One of the words that gets bandied around and misused a lot in dating and relationships is ‘needy’.
“The reason why my relationships haven’t worked out is because I must be needy.”
“I scare people off because I think I’m too needy.”
“I would have been a better person in the relationship or we would have had a better one if you hadn’t been so needy.”
“I’ve been unavailable/unwilling to commit/disappearing/hurting you because you’re needy“.
Some people will believe they’re being needy for having basic needs or just any needs because they may have been raised to believe that theirs don’t matter or that other people’s needs are more important.
Some people will believe you’re needy for having expectations for mutual love, care, trust, and respect. They have relationships on their terms hence anything above and beyond that is ‘too much’.
Some people make their partners the centre of the universe and make them their sole focus placing all their needs at their door – codependency.
Being ‘needy’ is about having excessive expectations of having your needs met by someone else. Excessive expectations isn’t having needs full stop; it’s about having unrealistic expectations of what you think a situation and a person should be delivering back to you.
But that’s not where ‘neediness’ starts and stops – if you expect a relationship, to have your needs met, decency, mutual love, care, trust and respect from someone who via their actions and even their words has demonstrated that it’s not on their agenda, then you can appear ‘needy’ even if you have the most basic of needs even though you may not actually be needy in the wider sense.
This then becomes like expecting water from an empty well – quite frankly a cardboard cut out looking for a bit of Sellotape from someone who doesn’t want to give anything is going to look ‘needy’.
If you’ve ever been involved with someone who is emotionally, physically and spiritually unavailable that’s unable to provide the landmarks of a healthy relationship – commitment, intimacy, progression, balance, and consistency – you’re involved because it’s reflective of your unrealistic and/or negative beliefs about relationships, love, and yourself, which place you in limited and conflicted relationships.
By placing your confidence in someone like this, if you gain love and a committed relationship against the odds and they make you the exception to their rule of behaviour, it’s a convoluted way of getting some confidence and validation.
If you’re entirely honest, in recognising the ‘synergy’ between you (both unavailable), you’re giving and expecting from them because you’re looking for reciprocation and you think it should be easier to get your needs met. You may even start out trying to expect as little as possible to ‘win’ them which means that when you expect even a little more and meet with conflict, you’ll feel needy.
Let’s be real – if you start out expecting shag all and then expect them to stump up even 10%, that’s a ten fold increase for the person that’s all about the me.
I’ve said it many times – everything in relationships is contextual.
If you have unrealistic expectations of what someone and a relationship should do for you, it will mean that you’re emotionally demanding and co-dependent.
You’ll be the type that becomes a human Transformer to become what you think they need so you can be ‘loved’, plus you may expect them to want to be with you all the time, or you may play Florence Nightingale and take on their problems, be a Buffer in a Transitional Relationship trying to heal them from a previous relationship, or for example, try to get them to meet needs that a parent should have originally fulfilled, something that many people try to do. This type of behaviour doesn’t work in any relationship.
If you have basic needs of mutual love, care, trust, and respect in your relationships, this isn’t needy.
If you have those same needs in a relationship with someone who has shown themselves not to be capable of meeting them no matter what they say, it doesn’t make you ‘needy’ but you are wasting your time and trying to change them.
If you have unrealistic expectations from partners and expect them to make you feel things about you that you can’t even feel for yourself, you’re going to run into problems no matter the type of relationship and yes, it is ‘needy’.
I find that many women in particular are afraid of having boundaries, self-respect, and of having a basic requirement for mutual love, care, trust, and respect and as a result, they work off this fear that if they don’t yield and bend to the other party, they won’t have their needs met, so they abandon themselves and then end up on a diet of crumbs not getting their needs met anyway and being hungry.
Hunger is hunger. Now while having a healthy sense of self means that by improving your self-esteem, you don’t go around ‘starving’ looking for people to feed you scraps and instead go around with a comfortable relationship ‘stomach’, if you’re feeling hungry in a relationship because you can’t even get a care, respect, or trust ‘biscuit’, it’s because you’re in an unhealthy relationship and you haven’t left and are still expecting.
The only way that you can be sure of making sure that you aren’t ‘needy’ is by having enough self-esteem that you are actually meeting some of your needs (that means feeding yourself) so that you don’t look for things from the wrong people or try to get what you can’t even do for yourself.
I don’t like the word ‘needy’ because it’s too often used by people to invalidate other people’s feelings and make it sound like respect and being expected to chip in emotionally and with actions is something dirty, unrealistic, and the domain of people with delusions of grandeur.
Having boundaries, treating yourself with love, care, trust, and respect means that you don’t apologise for expecting someone to step up to the table and at least stump up with the basics – mutual love, care, trust, and respect are fundamental needs for a relationship.
All too often we experience the hallmarks of a relationship such as sex, being with someone over a period of time, plans etc and we think it’s OK to expect but if you are not in a mutual relationship, it’s an inequitable partnership – someone is getting things on their terms.
All too often I see that people are only too happy to get a shag, ego stroke, and a shoulder to lean on and we think they value these things enough to ‘give back’ what we need, but instead find that we value these things very differently.
If you’re meeting someone else’s needs and it’s not in an environment of mutual love, care trust, and respect, you need to fold. If you don’t start out mutual but hope to turn this ship around, you will end up running aground and depleting yourself because the ‘tipping point’ is never reached.
Shags, ego strokes, and a shoulder to lean on are the easy things to give and take but they are not an automatic precursor to the meat and two veg of relationships – commitment, intimacy, progression, balance, and consistency along with mutual love, care, trust, and respect and shared values.
You’re entitled to have needs but if you don’t ever want to find yourself using the word ‘needy’ or being called ‘needy’, don’t expect from those who are not in a position to provide and get on board with you so that you don’t relegate or second guess your needs and end up selling yourself short.
Ultimately most people cannot live on a diet of crumbs so there’s nothing wrong with expecting a loaf instead of having gnawing hunger all the time, but don’t give other people the power to be responsible for your entire sustenance.
Your thoughts?
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Hey Nat!
Once again, this is an excellent post! If you value yourself, then you will set boundaries. If people label you as needy for valuing yourself and setting boundaries, then it’s time to bounce. To thine self always be true! A girlfriend posted this wise analogy on her Facebook page and I would like to share it. The author is unknown….
“Have you ever noticed that Rolls Royce and Bentley don’t have commercials? REASON: They know that the value of their product is what brings customers to them. LESSON: When you know your value, you don’t have to beg people to be your mate, to spend time with you or love you. Be confident in who GOD made you to be. Everyone can’t afford the luxury of your friendship or love!”
Hear! Hear!
“Have you ever noticed that Rolls Royce and Bentley don’t have commercials? REASON: They know that the value of their product is what brings customers to them. LESSON: When you know your value, you don’t have to beg people to be your mate, to spend time with you or love you. Be confident in who GOD made you to be. Everyone can’t afford the luxury of your friendship or love!”
—– LOVE IT! Sooooooooo true! I will be saving it, printing it and stapling it some place where I can see it and internalize it.
That’s a good one.
Love this! The worst is when you are involved with an EUM/AC who makes you feel GUILTY for expecting the basics. My ex-AC had a litany of excuses for his crappy behavior, from the fact that he “missed his old job” (he had left it on his own volition, like, four years prior) to the fact that had “too many ghosts to bury” (I didn’t even want to know what that was about. Seriously.) and tried to make me feel guilty/like I acted like a crazy person for putting my foot down and saying I was done with him after he’d begged me to take him back and then treated me like dirt. Most people, at some point or another, have things that they are not happy about going on in their lives (and some people are bs-ing and making excuses), but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to be treated decently all the same! Never, ever sacrifice your self worth on the altar of someone else’s “issues”.
This just put a big band-aid on my heart, Natalie. I didn’t even realize I was beating myself up so much for this, because I wasn’t using the term, but I had all the concept behind it, and was second-guessing myself so much about what I wanted. Which was just a little kindness, if I’m honest. But just like before, when I’d rationalize his letting me down all the time because I didn’t want to let go of what I wished was happening, I find myself now that we’re broken up sometimes stupidly thinking that it was just me expecting too much, wasting time replaying things in my mind.
I did get out of the relationship (after 2 1/2 yrs) because he was an emotionally unavailable ass, but months later it’s still hard to give up his ghost — the person he was the first six months. Because that’s who I was having the relationship with the entire time — I wasn’t seeing and accepting his poor behavior the the whole time. I just didn’t want it to be true.
I know he belongs in the past. But god, it’s hard to let go of an illusion. It’s kind of hard to kill an ideal, since it doesn’t exist in real life to banish. (I know, STOP thinking about him or his ideal or whatever … I do try to get focused on myself more, per many of your posts.)
I am so, so, SO determined to go forward in life from now on seeing what is, not what I want to be. And not thinking I deserve less than the whole loaf, and justifying it as overreaching when I expect it, and getting out EARLY when the expectations aren’t met. Because untangling from this mess is a nasty pain.
Jessie,
“It’s hard to give up his ghost – the person who he was for the first six months.” – wow, girl, I am dealing with the same pain.
It’s impossible to forget and move on. I am stuck on his image from the first few months when he was pursuing me hard. I loved how I felt back then….. It’s even more painful now because he moved on to someone else. He started seeing her while we were together. When I found out, I felt used and disposable….Anyways, I’ve been on NC for two weeks and I am really proud of myself. Everything in my life is out of control but at least I can control myself by not contacting him. Yet, his “ghost” is stuck in my head.
Ladies, I would encourage you to check out the book “The Sociopath Next Door.” Honestly, you don’t even have to read the whole book, but read a summary of the main points (there are many of these available online). I saw someone else on here recommend it recently and it goes a long way toward explaining the type of experience you have both had.
Some people, probably including the men you dated, are sociopathic. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are physically violent; it does means they are capable of masquerading as someone they are not to get people to care about them, and then pulling out the rug when it suits them. They lack the ability to empathize, so it doesn’t bother them that they hurt you.
Please keep this in mind as you move forward. What you saw during the first six months WASN’T REAL. It was an illusion created by someone who would do anything to get your attentions and sympathies but lacks the ability to empathize or love.
EvaLee, I loved how I felt too, but it was strange. He would turn on his powerful charisma and I would feel like I was being sucked into a beautiful vortex. My spirit was trying to warn me, but it would let him draw me in anyway.
I left him, I blocked him on my phone, email and social media. But I still wanted the man I met, the man I dated, the man I fell in love with.
Thank you Jennie, for pointing out that it WASN’T REAL. Those words finally hit something in me. I have trust issues and couldn’t really figure out why. You made me realize that I fell in love with a FANTASY. My boundries are intact, my self esteem is pretty decent, but perhaps I doubted myself because I still believed this fairy tale could exist.
I feel better by admitting that to myself. I made a mistake, but I will learn to listen to my spirit because of this mistake. Aaahhh, it feels good to forgive yourself and become a better woman because of it all.
I am so grateful for Nat and everyone on this site. My love to all of you!
I’m so glad to have helped! Stay strong, it sounds like you are doing great.
EvaLe
I hope it is some comfort to realize that once the rush of a new relationship is over, this a/c will move onto someone else, or hopefully, this time he’ll be the one being dumped.
Jessie
You sound like you have amazing insight. It’s a void we’re feeling.
Stay the course, you are a better person for it.
I know this is a little off the beaten track, but this struck a chord with me in terms of family relationships rather than romantic ones. For example I find my mother ‘needy’ because she guilt trips me about not calling or seeing her often, which actually demotivates me because firstly I feel she has a downer on me, and secondly when I do see or speak to her, she doesn’t have a lot to say, and kind of expects me to ‘entertain’ her, and do the ‘work’ in terms of maintaining the relationship. Bizarrely today my 17 year old’s GF sent me an angry message about how hurt my son feels that I haven’t called or seen him lately, when from my perspective I was giving him space to contact me when he wants to, thus trying to counter the guilt tripping my mum does to me.
When it comes to needs and neediness, I think it has a lot to do with lack of clear communication and honesty about expectations. People in all contexts make assumptions based on their own perspective of events, and it seems to me that ‘neediness’ is a way of saying “I feel hurt that you’re not giving me what I want, even though I haven’t told you what I want, and I’m not going to give to you until you give to me first”. And of course it puts the other person’s back up, because there has been no mutual negotiation of meeting eachothers’ needs.
Crazybaby I totally hear you. This can happen outside of romantic situations for sure. As with your Mother, my ‘Father-in-law’ is the same “needy” character, especially with his children.
I’m nodding to the guilt trips, the communications, visits and “entertain me” which you mention. It’s soul destroying when they are not pleasant company and are themselves “emotionally challenged”, negative and suffocating.
Funnily enough he wouldn’t beable to hear the truth, so all
sibs just have to get on with it and limit contact further (demotivation) to prevent more angst and hurt, therefore making him more ‘needy’.
Cinnamon – Thanks for your encouragement. I also think I found this page on the right day, as I was feeling terrible. I feel bad for you that your ex was controlling as well. It feels suffocating.
Hey crazybaby,
I’m sorry to hear you are having strained family reltionships. I have a similar thing with my parents (they always say i don’t call enough, which is true!). I don’t think contact has to be about guilt tripping. I think you can just contact someone and ask how they are and let them know you’re always there if they need you – then give them space. I think you’re right in that you have to have good communication. Just giving someone ‘space’ does seem a little like abandonment if the person doesn’t know your motives.
It helps if you accept that your parents are the way they are and they’re not going to change. It might be hard work contacting them (it is for me at times) but i do my bit and hope it’s enough. I am not going to bend myself like a crazy straw! I will do what i feel is reasonable.
Also, as i always said to my folks when they expected good behaviour from me before giving me what i needed: “YOU are the parent, it is YOUR job to set the example”. I really hope you can sort things out with your son and your mum. I am sure things will get better.
Excellent point.
Gina,
I love the analogy! I will post it where I can get to see it everyday!
Amazing post! You must read my mind each and every time. I am still feeling guilty about leaving the EUMM on Friday in a huff and I could not remember what ticked me off. I did text him to apologize on Saturday morning. Got no response. Then I realized, I am so used to his negative little nuances that I do not even realize what he says or how they effect me. In the 6 months when we did not see each other, I had dated a couple of men a few times (just a discovery phase), he assumes I slept with them ( he mentions this while we were in bed), I did not say yes or no, first of all because I was in shock he thought this and because it is none of his business. He also accused me of telling a friend of mine about our “affair”, a friend who knows a couple who knows his wife. As if I would ever do that! I was going to e-mail him tonight to tell him how he hurt my feelings, that he insulted my integrity, but then I decided why should I? He should know better, he would act like he was so sorry, then I would feel pitied and needy. Well screw him! In the past, I would sit here and worry, that maybe if I don’t apologize, my behavior may be the reason he may never call again, but too bad, I don’t NEED his crumbs of attention! He is a f!@#ing doctor for Chrissakes, he should know better!
Ooooh I love this post, I WAS made guilty for having basic needs and expecting a healthy relationship for 2 years, I felt like I was asking too much I remember thinking in that way for soo long, but then I’d be confused because I’d see my girlfriends with boyfriends who give them their needs and more, and I’d feel so little like I don’t deserve it like they do.. It’s so sad looking back at what I was accepting, it’s pretty disgusting.. And it’s hard to get out of that mentality because I’ve thought that way for so long, it angers me when I remember how he treated me and how I accepted it
But I know better now and I grew much stronger, going back to that a$$clown is IMPOSSIBLE! I’m the one looking down at him now, I know I deserve much better, I don’t want him near me or my life ever ever ever again.
Natalie I’m so grateful I found your blog! I’m 19 years old but I feel SO educated about relationships thanks to you now I know what not to accept and stay away from for the rest of my life, thank you <3
I wish I was as young as you. I would have had a much better life if I had Nat’s words of wisdom (and listened to them) many, many years ago. Better late than never (in my case). As for you, take Nat’s words to heart, read them, breath them, LIVE them, and you will do just fine!
Nat, if I heard “you’re too needy” once, I heard it a million times from my EUM. He would say that whenever I would complain of his non-availability. I would answer that it because I wanted to be with him and how could that be needy? He would never really answer that question, and I would be left feeling something was wrong with me. Sometimes I would I try to act like I didn’t miss him so I would look like I wasn’t needy. I wouldn’t call, email, or text him for a few days to try and show him I was perfectly fine by myself without him. But then too many days would go without a word from him and I would give in and contact him. He, of course, was not missing me most of the time. And when he did come around, he would spend a few days with me and then soon accuse me again. I didn’t think I was that needy when we first meet, but the longer I was with him, the needier I became, because I knew that the long stretches between our time together would happen again. I couldn’t understand how he could say he loved me, yet never seemed to really miss me. Our intimate time together would be so wonderful, but he could leave and not even seem to yearn to have that time again. At least for a long time.
Jessie,
I understand exactly what you are saying. I was just thinking about that today and the fantasy I had about my EUM. He was so wonderful in the beginning, but it didn’t last long. Five months into the relationship, he began to slip away. Yet I held on to that ghost of the relationship, I THOUGHT I had. Whenever I would hear love songs, I would imagine that the song made him think of me like it made me think of him. But of course it didn’t. The songs never applied to us and it was only my image in my head. So, I am continuing with NC and letting go is very hard. The pain ebbs and flows. And when it flows, you feel like you can not live without him? But it so funny that sometimes I fear if I forget him, he will completely forget me and go on with his life. However, the pathetic thing about this way of thinking is, he has already forgotten me. He doesn’t really miss me at all. Not the way someone in a real relationship would anyway. I am just a girl he used to know. And so I continue with NC, waiting for the day when I don’t think of him at all.
Vanja, are you and I dating the same guy! I could relate with EVERY word you wrote.
What really struck a nerve with me (because it was exactly how I felt!) when you said: “I didn’t think I was that needy when we first meet, but the longer I was with him, the needier I became, because I knew that the long stretches between our time together would happen again. I couldn’t understand how he could say he loved me, yet never seemed to really miss me. Our intimate time together would be so wonderful, but he could leave and not even seem to yearn to have that time again. At least for a long time.”
Same here! Exactly the same. I missed him, but he never seemed to think anything of not being with me. I would tell him I missed him, he would reply in like. But I knew deep in my heart it was only words. He never implied he missed me. He supposedly loved me, but never missed me? How could that be? THAT’S not normal!! Right?!
