So, your narcissist has once again graced you with the gift of their absence.  Perhaps, as has happened so many times before, some innocuous little nothing happened that sent your narcissist off the deep end and they stormed off, childishly punishing you with the silent treatment.  And now all of your texts, phone calls, even e-Mails go unanswered – let’s be honest, ignored.  If you’re still in love with your narcissist, I know this hurts very deeply. I’ve been there more times than I can count or care to remember.  And though it might not feel like it at the moment, you are quite fortunate.

We’re working off the premise that you and your narcissist are still in the cyclic throes of the discard and hoovering phases and not at the final discard phase.  However, regardless of where you are in your relationship with your narcissist, even if it is the final discard, there’s one reality you must not only accept but embrace:  your narcissist will never change.  You can’t change them.  You can’t save them.  And you will never, under any circumstances, be able to redeem them.  They are like a leopard who tries to change its spots:  changing is easy, not changing back, that’s the hard part.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s try this exercise.  For a moment, cast your mind.  Reflect back to when and how you first met your narcissist.  It was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?  Someone showering you with so much of their time, affection, attention, adulation – it felt like you’d won the relationship lottery, didn’t it?  And how long did it last?  A month?  Maybe two months?  Three tops?  And then what?  At whatever point the initial love bombing phase ended, you began to notice your narcissist changing, albeit slowly and, initially, subtly.  Though, in retrospect and comparison between then and now, the change/s were polar opposites, weren’t they?  And not just little changes.  They were pretty monumental, weren’t they?  Where your narcissist used to make unbelievable sacrifices, especially when it came to investing time and energy into you and the relationship, seeing each other almost every single day, now they can barely seem to find the time to see you once in a week…maybe even two weeks or longer.  But they seem to have plenty of time for other people and recreational activities, don’t they?  And when you try to talk to them, try to ask them why, they simply retort with, “I’m just so busy,” and or, “Please understand.”

My beautiful, I know you’re hurting.  I also know what you’re thinking.  I know what you’re praying for and hoping to transpire.  I say this kindly, hopefully saving you the ongoing agony of repeating my horrifying history vicariously through you, “It will never come to fruition.”  Your narcissist – the amazing, loving, affectionate, attentive person you met and fell in love with, not the abysmal person with whom you now find yourself saddled and shackled, and with whom you’ve struggled to make this “relationship” work over the past series of months or even years – will never come back to you.  That’s your hope, isn’t it?  That’s the prayer which silently, saltily seeps from the corners of your eyes every night as you lie in bed wishing they were beside you, isn’t it?  That they come back to you and love you like they once did?  They keep saying, “The person you first met is the real me!  They’re just too scared/damaged/broken/[insert misleading falsehood of hope here] to come back out.”  Don’t believe their deception for a moment.  The selfish, self-absorbed, callously insensitive person to whom you’ve been giving unconditional love, the person whom you have afforded second chance, after chance, after fruitless chance, the person with whom you have so very freely and lovingly shared your body, bed, bower, beautiful soul – that is who they truly are.  The person you met and with whom you fell in love was nothing more than an illusion, a falsehood.

The only thing genuinely amazing about your narcissist is the fact that they were able to win your beautiful heart through their deception and duplicity.  It was your narcissist’s need to have their fragile and delicate ego fed that led them on their journey of seeking a nurturing soul, your soul.  And it is your natural disposition as a sensitive, loving, nurturing healer;  an empath, that drew you to this miserably broken, ineffably flawed, and remarkably unredeemable person.  And it’s what keeps drawing you back to them as well as drawing them back to you – a sick cycle.  With every passing day apart, your emotional vampire begins to hunger, longing for a feeding.  And, while others in their [reverse] harem can placate the narcissist’s hunger to a limited degree, it’s you, with your seemingly endless reserves of love, caring, compassion, and understanding that draws them back to feed on and from you, again and again.  This is why they come back.  This is why they stay.  And this is why they leave.  Once their hunger has been slacked and satiated, they are ready to cast you aside and continue on without you.  Your love, while unconditional, is not truly endless.  The more they take, the more you give.  But at some point, you will become emotionally bankrupt.

Do yourself a favor.  Do your soul the greatest kindness conceivable.  Leave.  If you haven’t already, leave them and this fresh hell behind.  If they’ve already done you the kindness of having left (probably for the umpteenth time), block them on all social media and even your phone – you’re not strong enough yet to hit the IGNORE button as cavalierly as they.  If your presence mattered so little to them, do you honestly think your absence will matter at all?  Harsh words?  Perhaps.  True words?  None truer.  Yes, they do keep coming back – but only because they are hungry for another feeding from your soul!  If they truly cared about you, about you and them, about the relationship and all those lofty dreams and life-goals you planned together as you laid in bed at night laughing, talking, sharing; loving, they would never have left to begin with.

“That’s easy for me to say.”  Is that what you’re thinking?  How I wish that were true.  My beautiful, I wasted 4-½ years of my life riding a Russian rollercoaster of unimaginable highs and hell-laden lows, thinking all of these same things that you are now thinking.  “If I just hang on, s/he’ll come back to me.  If I just share with her more of me and my heart, love a little harder, a little longer, a little deeper, the person I first met and loved will return to me.”  4-½ years of my life thrown away, wasted, on someone not deserving of being spat upon if they were on fire when I could have, instead, been investing all of that time, spirit and love into something truly amazing with someone even more amazing who would have been worth burning for a thousand times over.

Please believe me.  Please embrace this truth:  your narcissist will never change.  They will always be the antithesis of the person you love.  They are not your salvation.  They are your damnation.  Yes, they can change.  They can be kind, loving, compassionate, but it will not last because it is not genuine.  The most difficult part of a leopard changing its spots, is not changing back.  And they will, every single time.