Hoovers: Don’t Let the Crazy Suck You Back In
On the Shrink4Men Forum, there are several gentlemen in the process of ending relationships with abusive wives and girlfriends. Predictably, this has triggered their partners’ abandonment fears and control issues. Oftentimes, when an abusive personality senses they are losing their target/victim or that their target/victim is pulling away, they will make efforts to re-secure their victim’s attachment to them.
An abusive personality’s attempt to re-secure the relationship is sometimes referred to as a Hoover. It’s called a Hoover because, like the eponymous vacuum cleaner, the abusive personality tries to suck you back into the relationship.
The abusive person may or may not be conscious of what they’re doing. Essentially, a Hoover is just a behavior or series of behaviors that are employed to get you to re-engage and remain in the relationship. Sometimes, a Hoover is referred to as “relationship recycling,” which sounds a lot like something one does with aluminum cans. I prefer the term Hoover because it is more evocative.
An abusive personality cannot successfully Hoover you or get you to re-engage or recycle without your participation, which is why it’s important for you to recognize and understand what’s happening, why it’s happening, your buttons, desires, hopes, Achilles’ heels and fears. An effective Hoover plays on both your hopes and fears. When dealing with an abusive personality, your hopes and fears will become traps that ensnare you if you are not mindful of them.
For example:
- Are you afraid of being alone?
- Being replaced?
- Being perceived as a “failure” or “bad guy?”
- Losing your kids?
- Losing your assets?
- Are you afraid the pain of being without her will be worse than the pain of being with her?
- Do you love to be needed or need to be loved?
- Do you cling to the hope that if you can just find a way to reason with her she’ll change for the better?
- Do you worry she’ll meet another man and magically become a wonderful person?
- Do you fear that you’re really unlovable, not good enough, not enough of a “man” and that no one else would want you?
- Do you have a fear of loss and a need for approval?
You may not know what hopes and fears keep you in your abusive relationship, but odds are your abusive and/or personality-disordered partner does — either consciously or intuitively. In order to stay strong and not fall prey to a Hoover or series of Hoovers, you will need professional and/or peer support and you will also need to reality test your fears and hopes. Please note, when dealing with an abusive personality and/or a personality-disordered individual, any hopes you have for her and the relationship are probably better described as wishful thinking.
Even if you’ve been successfully Hoovered, please don’t give up on yourself. According to domestic violence lore and literature, it takes an abuse victim on average 7 attempts to end the relationship with their abuser.*
You are not powerless and you are stronger than you think. You don’t have to go back, but you will need to shore up your boundaries and weather your fears, self-doubts, wishful thinking and be able to identify different kinds of Hoovers as they occur.
Hoovers Come in a Wide Variety of Models to Meet All your Hopes and Fears
Hoovers aren’t all sugar and spice and everything nice. There are different kinds of Hoovers for all your different buttons. Abusers will frequently alternate between different kinds of Hoovers until you re-attach:
The FOG Hoover: Ahh, the sweet suckage of fear, obligation and guilt. The FOG Hoover is basically just emotional blackmail.
How can you do this to me? How can you even think of abandoning me and the kids? (Placing “me” before “the kids” is a deliberate grammatical error. It denotes who really comes first.) How will we live? You have no idea how hard it is for me. You think I’m a heartless, soulless monster, don’t you? You don’t love me. You never loved me. You promised me you’d love me forever. You made a commitment to me before God, our family and EVERYONE. How can you be so cold-hearted and mean?
If you have faulty beliefs about love relationships like, “I must always put my partner’s needs ahead of my own” or “It is my responsibility to make my partner happy,” you’re probably especially vulnerable to this kind of tactic.
The Psycho Hoover: The Psycho Hoover is the FOG Hoover on steroids. It includes threats of suicide and/or violence. Basically, the abuser is just escalating their guilt and/or intimidation tactics to keep you in the relationship.
The only healthy response to a suicide threat and/or attempt is to call 911. Same goes for violence or threats of violence directed toward you. No ifs, ands, or buts. 9-1-1.
If she really is suicidal (and that’s a big if), she needs to be hospitalized. If she’s just engaging in emotional manipulation and blackmail, then she still needs help and some real life consequences via the police and a trip to the ER for a psych evaluation.
The Concern Hoover: This Hoover employs tactics similar to those used by Concern Trolls on websites and forums. The goal of a Concern Troll and a Concern Hoover is to sow seeds of doubt, uncertainty, guilt, self-recrimination and fear, while claiming to have your best interests at heart. To people who don’t have an emotional stake, the Concern Hoover and Concern Troll come across as condescending and pathologizing.
