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A narcissist will always return to an ex-lover to ensure that his narcissistic supply still pines for him and that she never moves on from the pain he has caused her. Referred to as the hoover (or, as I like to call it, The Hoovering, because, to me, it smacks of a scary movie!), this return is very deliberate and typically won’t occur until the narcissist has been gone just slightly longer than the time before. By timing these reappearances perfectly, the narcissist conditions his victim to not only expect him to come back but also to expect him to come back at a much later date, thus giving him more play time in the interim. All of this is part of the narcissist’s control/validate tactic which, in turn, is all a part of the process of managing down our expectations of the relationship so that we expect less and less and he gets away with more. It’s such a subtle conditioning that victims often don’t even know it’s happening…like a horror show coming soon whether you like it or not.
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As you know, a hoover usually follows a silent treatment (which is really a break-up in disguise, by the way) and comes long after the victim has been completely devastated by the silence. The narcissist may hoover in several different ways and for various reasons, with each hoovering event staged according to that pathological relationship agenda that all narcissists live by.
For example, a narcissist may 1) come back full-on by simply showing up and expecting to pick up right where he left off without a single repercussion, OR 2) not quite ready to return but still wanting you to prepare for the possibility, he’ll begin hoovering with a sporadic text or an email or he’ll ring your phone (hanging up before you answer) from either his number or one he knows you’ll recognize and associate with him. With the second type of hoover, any attempts on your part to return the text, call, or email will likely go unanswered because the intention here is not to actually communicate with you but rather to warm you up to the situation…to get you feeling anxious, confused, and maybe even quietly excited about his possible return.
Whichever tactic he uses, the narcissist’s intention is to keep your mind spinning with “what-if’s” so that you never even get a chance to move on. Again, as part of his agenda, this manipulative behavior lays the groundwork for the next discard which, of course, will come faster (after his return) and with far more crippling intensity than all the discards before it. This agenda – which all victims of narcissist abuse are familiar with – is described in great detail in my book When Love Is a Lie. Nothing a narcissist ever does is random and that’s a fact.
For my narcissist ex, changing cell numbers before a return (and arming himself with a ridiculous excuse as to why he did it) became his preferred tactic for erasing his tracks. This tactic caused me a great deal of anxiety and sleepless nights and I even created a name it – The Cell Phone Game. It took many years to figure it out but I finally concluded that the timing of each number change and subsequent hoover was directly related to the condition of his relationships and the direction that he felt he had to run. Of course he never admitted to this, but I am confident to this day that my theory was spot-on. For 13-years, if he wanted to return, new numbers were not only part of the hoover with me but also a way to disappear from someone else. Like any good narcissist, he knew exactly how to do it and I’m sure you’ll find that it sounds familiar.
Anywhere from 2-weeks to 3-months after a deafening silence, the hoovering would begin. If my ex intended to return full-on, he’d simply text out-of-the-blue from his new cell number, asking to meet me for a drink (and, sadly, those were the only times he’d ever take me out). If he was just testing the waters and not quite ready for me to have his new number, he’d hoover by giving my phone just a single ring from odd numbers around town belonging to businesses and payphones – numbers that no one in the world except me would ever recognize on a Caller ID. In essence, he’d be counting on me to recall those numbers as the random numbers he used to call me from when we were together and he had no phone at all! And he was right… I always recognized them and felt instant anxiety. Again, nothing a narcissist does is ever random. Everything is a strategy. With my ex, I’m sure that the odd locations from where he’d call me when he had no phone (while we were together) became a way to set the the stage for future hoovering when he didn’t want me to know his new number. And I’m sure that his nonchalant disinterest in taking me out during the good times had much to do with his planning for future hoovers where just a single text (out-of-the-blue) requesting a “date” was all that was needed to grab my attention. Sound far-fetched...or does it sound familiar?
If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this: a narcissist only hoovers and/or returns to ensure that you never move on from the pain he has caused you. No matter what he tells you, this is the only reason. A narcissist’s intention, after all, is to always keep you in the queue, ready and waiting alongside all the others (and there are always others). Hoovers are stuffed with lies and future-fakery and downright bullshit. It’s a sick game of cat and mouse that will steal years from your life if you allow it. At some point we have to simply say “That’s enough” and refuse to be there when the narcissist returns.
No Contact is the key to escaping The Hoovering and the narcissist’s life-long plan for you. It’s also the only opportunity you’ll ever have for breaking the codependency to hope that the narcissist counts on you to cling to while he’s gone. Remember, the narcissist is never worried about what you’re doing while he’s gone or that you’ve found a better love because he’s conditioned you to wait for him…to wait for the hoover.
