Wow, that was a lot to think about! If my frustration and our inability to communicate pushed him away I would have to handle this situation completely differently than if he's simply a narcissist looking out for himself. I do think that everyone has SOME narcissistic tendencies, but after doing some research into "Narcissistic Personality Disorder", and even though it sometimes FELT like that, I don't think that's it. It wasn't just him telling me what I wanted to hear, it was his mother, his aunt, his best friends from middle school and college telling me variations on "He's never been happier". I do believe that. We weren't perfect, we had our issues, but we were happy and in love.

I could give a number of examples as to why I don't think it's as simple as him being a narcissist. One would be that he's a professional musician who makes 90% of his limited income from playing live shows. Back in May a friend of mine contacted him about doing a performance and he not only offered to do it for half price, but it's an hour each way, out of his way, to get there. He did that for me, because she's my friend. He never even told me.

I'm also inclined to believe that he just wasn't able to hold onto those feelings of happiness. The self loathing, the doubt, the fear, the darkness would creep in all the time. I don't have issues with mental health. I've had some situational depression (like the past 7 or so months), but I'm a happy person by nature. He may have thought that I would leave him, so he couldn't afford to invest in this. I don't know. I did think about going to counseling myself, it's not a bad idea.

I did decide to invite him to my birthday party last week. I wanted him to know that he's still a part of my life even though we haven't really seen each other. It was short notice so I didn't expect him to be able to make it, but he wrote me back a nice note.

Thank you for your thoughts and advice.