Having to make the choice to go No Contact with a Type B person is one of the most difficult things you may have to do in your life.   Type B refers a spectrum of people; masters at portraying themselves as genuine friends, bosses, co-workers or romantic partners when they are anything but.  Type B people are very calculating, intentionally drawing people into their circle by sharing (what feels like) intimate information about themselves (past hurts and current insecurities).  They are able to manufacture feelings of trust where there is none.  Once invested, they begin to draw on your friendship, love or compassion to benefit themselves.  Type B’s appear empathetic in order to gain trust or maintain your connection to them, but this is an illusion.   No true empathy is within them.  This is a fact to which you will become acutely aware when faced with the truth of their actions.   They have actively been seeking your destruction.  It was nothing but an amusement to them, whatever it was you thought you had.  There is no sorrow in them when your pain becomes too large to ignore.  There is no apology, there is no trying to make it right.  There is no closure. 

No Contact is a drastic step to severing ties with one of these people.  There is usually some sort of in-between, in which you experience the unbalance (cognitive dissonance) between evidence your feelings about this person.  What you believed they were capable of.  Stunned and unwilling to accept the person you felt so close to does not actually exist, you may try to reason yourself out of this terrible place.  Rationalize it, justify it, look for some sign that you misunderstood this evidence.   

I have had Type B bosses, co-workers, friends and romantic partners.  I have struggled with wondering if I am a gullible person in general, not to have seen these people for who they really were from the beginning.  Being gullible was not what made me attractive to these people, though.  I have become aware of the things that did – past hurts that hadn’t fully healed, an innate belief that love is earned, not given.   Being hyper-focused on other’s approval, and a sometimes-permeable sense of self, more dotted than solid.   One that could be infiltrated by others.   

I had just moved to a new city.   In starting new friendships, I attracted two Type B women.  Not only were we friends, our children became friends, our husbands became friends.   We had even gone on vacation with one of these families.   Later, I was able to see the red flags I had missed.  The way they talked about other people.  An enthusiasm for creating conflict.  I did start to pick up on things as the friendships progressed.  ‘I like this person’ became ‘I don’t want to get on this persons bad side.’  (Again, it is not our gullibility, but our internal belief that other people are like us that lands us in these situations.)   I was already spacing myself from them when I was approached by a mutual friend about some things she had heard about me from these women.  I would come to find out this had been going on since the beginning.  For years.  You can appreciate being new to a place and never being able to know how many people this information reached before it reached you.  Wholly untrue and deeply humiliating.  In this case, I felt no conflict whatsoever.  There was a confrontation the following day.  That was not the end of it.  For them, me finding out only meant they no longer had to pretend to be nice to me.  Things devolved to the point that I found myself consulting with an attorney.  She asked me – what is it you want here?  Do you want money?  Criminal charges? Lawsuit? Restraining order?   I said I just want them to leave us alone.  She then gave me some very valuable advice.  Some people delight in having a suit or restraining order brought against them.   And, from what you describe, it sounds like these are those type of people.    Legal action will only provide them with years of entertainment and stories to tell their friends.  If what you want is for them to leave you alone, drop off their radar.  That is what I did.  At the time it felt so unjust.   I can see now, though, that being unable to provoke me further led to them getting bored and moving on to the next person. 

I want to offer a disclaimer on sharing this experience.  At the time, it was traumatic enough that I doubted I would ever be able to accept it and move on with my life without justice or closure. I did both of those things. The reason I share it now is not because I need hand pats (I rarely think about it to be honest) but because it is the perfect example of how Type B people operate.   There will be no admission of wrongdoing.  There will be no remorse or apology.  There will be no closure.  They will be delighted to tangle with you indefinitely.  They don’t have the rock bottom on behavior that you do. You can spend as much of your life as you wish in this endeavor.  Or – you can refuse to give them the thing they want most and, in the process, prevent yourself from sustaining further damage.   

No Contact is appropriate when:

1. The abuse has been ongoing, repeated, and unchanging for extended periods, often years.
2. This leads to recognition and acceptance that interaction of any sort will only result in more abuse. 
3. You simply cannot take any more pain.
4. Their abuse is beyond your control.  You understand that the only thing you can control to protect yourself, is to remove yourself from it. 

The difficulty of maintaining No Contact depends largely on the nature of your relationship.  In recovering communities, No Contact is measured like sobriety.  One day, one week, I made it 30 days, I’m six months clean, please celebrate me making one year.  Relapses are a part of it.  Grief, unfortunately, is not a straight line of healing.  Grief bounces.  You may feel strong one day and wake up the next missing this person intensely.  Bargaining with yourself that it has been X long and maybe you can put the past behind you is useless and will not result in the outcome you desire.  Remember what kind of person you are dealing with.  They will never engage in an action that does not benefit them personally.

What happens when you go No Contact on a Type B? 

1. They will fight you or attempt to manage down your expectations of them.  Type B’s operate on “supply” which is the attention, affection and emotion you provide them.  Supply doesn’t need to come in a positive form.  Anger, tears and drama work equally well for them.  These emotions are proof you still have feelings for them, that you are still invested enough to fight about it.  If you have been in a romantic relationship with this person, be aware that their idea of “we’re still friends” is a joke.  Their definition of friends means you continue to have the same feelings for them, which they will fan as necessary, while they are allowed the freedome to trade up on you at any time.  Make no mistake about it, them attempting to keep you in their life does not mean your feelings are important to them.  You are important to them – only as far as continuing to provide them with the attention to which they have become accustomed.  Nothing more. 
2. They will have already sourced adequate supply from a new person.  Not needing you in the short-term picture, they will coldly lose interest in you.  Obviously, this option lets you off the easiest, but with the knowledge that no part of you was important to them in the first place.

What if you are unable to go No Contact?

In cases where an immediate family member is a Type B or you share children with a Type B, you will be unable to completely remove them from your life.  This option is more difficult and requires more self-control than No Contact does.  It is a technique referred to as “Grey Rock” in which you keep all responses and conversations with this person short and to the point, never reacting emotionally to anything,  even if you are intentionally provoked.  Since emotional responses are their objective, long-term starvation of this necessitates they move on to someone else. 

If you are a friend of someone who has recently gone No Contact:

Please support them through the different emotional storms that follow.  They may feel empathy for the abuser, doubt that this person was Type B in the first place or grieve the illusion they lost.  They may have anger, thoughts of revenge or need to talk about specific traumatic points more than once.   It takes time to heal, work through the stages of grief and process the cruelty shown to them by someone they had genuine love for.  You may have never liked their abuser to begin with.  You may never want to hear about this person again.  It may be tempting to cut these conversations short by changing the subject, saying good riddance, telling them to get over it or stop thinking about it.  Terrible changes take place when you are subjected to this type of emotional abuse.  You are not yourself for a while.  It doesn’t mean you won’t ever be yourself again, but it takes time to get there.  I have been on both sides of this situation.  It is difficult, at times, to be patient, but it takes as long as it takes.  Remind them they are making the right choices and show them grace if they break No Contact.  Confirm, as many times as necessary, that this person was indeed narcissistic and abusive to them and this person will not change. 

Not sure if you were involved in a romantic relationship with a Type B?