Does anyone have a good response to being told you’re too needy? Maybe these idiots aren’t even worth it, but I am the farthest thing from needy, and it infuriates me when someone pulls the needy card because they don’t want to own up to the bait and switch maneuver they pulled. “Sure I SAID you were the love of my life, but dammit you psycho bitch, you need your meds adjusted!”
I couldn’t have expected LESS from my ex, and he was forever telling me my expectations were too high, that no man could possibly fulfill them. Of course, he’s dead wrong, other men have far exceeded my expectations, while he was just a walking disappointment.
The guy after him was the most verbally abusive (though he would only do it in email) lunatic I’ve ever met. Honest to God, he texts me one time to meet him at some bar so he can pretend to pick me up and impress his friends. Excuse me? This after he’d repeatedly blown me off, and told me I was psychotic, I needed to be medicated, and I was strictly middle of the road as far as the women he normally dated. And then he wants me to go out, alone, at night, to some bar I’ve never been to in some godforsaken part of the city, just so I can pretend I don’t know him?! I ignored him, but I wanted to text back and ask how middle of the road was going to impress anyone. I could go on and on about this one, but the bottom line is, he berated me for wanting more than a friends with benefits (his words) situation, when I was clear about that all along. But the best part is, he couldn’t even get it up. Not once. So exactly what kind of “benefits” was he referring to? Of course, he blamed me for that too, but he was always emailing and texting me dirty suggestions that frankly he couldn’t have pulled off in a million years. I honestly think this guy is delusional. Last time I heard from him he was trying desperately to contact me, tried every email address and phone number he could think of, and when I replied to his 20th email and asked him what the f’k, all he wanted to do was meet up for a drink. Like I’m the only woman in the world you can get a drink with? I blew him off and told him to leave me alone, and he got royally pissed but at least he did back off. He had the world’s smallest dick too. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him.
Bunny I just shook my head at your post. You are so lucky to be done with him, he does sound delusional. As far as getting it up, honey you’re luck he couldn’t what an even more disaster it would of turned out to be for you. I probably would of started laughing, I’m sorry I do have a mean streak.
Bunny, sorry I am pissing myself (I too have an evil streak lol)
Best answer to the friends with benefits would go something like “no benefits to me with a little dick that you can’t even get up”
Sounds like a prize arsehole, lucky escape!!
hey bunny,
i think i have the same dude! haha! he loves to text me about “doing things to/for me” but cannot for the life of him put his money where his mouth is….call him on it and he’s full of excuses/all my fault!
I know who needs meds: THEM
Seriously, where do they make these guys? It’s like they came off an assembly line in a factory.
I think a good response to the ‘you’re too needy’ statement would be: ‘I’m not needy, you’re just not man enough to meet my needs’. Which is perfectly true and the bottom line in all AC/EU relationships.
Minky : i love that – “you’re just not man enough to meet my needs”. And i think, there’s a big element of control with guys who use the “your needy” line. They want things on their terms only – like they’re so special??
I second that. It’s a great response. Thanks!
I love the way my MM would ask me so “did you miss me”? He needed that ego stroke. read: needy. I asked him last time if he “missed me”. He said no, that he did not want to lie to me or he would lose respect for me. WTF? (this of course, was after asking me if I had dated in the last 6 months and his assumption that this included sex with my “dates”) He also has been telling me how I broke his heart when I told him to leave him alone 6 months ago, now he didn’t mean it, he was trying to put me on s “guilt trip”. WTF? Excuse me, and I am the needy one? Thanks Natalie, the more I read these blogs and contribute, the more I realize what a waste of time this jackass has been!
Never,
He’s a waste because he’s married! He will never be available to you.
How can you expect anything from anyone who is married, this is what you sign up for when you get involved in this type of arrangement? It doesn’t matter what he promises, as he is already taken.
As always Nat, you’re right on time! I NEEDED EVERY WORD you said, and I need it to sink to my core!
Especially this:
“If you have basic needs of mutual love, care, trust, and respect in your relationships, this isn’t needy.
If you have those same needs in a relationship with someone who has shown themselves not to be capable of meeting them no matter what they say, it doesn’t make you ‘needy’ but you are wasting your time and trying to change them.”
This is where I have been missing the mark, completely! I always took it personally when he wasn’t affectionate towards me. I had told him so many times that I “need” that in a relationship. He just wasn’t able to provide me with the affection. He would make comments that I was “needy” or “demanding”, or even “insecure”…making me think I was being “needy”..when all I wanted/needed was for him to give me the same I gave him. As the saying goes, you give what you want to get back.
The saddest part is that I started to shut down that basic need of wanting affection. I settled for little to non. It killed me inside. I settled for his way of the way the relationship was suppose to be — for HIM! It wasn’t suiting me or my needs.
Same with progression. I let him carry that ball and call all the shots. Making me miserable. Feeling like any “words” he used that were even sounding like a possible future, I would perk up my ears to hear, and think about those words over and over, to keep myself going. To give myself a glimmer of hope. Stupid me! Holding on to a sliver of hope, when there wasn’t any to hold on to.
Natalie also said: ” Shags, ego strokes, and a shoulder to lean on are the easy things to give and take but they are not an automatic precursor to the meat and two veg of relationships – commitment, intimacy, progression, balance, and consistency along with mutual love, care, trust, and respect and shared values.”
I was ego stroke – no doubt about it!! And the shoulder to lean on, ALWAYS! I would listen to every thing from work, to his ex, to his kids, to his financial woes. God forbid he ever was there for me. He would hear what I had to say, then he would typically find fault pointed in my direction. When I heard and listened to him (yes I did both), I was sympathetic (even at times when I could have pointed the finger at him)
JustMe,
that’s my favorite paragraph from this post, too! It really helped me understand the difference between healthy expectations and unhealthy ones. Passively, –you could even say secretly, so as not to seem ‘needy’– I waited around for a year for love, progression, and commitment from someone who was not only unable, but who was decent enough to patiently and kindly explain that fact to me several times. Is it unhealthy to hope for attention, affection, consistency from a man? No, it’s perfectly healthy to hope for these, but it was unhealthy to hope against hope that this man would change into someone who is willing and able to provide.
I got myself so confused with my fantasy relationship that I convinced myself that even if progression and commitment are not on offer, I would be willing to settle for affection, care, respect, and consistency without commitment. You know, for the time being, LOL! Guess what, there is no such thing!!! My plan was to tough it out until I miraculously stop feeling insecure about whether the affection, care, respect would last. Obviously it wouldn’t, and it didn’t, and I knew it wouldn’t, which made me feel insecure and ‘needy’… Nothing like the dread of waiting to be abandoned. That was unhealthy, and trying to put off the inevitable was unhealthy…. the one healthy thing about that fantasy was my sense that something is really really wrong and that I had to find a way to quit it.
NML,
Your words of compassion are what keep me coming back to BR and the writings of the women who contribute, thank you all!
Gina, I love the Rolls Royce metaphor!
I may have to print this NEEDY CLARIFICATION post and put it on my vanity where I sit to get ready before a date….Jesus God, how did we women get here? How did we get to this sad place of accepting/expecting SO LITTLE!!!
Would we raise our daughters to accept/expect such bad behavior from men??
(God I hope not….)
Love the post!!!!
“…quite frankly a cardboard cut out looking for a bit of Sellotape from someone who doesn’t want to give anything is going to look ‘needy’.”
Ah… you kill me Natalie, I love it, haha!
OMG Natalie, you hit it out of the park with this one! I just (3 days ago) got “dumped” because the guy I was dating for the last 4 months said I was “too needy” and that it was “too hard” for him to deal with a relationship. Not “this” relationship…”any” relationship. Many times in that relationship I tried to talk to him about “just settling for crumbs and scraps” of love from him. I’ve never met someone so emotionally unavailable in my life and I had no idea how to handle it so I would try to talk to him hoping I could figure it all out. Obviously I shouldn’t have done that because he had no desire to change and I couldn’t change him. It was for the best that I was dumped because the man simply didn’t know how to love anyone.
Your statement of “I don’t like the word ‘needy’ because it’s too often used by people to invalidate other people’s feelings and make it sound like respect and being expected to chip in emotionally and with actions is something dirty, unrealistic, and the domain of people with delusions of grandeur.” is so right on. He and one other boyfriend have said I was needy. I would check in with my friends and ask them if my expectations of being loved, a relationship progressing in a normal time period or trust issues were too needy and they would reassure me that my needs weren’t unrealistic at all. That these two men were simply emotionally unavailable.
So now it’s time to do some more work on myself and never settle for Mr. Unavailable again!! Thank you again Natalie for always hitting the nail on the head!!
It can be pretty confusing; my X was extremely needy in every way possible.
As things steadily grew worse it was like i became needy.
I had to give myself a reality check and realise that I wasn’t being needy; I just wasn’t getting a good, consistent and stable relationship.
Instead I was in an inconstant one with moving goal posts, hot and cold and incredibly disruptive changes in moods and feelings towards me.
It still astounds me that this person drew up a 5 plan and discussed how he wanted us to move out and yet any time we got close to the move out date he would back out. He could speak about moving out as often as he liked but if i raised the topic suddenly i was expecting? But i couldnt win because when i suggested we dont discuss it he went cold on me for two weeks then dumped me then of course came back. All this was happening while each week would would put money away and buy household items and all to move out.
Id never been so confused in my life and things like this made me look needy and like i was holding huge expectations.
These relationships can be confusing. You can’t see the forest for the trees while your in them sometimes. You hear and see actions that makes you think things are moving forward, and then the next thing you know, the brakes are being applied both verbally, and physically. After a few rounds of this it’s time to stop and think and accept that this person really isn’t capable of being in a healthy relationship with you or anyone. He has issues, you can’t fix him. So you have to detach, and remove yourself from the madness of the perpetual misery go round. Don’t try to figure out why he’s doing what he’s doing, because that’s only going to make you want to try and fix him. Cut the losses and let go.
Dawn, Yes. This. All of this. Well said. This is pretty much where I’m at, the letting go stage.
Yet, I feel a bit sad for him, I do. He’s not a bad guy, really. He’s just as lost and confused as I was, only he’s not clued in enough to get help. I know he’s hurting, and wants healthier relationships, yet is still in denial a bit about how to go about doing that. Yet, I know I can’t help him; he has to find his way on his own. So, I feel for him.
I just need to move forward and feel for me more.
You know what, I think they are needy too! They need to firmly clutch their old, hardened, stale, dry loaf, and to pick off and toss only crumbs they can do without. They need to feel safe from risking themselves emotionally, they need to be able to bail easily and as soon as it suits them, they need to deflect responsibility, they need to be above criticism. They need to hang onto their belief that wanting love is for the weak. For the most part, they get those needs met because no other party is required. Anyone can pretty much get these needs by their lonesome self.
Really, really great.
OF COURSE you will look “needy” to someone who is unable/unwilling to reciprocate! WOW! Duh! I needed to hear that. Because I have made the error of apologizing for my “neediness” to such a person. I realize that engaging with such a person requires a complete lack of boundaries & needs. Why he doesn’t call a hooker, like I alluded to him to do, is beyond me. Oh, I know, because he wants it for free…
OMG, I said that same thing to my ex EUMM~”You should just pay for a hooker since that is what you want~ a woman with no needs, thoughts or opinions.” I think it comes down to use and control for many of these men. They probably know that their behavior is reprehensible (If there is a God…), but they have this brilliant way of turning it around so you feel “needy” for wanting the basics and consequently, you back off. It’s almost a perfect plan to maintain the Status Quo. Until many of us started reading Baggage Reclaim, that is…
the last time my EUM asked me to come over (come over? what am i a teenager? i’m 40, he’s 45!) i asked him if he had $1000 waiting on the dresser for me & I told him that was a DISCOUNT!
You’d think hookers would be right up their alley; clean transaction, money for sex or whatever-no emotions involved or needed. BUT, since there are so many women like us out there willing to have no boundaries or NEEDS, they can just get what they want for free. And they bounce when you become too “needy” (AKA want/need/expect BASICS!!!!!!)
That’s why they can. Because WE let them.
This is EXACTLY what I told my MM! Then all of a sudden he wanted someone with feelings, someone to profess them for HIM, with him not to have them in RETURN! What a frickin’ loser! I realized I left my gold ring over there, I wnat my ring back then he can go EFF himself!
I used to ask the ex EUM why he didn’t just go out and have one night stands all the time, but he said that’s too ’empty’. Read – i don’t just want a shag, i want all the benefits of having a girlfriend without having to give anything in return, please. And my response (through my actions): ‘Absolutely. Please come and wipe your feet on my forehead’.
I’ve come to the conclusion that being told we’re needy is just their excuse when they don’t have an excuse. Its their all purpose any situation line when you’ve pinned them down and they can’t squirm out of it anymore.
I was really liking all these comments…. then the one by NeverTooLate struck a chord. MM. Married Man. I think it is a good boundary for women NOT to date, shag, fall-in-love with, etc… married men. First of all, why would you want to give an even tiny second of pain to another woman – the woman who is in a marital relationship with that man? This kind of entanglement can really only have elements of pain and deception., and if HE is MARRIED – and still wants to fool around with/ use you, wouldn’t you be much better off without him?
For all the wayward wonderful women who are in pain over involvment with a MM, I wish you strength and strategy to free up and get out and move on…. This is a great site and we are blessed. Peace!
That’s just it ~ many of the women on this site, myself included, have difficulties with *setting and keeping boundaries.* That, in combination with low self-esteem, unhealthy family dynamics, and patterns of relationship insanity create a powder keg for us. It does eventually explode. Proud to say NC with my exMM for almost three months and, yes, obviously, much better without him. BR has been a huge support for me and others who have been, in varying degrees and situations, “wayward.”
Blueberry girl- Thanks for pointing out dysfunctional family dynamics … I am just finding out how much legacy these have created for me in my adult life. Not just in my romantic relationships, but also at work – having boundaries understanding that you can’t do everything all the time, and not taking personnaly things that should not be taken personnaly. It’s the same wound of shame we carry from home to work and everywhere else that lets us accept unwarranted criticism without defending ourselves. If we can get to the root of it we can start rebuilding (I hope!). I’ve never been called needy but have had bf’s who insinuated that I wanted too much (when I just wanted the basics, really). When I didn’t budge, things fizzled and then I’d second guess myself… BR has finally explained to me what my parents never thaught or demonstrated to me: what a mature, loving relathinship SHOULD look like. Love this site!
Natalie- What I absolutely love about this site is that you have the power to say something very profound and in exactly the way it needs to be said. I had never thought about the idea of being “needy” this way. Thank you for this. I have been labelled “needy” by a series of EUM and so was willing to give away the store for free to the AC/narc, in the hopes that he would not see me that way (and I wouldn’t feel that way). Of course, I still didn’t love myself or have any self-esteem or boundaries, so I gave him free reign to come in and abuse the crap out of me – and then still call me needy. It isn’t needy to want love and respect and expect them in the context of a romantic relationship. It is needy to expect someone else to love you enough to substitute for you loving yourself. It is pointless to expect an AC or narc to love you.
So well said. Thanks – I needed to hear that.
Natalie, thanks for this post. I am wondering how many of us are actually codependent and maybe that’s why we got with these guys in the first place. I just now, a couple of days ago, realized I AM very codependent. Have been reading Codependent No More and wow…what an eye opener. I guess, like the word ‘needy’, codependent has been misused/overused and I didn’t understand exactly what it meant.
For me, it’s the other piece of the puzzle. The bigger piece. I’m seeing the full picture now and it’s a lot more to do with me, not so much the exAC or exEUMM. Maybe it’s worth looking into for you guys too? (You guys meaning nobody specific…any of you posters or readers who feel like you really are too needy.)
Charlotte,
I think you are right. Co-dependency . When I first met my ex EUM, he said he had to “wean” his last girlfriend off of him. I remember thinking, that wean was an odd choice of words. Reminded me of a baby being taken breast feeding, a bottle or even worst, a drug addict off drugs. And he had the power to control how much she could or couldn’t have of him. Like I became. I think now, men like him seek women who they know will need them desperately, maybe can almost “smell” them. They begin the relationship with lots of attention and romance until the woman is is “hooked”, and then “wham!”, cuts her off, only giving little pieces of themselves as they please.
I can tell you all, that NC hurts like hell, but it sure gives you 20-20 vision! And you see what a joke the relationship was.
That’s exactly how my MM experience went…he flooded me with love. Long, constant emails, never went unanswered, trips, fancy dinners, elaborate romantic plans, poems, etc. (Like a Julia Roberts movie.) Then he cut back and I was addicted bad. Crying, pleading, begging…sinking so damn low. It’s embarrassing now, afterward to see the past me. Then he withdrew further. Days without answering emails, cold and distant. So messed up.
Reminds me of Audrey’s little dialogue in the last post: because she didn’t want to respond to dude’s ridiculous hook-up emails he called her ‘moody.’ The ‘needy’ label is also convenient to a person who wants you to be other than you are.
Ever notice how we, or some guys, will put up with all kinds of crap behaviour, and bend over backwards, to do things for the person they ‘love’, even if that person is being childish, demanding, mean, cold, etc? We have to be who we are and not morph, because what a person gives is about them, not about us. I was very unavailable to a partner I had in my twenties; the more I withdrew the more he gave. The whole dynamic came to disgust me. He never called me needy even though I was the neediest person on the planet with him, and his behaviour only enabled me: I was a bitch and a total emotional dependent by the time I broke it off, but not once did he ever call me needy.
Then, a few years later the exAC comes along, at perhaps the strongest point in my life up until then, when I was at my most independent and interdependent, most balanced, most interested in a partnership (as opposed to the shoulder to lean on I had been searching for). I still wasn’t a hundred percent out of my own EU woods, but I was a far sight better to be with than seven years ago, and yet this man took me even wanting to know what values he was looking for in a partner as the most ‘female, stupid, romantic, gold-digging, needy, clingy, etc etc’ behaviour.
Also case in point: my friend who married a guy when they were both more ‘carefree’ is now looking ahead to kids and has developed her own career while her hubby has fed his addictions and become unemployed. Now she’s wanting more from him than party boy antics and guess what he calls her? No fun, and suddenly “needy” and “judgmental.”
