Confused, lost and hurt

Lol. Aw. You're just AP with a ways to go. But it gives you a reference point for what you can work on. So much better to be aware than not!

This is what I'm unsure about, though. Staying with a narcissist after they have started being abusive isn't secure attachment. It is usually an AP, FA, or BPD partner who will match with NPD to begin with... and then they will be gaslit and abused into a fog by the NPD abuse once it begins (which can be gradual as you unfortunately went through or can be a switch flip) and become more and more insecure, until they manage to remove themselves from the NPD sphere and start to recover.

The reason I'm asking you about this is because there's probably seeds of AP insecure attachment from before your ex-wife, and if you're working through your issues you may have to be willing to dig further back into your past to get to the roots.

So....here is how I would interpret it....she likes your company, she is fine with flirting with you...but right now she doesn’t want a commitment with you and she isn’t sure if she wants that again.  If she were to be outright concrete...you could move on....but she isn’t closing the door or opening it any further.  Right now, you have a friendship that is on her terms.   

There is a saying...if love something, set it free..if it comes back to you, it’s yours..if it doesn’t, it never was.  I believe if you let her free...if you go no contact and work on yourself...she will either come back or she won’t...but then you will have your answer.  

Take a look through the other FA posts on this forum. This is very typical in an FA-AP dynamic. It's safer and more enjoyable for someone who is afraid of intimacy to downgrade their partner when the relationship gets too serious. The lack of response is typical weak boundaries, not wanting to lose you but not wanting to commit, and keeping the door open to a situationship lets an FA interested in this setup have their cake and eat it too. This means, emotional intimacy without real commitment (and, in this case, and mine, and others... without much or any sex).

You waiting it out won't change it. It's part of the unaware FA need to do come-here-too-close!-go-away-too-far!-come-back-too-close! etc. that allows their nervous system to handle the situation. It can last indefinitely if you allow it to.

This exact. Same. Thing. Happened. To. Me. Please do yourself a favor and don't waste your time. If she starts working on herself and becoming more emotionally available for a real partnership eventually and there's a REAL chance, I'm sure she'll be back to let you know. Neither of you are emotionally healthy enough for that to work itself out right now... this will most likely be another cycle repetition.

I'm sorry if that seems harsh. I just was there myself and didn't want to believe it back then, and I wish I knew people who understood what was going on who could share solid advice with me! But since most people don't know about attachment and are either (likely insecure) romantics who say love overcomes all eventually or are strong-boundaried people who say, don't put up with that $hit!, neither of which perspective is very helpful when you're leaning AP and too scared to fully close the door or to fully stay with someone non-commital, I felt no one understood and kept leading myself on.

My experience, and again, with more than one FA ex... every single time in retrospect it has been, I should have practiced strong boundaries and not put up with it. I shouldn't have abandoned myself, should not have given the decision-making to someone else. The sooner I focused on myself, the sooner I could eventually find a healthy situation without these miserable highs and lows.

Do read other accounts here. Look up kristyrose as her posts go from start to finish with an FA-AP cycling dynamic over several years. It's very informative.

Actions and words aren't aligning.

It's quite possible that your accusation broke her trust and the relationship now feels too unsafe to commit to. Your dynamic didn't happen in a vacuum, and you both have your parts to play.

But calling you husband when you're not married, and holding hands and going on dates when you aren't even committed doesn't align.

Yes, people may need time to process and recover from a breach of trust. I don't think that every relationship should be over, with no work, just because something happened that caused a wedge. It depends on what happened and why. But when it's mutual attachment issues, it's not about the single incident and breach of trust. It's about the individual dynamics that led to the breach of trust, and they have not yet been changed in your situation. It will be difficult for deep repair to happen, and impossible if you're not both committed to your own independent work. Her not having any sort of game plan and not being able to communicate anything to you, and her words and actions being un-aligned, is not a good foundation.

She's telling you she needs space but also holding hands and going on a date. That's what's comfortable for her. That's what she's capable of right now.

I couldn't move on until I saw I put in a full effort and that nothing I did with my FA exes mattered because when I fixed my side, they still had their unaddressed issues and we'd go in circles forever as they had no intentions of changing. So, I get where you're at. But while I believe her that she's not sure what she wants and isn't doing this to lead you on, because of the FA-AP overlay on all this (and her own disconnection from herself), without a break and independent soul-searching, it's more likely that you both run in circles until you hurt each other too much to repair it. Something needs to truly change on both sides for the relationship to shift. Otherwise you keep putting in the same two inputs and hitting repeat, and the same thing happens again and again.

The only way to gain her trust is YOUR words and actions align closely, and over time (likely several months, and then beyond if you don't want to break trust again). While you're also deeply respectful of her boundaries in addition to making your own healthy. So until you've actually addressed your protest behaviors and fear of abandonment, she's right to be apprehensive.

But you confronting your issues doesn't change hers. It just stops you from triggering her due to your own. It's great she's been in therapy because hopefully she does take her issues seriously and is already working on them. But the full dynamic only shifts if you're both committed to the work for yourselves and not only doing it each other.

This may sound counter intuitive.....but if possible, focus your therapy sessions around addressing your issues in general, not specific to her.  I spent so much time in therapy trying to win FA men back, trying to fix the things that I thought were impeding those relationships.  It was like trying to patchwork therapy and in the end...it really never ended up with the desired outcome.  It would be very understandable if you sustained trauma from your marriage.  I went 3 years with a narcissist man and walked out the other side of things very confused and distrustful. For you to have survived decades with that women means your view of relationships likely got skewed.  Have you joined any groups dedicated to discussing issues as a result of being in an NPD relationship?  If not, I highly recommend It’s all about him bu Lisa E Scott. There was a section in that forum called it’s all about her for men who had been when NPD women.  That site really helped me.