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Relationship Cycle

You are here: Home / Topics / Relationship Cycle

How to recognize and recover from the sociopaths – narcissists in your life › Forums › Sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths as partners › Relationship Cycle

  • This topic has 7 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 10 months ago by sept4.
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    • July 23, 2021 at 2:20 pm #66116
      Love Defrauded
      Participant

      With cluster B personality disorders, they will engage in a relationship cycle that consists of idealisation, devalue and discard.

      In the idealisation (love bombing) phase, the psychopath will shower their new target with attention and adoration to underhandedly obtain what they want. This is usually for status, power, control, sex, housing, food and money.

      When the target has been completely hooked by the psychopath, the devaluation phase begins. In other words, they are getting rather tiresome of you, however they will engage in intermittent reinforcement, also known as dosing. The target begins to subtly feel them slowly pull away and will usually jump through hoops to get the psychopath to show them the “love” and affection which was showered on during the idealisation phase.

      During the discard stage, the psychopath is or already has been working new targets, cheating and looking for your replacement. By this point you’re no longer fun for them and they have usually secured their hidden agenda from you by this point (housing, food, money, sex, etc).

      Once you come to the end of this stage, the psychopath or will discard you in the most brutal method that goes beyond any form of normalcy. You’ll be seen as a broken toy who no longer provides them with fresh supply that you once did in the first and part of the second phase. Make no mistake, they already have someone lined up to take your place and will then continue the same predatory relationship cycle on their new target(s). They are truly disordered and evil creatures that display a complete lack of empathy or remorse for their actions.

      In a nutshell, you’ll only be abandoned when a new stable target(s) is in place, thereby replacing you. If the new target(s) fail to meet the psychopath’s expectations, it is quite possible they will return to you at some point. This usually entails all three of the above stages again, to re-hook you, but the second go at you will me much more accelerated as opposed to the first time when you originally met them. My ex did this after he stormed out for his affair partner. I then had to sell my house as I could no longer afford the mortgage on my own. Once the house sold, the psychopath returned and love bombed the hell out of me. I later figured out it was only to get me hooked again so he could soak me for the proceeds from the house sale. Needless to say, he was not successful as I had a prenuptial agreement in place (which he thought he could overturn). If the prenuptial agreement hadn’t existed, I would have been completely ruined financially as my ex did not contribute a cent to the equity of our house.

      The only way to stop this madness is to block the psychopath or narcissist on social media, email, text and phone. Going no contact removes their control over you and will cause them to ramp up or continue their duplicitous efforts on new target(s) who are susceptible to their exploitation, control and manipulation tactics. In other words, those who haven’t caught on to the true nature of the psychopath. It’s an insidious process, and it is necessary for their victims to take back their personal power and put a stop to the madness once and for all.

      After I finally left him, he immediately moved on and moved in to his next lover’s home. It was almost instantaneous! I’m still in shock at how quickly he was able to pull it off!

      Has anyone else been through this?

      How long did your psychopath’s next relationship last with their new target?

      • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
      • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
      • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
      • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
      • This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
    • July 23, 2021 at 3:01 pm #66119
      emilie18
      Participant

      I was never completely convinced my ex was a sociopath but he was definitely a narcissist. But, like most disordered, deceitful, compassionless people he led a secret life and only stayed with me long enough to steal whatever he could and left owing me over $15K. I discovered after the fact that his affair with a much younger woman had been going on for months before I finally kicked him out. Even while living with me, he had multiple profiles on dating sites, and immediately after the young bimbo dumped him, hooked up with his next victim. That was just a month after he moved out (after I confronted him on his lies). He stayed with her about 18 months and she finally got in touch with me when he left her taking with him their new truck which he convinced her to sign over to him. He moved in with another woman within a week. Victim 2 told me she discovered he had been seeing Victim 3 for months while living with her and she discovered he had active dating profiles all the while he was with her. We both tried to get in touch with Victim 3, but she spurned our attempts. I can only assume he has already dumped her and is on to newer pastures. So – yes – the relationship cycle for him is based on how much he can steal and how quickly. Took him 2 years with me, 1 1/2 years with #2 and most likely 1 with #3…and he is now 68, so maybe it does escalate with age.

      • July 23, 2021 at 3:18 pm #66120
        Love Defrauded
        Participant

        That’s horrendous! I’m really sorry that happened to you. Thank you for sharing. 😊

    • July 23, 2021 at 4:21 pm #66121
      Freeofnarc
      Participant

      I’m not sure how many times my narcissistic sociopath ex bf cheated. I only knew that he was talking to another female a week before he broke up with me and immediately started dating her after we broke up. The only reason I found out was he wanted to come clean….not really sure why. He said she texted him a few days after we broke up. I told him to let me see his phone or get out. I still do not know why he let me see it. They didn’t go out until after we broke up but I still consider that cheating….lining up his next victim. If he let me know about that, what else was he hiding? I don’t even want to know. He started getting bored of her after a month and contacted me while still dating her. So, again,cheating in my book. I told him off and he went back to saying I love you to her. She saw through his games and dumped him. He contacted me two days later and I let him back in for one day. He was stupid enough to let me see her last name so I found her on fb and we bonded over how terrible he was to us. I let him know that I did by showing some of our messages because he was going right back to her. I ruined his plan and he was angry. I also let some people in his life know what kind of perverted stuff he was into in the bedroom, sharing text messages as proof. I could forgive a lot with him but I cannot forgive cheating. That deserves revenge in my book. So to answer your question he lined up someone else before we broke up, so *immediately* he moved on. He probably moved on before we even broke up.

      • July 23, 2021 at 4:45 pm #66122
        Love Defrauded
        Participant

        .

        • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
        • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Love Defrauded.
        • July 23, 2021 at 4:50 pm #66123
          Freeofnarc
          Participant

          He looked at me like he was confused and said he didn’t know that was cheating. Any other human’s moral compass says that’s cheating. I got some revenge on him so that did make me feel good. I’m very lucky I didn’t marry him or have kids with him. I don’t know how I would recover from that. You ladies are STRONG!!!

    • July 24, 2021 at 9:35 pm #66127
      sept4
      Participant

      Yes I think they all move on immediately. They need a fresh target right away. They have no interest in being alone and working through any normal grieving breakup emotional process like a normal person because they do not feel any grief. They did not love you or care about you so there is no genuine attachment and no grief. All there is for them is an overwhelming desire for new replacement supply. The sooner the better.

      My ex moved on immediately too and within 2 weeks of moving out he was living with someone new. And what is even crazier is that it was an actual new girl just some random girl he just met in a bar. I knew this because I was checking his phone during that time and I knew the women he was already seeing prior and this was actually a new one that he just added to his harem and not one of the ones he was already seeing.

      They don’t care about any individual woman or finding someone compatible etc because they do not seek a genuine relationship. They seek a target for supply. So it can be anyone who complies with that and gives them good supply.

    • July 24, 2021 at 9:42 pm #66128
      sept4
      Participant

      I think for them it is comparable to replacing an appliance like a fridge. If the old appliance goes out of style or has some issue or becomes boring you just discard it and replace it with a new one. Well you are just an appliance to them. Discard old appliance and buy a new appliance right away. Or even better buy the new one before you discard the old one. And once you are enjoying your new appliance you are certainly not grieving your old discarded appliance! You don’t care about your old discarded fridge and don’t even think about it anymore because you have a shiny new fridge now.

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