These are the search terms that appear on my stats page most frequently. Readers want to know if a narcissist can move on from their relationships.
Honestly, this depends on the depth of their narcissism and usually depends on one factor:
Either they leave you or you leave them.
Narcissists are all about power and control. If they leave you after devaluing and dumping you, they have kept the power in their mind, so they can leave the relationship without a second thought. But more commonly, overt narcissists will often keep you on edge for years as they begin life with a new partner, leaving you in limbo if you don’t go without contact.
However, if you leave them first, they will go on a retaliatory campaign that will make you question the reason for your existence. If you have kids with them, you’d better prepare yourself for Dante’s Circles of Hell, around 4-9.
Their hatred for you will feel as fresh five years later as it did when you first left. In general, there are three ways of the process the narcissist will engage in after ending the relationship.
- Stalking and Harassment – The narcissist will use every tool available to them to get you back under their control. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that they want you back because you’ve been such an excellent asset and they don’t want to lose that. Second, they may want to enact a stage of devaluation and ostracism, so you’ll feel like the most worthless waste of a human… ever. For them, revenge is the ultimate victory… especially if you leave your confidence in scraps in the process.
When it comes to the narcissist’s pathology, expect anything. They will, and often do, hire private investigators in addition to watching you themselves. They may try to plant spyware on your phone and computer, install a tracking device on your car, or install hidden cameras in your home. That’s why you mustn’t let them into your new house or apartment after you start no contact… well, that and the fact that you don’t want to allow them to break your resolve by letting them resume their brainwashing techniques.
- Smear Campaign – The appearance of this revenge tactic depends on your circumstances at the time you leave. If you share a wide circle of mutual friends, expect your reputation to be ruined. You will find out who your true friends are during this stage. But don’t be discouraged. The narcissist has been deceiving people for years. Consider yourself enlightened because you can push away from your life people who are not as authentic and loyal as they once seemed.
If you don’t share friends when you leave, it doesn’t matter to the narcissist. They will find ways to sneak casually into your new social circle in an attempt to sow seeds of suspicion. Watch out for adding the narcissist to the “friend list” of people you have on your social networking sites. If this happens, delete these people from your list.
- Harassment through the court system – If you have children of narcissists, expect an ambush. The lies and drama will be the agenda and they will do whatever is necessary to try to take away what they mean to you, to your children. Not because they care about them, but because it’s the perfect way to cut you to your knees.
their new “love”.
No matter how your relationship ended, they will have no qualms about starting a new relationship with someone else (and they may have started a relationship before yours ended).
They’ll give you the appearance that they’ve moved on, but if you leave them first, you can bet they’re planning ways to make you pay. This would be innocent banter to anyone who would listen to them. They have a sneaky way of discussing the relationship they have with you while making it seem like they can care less about you or your new life, but inside their minds, they are simmering with hatred and dreams of revenge.
The reason they can get a new partner in such a short time is that 1) they have an innate inability to develop natural attachments and bonding with others, and 2) a narcissist cannot survive without supplies.
No matter what it looks like, they just don’t adore a new partner. Narcissists are very skilled at acquiring new targets who will become their new punching bag (emotional and otherwise). As such, there is no need for jealousy of new love in a narcissist’s life.
“change their hearts”
In general, even when narcissists gain a new source of supply, they will still come up from time to time. The reasons for this vary depending on the narcissist’s pathology. However, it is important to remember that if the narcissist has a new partner, and he comes back to your door, it has nothing to do with love, but it could involve the following:
They want to make sure they still have control over you. This assures them that you are still on the waiting list in case they take advantage of it later.
They want to make you feel bad about yourself, so they convince you to let them come back, only to tear you apart even more. An example of this is getting you to get intimate with them, only to call you a “whore” and “whore” and leave you crying afterward.
They consider you their property and will do whatever is necessary to sabotage any new relationships you might start with someone else.
You see, the narcissist doesn’t usually move on. If someone is out of their life for good, it is because the other person chose to, not the narcissist. There are certainly cases where narcissists leave permanently, but it is usually when the person leaving the relationship is first, a narcissist on the brain, or they no longer want to make the effort of damage control.
