Idealise, devalue, discard - anyone had experience of this? I think I have.

[JudithTaverner]

I'm trying to make sense of being dumped pretty much out of the blue by someone who only last week was proclaiming undying love and planning to move in with me.

Stupidly I took him back after he dumped me a few months ago - came back to me sobbing asking if I'd take him back and I stupidly believed all of his promises. Both times he's gone back to a previous girlfriend, who he's broken up with in a similar way at least 5 times over the last few years. I thought from his vitriolic stories about her that she was nothing.

Anyway, they're irrelevant to me, but I'm struggling with the shock of the sudden dumping, the complete lack of communication and the complete switch from love to hate pretty much over night.

I've gone NC, but he lives near me and I dread bumping into him. I'm a nervous wreck every time I go to my local shops. How quickly will this get better?

greypaw that was really helpful and really rang true to me. I was also just out of an abusive marriage. His other girlfriend is really vulnerable for reasons I won't go into here. But extremely. She's been dumped 6 or 7 times and has gone back for more.

I'm ok. Stayed away because they followed me on here last time and hurled abuse at me. (I expect they will this time too actually - if you do see this S, I don't want him back, please don't feel threatened by me. I'm done. Direct your anger in the right place, not at me, or better still, get out and direct your energies at living your life).

I'm very very angry now. I saw my psychotherapist this morning too and she really helped me to understand this.

LIfe goes on and we learn from this.

amazing post greypaw

gl judith.

Silly thought, the adrenaline / dopamine hit - might doing some sport help? you do feel good after and it's a lesser, but healthier high

Greypaw, amazing post

Yes exercise helps loads

I'm running so much and my psychotherapist told me to do it too

And get fucking angry

Stop being hurt and get angry instead

Agree this is a narc pattern. Or sociopath.
I was engaged to a sociopath. I was the love of his life he couldn't wait to get married to me, planned a wedding and I was so much better than his exs and the most beautiful woman on earth. 8 months later he was shagging a girl from work and now she's 'one in a billion'. I give her another year until her name is dirt like mine is.
Very very dangerous beings and no contact is the only way to go.
Psychopath free and Truelovescam.com have been invaluable to me.

Greypaw
Thank you for putting that so succinctly.

When I met the narc previously in my life, I did not have a narc-dar!
I too was vulnerable as my marriage was crumbling and I'd just found out that my husband had had an affair. I didn't know my arse from my elbow.

The IDD cycle happened with dizzying speed and was very intense. I found the whole experience to be the most traumatic of my life.
And I did go back for crumbs, trying to get back the idealise phase.
Breaking away took many months not least because in my addiction to this man I lent him a great deal of money which I tried to get back.

Eventually I've been no contact for about 8 months. I too have puzzled over how all consuming this relationship was whilst being beyond relieved that I'm not in it any more.

Greypaw, you've given me a real light bulb moment. I went out with a narcissist in my teens, he was in his 20's. I'm now 47 and the bafflement at how I allowed him to manipulate me has remained all these years. I get it now, I really get it. Thank you.

I dated a narc for 2 years - the love bombing, the overblown gifts, the silent treatments, the mad, crazy passion, and the deep connection I thought we felt. And then one time the silent treatment didn't end. That was that. It felt like being flung off an emotional cliff in some ways. I didn't know what to do or how to cope. It was almost surreal. He was a psychologist and I have some training in psychology (a degree and postgrad work) and while we were together I commented on his narc tendencies and he fully admitted that it was probably part of who he was. I stopped trying to contact him after a month or so, and eventually gained some equilibrium. I'm grateful it ended now. I'd never have been able to 'fix' him, and long term he would have made me very unhappy. You don't know it yet, but you have dodged a bullet. Focus on taking care of yourself. Treat this as a valuable learning experience and think about what you want, not what you'll put up with. It will get better.

Greypaw that is an excellent post. I'm going to keep hold of that info somewhere. Waves at OP, I think I remember you from the summer. I too had got into a brief relationship with a narc/sociopath during the summer. Thankfully I've been nc for months now and life is soooo much better.

I totally understand that high feeling you get when you're with the narc. My ex even told me he new all about mirroring and used it to suss me out. Arrrgh, I fell for it all having never heard of narcissists or their behaviour before. I'm actually thankful for the lesson I've learned as I'll certainly be wary before getting involved with someone again.

Life is calm and good again now. Yes I don't have those heady highs in my life now but I no longer have the crushing lows either when the arguments happened. The small things in life make me happy again and that is exactly how I'm going to continue. It's wonderful to have control back.

