Devaluation
Many women try to ignore the devaluing in hopes that it will go away on its own and the lovely Love bombing will return. Unfortunately, it will not return because he no longer sees you as the perfect embodiment of all his relationship fantasies. You are off the pedestal he had placed you on.
He feels as if he is the aggrieved party, and that you have been nothing but a disappointment. He thought you were his princess, but now he can clearly see that he has to take his glass slipper and look elsewhere.
Devaluation
Many women try to ignore the devaluing in hopes that it will go away on its own and the lovely Love bombing will return. Unfortunately, it will not return because he no longer sees you as the perfect embodiment of all his relationship fantasies. You are off the pedestal he had placed you on.
He feels as if he is the aggrieved party, and that you have been nothing but a disappointment. He thought you were his princess, but now he can clearly see that he has to take his glass slipper and look elsewhere.
Sections:
- Off the Pedestal
- Devaluation
- Narcissists & Object Constancy
- Why We Need Whole Object Relations
- Why Someone May Lack Empathy
Off the Pedestal
For a narcissist, it's not enough to be liked or appreciated. It only counts when the other person has status or highly valued qualities, such as wealth, beauty, special talents, power, celebrity, or genius.
Narcissists idealize prospective partners to augment their own lack of self-esteem. The thinking is, "If I can win over the admiration of this very attractive person, the I must be worthy.”
As reality creeps into the relationship, they discover that their partner is inadequate or fear that their flawed, empty self will be revealed as expectations for emotional intimacy increase. Any slight or imagined chink in their ideal image of their partner feels painful.
As narcissists' vision of their perfect partner deteriorates, their hidden shame increasingly causes discomfort. They in turn project this onto their partner, whom they criticize and devalue.
As narcissists' vision of their perfect partner deteriorates, their hidden shame increasingly causes discomfort. They in turn project this onto their partner, whom they criticize and devalue.
When their partner's luster fades, he or she no longer provides a satisfactory object to boost their self-esteem. They discard their partner and look elsewhere for a new source of narcissistic supply.
When relationships with narcissists endure, the partner feels drained, hurt, resentful, and lonely. Disrespect and lack of caring damage his or her self-esteem over time.
Devaluation
As the narcissist begins to notice the ways that you do not measure up to his expectations, the fantasy is still fairly intact because he believes that you're still potentially perfect, just in need of a bit of guidance on how you should improve yourself.
If you resist being made over(falling in line) to suit his ideas and insist on being yourself, he will first be puzzled and then he will start to devalue you. Unfortunately, individuals who suffer from narcissistic disorders do not have "object constancy."
If you resist being made over(falling in line) to suit his ideas and insist on being yourself, he will first be puzzled and then he will start to devalue you. Unfortunately, individuals who suffer from narcissistic disorders do not have "object constancy."
Object constancy is the psychological term for the ability to maintain your positive feelings for someone while you feel hurt, disappointed, frustrated, or angry with the person. It is developed during childhood, but it requires that the parents who are raising the child have that ability themselves..
Everyone has disagreements, but if you can remember that you love the person while you are fighting with her, it limits how much damage you are likely to do to the relationship and each other.
Object constancy is the glue that keeps relationships together.
If you go along with all of your narcissist's desires (demands) and can be persuaded, he'll temporarily be satisfied.
The romantic feelings lost from whenever you 'bucked back' will return to him once you cave in, and then his hurt, anger, and disappointment will vanish because you would have changed to fit his ideal.
But if you refuse to cave in(obey) whatever little amount of object constancy that he possessed will disappear along with any of his positive feelings for you.
Now that you have disappointed him you are taken off of the pedestal he placed you on, no longer perfect, and not amenable to persuasion..
Thus, the devaluing begins.
If you manage to resist the narcissistic partner's attempts to remake you to fit his idealizations and he has gotten used to devaluing you without significant consequences, he's likely to shift to control you.
Why does he not break up with you permanently at this point and go find a different woman, if he is so unhappy? The answer is something along the lines of the following:
Why does he not break up with you permanently at this point and go find a different woman, if he is so unhappy? The answer is something along the lines of the following:
- He takes it as a personal attack on him when you refuse to go along with his plans.
- Dominating you makes him feel powerful again. When you said "no" to him, he saw your lack of submission to his wishes as you trying to dominate him-something he believes he simply cannot allow.
The Purpose of Devaluing Is Two-fold:
Part of it is simply an attempt to change you so that you will fit into his script ( idealized expectations ) and the other part punishes you for not giving him what he wants.
If being nice doesn't get the narcissist what he wants, he is quite willing to be nasty. Without empathy or object constancy, there are no negative emotional consequences for him.
His capacity for real interpersonal intimacy with a woman is quite underdeveloped. Devaluing you is just another tool to get what he wants or believes he deserves.
