True covert narcissists are easy to pick out because their main manipulative tactics are their use of passive-aggression and doling out silent treatments.
When you’re in the lovebombing phase they will be the ones who study your habits and behaviors (especially if they’re a cerebral-covert narcissist) moreso than other subtypes (such as the overt and malignant narcissists). While the overt narcissist usually woos you with sexual attention and showing you grand gestures, the covert narcissist studies what you respond to most. Ie. If you come off as clingy, which drove other man away, the covert narcissist will bombard you with attention and act as though they love your attention in return. If they notice you really like chai lattes from a specific coffee shop, they will memorize your order and bring that coffee to you every morning on their way to work. Etc. They will do the more subtle things that make you feel uniquely special which goes beyond just bringing you flowers. They do this to capture your full attention and to preoccupy your mind so that all you will think about is how you finally found the one, a man or woman who gets you. They want you to get used to all of those wonderful things because a.) In the lovebombing stage they believe you’re flawless and that you are “the one” for a short time there, so they mirror you to get you to fall for them fast and hard. And b.) Is because once they have you hooked on the fanstasy of them being mister/misses perfect, they know they have control over you.
Which brings us to the devaluation stage. Once they see that you are in fact human and fallible the covert narcissist will be much more subtle in their ways of devaluing you (in the beginning of this stage) than the other subtypes. Because a covert narcissist has you completely hooked on them and they have you completely figured out, they can start mentally abusing you and trauma-bonding you to them once they feel slighted by you. They do so just enough to keep you strung along.
The most dangerous thing about narcissistic relationship
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All of a sudden those text messages that went on all day long from the first “Good morning beautiful”s to the last “goodnight my love”s will turn into short form responses like “hey.” or excuses like “Oh yea, sorry I was busy all day, couldn’t chat”. Of course normal people do get busy in life but with the covert narcissist they will go from always being available to/for you to being the busiest person in the world although nothing in their life has changed for that to happen. You will feel in your gut that he or she is coming up with excuses. That chai latte you love, that you started expecting the covert narcissist to bring you every morning starts not being brought to you anymore with the excuse of “oh, I was running late to work for the 3rd day in a row, so I didn’t have time to get your coffee. Guess I can’t wakeup on time anymore because I’ve been spending so many nights with you.” (Notice the passive aggression, the blame game etc.) Those days where he’d spend every moment of his free time taking you to your favorite museums, talking to you for hours or stopping by your house with takeout food just to spend more time with you, turns into “I have to cancel our plans for this weekend, my boss is really on my ass about finishing this project”. Or “Sorry I can’t make it tonight, I have to work overtime” or “Yea I’m not going to be able to make brunch my aunts cat died and I’m consoling her.” The excuses will be more, the time spent together will be less, and they will put in the least amount of effort in things he or she does do from now on etc. All of those above acts are done on purpose to tear you so far down, to belittle you and to give you enough push & pull to control you.
Those acts are called breadcrumbing and small silent treatments. He was never running late to work… he just chose not to get your chai latte because you showed him that you weren’t superhumanly perfect so he doesn’t feel like impressing you anymore, he’s never too busy to see you…he’s purposefully canceling plans with you to hurt you and to have you as a back-up plan now. He isn’t too busy to text you all the time anymore either, he’s doing so knowing how much you want him to do so but he’s asserting that fact that he is one in control now. At this point the narcissist is usually using all of that time he used to spend with you and talking to you, now searching out a new source (a new Beau), and by the end of your devaluation stage he will be spending that time away from you now lovebombing his new souce. To him at that point you’re an old toy he’s now bored of and he is with his shiny new object. Please note that he isn’t bored with you because of anything you’ve done, but that just comes with NPD and how they act when they see that you aren’t a superhuman, perfect person.