Op you need to go cold turkey. Stay away from him, go nc and within months (sorry that sounds so long) you'll be a different person. Trust me cold turkey works.

HI angle! don't worry I am completely NC - finding it really easy this time. I do just want a quiet life. Glad you're much better now.

Could exercise help replace dopamine - I suppose it could, maybe it would work for some people. I find it reduces my adrenaline/cortisol if my anxiety is high, at any rate. I did read a couple of psychology articles a couple of years ago that said intermittent reinforcement creates a dopamine response in the brain that is very similar to the dopamine response caused by heroin. I'm guessing that anything that helps increase dopamine in a healthy way is going to be helpful, but the original trigger will still be a massive draw and potentially irresistible.

After I read those articles I started to look at addiction and see what I'd need to do to keep myself safe from my drug-of-choice. Logically I can now accept that the drug isn't him, it's the feelings he generated and so if I've ever felt myself craving him, I know it's not him I'm after but it's a sign there's something else in my life that needs to be fulfilled. I got stuck into study and research, which I focus on if my brain starts to unhelpfully focus on the past.

Occasionally I have what I think of as relapses, where I start ruminating about that relationship and my brain tells me I HAVE to contact this person and talk to him, to figure out what was really going on, to tell him how angry he made me, even to reconcile because at the time it felt like we were really meant to be together. I know though that it's the addicted part of my brain tricking me into going back to get another hit, and I'm not falling for it. I don't even know who this person is now, and I certainly don't want a relationship with him. Focussing hard on something else, something analytical, makes those feelings go away.

And I have to work hard at this, because he occasionally sniffs around. If he'd just disappeared over the horizon there's a fairly good chance this process I've had to go through with would have been resolved much quicker than it has, but he does tend to keep popping up.

Funnily enough, he told me his ex-wife of 20 years had been on the point of finishing her Psychology degree when he left her. Occasionally I've had a wobble about the fact that he'd managed to have a 20 year relationship and therefore couldn't have been as dysfunctional as I'd thought, but my psychologist assured me that his ex's choice of degree spoke volumes

greypaw my ex also had a really long marriage - I also wonder how that could have happened

Dopamine thing really interesting I think. It is like an addiction

The anxiety thing is the hardest to deal with ATM - any tips? I'm exercising already

Have you tried mindfulness? There's an app called Headspace, maybe you can try it out. If you increase endorphins (which you can do through exercise, meditation, yoga, anything fun or relaxing) technically your stress hormones should reduce. There's a theory that writing your feelings down helps you process them as you have to move them to a different part of the brain to do so, and this is said to make the processing easier. Could you try some kind of journalling?

The length of the marriage doesn't really speak for the quality of it, I guess. Who knows what these wives had to put up with. I figure that as my ex married got married when his wife was very young and pregnant, maybe she didn't have a healthy basis for comparison and stuck it out for longer because of the children. Or maybe she didn't care and just switched him off when he started dysregulating. Or maybe she didn't trigger him the way I did because she was less assertive. Maybe now he's gone she's actually really happy and wish he'd gone sooner. Maybe she's heartbroken and struggling with the effects of his IDD cycles on her. Maybe it was none of that, and I caused his behaviour. Still a toxic relationship, whichever way I look at it.

Once, he said to me "I'm not being funny, but women seem to be unable to get over me. Everyone I've had a relationship with hasn't seemed to be able to let go". Which leads me to think he pulled those IDD cycles on everyone. Oh, and that he's a horrible little narcissist.

"Logically I can now accept that the drug isn't him, it's the feelings he generated and so if I've ever felt myself craving him, I know it's not him I'm after but it's a sign there's something else in my life that needs to be fulfilled. "

THIS.

But, putting it into practice isn't so easy...

My 'ex' (of both 25 years ago and, oooh, 14 days ago...)
had a 15 yr + relationship (with a woman with both the same Christian name and the same initials as me) whilst being married for 30 years (still is)
whilst in the 30 yr marriage and the 15 yr relationship (which overlapped the end of our original one) he also had an 'affair' with a youngish girl from the far east. And that is just the ones I know of!

But, I am still the 'love of his life', 'a connection like he has never known' etc
He tells me he has caused 'emotional chaos' and he has now decided he is 'busy, and will remain so, and has had enough romantic adventures for 1 lifetime and will work hard on seeing me as a friend (to whom he doesn't reply).

I have a Psychology degree. I had LoTS of Counselling at the time.
I am still completely blown away by this latest 'relationship' with him (which moved through the cycle in 8 little weeks)

:(

Have got mindfulness and am journaling

Guess it will pass

Mines ex wife had lots of family - he always complained she didn't put him first. He yo-yoed between ex wife and the other girlfriend for a bit I think now me and the other girlfriend.

