The narc got caught in another triangle or affair before mine. I had heard little bits of this story. Of course from the narc’s smear campaign, Jen was crazy and the new supply was nobody. He devalued both of them. He failed to mention a trip to Turks & Caicos. I can only reason it was because it was dull for him. As I touched base with both Jen and Her (referred to as "Her" throughout the post to protect her identity), I heard their stories align. The details. The timeline. It all aligned. I felt Jen's pain. I knew that pain all too well; seeing him text another woman, accepting his breadcrumbs, and being gaslit that everything was going to be okay. In a survivor's trauma bond that is enough to make you stay. It’s absolutely maddening because your nervous system is ablaze telling you it’s not going to be okay. And then in front of you is this person, your partner, mirroring your pain, despair, and fear reassuring you it will be okay. That's our cognitive dissonance. And that’s our insanity and ignorance; we desperately want to believe him. This is a narc's psychological abuse and tactic to keep the trauma bonded going. The narc needs supply. The narc knows the old supply desperately wants to believe he will return to the person she met. The narc is fueled by that moment with an emotional reaction.
Initially, when I reached out to Her, she asked “How does he get away with this?”. Simply put, he gets away with this because nobody talks. The women he leaves in his path of destruction are ashamed they ever allowed him to treat them this way. They are left in a state of confusion and with no closure. They question themselves. They question their judgment. They don't recognize themselves. The echoes of his psychological abuse are still loud in their daily thoughts. They want back their dignity, respect, and integrity. So often they lose the ability to trust others. After the covert narcissist discards the old supply, they become survivors and are the only ones in self-reflection. How did I let this get to this point? How did I accept this treatment? Why did I stay? They often shoulder the blame and responsibility for the entire relationship. A shame hangover that can last years. It's not our shame to carry. It's his.
A Path of Despair
I spoke to both of them to get the timeline and details. He breadcrumbed Jen. The trauma bond was intense between them. He continued to breadcrumb her until he secured a new supply. It didn't happen.
Jen
Jen and the Narc were on again, off again. This is the trauma bond in action. And we learned by connecting and talking, the Narc had yet to hook the new supply. Jen suspected someone else. And while it was rocky going, the Narc would repeat to her it was going to be okay, checking in with her, telling her he loved her. A friend of hers mentioned spotting the Narc with a blonde in the grocery store. Repeated attempts to contact the Narc went unanswered. Armed with this information, Jen went to his house and saw a candle flickering in the bedroom window. She knew his playbook, it hasn’t changed to this day.
Her
When I reached out to Her via messenger and asked if she was open to sharing, she replied “It was a brief 3-4 months dating or relationship. He was horrible and it ended traumatically”. The narc pursued Her. She lived in his neighborhood. The Narc wined, dined, gave massages, and promised a grandiose trip. From reading the blog, we all know it's in his narcissist playbook. When talking to Her, the Narc had invited her over for dinner one night. While she wouldn’t sleep with him, he was giving her a massage. She asked what the noise was, it sounded like a rock on the window. In response, the Narc threw Nikki under the bus and didn't take any action. (Nikki had nothing to do with this situation.) Within a few minutes, Jen walks into them 1/2 naked on the bed. She had entered the house through the garage door and was obviously in disbelief and reactive. Their Aruba trip was the following week.
Jen
Prior to finding out about Her, Jen had asked him to go to Aruba (see post It’s More than Jealousy), and to respect the “off again” status, she offered separate beds. He declined, he said he wanted to sleep in the same bed with her on the trip. Finding them in his bedroom happened just days before they were to leave. On the trip, Jen found out he was continuing to text Her, acting as if he was there alone. Of course, Jen was emotionally charged. Here they were on this scuba trip to Aruba, holding hands, lapsing back into relationship territory. On his phone came the message from Her, she was looking forward to their upcoming trip. He had another trip planned with Her?
Her
She recalled she was excited to go to Turks & Caicos. Who wouldn’t be? A new relationship with a romantic trip. He booked it and sent her the itinerary. When she had asked about Jen, whom she knew about, the Narc had told her he and Jen had broken up and it was over. She wanted to believe him, but something was off. She didn’t trust him completely. She followed her instincts and wouldn’t sleep with him.