I’m so worried about you. You’re not acting like yourself. You’re so angry all the time. I think you should see a doctor and be evaluated for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and start taking medication. I just want you to be happy. I just want you to be well. You’re talking to your friends again. They’re trying to break us up. They don’t have our best interests at heart. I think this has to do with your fucked up relationship with your mother. This isn’t how the man I know and love treats me. A good man would forgive me and do the right thing.
Of course, it doesn’t occur to the abusive personality that the reason you’re not yourself or that you’re depressed, anxious and angry is because of their abuse. They’re blameless and you’re the one who needs serious psychological help, which may very well be true, but not for the reasons the abuser thinks.
Oh, and by the way, what an abusive person means when they say, “You’ve changed” is, “You’re not letting me get away with my usual behavior.” When they say, “You need to go to therapy and get help,” it means, “You need to quit holding me accountable and go back to the way you were before, even if it means taking medication you don’t need and become a psychopharmacological zombie.”
Markos Moulitas of the Daily Kos describes Concern Trolling as “offering a poisoned apple in the form of advice to political opponents that, if taken, would harm the recipient.” The same can be said of Concern Hoovering; offering a poisoned apple in the form of advice, concern or love to a partner or ex that, if taken would harm the recipient. Don’t bite on it.
The Any-Pain-You-Can-Feel-I-Can-Feel-Worse-I-Can-Feel-Any-Pain-Far-Worse-Than-You Hoover: She hurts more. She feels more. Her pain is real; you’re just too sensitive. Any pleas to respect and acknowledge your hurt feelings and pain (especially if they’re the direct result of her actions) will be minimized and ignored.
Why don’t you think of anyone beside yourself? You never think about how your actions impact others. You have no idea how much I hurt and how hard I’m trying. I know I get angry, but you have no idea how hard you are to live with.
Asking your abuser to have empathy for your feelings is almost always an exercise in futility. If she cared about your feelings even half as much as she cares about her own, she would not treat you the way that she does.
The I’ve Never Been Happier Hoover: This Hoover is basically a form of reverse psychology in which the abuser assumes, rightly or wrongly, that your abandonment fears are equal to or greater than her own.
I haven’t been this happy in years since you left. You always brought out the worst in me. I never behaved that way with anyone else. I started dating again and am being treated the way I always wanted to be treated. You have no idea how to treat a woman.
The purpose of this Hoover is to get you to begin to doubt your experiences, feelings and memories of her and the relationship. This kind of Hoover can lead you to wonder, “What if I’d said or done x instead of y? Maybe it really is me? Maybe I should give her another chance? What if she really is wonderful with the new guy? Why wasn’t she that way than me? I wonder if she’ll take me back if I promise to try harder to make her happy?”
You’re hurting and grieving the loss of the relationship and she’s acting as if she’s magically transformed into a brand new woman without a care in the world and with her pick of suitors. Newsflash: Someone who is really happy with their new life or relationship doesn’t contact their ex to rub his or her nose in it.
The Deluxe Hoover: This is the Hoover in which she morphs from abuser to super sweet, sexed up, Stepford wife. In reality, it’s nothing more than a return to the honeymoon and or love bombing stage of the relationship. In other words, she turns on the charm or whatever it was about her that attracted you to her in the first place. It can have the effect of resurrecting your hopes that the woman you fell in love with is real and that maybe, just maybe, you can go back to the way things were “before.”
I promise things will get better. I love you SO much. We were great together at first. We can get that back! Please just give us another chance! Remember the good times (or time)? Don’t you want to have that again? We’ll both go to therapy. We’ll make it work.
More often than not, the abuse behaviors resurface once you return.
The Happy Ending Hoover: In this Hoover, the abuser takes you to the Boom Boom room and tries to sex you back into submission. Just remember, orgasms only last a few seconds or minutes, if you’re lucky. Crazy and abusive is typically forever.
Breaking the Trance
It’s not uncommon for men and women who are victims of emotional and physical abuse to go into a kind of trance state when their partners begin an abusive episode. It’s a form of dissociation, which serves as a self-defense mechanism. You go someplace else in your mind while she’s twisting the screws. This is why you might have difficulty remembering things she says and does during a verbal tirade or physical attack.
It’s also possible to fall into a trance-like state, i.e., shut off your conscious brain, when being emotionally blackmailed and/or manipulated and revert to conditioned behavior. For example, you do whatever you have to do to pacify, mollify or please her in order to get her to stop and to get the pain and discomfort you’re feeling to stop. This is a mistake. It’s a temporary solution to what is more than likely a very long-term problem.
