Supposedly, there are three common stages that someone will go through with a narcissist: idealizing, devaluing, and discarding. From most of my reading on the topic, it is defined as a cyclical pattern that will continue in those order of stages as long as the other party chooses to stay on that hamster wheel.
In my experience, it is hard to say that each stage had a start and end period before it moved to the next phase. For me, the three stages seemed to work so closely together, all three could happen in any given moment; with a narcissist, a seemingly joyful, happy moment could quickly turn into one of the most upsetting encounters you never saw coming.
Instead of referring to this next part of my blog as a particular “stage” that the narcissist cultivates with a vulnerable party, I want to focus on what seems to be the narcissist’s strategic goals or motives in the initial stages of the relationship: 1) to establish a connection as soon as possible to keep you around, and 2) to test and eventually erode your boundaries so that they have control over you.
First, I will give an example of how the narcissist quickly and strategically works to establish a connection with his or her target.
One day after work, the guy I was dating rushed over to my house on his way home. He sat down opposite of me for eye contact and held my hands in his. Without pause, he jumped right into the subject matter that was on his mind: what might be our hangups. He shared having some debt and not making a lot of money. I found this very endearing, that someone trusted me with their private affairs; I appreciated his vulnerability.
He asked me what I thought might be other hangups, to name my top three. Of course this whole conversation caught me off guard, but I already knew what mine were with anyone I might hold a future. At the time, I was not ready to be as vulnerable with him, but I reiterated the only one I had already shared with him– that I couldn’t have children and understood if he did not want to continue in a relationship with me since he didn’t already have children of his own. He accepted this. With genuine smiles and loving eyes, he rested in his attempt to “proclaim his love” of a highly foreseeable future together.
Just to be clear, the narcissist will “insinuate” marriage within a matter of weeks. We had only known each other for six weeks when we had this conversation.
I think it is worth putting a startling fact and thought here about this very thing on marriage when you’re in a romantic relationship with a narcissist. The words “marriage” never came out of his mouth once in the year and a half I knew him. The literature on narcissism that I have read refers to this as “future-faking.” I believe marriage was the furthest thing from his mind and plan for us. This was more a bite for, Do you value me as worthy enough? Of course this is speculation, just like so much of what I will write here; for I cannot begin to fathom how or why a narcissist thinks the way they do, except I do believe they are seeking out a moment’s relief from their own self-loathing, grasping for anything to satisfy their hunger of affection, attention, and acceptance because of their own deeply rooted insecurities.
To continue with my story, this nature of conversation did pressure me to share very intimate details about my family a lot sooner than I might with another individual. For me, someone earns that privilege, but in order to bring balance to the relationship, I fearfully shared my other two concerns, which were related to my blood family, for when you marry someone, you marry their family as well.
All of our greatest fears where a partner might think twice before continuing something serious were out in the open. Sounds great, right?
It is all part of the narcissist’s manipulation ploy. Think about it like breadcrumbs. We are all hungry for companionship and intimacy. These types of intimate conversations and disclosure of the most intimate parts of us bond us together, for better or for worse. Naturally, we eat up those “breadcrumbs” thinking more is to follow only to find that everything from here on will be a challenge and wrapped in a continuum of conflict. You will never know true peace with this person going forward, and the short-lived moments that are somewhat good will run on their timetable until any bit of happiness and comfort you may have found in the relationship is destroyed.
You see, they have an agenda, and it is not in the name of love. Love wishes to make the other person happy. Your happiness is not even on their radar. In fact, they are incapable of bringing any sort of peace and security to the relationship so that a healthy foundation is established.
They intend to use you for what they need out of you to feel good about themselves. That is their only goal. They are like sucking vampires. They live off of your light and what affections you shower on them. You are an extension of them– a lifeline– where they can feel some worth within themselves.
They see themselves as a victim in the world– of the highest kind– so much so that they cannot see that they have actually bought into a victim-mentality cycle where they are doing the very thing to someone else! Hence, they are unable to reflect and see themselves for who they truly are.
And don’t you dare try to point any of this out to them, for they are highly sensitive to constructive criticism even when it comes from a place of love. They have no problem dished it out but cannot stomach what is served to them! It will be an unmatched, unequal, nonmutual “give” and “take” type of relationship in every respect. You will never be able to have healthy conversations nor given the chance to be understood.
Because of their tunnel-visioned goal, they have a short fuse– little patience and easily angered– for what needs you may bring up to them at any given time if they have not obtained that main goal of theirs! For any needs you might have or the need of reassurances —because you will question when their words and actions don’t line up— will be of no concern to them. In fact, this is where the gaslighting begins: They will defensively react to your questioning of them and tell you, “That is your problem. This must be coming from someone else that hurt you, and that’s not my problem to fix.” This hiccup of you expressing yourself (i.e. communicating) will irritate them so badly, you will wonder if the relationship is over, brewing more unrest within yourself.
You will replay what or how else you could have said it, thinking that things would be so much better had you not brought it up at all. You will take into consideration what they say (as any person does when in a relationship that matters to him or her) and will more than likely see a similar wound, happenstance, or pattern within your life (I will address later in more detail as it is very important). You will acknowledge and accept there is some truth to what they are saying about you because, after all, if you are broken in that area within (as we all have areas), you will wonder if you are healthy enough to be in a binding connection.
Sadly, while you were trying to learn and love this person through their own hurt and warped mindset of themselves (Sidenote: In this one particular case, he was a covert narcissist– one whose self-deprecation can be mistaken for humbleness), the narcissist has studied you and learned your triggers. They save it up in their arsenal, so that they might use it against you when you confront them about something they’ve done. They turn the tables in EVERY argument, so that they do not acknowledge or resolve any problems you have with them; you will begin to believe you are the broken one and that everything wrong in the relationship must be your fault.
By calling out their puzzling, inconsistent behaviors, they go into overdrive because things aren’t going as planned and their patience runs thin. They must have complete control of you but will make you feel you have lost control of yourself to think such outlandish things with your lack of trust in them and your doubts with their hot-cold attitude toward you. They will test every hard-line boundary you hold to be true in your reality. The ploy is to wear you down until you remove those boundaries all together. For the narcissist, this isn’t about mutual compromises. This is an assault to your rights and morals. Each day, for weeks, maybe even months, you will have to restate what the boundaries are and why, just like you might to a toddler. They will act like they didn’t hear you all the other times and think that a different day, situation, or circumstance means that the boundary is no longer in place and will test it to see if you really mean what you say. They will work relentlessly at eroding your boundaries, especially if it’s in their interest to gain something that they really want.
The interesting thing about this is when you first meet them, they seem to have NO boundaries. Personally, they will have none of their own. They will seem very open and carefree with just about anything. Anything goes for them! However, things will not stay that way. All of a sudden they will have new, established boundaries in the relationship, except there will be no discussion or communication of what those are and when those went into effect. This is where the insecurity seeps in. It will make no logical sense why the boundary has been put in place. As soon as you question the boundary, they will use this to control the relationship or enforce punitive measures, especially if it is something that seems to upset you.
Your insecurities will bring forth a reaction: clinginess. For me, I am an independent person. I have been single for a long time and do not need another person or relationship in my life to feel fulfilled. I slowly stripped away my boundaries, hoping that if I lightened up on mine, he would do the same. BUT, the boundaries you each hold are two very different things: Yours will be your deep-seated beliefs and morals and normal reactions to protect what feels like a predator preying on you; they, on the other hand, will have boundaries that change and move with ebbs and flows, and the rings of fire will move in height and distance because the narcissist wants to see how committed you are to him or her– a warped idea of a relationship.
Photo by Sander Meyer on Unsplash
