Hello all.
It's been a rough couple of days. I did a lot more research around emotional abuse and narcissm, and while not everything rang true enough did to give me pause. I feel like I had to let some harsh truths sink in, including the fact I had almost willingly ignored some red flags along the course of the relationship. There is obviously still some work needed to do on myself that the desire to meet someone and settle down meant I was ignoring my feelings of hurt along the way.
I have always had a tendency to treat my feelings as 'lesser than' the other person I was with. I honestly thought that sitting down and talking openly about the things that hurt me meant I had got over this pattern. However, I still stayed despite the sadness I felt in the relationship, and allowed myself to end up a person whose behaviours were alien and not in line with my values.
I have been doing a lot of processing and grieving. I am still unwilling to say that I was treated badly due to conscious cruelty. But I have had to admit, some of the behaviour was cruel. I still want to take responsibility for the things in the relationship that were my fault. I have sat and tried to look honestly at my own behaviour. It has helped me see, with confidence, that I was never clingy or needy, and I certainly offered support and encouragement. But I did allow resentment to make me ungrateful for the compromises that were offered. I allowed the relationship to become my identity and change my sense of self. I stayed despite being unhappy, and inflicted unhappiness myself because of this.
So, I find myself grieving not only for the loss of my relationship, but the loss of what I thought the relationship was, and who I thought I was with. It is hard to take in that, however unconsciously, I have been part of a game and played it to the letter. The 'devalue, discard' part of the narcissistic cycle hit me like a tonne of bricks.
I have moved from wanting to meet to talk, to wanting to send one last text to say I don't feel we should be friends, to feeling like NC is the only way to protect myself and heal my feelings. In our last conversation he said he was going to go to therapy, and I really hope he can also heal and find his happiness. But I need to leave that hope at that, a well wish, and untangle my thoughts from his. My focus has to be on the still-existing wounds this has uncovered and find my way back to liking, then loving myself.
That's what I am struggling with most I think. When talking with my friends I feel like my personality has changed. I am not giddy, confident and lively any more. I dislike that I have this incessant need to talk things over with them and am not giving back to my friendships in the way I used to. The critical voice I have heard over the past few years has become my own and it happened without me even realising it.
I have a therapy session today, which is a relief. At least I can go in with a clear idea of what I want to work on.
I very much would like to keep discussing things with you all, and will return to the thread with thoughts and updates along the way. I am going to remove my first post, however, as I am a little nervous of how easily identifiable the relationship is from it.
