Key Points

A narcissist’s “love style” generally predicts how he or she will behave in a relationship.
A romantic narcissist loves the idea of ​​being part of a “perfect” couple. When flaws are exposed, he or she sees no point in staying.

Nostalgia will bring a romantic narcissist back to their ex for a brief period, but they are likely to leave them again.

If you’ve ever fallen madly and passionately in love with a narcissist and have been left crying and wondering what happened, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Did he or she love me at all? Does he or she think about me at all? Will he or she come back to me?”

After listening to dozens of narcissistic men in therapy talk about their romantic relationships, I’ve learned that most of these men are quite predictable. I’ve coined the term “narcissistic love styles” to describe the relationship behaviors these men repeat over and over with different women. If you know your narcissistic ex’s “love style,” you can generally predict how they will behave toward you. It can also help you understand how they viewed you and what the relationship meant to them.

There are certain “narcissistic love styles” that occur so often that I’ve given them names: “the romantic,” “the big game hunter,” “the white knight,” “the seeker,” “the hater,” and “the recycler.” If you were to vote on which of these ex-narcissists most women would want back, “the romantic” would be the absolute winner.

In today’s post, we’re going to take a closer look at the romantic narcissist’s love style to understand why losing him feels so devastating and why women yearn for him to come back.

RomanticNarcissist

If you think your romantic narcissist ex truly loves you and wants to marry you, you’re not crazy. Even though he’s gone now, your ex meant what he said when he said it. He loved you, or at least he had a romantic fantasy of you two as the perfect couple.

Narcissistic men, whom I call “romantic,” fall in love easily and love to be in love. They love all the trappings of a perfect romance as much as you do: candlelit dinners, cozy weekends at a cabin in the woods, moonlit walks along the beach. They are at their best and most present in the courtship phase of your relationship. Their goal is to make every moment as romantic as possible. Sex is great because it is slow, passionate, and thoughtful. He enjoys your body and tells you over and over how beautiful you are.

He then commemorates the perfect romance by posting pictures of you together all over his social media accounts. He wants everyone he knows to see the two of you as the perfect couple. There are pictures of you on a boat with the wind blowing your hair, pictures of you hiking, and pictures of you walking along cobblestone streets.

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Romantic narcissists may start planning a wedding with you and encourage you to start thinking about names for your children. But… just when you think you’ve found your perfect husband, he starts to calm down. You can feel him starting to back off. He calls you less and starts making lame excuses about why he can’t see you: Work is too busy, and his cousins ​​are coming to visit. There’s no more talk of a future together, and the honeymoon is officially over now. You keep reaching out to him in an attempt to win him back, but now he’s completely backtracking.

What’s happening: The novelty of the idealized, loving couple has worn off and he’s starting to see you more realistically. He’s starting to see things about you that don’t quite fit his idealized love fantasy. He’s also getting a little bored. He’s exhausted his repertoire of romantic gestures and now it’s time to seal the deal and move in with you or propose. He wants out.

For normal men, all the romantic moments and great sex lead to more intimacy and personal trust. For narcissistic men, as the relationship becomes more realistic, they start to feel disappointed and suffocated. It’s one thing to fantasize about marrying you, but it’s another thing to stay emotionally connected to you once things get to the point of moving on to the next stage of the relationship.

As reality sets in, these men find a way to walk away from the relationship. Suddenly, one day, you realize that the person you thought was the love of your life is now out of your life. You’re left with a million unanswered questions. Why did he leave you? Was any of what happened between the two of you real? Is he coming back?

Here are two of the most common justifications these men use to justify leaving you:

You’re not who they thought you were: This explanation allows them to absolve themselves of any blame. It’s your fault that things didn’t work out, not their inability to commit. Now that the narcissist knows you well enough to see your flaws (and in the narcissist’s mind, being flawed means you’re worthless), there’s no point in staying with you. The truth is, they were never in love with you; what they were in love with was the idea of ​​being part of a perfect couple that everyone else would envy. The emphasis here is on “perfection.”

Related : 5 Ways Narcissists Compensate for Their Inferiority

Your love is doomed and tragic: The relationship didn’t work out because it was doomed from the start, tragically, by forces beyond the lovers’ control. This narrative of why they left is based on all the doomed romantic lovers in literature and cinema. Think of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or Allie and Noah in Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook. It’s appealing because the man gets to be as romantic and passionate about you as he loves you, but he never has to put that love to the real tests of everyday life. The lovers in his fantasy always break up tragically before anyone has to buy toilet paper.

What’s likely to happen next: Now that they’re safely out of the relationship and no longer have to fulfill any of the promises they made to you, they’re likely to look back on the relationship with nostalgia. If you could eavesdrop on their conversations with other people, you’d probably hear them describe you and the relationship in glowing terms. You were the love of their life. Everything was perfect. They ignore how and why the relationship ended. As usual, everything that happened is romanticized and everything looks better in the rearview mirror than it was when you were together. All of this, unfortunately, does you no good, your ex, because even if he comes back, he will leave you again… and again. They are in love in the courtship stage of dating and are not mature enough to keep their promises and move on to a real relationship. Their love life is a romantic engagement that is repeated over and over again with a different woman each time. They are in love with the idea of ​​love and not with you.