When You Love a Psychopath: 4 Phases and 4 Repercussions

A new study reveals the abusive cycle and damage psychopaths inflict on victims.

Reviewed by Margaret Foley

It’s hard to resist psychopaths. They’re seductive and charming, and they make you feel intoxicatingly special. But make no mistake: They disregard others’ feelings and lack empathy. Narcissistic psychopaths in particular are unable to understand what’s outside of themselves and yet rely on constant admiration from others to prop up their fragile egos.

What is it like to fall have a relationship with a narcissistic psychopath? This was the central inquiry of a study conducted by psychologists Alexandra Ainz Galende and Rubén Rodríguez Puertas of the University of Almería in Spain. In order to pursue this question, the investigators recruited 20 women between the ages of 24 and 59 who had addressed partnering with a psychopath on their Instagram profiles and were engaged in treatment as a result of the experience. The participants were interviewed about the relationship, and their narratives were analyzed.

Four Phases of the Cycle

Galende and Puertas first identified the phases of narcissistic psychopathic abuse. Remarkably, all of the women in the study experienced this unfolding of this cycle, which is described below:

1. Love Bombing: In this first phase, recognizing a psychopath is incredibly difficult. They present themselves as the perfect partner, often using knowledge about their victim to craft a persona that aligns with the target’s deep-seated emotional desires. Victims are convinced that they’ve met their soulmate, and a deep bond is quickly forged. In reality, however, targets have fallen hard for a carefully constructed image designed to induce exhilaration.

Moreover, psychopaths often tell a story of personal hardship in which they were traumatized (e.g., suffered in a previous relationship). By portraying themselves as victims, they manipulate their partners into feeling empathy and taking responsibility for their well-being. This emotional connection makes the victim more willing to divulge intimate details about their own life, which the psychopath later uses to maintain control.

While the victim feels connection and reciprocity, the psychopath is on an entirely different plane. They thrive on the attention, admiration, and emotional supply they receive—whether it be affection, compliments, or gifts. Their joy comes not from genuine love, but from the satisfaction of being at the center of someone's world and successfully executing their manipulative tactics.

2. Devaluation: This phase begins once the victim has established a strong emotional attachment to the psychopath. At this point, the psychopath demands copious attention while also isolating their victim from their social support network. This isolation encourages the victim’s reliance on the psychopath, setting the stage for more insidious control.

During devaluation, various manipulation tactics come into play, such as intermittent reinforcement (offering occasional affection to keep the victim hooked), gaslighting (making the victim question their own reality), silent treatment, and triangulation (pitting the victim against others to create jealousy or insecurity). These strategies further weaken the victim’s sense of self and make them more dependent on the abuser, deepening the toxic dynamic.

3. Discard: In this phase, the psychopath believes their victim is fully trapped, emotionally drained, and no longer useful to them. With little warning, they abruptly end the relationship because the victim no longer provides the attention or emotional reactions they crave. The psychopath moves on, leaving their victim feeling confused, disoriented, and often completely dependent, sometimes even financially devastated. The victim may have given everything they had, thinking they were investing in a genuine relationship. Even worse, the psychopath typically has already begun a new relationship, re-entering the love-bombing phase with someone else.

4. Hoovering: The final stage in the cycle references the famous vacuum brand "Hoover" as a symbol of the manipulative tactic of trying to "suck" the victim back into the cycle of abuse. This phase often starts with the psychopath reigniting their love bombing, tending to strike when the victim is beginning to heal and regain independence. If the hoovering is successful, the victim is sucked back into the destructive pattern.

The Repercussions

1. Pathological Lying: All the women stated that their psychopathic partner was a pathological liar, referring to the “psychopath’s mask” and their “hidden agenda.” They noted that their psychopathic partners began lying from the start of the relationship, making up stories about themselves, their preferences, and even their educational and professional backgrounds. For instance, the majority of the women discovered that their partners were having sexual encounters with other women from the outset (i.e., when the psychopath was love bombing them). More than half of the interviewees shared that in order to heal, they had to “kill” the idealized image of the psychopath that they had constructed during the love bombing.

2. Cognitive Dissonance: All of the participants struggled with the contradiction that they fell hard for someone they admired but had to reckon with the reality that the person they loved wasn’t who they thought they were. This contradiction left the participants in a paralyzed state of indecision and ultimately made it difficult to break up.

3. An Existential Moment: The women the psychopaths broke up with faced an existential moment. They were exhausted by the relationship and yet believed that the psychopath would treat them well. Many psychopaths abandoned the relationship when the women were at low points, leading them to feel “empty” and without anything to offer a partner. Even worse, many psychopaths had already found another relationship. One participant reflected: “I was devastated. He had returned to my life after being with someone else, and all he did was compare me. But the worst part was when my father’s cancer worsened, and he was dying. What do you think he did? He disappeared. [...] He hadn’t finished with me, but he already had someone else. Emotionally, I felt like a corpse.”

4. Psychological Problems: When asked to describe in one word their current state after having had a relationship with a narcissistic psychopath, participants most often used and repeated the words “ruin,” “broken,” “dead,” and “crazy.” Many suffered from depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder among other conditions. As one participant remarked: “One day you’d be on cloud nine with a crumb, with a kind word, and two days later you’d be in the muck because he’d disappear or make you feel worthless.”

Galende and Puertas conclude their study by emphasizing that integrated psychopaths (those who haven't been stopped by the legal system) are much more common than we knew. Social media and true crime documentaries, such as The Tinder Swindler, have shined a light on how women especially can fall prey to these predators—but research is revealing how we can arm ourselves to stop this form of violence.