How people engage you is about them. Whatever you do, there will be people who would throw themselves at your feet (not attractive) and people who would try to hook you (and play keepaway with, or ignore, your needs).
Hey Magnolia, I responded to your questions regarding NC on the previous post. I like the concept of “how people engage you is about them”. Would you think the flip side is true: How I engage people is about me? I certainly have engaged the men in my life as though I don’t have any needs, internalized that from childhood. Then, I would get pissed when they didn’t meet my needs. Talk about unavailable and mixed messages.
This post made me hungry….for food!
Magnolia,
Your post was excellent and a very good analysis of people and how they behave in relationships. I it’s someone whom they truly love, then they will put up will all kinds of crap behavior (my ex). Therefore, it is imperative that we always be true to who we are and not change to please someone else.
My mother, aunt, and grandmother, used to always tell me, “Gina, never want anyone who doesn’t want you.” So I went NC and spent my energy getting to the point where I didn’t want him anymore. I don’t want him anymore, but I am working on getting to the point where I feel indifferent towards him. Indifference–not love or hate–is the BEST goal to aim for when getting over someone. As my late mother used to say, “Once you stop caring about the person, there’s nothing else they can do or day that will hurt you.” If they end up getting married and treating their new partner better, you don’t give a rats ass because you feel indifferent. If you run into them when they’re on a date with their new love and they’re laughing and having fun together, it makes no never mind to you cause you’ve moved on. Likewise, if they’re suffering or miserable, you don’t want revenge or feel vindicated because you are so over them, that you’ve risen about the pettiness of it all.
Magnolia!
“What a person gives is not about us, it’s about them.”
Your post was excellent and a very good analysis of people and how they behave in relationships. If it’s someone whom they truly love, then they will put up will all kinds of crap behavior (my ex did that with his ex). Therefore, it is imperative that we always be true to who we are and not change to please someone else.
My mother, aunt, and grandmother, used to always tell me, “Gina, never want anyone who doesn’t want you.” So I went NC and spent my energy getting to the point where I didn’t want him anymore. I don’t want him anymore, but I am working on getting to the point where I feel indifferent towards him. Indifference–not love or hate–is the BEST goal to aim for when getting over someone. As my late mother used to say, “Once you stop caring about the person, there’s nothing else they can do or day that will hurt you.” If they end up getting married and treating their new partner better, you don’t give a rats ass because you feel indifferent. If you run into them when they’re on a date with their new love and they’re laughing and having fun together, it makes no never mind to you cause you’ve moved on. Likewise, if they’re suffering or miserable, you don’t want revenge or feel vindicated because you are so over them, that you’ve risen above the pettiness of it all.
Here’s to feeling indifferent!
“They have relationships on their terms hence anything above and beyond that is ‘too much’.”
I was desperately in love with a guy friend (and still am) and he said to me a year ago that we could be together, but it would be (quote) “entirely on [his] terms.”
I was so in love I said sure, sure whatever you want and then he dumped me after one week. I still love him today and I don’t know how to get over it.
Hi Lavender –
As someone who has hung on for WAY too long as well, it sounds like perhaps you haven’t learned to call this man’ s behaviour what it truly is, eg. assclownery of the first degree. He hurt you badly and he knew he would, but he did it anyway.
Try asking yourself: would I let a female friend treat me this way? And if not, then why am I still thinking of this guy as a ‘friend’? He ain’t no friend of mine!
Perhaps you need to stop loving him and start loving yourself – or at least start being a lot kinder to yourself! A first step would be to take him off the pedestal where you currently have him?
I liked Natalie’s recent post on how it’s OK to admit to yourself you made a mistake – that might also be helpful?
Best of luck on your long-overdue fresh start!
Thank you so much PJM. I really appreciate it. You are a kind person.
When this all started I was such a happy person, but now I am a shell of myself. He always calls me up to criticise me to tell me why we can’t be together, mainly cause I am not confident enough, have a shy personality, don’t dress well enough, am not intelligent enough. It has gotten to the point where I actually agree with him and then ask him for more suggestions on how to improve. I don’t know how I got here. I am just broken as a person really.
I’ll try to do what you suggested!
Hi Lavender, I was shocked at your comment not least because I read your previous one where you said that you still love this man. Here’s the thing – I know that feelings cannot be switched off just like that, but this man is feeding off the fact that he has turned you down yet you continue to entertain him and seek validation. It’s like he’s communicated that he might have been interested if you had been and done these things – this man is a tit that’s degrading you. There’s nothing remotely lovable about a man like this and you’re in an abusive relationship via telephone. This isn’t what love looks or feels like – you’re trapped in your feelings and you’ve put off dealing with what you believe is full on rejection because by getting even this little bit of attention no matter how nasty it is, you feel like you’re still in there and you’re getting tips from this jackass on what you can do to improve yourself for him. When you were initially interested in this guy, maybe you didn’t know that this was an open and shut case of assclownary, but from the *moment* that you agreed to be in a relationship with him on his terms only, this was a major danger signal. It basically said “I’d rather be with you on some terms rather than no terms no matter how crappy those terms are” and he has used this to legitimise his treatment of you and it’s like he thinks he has license to treat you like this because of what he perceives as your lack of self-respect. The truth is, if you liked yourself even 10% more, you wouldn’t piss on this man if he was on fire. He is abominable and because you have kept him in your life on some terms, he is feeding off that. He is abusing and breaking you and by you complying with him via the asking him for suggestions, he has even more opportunity to abuse you. I urge you to get to see a counsellor straight away and to come up with a plan for cutting this parasite out of your life. That means blocking his number/not taking his calls and not giving him even a quarter percent room in your life. Let me say it again – this is an abusive relationship. Take whatever miniscule strength you have left and speak with a professional immediately. Don’t ‘try’ – DO.
NO human being deserves to be treated in the way that you have Lavender. You may think you’ve done something to cause his assholery – this man has ALWAYS been this way. You’re trying to please the unpleasable. Fight for yourself please!
lavender
Nat’s on the button as usual. I would add that I knew a girl in college who broke up with her boyf for his controlling behaviour. He would criticise her appearance and dress. She was one of the prettiest girls on campus, extremely elegant, think Audrey Hepburn.
It’s not about how you look or what you do. He just likes tearing you down. It makes him feel better about himself because, frankly, he’s an a$$ who I suspect no-one likes. If you want to be his punchbag, then that’s your choice. But I suggest you exit pronto and let him d!ck about on his own time.
Thank you Nat and Grace. You have no idea how much I needed to know that this wasn’t right.
We were friends before I told him that I had feelings for him and then he rejected me and we went back to being friends, then a few weeks later he came back and said we could be together, but entirely on his terms and that I had to be ok with being hurt in the end. He also didn’t want us to be seen in public, which made me think that I wasn’t good enough to be with him. He doesn’t have a GF.
I thought that he was just being dramatic and had been hurt in the past, but after seeing each other for a short time, he just disappeared and ignored me for another month. When we were in contact again he gave me a long list of reasons why he did that to me, as I noted above. He said I also wasn’t educated enough for him and I didn’t dress well enough. He would always call me to tell me these things and always in the middle of the night at about 3am. If I don’t answer straight away he gets really angry and yet if I call him even at a good time for him, he doesn’t pick up. If I don’t answer within two rings he then ignores me for a week or so.
It really played with my head, cause I am actually more educated than him and I don’t think I dress any differently than anyone else I know, yet he makes me feel like a bag lady. He kept telling me to buy heels and short dresses and then we might be together. He told me to get my hair cut and what style to get done etc because how it was wasn’t how he liked. He said he didn’t think I was experienced enough in relationships and that if I went out with his friends for a while, I would know what I was doing, but that was one thing I refused to do.
At first I didn’t know what to say and then after a while I kind of broke down into an empty shell and started to agree with all the things he said and asked him for more suggestions how to improve myself, because I really believed there must be something wrong with me if he was saying all of this and at least when he was telling me these things he was talking to me. He has a really good job, is successful and is seemingly intelligent, so I thought he must know what was right.
I thought he was such a great guy, but that my actions were causing him to be like this and that if I didn’t improve myself he would keep treating me the same way.
Lavender, all you’re doing is confirming that you’re in an abusive relationship. The fact that he has practically tried to pimp you out to his friends is absolutely deplorable. This whole situation is disgusting and I want to jump down the frickin’ telephone and tell this cowardly excuse of a man to take a run and jump. You have this chump (and there’s another C word that’s very applicable to him but I won’t be naughty) on a pedestal – I don’t give a flying fig if he has an amazing job, is president, whatever – he’s not that frickin successful or intelligent that he’s put it to any decent use and he’s certainly not *emotionally intelligent*. He’s just an asshole with a really good job, successful at the things surrounding that job, and intelligent at that job. He’s insecure, he’s controlling, he’s manipulative, he’s aggressive, and he’s a cretin. You have yet to tell me ONE thing about this guy that warrants why you would hand over the keys to your mind and your life to him. Don’t TRY to block him, BLOCK him. You need to choose better friends and better relationship partners. From the moment that one party declares themselves out or rejects you, you’re *out*. It is a major code red alert that something is seriously wrong if they’ve dropped you and you’re still clinging on like your life depends on it. He’s just not that special – unless you want to call him a special case of assholery.
I hear from women in your situation all too often – shag all relationship, tied to the telephone taking calls from an abuser. This is ALL psychological. You are not in a prison – mentally this guy may *think* he has you on lockdown but you can stop *making* calls and *taking* calls and get up and walk – they are physical acts that you can do. He’s all talk, no action. A telephone jailer talking shite and yanking your puppet strings.
The only things you need to improve is your self-esteem and the ability to take your hand and the press the flush handle on inappropriate behaviour. This is horrible. Please stop abusing yourself by letting this man abuse you. You will stop feeling broken when you stop your involvement with him. He’s not your friend and he sure as hell is not your boyfriend. I’m appalled at this mans treatment of you. WALK.
I grew up wth girls who treated me like this. I was forced to. Had no choice.
You have a choice.
Get the hell out. Ignore this guy. Forever.
You want tips on how to look better? Go to Saks or Neimans and get a makeover, and ask about who they can recommend as a good stylist.
The movie stars, including that (piece of garbage, really, in looks and character) Angelina Jolie, have stylists! They are told what sunglasses, makeup, haircuts, etc. to wear.
And get some magazines. You’re a smart girl.
HAve you caused any crime(s), to be ashamed of? Have you lied? Have you cheated? Are you a jerk or backstabber to those who know you?
You have nothing to be ashamed of, or to feel guilty about.
F**k this asshole!
aaaaaa-men!
Amen too!!
Lavender,
Like Nat I am utterly disgusted to read your account of this guy…my chin is hitting the floor! As if everything else isn’t bad enough, he actually wanted to pass you round his friends! WTF! (and supposedly for your own good! There are no expletives adequately strong enough to descibe this slime-bag. Do you fully understand what he was wanting you to do, Lavender – he was wanting you to go shag his pals (maybe for favours that he would collect) – please try to process this information – it is telling you what sort of person this is who has you under his thumb. This guy is clearly and unambiguously abusing you very badly. He is an out-and-out horror. If you were my daughter this guy would not know what had hit him already! Do as Nat says – you have your head in the lion’s mouth here Lavender – and do not “try” to do it: Do it!
Fearless, thank you for your kind comment. Actually yes I know that’s what he wanted re: his friends. I just didn’t say it explicitly because I am extremely embarrassed and ashamed by it. To be more explicit, I haven’t had as many past relationships as him (he says he’s had a lot) and he told me that he didn’t like inexperienced women, so I should get more sexually experienced with his friends, so that I could please him. He would list out names and everything. I wanted to die really.
I feel like throwing up really. I am just crying… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Of all the things he asked me, I did everything except this.
Why would he ask me this? Do you think it’s really cause I was less experienced?
I should explain one thing I don’t understand, if anyone else said this to me, I would never speak to them again, but for some reason with him, I have lost all sense and even now I think – well I guess he has a point. I am not like this with anyone else, just him.
Lavender,
“Why would he ask me this? Do you think it’s really cause I was less experienced?”
No, it’s not because of anything that’s got anything to do with you (other than that you are letting him away with it) he is doing it 1) because he is an utterly horrible excuse for a human being, that’s why and 2) He is doing it because he CAN.
He wouldn’t dare try this shit with any woman who had even a modicum of self-worth left in herself. He’d get a punch in the face. No-one who has one shred of human decency or one shred of compassion for another human being would EVER think of such an idea never mind outline the specifics for you! HE IS HORRIBLE. HE IS DANGEROUS. If you care one shred for yourself – and even if you don’t! – you must get yourself away from him. Far, far away from this monster. Full stop. That’s all there is Lavender. There is NO other answer here for you.
Fearless – you are right. I was hoping someone would answer this question for me, cause it’s been weighing on me. The truth is I know that he wouldn’t try this with anyone else. I have seen him interact with other women and I think he treats them well. It’s just that I liked him so much that I saw what was happening and I thought it was me because he didn’t do it to anyone else, but now I think it is me, but not in the problem being my character, but in that I let him do it.
Thank you.
Lavender
I was in a relationship with an abusive AC. He seemed like a nice guy, even shy and unassuming to start with. But as I got to know him (and I was with him for a few years), I saw his mean streak with several people. Including his own very young son. His mother. His brother. He was able to maintain the facade with “friends” (though his friendships were very shallow) and colleagues. Big deal.
He is one person. He’s not magically a good person with other women and a bad one with you because you have a problem. Is that what you’re like? Do you test someone for weakness and then rob/hit/pimp them out/insult them? He fools people. He wasn’t a terrific friend and now morphed into a monster. He has always been what he is now. He’s a con artist. When folk get conned by a door-to-door crook, is it their fault? You haven’t lost a friend; he fooled you in the same way he’s fooling these other women. This is who he is.
What is a good, decent, trustworthy person? It’s someone who is basically the same in all situations. At work, with friends, at church, with their family, they hold their values.
You’re somewhat fascinated by his nature. I can tell you it’s not that special or rare. There are people like him everywhere. That’s why we have police, courts, judges, prisons, rape crisis centres, battered women shelters. Psychologists even write articles about them:
None of this is your fault. however, the only person who can help you is yourself. Though you may want to get professional support from someone who has seen it all before. If you speak to your local battered women’s shelter they can point you in the right direction. And before you tell me that you haven’t been battered, they don’t hit you on the first date, they wear you down with controlling behaviour, insults and cutting you off from friends and family. Sound familiar?
Lavender, you have to get to a place where you realise that this man is not a nice character in that he will behave as you have described IF a woman lets him away with it. Some will, some won’t. So, he is a manipulating rotter who has to behave himself with most people, which shows you that he can do it, that he KNOWS the difference! But with you he doesn’t have to, so he doesn’t. With you he can be the rotter he really is, so he is. He is bad news. Full stop. Bad news for you and for any women who gets involved with him cos his rotten nature will always surface eventually and many women will walk when they see the signs. Nat’s new post on ‘broken windows’ should explain to you exactly what is happening to you and this slime ball of a man and why.
Just as an aside (not that it is important here, in the big scheme of things – as they are way too bad to be picking at the nits) but any ‘boyfriend’ who wanted you to be more ‘experienced’ (or, let’s say confident) in the bedroom, would want you to gain more experience (gain more confidence, let’s say) WITH HIM! (not with his pals!! Grrr…) What a creep!
Lavendar, there is a book called Say Goodbye to your PDI (Personality Disordered Individual). He sounds like he has the antisocial personality disorder.
I urge you to read this book. They can find your weakness and con you into doing things against your better judgement.
YOU MUST CUT CONTACT with this person immediately. Chalk this to life experience and move on. God bless you sister.
Yes, this is quite close to men-who-traffic behaviour, if not actually the beginning of. You should know that the psychological crap that breaks you down to the point of looking to him for validation and advice is listed in textbooks for pimps; the next step really is to ask you to sleep with friends to please him.
I had a big aha moment a few months ago after seeing a presentation on human trafficking and reading a page from the ‘handbook’ these guys use. Much of it was so similar to what my exAC did, I had to get up and go to the bathroom to cry.
I am reading all your posts and responses with interest, because there is still something in me that isn’t sure at what point a guy implying that you might do things better for your own good counts as abusive, or the beginnings of. But given that this is what my aunt does (says what she thinks you should do), and then it escalated to a slap, I’m starting to think there is a behaviour that still feels normal to me that I should be reacting much more strongly against.
Your guy has done so much more than suggest you wear a dress he likes, though, it’s pretty clear he is harmful, quite near criminally harmful. Block all forms of contact.
lavender
that’s what men who traffic women do. nice.
Anyway, thank you both for the encouragement, I am going to try to block him out and get some help. I need to have a happier existence than I do right now.
An ex of mine used to criticise me physically and tell me i had horrible legs. It took years before i was comfortable wearing skirts. He was also very jealous and posessive and verbally abusive. It’s a control thing for them. They get off on controlling how you feel, it makes them feel powerful.
It’s not about you. It’s him. He’s a complete waste of space. I believe emotional and verbal abuse is as bad as physical abuse. Bruises heal, but the mental scars of someone betraying you stay with you. And he IS betraying you, Lavender, he is taking the trust and admiration you had for him and using it to hurt you deliberately. Don’t spend any more time worrying about what this idiot thinks.
Bug hugs!
Thank you so much Minky. I know exactly how you feel. It’s funny how we can place our self worth in someone else’s hands. I don’t understand it at all. I know what you mean about being paranoid about wearing shorts. This guy would always tell me I needed to wear high heels – like stilettos to be sexier and then I started to do that whilst before I wore mainly low shoes and I was at work one day and my feet were so sore from walking around in the stilettos. I sat down and someone older in the office came up to me and said “why are you wearing such uncomfortable shoes at work?” It made me realise that I wasn’t doing it for me. Fine if I wanted to do it for me. I wasn’t. I was doing it for him, even though he wasn’t there. I was like a puppet from afar.
Lavender, have you read the book “The Gaslight Effect”? I don’t agree with all views expressed by the author (I think she’s still putting too much blame on the victims), but I think her observations and examples are very valid. She gives many examples of how abusive people make their victims believe the craziest things about themselves.
Your problems with this guy are not about you. You are caught in a destructive pattern, but you can get out!
Good luck!