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Also in the beginning of your devaluation stage, maybe even before he’s found a new source, (especially if he felt slighted by you) he’ll start subtly insulting you and framing it as “jokes”, or frame the insults as “general ideas” or by stating “I’m just an honest person.” As his passive aggression begins it will start off as “jokes” ie. Let’s say in a text conversation you state how you feel as though he isn’t paying you as much attention anymore. He may respond by saying a “joke” like “well you’re a needy one aren’t ya ha ha 😜😘”. As the devaluation stage continues he’ll be more in your face with tear downs. For example, let’s say he knows you love Luke Bryan (the country pop star) and he used to love singing along to his songs with you in the lovebomb stage. Now he’ll be sitting in the car and a Luke Bryan song will come on the radio and he’ll say something like “Ugh I have to change this, pop country music is so trashy now”. Or let’s say he hears you telling your girl friends on the phone how you feel insecure about your body and how hard it is for you to maintain a healthy diet. He may say something to you like “You’re wearing THAT dress? Did it shrink in the wash? Oh it’s new? Hm maybe you just put on weight! Hey don’t get mad at me, I’m just an honest person”.
All of the above is him using the manipulative tactics of silent treatments, breadcrumbing, passive-aggression etc. All to play mental gymnastics with you. It will be very subtle in the beginning to have you question what you did wrong. You will be utterly confused because in the beginning of the devaluation stage, especially with a covert narcissist you won’t be having any kind of arguments or fights. As far as you know, things were going great. Now here you are with this “perfect” man and you start thinking to yourself “Omg he stopped texting me as much, it’s been 3 days since I’ve even heard back from him, I know my clinginess drove men away before so I’m not going to ask him why he isn’t talking to me, I’ll look crazy..he already told me he’s been super busy now..but his job never mattered before..what did I do wrong to make him want to see or talk to me less.” Then on the 4th or 5th day he’ll start calling and texting you all day long again, making your endorphins run high and you’ll start to get comfortable and happy again thinking “phew, I was just being crazy ..there goes the man I love.” Only for him to on the 7th day start breadcrumbing you again (giving you just enough attention to keep you strung along) and you crave it because that’s what he programed you to expect all lovebomb-stage along and now you feel as though you need his affection/attention so you put up with the breadcrumbing.
How A Narcissist Devalues You In A Relationship
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That’s when you start the early stages of getting trauma-bonded to them. Same goes with them not bringing you the chai latte in the mornings and all of a sudden him being the busiest person in the world. That’s the push-pull game of the trauma bond. They will make you feel as though you are the love of their life one moment, to making you feel worthless the next moment, to making you feel like their soulmate that next. It’s a never-ending cycle until the day they choose to be “done with you.” You’ll start to contemplate your every move, your thoughts will become consumed with worry that you are doing something wrong that is making him or her change so much (which again, is exactly why they’re changing and doing everything that they’re doing/saying to you…it’s all calculated.) As the devaluation stage continues those passive-aggressive “jokes” and statements start to eat at you. Since he isn’t being outright, you don’t fight him on it, to not look “crazy”, because even when you do question it he’ll make excuses like “Oh I was just joking” or “no babe I’m not judging you for liking Luke Bryan’s music, I just can’t stand pop country anymore” or “no, of course I don’t think you’re fat, I love you just the way you are. I just know how self conscious you are and your clothes are lookng pretty tight on you now.”
Those subtle passive aggressive digs, along with his silent treatments and push/ pull away of his or her attention/affection will definitely make you think there’s something wrong with you that made them “change”. It’ll slowly break you down mentally. Based on the examples I gave above, ways that it will change your life could be things like.. You’ll may start dieting and working out thinking “omg he must think I’m fat and just doesn’t wanna hurt my feelings”. Yet no matter how much you work out you’ll never hear from him how “good you look” or how “good you’re doing”. You’ll start thinking how he hates country pop now, so even though you love Luke Bryan you stop listening to him. Then you’ll start to do things that you’ll think will up your points with the covert narcissist. For example by buying concert tickets to the covert narcs favorite band, only for him to cancel on you 10 minutes before the concert begins, leaving you to watch a band perform all alone, a band you may not even like. You’ll start feeling like you’re walking on eggshells to not push him further away. You may start obsessing…going over conversations you had in your head, reading text convos over and over to see if you said anything wrong etc. and it will slowly start to eat at you.