Narcissists & Object Constancy
Narcissists aren't capable of something called 'object constancy' - and it helps explain part of the reason why they are so cruel to the people they date
It's normal to fight with your significant other, but narcissists can be incredibly cruel and threatening in heated situations. This is because they cannot see you as somebody they love, and someone who has angered them at the same time.
Something traumatic could have happened in their early life, meaning they didn't develop "object constancy." We're all guilty of saying hurtful things in the heat of the moment. Every relationship has its ups and downs, usually resulting in arguments, but these don't necessarily mean you're going to break up.
When we quarrel with our loved ones, most of us have the ability not to do too much damage. This is because of something called object constancy. It basically means having the ability to still have a positive emotional bond with someone when you are also feeling angry, hurt, or disappointed with them. It also means being able to feel emotionally connected to that person when they are not physically around you.
To most of us, this is a given, and we can move past the little things. However, to those with narcissistic personality disorder, or people who are psychopathic or sociopathic with narcissistic traits, the negative feelings they have towards someone in the moment are all they can focus on.
If you date a narcissist, chances are they saw you as a worthy target, then they love bombed you into thinking they were your perfect match. They target strong, successful people to prey on partly because they like a challenge, and partly because it makes them look good. However, then they start breaking down your spirit with their abusive, gaslighting behavior, then discard you suddenly and brutally.
People who have been in narcissistic, abusive relationships often describe their partner as having a "Jeckyll and Hyde" behavior - one moment they are acting like everything is perfect and you are the love of their life, but something switches and a monster appears in front of you who is angry, cruel, and threatening.
According to Shannon Thomas, a therapist and author of the book "Healing from Hidden Abuse," abusive people can switch between Jeckyll and Hyde so easily because they never take any responsibility for their actions. This is also why they are able to move on so quickly from seemingly relationship-ending arguments, sometimes pretending that they didn't happen at all.
"It's that lack of empathy and that lack of attachment that they can just go from one place to the next," "If nothing ever sticks to them, if there's no actual remorse, and no guilt of any kind, then its always someone else's fault.
I describe them like Teflon, the frying pan, nothing sticks to them, nothing ever really is their responsibility, it's always projected out."
The lack of object constancy in the narcissist's mind means they cannot cope with the idea that the person they are dating doesn't exactly fit into how their ideal mate should look, think, and behave.
Something traumatic could have happened in their early life, meaning they didn't develop "object constancy." We're all guilty of saying hurtful things in the heat of the moment. Every relationship has its ups and downs, usually resulting in arguments, but these don't necessarily mean you're going to break up.
When we quarrel with our loved ones, most of us have the ability not to do too much damage. This is because of something called object constancy. It basically means having the ability to still have a positive emotional bond with someone when you are also feeling angry, hurt, or disappointed with them. It also means being able to feel emotionally connected to that person when they are not physically around you.
To most of us, this is a given, and we can move past the little things. However, to those with narcissistic personality disorder, or people who are psychopathic or sociopathic with narcissistic traits, the negative feelings they have towards someone in the moment are all they can focus on.
If you date a narcissist, chances are they saw you as a worthy target, then they love bombed you into thinking they were your perfect match. They target strong, successful people to prey on partly because they like a challenge, and partly because it makes them look good. However, then they start breaking down your spirit with their abusive, gaslighting behavior, then discard you suddenly and brutally.
People who have been in narcissistic, abusive relationships often describe their partner as having a "Jeckyll and Hyde" behavior - one moment they are acting like everything is perfect and you are the love of their life, but something switches and a monster appears in front of you who is angry, cruel, and threatening.
According to Shannon Thomas, a therapist and author of the book "Healing from Hidden Abuse," abusive people can switch between Jeckyll and Hyde so easily because they never take any responsibility for their actions. This is also why they are able to move on so quickly from seemingly relationship-ending arguments, sometimes pretending that they didn't happen at all.
"It's that lack of empathy and that lack of attachment that they can just go from one place to the next," "If nothing ever sticks to them, if there's no actual remorse, and no guilt of any kind, then its always someone else's fault.
I describe them like Teflon, the frying pan, nothing sticks to them, nothing ever really is their responsibility, it's always projected out."
The lack of object constancy in the narcissist's mind means they cannot cope with the idea that the person they are dating doesn't exactly fit into how their ideal mate should look, think, and behave.
When they realize the person they are with is human, with faults and imperfections, that's it. They move on to their next mark, leaving the other person confused and heartbroken.
Why We Need Whole Object Relations
If you failed to develop whole object relations as a child, do not worry. You can develop it as an adult.
You were born with the capacity to develop whole object relations and it is never to late to do so.
What is meant by whole object relations?
This is the ability to form an integrated, realistic, and relatively stable image of oneself and other people that simultaneously includes both liked and disliked aspects and also strengths and flaws.