It’s time to ignore the subtle signs of hoovering and get on with your life. No one has a right to manipulate our emotions and it should never be acceptable to any of us. By enabling the narcissist’s behaviors, we set ourselves up to fail each and every time and we deserve better. Say “no more” and mean it! Remain committed to No Contact and to creating your happiness. I, for one, know you can do it!
Stay strong and I’m here to support you….
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Kitty
February 17, 2022 at 12:20 amI’ve heard of the cell phone game. What about the social media game? My ex only wants to be on social media if he has a current partner for that reason only. My ex followed a pattern. When his first wife left, he deleted his FB acct which had pictures of the two of them everywhere. He posted nothing else. When he met me, he created another acct “just for me” and I mean that literally. He posted nothing but photos of the two of us or posts pertaining to our relationship. When he discarded four years later, same. Deleted his FB acct when I left. Created another acct a few weeks later with his new supply. Same pattern. Only posts info if it pertains to his relationship. It seemed as though he wanted to get my attention by triangulating, so I avoided his page and told my friends to stop relaying his whereabouts. It’s as though FB is their fake world stage.
Why do I say ‘fake’? You know what he does NOT post? The fact that she has stolen 15K from him. The fact that he found out she’s homeless and has no credit score. The fact that he wants to evict her in but she threatened to take the script he wrote her to the medical board(he’s a physician). The fact that he moved her in quickly when he discarded me (for his issues with loneliness, he says) without a basic google check on her. The fact that she’s known locally for conning men on dating sites. The fact that she has serious psychiatric conditions. The fact that he called me crying two months into his new relationship for my legal advice and reconciliation, frantically texted me for two days that he missed me and I’m the only person with whom he can live (whatever that is supposed to mean). When I refused to take him back, back to lovey-dovey FB posts everywhere! I haven’t been looking at his page. This gets back to me through my friends who have witnessed his behavior and read all of his texts to me. They think he’s completely insane and dangerous. As an adult, I tried to politely ignore his page and do my own thing. Well, he had to have been stalking my page. I deleted all common contacts when I left him and there’s no ties, yet he reacted to a public post I posted with a sad emoji. That startled me since he has always stalked me digitally and insisted on buying all my technical devices. I found a hidden network on my computer just a month ago which I had never installed myself. Unplugged all my surveillance. He is still trying to get my attention by any means possible since I’ve ignored any further texts he sent.
Now, I finally understand why blocking/no contract is advised. They want to stay on your mind forever, make you feel guilty for leaving(even if they discarded), make you feel it’s your fault the marriage ended and you should take them back after they’ve discarded you like yesterday’s trash, the same way they are willing to discard the new supply for you as though she’s trash, too. It’s the craziest thing. There’s no loyalty. No empathy. He even referred to her as “more convenient to me in location right now”. He has been angry that I refused to sell my own home an hour away and hadn’t yet found renters interested. In hindsight, he wanted me to have nowhere to go when devaluation began. If the new supply is homeless, she more controllable. I never thought such evil existed in a marriage. You realize that the one person who vowed to love and protect you, they had an agenda to destroy you if you didn’t let yourself be completely controlled. I’m still in shock five months later. This is something nobody saw coming. Not my family, my friends, my minister, my cat, nobody. He was that good at appearing to genuinely care about me. Actually, I’m worried what he’ll do next. I’m just beginning to date after this discard five months ago. I’ve heard that’s when they get more dangerous if they find out. What are we supposed to do, live in a bubble?