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As the devaluation stage moves along and he’s scouting out other sources and believes he has a good bead on grabbing a new primary source of supply, the less subtle he’ll be in his devaluation of you. He’ll start to use the next manipulative tactic called triangulation on you. For example those “jokes” on how needy you are start to turn into triangulation opportunities. You’ll say something like “Joey we really need to talk, I know you told me that you’ve been busy at work but I feel as though you’re avoiding me”. He’ll now respond with “wow, I’m starting to envy my co-worker Ron, hisss girlfriend isn’t this clingy and sheee understands our job takes up a lot of our time.” And now here you are, not wanting to seem clingy, feeling crazy, and now comparing yourself to other women. You may start thinking how you better “get it together” or another woman might take your place. Another example of triangulation is now that “honest opinion” about your weight, has turned into him saying over breakfast “Wow hun, another peice of toast? You should hire a personal trainer. My coworker Janice is super toned and fit and she was telling me over lunch yesterday that she hired a trainer and it changed her life. She looks sooo good now.” Now not only are you becoming more insecure about your body, but you’re getting jealous about him spending time with and being so complimentary over a female coworker whom you never heard of before. You don’t bring it up at first because you’re trying desperately to get back the lovebomb guy again and don’t wanna push him away by seeming “crazy and jealous” over a work lunch. Etc. Those states of mind are exactly where a narcissist wants you. The narcissist craves attention and probably doesn’t even see you as clingy, but he or she wants you to believe that they think so by subtly putting it out there. Same goes for let’s say they actually don’t mind your tummy not being flat, but they know you mind so they’ll passive aggressively make you think that they do. They may not care about country pop music one way or the other but they want you to feel as though your likes and interests are garbage now. They also really don’t care about Ron’s girlfriend or their co-worker Janice but they want to make you jealous but subtly enough that they could also call you crazy if you bring other women up. They do all of the above subtly to you as they devalue you because they want to drive you crazy to have control over you. You disappointed them by not being superhuman or by slighting them in some way so now you have to pay. You’ll pay by making you try harder for them, they do so to get their ego boosted by seeing how you’ll even change your tastes and beliefs for them, and because they also need to feel in control of every relationship they need you to feel less than them.
At the end of the devaluation stage, just before the discard phase is when the coverts are the least sublte and the most mean. Depending on how badly he wants to hurt you or string you along is how this part of this stage happens. Based on what I’ve seen, just before the discard stage the coverts become more like the overts. Now fights are happening and they’re plenty. His every word is a tear down of you. Whether he insults your looks, your intelligence, your abilites, your job, your parenting etc. Now he’s actually calling you fat by saying how you should “really lose some weight than maybe he’ll be able to stomach sleeping with you again”, now he’s disappearing for longer periods of time with no more efforts of even giving excuses…and when he finally does give you an excuse it will always be blamed on you. For example he’ll now say things like “Yea, I didn’t call you all weekend because I needed space you’re so clingy.” “No, I didn’t want to text you back because all you want to do is argue.” “Yea I spent my Saturday clubbing with the boys because you stressed me out and I needed to have fun to forget about the stress you cause me.” Etc. Now is usually when you are so trauma-bonded (depending on how long your relationship and abuse went on) that you’re doing everything you can to get back that lovebomb stage man you fell in love with. You keep feeling worse about yourself and try harder to please him. Once he has secured a new primary source of supply is when you’ll be discarded only to hear from him again if he gets bored of his new souce quickly and hoovers you so that you can entertain him as he finds a new source again, then he will disappear once more.
There are many more examples but this is long enough as it is. Hope this helps and I truly hope that since you know that you, or someone you know is in a relationship with a covert narcissist that you/they just discard them and go no contact. Covert narcissists are wolves in sheeps clothing and can cut you with so many papercuts until eventually you are cut into pieces and broken. Once you know you go! Good luck with everything.
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