Lavender, you are so much better than basically taking verbal punches from this asshole. I had a boyfriend like this for a year and it was the worst year of my life, so I really, really feel for you. This guy told me I was fat and he “couldn’t even remember what I used to look like”, because I gained all of 3 lbs. and told me that everyone gawked at me and thought I looks like a slut when we went out because I have (very modest) breast implants. This is what these losers get off on! The other ladies are 100% on point when they say to knock him off his pedestal, because he is truly pathetic. You sound like a very kind and sensitive person and I think you will find that cutting his sorry ass off will be like drop-kicking a huge boulder of negativity out of your life! *Hugs*
Natasha, thank you so much. I know it sounds silly, but I feel like I am gaining strength from everyone’s encouragement. It also makes me feel less alone to hear your stories. I know what you mean about your ex treating you so badly. It’s terrible that someone who is supposed to care for us can treat us so badly. In the end, this guy was supposed to be my friend.
By the way, I bet you look amazing. That guy was probably just jealous of the attention you were receiving and felt inadequate.
The guy I was talking about used to say I wasn’t sexy “enough”, so I guess we are all either too sexy or not sexy enough. Either way it’s a judgment of our sexuality as women, rather than us as people.
Lavender, it is so true that it helps to know that we’re not alone! When I first found this blog, it made a world of difference for me as well to read the other ladies’ stories 🙂 These guys will find fault with anyone and anything – seriously, they could be dating Gisele and they’d be like, “Hmmm, well you’re a little tall, you know? Why can’t you be shorter?” I’m very excited for you that you are leaving this fool in the dust!!
Lavender:
This boy-in-a-man’s-body is a f***ing scumbag, plain & simple. Drop the dead weight, block him from ALL forms of communication – EVERY SINGLE FORM & get a restraining order if you have to – and take care of your Self.
Love the distinction! It’s so true, needing certain things from a relationship, and being needy, aren’t the same. I don’t know how you come up with this stuff but I love your blog!
Great food for thought. This hasn’t really been an issue for me (unless it was said behind my back, who knows), but it’s good to keep in mind for the future.
Hey, Nat, so true – expecting the basics of human decency isn’t being needy (or moody!). After my epiphany r/s with the assclown and having read b.r., I know when to fold. And there’s nothing more frustrating than being thrown crumbs or having a guy talk up a storm and then fail to deliver.
My parents used to call me “needy” for breathing in. Or rather, they “jokingly” threatened deathly violence whenenver I chatted for too long about anything else than their own “gorgeousness” at the dinner table. Staring into empty space wasn’t allowed either. My mother ridiculed me for this behavior and called it part of my purported “mental disease”. Yep. That’s how I grew up.
Unsurprisingly, in my former relationships, I tried to be a giving empty shell instead of a person, because my parents made me believe my personality, my ego were basically a “mental disease”. I thought a guy might want me for sex, for a shoulder to cry on, for ego boosts to or to have somebody to brag about (I worried a lot about that point, because while I’m attractive, I don’t look like a supermodel). I never thought a guy would like to interact with the person in me and even do things to make that person happy! Therefore, I desperately tried to hide that person. I guess that’s why I was so deeply unhappy in all my relationships.
EllyB, every time you post about your childhood I want to send you a hug. I hope you’re actively working on recovery from the effects of a very dysfunctional family dynamic; I can ‘hear’ in your posts that the pain of these memories is still raw. With a bit of work, they CAN scar over and not hurt anymore.
My folks were not cruel. They taught me “life” was cruel by being quite irresponsible, having no money a lot of the time (we went bankrupt when I was eight) and then praising me for not “wanting” anything. I grew up ‘proud’ of never asking my parents for toys or lessons, then for clothes, or money to go out (started working at 13), etc. They did provide for a lot of my needs but always with the message that my simple existence was a huge burden (financial and timewise) that I was lucky that they were honoring.
I was furious at 16 when I found out they were saving for my brother and sister’s university education but not for mine because they figured I wouldn’t *need* their help because I would get scholarships. I needed their help. I needed their support.
But instead of saying to me, “You deserve more than what we can offer you, financially and especially emotionally” (because they were incapable of saying that), they both were EU parents, praising me and telling me I was ‘good’ for not being ‘needy’, so that it came to be part of my identity to deny that I had legitimate needs – and then part of my personality to have the anger at having to do that subconsciously spill out into almost every other area of my life.
It has been a heck of a journey learning to believe that the intimacy and support I crave is available to me through the right people, and to not regress to 8 years old when some AC frowns on me that I dared ‘ask’ for anything. It is also a learning curve to figure out how to meet the needs of another person who expects the same intimacy and stability and support from me that I have barely begun to believe exists in life!
Onward.
Hi Elly –
Parental narcissism alert! Hugs and keep on recovering.
EllyB this sounds somewhat familiar. We didn’t have a father but my mother’s variation on ‘needy’ was to call me names like ‘princess’ and call me ‘demanding’ ‘a little snot’ etc.
The funny thing is I’m the opposite of a ‘princess’ type. I’m hardworking, don’t whine, rarely cry (I learned as a child that no one cares), I do almost everything all by myself. Of course I do I never had anyone to help me. I’ve never had a manicure, or a professional hair stylist do my hair (what little I do to it I just do it myself, and I’m by far no professional!). Not afraid of dirt. But having a preference about anything makes me a ‘princess’ and not in a good way.
This could be for simply expressing a preference. ie ‘I’d prefer the hawaiian pizza over the pepperoni’. ‘Can we get the creamy peanut butter instead?’ ‘Oh if you are going to get me a birthday present, I’d kind of like to have a … ‘
“Yeah, yeah, Princess, we’d all like something, you’ll get what you get. (sneers derisively) what an ungrateful brat…”
Yeah it was a joy. My take away was that I am too insignificant to have wants, needs, preferences, honored or respected, etc… In fact still today in the back of my mind something feels ashamed when I think of doing something for myself. Or even just expressing a preference. There were a lot more things that are worse than that, but this aspect I think was the most damaging to my self esteem.
She’s still like that today, though she lives in the same town I see her as little as possible, I actively avoid her not that she makes any great or even small efforts to be a participant in my life. Several months ago, I’ve decided to actively try to cut her out again.
(continued below)
I’ve realized recently with the help of Nat’s blog, that my mother is in fact a ‘Class A AssClown’. I mean of course I always knew she wasn’t much of a mother. But no it’s more than that she’s a EUW/AC! And when I try to cut her off not that it probably bothers her or she notices, but after maybe 6-18 months out of the blue she suddenly has some fleeting urge to see me, then she makes some semi-grand overture, quickly becomes bored, and goes straight back to being an EU/AC. She, and I mean this quite literally, is completely disinterested in what’s going on in mine or my brother’s (let alone her grandson’s) lives. And when I say that, I don’t think words can convey how much of an understatement it is. She really, truly just doesn’t care. Never has, never will. But it’s more than just not caring, it’s she’ll take any opportunity to put me down, belittle me, embarrass me, remind me that my place is beneath everyone else.
She only wants me around so she can *use* me to tell others what an insufferable burden I’ve been to her life, and hold herself up as some all-giving, long-suffering mother figure. (ha!) She also competes with me, makes fun of and belittles me in front of others, she’s jealous of me.
The last time I went on a public outing with her, she immediately told a man at a booth a story of me and some embarrassing and bratty behavior I supposedly (according to her!) did when I was a small child, and there were several people my age all waiting in line listening, I was humiliated!! She does that type of thing all the time and I told her I didn’t like it. She sneered and smirked, and said at my age I “don’t get to” complain about my mother telling embarrassing stories about me. That was at least a couple of years ago, and I decided right then and there, to NEVER go out to anywhere in public with her again, as that scenario always ends up repeating itself. I’m 40 by the way.
Anyway I really hope I don’t ever have to see her again. It’s never a good thing. I’m sure she’s getting lots of sympathy at my expense telling everyone she comes across that I’m a princess and a snotty brat. Whatever.
Mel
Have we got the same mother?!
Mine came to my parents’ evening once. The teachers were telling her how great I was. She countered with how lazy I am. I never told her about parents evenings again. I went through childhood, school, puberty etc without any support at all. When I started my periods she told me off! I remember thinking “doh, what did I expect?”.
So, yeah, I used to feel embarrassed about seeming “needy” in relationships. But, truth is, in a relationship there needs to be love given and received on both sides. Otherwise what’s the point?
EllyB, Magnolia, Mel & grace:
Your mothers sound like mine, all wrapped into 1 person. 😐 While I’ve come a long way, sometimes it’s hard to realize that I have an egg donor but not a mother. My aunt (her sister, whom she also doesn’t speak to; I’ve got stories for days) has kinda taken her place as a mother, but of course, it’s different from the egg donor being a mother, if you understand what I’m saying.
It’s amazing, upon looking deeper into one’s self, how much parents have an effect on the rest of our lives (sometimes if we let ’em). This is why I’m quick to correct & challenge those who say that kids “are too young/stupid/(insert bullshit excuse here) to understand anything”. It annoys me to no end.
But like Magnolia said, onward. Let’s not allow our parents to hold us back, whether in the romantic relationship realm or otherwise. We’re daily works in progress; it’s up to us as adults to do this for ourselves.
EllyB, Magnolia, Grace, Spinster. Not that I wish bad things on you!! I don’t! But it is kind of nice to know I’m not alone in these experiences. There are some books being sold on Amazon about ‘mean mothers’ and I’m going to check them out. Don’t know if it will help. Grace, I can relate about the parent’s evening thing. Though I don’t recall my mother ever coming to any of my schools (she was almost completely unaware of even whether I was attending school, let alone what courses I was taking). But the scenario is the same.
You see other families beaming with pride, talking about the daughter, she’s so smart, hardworking, excellent. Then you wonder, why doesn’t anyone care about me? For me it sucks when I hear people say things like, “*Every* parent wants their children to have the very best” or some other mindless platitude (you hear these on television commercials for example). They obviously don’t know my ‘family’. When people say that do they forget about all the children in the world who are abandoned, abused, neglected by their parents? When people say that it’s almost like they’re reconfirming that I don’t matter or exist.
I have a hard time being around people with children too. Kids are cute and all but when I see appropriate parent-child relationships (of any age range) it just highlights for me the crappy way I am marginalized.
Unfortunately though my brother and I actually care about eachother, and he’s not close with my mother either, her behavior is rubbed off on him and he has a habit of belittling me to others too. He’s done this with new boyfriends or should I say even guys I’ve only been on one date with. He’ll tell the guy how great he (the guy) is, and ask has he been ‘warned about’ me? Things like that. This last time it happened it couldn’t be helped because my brother was there that night that I met the ex EU, as we all have mutual friends and were out together. Since my brother did it again I’ve told him off and told him to choose that group or me and he seems to have chosen them. Whatever I can’t have him around sabotaging me. But that EUM would have (probably) behaved the same more or less. (But we’ll never know). My brother once again stole my bargaining chip of the new boyfriend believing he needed to treat me with respect in order to see me.
Spinster I totally get what you’re saying about the aunt. When we were children we traveled so much we never had a chance to develop any lasting relationships with other caring adults. As an adult I’ve met a few older people who say they’ll ‘adopt’ me, they’re like a ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ figure. I am GRATEFUL to have these people in my life now! But no it’s not the same. I only actually see them once in a great while. They are kind and show an actual interest in me, something quite foreign to me. But it’s not the same as having a real family or people who really are part of your day-to-day happenings. Also for an example, from what I’ve seen healthy parents who brought up a child (including adoption) often may help them with major things such as college, house down payment, moving, buying/ fixing a car (or if they’re poor they at least help with encouragement). Obviously these friends of mine aren’t going to do anything remotely like that for me, and nor would ever expect them to. It’s just not the same. I do wish I had real parents but I didn’t and so I just try to work with it.
I actually know a woman whose parents actually fly across the country to help her move apartments. they’ve done it 3 times since I’ve known her. My mother and her husband would whine about driving 2 miles to help me (if I were stupid enough to ask)!!!
To those women that are pining for mm, your opportunities, ( to meet a nice guy, have kids, a family), are slipping away from you. The good guys are getting snapped up. Seriously. Wake up. I’ve got friends that wasted their best years on mm assclowns and were left very lost, whilst the men had their cake ( the wife) and your cake. They can’t miss you in the same way as you miss them, because they have a life and you’re not part of that, you’re in the fringes, in the closet. Please don’t waste your time missing these men. Most of the bad things they say about their wives are just to manipulate you, so they get everything, ( what their wife does for them and whatever their wife doesn’t do, that’s what they have you for). For all you know they could be sleeping with both of you in the same day, ( gross I know, but plausible).
Also, remember that ‘neediness’ you feel for them, isn’t love, it’s anxiety. Anxiety that comes with not knowing how long something will last, not knowing when you’ll see then again, not knowing where you stand etc. Love is a calming feeling, knowing you can really trust someone and that they have your back and will protect you and be there, (in person, not just via text, lol) for you. They don’t leave you feeling needy, they make you feel safe.
Don’t waste your time on these users. Why should they get 2 people to cater to their “needs” when you’re left with none? Also, for those women that say why doesn’t the guy pay a hooker instead. I think it’s because they won’t get the same feeling of validation and conquest. I think they like your anguish it makes them feel powerful and wanted. But, if someone truly loved you they wouldn’t want you to experience anguish for one minute. Good luck!
Well said, Aura. “…they like your anguish; it makes them feel powerful and wanted.” Meanwhile, the OW feels powerless, undesirable and slowly has the life drained out of her. It is a no win situation and I NEVER want to be there again.
So, so, so true Aura,
You said it so clearly and simply.These men are cowards. If their life with their wife was so unbearable, then why don’t they cut their losses and leave…or make a concerted effort to make it work.
They just want some dessert on the side and find all kinds of ways to justify their behavior. You are so right, they have two women and the OW just waits in the wings. As you get older, time becomes such a precious commodity and especially if you want to have children. Wasting some of your best child bearing years waiting for these fools is really a tragedy…and by the time some women wake up and realize what has happened, it’s too late.
Take head ladies and don’t let this happen to you…
Aura…..
*APPLAUSE*
Everything you said makes absolute sense! Thanks for enlightening us all.
“Some people will believe you’re needy for having expectations for mutual love, care, trust, and respect. They have relationships on their terms hence anything above and beyond that is ‘too much’.”
This right here. I was told that I was “too much” by an EUM just because I wanted to be treated decently and have more communication from him, like a freakin’ phone call every now and then. But wanting this was “too much” in his words. Punk ass!
Vanja,
I too relate to everything you said. I feel everyone of those emotions. Just one word of advice, stay with NC. I slipped Monday and sent him a text and asked if he wanted to be friends. I get back a response I was hoping you hadn’t forgot about me. I said ” I just want to know if you want to be friends” and he responds “with benefits? I like your benefits.” I tell him I have to go I will text him later, I didn’t. About 12:30 am I get this text from him “OK. You have successfully made me feel unimportant. I deserved that. I’m humbled. Goodnight hon.” Unbelievable he has ignored me for the last month and I can’t tell you how many times when we were talking regular he would tell me he would call me that night and wouldn’t. And I for the first time ever in our relationship didn’t get back to him when I said I would and he says I made him feel unimportant. I actually laughed when I got that text. They really are unbelievable and they never change. And yes I know I totally screwed up by contacting him and yes I was hoping he had turned back into the guy I thought he was when he was in the chasing stage.
Ah but ms.option, you have gleaned a vital a piece of information from your fall off the wagon. If you not calling him means that he’s unimportant then it’s the same message that he was communicating to you when he wasn’t calling you.
Yes, NML, and Option see this response from him:
” I just want to know if you want to be friends” and he responds “with benefits? I like your benefits.”
Not many of these guys spell it out for us like that in plain English!! Though I suspect he is too stupid to appreciate that it’s nothing but an insult to you. As if his FWB scenario is not bad enough, this crap is coming from a man who is already married – how useless can this get for you? Whatever else he is, he is *not* your friend.
Oh ouch Ms. Option. He was very clear. Did you hear him? Sometimes these guys really do tell us who they are in no uncertain terms. Be careful about hoping they will spontaneously combust into someone who can meet the basic needs of trust, love, and respect. I’ve been hoping for the past 7 months as well. It hasn’t happened on my end.
Plus he said that he deserved to feel humbled for a reason…again, as NML explained, b/c he had been doing the same to Option.
I couldn’t agree more with this blog post. However we all here saying yeah is true but it comes down to it we fall back into the same old habits. It takes courage and determination to end bab behavior. I mean we can start by taking these people out of our lives. However, if we fail to recognize that change is needed and that we have been selling or self short what good does it do? Be honest with yourself.. confront what you really feel. Is the only way you can deal with these people.
I have been in a relationship that was never given a definition for almost a year. At first I gave my all to it only to be left with nothing. So I decided to step back and do NC it work for a least 4 months. However, once this person saw that I wasn’t there anymore for him. He decided to pursue me again at first I stood my ground and kept it on a friend base. Texting only… every time he would suggest seeing each other I would say no or cancelled plans at the last minute I would cancelled because something inside me was telling me not to go there… However, I didn’t listen I went for it thinking I can do this!! I can play this game again I just have to laid down my rules and put my feelings to the side. I would be fine I told myself… The first time it worked… I was able to go to dinner and shag him for 45 min after that I put on my clothes and just left him. I treated him like low price hooker. After all of this happen I didn’t contact him for at least two weeks. After the two weeks I started to wonder why hasn’t he contact me. Does he still have my number? so I decided to text him just Hey! he responded. To cut to the bottom of this I always believe that sooner or later he is going to contact me even if it is on his own terms. He is a man after all a playa that is getting old turning 49 in August that doesn’t get to play as much as he used to and his sexual stamina is not at its peak anymore. So always in the back of my head I know… that even if I don’t see him a whole year. If we ever meet again he is going to try do something.
