf, as he got involved with me and everything. Fell for it again. For a period we used to be always together, then he started acting strange, again he was unsure and everything. I discovered he was seeing his ex gf again. This time I got mad. I told him I knew and even so it was my fault of course (“how could you expect something from me in this situation” except that he was the one insisting). I decided to stop seeing him at all. No friendship bullshit as apparently it couldn’t work. I ignored loads of texts and everything. He called me crying, he told me he was so bad and so sorry and ashamed and missed me so much and blah blah blah. His tears convinced me he really was sorry. I told him I didn’t trust him anymore tho. He managed to convince me to take him back anyway. Well, I wasn’t eager to do anything for him as I was not sure about him. Instead of taking responsibility since it was all a consequence of his behavior, he blamed me. He did some sort of triangulation with a girl he had seen the time when I didn’t want to hear from him, but I was (almost) clueless, plus she lived in another country.
I really could not tell anymore whether I was wrong, or even crazy, or he was. Everything seemed normal, well of course it was not. It was in that period that I discovered who, or what, he was.
Well, I refused to spend the night with him (since the day after I even had an exam) and he complained; the next day he left for the country where she lived. Still not sure but honestly I think he already had the plane ticket (even if it makes it even worse from him. Thank God he didn’t make it to convince me, just imagine). I didn’t know till I tried to call him the next day and he said he was there and I thought it was a f**king joke. It was none. Speechless. And when he came back he even tried to call me or text me as if nothing had happened. 5 years from now and still I remember his “Why don’t you answer”s.

I ignored him for months, he got together with the other girl, I started going out with somebody. I still questioned myself about how could he have thrown away 5 years of friendship and affection. I really couldn’t get over it. It was almost incredible not having him in my life anymore. He showed up and we went having a drink. It was so natural to see him I can’t even remember how we ended up to go out. We just talked as friends and as if nothing had happened (incredible). He talked throughly about the girl he was with in a long distance relationship, that he was so in love but that was the reason he wanted to stay with her even though it was so hard etc etc. it hurt 100 times more than 5 years before, but again, I played it cool. Anyway, I left for a year of scholarship abroad. Then, I told him that after all I was so deceived that he could throw everything away and treat me like I was worth nothing that I didn’t want to see him or hear from him anymore. It was hard but I felt like it was the right thing for me.

And here we are. 4 more years have passed during which he tried several times to get back in touch (as if nothing had happened) but I always shut him out. But here something changes.

This summer he heard I had gone through a difficult situation and he sent me a message. From there we started to catch up a little. He wanted to see me, at first I said no, then I was convinced. After all, 4-5 years had passed. We saw each other. I was confident. Even overconfident. I kissed him, for no reason at all, probably to test myself. I felt nothing and was fully in control.
We saw the next day too. He lost his head at the point that he even lost his first day of internship as we were together till 5 a.m. Although we did nothing. I was still in control.

Now, why did I tell you I am confused? I was not impressed by none of it (even if wow. He really lost his first day??)
Well, he took full responsibility. He told me he had been questioning himself. He even admitted that after years he has realized that at the time he had no empathy nor sensitivity at all. That he was completely empty inside, that with me it was a twisted game of control, that he didn’t even know what suffering meant, although he knew he made me suffer he didn’t even realize what it meant. He told me that he distinctively remembers telling me he was deeply in love with the other girl to make me hurt, to trigger a reaction, for some kind of challenge. He said that he had realized he wore some sort of mask since he was a kid, maybe to protect himself from the violence of the outside world. And by continuously wearing that mask he had started to be that mask. He said he realized that at the time he could not feel anything for anyone, gfs nor even friends. He was so indifferent to others that, to use his own words, “he realized that at the time if he came home and it happened that his parents were not there, maybe he wouldn’t even have noticed”. He was just blinded by the desire of living only instinctively. I remember telling him that he could not love, his outburst of rage was amazing of course. He told me anything he could to hurt me, the more the better. Now he’s here admitting it was true. “Was”, this startles me. He said now he is 28 and has realized plenty of things about himself and has reached full maturity as a person. That he doesn’t lie anymore and is a transparent person, as he realized that being true to oneself and others is the true strength. He said that his eyes are open now, that he is truly sorry for what he’s done to me, that I didn’t deserve it and that now he wouldn’t lie nor would he ever knowingly hurt me again. Of course I cannot believe him. A part of me would like to. I told me he can never regain my trust, he said it is desperate for it, that it’s frustrating yet he understands me. I told me that a person without a drop of empathy cannot change…he said its wrong and I am convinced of this just because I was born with it. In fact I cannot tell whether this is true or not.
He told me he was now mature enough to see what he had lost, and he has thoroughly analyzed the things between us (and about him of course); I can see it.
He said he thought about me several times since then and he’d like to begin something together for the very first time (since between us it was always a matter of months before I decided it was too much to take for me. Even if, of course, if came with a price and extreme pain). He was honest and told me that in this period he was seeing a girl, but just for fun, and he was honest with her from the start about it. No involvement from his nor her side. He showed me he told her about me and told her he wasn’t interested in continuing seeing her because he was involved with me.
He wanted to start it over, I said no.
Now, again, he insists he wants me in his life someway. I keep up telling him there’s no way we could be friends since the attraction between us is too strong, and any relationship is out of question because of the lack of confidence. He said he hopes he can prove me wrong even if he knows it is difficult.
Unfortunately (for me), I do have started questioning myself : how could it be possible for him to tell me all of that (and even realizing it, most of all) if it wasn’t true?
Yet I am afraid, because I have learned the hard way not to underestimate him. And even if I know that now I would be more self aware than ever, I don’t think I would suffer less in case I was wrong. (Of course I would feel stupid as hell.)
I’m thinking about blocking him and return NC. I cannot forget that time 5 years ago when he was hopeless and crying on the phone and yet a few weeks later he stabbed me right in the back. Yet he seems fully conscious now, when back then he didn’t even have a conscience and I know I didn’t even give him a chance to prove me wrong.
There will always be things of him that I like, miss, or even love. What do you think about it? Do you think there could be a chance that he really DID something about himself?
Thank you for your help. Big hugs & keep up with the good work. Finding people sharing the same experience at the time really helped me knowing what was right for me… 🙂