Reverting to your conditioned response to her abuse only serves to reinforce her abusive behaviors. For example, participating in a Hoover and returning to the relationship teaches her that all she has to do is x, y and/or z and you’ll scamper back. Her promises to change are meaningless. Why should she get help and change if there are no consequences for her abusive behavior?
Additionally, you are only learning and reinforcing your own unhealthy behaviors. For example, Nick the Knight breaks up with Abusive Allie, which triggers Abusive Allie’s abandonment and control issues. Abusive Allie begs, pleads, and love bombs Nick the Knight. Nick the Knight returns and things are good. Abusive Allie resumes her abusive and crazy-making behaviors. Nick the Knight threatens to leave again because he learned from the first break-up/Hoover that Abusive Allie will treat him better, at least for a little while, when he makes noises about being unhappy and ending the relationship.
It then becomes a cyclical dance between the two partners. An extremely unhealthy dance. Trust me, you do not want to get stuck in one of these dysfunctional do si do’s.
Therefore, you need to develop an awareness of your psychological Achilles’ heel, shore up your boundaries, get some emotional support and find a way to break the trance of abuse and manipulation.
True Life Example
A Shrink4Men Forum member is in the very early stages of his divorce from an abusive and highly likely personality-disordered wife. Once he worked up the courage to move out, his wife turned on the Hoover. She started with a Concern Hoover. When that didn’t work, she turned on the Any-Pain-You-Can-Feel-I-Can-Feel-Worse-I-Can-Feel-Any-Pain-Far-Worse-Than-You Hoover, followed by another Concern Hoover, then a Deluxe Hoover and finally the FOG Hoover.
It has been torture for this gentleman, but he is holding strong. His relationship with his wife is, in many ways, a replay of his family of origin issues, which makes the Hoovering all the more painful and insidious.
Music plays a big part in this man’s life. Instead of going into the trance when his wife initiates a Hoover, I encouraged him to play a song in his head in order to break the spell. I suggested the Commodore’s Brick House, but with a few minor changes.
(Chorus)
She’s a brick—-WALL
You talkie talkie
but it makes no difference at all!
She’s a brick—-WALL
The lady’s whacked and that’s a fact,
ain’t holding nothing back.
She’s a brick—-WALL
She’s the one, the only one,
who let a horse crap in our john**
Can’t take it no more heaven knows,
and here’s how the story goes.
(Verse)
She knows she got everything
a woman needs to mess with a man, yeah.
How can she use, the things she use
projection & gaslightin’, what a winning hand!
(Chorus)
(Verse)
The name calling, her nasty ways,
make an old man wish for the end of his days
She knows she’s right and knows how to destroy self-esteem
Sure enough to knock a man to his knees
(Chorus)
(Bridge)
Movin’ out, movin’, movin’ out now (repeat)
Rogers & Hammerstein I’m not, but you get the idea. Find something that works for you, whether it’s calling a friend, going for a jog, banging on a drum set, chopping wood — whatever helps you to snap out of it.
It is not your fault you’re being abused. However, if you want things to change, you’ll need to take responsibility for your own health and happiness, face your fears and make different choices. In order for you to heal, you must resist the Hoover, no matter how good and/or bad it makes you feel.
* I looked for the original and, one hopes, peer-reviewed source for this statistic, but most women’s DV organization websites don’t offer citations for their statistics and claims. If anyone knows the original source, please post it below.
** The forum member’s wife is one of the out-of-control animal rescue types. She actually brought a small horse into their master bathroom in order to bathe it. Why? Because it was “too cold” in the barn. The horse emptied its bowels all over the place. I’ve seen the pictures.
Shrink4Men Coaching and Consultation Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
58 Responses to “Hoovers: Don’t Let the Crazy Suck You Back In”
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Thanks Dr. T so much for this. The timing couldn’t be better.
I’m about to get myself out and I’m no longer putting up with my wife’s borderline antics. The same day I read this, I got treated to the FOG hoover along with the “I can feel any pain better than you” thrown in. She was able to stir up doubt and guilt, making me question myself “am I really the crazy one?” After it was over and she’d gone to bed, I thought back to this column I’d read earlier in the day. It was so reassuring and calming. I know I’m doing the right thing and I’m not going to let manufactured guilt, wishful thinking or any of this other nonsense keep me from getting to a healthier place.
Thanks to your efforts with this blog, forum and the podcasts, I’ve found the strength I needed. Again, thank you for the service you are providing hurting men.
