E114 - Was Any Of It Real? The True Reason A Narcissist Moves On When You're Still Heartbroken

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[00:00:00] If you are watching your ex move on and wondering if any of it was real, this episode is for you.

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Speaker: Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.

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Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Ugh. . I know that moment when you see your ex move on. And a part of you is thinking, how can he just fucking move on? We just had a devastating blow up. We were together for 5, 10, 15 years. Didn't, I mean anything you're thinking, did he ever love me? Was any of this actually real?

And you're watching him move through these motions with somebody new. Looking calm and happy. Maybe he finally got himself together, started going to [00:01:00] the gym or showing up in all of these ways that you wanted him to show up for you and a part of you is just aching for the version of him that you believed in.

The one with potential. The one who promised the growth and the healing and the future. So today we are going to talk about why that is cutting so deeply and why the most important thing for you right now is not to focus on him, but is to focus on rebuilding that trust in yourself because I know there's a pull for that potential and a pull to want that person back in your life.

So from this episode, you're really gonna understand first and foremost why he's capable of moving on so quick. When you are still in tears on the bathroom floor, you're going to learn why seeing him move on feels so destabilizing and has you a little bit obsessed about his life, and you're going to learn how to rebuild that trust in your own [00:02:00] memories and instincts and emotional truth.

This is gonna be an episode that I hope you refer back to every time these parts of you come up and start to feel this longing in this potential. Also at the end of the episode, we are going to pull an Oracle card, so be sure to stick around to the end because that card will give you a message that you can sort of noodle on this week as you are moving through your healing,

let's begin.

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I wanna start here by saying that it makes total sense that this feels like a mind fuck for you, and that you are wondering if any of what you had was real because he can move on so fast. That is a completely fair conclusion to make about somebody that you see already in a committed relationship with somebody else.

So you're not crazy for wondering this and thinking this and feeling these ways.

And you're also not crazy, and there's also nothing wrong with you if you're seeing this version of him and actually kind of wanting that version of him back and [00:03:00] considering reaching out or considering going back to him because you have just been waiting for him to become this, this person that you have held out so long for.

I have clients who tell me all the time that they are afraid to actually leave. Because what if he goes into the next relationship and all of the work that she put in is finally actualized with this new woman? Like, what if the new woman gets to benefit from all of my blood, sweat, and tears? And that makes complete sense because.

Likely you have been working really hard and really long trying to get him to actualize potential that you saw in the beginning of the relationship. So what's happening right now is not just a heartbreak. What's happening right now is not just grieving of a love or a relationship that you had. This is a layered grieving process because part of what you're grieving is actually the person that he promised that he would [00:04:00] be.

And not just who he promised, but the person that you actually saw and experienced in the beginning of the relationship. That person that the yogi who talked about his feelings and wrote you love letters and took you on surprise adventures who eventually turned into the drunk, who blamed you for everything and made you feel crazy for being angry at him after he sent you 25 ridiculous text messages

in a row.

You watched him go from your ideal person, your soulmate, your perfect match into this other version of himself. And of course that doesn't make sense to you.

Because what narcissists are doing in the beginning of a relationship is playing a role. They are putting on a mask to become whatever you are telling them that you want in a person. And then they are showing you, they are playing the role of that person. They are not actually that person. So what you're seeing through the progression of the relationship

it's actually a reveal of their [00:05:00] true self without the role that they're playing. But that really fucks with our head because you're like, I saw it. I experienced it. It felt real. It felt real to me. I loved that person. Where did they go?

And I know part of you knows this part of you understands the narcissistic cycle. You understand that it was a role or a game that they played in the beginning, but you're watching him do it with somebody else. And all of that part of you sees is the goal that's being actualized, and it's not really seeing that he's playing out that same role with this new person.

That part of you is likely thinking, oh, he's actually changed and I'm missing out.

So that's one part is you're, you're watching him become something that you've really wanted and that potential is kind of pulling at you. The other piece that's happening here is, is really the heartbreak part of this because you're watching him move on with somebody else so fast while you [00:06:00] are ruminating and replaying and trying to figure out what you did wrong and really putting a lot of energy into your healing, and you still feel eons away from dating and so to you.

Because that relationship meant something to you. You're, you're properly grieving, you're going through the proper stages of feeling and trying to, to square what happened so that you can heal, so that you can move on healthfully because , it meant something to you. So it's totally natural then to assume that because he moved on so fast that you didn't mean anything to him, that he didn't love you.

And when we come to that conclusion, often we come to a deeper conclusion then of, well, if he didn't love me, then that must mean that I'm unlovable or I am not enough.

And we get really stuck in this loop of seeing him, of, of being pissed off, that the potential is actualizing, being heartbroken that he didn't love you and that you're not lovable. And we [00:07:00] get stuck in these obsessive loops, hating him, leaving him, seeing him move on, wanting him back, feeling like shit.

And inside it's anxiety. It's doubting what was real. It's doubting that it got so bad. Has that happened to you where you're like, oh, maybe the relationship wasn't that bad because you're seeing him be what you want? It's like this, trying to convince yourself to go back and that you didn't experience all of the bullshit that you experienced.