You’ve got him pegged right. You know the score. He is who he is, AND he’s not gonna change for you or any woman ever, he’s just not real relationship material. He’s a frog, and never will be a prince. And your recognition of that reality and acceptance of that reality, combined with the self respect you have for yourself demands that you completely shut the door on him forever. Good for you! Because men like this will keep throwing the baited hook in the water forever and keep trying to catch the fish (you). What the fish needs to do is ignore that bait, and swim off into another part of the lake where there are men who are available, willing, and able to be in a mutual, real relationship. So simple really. 🙂
Hi. I’m new here but this site has really helped me see things clearly. I dated an alcoholic for 8 years who proposed then dumped me 4 months later and never looked back. Now i’ve spent a year “sexting” with an attached man. I’m a professional, looking the best I’ve ever looked, but been single for a year, so I know I must be givin out those “needy fumes”. But I’m going to continue to work at it. Thx to all the ladies that post here
Andagain, I know what you mean. It’s absolutely heartbreaking when our bad old habits come up and bite us on the ass when we least expect. And that’s all they are – bad love habits, and like nail-biting, it takes a bit of willpower to conquer them.
But it’s never too late to make a fresh start and go No-Contact with the attached man. And then put some time and love into yourself – it sounds like you’re thinking that someone out there is going to complete you, and it’s just not true. You are complete already; it’s just that perhaps you don’t know yourself very well yet.
peace –
P.
Thanks Cinnamon and Minky! I suppose I wanted to highlight the other side of neediness, that some people, whether family members or partners ARE ’emotionally challenged’, and it is very draining and bad for your self esteem when you feel you can’t do anything right, and you can’t fake a relationship with ANYONE. I’m not defending the EUMs in any shape or form, but in some situations it may be that ‘needy’ people are attracted to those incapable of fulfilling those needs as a self-fulfilling prophesy. You have no choice when it comes to family. What shocked me recently is that a male best pal of mine, who claims he always attracts ‘crazy’ women (ie needy, demanding, emotional drama queens) is currently in a serious relationship (thinking marriage and kids) with a woman in another country with few friends, who goes ballistic if he doesn’t call her within 24hrs every day. He complies even though he finds her ‘needy’ because he wants it to work out. There really is no rhyme or reason to this! Seems to me relationships are a complete lottery, and we’re all hoping to find some needle in the dating haystack that will pander to our ‘special needs’ lol!
Wow, NML that is true. I never even thought about it that way. His not calling made me feel unimportant. But he was telling me that he sees not calling as communicating lack of importance. I wonder if he meant to communicate that to me. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Fearless,
I don’t think he is that stupid. He is very intelligent. He is very manipulative. I have talked to him enough to know he thinks through every thing he says. It felt like a punch in the gut coming from the guy who just a month ago was talking about wanting a future with me and our relationship to grow and flourish.
Maybe the whole correspondence was letting me know how he really feels about me.
msO
Being intelligent does not mean that someone is able to appreciate other people’s emotions. In fact, I don’t think there is any correlation at all.
He’s jerked you around, hurt you and ignored you. When you reach out to him, he gives you sex talk. That’s heartless or stupid. Whichever it is, it’s not good! When I told my counsellor about something my ex did, the counsellor (a man btw) said, “That’s almost sociopathic, his complete disregard for your feelings.” I was suprised by that. Someone who, at that time, barely knew me, listened to a two minute story, was completely able to understand my feelings and make a judgement that the ex was a twit. What you have come to accept as the norm is not normal.
My ex, by the way, was a lawyer, a part-time model, sporty, popular, charming and smart. Did that make him a good candidate for a relationship? Absolutely not.
I have been voraciously reading all of Natalie’s books (Natalie-more books please!!!!) and I think until one’s core fear of abandonment is addressed, one cannot walk away from someone DESPITE all signs of being treated “not great” to downright abusive.
Natalie has been so great at gently urging us to look at ourselves while illuminating the atrocious behavior we are tolerating from the people in our lives. I’ve spent 2 1/2 years focusing on the current EUM until I found this site where Natalie said-sure this guy has problems, but focusing on HIS problems isn’t really gonna help YOUR long standing patterns….this was such a lightbulb moment for me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to fix other people so that they would in turn fill me up, love me enough to love myself, validate me, etc….
Now I’m tackling my issues (abandonment specifically) like my life depends on it.
Because it does.
Haha, one of the more illuminating moments in my non-relationship with the exEUM was this conversation (regarding my misgivings over bringing another woman he was pursuing to a community event hosted at my home):
Him: (with revulsion in his voice) You sound needy.
Me: (emphatically). YES. I am needy. I am human. I have needs. I don’t know how to be human without them. Do you?
Him: 15 seconds of silence
Even though I struggled with him for another 4 months, I was waking up more and more and learning more and more. I thought, HEY, I *do* have needs and that’s okay! He’s making sure HIS needs get met…who is looking out for me?
Great response to him. After reading this blog post and reading others’ posts I’m thinking if they even use the word ‘needy’ or some variation then that might be a warning sign in itself. They’re telling us they don’t respect our needs. We are indeed allowed to have needs, and maybe we should all start to recognize these guys who can’t fulfill them.
Another ‘red flag word’ I’ve observed is when a man calls a woman “Opinionated” because she simply states an opinion. Hm..
I propose next time a guy calls us ‘Needy’. We reply, ‘No. I have needs, but I’m not Needy. On the other hand, the fact that you can’t fulfill my reasonable needs makes you ‘Inadequate’. LOL!
Hi Sunshine, Mel and all,
Needs=human, that was my last meaningful conversation with the EUM.
He was starting to blow cold on me again, but this was my suck-it-and-see time so I had my eyes and ears open. I calmly explained that I have enjoyed being so closely in touch, so it’s only human of me to come to expect the closeness and feel the loss when he’s no longer there for me consistently. His response? “It’s only been a week, there’s no reason to get all bent out of shape. How long did you think I wasn’t going to call for? A month?!” like Natalie pointed out to MsO above, he was giving away key information that a month was his idea of outrageous. Which was great to know because we talked one last time about a week later, and his parting words to me were “I’ll call you Tuesday or Wednesday” and then disappeared for … wait for it! 4 months. After the first month, there was zero ambiguity. He is never going to get another chance from me.
We are all human. We have feelings, sometimes we learn the hard way, but we do learn eventually. Good for us.
PS six months into his own self-imposed NC the guy is *literally* loitering around me angling for attention. He can’t stick to his own decision to ignore me. I’m *so* done trying to crack this nut!!!
PSS another gem he handed me in a similar waste of time of a conversation, he said indignantly that he wouldn’t just disappear without a word, what do I think he is, a teenager?! Which also tells me he knows exactly how maturely he handled this. Shame on him.
It also tells you he thinks nothing of lying. Of course if you asked him he will probably rationalize that he didn’t lie. He didn’t actually disappear, he’s still here isn’t he. Also playing semantics with words is not a good quality in a mate or a person.
I’ve known a few men in my past who would make absolute statements about something, and then the next thing I know they’re going exactly against what they stated so decisively. I’ve come to recognize this quality as a real red flag warning to keep an eye on and see if it is a pattern.
For example, one boyfriend told me, unsolicited, that he was definitely NOT going to a certain city to watch the fireworks. I thought nothing of it. Until a few weeks down the road and we were talking and he casually rolled out that he was going to that city to watch the fireworks. I don’t think I would have found that such an odd behavior if he had explained his sharp change in intentions, but it was as if he had never told me resolutely that he would not go to that city. Strange.
Then I started to notice other absolute statements he made and then turned around and did exactly the opposite, notably without explanation.
NML,
Thank you so much for clarifying this term “needy.” My last relationship was with a guy who wooed me hard, then pulled the rug out from under me when I fell for him. His favourite term for me and other women in general was “needy.” Example: his best friend’s father-in-law was dying of Alzheimer’s, and my ex-@$$clown called his best friend’s wife “needy” for needing emotional support! Whenever I would so much as try to spend more time together, or even got physically close (other than sex), I was called “needy.” Once, I put my head on his shoulder, and he said it was “inappropriate”! I, like many others here, believed if I could just love him enough, or “right” enough, he would love me back. No! Expecting affection is not “needy” in a bad way; it is a BASIC HUMAN NEED! He broke my heart for the illusion of who he wanted me to believe he was at first. I still love *that* man, even though he really doesn’t exist. I deserve and NEED reciprocity, affection, and real love. I won’t settle for anything less anymore, the alternative nearly killed me emotionally.
Another overused word: INSECURE
My EUM used that one a several times to divert himself from having to act with love, care, trust & respect and own up to his poor behaviour.
It wasn’t insecurity; it was expecting to the standards that I know I’m worth!
Then, when he pulled so much BS that I no longer trusted him, you’re damn right I felt insecure. Duh… I don’t trust you! No trust=insecurity!
No trust=no relationship. Needless to say, he’s gone, gone, gone!
Forgot yet another overused word: SENSITIVE…
He liked that one too!
Yes, ‘Insecure’ is a BIG one! and Sensitive, and Opinionated!!
My ex EUM had a harem of “Female Friends”. I told him up front, I already know the low down on that deal. What will happen is I don’t like his coziness between him and his friends, if I tell him to stop it, his “Friends” call me “Insecure”. I told him I assure you I’m secure, If I were insecure I might actually tolerate that BS.
As predicted he promised that he’d cool it, he didn’t cool it, and in the end I got sick of it and dumped him, and it didn’t take long before he ran back to his “Friends” to soothe him and tell him I was probably just “Insecure”.
Yep, suuure, I’m the one who’s “Insecure”. But I’m not the girl who settles for a divided man, and I’m not the girl who needs to be flirtatious and possessive with my male friends, even when he has his own girlfriend and me having my own man…
@EllyB
i always feel for you when i read your posts.
I surely looked needy in my Moms eyes. But the more unavailable she was the more needy i got BUT because i only had her and so she made me needy.Needy for my Moms love that she couldnt give me the way i needed it…….
My Mom used to say “you are crazy” , when i did sthg. as a child, that she didnt like.This sentence
often in my life came up in my mind and it fulfilled me with fear.
In a way the EUM MM brought up exactly those needy feelings in me. I was surely not looking for such a cruel situation,but…….it happened.
I used to change the term It Happened but i was that way.
He reflected the same patterns as i had with my Mom. But i didnt see this. NOW after being clear in my head and better informed i see all of this different and i learned from it very well.
And i think in life nothin happens for no reason…….so i know there was a need to get in such a sitation. I grew and still do and i define the meaning of love a bit differently than i did before the MM.
I wish you luck.
Ladies, I have some bragging to do, if only to prove that you CAN recover, even after investing way too much, for too long.
I have been truly and completely NC for around two months from the ex, who called me ‘needy’ and ‘clingy’ for wanting to hear from him more than once a week, and I am now feeling better than James Brown.
It’s wonderful to be 41, to be going to water fitness classes, to be full-time employed, to have my own place, and to be feeling truly emotionally available for the first time in ages.
I feel like I lost 180lb – which of course I did, all in one go, when I decided to go NC. 180lb worth of negativity, emptiness, low self-esteem, just all wiped out in a very short time.
Don’t know if it’s the NC or the magnesium supplements, but you know what? Don’t care. I’ve got too much stuff to do to care. I’m volunteering at a homeless shelter for 4 hours each weekend; I’m getting a new built-in wardrobe; and then – who knows – but I may get the the front courtyard repaved!
It’s funny how exterior domestic stuff can parallel interior remodelling – there are some crappy emotional cupboards inside of me that still need emptying and then need a major IKEA makeover …
Good for you. Keep up the good work. That’s a lot of weight to drop. 😉
🙂 I’m happy for you PJM! Think of all the good we can do for ourselves with all our previously misdirected energies!
I woke up this morning and I was pleased to remember a very promising dream: I dreamed I found a forgotten closet in my house, full of useless dirty old junk, from my previous marriage, I was disgusted and started throwing it all away in my dream.
I woke up with a new attitude. Went out with some good girlfriends who listened and helped! I will get through this! He was treating me with less and less respect as time went on. Once a month when he is in town is not enough. Due to his job and paranoia we can never spend a full night together, what kind of effed up situation is that? Wanting me to manage his property so I can appear to be a “cover” feels dirty. Scared of his tenants? Paranoid of my neighbors who may know people he knows? Can’t stay here either? I do NEED and DESERVE more. Honestly, I don’t even enjoy his company anymore.
Ok, I feel compelled to respond now. Nevertoolate… yes, he’s f’d up. Yes he’s a tool, taking advantage, etc etc. Everyone sees it. He’s married! I hope you get out of the muck that is analyzing him to no end, get and stick to NC… then focus on yourself, what part you play in being attracted to someone who is unavailable. Being NC and dropping this guy is what builds your self esteem. Sticking to it and learning about yourself is what will bring a change. It’s great you are making the first steps. You can do it.
Never,
you can never spend a full night together because he is *married*!! i.e. already taken. What is it you want from this man? So many OWs on BR seem to have selective amnesia about the ‘married already’ bit.
Fearless, as one of the former OW’s on BR, I’ll own the selective amnesia regarding the “already married bit”. Never, Fearless is right. We can never spend a full night with them and wake up in the morning together because they go home to their wives and wake up with them, after being with us, of course. Now, tell me that doesn’t sound gross, my selective memory notwithstanding. Did I do that?
I am not saying that I expect anything more, like woe is me. I am trying to say that I am just as much to blame. I am reiterating how pointless the whole situation has become, it is what it is or rather it was what it was and can never amount to much of anything, a big waste of time!
His wife lives in another city, it is his tenants here that never see me, my neighbors who who don’t know him but know people he knows (for some reason he thinks he is SO important that they will know him by osmosis) whom we probably will never run into. I read all this as guilt and scared shitless of getting caught. Because when push comes to shove it is “dirty”, but in my defense he is married and has been from day one, where I was led to believe he was separated, I am not totally blameless but I did not have all the facts and got attached and should have RUN! Lesson here: Separated is married by law, end of story. And come to find out he lied anyway, never was separated in the first place, he was here teaching, she just moved away to start her practice out of my state ahead of him, he eventually moved there when his semester was over and he found a job where they both planned on staying.
Never,
“I read all this as guilt and scared shitless of getting caught.”
Yes, so do I! He is full of shit.
“And come to find out he lied anyway, never was separated in the first place,”
Yes, no such thing as an honest cheat? Full of it.
Nevertoolate, You are well shot of the crap arrangement this pathetic little weasel has lined up for you. Don’t give him anymore of your oxygen (as Nat would say)
Never,
So you know he’s married and unavailable. It’s time to stop the ranting and get out of this nowhere situation!
No more excuses or blame!
Lavender,
I agree with Nat and Grace, this man is a coward and he’s trying to build himself up by pushing you down. The worse you feel about yourself, the more he feels he has the upper hand. He is unbelieveably selfish and manipulative. Don’t believe a word he says. Get as far away from him as possible and seek counselling. You can be happy again and you’ll
be stronger when you see that it’s not you with the problems, it’s him.
Exactly NML, “You need to choose better friends and better relationship partners.” There is no better way to say it than that. You have to set in place standards for how you are to be treated from the beginning of any relationship.
Take time, and I mean TIME, to get to know a person. Putting on a game face and playing like Mr. Nice Guy is easy for some months, but he can’t not sustain that facade for too long because it is not who he is.
Good relationships take time to grow, but it also requires commitment and dedication from both parties. You can not keep the relationship going by yourself, it will drain all the energy from you fast and make it harder for you to give up on the “relationship” because you feel as though you have put too much work into it.
Once you know what your willing to accept in a relationship, and it is sowed into your brain, then the type of treatment that I have been reading about in these comments should never happen. Or if it does happen, you should be able to remove yourself from the situation in a heartbeat!
If you want to talk to your mate more than once a week, that’s not needy. But your standards should jump in and tell you that as soon as he starts to throw that word around. You know what you want and need from a relationship and what’s important for you. If he doesn’t agree, then keep it moving.
Your life is too precious and valuable to spend countless energy and time on someone who doesn’t deserve your love!
Take care of yourselves ladies!
Kendra~
Kendra, I liked your comment. It is exactly the way I see things now and the way I see the bulk of what went very wrong:
“You can not keep the relationship going by yourself, it will drain all the energy from you fast and make it harder for you to give up on the “relationship” because you feel as though you have put too much work into it.”
Yes. Yes. Yes again! Spot on for me! I still have twinges (fairly regularly to be honest, but less intense and I don’t “nurse” them to death) of something akin to ‘despair’ when I consider the maintenance effort I put into the relationshit with the ex EUM. I could only ever last so long with silence from him even if I had been determined not to get in touch with him… then, in time, I’d smash another of my windows just to make sure he came back (no hassle for him, no questions asked, just ‘come back now’, basically.) I laugh about all the stories of folks EUM/AC presing re-set buttons… mine did that, yes, of a sorts, but mostly I did it for him and he was happy to go along with it (he was never first to break the silence!.. I was -always – and I’d be interested in any comment anyone might make about that?)
And it makes me despair still when I think that of course he doesn’t feel the same level of loss – not even nearly! – cos he never put any effing effort in! Oh, he’d say things like ‘doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t do anything right!’, like yeah, you showed up for first time in three months cos I contacted you (!) and you paid for dinner!! Other than that you have done and said eff all of any consequence, so big effing deal! Aarrghhh.
You know, if I broke the silence even now with some benign text or email pretending I hadn’t notice anything untoward recently, he’d go right along with it without so much as breaking his stride and without the least mention of why we hadn’t spoken to eachother since March! So weird. But that’s what’s been happening for years, so I expect he’d think I’d just had another failed effort to finish it with him. This time though, I do not intend on failing – I have now put too much work into me, into fixing up my windows, into seeing with a BR perspective and into NC! So that is where my investment lies now – and when I work hard on something I do not like to fail.
Hey Fearless,
here’s my comment on that: it could be that he doesn’t care, or it could be that he cares more about making sure he’s not risking ‘rejection’ in the event that he reaches out to you but you had wised up in the meantime and you just give him the cold shoulder he deserves. BUT PLEASE DON’T OVERTHINK THIS AND TAKE IT AS HIM BEING SHY OR ANYTHING, IT’S COWARDICE TO A DEGREE THAT MAKES ANY MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP IMPOSSIBLE, BECAUSE ALL HUMAN INTIMACY REQUIRES AN ABILITY TO BE VULNERABLE (sorry for all caps I wasn’t yelling just emphasizing)
I see this in my lurking ex EUM ‘friend’. He makes regular appearances — on the periphery of my vision, literally! he gives me longing looks and polite nods but he won’t make a move.
They know it’s past the point where apologies can patch things up; their best chance is if we suffer from selective memory. Not so.