Unfortunately, I staggered briefly this week with my ex, who plugged in her “I’ve Never Been Happier” Hoover. I fell into the emotional trap of being charmed by her considerable physical beauty and feeling a little jealous when she hinted that she would be on a date. Our divorce isn’t final, I filed, she desperately didn’t want it, so all of the textbook characteristics are here. I was able to intellectually recognize what was happening, maintained my boundaries, but inside, I still found myself drifting emotionally back to the Love Bomb days. I guess it just goes to show you how important it is to maintain your intellectual reasoning with your emotions. I really believe that it isn’t unhealthy to FEEL that attraction, only to act on it, or allow yourself to be manipulated because of it. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe feeling it is bad for me, as well. I know what a terrible person she is, I know she can’t pull herself together, so I suppose I should allow myself to be an emotional being and maintain my strength. But please agree or not, as the case may be…
This is mind-blowing stuff. At 41, single for now 8th year since my ex threw me out, (ex-girlfriend), for another bloke, who was much worse than she is; I learned one thing, I’ll never trust a woman ever again. Every time I see a woman, talk to a woman, I’m MINDFUL of what she’s capable of, and she can blame my ex.
God, I still this basic NEED to be with a loving, faithful, trustworthy woman, a woman who’ll become my wife and the best one out of all the others to raise my kids, that we’ll make out of our love for each other. (Violins ensued)…. (grin)… Yeah, sappy as all that, yet I feel it so intensely for years. Yet thanks to my ex she broked my heart, broke my trust, even though I forgave her betrayals a few times thinking she’s wounded and still needs time to heal, but, seventh year, I got fed up, told her I’d stay and support her as long as she fixes herself up, stop drinking booze, and drugs, and be healthy, normal woman like the rest of other womens I sees. Nope, she threw me out within a week, got with her new beau, and just like that, I was forgotten.
Eh, the last laugh is when she came back two years later, and begs me to help her get away from him, the bloke she left me for in the first place. I said, I can’t help ye, you can asks yours sister to help you with a house, then my idea, get your stuff when he’s not around, and then just disappear, never be in the places where you been before. She was happy with that advice, but she also said I was a better man and wanted me back, but I said, no, I can’t. My heart, broken, remember? She was sorry, and regretted all that. Yeah, sure. Three more times after that, she comes back, and asks me, begs me and the last time, she brings the kids, (not my flesh and blood, though), in an effort to blackmail me emotionally, so I would go back, but what for? That is the question, what for? I asks myself and I know what I want.
I want to make a family, that’s what I want. I want to marry the right woman who do not playing fucking games simply because she gets off on games and playing crisises all the bloody times, it’s too boring, man!
I want a dependable woman, not an unreliable woman who would play emotional games, do things contrary to norms and logic and so on.
I want a woman who loves PEACE of MIND, and likes logical ways of life… Solving problems on their own, not needing me every two seconds, not too needy, yet likes me around, just as I likes her around, not too needy, best friends, great lovers, best husband-and-wife team, independent and yet interdependent together, a REAL partnership, based on God’s truth, biblical, and pure. A marriage that is REAL. A coupleship that is REAL.
Not a handyman to be used as she sees fit. A walking bank account to shore up her financial problems when she wastes her (three) allowances, and her kids allowances as well, to pay for her booze and drugs, and not much else on the foods for the kids.
I know, I paid heaps for them. I loved the kids, I hoped I taught them of some REAL values, but I doubt it. I know what to do for the next one, though, I’ll never stand for women playing games. I’m sick of women playing games. I’ll WALK. GOODBYE little miss moron!
All I want is peace and quiet, and someone to share my life with, that’s it. No crazy emotional games and crazy stupid nutjobs.
I wonder who taught all thees crazy women their crazy ways? Who panders to them? Their parents? Their schools? It’s like seeing Mean Girls all grown up and acting stupid everywhere, playing games with everyone, no consequences for themselves, but plenty for the kids, plenty for the men, and most probably, sooner or later, the relatives WILL catches them when they least expects it, acting all crazed and stupid and ugly.
No matter what she looks like, I looks at the women VERY carefully… I asks myself, is she sane? Or Crazy? In public she looks sane, but what about in private, where no one can see? Does she exhibits some sort of psychotic behaviour? God, I hated that. If she does, then I go, boom! I walk away! I don’t give a crap if she’s hot and a walking goddess. What she looks like is just a vessel. What’s important is what’s inside her, what her mind is, her soul, what her spirit… what her perspective on live is. I do not trust easily, not ever again.
If a women wants me to trust her, she’ll have to EARN my trust, and it won’t be EASY at all!
I am now so CAREFUL, I’ll never walk into another trap ever again. One hint, one thing wrong, I’m gone in 6 seconds! No two ways about it. No ifs, ands, or buts!
