Is there a limit to how many times they will hoover?

Is there a limit to how many times they will hoover?

I was discarded by my ex fiancé (female) in the most abrupt & hurtful way one year ago. I’m a male who is still rather emotionally raw and hurt but trying to move on and this page DOES help massively.

Just last week she sent me a Facebook Messenger chat request trying to connect with me (under a different surname which I think she created a new account since I blocked her.)

I was able to see a snippet of the message without opening it. It simply said ‘Hi, how are you?’  I didn’t respond to the message but I suspect it is hoovering.

Does anyone else think she was hoovering and why do Narcissists do this even when they make it clear they don’t want you in their life anymore?

Is there a limit to how many times they will hoover?

5 thoughts on “Is there a limit to how many times they will hoover?

  1. Mine did it for 2 years…even while pregnant by the new supply, even after having the baby. Actually tried to guilt me into taking her back with baby….I finally told her off really good, told her I believed her to be mentally ill, then ignored her completely…haven’t heard a peep in a month and a half.

  2. If this little, true story of mine helps in the healing of some of us out there:

    I am female, and once upon a time was a narcissist in the making. Until, fortunately and unfortunately for me, I was given an exaggerated taste of my own medicine at age 21YO through being used and abused by a sociopath boyfriend I fell hopelessly in love with, and which almost cost me my life.

    I was raped at age 14YO in a horrendous way – my first ever sexual experience of any kind, before I even had a boyfriend. Then went on to a few toxic relationships including with a narcissist – all of which only served to harden me emotionally and which seem to be all telling me that to be narcissistic in relationships with men is the only way to get loved and yet not be hurt.

    Fast forward to age 17YO: I was fast growing into a graceful and pretty girl, I was told. Nobody ever knew my rape secret because I was ashamed and afraid of trusting and getting wounded all over again. By 17YO I really want love but can never trust to be loved. I was always suspicious and jealous and insecure, and my way to stay calm in relationships was to cheat in every relationship. There would be my unsuspecting main boyfriend, the one I truly regard as my boyfriend, and a few also unsuspecting side kicks mainly just for chatting on phone or hanging out. Backup narcissistic supply you know, in case I get jilted, there won’t be the hurt. My fragile ego remained intact. Usually I slept with just the main BF.

    As I grew more popular and more confident, my trauma eased, from using people to nurse my wounded ego and esteem instead of going through the proper channel of counselling, my narcissism grew. Because this strategy had worked in healing myself and my unspeakable past, I believed more and more that to be narcissist is to be a survivor and winner.

    At 17YO, I started dating 18YO Allan. It was my serious relationship again after so long. I knew he used to two-time girls when he was younger. I really wanted to love him but I was really scared so I again fell back to the classic method to enable me to stay sane and calm with him. I lied to boys interested in me that I was single, so that I could enjoy their attention, affection and chasing, and I lied to Allan who I went out with, so that he would be mine still.

    Until one fateful day, I innocently gave my neighbourhood boys some illicit sedatives my female friend gave me. We started abusing the drugs and when I was totally under the influence, one of the boys, Sam, had sex with me. I woke up to the shock and horror the next morning. I felt I had to be in relationship with Sam after that. Sam never knew I had a BF already.

    Someone later saw me with Sam and told Allan. Allan was devastated and rang me to find out what was going on. I burst into genuine tears and confessed everything. He pleaded with me, please leave him and I will forget everything, we will start afresh. I broke off with Sam who actually treated me very well during that short relationship, leaving him very bewildered. For many years later, many people told me I was the love of his life.

    Returning to Allan, I felt more vulnerable than ever. I knew if I continued with him, I would well and truly expose myself in all my rawest vulnerability to loving him with my all. But that must not happen because to do so is to be weak, to be a loser and to risk getting hurt again. So, as the narcissist in the making, I started hanging out with older boys, started doing more drugs, made sure he knew it all, and started becoming cold and verbally abusive to him. I still remember the pain in his eyes. Eventually on the final night when I well and truly ended it all with him, by a cold and detached brief phone call, he rang me at predawn, pleading with my mum to please wake me up. My mum tried, but I was too sleepy and feeling very cruel and honestly could not care less at that time. Because I had achieved my aim – which was to dump him at the height of his love for me so that, in my twisted mind, I can own his love forever and in my twisted mind, he would be mine forever and therefore even if we are never together again, I would own him and this happy memory of ownership and conquest forever and ever – all at no cost to me or my fragile ego, and I can still go on to creating memories with other men, new BFs. In my twisted mind, I had reclaimed my self esteem because by hurting and betraying him this deeply, I had reclaimed and proven my worth and desirability. I embraced narcissism stronger than ever. For a couple of years after, Allan stayed single to nurse his wound. I was very pleased at my achievement.