Jen
After Jen had found the messages on his phone in Aruba, he confessed and agreed to call Her and end the relationship immediately. He claimed he had to leave Her a message. That very night, the Narc asked Jen to go to Turks and Caicos with him instead. Jen said yes, partly out of retribution for his lies, and partly out of a true desire to want to go with him. In a narc abuse survivor's mind, I get that. It's a breadcrumb that feels like a meal.
Her
The Narc and Jen were in the car days after Aruba. They ran into Her at a gas station. He had to cover his tracks, he told Her that he was going to meet family in Florida and needed to cancel the trip to Turks & Caicos. She recalls that same gas station conversation.
Jen
To keep the old supply after he had been caught, the Narc took Jen on the trip. She didn’t want the room he booked for Her though, so they got a room at the resort next door. The original resort wouldn’t refund him, so he ended up paying for 2 rooms on the same trip. The trip to Turks & Caicos was much less eventful than Aruba. In covert narcissistic theory, this pattern makes complete sense. He knew he needed a supply. He knew he had lost the potential for the new supply. So he breadcrumbed Jen to reel her back in. It worked.
Her
He had told Her he was going to Florida, but something was off. She called the resort in Turks & Caicos to find out from the front desk attendant that he had tried to cancel the room while he was down there but instead checked in to the resort next door. She was crushed. That emotional whiplash, sense of betrayal, and being invalidated are all crushing. I know that feeling. That’s emotional and psychological abuse. He was using her to gain emotional supply from Jen. She called him out on his lies as he tried to reach out when they returned. She was devastated. Left in the same puddle of despair and shame that he leaves every partner in.
He didn't care how this affected either one of them. Either way, he knew he had a supply. I know now, he wasn't the victim he claimed to be in this situation. He was deep into his narcissistic patterns, using others to gain enough supply to fill his void.
Trauma Bond
Time doesn't heal the nervous system after a trauma bond. Connecting, talking, coming out of the prison cell of shame, and isolation, and then acknowledging the decisions the Narc made as abuse is what helps to heal it. The after-effects of trauma bonds can leave survivors with physical ailments, hormonal imbalances, and even brain damage. Mentally we are left with echoes from the past. They are still loud and they create doubt. Survivors question their own judgment, they have a learned lack of trust and survive in constant waves of cognitive dissonance. The generic labels of "toxic" and "crazy" don't address the true calculated evil of narcissistic abuse. So much of the time survivors can't place why exactly they acted the way they did because they can't pinpoint the abuse. The conclusion is often drawn, "It must be me, there is something wrong with me". This is how narcissists "get away with it".
Jen's Processing, in her own words.
Yes, the Aruba trip was after I crashed his “massage” session, which was on Black Friday, Nov 23, 2018. The Aruba trip was the week of Dec 2. The memory is fuzzy as to how I came around to begging him to come to Aruba despite knowing he had been with someone else. I had to pick up my scuba gear from him which was the following Wednesday. I remember doing it during my lunch hour. I stood on his driveway with tears in my eyes telling him he was still welcome to come to Aruba if he wanted to. I don’t remember his response but as I left to go to St Louis later in the week to fly out, I was prepared to be on the trip alone. I had to go to my CE conference anyway. I had to buy our plane tickets so when he changed his, I knew he did so. I stayed at my friend’s house in St Louis the night before my flight. By that time, the Narc had changed his flight to arrive later in Aruba. But he called me that night at my friend’s place and told me he was going to go to visit his mom instead. I don’t think he knew that I could see the details of his flight. I didn’t say anything about his flight changing and given his track record, I was prepared for him to show up in Aruba unannounced. I was in Aruba for I think two days, anticipating his arrival according to the flight information I had. When he didn’t show, I was devastated. I called and he was still home. This phone conversation was the ultimate low point for me in the relationship. I was crushed and sobbing that he wasn’t with me in Aruba, begged and pleaded for him to come, telling him how much I NEEDED him. He explained that he did change his flight and even went to the airport, and when he got there, he had brought his expired passport. So he had to drive back home to get the correct passport, had to buy another ticket, then ended up missing that flight. He promised he rescheduled this missed flight to leave the following day and that he’d see me at the airport at whatever time. I fell hook, line, and sinker for all his explanations, but as I look back on all that, I wonder how much truth was actually there. He did finally show up in Aruba and it was on his second night there that I found his text feed to Her. This is how I found out he’d been texting her while in Aruba with me and about their trip to Turks & Caicos in two weeks.
Commentaires