Quote:
Originally Posted by s4ndm4n2006
I don't like the "protective" term as it seems to be a false front. Seems more likely to me that it was "control" mode more than anything which is pretty much what I've dealt with (still deal with though not getting into it here) Another similarity in what you describe that I've experienced is the blame game. And I do not mean just the "it's your fault" thing although that's a big part of it, but there's a pattern here. That all the others these people have been with have been at fault seems kind of skewed, doesn't it? makes you wonder or at least should.
In any bad outcome to a relationship we are all at fault to some degree so to some degree, I'm sure you did some things wrong but it rarely if ever is entirely on one person.. maybe more on one side than the other so.. when someone tells you it's all your fault keep that in mind.
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Oh it was absolutely control. And the thing is that I knew it going in, I just didn't name it as control. I called it stubbornness, and knew he had some issues with stonewalling and withdrawing, but I rationalized it as his issues with opening up due to past hurts. Just how I tend to try and reach out more because I've been hurt (the please love me! tactic), he becomes even more emotionally unavailable. In the beginning we talked about it, he was committed to working on it, and was actually pretty good about it. But then he raised up the control in other ways. And gaslighting...whoooo boy, is he skilled at that.
Whomever it was that said, "When a person tells you who they are, believe them," is so right. The thing is that you need to be listening. And, when we really like a person, we aren't fully listening. If he is any indicator, narcs aren't devious about who they are at all. Way back in 2012 when he and I talked a little over social media (when he was trying to flirt and was
extremely pushy and I told him, in no uncertain terms, to back off) he told me that he'd had some issues with some casual relationships in the previous years: "I was almost like a predator." I only remembered that conversation in the last few weeks. When I told him, wayyy back upon first meeting him that I tend to be shy at first: "Oh, I'll draw you in." Wouldn't a more appropriate response be, something like take your time, I don't want you to be uncomfortable?
Anyway. It never occurred to me how little effort he made for me until someone mentioned how I drove to see him, yet he only came to see me on a business trip. Christmas: no card (he says he doesn't even send them to family). I broke my foot: no card, nothing (I got cards and gifts from friends I haven't seen in 20 years). And maybe that can be chalked up to a guy thing. But I mentioned early on that I kind of
like that stuff. And I found out, a few days before I went to see him, he didn't even have my address. So he couldn't send anything anyway. (I sent him a nice little gift the day I found out he got a promotion at work. Not that it's tit-for-tat...but I'm just saying).
Dude, I gave you my address months ago. How are you going to be in an LDR with someone and not know their address?? "Well, you texted it to me and then we had a fight and you text bombed me. Of course I lost it." My fault again. You couldn't ask me for it? So many ways in which I was just stupid, stupid, stupid. I liked him for a long time and wanted him to be the person I'd always thought he was. And he was really good at making me believe I was crazy by the end of it.
Now I just need to focus on building up my self esteem again.