S1. Ep3. Devaluation and Discard: The classic Narcissist follow-up to love-bombing. | by Veritas | Aug, 2025

The man who said he couldn’t live without me proved it — by discarding me like rubbish over a whatsapp message.

I was in love! No, we were in love! The kind of all encompassing, every fibre of your being love that the movies tout.

I thought I’d been in love before, there was my first love, that was an obsessive love but not enough to want to be with him forever, and then there was my first husband. That was a sensible, measured sort of love, he was right on paper, but I could definitely live without him.

And now there was this! A passionate, obsessive love with a kind, generous, smart and funny man. Someone that forever didn’t seem long enough to be with.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I was at DH’s apartment, he had been to the gym and was coming out of the shower, he sat next to me with wet hair and the sunlight caught it at an angle that gave him a halo. I reached out to touch it, his hair was so soft and silky, I was mesmerised by it.

“I really like spending time with you”, I whispered while running my fingers through his hair. At that moment, DH looked me in the eyes and said “I don’t just like being with you, I love you!”

He took me by surprise, “really?” I questioned. We had been dating for two months and although I was falling in love, it felt too soon to be true for him. I still didn’t believe myself to be a catch, especially to this man who I thought had so much going for him. “Yes” was his assured reply.

“I love you too” I beamed in a pinch me moment, was this really happening to me?!

I was divorced; I was supposed to be lonely for many years to come before perhaps settling for someone to see me through my later years. I thought back to what the psychic had told me about meeting “the one”. Much of what she’d said matched but she was sure he worked in design because she could see him holding fashion sketches. DH worked in banking, so it couldn’t be him. No matter, I’d taken her predictions with a pinch of salt and couldn’t deny what was in front of my eyes — this man loved ME!

Around a month later, I met DH’s family for the first time, he made it known to them from the start that he loved me and wanted to marry me, I must admit, having someone feel so sure about me was flattering if a little daunting.

His mum was eager to share some of DH’s childhood items, it included a sketchbook from his teen years, when he aspired to be a fashion designer. Seeing them and recalling what the psychic had told me about his profession gave me goosebumps. It seemed like this was the man she had seen for me, “the one”, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

I was living in my parent’s house, they knew I was dating DH, they had met him and liked him and I was content with how life was, we were committed to each other and enjoying life.

We’d had our first holiday together, a week of fun in Orlando, hitting the theme parks, both wanting to impress the other with our shared love of adrenaline. We had a great week, no arguments as far as I can recall and I was content with the pace of our relationship.

Surprisingly, DH wasn’t. He wanted me to move in with him — we had been dating for around 6 months at the time and I was happy but not ready to take that step. I had come out of an intense relationship — a marriage gone wrong and needed time to find myself.

I explained this to DH and he was very understanding; he told me that he felt certain about me being the one for him and didn’t want to waste any time, but respected how I felt.

The next day he broke up with me.

No warning.

No conversation.

Just a text message: “I can’t do this anymore”.

I felt lost, untethered, in unmarked territory. I hadn’t felt heartbreak since my first love, that really was puppy love in comparison to how I was feeling now. I didn’t even feel like this after my marriage ended, sad, sure but heartbroken, no.

My calls went unanswered. My messages left unread. Hour after hour I felt worse, sick to my belly, confused, lost. “Heartbroken” really is the perfect way to describe how I felt. I spoke to my closest friends; we couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

This was the man that wanted to move the relationship to the next step. Is that why it happened? Is it because I didn’t want to move in with him? Was this some kind of punishment? I had no idea but it was a preview of what was to come.

Suddenly my phone rings, it’s Him! I answered nervously and received a stream of apologies, tears (yes, really!) and self-blame. He said he was an idiot who had panicked, he loved me so much that he was scared I would break his heart and he needed to get out before that happened, because he couldn’t handle any more heartbreak.

Being the absolute doormat that I am, I started to apologise! I knew about his past heartbreak and empathised with him, I was sorry to have made him feel insecure. The smarter, rational part of me questioned how he justified breaking my heart to save his own, but I quickly batted that thought away!

Then he told me that he almost went home with another woman last night. To say I was confused is an understatement! I asked him what on earth he was talking and he reminded me that he’d gone to an Andrea Bocelli concert the night before with one of his stripper friends.

Another red flag I determinedly ignored. DH was best friends with the manager of a local strip club. He assured me that he only went there to spend time with his friend, he wasn’t interested in the strippers. He treated them as humans, asking about their lives and dreams. The women saw him as a friend and he treated them as such.

He shared that previous girlfriends had been very insecure about it and had tried to control him, to stop him from going and demand that he stop being friends with the strippers. He hoped that I “wasn’t like the rest” and assured me that I had nothing to worry about because I was gorgeous and the women in the club weren’t a patch on me.

My lack of self-confidence mixed with my unrelenting need to people please meant that I readily accepted what he was saying and berated myself for feeling insecure about it.

It transpired that one of the girls had two tickets to the concert and nobody to go with. She asked him if he would accompany her. He agreed given they were friends and told me about it a few days before the concert, checking that I had no objections.

It was, of course, a test — the first of many.

If I objected, I was “just like the rest”.

If I didn’t object, he knew he’d found someone he could manipulate — narcissistic relationship 101.

Secretly, I did object, of course I did! This was Andrea Bocelli, the romantic singer. It felt like an intimate outing and he was going with another woman. The fact that she was a stripper was beside the point, I would have felt reservations about him going with any female.

But I didn’t say so, I didn’t want to show him that I was a needy insecure woman. I didn’t want to be like “the rest”. I wanted to be worldly. I wanted to be mature and confident. I wanted to be the woman that he believed I was, so I assured him that it was fine with me and wished him a lovely evening.

It seems that he did have a lovely evening, one which allegedly ended with her trying to kiss him and inviting him over to her place. In the first retelling, he had pushed her off and reminded her that he had a girlfriend. In the second retelling, he was tempted to say yes but couldn’t jeopardise what we had. He said he realised he had it really bad for me, and was scared I didn’t feel as strongly.

I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell did I stay? I’m thinking the same thing! He just realised he had it bad for me. I thought he had it bad for me when he declared his undying love, or when he made it clear to his parents that I was the one for him or when he asked me to move in with him!

Were they all lies? Was it all part of a long game? To this day, I don’t really know.

What I do know is that this was the start of a pattern of devaluation and discard. He’d broken me and then made me feel grateful for the privilege. But this was only the opening act — and he had more moves up his sleeve.

Next: From moving in to married to pregnant — all before I could catch my breath.

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