Maybe you feel a desperate need to try to salvage a relationship that you intuitively know is unhealthy, or maybe you wonder why you can’t “let go” and “move on” after losing your relationship.
You may be in love with a narcissist and are now taking the blame for all of their sudden problems or downfalls.
A narcissist is someone who will enter your life and consume your entire existence for their own selfish benefit. Understanding the whirlwind and accepting the finality of a relationship with a narcissist will show that we have tremendous value.
Here is the cycle of falling in love with a narcissist.
- No matter how intelligent or confident we are, we can still fall in love with a narcissist.
He is very adept at spotting any red flags when we first meet him. He is attracted to our beauty, kindness, and selfless nature because of his emptiness. The narcissist will be attentive, generous, and admirable at first. He will charm us with compliments on every little detail and pay attention to us so intensely that we think he is our soulmate.
Charming promises will be made to make us feel alive and invincible, and he will spend vast amounts of time with us. We will quickly be enchanted and feel joy, adoration and love. And then…
- Almost immediately, the relationship will change.
Our time together will dwindle, leaving us confused and wanting even a modicum of attention from him. We try to communicate and share our accomplishments, but it will diminish our effort and make us feel insignificant. We try to look nice for him, but the attention is gone. Intimate moments will make us feel used and insignificant.
The partner who once made us feel like royalty, now makes us feel insecure and needy. The partner who was affectionate is now a stranger. The narcissist has taken our power to feed his distorted ego.
- We deceive ourselves by clinging to this relationship.
I felt our emotions coming thick and fast, and the tables turned in a blur, leaving our heads spinning. We now feel shocked, angry and betrayed. It’s as if our hearts can’t catch up with our mind fast enough to understand. So we constantly wonder what went wrong.
We no longer feel connected to him and wonder if the person devoid of all feelings is the same person we love. We fear that the happiness we remember was just a slander in our minds. The narcissist has stolen a piece of our soul and we desperately want it back. This is a very confusing and emotional process because intellectually, we thought we knew better.
- We are assertive and try to solve relationship problems.
But he is very skilled at projection and leads us to believe that what happened is our fault. Simply questioning the narcissist will only push him away further and punish us with the silent treatment. Being ignored is so terrible that we will forget why we were upset by him and apologize profusely to try to get his forgiveness.
He preys on this kind of attention, unable to recognize any personal fault. Our self-esteem has decreased and our self-esteem has diminished.
- The narcissist will not show awareness or remorse for the harm he has imposed on him.
We assume the fall was our fault. We become so entangled in making this person happy that we will exhaust ourselves and lose ourselves in the process. We begin to question our morals, wondering if we deserve this abusive treatment.
We begin to become obsessed with “fixing” what is broken in order to feel better, and the more our efforts are ignored, the more persistent we become. We wonder who this person we are chasing is and we start to feel “crazy” because nothing changes. It is a losing battle because after exhausting everything we have to offer, it is no longer of any use to us.
- There will be an inevitable fall.
This relationship must end when we are no longer victorious and cannot fill the void he is constantly searching for. The ending feels so terrible because we are putting all our energy and effort into pleasing someone who would never reciprocate, who is too self-absorbed to acknowledge our pain.
The partner we once trusted has completed the cycle of narcissistic abuse and needs to draw energy and innocence from a new victim. He will end the relationship as quickly and smoothly as it started, and coldness and indifference make us feel worthless.
It will cut off communication so harshly that we feel defeated and want to curl up into a ball and disappear. But this experience was not in the vein, and no matter how painful it feels in the end, it is a gift.
- But then, you can accept reality and move on.
Being under the narcissist’s spell is not our fault, and recovering from this will take time. The most important first step is to commit to “letting go.” There’s nothing positive that will come from seeing him after all that damage.
We need to rebuild and empower ourselves from this experience. Seek support from trusted loved ones and make a plan for when there is a temptation to reach out. Making this commitment will bring relief as the poison is released from our body, mind and spirit. The air will feel fresher and we will welcome healthy, kinder people into our lives, and slowly begin to feel like ourselves again.