Men, you cannot afford to waste time with stupid women who plays games. Look for the rare gems, the ones who hates playing games, is a straight shooter, and likes being in STABLE relationships and holds marriage as sacred, as I do.
I’m 41 years old and I’ve been single for 7, now 8, years, and I’ve tried to find the right woman, but it’s hard, and being deaf and trying to get through the hordes of crazy twisted women, including crazy fake ones that scammers hides behind, is very difficult.
They say it’s easy to find one’s true love on the internet. Yeah, right! It’s hard, it’s difficult. It’s difficult when all I have is words to write and words are one-dimensional when face-to-face both can reads subtle expressions and the like, and be understood.
But by now I’m resigned to my singlehood and I have not been with a woman in 7, now 8th, years. I can’t stand easy women, my ex was one, and it took me years to realise this. My ex was too easy with all she meets. Never again. I’ll go for the biblical way, meet women, be friends, and get to know them for as long as it takes to see if they’re truly BIBLICAL, that is, that she have the same ideas as I do, that sex is for marriage only, not for before marriage or any other ways. A clean life is what I want, not sex and picking up germs from who-knows-what, like it happened with my ex, never again!
Yes, I’m still pissed off about my one long-term (7-years) relationship with my ex-girlfriend. She was five years older than me. That should have told me what she’s really like.
Never again.
I’m much STRONGER and HARDER and no women will ever break me ever again. I’m TOUGHER! I’m DIAMOND-HARD! No women will ever play fast and loose with me.
I want a serious woman, not one who’ll play games years later down the track. I want a woman who’ll stay by my side, no matter who tries to break us up with lies told to her, luckily I’ll be deaf to their lies, whoever they’ll be. I want to be a TEAM, and to stay by her side, when she have proven her loyalty to me. That’s what I want. That’s the woman I can trust to raise my kids, which we’ll make together, because what we make is based on true love.
This is what I believes in.
But if more and more women are going crazy, then, the choice is limited and I will not be saddled with another nutcase, so I’ll stay alone, single and enjoy life, whatever it gives me, at least I am contented, and having fun doing my own thing. No worries!
Hello and welcome to S4M, defman.
Looks like your ex put you through the ringer. I’m very sorry you were treated so badly. Sometimes finding another mature adult with whom to have a satisfying and fulfilling relationship can be a bit like finding a needle in the haystack.
Any advice to prevent hoover? Have not seen my ex in over a year, but will at upcoming wedding we are both going to. Not sure how to treat situation. Should i stay away and completely give her silent treatmen? This could provoke her to make a scene. How should i handle then the inevitable face to face meeting.
I’ve just had a lightbulb go on. I’ve been thinking, perhaps many of us were not mentally or emotionallu prepared to deal with these HCP/BPDs. The complexities, the savvyness, the devious manipulations, the violations of sacred values and morals, and so on.
Part of the reason is our low self esteem. Part of the reason too is we are often brought up to be naive, to perhaps be overly trusting, and/or, out of our own unmet needs from growing up until now, we expose ourselves and tolerate abuse just so we can feel ‘loved’, no matter how dysfunctional and damaging it is.
How have we coped with other trials and traumas? The Bible perhaps? Follow the 10 commandments and you’re good to go, right?
Well, there is nowhere in the Bible, Torah, Koran or whatever religious text, where it says “thou shalt not hoover”, or, “thou shald not cause emotional pain and suffering”. “Thou shalt not invalidate another”. So, its not really the ‘laws’ or ‘rules’ that are broken, but rather, the Spirit of the Law. The spirti of the laws, rules, codes we live by is to be good to one another, respect one another, protect one another.
These sociopaths fly under the radar as they often appear to be following the 10 commandments (or insert whatever other moral code/philosophy). “What, I’ve never hit you ever…Its not like I’m a serial killer or Hitler…”.
Sure, they aren’t the overt homicidal sociopath. Many are the smaller, insidious, sneaky and deviant sociopaths. They mean to cause you great emotional suffering, financial harm, and self-doubt. Belittling others is a power trip; in fact, that’s how Hitler got his start – attacking Jews, the handicapped, and others. Remember too, Hitler was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year before WWII broke out.
My point is (and its not a religous point) we ‘good people’ try to follow the 10 Commandments, or whatever other moral/civil code you adhere too. We are taken off guard when these HCPs violate the sacred, yet they do it so subtley we stop and ask ourselves if its really happening. Again – look at the Holocaust or other genocides that happen. Its really incredible it ever occurs – yet it does.
And so continues the misery today, in different forms, here in our modern, enlightened Western Society.