If you do not have whole object relations, you can only see yourself and other people in a split and un-nuanced way as either all good or all bad. It is as if you had to sort all your experiences with yourself and other people into only two buckets: the all-good bucket or the all-bad bucket.
A lack of whole object relations and object constancy is characteristic of people who are diagnosed with personality disorders. For example, from an object relations theoretical point of view, the main difference between simply having narcissistic traits versus qualifying for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder is based on the narcissistic person's lack of whole object relations and object constancy.
What makes the lack of whole object relations such a problem?
— This way of looking at people distorts reality.
No person is all good or all bad. We are all a mixture of traits and behave differently with different people at different times.— It leads to unstable relationships.
If you need to see people as all good or all bad, every time someone does something that does not fit into your current bucket, you will either have to deny reality and ignore what is happening or you have to switch them into the other bucket.
This means you could be seeing someone as all-good one moment and tell the person, "I love you" with great sincerity and then two minutes later, when they do something you do not like, now see the person as all-bad and with equal sincerity say, "I hate you."
There are two separate irreconcilable histories.
When you are in the split state of seeing someone as all good, the entire history of imperfect bad moments in your past together becomes part of the unseen background.
You respond to the person as if the person had always been all good.
The same is true when you are seeing them as all bad.
The same is true when you are seeing them as all bad.
Now you ignore any evidence that the person has been good to you in the past and you have had many enjoyable moments together.
It is accompanied by a lack of object constancy.
People who lack whole object relations also lack object constancy.
Object constancy is the ability to maintain your positive feelings for someone while you are feeling hurt, angry, frustrated, or disappointed with their behavior. Without object constancy, every fight becomes a potential breakup.
Object constancy is the ability to maintain your positive feelings for someone while you are feeling hurt, angry, frustrated, or disappointed with their behavior. Without object constancy, every fight becomes a potential breakup.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/201902/how-do-you-develop-whole-object-relations-adult
Why Someone May Lack Object Constancy & Empathy
When you're with a narcissist, you stop doing things for yourself because they don't like you doing things for yourself.
Be really clear in your head that this person is a narcissist and really nothing can be done about it. The only thing you can do about it is to take care of yourself.
A well-respected and cited American psychologist Margaret Mahler studied object constancy in infants. In her work she noted that once a child starts to crawl, it begins to understand that it is separate from its mother, and starts to develop a sense of self.
However, some children grow up with this part of their development being fragmented somehow. The reasons for this are not well understood in psychology yet, but both nature (genetics) and nurture (parenting) could play a role.
For example, Mahler wrote that if a child's caretaker is abusive, this can result in a defense mechanism in their psychology called "splitting," which could help explain why some people grow up with a lack of object constancy - and then become narcissists with the inability to have empathy for others.
In this situation, the child needs to feel cared for, even though their parent isn't supplying them with that, and so they repress the negative aspects of the "object," the mother, so they can hold onto the positive ones. In the child's mind, the idea of the mother is being preserved and destroyed at the same time.
According to psychiatrist Perry Branson in a blog post on Psychology Today, this can result in dissociation from the situation. This can happen in adulthood when the narcissist is under stress, such as being in an argument with their significant other. They dissociate from the positive feelings while they are experiencing negative ones and vice versa, seeing the other person as all good or all bad. It's similar to how a toddler has a temper tantrum.
A well-respected and cited American psychologist Margaret Mahler studied object constancy in infants. In her work she noted that once a child starts to crawl, it begins to understand that it is separate from its mother, and starts to develop a sense of self.
The first object children learn is their mother, and how all the different parts of her - her voice, arms, ability to feed - all belong to the same being. They also learn that when she leaves the room, she will come back again.
However, some children grow up with this part of their development being fragmented somehow. The reasons for this are not well understood in psychology yet, but both nature (genetics) and nurture (parenting) could play a role.
For example, Mahler wrote that if a child's caretaker is abusive, this can result in a defense mechanism in their psychology called "splitting," which could help explain why some people grow up with a lack of object constancy - and then become narcissists with the inability to have empathy for others.
In this situation, the child needs to feel cared for, even though their parent isn't supplying them with that, and so they repress the negative aspects of the "object," the mother, so they can hold onto the positive ones. In the child's mind, the idea of the mother is being preserved and destroyed at the same time.
According to psychiatrist Perry Branson in a blog post on Psychology Today, this can result in dissociation from the situation. This can happen in adulthood when the narcissist is under stress, such as being in an argument with their significant other. They dissociate from the positive feelings while they are experiencing negative ones and vice versa, seeing the other person as all good or all bad. It's similar to how a toddler has a temper tantrum.
www.businessinsider.com/narcissism-object-constancy-2017-8
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cycle-narcissism-why-do-teeter-between-love-hate-kim-saeed