[Amanda M]

Thank you for the recommendations. I’ve been in therapy for many years, and with the repeated traumas I’ve had, I have had to learn and utilize these things many times, as well as more intensive things like EMDR, TMS, ketamine therapy… I guess not really relevant here, other than to say I truly am doing my best and I’m fighting as hard as within my capacity right now and I thank you for all suggestions.

All the great stuff in the world doesn’t change the other stuff. This guy is so split. He has 2 VERY strong parts of himself that disagree, so he is dealing with a pretty big battle within himself. This level of split can be a symptom of some pretty big traumas from childhood. Whatever is happening for him, it’s always going to be there until he decides to do something about it. It makes me sad for him. He is truly suffering and to be honest, the BEST thing you can do for him is to stay away. This guy is being tortured by being in a relationship and causing so much harm and he knows it. Since he is not going to get any help, it’s best he stay single. It’s stable, it’s consistent and he doesn’t have to worry about hurting anyone.
This is probably the most painful reality anyone could say to me. I know it to be true and that is what hurts the most. I think the most real I’ve ever seen another human is when he broke down and asked me for help and wrote down that list of his issues. He wrote down about 20-30 things, and would hand it off to me to read as he wrote each one. Then he flipped the page and tried to write things he was good at. The only thing he could write was, “I’m good at my job.” And then literally came up with nothing else. Even though I was there to confront him about him cheating on me, and after weeks of being pushed away after a blindside breakup, I took the pen and wrote down several good things about him. I told him I cared about him. I genuinely just wanted him to get help. But like I said, he quickly hit an emotional shut-down after that and told me to leave and that writing that list was a mistake. He quickly went from internalizing his issues to externalizing them and making it a reflection of me; that I just made him feel like a flawed person and a failure.

This was one of my biggest struggles with him. I’m a pharmacist with a special interest in psychology and just from the nature of being in so much therapy and having experienced so much in my own life, I (probably wrongfully, but always out of love and the desire for learning and growth) would tend to point things out to him to try to get him to see that there were issues he needed to address in therapy. I told him what an avoidant attachment style was (and anxious attachment, which I’m sure you can see is mine), and would point out even small things like when he would use humor to deflect, or have harmful black-and-white thinking, lack of communication, etc. At various times he would be appreciative and even curious to learn more, or ask me to write things down, or one time he asked me to send him info handouts from my previous therapist regarding conflict avoidance. There was also a time he told me I was the only person in his life who has ever “held his feet to the fire” to make him see that he needs to make a change. All I ever wanted was for him to make the therapy appointment he had been claiming he would make and we would each work through our issues, both separately and together. I was always gentle with him, although I know I should have never tried to be his therapist in a sense. I was just trying to help him and us. I did learn to stop talking like that with him and just held on for the day he actually made the therapist appointment. I gave him tons and tons of affirmations throughout the relationship. I tried to show him stability. I needed the same care, though. Only in hindsight do I see that there were times he was showing me he cared at the max of his capacity and in his own way.

But most of the time, he would tell me to stop trying to be his therapist and all I was doing was making him feel like a failure and flawed and I’m the only one who’s ever said these things to him in his almost 40 years, so it must just be me and I made him want to crawl out of his own skin when I would try to talk about how he was conflict avoidant and it was hurting our relationship. He told me after he blindsided me with the breakup that he felt so much relief not being with me anymore. It’s SO painful to know that that is both true and not at the same time. I’m sure he does feel relieved, like you said he was tortured being in a relationship a lot of the time. But, I also do know the genuine moments of happiness he felt. One day, he let “I love you” slip out and he went into almost a state of shock afterwards and said I was only the second person in his life he has said that to. He so deeply covered up his emotions that the words literally slipped out of his mouth unintended when we were cooking dinner and laughing together. He was caught completely off-guard. But that moment and several others are why this is SO hard for me to let go of. Why it’s so hard for me that he isn’t leaning into what we had and getting help. That instead in the end he chose to decide there wasn’t really anything wrong with him; that it was actually just me and he had no feelings for me, so on to the next person.

