What Happens When You Say You Are Going?

Devika told Abhay on a Sunday night, after the children were asleep. She had rehearsed it for a month.

He said nothing for a full minute. Then he rang her mother, at eleven at night, to say that Devika was having some kind of breakdown. By Wednesday her cousins were sending worried messages. He had told them she was “not herself”.

On Friday a large bunch of lilies arrived at her office with a handwritten letter and a booking for four nights in Goa. A colleague read the card over her shoulder. “He is really trying,” she said.

First, the rage

The psychologist Ramani Durvasula has a blunt line for people leaving a narcissistic partner. You will not be allowed to leave quietly.

She explains it through what clinicians call narcissistic injury. Behind the confident surface, she says, is a fragile and dependent person. Your leaving exposes that. It is also inconvenient, and it makes him look bad. What comes back is rarely sorrow. More often it is anger out of all proportion, with threats, petty acts, lawyers, and a campaign to give family and friends his account of you before you can give yours.

She has watched people go through this. Many told her that if they had known how bad it would be, they would never have begun. Afterwards the same people said they were deeply glad they had.

Then, the courtship

The lilies are in her book too. A partner like this does not like to lose. Once the rage has failed, he may go back to what worked at the start, with the charm, the attention and the grand gesture.

Durvasula warns against reading this as proof of a great love. After years of being ignored, being pursued again feels wonderful. She says the good behaviour will hold for weeks or months and then the old pattern will come back. And each time you return, she writes, the next attempt to leave is harder.

She does not judge anyone who decides to stay at this point. She only asks that you do it knowing what you know.

What to have ready

Her practical list is short. I think every item is worth doing before you say a word.

Write things down and keep the messages. They may matter legally. They are also for you, on the day the charm starts to work and you need reminding.

Tell a few friends and relatives what has been happening. Expect some to take his side at first. He has been charming them for years. She advises choosing your supporters carefully and not wasting strength on persuading the rest.

Find a therapist who understands this kind of partner. She is wary of well-meaning counsellors who send you back to “work on communication”. If there are children, she thinks support for them is essential.

See a lawyer where you live, and take their advice before you separate money or change accounts. Get your own phone account. Switch off anything that shares your location.

Go quiet on social media. Anything you post can be used against you, and looking at his posts will only hurt.

Keep a bag, some cash and your documents somewhere outside the house, in case you have to leave in a hurry.

What to expect in yourself

The first feeling nearly everyone described to her was relief. They said it was like breathing out after years of holding their breath. Sadness came next, for the time that had gone. Then anger. Then, on some days, a cold fear that it had all been a mistake.

She treats every one of these as part of letting go. They change from day to day, as the relationship itself did. None of them is an instruction to go back.

Devika should keep the letter. It belongs in the file.

If your partner has ever hit you, threatened you or frightened you, plan for your safety before you tell them anything, and involve the police or a domestic violence service near you. Family law differs from place to place. This essay is not legal advice.