How To Get A Narcissist Back After Discard

This post by Elinor Greenberg originally appeared on Quora as an answer to the question "Do narcissists ever discard people permanently?"
The answer depends on three factors, and it also depends on the type of narcissist the person is.

Whether a narcissist discards you permanently depends on three basic factors:

Whether they have an alternative source of self-esteem building narcissistic supplies.
What their relationship style is like.
Whether you want to be discarded permanently.

As one narcissistic client told me: "People are very interchangeable for me. They are like hamburgers or tissues. I need them for what they do for me, not because I like them for themselves. If one won't give me exactly what I want and I have the opportunity to upgrade to a different, better person (better is defined as higher in prestige), I will do it in a heartbeat!"

Having said that, narcissists come in different flavors.

Here are some common types and how they react after they have discarded someone. I sometimes say "him" for the sake of brevity, but there are female versions of these types as well.

Recyclers are people who cycle among the same small group of people over and over again

When they become disenchanted with one person in the group, they immediately move on to the next. Eventually, everyone disappoints them and the first person starts to look appealing again, and they reach out to her again for connection. Recyclers tend to value familiarity. They become nostalgic about person A, when they become angered or disappointed with person B or C. They will likely cycle among the same group of people until someone moves away or dies.

Romantics imagine that they are in love with you and are capable of elaborate and very convincing courtships

In them, the two of you are the very picture of perfect love. In fact there are likely to be many pictures of the two of you posted on whatever internet sites they frequent because it is so important to narcissists that everyone sees you as the perfect couple.

Romantic narcissists may even plan a wedding with you and encourage you to start thinking of names for your children. But…after a while the novelty of enacting the loving couple wears off and they lack the ability to stay emotionally connected to you once things are less than perfect.

They may leave you suddenly and rationalize it in any of a number of ways. Two common ones are:

You aren't who they thought you were. This explanation allows them to relieve themselves of any blame. It is your fault that things did not work out, not their inability to stay committed. Now that the narcissist knows you well enough to see your flaws (and in a narcissist's mind, to be flawed is to be worthless) there is no point staying with you. The truth is that they were never actually in love with you; what they were in love with was the idea of being part of a perfect couple that everyone envied. The emphasis here is on "perfect."
Yours is a doomed and tragic love. The relationship did not work out because tragically it was doomed from the start by forces beyond the two lovers' control. This version of why they are leaving is based on all the romantic and doomed lovers of literature and cinema. Think of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, or Allie and Noah in The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. This scenario appeals to a narcissist because he gets to be as romantic and sentimental about the two of you as he likes, but does not ever have to subject this love to the real tests of everyday life. The lovers in his fantasy are always tragically parted before anyone has to buy the toilet paper.

Novelty seekers get bored very easily

One man told me that he lost interest immediately after sex. Another said that he could not sustain a relationship for more than two weeks. Many of these narcissistic men are simply what I term "trophy hunters": once they have "gotten" you, they immediately lose interest and leave to hunt someone else.

They love the excitement of the chase, not the actual relationship. You will rarely see them again unless they find themselves up late one night, bored and horny. Then suddenly you will find a text from the guy on your phone. He will try and draw you back into a relationship that lasts until he feels satisfied or the sun comes up, whichever event occurs first.

Grudge holdersrarely return to prior lovers

Their personal history is full of splits with people whom they now hate and refuse to talk to, often over events that they have mostly forgotten. The details are vague, all they remember is that they want you to suffer. And that is exactly what they imagine is happening in their absence.

They get more narcissistic supplies for their shaky self-esteem by cutting you off totally, than they ever get in a real relationship. Often this is a family pattern: their mother has a sister she has not spoken to in twenty years and their brother and sister hate each other as well. In fact after years of messy feuds, there are very few intact relationships in this narcissist's family. Holiday dinners are very small and not very cheerful.

The essential question to ask yourself is "Do I want this person back in my life?"

As you can see from the above, many narcissists are quite willing to come back for as long as it suits their needs, while remaining oblivious to yours. If you cannot realistically envision a good future together that does not involve the narcissist suddenly becoming different, you might want to stay "discarded."

All you have to do is never answer any of their texts or phone calls or respond in any way to their attempts to entice you back to serve their needs. The ball is in your court once they contact you. You get to decide what to do, not them. And, late at night when you are lonely and feel yourself weaken, you must never ever text them for any reason.

If they are bored and lonely too, they will answer and the whole thing will start again and end in exactly the same painful way as before.

Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP is in private practice in NYC and the author of the book "Borderline, narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration and Safety."