Whatever is happening for him, it’s always going to be there until he decides to do something about it. It makes me sad for him. He is truly suffering and to be honest, the BEST thing you can do for him is to stay away.
I guess this is where I’m stuck. I’m sad for him, I’m sad for me, I feel confused, lost, hopeless, and helpless. The best thing for him is for me to stay away, that’s what allows him to continue to feel this relief and continue to avoid issues, but it’s the thing that hurts me the most. This feels completely unfinished and it’s tearing me apart. Part of me really does want to write him an email, but I don’t know what I would say to be honest. It feels like a lose-lose situation. But I’m just not ready to accept this loss, another loss. This was my shortest relationship but by far I would say it was my deepest connection and I don’t want to lose him in my life.

[Amanda M]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and your kind words and insight. I know what you are saying is true – I clearly have a pattern and am trying to fill a void; there’s of course a much deeper backstory than I can even try to type into words.

Right now I am fully in a survival mode state, which unfortunately does mean just trying to temporarily get relief from the pain. None of my usual coping methods are working and with the holidays, the anniversary of my daughter and my brother’s death coming up in a few weeks, and other things, I am truly struggling.

Maybe it’s just compounded grief and complex PTSD, but the loss of this particular person is hitting me harder than previous breakups. I thought I had done the work, I was hypervigilant when deciding to date again about potentially encountering another narcissist. In fact, at first I wasn’t even very interested in this person. I told him I only had a friendship to offer, which he was respectful of, and said he wanted to stay in my life even if it just meant as a friend. Of course, I convinced myself to give this one a shot (because like you, I’ve also tried dating the “nice” guys and I could just never get to a romantic place with them). He wasn’t love-bombing, he was respecting boundaries, and so I just told myself to keep giving it a shot and of course I developed strong feelings.

I should have emphasized more in the original post how much good there was between us. He was unlike anyone I had dated before and he brought a lot of joy into my life. When he was actually not getting in his own way, it was wonderful. He really would have times of showing a lot of care for me, a desire for us, a future, and (at least what I perceived as) genuine happiness.

It was a rocky start, a rollercoaster of him expressing feelings for me and a desire for a relationship, and then it seemed like any time some sort of conflict would happen, or when emotions would get real and the relationship was developing, he’d pull away and distance completely.

I finally thought we had broken through that cycle, and it seemed like everything was finally stable and great. Then he completely blindsided me and basically said it was all a lie and that he was faking all of it. Honestly it became all over the place. One minute he would say he knows he needs to get help, go to therapy, work through his issues and would tell me that he definitely wanted us, but the vulnerability never lasted long and he would flip again.

After we broke up, when I found out about the cheating, I confronted him and he broke down crying and said, “how could I do this? I’m sorry, how can I fix this? Am I two different people? Why do I convince myself I’m not happy with you?” and then he wrote down what I thought was an extremely insightful list of his issues – “I view everything in life as transactional; I cheat first so I don’t get cheated on; I have a hard time remembering things for what they truly were; I am emotionally stunted” and so much more. I tried to be extremely supportive and then it’s like the shame of what he had written down hit him and he shut off again and told me to leave.

All of that to say, there’s obviously so much rambling I could do about the confusion I received from him; down to the very end. One day (before he blocked me but after weeks of telling me he wanted me fully out of his life) he actually said, “there is some spark here, things just keep getting in the way, but I think we can be friends” and started talking about concerts and trips we could go to together over the next few months.

Again I apologize for the rambling mess. There really was a connection with him that I don’t know how to put into words. It’s not something I felt with my past relationships. I know he has things to work on, as do I, but it’s hard to feel like I can see why he would run, shut off, convince himself he didn’t want us, etc. It’s hard that he would so strongly push me away but then the second we would see each other he would be happy and aware that he was getting in his own way. This definitely wired my brain to think that, “if I can just see him, talk to him, create a positive experience, then he’ll temporarily get out of that black-and-white thinking where all he can see is negative”

Not healthy, I know. But I felt like what we had was too important and special. It’s hard to think that that’s why he ran; because he felt that, too. Truly a textbook dismissive avoidant and my heart is just broken.

I don’t think it’s repairable. He has me blocked on the only social media I have so I doubt he ever unblocks me to look at it. I don’t think without some sort of outside persuasion or insight that he would be able to see the reality of what was.

Again I apologize, I’m truly just trying to survive right now. I’m frozen in grief and trauma and trying to take it minute by minute to move forward. Thank you again

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