5 of the Most Common Reasons That Narcissists Hoover

One of the most confusing manipulation tactics that narcissists use on the people that they abuse is hoovering. It occurs when they say and/or do exactly what you need to hear and/or see in order to give them another chance. 

The reason that narcissists hoover is because it allows them to keep a sense of power and control in their relationships. This is important to them because having power and control over others helps them get narcissistic supply, stop you from moving on, control how others see you, and soothe their fear of abandonment.

This article is a thorough exploration of the reason that narcissists use hoovering. It is our hope that the information in this article helps you better understand the reason narcissists use hoovering so you can spot it when it happens and protect yourself.

They Need More Narcissistic Supply

One of the most common reasons that a narcissist will hoover you is because they need more narcissistic supply. 

Narcissistic supply is the validation, admiration, reassurance, power, and control that narcissists receive from their external environment. 

At the end of this section we will link to an article that breaks down exactly what narcissistic supply is, but a simple example of supply could be a narcissist receiving an award at work, getting complimented, or even winning a competition.

Now, the well-being of a narcissist is heavily dependent on the amount of supply that they can get.

Generally speaking, the biggest and most reliable sources of narcissistic supply that narcissists have access to are the people that they abuse. 

If the relationship that you have with the narcissist in your life were to come to an end and they felt that they couldn’t get enough narcissistic supply from other sources, it wouldn’t be uncommon for them to hoover you to try to get more narcissistic supply. 

For example, imagine that you divorced the narcissist in your life six months ago. 

Like many narcissists do, they remarried quickly and put their new partner through the same cycle of abuse and manipulation that they dragged you through.

Only this time their new partner sets firm boundaries with them because they see how abusive and manipulative they are.

To make up for this, the narcissist tries to hoover you back into a relationship by saying things like, “I can’t believe that we aren’t together anymore,” “I miss you so much,” “Can we meet up try to figure out where we went wrong with us,” and so on.

Sadly, they couldn’t care less about the relationship that the two of you had.

As a general rule, narcissists don’t view the people that they abuse as individuals with thoughts, feelings, emotions, and needs of their own. 

They view them as objects that they’re entitled to using to get narcissistic supply. 

Because of this, narcissists often believe that they should be allowed to maintain power and control over the people that they abuse for as long as they see fit. 

In other words, they believe that the people that they abuse should be available to them at all times. 

If the narcissist in your life were to notice or find out that you were moving on from them, it wouldn’t be uncommon for them to try to hoover you so that they can maintain power and control over you. 

For example, imagine that you are the golden child of a narcissistic family. 

Your narcissistic parent doesn’t want you to go to college because you won’t be able to give them a consistent flow of narcissistic supply if you move away from home.

Instead, they want you to work for the family business so that they can keep you close to home.

This isn’t what you want to do so you decide to go to college. 

This makes your narcissistic parent furious and they start treating you like a scapegoat.

Years later your education pays off and you get a really good job that pays you a lot of money. 

Your narcissistic parent finds out about this and is quite destabilized by it. 

Why? 

Well, in addition to feeling entitled to maintain power and control over you, narcissists also have a grandiose sense of self-importance.

This is an unrealistic sense of specialness and superiority that causes an individual to truly believe that they are unique and better than others.

A narcissist’s grandiose sense of self-importance causes them to genuinely believe that they are the best that you can do and that your life would fall apart if they weren’t in it. 

Hearing that you are doing well on your own contradicts your parent’s grandiose sense of self-importance and creates a lot of psychological tension for them.

In a desperate attempt to ease this tension, your narcissistic parent tries regain power and control over you with hoovering (image below).

Sadly, they don’t care about your thoughts, feelings, emotions, or needs.

They just want to hoover their way back into your life so that they can stop you from moving on with your life without them.

They Are Afraid That You’ll Expose Them to Others

One of the biggest fears that narcissists have is being exposed by the people that they abuse. 

You see, the people that narcissists abuse are often the only ones who know just how abusive the narcissist really is.

Everyone else only sees the narcissist’s public persona that often portrays them as charming, charismatic, confident, articulate, and relatively pleasant. 

One of the reasons that a narcissist will hoover you is to protect their public persona. 

They want to get back in to you life to discredit, isolate, and silence you as quickly as possible so that they can stop you from exposing them.

The most common type of hoovering that they will use to do this is called “I Have Changed” hoovering. 

This type of hoovering occurs when the narcissist says or does something to manipulate you into believing that they have changed.

Here’s an example of this type of hoovering from one of our community members.

A Quote From One of Our Community Members

“I had broken up with my narcissistic boyfriend in the summer of 2020 and a week before Christmas I got a text from a random number that said, ‘I miss you so much. 

I took everything you said seriously and started working on myself. I have been going to therapy for the past six months and I have changed so much. 

I see how I have been manipulating you into doing things that I want you to do and it makes me sick.

I love you more than anything in this world, please give me another chance.'” – Cindy

For many, this type of hoovering manipulates them into returning to the narcissist because they believe that they have changed.

But unfortunately, the narcissist hasn’t changed.

They are pretending that they’ve changed so that they can regain power and control over you.

Doing this will put them in a position from which they can discredit, isolate, and silence you before you have a chance to expose them for their abusive behavior.

They Have a Fear of Abandonment

Narcissists have a fear of abandonment.

Fear of abandonment is the overwhelming but unwarranted fear that people you love will leave you physically and/or emotionally.

Generally speaking, this fear of abandonment originates from an insecure attachment style.

An attachment style is the characteristic way people relate to others in the context of intimate relationships, which is heavily influenced by self-worth and interpersonal trust.¹

There are three types of insecure attachment styles:

• Anxious
  • People with anxious attachment styles tend to have problems trusting others. They often worry that people will abandon them, so they often seem clingy or needy. 
• Avoidant
  • People with avoidant attachment styles tend to have problems with intimacy and low emotional investment in relationships.
• Disorganized
  • People with disorganized attachment styles tend to have a hard time trusting people and alternate between clinging to their others and distancing themselves from them.

Now, it is common for a narcissist to hoover you simply because they fear abandonment.

This is especially true if they don’t find a new source of supply that they can rely on.

For example, imagine that the narcissist discarded you a year ago.

Since then they’ve remarried but are now getting divorced again because the person that they married realized that he/she was a narcissist and left. 

This is a tough position to be in for the narcissist because they aren’t getting a sufficient amount of narcissistic supply. 

It would be uncommon for the lack of narcissistic supply to trigger their fear of abandonment and encourage them to try to hoover you back into a relationship. 

What Should You Take Away From This Article?

As a general rule, narcissists hoover so that they can maintain a sense of power and control in their relationships. 

Having power and control in their relationships is important because it allows them to get narcissistic supply, stop you from moving on, control how others see you, and it allows them to soothe their fear of abandonment.

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Disclaimer

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for clinical care. Please consult a health care provider for guidance specific to your case.

References

APA Dictionary of Psychology

Freud, Sigmund. “On narcissism: An introduction.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works. 1957. 67-102.