But if you’ve been through this, what always comes next? It’s the devaluation phase. A covert narcissist specifically feels much more victimized by the world than their grandiose counterparts. So, they feel like the world has kept them down, you have kept them down so they’re not going to want to see you happy for too long.
So, when you’re in that place, eating up all of this love bombing watch out. It’s not going to be long before they start to knock you down and devalue you. They will put you up on a pedestal only to knock you down. And unfortunately, our minds don’t really work that way we don’t necessarily think to look out for this. We don’t think that somebody we love (or somebody we think loves us) is going to build us up only to knock us down. But that is exactly what a narcissist will do.
And if you’ve been in this kind of relationship, you know you’ve experienced it and it happens in so many different ways. But the idealization, the love bombing, leading to devaluation that’s one pattern you’ll always find with a narcissist.
2. Intermittent reinforcement
Another reason why the abuse feels like love is because of intermittent reinforcement this happens when there’s inconsistent affection and abuse. So, you don’t know when you’re going to get which side of this person. You don’t know when that other shoe is going to drop you just know that it’s going to after some time. And so, you’re always chasing that positive reinforcement, always chasing their approval.
And they’re really good at getting you to believe that the devaluation those moments when they’re incredibly cold or mean to you, when they say things that nobody should say to another person (much less somebody they claim to love) they’re really good at making you believe that those are the moments when they’re not being themselves. That they were just in a mood or made a mistake.
Even if you’re in a situation where there was infidelity, they’re very good at getting you to believe that it was just a mistake, a one-time thing, it won’t happen again: “I realize the error of my ways, and I will never again do anything to jeopardize our relationship.” (At least, not until next week.)
But when things are good, they’re good. And if you landed in a relationship like this, there’s a good chance that you’re used to this type of intermittent reinforcement and that you might relate it to love. Somewhere in your subconscious, this is familiar to you. You may even feel a sense of nostalgia for this type of relationship but that’s not because it’s good or healthy. It’s just because it’s familiar.
If you’ve experienced this type of intermittent reinforcement from your caregivers early on (the people who were supposed to love you), then it’s going to be natural for you to associate this push-and-pull dynamic with love.
You may also want to read this:
Once the Narcissist Hurts a Loyal Woman, She Will Never Be The Same
What Happens To Narcissists When They Get Older?
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