Hope

Hi I’ve been trying to figure out if my ex is a narcissist….we dated for about a year and have just been broken up since the first week of October. When we first started dating, like everything I’ve read, I thought he was my knight in shining armor. He was so sweet to me, swept me off my feet…..bought me expensive gifts and treated me to fancy restaurants, he spent so much time showering me with love and affection constant phone calls and texts…. I felt like he was the one…the man I’ve wanted in my life and we’ve finally found one another. He told me of the stories of his exes (has been married and divorced 3x’s…..shoulda been red flag #1 but I ignored it) and how they were crazy and never showed him any love or affection. I thought to myself why would these women let such a wonderful man get away??? Never thinking about the fact that they left him it wasn’t the other way around……after 2 months of dating he took me to Florida to meet his parents for Christmas…. I was so infatuated by him I didn’t think it to be odd at all that he was moving so quickly….he told me that he loved me and was falling in love with me. After the Christmas family meet and greet he had me to move into his home with him in January of this year…..my friends thought it odd and that things were going 2 fast and we needed to slow down but I was so wrapped up in him I didn’t think anything of it. It seemed like maybe a month after I moved in with him I caught him in little simple white lies and his daughter started being very disrespectful to me and he made excuses for her actions so I thought maybe I should take some time and move out for a bit to give us some breathing room (he told me he was totally fine if I felt we were moving too fast and wanted to slow down) that was a very bad mistake….from that point on he started treating me different….he would make excuses about coming to see me, began to go days sometimes weeks before making any contact with me, starting saying little things to make me feel bad about myself and then turn it on me saying I was being sensitive or if I questioned him about making time for me he said I was being needy. I didn’t understand what I did so wrong to make him start pulling away from me……everything started being on his terms only. If he wanted me at his house I was able to come but when he wanted to control me he made excuses about how I wasn’t allowed to stay on base with him bcos the military was watching his home and taking pictures of my car in his driveway and he couldn’t risk being discharged when he was so close to his 20yr retirement. I continued to deal with the lies and manipulation for months but whenever I got enough courage to start pulling away he would contact me and say “Am I losing you? I don’t want to lose you I love you” and I would get sucked back in everytime. He would be ok for a couple weeks then he would stop calling and texting wouldn’t make time for me. It got to the point where when I told him I loved him or missed him he would respond back “Good keep it that way” instead of telling me he loved me or missed me as well…. that really hurt my feelings. His mother advised me to pull completely back from him bcos I didn’t deserve to be treated that way so I did….stopped calling and texting him and he once again came back around promising he would do better and like a sucker I would get sucked back in…..The first week in October was the start of the end of our relationship….we were on a cruise to reconnect and rekindle things (I won this free cruise but decided to upgrade it so we would have a balcony suite and paid for the upgrade charge) the very first night on the cruise after exploring the ship we had a few drinks and laid down for the night we both fell asleep. Around midnight I woke up and found him gone out of the room so I got up and searched everywhere trying to find him. For a few hours I looked with no luck finally went back to the room and he came back a short time after. I asked him where he had been and he replied that he had went to the nightclub!!! REALLY??? Who comes on a cruise with their significant other and sneak off to the night club while the other one is sleeping??? I was so upset…the rest of the 7 day cruise was on a downhill spiral after that….He would leave me by myself for 5,6,7 hours at a time just totally treating me like crap…. I finally put my foot down and told him he was being selfish and he replied to me “All I ever had was myself so that’s all I care about” I was so hurt!! I told him if that’s the attitude that he had in his past relationships then no wonder they didn’t stay….that’s not a good attitude to have when ur in a relationship with someone…..he got so pissed off at me….to make a long story short he ended up dumping me a day before our cruise was over and I was crushed!!! He had already beaten my self-esteem down to the ground but with him doing this it took away any confidence I had left ?? I was devastated. I also suspected that there was someone else in the picture. Even though I know this relationship is toxic for some reason I still want and miss him. I love him I miss the man I fell in love with and I just don’t understand what happened. I keep telling myself that maybe he isn’t a narcissist and that maybe I did something wrong but I tried so hard to keep him happy and my needs were not being fulfilled. I find myself thinking about him and his new love interest and get a little jealous bcos I don’t get why he can now be so happy and giddy about her and I tried so hard to make him happy why was I not good enough??? Just really hurts….Searching for answers ???