Cave,
Yea, I am with you on all of that. I have practiced a feigned selective memory for so long with him – the only way to continue was to pretend the wierdness was normal. Yes, it’s cowardice – these men are spineless creatures… but I KNOW why I am not hearing from him, it’s for the same reason as always: He is not that interested; he knows he has NOTHING. And he is such coward he could never ever have an honest convo with me about the whole thing – he always would just stay away and wait for me to give him the ‘safe to approach signal’. Not this time, arsehole!
Grace,
It is funny that you mention sociopath. I have been reading about sociopaths lately and he has most of the traits of a sociopath. And I have most of the traits of a codependent. It’s so funny because when I first got involved with him, I thought he was the most warm,emotionally open man I had ever met. He made me feel like no man had ever made me feel. Always talking about feelings and telling me how much he loved me, right up until the day he disappeared for 5 months. So I never during that time saw the cold side of him. But since he has returned I have seen it many times. He never gets angry. It’s just cold and almost emotionless. But from everything I have read that is what most sociopaths do they idealize,devalue and discard. Over and over. And that is why it is so hard to get over. You are left reeling when they go from seeming to idealize you to rejecting you, sometimes it seems overnight.
Option,
there is also the added (oft forgotton) issue that he is already *married* – a slight problem in and of itself? He is an MM who was having a fling, which he would be happy to continue on his own terms – and he has told you what those are (FWB – and of the clandestine sort! Not even straight-up!)
Of course you were ‘the love of his life’ at the start – how else do you think a married man goes about convincing a woman to start an affair with him? He has to present it all as a one off special circumstance that is only happening cos he’s met a very special woman – ask them to put their money where their mouth is and it inevitably transpires that neither you nor the circumstances are special at all!
Sociopath or not, Ms Option, all you need to know is that the guy you fell for is actually full of shit and is not the man you thought he was or imagined he could be. He is an “Error in Judgement” that’s what he is.
When I think of my Mr EUM, I don’t bother to analyse him anymore; cos it doesn’t matter what his problem is – all I need to know is that he was full of shit! That’s all. That is what I know and that is enough. I have been NC for a while now… I don’t hear from him (funny that!!) and I have no inclination or impulse to contact him. All I can think now is ‘what would I contact him for? What on earth would I have to say to him and what on earth would he have to say to me that wouldn’t just make me angry’. If he was bog honest with me I’d just be upset and very, very angry and if he told me what I wanted to hear I would know it was a lot of shite, so I’d rather now he just effed off cos he’s not nothing positive to offer me. Whatever package and parcel we want to wrap it in, if it’s “full of shit” it is “full of shit”. Trying to hang on to the package full of shit cos you hope it might magically turn into something worth having is an ‘error in judgement’. Dump it, and do so in full knowledge and confidence that you are doing the right thing – the only sensible thing to do. It will liberate you.
I just really want to say thank you to everyone who’s commented on my situation here. It sounds really lame, but I feel a sense of community and support, which means everything because I have been feeling so bad lately. I am going to find some treatment for this.
For anyone else who experiences this, I don’t know how I got here, because I’m in my late twenties and I’m educated, but I feel like my entire self worth is tied up in this man and so I listen to everything he says and I do whatever he tells me to. I was really happy before, but he criticised me so much that I now feel like I can’t make my own decisions.
I really feel thankful to everyone, because the main problem for me, is that I feel really isolated. He didn’t want me to be in contact with any of our mutual friends, because he said I would gossip to them about him, so I lost a lot of friends in the process of being “able” to be friends with him and since then he’s told me that they don’t care for me anyway, so I’ve lost everyone in the process.
Nat you are right about him trying to pimp me out, that was probably one of the worst things, he told me they were “all I could get.” Luckily that was where I drew the line. If he hadn’t made me feel so bad about myself I would have been angry at that, but I felt so lowly about who I was that I just said nothing. It’s impacting other things too like my work, as I don’t feel capable of anything anymore.
So thank you Nat, PJM, Grace, Minky, EllyB, Spinster, Aura, Kendra, Used and anyone else I have forgotten. You are all great women.
Lavender,
Abuse is such abnormal and incredibly cruel treatment that exposure to it isolates the targeted person, but by coming here, you’re breaking out of that isolation. I’ve been listening to the song ‘Can I get a witness’. That’s where you are in your journey. You can feel it’s wrong, you feel the pain, but for now you need witnesses to confirm your doubts, and to encourage you to find your own strength. What that man is doing to you really is very wrong and that you are right to feel out of sorts and hurt. We can all get witnesses here! It’s a great song.
Very good article. My EUW didn’t say needy, but did say controlling, which I thought very strange because we only did things she wanted to do, and never did anything I wanted to do.
I would work a 12 hour shift, eat dinner, and then we would go out to bars a few times a week (she liked to get drunk) for hours. Of course I couldn’t drink because I was driving. Then I would take her home and have to go to my home so that I didn’t bother her when I left for work in a few short hours.
Total number of times we went somewhere I wanted to go? Zero. Total number of times in our six month relationship that she asked how my day was, or how work was? Zero. Her level of interest my happiness, wellbeing, likes and dislikes, etc? Zero. I never met her family, only saw her on her terms…
She told me I was sweet, caring, thoughtful, made her feel safe, and we had ‘amazing’ sex.
Rather than go on a weekend trip two hours from where we lived she disappeared on me. I hadn’t even made the plans, only suggested it to her. It was only then that I realized she didn’t see me as a person. I was a placeholder, someone to give her things she wanted. I literally could have been anyone and even the slightest imposition (2 days at the beach is that unbearable?) of what I wanted was a total dealbreaker.
At least I don’t have to go on being a cardboard cutout of a person for someone who doesn’t care about me at all.
jd,
that’s a terrible situation. You are well shot of her. We all need someone who is interested in our well-being; if you don’t have that you got nothing. My EUM was “interested” when he felt like it. I had something of a wake-up call winter before last when the roads were seriously dangerous with impacted ice and snow and the whole country had practically ground to a halt. I was driving eighty miles every day in literally treacherous conditions; a few of my friends and family phoned to check I was coping and wasn’t dead yet (!). I never heard dickie bird from him – not a word of concern. He lives in same city as me. I was sooo hurt by that kind of very obvious neglect / disinterest / lack of concern. I thought it was appalling and I told him so – he just said ‘sorry’ – by text msg., of course! Pah.
What I also don’t get is how he can be such a genuinely successful guy in a position of authority and yet be like this. That’s what confuses me. If he was otherwise irresponsible I would think he was bad, but with his job/success/education I think he must not be so bad and maybe he just wanted what was best for me. I don’t know.
Lavender, this is a level of naiveté and blowing smoke up someone’s arse that will get you into a lot of trouble, or should I say already is. It’s just a job. It’s just an education. It’s just some success. Who is this man? God? Ruler of the free world? Come on now! Are you actually trying to suggest that someone who is educated or successful can’t be abusive or do anything inappropriate???? Or that you deserve it if they do? I need only point you in the direction of direction of the accused from the IMF fund and countless celebrities nevermind the many cases of domestic abuse by intelligent, *successful* people. What about all the cases of sexual, racial, ageist harassment that are caused by educated, successful people in very good jobs? Are they inviting it?
You have an education Lavender, incidentally one that’s better than his via your own admission – will *you* be abusing someone and trying to pimp them out?
Admit that you have made a grave error in judgement about this asshole and *stop* the madness.
Nat, thank you…. I really lap up your advice, you have no idea. I was too embarrassed to say anything to anyone I know, I am so glad to get someone else’s view. You are so right. I think I will have to work out the psychology of it later and just stop contact with him now. I don’t know why I have an issue with believing people who are in authority are good people. Yeah I am more educated than he is – yet he told me I wasn’t educated enough to be with him. I just told him “you are right.” Sick right…
I don’t mean to sound dramatic at all, but I feel like this conversation today with everyone has really changed things for me. When I came to this post and just made the initial comment I was feeling so lost and empty.
Nat I see you on the bestseller list in the future…. 🙂
Lavender,
Please listen to Natalie. I’m listening her and the others stopping my own self-destructiveness madness. Lavender, I have been in your shoes about 10 years ago with a highly educated, successful man and it confused me too. Their education and occupational success simply has nothing to do with their psychological and emotional abuse. Their abuse behind closed doors and their public persona are completely separate and compartmentalized. I know how difficult it is to reconcile the stark contrast. He has probably cut you off from your family and friends in order to control what you think, mine did. First step I took (although I didn’t realize it at the time) was just to simply call a friend and ask to talk. After about an hour with her, she dailed the number of a therapist and made me talk to him. The therapist told me to be in his office in 30 minutes. I was on autopilot, showed up in the therapist’s office, moved out the next day, and it saved my life as well as my daughter’s life. Do you have somebody you can call? Pick up the phone and call someone even if you haven’t called in a long time. When Natalie responds to you like she has, it is serious. Lots of hugs and support. This man does NOT want what is best for you but I totally understand how he has made you believe that. RUN Lavender.
Lavender, My ex EUM was not what I would class as an abusive loser (I have read the stuff on that with interest and I can’t really tick any of the boxes – except that some of my friends and family saw, rightly, that he was offering me nothing worth having – not that he was cruel, just useless)… but, whatever, he made me miserable, consistently miserable! – he lies with apparent ease (though he probably thinks he’s justified and a good guy really!), he controlled the pace and temperature of the relationship and managed my expectations… it wasn’t good is what I’m saying – and he is an v successful academic, a world renowned expert in his field of research – published editor of various books .. you name it.. he is to all the world (and was to me!) a lovely guy… polite, generous, kind, very concerned with politis and humanitarian issues – you name it…a workaholic… but all his success and (quite awsome) intelligence was worth jack shit to me in terms of a decent consistent relationship of equals with trust, care and respect. Jack shit. It takes a while for the blinkers to come off… but so long as you engage with him, you will never “see”. The only way to really “see”, is to stop seeing him, stop talking to him – stop his access to you. It’s the only way for you to get the clarity you so badly need. It’s not him you need to get into your life – it’s YOU.
Nat, this is not the first time you have taken a “come on now!” tone about ‘naivete’, and I don’t know how you can take that tone about someone not knowing something. Genuinely not knowing.
I have a better idea about what constitutes abusive from all the responses to Lavender’s situation but I have to say that there is an element of what she has been through / is going through AND her questions that really resonate for me, and there are aspects of it that still seem okay to me (there must be a space for sig others to criticize constructively, but I know this is one of my messed up zones and don’t know anything other than my experience, where coming out of my own home, I thought any man who didn’t give back as good as he got with the constructive critcism was a pussy). So I read all the feedback quite attentively.
I can understand the confusion that comes from someone seeming, or actively being, ‘responsible’ in their profession and somehow them still being abusive. For me this is not a no-brainer, and though intellectually it’s sinking in, on the emotional level I can’t fathom having the skills to manage people successfully co-existing with abusiveness. Maybe it’s realizing that these folks coerce people successfully, they don’t show genuine leadership.
I appreciate all the input Lavender has gotten because it helps me, too. But I do not understand, NML, why this particular blind spot makes you respond as if people are naive on purpose.
Magnolia, I don’t know if you and I are talking about two different people or situations, but at no point did I tell Lavender that she was naive on purpose. I said “come on now” in reference to the fact that he’s not God or ruler of the free world.
Now you may not like or agree with what I’ve said to Lavender about this so called educated, successful man who is very good at his job, has tried to pimp her out to his friends, and who has systematically verbally abused her and used manipulation as psychological warfare, but I don’t care if he’s the most intelligent man on earth – his behaviour is wrong.
This is not a world divided into people who are super intelligent that have a free pass to do as they like, and those that aren’t.
Lavender isn’t in a relationship with this man and they’re not friends – if this is friendship and professional help, I’d hate to see what he’d do if he hated her.
There is no point going on about what an intelligent person with responsibilities should do because if they’re not doing it, they’re not doing it. It is *not* Lavenders fault that he isn’t – like “oh boohoo, she’s made this ickle super intelligent man with responsibilities forget his emotional intelligence because she wears the wrong dress, wrong size heel and doesn’t have enough sexual experience”
Lavenders situation may seem run of the mill to you but it’s not. I reacted strongly because it’s wrong, just like when I get hundreds of emails each month with some including despair and suicide notes, or when I see something in the comments that beggars belief.
Lavender is taking guidance from an abuser who has no respect and manages her via control, so yes, I have a big problem with that.
I have no problem with you pointing out that his behaviour is abusive, of course. I appreciate it very much. My reactions to your response, NML, are two separate ones – one, to raise a flag about tone; two, to say her post makes me feel kind of fuzzy headed and dizzy.
Maybe I am hearing the tone of your responses here and elsewhere wrong: “Don’t be naive!” often sounds strange to me. I have never understood that phrase from anyone, because to my ears it sounds like: “Don’t be inexperienced!!” How can one know what one doesn’t know?
I react particularly to Lavender’s situation, because I’m trying to express a kind of faceslap: this DOES sound kind of run-of-the-mill to me. Not the pimping, my god no. But when Lavender first posted and you were able to say his behaviour was abusive, from her early descriptions, I was confused. I couldn’t see what you saw right away. My filter is not set so high.
Once I read further, about the late night calling and pimping stuff it’s obvious this person is off the charts.
But a guy expressing his opinion can have me react much like Lavender: where I feel I’m being given ‘the truth.’ I think of a time I asked a male friend, who was part of a bigger circle of friends, what the guys actually thought of me, on a scale of 1-10. Four, he said. I was like, oh. Oh.
Anyway this particular exchange has me feeling light-headed and frightened and confused and dissociative. That in itself suggests to me there’s a touched nerve in me somewhere about this particular situation that I am not fully aware of and might give some gentle attention to.
Lavender, the effects of psychological abuse are real and I am glad the community of women here exists to model for you the reaction of revulsion that you haven’t had for yourself (and that is delayed in me, for whatever reason).
Magnolia, I’m a pretty straight up person that says what I mean and mean what I say. If I wanted to say that she was feigning naiveté, I’d say it. If I wanted to say don’t be naive in the context and tone you suggest, I’d say it.
Naiveté is not about not having experience otherwise we’re *all* naive about a lot of things. In this case, Lavenders lack of *judgement* about this man and being blinded to his abuse because of his job etc, is naiveté. That is an excessive lack of judgement that is endangering her. At *no* point did I so much as insinuate feigned naiveté and I’m perplexed as to why you insist on saying I’ve said and mean something that I don’t.
Your comments make me feel uncomfortable and I feel that you’re overstepping the mark. Much as I like you, just as I would say to anyone else I like that feels the need to chastise me about something I haven’t said, *please* stop chastising me about something I haven’t said. I have been writing this site for almost six years and have much experience and knowledge that helps me immediately have my spidey senses going and recognise an abusive situation for what it is. This is what I do day in day out and while no, I don’t have ten never-mind *one* degree in this, I know what I’m talking about.
Magnolia
It’s no secret I have issues but I would never ever ask a man what guys think of me. A. I don’t care what they think, maybe it’s my age. B. No man gets to speak for EVERY man and C. I KNOW I’m attractive and well presented.
That he should say 4 says more about him than you. Even if you are a 4 (whatever that means), would it kill him to say 7?
I’ve no doubt that you’re attractive. Don’t I know the truth as much as this guy “friend”? Don’t you know the truth?
Maybe it’s cos I’ve been celibate for five years and out of touch but I don’t understand why the opinions of these random and not particularly special blokes matters so much! That’s not aimed just at you. I see it everywhere – in women’s magazines *cough* Cosmo, the papers (daily pathetic mail) all over the internet. Men like this … men like that. So what.
Magnolia, thank you for your advice.
I really appreciate all the help I’ve gotten too. It’s been really life changing for me and I am very appreciative.
One thing I should add about this man’s professional responsibility that I was thinking about this morning that I didn’t realise before, is that he’s actually not very good at the job itself considering his high level and in comparison to others, but I thnk he’s gotten to a high position, because he’s charming and attractive and I think that people just trust him more because of that. I know this from being his friend for a long time. I never cared about his job or what he looked like, I liked him because at the start he was very gentle and kind. Then suddenly he turned really critical and abusive. I don’t know how that even happened.
So even though I know this, I still think he is still in a position of authority and with a good job, so I should listen to him. Actually he’s the one who says that to me. He tells me that he’s more experienced in life and knows what he’s talking about and I don’t.
@Nat, I really appreciate all the advice you’ve given me on this and all the time you’ve taken. I am so grateful. I understood where you were coming from with the great advice you gave me.
The funny thing about all of the discussion on being naive is that I think maybe I am. Otherwise I wouldn’t have trusted this guy and I wouldn’t still be holding out hope that he was a good man. He told me many times that I was naive and gullible. He would say “you’re so naive and gullible” and I would have to agree. I think he saw that in me and looked down on me because of that and that’s why he treats other people better I guess.
More recently he has said to me that we can get back together, but only if I work on myself and stop being so hypersensitive. See every time he said something that I should change I would ask him for more ideas, but then I got angry about this and he started calling me hypersensitive so then I couldn’t say anything or I was being hypersensitive.
Lavender, I don’t doubt you are naive. That much we already established yesterday. Magnolia was taking me to task and saying that I said you were *purposefully* naive or in other words feigning naiveté.
Sooo…all of the other information aside…I have learned that hypersensitivity is a GIFT, and men worth being with recognize that and LOVE that about me. *I* love that about me.
If you were a butterfly, would you want to be with a man who kept crushing you again and again and told you to STOP BEING SO FRAGILE?
Or would you fly away and ride the wind?
This man just doesn’t know the first thing about women, about himself and especially not about life.
He is harmful to you and you deserve to protect your beautiful, sensitive self.
Natalie and Lavender, The more I read of this the more I am reminded of “The Story of O”…lots of sadism and masochism and of the site http://www.takeninhand.com“Take them in hand” where the men take control with the permission of the women…BTW bondage and sadism is actively sought by many people in power…just some food for thought..Lavender you are truly with a very sick person and you have been infected. Natalie and others are telling you how to cure yourself but you alone can do it…And Nat, I know that you are kind and understanding and never seek to harm any of us with your comments. As a reader said a few days ago: We Love You…keep up the light and may the wind remain at your back and the sun on your shoulders!xxoo Leisha
It is very easy for a man to be one think work wise and another in ‘real life’. Take if from me, an Ex EUM of mine was a high up medic who specialised in helping the poorest of society for much less money than he could have earnt / published books /spoke at conferences around the world. In short – he was quite impressive. On the work front that is.
