The sad truth is that your narcissistic ex was bound to abandon you anyway. It’s a vicious cycle that began the moment they saw you. But the nature of that abandonment depends on how they categorized you.
To reinforce their inflated power, a narcissist needs to recruit people. But not just anyone is suitable. This is an exclusive club with two essential requirements:
A willingness to provide what feeds their narcissism.
A proven track record of perfection.
Therefore, anyone a narcissist associates with must be useful and/or highly valued.
A narcissist’s livelihood depends on having a harem of admirers and recipients within their psychological target circle. If the target is willing to provide attention, sex, resources, or services, the narcissist will bestow upon them an aura of perfection, portraying them as someone worthy of attention—as long as they remain loyal.
Ultimately, the narcissist may tire of their victim, or the victim may not fulfill their initial promise. The victim may put up fierce resistance, make demands, or, worse, insult the narcissist. In other cases, the victim’s flaws become a burden to the narcissist. In all these instances, the narcissist quickly becomes repulsed by the victim and abandons them.
There is an exceptional category: those who possess beauty, power, knowledge, status, or skill that truly make them ideal. The narcissist is instantly captivated by such a “high-value” person and seeks to merge with them completely. This makes sense from a narcissistic perspective. If the person you are in a relationship with is highly valuable, then you are also highly valuable by virtue of your association with them.
By consuming the attention, resources, services, or status of others, the narcissist can reinforce their sense of self-importance. The world of narcissism is like a cult of personality comprised of countless followers and deities. The narcissist either worships others or worships them as a means of bolstering their ego. The narcissist also bestows an aura of perfection upon people to feel secure enough to interact with them. By imagining someone unconditionally loyal, or perfect, to them, the narcissist can bond with someone who will never abandon or disappoint them.
But this corrupting cult is nothing more than an illusion in the narcissist’s mind. Their entire life is dedicated to feeding their ego. They exploit people, drain resources, wound feelings, and inflict real harm, all while concealing from themselves the inner reality of self-loathing, shame, and anger that festered in their childhood.
This truth is never lost on the narcissist, no matter how hard they try to deceive themselves and others. Behind their mask, the narcissist hides a core riddled with suspicion, always on the lookout for betrayal. If the victim deviates from their role in the narcissist’s fantasy world, they will exact a vicious revenge. Victims may act recklessly or carelessly, provoking the narcissist’s wrath. They may even offend them, sometimes intentionally, as they grow impatient with their rigidity, perfectionism, and control. The victim may betray them, or they themselves may harbor a wound that drives them to harm the narcissist in horrific ways. In such cases, the narcissist receives a jolt that shatters their illusions, allowing reality to surface.
In extreme cases, such as infidelity and other forms of betrayal, the narcissist’s grandeur is severely damaged. The narcissist responds by claiming that their victim is no longer useful or perfect, but rather bad, or even repulsive. Beneath the narcissist’s fantasy world lies a torrent of paranoia, shame, and rage. When you betray or deeply disappoint him, his deeply repressed traumas surface and take control. Instead of seeing this for what they truly are, the narcissist projects his pain and resentment onto his victim—the person he despises or devalues. The narcissist then decides to abandon his victim, marking the beginning of a phase of belittling and demeaning the other person. From this point onward, the narcissist paves the way for eliminating the other person.
If the narcissist’s life is closely intertwined with yours, he will gradually distance himself from you. He will become cold and contemptuous, judging, criticizing, ignoring, attacking, or mocking you at will. Because you are still trapped in his delusion, this will be a profound shock. You will feel stunned, humiliated, and disgusted. In some cases, the narcissist may completely ignore you, block you online, or move on without a word.
Related ;: How To Quickly Recognize A Manipulative Person
The victim, now accustomed to the warmth of the narcissist’s unconditional appreciation, panics and begins to doubt herself during the belittling phase. To regain the narcissist’s favor and return to a state of idealization, she intensifies her attempts to appease him. Her hope is to reclaim her place in the narcissist’s eyes and thus rekindle the relationship with the original “drug of idealization.”
For the victim, the connection with her dream person initially seems wonderful. However, the narcissist’s traumatized essence remains hidden beneath the surface. The victim forgets that all magical effects fade with time, and the harsh, cold reality resurfaces, revealing the narcissist’s true nature.