Hi Steph,
Thank you for reaching out to me. You’re lucky to have developed at least a friendship… my narc ex is doing that classic ignoring me and blaming me for everything that went wrong and has rejected all my attempts at reconciliation of any kind. That’s the most damaging aspect as far as I’m concerned, because what a normal person would do, would be to own up to their shit and take some responsibility for their bad behavior, ask for forgiveness, validate the other for sticking with them through that, and at the very least, acknowledge the love that was seemingly real.. such a mind f…k and it’s been very painful. Basically, I’m the one being rejected for loving her and sticking it out with her, despite all the lies and betrayal, but then again I’m the one that knows all those dirty little secrets and it would probably be way too hard on her ego to continue functioning in her narc space, even as a friend. I know too much. I can’t get her out of my head and heart.. it’s been so difficult. I even gave her a beautiful ring w 10 diamonds which she accepted at the beach we had our first date on. I asked for it back if course, but the year of flattery and promise and I can’t wait to be you wife one day… has literally destroyed my heart. I’ll never understand how people can be so cruel and convincing and deceptive at the expense of someone they loved. I do believe she loved me.. I saw a few of those really vulnerable places in her, which most narcs won’t show.. which were fleeting and random. I have a narc ex wife of 9 years ago as well, who after our break up betrayed me and fought me in Family Court trying to get full custody of the 2 children we planned for and brought into the world. She didn’t win, but that year was so damaging and the betrayal so fierce, that i literally ended up w some PTSD issues, which, not surprisingly, have resurfaced with this recent narc year long fiasco and breakup. Guess I know how to pick em’. Ugggh. I have a fantastic therapist I’ve been seeing for over a year now.. she recently, in on one of our therapy sessions asked if she could see my phone. I handed it to her and she proceeded to delete the contact and texts – everything from this recent ex. I f’ing bawled and was crying so hard, that all those words, memories, etc.. were gone. My therapist said, Skye, I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and I have literally taken drugs from my clients and have flushed them down the toilet… and Skye, I just flushed your drug down the toilet. I’m truly trying to recover from this year long love affair, but it’s been really hard and challenging. I’m really hurt. My heart feels destroyed and everything in this little beach town reminds me of her… I feel used, emotionally raped, conned, and basically left for dead. 🙁