Blimey silkthreads he sounds a catch!

Judith
Ha! no, not a 'catch' at all.
Looks like Rumpelstiltskin, unemployed, really poor with personal hygiene, long history of quite serious MH issues (not in itself an issue but refuses to take meds / be responsible about it). History of catastrophic business decisions which have cost innocent people money.
Yet, very intelligent, very persuasive, and I know I am one of just a number of not stupid and not ugly women who have fallen for him over the years (twice, in my case).
He lives with wife, is spending Xmas with long term ex, had brekkie with young far east lass and was arranging to meet me, all in the space of 6 weeks.
WTAF?

HOW do they get away with it?

I am staggered by some of the responses on this thread. Some of these guys sound absolutely awful. We really should be taught in school about how dangerous these people can be and the tricks they use to manipulate us. I had no idea about narcissists/sociopaths until I met one in the Spring. Thankfully I got away after a 3 month relationship and have had no problems with him since. I feel very lucky reading some of the responses here.

I totally identify with the addiction theory though as that's exactly how I felt at the time I was seeing him. I was addicted to the highs when I saw him. Those highs are not real though. It's all based on lies and false promises so it's a big crash back down to earth when you finally realise who they are and what they're doing. I wish I'd known about narcissists and sociopaths before I encountered one though so that I could have identified the signs better. My gut was telling me something wasn't quite right but I ignored it thinking I was being paranoid. It would have been easier to work out what that feeling was if I'd had some kind of previous information about these people.

Your anxiety could actually be complex post traumatic stress disorder. Well known effect of 'relationships' with these devils.
I like a pp see my whole life in a completely different way now, anyone who has been involved with these types and realised and educated themselves will have a wisdom and knowledge they neither wanted or knew existed before.
I've been damaged in ways i never thought possible, but I'm also so much stronger and more resilient than i ever had to know before. Never again.

Love reading your stories for some insight.
@greypaws mine said to me something similar 'you'll come running back to me begging me please i miss you i need you' , guess who shut the door, locked it and threw away the key? Me.
Never ever would i beg a man who has treated me with such disregard and lack of respect to 'please' be in my life.
@judith the anexiety will pass in time, its taken me a couple of months but im healed so much. My tips are; dont try to unpick it all, leave it all in the past where it belongs, and look forward with hope.
Get plenty of rest and be gentle with yourself, dont be in a rush to heal, let it take its natural course.
Get stuck into some books, or something else that interests you.
Appreciate the calm, and every other little aspect of your life.
I also listen to a lot of mindfulness, meditation, self help, ted talks on youtube.
Hope this helps x

People stay in really long relationships with narcissists/sociopaths because

1. Most significantly, they don't realise what is really going on. Surely most people are not aware of the MO of these sort of people? The cunning and deceit involved is utterly staggering, especially by the covert ones. Most people have difficulty believing it is possible. (Fred West's neighbours thought he was a lovely, helpful, family man.) It is particularly mind boggling they can sustain the deception for decades while married to bright, strong, savvy people. They are dead emotionally inside and do not give their pathological lying away with tell-tale nervous body language. Some even read books on anthropology and body language to find out what not to do, to conceal their true motives. Instead they might keep their body rigid and motionless while they lie through their teeth to avoid mistakes such as the nose-touching cliche.
2. If there are children it is not easy to break up a family when many people believe in the two-parent ideal. There is always the thought, "How will I justify turning their worlds upside down when they ask me when they are older?" Although the abused partner is often unable to put their finger on why they feel depressed and close to tears such a lot of the time, they will likely attribute their misery to their own MH issues while noticing what an ebullient, charismatic person their chidren "appear" to have in their other parent in comparison and they don't want to deprive them of that.
3. As soon as a narcissist/sociopath gets a whiff you are having doubts and considering leaving, they up the ante and lavish you with attention and false promises. The hope the relationship will improve and can be worked on remains and persuades an abused partner not to leave. However it only lasts temporarily until they feel able to resume focus on their extra-marital activities again without arousing suspicion.
4. Narcissists/sociopaths can be nasty enough within the relationship. There is unspoken intimidation about what would happen if a partner announced they were leaving. This is the classic time when a partner is most at risk from harm and when 75% of DV murders occur.

Angle You are right. I feel strongly this stuff should be taught in schools. It is because of the majority of people's ignorance of NPDs and sociopaths predatory behaviour that they get away with exploiting and hurting others, physically and/or psychologically, most of the time.