As a partner he was so far from inadequate, looking back it’s shocking. It was only my low self -esteem that kept me thinking he was a good catch. If i’m honest, I did the same as you – kept negating the gut feeling that there was something wrong with his behaviour, because I was like “well he is such a good doctor/father/sportsman/friend… then surely that must mean he is a good boyfriend, maybe i want too much blah blah blah” Maybe its ME….
Nope.Its him.
Once we had a text conversation where I said that I was really upset as my dad had just been diagnosed with cancer that day, could he just call me. His response ? No, I’m busy! When I replied saying that I was shocked at his response and dissapointed he could not find five minutes, you know what I got – NOTHING for two days, then a text saying thatI was expecting too much. I dont care if he is Ghandi, or Arch Angel Gabriel – that is not acceptable behaviour to me.
Once you walk away from this man you will gain some clarity which is closely followed by self esteem. I think it is unlikely, from my experience, that you will start to feel better about yourself until you cut this man out of your life.
ImFree – I feel for you too. That guy sounds horrible. He’s exactly like the guy I talk about. He’s very successful, so I look over bad behaviour because of that. Nat is completely right about success not equating too a good heart. I really think it’s a self esteem issue too.
Not only that, Lavender — these are not necessarily independent, unrelated traits. He’s successful not despite his callousness, but because of it. Many people can do well in one area of life and fare worse elsewhere: career v. personal, intellectual v. emotional, etc. However, this man is not your typical run of the mill ‘needs to improve relationship skills’ case. This guy is at best extremely narcissistic, he’s possibly a sociopath, and in any case very dangerous. His spectacularly charming persona and his vile control issues are closely related. His impressive success (assuming it’s really that impressive?) and impeccable image are carefully cultivated results of his sociopathic tendencies. His treatment of you is proof beyond all doubt.
I wouldn’t underestimate the power of someone like this to deceive and manipulate. Of course Lavender comes across naive NOW. But we weren’t around to see how this whole situation degenerated into what it is now, so I’ll give you the benefit of doubt Lavender, that you were NOT tragically naive before this guy hooked his claws in you. But it doesn’t matter anyway, what matters is you must stop being naive right now.
Exactly correct.
Lavender,
“ImFree – I feel for you too. That guy sounds horrible. He’s exactly like the guy I talk about.”
YES, Lavender. Horrible. That’s your guy.
And:
“I really think it’s a self esteem issue too.”
YES, Lavender, it really, really is and you need to deal with that or you’re done for.
Lavender this is not love, this is abuse 🙁
Listen to Natalie and the others please and save yourself.
You’ve found this site to help you, which is more than I had at the time.
“What I also don’t get is how he can be such a genuinely successful guy in a position of authority and yet be like this. That’s what confuses me.”
Some of the most successful, privately educated who walk amongst us sometimes behave the most deploringly.
The don’t call them C-level managers and the like for no reason with power in authority/position!
I had to wise up to this a few years ago as well when I found out about my C-level EU-“team-mate”/”friend” AC narcissist (and misogynist), who was equally appalling, disrespectful and controlling. I felt better once I’d accepted I’d made an error in judgement.
My first ex was also controlling, telling me what to say as well as what to wear ! They are not worth it no matter how crazy and mixed up your hormones are.
I’ve come out the other side and it does get better.
Not all guys are like this thankfully.
R—–U——N
Lavender
how old are you ? Serious question as you sound very young / naive …I feel for u in this headfuck situation BUT puuurrlease..take on board the advice these wonderful women are posting to you…and read some more NML articles intelligence / charm / authority / popularity…have absolutely fuck all relevance to emotional intelligence OR a man’s character !!!
He is a totall knobend…and quite dangerous..he is destroying you …love ???? That’s not love !!!!! OMG….its fantasy and obsession.
I understand what its like to be blinded by the guy we think he was…and I especially relate to having been their friend…which adds to the confusion and rejection…I was friends with my AC for two years before we got together and that’s when the headfuck started..he had been a great friend before anything you require in a loving relationship was required…that’s when he turned into a guy I didn’t recognise …and he broke my heart..but more important he crushed my sense of self . I have had to come to terms that he is not my friend ..he is a deadly enemy …I grieved for our friendship more than the joke of a relationshit…BUT it was N C that gave me the clarity to see it all.
he is not your friend …drop the tosspot as this situation stinks .. he is the enemy ..to you and your sanity !
Grrrrr who breeds these dipshits ( yes I’m still in the angry phase !! )
RUN…..and do not look back .
Fitnessfreak – I am 29 and he is 40. I guess I do sound naïve. He always tells me I am naïve as well. I don’t know why I come across that way. I guess I am just trusting. Thank you for your advice, it means a lot. I totally agree with the confusion, when the guy was a fine friend, just terrible once things turned romantic. You then grieve for the friendship.
I had an awkward situation recently, it was the opposite. I just met a guy (in his 50s) and on the second date he invited me to a weekend in Martha’s Vineyard! He tried to fast forward me and did not hear me when I told him he was moving too fast. I ended it after 3 weeks, when he told me he’d been online searching for plane tickets to my family vacation–which I obviously never invited him to–in NOVEMBER. I am not sure if you would call this “Needy”–but it was inappropriate and unhealthy and certainly boundary-busting. Sad, because he was really fun and smart.
hi j.d.
in my opinion and from my own experience, thinking too much or too long about what someone who “doesn’t care about you” did or didn’t do will eat you alive. better to focus on yourself, care about yourself, figure out why you were willing to bend over backwards for someone so limited, and find ways to enjoy life with yourself and those who •do• care.
best wishes.
Lavender ..honey..wish I could hug you right now ..as I totally get what you going thru…but just take a breather…and ask yourself what it ACTUALLY like / love about this knobend ?,…really ask yourself ..its all the superficial stuff that in the end doesn’t matter…or ever translate into.” Happily ever after ” ….he will always be. the frog !!!/toad….and will never morph into the the prince ..EVER …please let go …and altho NC at first sounds a scary prospect …it really does work in the long term …I promise x when I first read the blog on NC …I thought ” she must be kidding ..I could never survive without hearing from him ..and Nat doesn’t understand my circumstance is different cos he’s my friend ..can t hurt him ..blah blah blah …but I tell you Nat is right….she gets it ..and you need to get it too…!!! Please stop the madness …many off us here have …its possible !!! Without this site I know I would still be locked in the madness…giving myself brainache..its nice to be free..hard ,lonely , but nice x
Lavender,
Does this guy make you feel happy and secure? Also, what are you getting from this?
I don’t understand why you place such high value on his career? I mean who cares!!! If someone is treating me poorly , their income and position, mean nothing!
On some level I can understand being ‘taken in’ by an apparently intelligent, successful person; My EUM is not just academically bright – he’s gifted… but more than that, he is perfectly astute in reading people and astute in his commentaries of other people’s relationships – when I had known him only a short timeI think he’d met my sister (well, one of them) only once or twice and he “nailed” her relationship with her partner, commenting (unprompted by me in any way) that her partner seemed to have all the benefits of a husband without the responsibilities of one (which was spot on). This resonates with me now for a whole bunch of other (BR) unpleasant reasons, but at the time I thought it was a positive thing as he seemed to understand that this was NOT a good deal for my sister. I offer that as but one example of his ability to read people and their relationship with others. He knew what constituted “normal”, let me put it that way.
But to cut to the chase here: I couldn’t believe how “thick” he turned out to be when it came to the things I wanted to discuss with him about ‘us’ / I gave him the benefit of the doubt so often because I knew he was smart… I even said to him once in anger when he seemed unable to grasp a basic point I was making about “us”: ‘what the hell age are you, five?!!’. His answer was ‘well, if you’re just going to insult me…’.
Still to this day I cannot figure out whether or not he was just thick about the relationship or ‘having a laugh’ – at my expense. I appreciate there are diffferent kinds of intelligences, of course there are – even he would know that!… but I could see no problem with his intelligence in most if not all areas – he was emotionally disconnected, emotionally unwilling, or simply did not wish to connect – that I get… the rest, I don’t know… it’s a mystery to me.
So I can see in many ways why Lavender and others would be ‘duped’ by seeming (at least) ‘normal’ intelligence and other observed ‘normal’ behaviour from him…. if I had a pound for the number of times in the EUM relationship when I thought to myself in exasperation: ‘for fk sake, is it me??’… the number of time I said to him: ‘well, it must be me then!!’…
Maybe it’s as simple as the concept of “the banality of evil”!!
Fearless:
it takes one to know one; that’s how he nailed your sister and BIL.
And the thickness? passive agressive.
These guys aren’t complicated.
Cavewoman and Fearless,
Your remark “These guys aren’t complicated” made me laugh. That’s another little saying the ex had. They really aren’t complicated. Fearless, I believe it was Cavewoman that sparked Natalie’s article about being blinded by intelligence. Seems like the more intelligent they are the easier it is to give them the benefit of the doubt and stay hooked because they are so smart, one day they’ll get it and help fix our windows. Nope. Why should they? They aren’t complicated. They know our windows are broken and they can do anything they please. Crumbs. It is hard to own my mistake.
Cave,
thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I think so now too. And I did feel bullied by him when I tried to communicate with him about “us” – he just would simply NOT engage with such conversations. Face to face; he would get his coat and leave (saying things like ‘I am obviously upsetting you so I’ll leave’ – ‘yes, I’m hopeless so I’ll go now’; that type of thing. His refusal to engage was always something he presented as being “considerate” to me). When on the phone he would make excuses about why he could not talk about this “right now”, like ‘I am not feeling well, I need to go’… ‘I have a meeting in two minutes.’..’if that’s how you feel I’ll leave you alone’. And if by text he would just ignore my messages or send me, eventually: “stop this”, which made me feel I was behaving badly, which I probably was by that point – exasperated. Yes, I felt bullied into passivity and silence, for sure. Arshole. He will never get away with any of it again. And neither will anyone else. Now that I’ve been NC for so long, I know if I can do it once, I can do it again.
To Spinster, Blueberrygirl and Lilylee,
That is so nice. Thank you! x
You’re welcome. Well said & well deserved.
Lavendel, in regards to not “dressing wrong” , if *dressing right* means in his world something along the lines of:
-wearing supershort miniskirts, which has too much fake swarovsky on it,
-too high heels, that almost break your ancle
-too opening decoltee and lots of jewerly and make up
-too much hair extensions, long nails and fake tan that resembles broiled chicken, (ok lm overexadurating, but you get the picture)
then be aware – it might be him redesign you according to his own wicked fantacy of *those girls he watch late night in the latenight channels,* and living up his own sick fantacies.
Thats not style and frankly, to be honest, l dont think there is nothing *wrong* with your style, if you are 29 year old female. It might be *boring for him*, but you be very careful into someone like him advicing you , because at the end of the day, if you follow his advice, you might turn up into someone, who could be recognized miles from the distance *as that girl* and you end up thinking it is right, but actually it does you no favour!
As someone earlier in this blog, suggested, you get advice from people who work as stylists and beauty consultants, ld suggest the same. (lm pretty sure it does not match with his idea of style). I am very agree with Nat saying that this man is Not GOD, the only thing he has, is that excellent ability to be so suggestive that everything he touches turns into gold, and he is just one unsportted talent in fashion design. Those people carry this aura about them that they secretly “know, how things actually go in this world” – dont get fooled by this image
Thank you Ria. Your depiction of the kind of dressing he was referring to is actually not so much a joke, but pretty much spot on. The thing is that I don’t think I dress any differently than anyone else and I shop in the same places. Still after all of this, I really feel like I am the most disgusting person on the street. I rarely leave the house anymore outside of work and I’ve now started wearing really high heels al the time, short skirts etc. I don’t even feel like myself anymore.
This will sound stupid, but I actually had a fear that I would run into him on the street and he would see me in flat shoes and be turned off, so I have to wear heels in case I see him. It’s so stupid.
@runnergirl thank you for reminding me that he doesn’t want what is best for me. I really need to hear it repeatedly, because a voice inside my head still thinks I am the one in the wrong.
@Fitnessfreak – thank you. I did start NC today and it’s hard already. I’ve tried NC before in the past, but it never worked out. I will see how it goes this time.
Lavender, once you are into total NC you’ll see all the damage and negativity this control freak was doing to you, and you may uncover many other wicked maybe even sordid details about his personality that you didn’t spot before.
This certainly happened to me once I went NC from my ex-EUM “team-mate”. I discovered to my dismay he was a pathological narcissist during my NC from him.
I already knew he was a control freak, disrespectful and abusive (mentally and physically) within our team. I know so many red flags, ugh!
Long story short, I’ve been isolated and ostracized (by hundreds of old friends worldwide) because of this ex-EUM “team-mate”.
They believe his rumours because he commands respect due to his over inflated ego/job/authority/faux-wealth, but this is irrelevant.
I pity them for not seeing through to his rotten core.
18 months of NC and that side of things still niggle because of his disrespectful behaviour but the pain stopped pretty soon.
I didn’t deserve this, but to stay safe I’ve had to accept losing everyone.
Why did this happen ? because I refused to sleep with this home-wrecker in a seedy hotel he booked a few miles from his g/f’s home!
As to my first ex he was also in a trustworthy position at work, but I was too young to see that his controlling ways weren’t normal.
We weren’t supposed to be together because we were not equal, hence I was too scared to voice my concerns at the time (and I never did) I just NC’d for 20 years.
It makes me cringe to think he’s in a similar role addressing issues and advising others about bad disrespectful personality traits which he infact has! If they knew what I know about him he’d be sacked or worse.
So to protect yourself you need to stay focused on yourself and No Contact always and forever, it’s safer that way even though it hurts like hell at the moment. It’s not your fault they hid their true identity from you, they are the best at lying and being charmers to get what they want.
You’ve had a lucky escape, use it well. Stay safe.
Lavender
I have some special words of wisdom for you:
No fashion advice from straight men.
My work here is done. Thank you.
*weeping with laughter* Brilliant Grace!
hehe 🙂 very true….
actually, a few people have suggested that he is otherwise inclined, but he denies it…
Lavender:
A FEW people have suggested that he’s gay? 😐
This boy-in-a-man’s-body is the common denominator. I bet that he’s looking for a drag queen partner. 😐 I’d suggest heeding grace’s short, sweet & to-the-point advice in addition to the rest being given to you.
grace:
Take a bow, love. *APPLAUSE*
Basically, Lavender, he’d like you to dress like a hooker 24/7 and you are happy to oblige like your function on earth is to be sexually appealing to him according to what turns him on, specificaaly – just in case he happens to pass you in the street, so he can give you some more tips on how to put out your ‘sex vibes’… for god’s sake, Lavender – wake up.
I know…. and all under the proviso that if I do it, we will be together again. The thing is that there is always something else. It was just my clothes, then it was my hair then my personality.
I wonder what makes someone like that… what happened in their childhood. I have read a lot of places that men do this because they feel bad within themselves. I don’t see how this can be the case. He seems pretty confident about everything.
@ runnergirl – yes I am still NC. I really identify with your story. I was the same in that I started to actually thank him for the abuse and then ask for more.
It’s only been one day and I miss him, even if the contact we had was just him trying to reform me. I think the strong self confidence he has in himself is what makes me believe what he says above all else.
Lavender, you need to stop wondering why he does what he does and start worrying about why you do what he tells you to do. Focus on your own problems – not his. Get some help.
Lavender, you know what?… this guy actually does not give a monkey’s brass balls about what you’re wearing, what your hair is like… he’s just taking the piss, getting off on having a lap-dog who jumps when he clicks his fingers and then asks how she can be a better dog? He doesn’t even like dogs. He doesn’t care how high you jump, it just amuses him to watch you jumping through his hoops and chasing his sticks – it’s all just a (sick) joke for him.
I guess I wonder, because if I knew he had a childhood where someone criticised him in the same way, maybe he does it to me out of caring for me. I guess that’s my mindset. I don’t necessarily think that’s correct anymore.
I’m sure you’re right about him not really caring what I do with my hair and that it’s just about control. With that in mind, he does though seem to have very specific ideas about how I should dress and how my hair should be.
The more you say Lavender, the more uncomfortable and worried about you I become. Care feels and looks like care. If you actually believe that someone trying to pimp you out, shunning you to control you, calling you up in the night to list his criticism and putting you through Narcs Next Top Model is care, be very afraid. Now you have much ahead of you and you don’t just need to do NC – you need to pick up the phone and book an emergency appointment with therapist/counsellor. Like, NOW.
Until you get real and answer the question of why, when this man has behaved like an abominable, creepy abuser are you still hanging around for his crumbs of critical attention, you will keep going back. You don’t seem to see *enough* wrong with his behaviour and this seems too ‘normal’ to you – there are reasons that you are in this dynamic. Whatever it is you’re avoiding, I suggest you wake up.
There is a woman I heard from recently – she’s you, only her singing career has gone down the drain, her weight has ballooned, she’s terrified of leaving the house and is in danger of losing her life because of the health issues and can’t parent her children. Her ‘caring critic’ calls from thousands of miles away and micro manages every last aspect of her. I would stop making excuses for this man and get the help you need. You need professional help and support- go and get it. If you would like me to help you find someone, let me know.
Thank you Nat, I think you’re right. I had a very physically and emotionally abusive childhood, so I think that may be a reason I have a warped sense of love. Though I guess I can’t blame everything on my childhood, as I’m almost thirty now.
I also think NC won’t be enough because unless I see someone, I might find someone else who does the same thing. I will look for a psychiatrist/counsellor this week.
I really want to thank everyone, including you on the forum for helping me. For the past few days I’ve been online reading the messages in this forum over and over to try to get the reality into my head. So thank you everyone… <3
And there you have it Lavender. That is the primary way that women find themselves involved with men like this but I wanted you to finally make the connection. The woman I referred to in the last comment – her guy is taking over from her mothers abuse.
You are involved in a very familiar dynamic and it’s like trying to please this abuser so that you can right the wrongs of your past. No doubt he feels like home.