    There was also Ben my BF when I was 18YO. I seduced him with superficial suggestions of getting married and having babies- just so that he would love me more than I loved him, then left him abruptly at the height of his love when he had envisioned all the beautiful future we would have together. Again, because it was getting too vulnerable to love him. So that I could own his love eternally while escaping unscathed. 10 years later, Ben sought me out by social media to demand for emotional closure.

    If you ask me, despite all my use and discard towards Allan, Ben and even Sam, despite even the sadistic pleasure I took in breaking their hearts knowing I was not going to turn back and fix their pain, did I truly love them and truly want to be with them? My answer is, yes, I really did. But all I had to offer and could offer back then, was only my twisted, selfish, narcissist version of love. It had been twenty years since. Sometimes when I catch myself in a quiet moment, I still think of them and miss them and love them. And if I can turn back the clock, I would be a different person and truly love them for what they deserve, especially Allan. For a young man to forgive and forget his girl sleeping behind his back, this 17YO girl must once have meant a lot to him, once upon a time :’)

  3. Kudos for your transparency and your honesty. You actually got to see both sides of an NPD person.
    I’m glad for you!
    Thank you for the article?

  4. Thanks Jenny for the encouragement. Actually I never even suspect that I might be high on N until recently doing some self tests online. I guess, if not for secretly feeling like shit after seeing how devastated Ben was following the breakup, coupled with better insight into the suffering I caused to others from my own bitter experiences with the sociopath ex, I probably would go on to develop full on NPD.

    I guess right now, I’m high on N on certain aspects still but probably not NPD. However I still continue to discover, the more I know about N, that many of what I did in my younger days are indicative of high N.

    For example, hovering.

    I never thought I used to do hovering, or that it causes grief to ex, until I read this article. I thought everyone does it so what’s the deal.

    In the past (before age of 22YO), when I randomly rang an ex, it would be:
    1) I am fond of that ex for his niceness to me and I just want affection from him without wanting him as BF again; OR
    2) I am fond of that ex n still secretly love him but don’t want to be together again due to whatever reasons + being scared of getting back with him n he taking revenge on me, so I just want his affection plus to check out subtly if I’m still his favourite ex.

    I hovered Sam the most because he really was so sweet n I really loved him secretly since day1 of being together but could not be with him due to my selfish reasons of not wanting get played. He did seem to enjoy the hovering, until he found out I was with that sociopath ex. He got very angry and now I can see why.

    I hovered Ben a bit as we had a pet he insisted on keeping with him after breakup. Until he one day told me coldly that the pet was dead. I believe to this day he did it on purpose (neglected it to its death) to get back at me as I love animals like my own life.

    I did not hover Allan as merely looking at him reminded me of my secret failure, dark secret as a woman, as a human.

  5. Also, as a recovering N, n while my reasons for hoovering in the past may not apply to the mindset of all N (and especially take caution in interpretation for the female N who use BF mainly for money, which I never ever did), here’s some additional food for thought:

    Even if your female N ex is hoovering you and you have strong reasons to suspect that she is hoovering you for my second reason in the above previous post, be very aware that very, very likely she will still never return to be with you again. Because her ego is too vulnerable to handle accepting your efforts and love again, knowing very well that she had done you big time wrong. She will be too afraid to be hurt the way she did you, and would usually prefer to keep the status quo.

    For me, Allan and Ben got married years ago so there is no second chance for me. In the meantime before their marriage, I could have tried to reconcile with them but the coward and selfish recovering N that I was/m, it would take a lot of effort on THEIR part to prove to ME that they are for real in forgiving me n loving me for real still before I could trust to be with them. Hence it is usually too unfair too high risk for men to attempt.

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