The 3 Stages of a Narcissistic Relationship

So, if you've ever been in a relationship with a narcissist, you've probably gone through these three stages. So, stage one is the love bombing stage. It's intense attention, deep conversations, the feeling of finally being truly seen, like somebody finally knows who you are. But, what's actually happening is that you are being studied, prodded, checked for vulnerabilities. And while the narcissist is flooding you with attention and affection, ultimately, they are looking for vulnerabilities. Stage two is the devaluing stage. So, the warmth starts to become inconsistent. You have to work harder to get back to how it felt at the start. That's not a coincidence. This is actually part of the manipulation that goes on in a relationship like this. See, if you're caught always guessing, never knowing what sort of reaction you're going to get, then you're going to try extra, extra hard for that validation and approval that came so easily early on. — And in stage three, it's the discard stage. Once you're no longer useful, once you're creating more headaches than you're solving for the narcissist, once they've used up all the empty validation and ego boosting that they were getting from you, often suddenly, they will just discard you and move on as if nothing happened. Now, the most painful part isn't necessarily the discard. It's realizing that the love bombing wasn't real, either. The cycle started the moment that they made you feel like the most important person in the world, but the fact is, you were never important at all.