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Post by tnr9 on Sept 2, 2024 15:12:00 GMT
Honestly….he sounds like he might have more narcissistic behavioral patterns. He definitely does not sound like this is just attachment stuff. He clearly has boundary and empathy issues. You might want to look at the it’s all about him forums to see if that is more in line with your experiences. I “dated” someone who was a narcissist and it really did a number on my perception of myself while leaving me feeling like I was in withdrawal. If it does end up that that forum fits for his behavior towards you, then they used to have a group recovery program (which I highly recommend). In that program you learn so much about the dynamic, brain chemistry and why it is important to cut all ties in order to grieve properly.
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Post by alexandra on Sept 2, 2024 17:44:37 GMT
You didn't do anything to wrong him or deserve the behavior, but he's not capable of the kind of friendship you're looking for. He eventually said as much, so I'd believe him. He may be FA, or there may be some other debilitating emotional issue going on (whether it's NPD or something else), but to be honest the problems in your dynamic sound evenly distributed. I mean that in the sense that you had accepted a lot of behavior from him that made you feel bad, but you stuck it out, struggled with boundaries and people pleasing, and still blame and question yourself. What kind of friendship is one where interacting with him results in you feeling bad? Everyone deserves more out of their friendships.
In situations like this, ruminating and overanalyzing doesn't help you. The best thing you can do for yourself is walk away from him (including not letting him live rent-free in your head) and focus with your therapist on how to make walking away easier when a friendship is not working. The question I'd ask instead is if you so deeply suspected he's emotionally unavailable (which, he is), then why did you want to be so close with someone unavailable to you whom you can't trust? That's going to be far more helpful to you to discuss in therapy than ruminating about his potential attachment style. Your intuition was on the entire time, you knew there were issues there and you didn't understand some of his behavior because it was so far off of what you need, but it sounds like you didn't want to listen to your gut. Why is that? Another good question.
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