Your thread reminds me of a Melanie Beattie quote I saw recently (paraphrased): " You cannot simultaneously set a boundary and tend to the other person's feelings."

If you need to put down a healthy boundary, you need to, but then you can't go on to try and justify yourself and placate them. And it might be uncomfortable, because a lot of us don't like doing that. We want everything to be okay and for everyone to be on the same page. Thing with narcissists, though, they do not want to be on the same page as you, so you'll never get resolution with them.

Another thing about narcissists, they don't like boundaries. Boundaries to the narcissist are like closed doors to cats- an absolutely unacceptable condition. They will trample your boundaries for nothing more than the sake of remaining in control. They don't care about your feelings

Rather than talk to him about something like why you won't date, maybe you just say, "I'll date when I'm ready." And leave it at that. He'll probably interpret that as hostile- because that's what they do- but at least with something like that you maintain a little more control of your space. You, unfortunately, have to have a bit of a thick skin if youre going to remain in contact with a narc.

I'll give you an example from my life: my MIL is very shameless and without boundaries. So much so that when DD got her own phone, she didn't want Grandma to have the number, for fear of the demands, guilt, and generally shameless behavior that she could perpetrate through the phone. Since DD didn't have the maturity or feel comfortable setting the boundary, I did it. Her phone is for safety. school work, and communicating with her friends about school- or that's how I left it with MIL. No justification, just a boundary. I've since gotten nasty, entitled texts from MIL (she's my granddaughter, I have a right to her phone number ). I don't justify the boundary just stick to it. As DD gets older, and gets ever better at enforcing her own boundaries, she can make decisions about how she wants to interact with grandma.

But here's the thing- what do you think she says about me? I'm controlling and manipulative. I drive wedges between people and cause problems. That's fine. It's not true, but she's never going to see the truth from my viewpoint, so there's no reason to waste time trying to make her see that. I put down the boundary for DD's sake and we'll being, now MIL has to deal with her own feelings. Out of my lane. I'm staying in my own lane.

Learning to deal with people who behave that way is a learned skill. Be gentle and patient with yourself, and you'll learn new, more effective ways of dealing with them. But mostly just take care of yourself and your immediate family, and recognize that his thoughts and opinions are just that..