I met a woman just over a year and 2 months ago. We met at a work meeting.. she was an outside contractor. I am also a woman, and have been gay since I was a kid. I’m on the butchy side and this woman I met, very feminine, beautiful and charming. There was an instant attraction – and I would later find out that it was very mutual. After a couple of weeks of emailing each other about work stuff, I casually suggested we get a break from our work demands and go have a drink – after all, she did not have a wedding ring on. She replied and said, yes, how about this Friday. Our first “friend date” was at a bar near the beach where we live. During that evening, she dropped the boyfriend bomb on me and I was crushed. Later, after walking out to leave I mentioned that it was too bad she had a boyfriend and didn’t like women. She said, “you don’t know that” and we said goodbye. I should have kept walking and never looked back, but I texted her, “Damn, I wish you didn’t have a boyfriend, because I really wanted to kiss you just now.” She replied, “me too.. and I wish you had.” Within the next week she was over my house every evening. She told me that her 13 year relationship with her boyfriend was really over and that they hadn’t had sex in over 4 months and that they were really like housemates. Baited, hooked and lined…. I was in. The sex and intimacy was amazing, but what that year long, secret relationship did to me, was nothing short of devastating, to my heart, my self esteem, my integrity and my mental state of being. She promised after several weeks of our love affair, that she would leave him soon. We fell in love and I really believed her. I waiting one year and she never did. I was so mistrustful during this time that I did things that were so outside my own sense of integrity and self respect. I tapped into her cell phone one night while she was passed out in my bed and I read weeks and weeks full of mutual texts between her and her boyfriend, complete with, I love you’s, I’ll be home soon so we can be together, Can I bring you lunch today, Can’t wait to walk the beach with you later, Can’t wait for Easter with your family (she told me she stayed home sick that day) She had told me they were housemates…and I believed her.. I was crushed. When she woke up I told her what I did and told her to leave my house and never come back. Of course, she lured me back in, she suckered me in to believing she only said those things because she didn’t want to get kicked out of her house… but my distrust never left and she was a MASTER at manipulating me back into her vortex of affection, love, sex, admiration, etc.. until I couldn’t even think straight about what I was doing anymore. For an entire year, I went through literal hell catching her in continuous lies, but I was so manipulated by her charming and convincing nature, and because I was lacking any self respect, I stayed. I felt sorry for her (she had lost 2 family members recently) I didn’t want to hurt her. Narcissists are masters of manipulation. They are charming, beautiful, and very very dangerous. One of my first red flags was seeing how heartless she was regarding certain situations that would make a normal person cry, upset or emotional.. (like me). They choose people like us because we are so caring, giving, understanding.. etc.. A couple of months ago, after we spent the day at the beach, laughing, making out, her telling me how much she loves me, can’t lose me, and wants to be my wife one day… I dropped her off at their house.. I had this intense intuition that I should park my car down the street, walk back and listen at their door. What I heard, destroyed me. He was arguing with her about how she spends all her time with me and that he knows there’s something going on between us.. He said he was done and she says, please babe, I don’t want to be done, we can work this out.. if she meant anything to me, then I would be with her.. she doesn’t mean anything to me and actually, I was just coming home today to ask if I could be with you in our bed tonight. I lost my mind and pounded the door and confronted them both. He left her a few weeks later. She had to move in with her parents and was angry at me for her losing her place to live. Another thing Narc’s do.. never taking responsibility for the damage they create. We actually worked through this one as well.. but things were tense. I took her in for a month.. and at one point I had a heart to heart talk with her about how I felt we were just too different to have a long term relationship. We both cried, she sat at the table and wrote me a beautiful love letter about how much she loved me, I was her everything, she couldn’t lose me… and for me to please don’t leave her.. just say the word and she’ll be back in my arms forever. She handed me the letter and walked outside in the night to her car. I read the letter, and felt that, OMG she was finally fighting for me, like I did for her for an entire year.. I walked up to her driver’s side in the dark, she didn’t see me, but I saw her and saw her texting some guy (name she never mentioned to me) about wanting to go out and have a drink. I couldn’t believe it. I asked her who the hell he was… she got angry that I was “spying over her shoulder” said he was just a friend.. I argued with her.. and told her that did not seem like a friend text, especially since I never heard her talk about him before.. She sped off. I chased after her and found her at her parents house sitting in her car… We argued, fought, she told me to leave.. I did and we ending up breaking up the next day. This relationship has left me feeling so emotionally raped, I can’t even begin to express. I fell for a year of lies, manipulation, deceit, and a woman who ended our relationship the same way she started it. I feel like such a fool. I had friends and family telling me to leave after the first month.. but I refused to give up on her, because I kept making up excuses for her behavior and she knew EXACTLY how to keep me drawn in to her – nothing short of sheer, masterful manipulation. It hurts. I’m only into my first month of recovery from Narc Abuse and am battling depression. I’m slowly coming out of it. I know I’ll make it out, but it’s still so problematic that I still feel a sense of honor to her and have even tried recently to repair things.. She’s not interested in getting back together, saying that I betrayed her that night, looking over her shoulder, driving out to her parents house and arguing with her in the street that night.. and that it reminded her of an abusive relationship. Really? I think this is one of those most damaging qualities of the Narc.. they are gas lighters and make you feel bad and/or guilty for their horrible behavior.. When they get caught in their own lies.. it can be like World War III, but sometimes… they can be just the opposite and they can sucker you back in through major apologetic, sweet and manipulative ways.. All I know is that I feel totally damaged emotionally and mentally by this relationship. We all need to give ourselves credit for getting out of these relationships though, as much as they’ve really hurt all of us, we are F’ing SUPER HEROES for enduring through what we did and now we can finally love the people that are worthy of us and deserve us. If you’re depressed, I know what it’s like. You’re going to get through this, I promise. Cut off all contact, and occupy your time with lots of self love. Don’t try and kill the monster without the risk of becoming one yourself. Pray, breathe, know your self worth and this next time around… listen to your inner voice and your intuition about people.. it’s always right. xoxo Skye