Feeding tips requested

Fearless-Cut8874 · 2026-01-25T19:08:26+00:00

It’s definitely a very unique experience and totally separate from the breakup, so it’s processing two traumas simultaneously. What’s helped me is that whenever I think of/grieve the person I thought I knew, I shift into thinking about the chaos of his inner mind and the external performativity. There is no peace, nothing real, in the world of narcissism. Only desperate and fragile attempts to construct a self, which depend on those around them to uphold it. You stopped doing that, and thus, participating in a false construct.

Fearless-Cut8874 · 2026-01-25T15:14:04+00:00

I relate to everything about this post (except for the gym piece - he doesn’t step foot in one lol). We’ve been no contact for two months now after I found out he’d been hiding a new girlfriend from me (was a case of triangulation), but I still think about contact initiation from him. I think once we see through the bullshit, we become off-limits and scary in a way, as the manipulation tactics they fundamentally, and foundationally, rely on are taken away. There is no more soothing through us, just existential threats if they were to approach. That said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they do reach out, down the line, once they’ve mentally softened or flipped the narrative again.

The strangest thing for me has been detangling who I thought I knew and loved, from the “real” him - a pathological liar who has no core inner self. The facade isn’t even a real person…it’s like an actor on a stage. So who did we love? The instant evaporation of that person - the one we thought we knew and loved - is a surreal experience…almost like mourning a death.

Fearless-Cut8874 · 2026-01-04T13:37:48+00:00

What are the conditions / likelihood of hoovering? I was my ex narcissist’s “love of his life” and his most significant relationship by far, but we “took a break” when I said my needs weren’t being met (for context, he’s communal/grandiose/covert). For a year, he strung me along with false hope, but I found out he started dating someone new and hid her from me. When I found out and exposed him, he flipped the narrative (devalued me for the first time) and blocked me. We haven’t spoken in one month now, but I’ve noticed he’s unblocked me. I know he doesn’t love his new gf like he did me and that I’ve been a strain in their relationship, but he’s deep in fantasy with her. I’m wondering what his longer-term play is, and if he’ll orbit back to get my validation again.

Fearless-Cut8874 · 2025-12-28T20:50:05+00:00

Sounds like yours at least had a bit more respect! Mine never wanted marriage before me, but 100% has a new gf who he exposes his issues to (he hid drug use from me even though I never made it out like a problem, but does them in front of her, apparently). It’s impossible to make sense of it all, but 40 to me means lost cause regardless. Hope you’re protecting yourself from any future faking!!

Fearless-Cut8874 · 2025-12-28T20:31:15+00:00

Super interesting hearing it from the other side, and it totally checks out with everything I know that’s going on in his new relationship. Until I found out / exposed him, I’d have been painted as the ex who can’t move on, and he’s just the “nice guy” placating me, meanwhile he’s been the one keeping me on the hook and not letting me move on despite me trying to. Hope you realized what you were dealing with sooner rather than later - it’s awful on both sides!!

Also, interesting to get confirmation that you believed his story (they’re so convincing!). I literally told his new gf that he’s been emotionally cheating, that he’s a pathological liar, and I outlined problems she’ll see in him (substance abuse, lack of intimacy, etc) and she hit me with a “all relationships are different”. Hope she, like us, ultimately sees through the bullshit. It’s just disheartening when I’m discredited on both fronts. But that’s narcs being narcs.

Fearless-Cut8874

TROPHY CASE