Number two: hope. Hope is the most dangerous emotion you can ever reveal to a narcissist. The moment they see it in your eyes, they realize they still own a part of you that is waiting—for them to become better, to change, or to finally treat you the way they pretended to at the beginning. Nothing feeds a narcissist more than knowing you are still hoping for a version of them that simply does not exist. When a narcissist sees hope in you, they don’t see love; they see leverage. They see a window back into your heart. Hope tells them you are still emotionally reachable, programmable, and dependent on the fantasy they created.
A narcissist studies your hope like a hunter studies movement. They know they can hurt you again because you are still expecting something real from someone who only deals in illusions. Hope makes you predictable, and predictability makes you controllable. This is why narcissists always come back exactly when you regain hope. Your hope signals that their spell still works; they feel it, sense it, and smell it. They return not to love you but to reset your expectations, confuse your heart, and tighten the emotional leash.
Conversely, a narcissist never hopes for you. They only hope for your compliance. They don’t hope for reconciliation; they hope for excess. They don’t hope for healing; they hope for opportunity. They do not hope for connection; they hope for control. This is why you must never show hope to a narcissist—not hope for the relationship, not hope for change, not hope for one last chance, and not even hope that they might finally see what they have done.
Emotion 3: Relief
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