The 3 Stages of a Narcissistic Relationship and Knowing When to Leave

Remember when love was exciting, full of surprises, and intoxicating?

Everything about you both is brand new to the other and there’s nothing you don’t want to know. You want to be around each other all of the time, no matter what and you never get sick of each other (yet).

Have things suddenly gone past stale to unhealthy, isolating, and toxic?

Have you ever been “love bombed”?

What is “love bombing”? It’s when someone showers you with love and affection constantly. It sounds great until you realize they could be using it to negatively influence you. It can be used as a way to eventually control you. It’s something you can often find in abusive relationships. If you are experiencing something like this, then perhaps you’re experiencing narcissistic love. Narcissistic love is when you’re in a relationship with someone that makes everything about them. Everything is always about how you hurt them, or how you don’t pay them any attention. Some of these complaints can be valid, but when it’s all of the time and they fail to acknowledge any toxicity they project onto you, then you got yourself a narcissist. These types of relationships can often become one-sided with one partner needing admiration all of the time and disregarding their partner’s feelings every chance they get.

It’s the latest buzzword when discussing relationships. If you look around you can easily find information on toxic relationships.

More specifically, you will find a lot about narcissists and what a relationship is like with them. If you’re unsure if this pertains to your relationship, there’s three main phases to a relationship with a narcissist.

1. Idealize

This phase is characterized by love bombing, smothering with love/praise, intense sex, vacation, and an outpour of love. This is how they reel you in and you become absolutely enamored with them. After a while, all you can think about is them. The point of this phase is to get you to fall for them and be head-over-heels. Once you feel that way for them, it’s easier to manipulate and control you.

2. Devalue

This is where it gets rough. This phase is where you see and feel the gaslighting, putdowns, lacking emotional/physical intimacy, withdrawing affection, or projection. In this stage, they start to make you feel like you’ve done something wrong. Everything you do may start to annoy them and then they start to minimize that love and affection you once received.

3. Discard

This is the hardest phase. The narcissist that you have grown to love and make excuses for grows bored with you as a partner and abandons the relationship. This is the last stage where they are done taking everything they need from you and moving on. The end is very abrupt and emotionless on their part. There wasn’t a connection with you but more so what you had to offer. The craziest part is even when you recognize you are with a narcissist and trying to get out or set boundaries, this phase is still very confusing and painful. There is nothing wrong with you for being hurt by their ability to be callous and quick to discard.

It is so hard for people to acknowledge when they are in these types of relationships because they often feel ashamed or embarrassed that they even let it happen in the first place. Who honestly wants to admit that they let someone gain that much control over them. Absolutely no one. But to get out of it and put an end to the madness, you have to admit it. We’ve all had our fair share of toxic moments, so no judgment here.

The best thing to do with a narcissist is a tactic known as grey rock. This refers to the ability to disengage and under-respond to a narcissist. It’s challenging because as soon as you start to under-respond to them, it seems as if they turn up the intensity and the heat of their actions. They are more offensive, disrespectful, humiliating, and hurtful for the purpose of getting your attention. Once they have your attention and you’re engaged in their back-and-forth, then they know that you still care about them and they can continue to use you for their own gain.

If your relationship is starting to feel one-sided and you’re starting to feel like everything you do isn’t good enough or you feel like I just described your relationship, recognize that you’re dealing with a narcissist and get the hell out of there! Prioritize yourself and your emotions over theirs. They will be ok once they move on to another victim, you on the other hand will still be recovering.