It's actually gaslighting yourself. So that's happening and you're ruminating over the new girlfriend and stalking her social media most likely, and you're thinking that it's all your fault. And all of this is like just compacting in your brain where it feels like you're gonna explode. It feels like you don't know how to make sense of all of these parts, of all of these feelings.

And so externally, what's happening is that you are spending all of your energy still on him. I [00:08:00] know you left the relationship because it was so draining, partly because it was so draining and while you guys were together, you were very preoccupied with him, with trying to figure him out with, trying to change him with trying to walk on eggshells so that he didn't get upset.

It was a lot of him focused, and so now you're still him focused. Even though you're not in the relationship, which is partly why it feels so terrible, because it's feeling incongruent inside with your need to leave the relationship. What happens when your energy is being focused on another person is it's delaying your healing and it is keeping you repeating patterns and and self beliefs, self-limiting beliefs that.

Really need to be healed, but when your energy is focused on him, there's no capacity to turn it back inward to do the healing work that I know you're ready for, that I know you really want to do, [00:09:00] because I also know you really want freedom from this person So again, you're not doing anything wrong here. It makes sense that you're having these feelings, these thoughts, these, this confusion that's happening because you're watching somebody create another connection from a place of needing power and control, not from a place of love.

That's why he's able to move on so quickly. He's not actually attached in the way that you were attached in the relationship. Now, I know it felt real for you because it was real for you. The love, the dedication, the loyalty, the support, all of the benefit of the doubt that you gave him. All of that came from a place of loving the person, wanting to be there for them, wanting the best for them, wanting to support them.

that was all real and genuine. Even though he was creating this bond with you from a totally different place, it was [00:10:00] still real for you, which means you are gonna move through. The grief cycles in a healthy way, and he will not. He is able to sort of replace one with the other of whoever's giving him the power and the control in this moment in time.

And that is not about you. That is about him. Even though I know it hurts, and I know parts of you don't believe that, and parts of you are just seeing him with somebody else and are taking that internal self blame that I'm not lovable enough, and I want you to hear that it has nothing to do with you.

You also are not crazy for wanting the promised version of him. He likely told you over and over again through many cycles of hurting you and then promising he was gonna change. He, he likely promised you that that version was coming. And you may be held on for years waiting for that. So you're not crazy for wanting that.

You, you got into the relationship under false pretenses, [00:11:00] under a false promise of who you were entering into that relationship with. So of course you wanted that.

What, what needs to heal here is not just your broken heart, but it's actually the part of you that's holding onto the potential of him.

Because the more you believe that he's capable of becoming that person of being and sustaining and genuinely being that person, the more that you believe that. The more you're gonna hang on, the more you're gonna care about what he's doing in his life to prove or disprove that he is that person. The more energy you're gonna continue to spend on him, and the more cost that it's going to have for you, the moment that you stop trying to make his potential real is the moment that you can start to create your own.

Taking all of that energy away from him, redirecting it back into you because you have likely felt like you've lost yourself. You have likely felt like you can't trust your instincts, that you can't really make sense of what [00:12:00] you're feeling and thinking,

and knowing. So when you return that energy back, you really, really get to return to that self that you're feeling so far away from.

And I know that process is hard,

which is exactly why I created my free guide. That's called Trust Yourself More Than His Potential,

and it's gonna help you do exactly that.

So if you are finding yourself stuck in this potential land place, as I like to call it, this place where he is the perfect person that you have waited for him to be, then please go to the show notes and download this free guide.

I promise you, it will help you to stop obsessing over who he could have been or maybe is, is looking like he is now, and start reconnecting with who you are without gaslighting yourself without second guessing your feelings. It took you so much work to leave the relationship.

It was took so much courage, so much bravery, so many tears that I want you to be continuing on that [00:13:00] road to feeling the ultimate freedom from him to detaching energetically from caring about what he's doing, wondering about his life and focusing on you. Returning to you.

Because you deserve that. So please download that free guide. It is really such a beautiful tool. And I wanna pull an Oracle card here for you. Well, there it is. The card that came out is hindsight. So let me find hindsight in the book and I'll read to you what it says. Take a deep breath, breathe it into your back body.

What is it seeing? This is hindsight. It comes to you as a perspective shift to remind you that what is behind you is as important as what is in front of you. A message from the divine Sr of the past, present, and future reminds you that there is much to be learned from the past, lessons to be embraced and celebrated.

A treasure trove of knowledge and experience to inform your [00:14:00] next steps. You choose what you take and what you leave behind while always honoring what was. Hindsight also requires you to be thoughtful and aware of what you are leaving in your wake is or was your impact what you intended it to be. In every moment.

The decisions you make have forwards and backwards consequences. Hindsight encourages you to gaze gently on the past for you cannot change it yet it reminds you that the awareness in back of you matters just as much as the awareness in front of you. Such a pertinent card. As I like to say in my program with my clients, I have a whole module that's called Hindsight is a Bitch, because it can be, we can look back at ourselves in that situation with all of the knowledge, all of the experience that we've had since that point of time, and we are really hurting ourselves by judging ourselves for not knowing what we know now, of not making a different choice.

So please, please, [00:15:00] please treat yourself with that compassion and grace. And until I see you in the next episode, please remember that you are not alone.