The Love Files No.15 // Mate Poaching and Narcissism

Lately I have been thinking and researching a lot about narcissism, cheating and the kind of people who hunt the significant other of somebody else…while knowing that the person they desire is in a relationship. I thought it is insane how often this happens and speaking quite frankly I have my fair share of experience with it starting with the relationships that my parents had and that I subconsciously repeated (in order to heal old wounds).

So, I was wondering what kind of people go for people they know that are actually not available? Since narcissists are one of a kind who don’t give a fuck about anyone it of course crossed my mind that the majority of the ‘I’m gonna steal your partner’ hunters might be narcissistically inclined. I am not saying that they are all full blown grandiose narcissists but I assume that they certainly qualify for narcissistic traits since stealing somebody else’s partner certainly is an ego boost that resembles trophy hunting. The old unattractive guy goes for the trophy wife while the narc goes for the idealisation of the taken person that nevertheless he or she could conquer.

OK, so I was researching a lot about this topic and I found out that scientific research was done about it. The scientists came to the conclusion that narcissists don’t necessarily hunt for people who are in relationships but that on the other hand when somebody is in a relationship, they just don’t give a fuck about it. It does not hold them back from pursuing a relationship with the one who is in a relationship. And now it gets really interesting, this goes especially for the female narcissist. Especially narcissistic inclined women go for men who are in a relationship is what researchers found out. That is a fact that I found extremely interesting because it pretty much proves what I assumed. Going for a person that is already taken is called ‘mate poaching’. - therefore the title of today’s blog post.

Another very interesting fact that was discovered is that the dumper, the one who left the committed relationship and partner, also is a narcissist or brings along lots of narcissistic traits. I can only confirm that, my ex-boyfriend is a covert narcissist I’d say, he left me for a female narcissist mate poacher and I was the empath who got dumped for the new narcissistic supply.

I could not make any sense of what happened the second time now with him because it is totally not understandable - because it is pathetic. This is not a normal breakup, it is one where someone with deep rooted mental illness is involved and that is something that you just cannot understand because it is so far away from being normal. So I started researching, analysing and now I slowly start to understand what is really going on here. I should have done my research already two years ago before he came crawling back but once he was back and I thought ‘ok, we all make mistakes, I love this man with all my heart and soul, so of course I give him a second chance’. Yes and we all know what happened next, history repeated itself and now the situation is even more unbearable for me than it was two years ago.

Back to the narcs mate poaching. The only goal for them is attention and a new thrill, that is what they got. I don’t know this woman but I have a very good knowledge of human nature and psychology and human interactions - from all her actions I am very sure that she is a narcissist herself or at least very narcissistically inclined to come up with her shady way while apparently totally putting him on a pedastal and over-idealising him while degrading me in order to fulfil her needs and to get her ego boost. He became her narcissistic supply, she became his narcissistic supply while I got discarded like I never ever existed, even though I was the stabilising part of his life int he past 4 years ensuring he was well taken care of and had a social life besides his bizarre hobbies where he found his new victims or better to say where he let himself be found by them or also where he became their new prey. Attention is all that the narcissist needs, and the new supply is giving all that attention that the narcissist thrives on.

The narcissist has the maturity of a 5 year old, they don’t see the consequences of their actions, even when you point them out to them. In my case with him when I asked if he knew about the consequences and that this means that I will be gone and no more part of his life he said no and started crying like a child - and yea, I’ve been there twice with him. I just got really loud then and said ‘hey, if someone has a reason to cry here it is me, you were the one who decided to leave me for a random stranger just to try it with her, so why the fuck are you crying, it wasn’t me taking this decision, if someone has a reason to cry here it is me’. Of course he just cried harder and harder then, like a child hoping to lean on his mom’s shoulder (my shoulder) while I just stopped talking to him, left him crying and walked into another room. So yea, the narcissist project the childhood trauma experienced of trauma and neglection and abandonment with caregivers and parents on you and all of a sudden you are the bad one even though he was the one creating this awful situation. Through leaving me he left his only stable shoulder to lean on and to get support from, and boy, this is going to feel very bad once realised.

So, through female narcissistic mate poaching and the male narcissist letting the female one interfere a fling based on attention and narcissistic supply is created. Another interesting fact from the study was that those acts lead to short-term sexual flings but usually not to long term relationships, ok not a big surprise since narcissists aren’t able to commit, even if they try to love and to commit, they just can’t - they don’t have the capability to commit. Those flings are doomed to fail and nothing good can ever come out of it.

So, yea female narcissistic mate poaching in a nutshell. It helped to me to better understand what is going on and that is has absolutely nothing to do with me, except for the fact that my covert narcissist can’t tolerate love and intimacy and just runs for his life with the next ‘best’ stranger showing up and conquering him as soon as things get too close with me. Instead he goes for the superficial fling with the stranger since this is not dangerous, there is no danger of getting hurt and being vulnerable while with me this danger exists to a great amount.