choco
November 11, 2021 at 12:03 amI’m currently experiencing this, its started with a text from him around 5 months ago, but I ignored and blocked it immediately (couldn’t change cellphone number yet, due to most of my bank accounts,etc are connected here), then soon after that text, I started to receive phone calls on our landline which, when we answer, there’s no voice or sound at all. (Sad that we don’t have a caller ID) and its been 5 months, and the call still hasn’t stop. I’m getting anxious about it honestly, I couldn’t have the landline number change as my fam especially my dad has no idea about this. I do plan to just ignore/ stop answering the call. My only worry is, what if he suddenly show up in our house. (he knows where I live sadly). I can’t move, since I don’t have a place to move out to and I don’t want to leave my family, as I’m scared he might do something to them. 🙁
jane kelley
March 27, 2021 at 7:47 pmHi Zari, this is a great article! I just found you and I’m so glad. I’ve been having trouble deciphering whether the man I was recently involved with is a narcissist or not. He did love bomb me at the beginning and wrote me a love letter entitled “Heart Awakening” after just 3 weeks of dating. At the beginning, he wanted to see me ALL the time, and I had to slow down the pace. He started telling me he loved me every day around week 4 and spoke often of buying a house together and future marriage and children. But he would also play hot and cold, come up with a romantic idea, then forget about it or shrug it off when I would bring it up again. He would come extremely close, then when I would reciprocate, he would pull away.. couldn’t tell if it was fear of intimacy (though he had been married for several years and divorced for over a year), or just a control tactic. A couple months in, I started to realize he was extremely shallow and cared mostly about looks and appearance. He would comment often on others’ looks and different parts of my body, how beautiful I was, and how lucky he was that he was the man who got to have me. He is also a personal trainer and obsessed with the gym, even inspired me to get back into the gym and working out (a positive takeaway). He even did one of those men’s physique fit shows with the fake tan and shaved body and everything. He would talk about his ex-wife (or ex-girlfriends sometimes) and even compare me, talk about how great or “high-value” they were, but then in the next sentence tell me how bad or greedy they were. He would mention how his ex was so materialistic and that he was so glad I wasn’t like that, or that I didn’t have fake breasts or fake nails like she did. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to share his life experiences with me, or “triangulate” me (more control)! I told him many times I didn’t want to hear about the ex stuff, but he would bring it up in insidious ways.. He would say really sweet things or suggest fun activities, but when I would hold him to what he had said, or offered to do, he would get moody and shut down. Like, it always had to be his idea (to take a trip, to help move a lawnmower, even to talk about the kind of house we wanted to have together). At the end, he wouldn’t even pick me up from the airport when I got back to town. So two days later, I confronted him over the phone saying “I’m willing to work on the relationship but….” and he flipped like a switch saying “yeah we moved kinda fast, I got freaked out and started backpedaling, I really can’t do more than two days a week with you, we live kinda far, I don’t really need to be with my partner very much, I prefer quality time over amount of time with my partner” etc. So I broke up with him, and he seemed cold about it (when just a week before he was “so in love” with me and acting needy). 10 days later, he sent a sappy cryptic text about a Whitney Houston love song that made him think of me that he just had to share because it made him “feel” something strong. I haven’t responded. Is he hovering me and sending mixed signals again / just trying to get a reaction? Is he just emotionally unstable and messed up? Or is he really thinking of me and wanting to reconnect but not sure how to go about it? Please help if you can! Need a professional outside opinion.
Thank you xx
Sophia Ross
December 11, 2019 at 6:32 amI told my ex Narc that he disgusts me & made it clear that I’m sorry I ever allowed him in my life. I have blocked him on everything & been no contact for 10 months. My life is good. Do these creatures still hoover a person who has expressed no interest in them?
Zari Ballard
February 18, 2020 at 4:36 pmHi Sophia, The answer to your question is that yes, some will absolutely do that just to see if you will answer the phone or respond to a text, given how they know you feel. It’s all about what they can get away with.
Fabulous
May 20, 2019 at 4:20 pmMy significant other is a good person. He helps out with things. Comes and leaves on time.
Strange thing is when he is angry he can go on for 6 days of not talking and very rarely initates repair. What saves us is that we don’t argue often. This happens every six months. I hate every time it happens. I want to be able to have a two way conversation that leads to a resolution. If I attempt repair he will just throw comments that will stir me up and shove me away. It is very confusing when this happens. Makes you feel like this person can live without you.
I wonder if it is part of just regular relationship crap that I just have to accept or is there a reason behind such odd behavior that does not bring two people closer.
He also has poor self analysis. He once told me he has difficulty talking about feelings. That he is extremely angry.
I just dunno how after 6 days you can still respond like a jerk.
What he does right:
Helps at home
Comes on time
Usually supportive of my ideas if not mad
The odd thing is he does not initiate repair and will often shove you away when you initiate repair.
This is odd and very odd. Why I don’t think he goes around?
Because he leaves and comes home on time.
Because I don’t sense that he drools over other women.
He really does not get rejected at home.
Only way to cheat is to say he is going to work when in fact he is not.
He does use his phone often but does not seem to hide it from me and I usually catch him playing some board games or reading the news. Nothing else.
But this behavior seems off. Started to wonder if every man has this difficulty to communicate.
I wonder if this is an ego issue because at day 6 he can still shove you away. Maybe he wants to be chased. Of course being pushed away means I won’t call during the day or when he gets home.
Lori
March 23, 2019 at 1:36 pmAlmost two years since our break up whichni instigated due to all the signs of cheating being there. Last night he texts saying please can you start the divorce as no point being attached to each other like this. By the way i really did love you. Then i find out hes rung my dad crying about me putting his stuff out for him to collect 18 months ago..which he asked me to do..and that he doesnt knownwhat hes done wrong! Oh and yes…a new cell phone number..never even thought about the reasons for that until i read your article!!
Zari Ballard
May 4, 2019 at 1:03 amHi Lori…yes, a new cell number should always be suspect. I mean, who DOES that? A narc, that’s who!!