I’m glad you have taken first steps and do not feel bad about your past or being 30 and making these realisations – your issues are very real. I only dealt with my childhood at 28 and some deal with theirs later – the point is that you address it so that you never find yourself in this position again.
This man is disgusting and if he knows anything about your past, I’m even more disgusted with him. Get help and get safe! ((hugs))
Yeah he knows what an abusive family I came from. When I told him, he said that I was just being negative and then made me write an essay for him on negativity – and I did it. Really not a great guy… Funny Nat, how so much came from a few comments I made and that you picked up on what was beneath the comments.
Anyway, yes a *lot* to think about a work on. I will let you all know how it goes.
Thank you for everything. 🙂
Oh heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllll no! He did what???? You wrote that essay? This is pure (excuse my language) f*ckery. Let’s just call him Hollowman – the man with no soul. Dead inside, gets his kicks from sick mind and control games. This is a very disturbed man. I do not even want to think about what he may get up to in his spare time.
Normal, caring people on this planet don’t set essays for a friend or partner.
You’re not needy, it’s not in your imagination. Get help.
Yeah and a few others on different issues he thought I needed to work on. I wish I was joking…
Amen Natalie. You are a saint.
I wish I could book the emergency appt for you Lavender, like my friend did for me.
Lavender I completely agree with Natalie and everyone else who’s responded to you. The man sounds quite disturbed. But I have a question for you, what do you mean by this?
“Anyway, yes a *lot* to think about a work on.”
Do you mean you still need to think about whether or not you should disassociate yourself from him? Are you still undecided on whether you are going to immediately end your association with him?
What you, Lavender should be doing over or for the next few months:
1. See and talk to a few therapists, to see which one will work best with you;
2. See the chosen therapist at least once a week;
3. Book appts for:
A. Manicure (immediately, and for every 3 weeks thereafter);
B. Pedicure (immediately, and for every 3 weeks thereafter);
C. Eyebrows;
D. Facial;
E. Makeup;
F. Stylist (who will then address the best haircut, glasses, sunglasses, and clothing-for-body-type);
4. One brisk walk every day for 45 minutes;
5. Have lunch w/friend(s) for at least once a week;
6. See or talk to family at least once a week;
7. Read the paper every morning, and a magazine at night;
8. Windowshop at least 2X a week–don’t buy anything yet, though, as you will be losing weight as you start to feel better and better about yourself;
Also, last but not least:
As of tomorrow, Monday, you go to work the way you normally look. Look your best, but with your normal, Lavender, Pre-Asshole-Effect, shoes, skirt, top, and blazer/sweater. And keep doing this! And smile! And don’t give him (or anyone else at work) any (further) info about yourself, the way you think, what you want/desire/need, your past, etc., ever again! Just say, “Don’t worry about me. Everything is great!”
Re-define yourself. You can do it!
Used, so practical and perfect. Lavender, listen to this stuff. It may sound trival at the moment but it is so useful and practical. Pay attention to Used #6. Talk to somebody anybody. Even though you may have been cut off from your friends and family, somebody will still be there for you. Call them. Reach out. Wish I could be there for you. I promise, someone will be there for you no matter how humilated and degraded he has made you feel. You aren’t that. You aren’t that. You aren’t that.
Runner, I would like to add a strong disclaimer to #6: stay away family if they are just another source of narcissist manipulation and abuse.
Pedicures were the first thing I did when I found I was getting divorced. No, I misspeak. Therapist, then pedicure. Funny, I remember posting a status update on my Facebook page about the pedicurist, but not the psychotherapist 😉
BEST ADVICE EVER, Used – brilliant. I want to print this one out for the fridge door, to match the stuff I’ve got taped to the bathroom mirror! You are clearly another graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.
This makes a really good checklist for anyone out there who might be starting to slip up in the NC area, or who has started listening againt to those old nagging inner voices.
@Runnergirl – Thank you for all of your support and I love your dog story!! Brilliant.
@Fitnessfreak – I was so completely shocked about the fact that the guy weighed you. He is completely awful. Imagine if you did the same to him!! I know how much it would hurt for someone to say that you are too fat for anyone to want you when you’re actually thin, cause my Dad used to say that to my Mum and she was tiny.
It’s interesting to hear that you had an eating disorder, because I did as well for most of my late teens and twenties. I was in an eating disorders hospital and psychiatric unit for it. Are you recovered now? I had anorexia and recovered, but I lost a lot of weight over the past year because of the emotional trauma of this guy. I hope you’re doing well now. You seem like such a kind hearted person.
@PJM – your story is horrible too!! I can’t believe all of these stories. I am so glad you’re doing better now. I don’t know why men think that it’s their place to comment on women’s bodies. Ironically it’s also usually the ones who are so out of shape themselves.
@Aura – Thank you for your suggestions, they mean a lot. I am definitely going to follow them.
@ Grace – I know what you mean about being scarred from your childhood experiences. I also know what you mean about someone saying they care, but showing no interest in your wellbeing. I wish good things for you too.
@Kay – Thank you for your kind words.
@Fearless – I know it’s very creepy. He actually asks me to write essays for him all the time. He said I needed to change the way I thought about things, not just about life, but also about things like politics, books etc. I felt like the most stupid person alive. The thing that I don’t get is that if someone else asked me to do this I would laugh, but with him, I rushed to do it. I was even writing these essays at working and neglecting my other tasks. It’s ridiculous. I even did one for him last week. He told me that it’s better for me to work things out through writing him an essay, than for him to just tell me things and yes they were actually essays, he’s been doing it to me for about three years now. I felt that he must really care about me to want me to be better. Such a mess….
@Mel – I mean that I have to think about my own self and why I still think this is normal. To me, I don’t know why I’ve normalised it. So bad…
@Used – your name is so sad. ? You need a happier name. Thank you for your amazing list. I completely and utterly love it. You are a sweetheart.
I was used, yes, at the most vulnerable time in my life, by an AC and, more so, others who knew (and still know) us. I don’t think he consciously meant to do it; he was very respectful when we went out, and he did want me (though he showed how much only when I started going out with someone else). He didn’t know what he wanted when we were going out, and he, like his best friend, thought it was funny how he could juggle a lot of women. As Grace emphasizes, these people are who they are. The significant others in their lives (friends and lovers) don’t make them that way…though they may milk an opportunity, to make you THINK you caused them to be the way they are, and do what they do! THAT is how they fool us.
The ex AC knows a lot of people in common with me, including a former good friend, with whom I no longer speak, who had told me about how much of a jerk he was when I had been dating him, to turn me off of him, but who (secretly) was trying to help his then-ex, now-wife keep the door open for him to come back. (She even took me to his hang-out, to make me look like I was stalking him, on a night when I didn’t want to go out with him b/c he had waited more than a week to call for that night.) To this day, people who know us in common and who know we dated mention him when they find even a small opportunity to do so, likely out of jealousy.
I am pretty sure that he really did care about me. (Doesn’t matter, though!)
At the same time, he just didn’t want to lose an opportunity with his ex. EX: when I ran into him when we were dating and his ex was at the same place, he ignored BOTH of us. He didn’t call me later, to say, “Sorry. I didn’t want to ignore you. I just didn’t want to hurt her, either.” (By not talking to me he WAS being sensitive to her needs, yes, which shows he was being nice and considerate. BUT this also means he should have called ME the same day, too, out of consideration!)
He got back together with his then-ex (and now-wife) one year after I commenced NC. And he married her…3 years later! (Shows how much he was so certain about her!)
Anyways, I still deal with hearing his name mentioned. And I just don’t respond with any info.
Anyone who puts you down is out to harm you. They may be jealous of you (as my and the AC’s mutual “friends” are), or they may, like your AC, get a rise out of putting you down.
Don’t feel sorry for me. I am O.K. and better than ever. I actually find it funny how people feel “the need” to mention him. It brings me strength.
You need to worry about you. And you don’t sound like you are taking action, yet, about yourself.
Also, going back to my name, I was used more by others than by him, not just here, but also everywhere in my life. If you are nice amd w/o boundaries, people–the WRONG people–may/will (try to) use you!
@Used, I LOVE your To Do List! It’s amazing how doing even little things for ourselves can be a huge boost 🙂 I also found it really helpful when I was feeling down (but not in the mood to talk about it with anyone) to watch a super funny show/movie (highly recommend anything involving Chris Rock/Will Ferrell/Larry David) or read something hilarious (the one, the only, the perpetually drunken…Chelsea Handler). A good belly laugh works wonders in my opinion!
Lav,
OMG – Bizarrely the essay tasks are even more creepy than the attempted pimping!! I don’t know why.
I’m tempted to ask – what mark did he give you? (if it was funny, but it’s not) The whole thing is beyond farcical. He is plainly deranged and dangerous. You need help (so does he but you need it more!)
He should get one of those court orders to spend a few years at the Retraining School for Assholery. His first essay, in not less than 2,000 words should be: Men who give their girl friends essays to do should be hung up by the goolies. Discuss.
There just are no words, Lavender. Do not write anymore essays unless you are at shool and they are set by a qualified teacher. Get help. Fast.
@Fearless – I found the essays worse than the pimping too. Mainly cause I did the essays, but refused to be pimped. When he would ask that it just made me cry.
@Spinster – thank you for your support. I really appreciate it. I think it is up to me too. You have all been really helpful and kind. I am really appreciative.
@Cinnamon – no not a teacher, but probably had delusions that he was.
@cavewoman – hugs to you too. This board is really supportive.
Lav,
of course it made you cry.It would make anyone cry. If a man makes you cry, take note that you are not crying because he is a nice guy; if you are crying it is because he is hurting you. If this man or any other ever tries to “help” you in this way – RUN AWAY – and tell someone that you trust what he is doing and asking you to do. Do not keep this to yourself. Not anymore. It’s time to talk.
Please post back on to tell us that you have sought and have an appointment to talk in person to a professional who can actually help you (and tell him or her *everything* – the lot!) as oppsed to this ghastly controlling freak who is systematically stripping you of everything that belongs to YOU. You are a unique and special human being IN YOUR OWN RIGHT. Being YOU is what makes you special. Learn to love yourself. Do it fast! We are all here and rooting for you.
Lavender:
Please say this with me & I recommend that you repeat it every day:
“He is not a teacher. He is a dicksplash ass-wipe scumbag.”
THEN repeat this:
“I am worth it. ”
The more you repeat it, the more you’ll believe it. Aside from that, I’m not sure what else to say because now that you have so much input & knowledge from Natalie and other posters, it MUST be up to YOU to get rid of this subhuman piece of scum. Wishing you the best.
Lavender:
“…he made me write an essay for him on negativity”
oh No, he’s not a teacher is he ? My controlling ex was alas.
Lavender,
I have a feeling… as you say, so much did come from the few comments that you made… there is a lot more, is there? You need to get it ALL out; not necessarily here on this forum. I would say, definitely not exclusively here on this forum — to a counselor as others have rightly urged you to. We do have strength in numbers here, and that helps a lot too, but DO go and discuss everything there was beyond these few comments. Bring it out to the light of day. It’s clear that sharing even just a little is helping you a lot in gaining proper perspective. Keep it up. I know I’m just parroting others here, but I also know that that helps too. It takes time and repetition, reinforcement, practice, encouragement, support, patience, determination — and hugs to you!
Lavender
I’m 46 and had counselling last year in relation to my childhood. We can’t have it both ways. On the one hand we say “The way we parent our children is so important. The guidance we give them will set them up for life. We teach them values, self-respect, respect for others. We show them with our actions what love is. We help them to reach their full potential. We send them to school, we nurture and support them. And on the other “My parents showed me no love at all, they ignored me, criticised me and had no interest in me. My own mother/father did x, y, z but I’m x years old and should be over it by now”. How can we be “over it”? Who’s got that magic wand?
The damage my parents have done to me is incalculable and I’ll never be “over it”. But I can certainly live a life that’s fulfulling and happy, and be happy with myself. At the bare minimum I know to avoid the jerks!
Counselling plus this blog plus NC got me over the hurdle with the MM. I was able to avoid having sex with him and less than a year later I barely give him a second thought except for illustrative purposes.
I asked why too. How does a man with a little daughter and a lovely wife sneak texts to his ex at 3am with porn pictures? How does a man pick up his wife from hospital after a brain operation and then text me “I should have married you”. How does a man who said he would always love me NEVER show any interest in all me in my wellbeing? It’s because he’s a twit and one day you can brush off this twit too. I wish good things for you.
Grace “How does a man with a little daughter and a lovely wife sneak texts to his ex at 3am with porn pictures? How does a man pick up his wife from hospital after a brain operation and then text me “I should have married you”. How does a man who said he would always love me NEVER show any interest in all me in my wellbeing? It’s because he’s a twit”
Wow. I’m guessing this is his line of thinking: His wife inconvenienced him by being ill, but the Star Husband went above and beyond by driving her home from hospital after her operation, and possibly he actually even ‘baby-sat’ his own child, too! Give this guy an award!
Ugh how self absorbed and arrogant, good riddance to him. Sorry for his wife and kid though.
Mel and Grace, they do it. How does a MM sneak out a Happy New Years text to me as he is sitting next to his wife on New Years Eve? How does a MM email, call, and text me as he arranging funeral services for his 2o year old son? How is it that I knew his 2o year old son was dead before his wife knew? He called me first for what that is worth. It is screwy. I feel so sorry for his wife and hope I am never her.
Runner,
I’m sorry, but where does the judgement come from? You were the one he was engaging with?
Allison, I know you mean well, but take it easy.
Yes runner, it sounds truly appalling when you read it in black and white. Their son dies and the mistress knows this before the boy’s mother – terrible situation; she is probably aware of much of this now and she’ll be devastated.
It’s a strange thing about being the OW that when you are in it and he is not treating his wife with care, we almost take it as confirmation of his true feelings for us! Like the more horrid he is to her the more he must love us… eeek…it’s not good. But when the lights finally come on we see his behaviour for what it is – deceitful, hypocrital and even nasty, and we begin to see that we perhaps should not be too thrilled about a man who would treat his wife like that… we start to see it as not something particular to her, but particular to HIM, we start to feel gulity for facilitating his maltreatment of another woman, realise we have dodged the bullet that hit her and begin to feel sorry for her… when the lights come on we see that this is exactly how he would treat a wife – any wife, including us! – because she was not the problem, he is.
It’s b/c he is s-e-l-f-i-sh. Period.
And the women in their llives made them this way! One woman can’t break them being s-e-l-f-i-s-h!
Hi Lavender,
So happy (and relieved) you decided to go NC. You are NOT wrong. He is. You are NOT the problem. He is. These guys brainwash us, play on our insecurities, and low self-esteem. By the time I left the ex abusive b/f, I didn’t know which end was up. My therapist had me say everyday, “I am NOT the problem”. Please try it. The ex even went so far as to schedule an appointment with my therapist to tell him what was wrong with me. Go gently on your self right now and take care. Someday very soon you will realize how detrimental this jerk was to you. I still have to see the ex periodically at school and it gives me great pleasure to thumb my nose at him and walk right by as if he doesn’t exist because he doesn’t. He is wasted space and so is your ex. He doesn’t want what is best for you and he is NOT your friend. Wish you strength and the best.
Runner:
“The ex even went so far as to schedule an appointment with my therapist to tell him what was wrong with me.”
That’s a cracker. Lol.
Fearless and Lavender,
It’s a cracker now but it really happened. The guy had me so convinced I was an idiot. And Lavender at the same time, I was teaching, successful, and practicing law and winning. The emotionally abusive types are as dangerous as the physically abusive. When I was 18 something, I was involved with a physically abusive b/f. In addition to hitting me, one evening he kicked me for smoking and broke my thumb. Here’s the saddest thing, he lent me his car (automatic) to get to school because I couldn’t drive my car which was a stick shift because he broke my thumb. He had me so brainwashed that I thought he was so wonderful to lend me his car after he broke my f**king thumb. Lavender, that is what is so dangerous to us. It is mind f**kery in a way a typical AC/EUM has no clue. Physically and/or emotionally abusive males are dangerous. That’s why I’ve reacted so strongly to your posts. You have hooked up with an emotionally abusive male. I hope you are still in NC?
runnergirl:
That ass-wipe did WHAT THE HELL???!?!?
I swear, when I read these comments sometimes, I think that I’m in the Twilight Zone. Wow. 😐 Glad you got rid of that loser.
Spinster,
Yup, being with an emotional or physically abusive type is like the twilight zone. They alter your reality before you even know what is happening and then blame you for being needy. I could hear it in Lavender’s posts because I had been there. When my colleague called the therapist, I was asking her if I really had any friends at school. The night before, he spent the evening lecturing me on how I had no friends and nobody really liked me. Come to find out, it was him that had no friends and nobody liked him, nobody still does! I don’t mean to derail the thread here but I’ve got to tell my walking the dog story. It was a beuatiful Sunday, we planned to hike to the beach, and I had pasta simmering. The house was clean, my daughter and her friend (10 something) were in the backyard eating popcicles and laying in the sun. The minute he arrived, he found a popcicle stick and went off. I swished us off on the hike to avoid a confrontation with my daughter. He then proceeded to lecture me on how to walk my dog. Another couple was on the trail with their dog and I stopped them to ask if there was a corrrect way to walk a dog and was I doing it wrong? They told me to get away from the creep. I actually did. Since I run, and he was 300 lbs, I ran all the way home, scooped up the girls, locked the doors, and went to a friends house. We never spoke again. I call it “my walking the dog day”.
Lavendel, how happy am l hear to read this, because, without knowing you, l don´t honestly think that there is anything “wrong” in your style. (and by the way, flat shoes are very IN this season). I would encourage you to contact stylist – you get a lot to know more about your personal style and also you will have fun and gain some personal power! It is worth it and the more aware of yourself you are, the less power any AC´s has over you!
runnergirl:
Hold on a second. He was 300 pounds, yet he was criticizing YOU & telling YOUR therapist what he thought was wrong with YOU? 😐
Sigh. My brain can’t even deal with this bullshit. 😐 What nerve. He is the Biggest Loser, and not like the show either. :-/
Love the dog story!! Cracker. Just shows that a couple who don’t know you from Adam see what you’re dealing with staight away. That’s how obvious it is to everyone else. Brilliant! And you went from that to this MM!! Oh dear… you’ve had a bit of a time of it… time to stop the madness? (Me too.)
Lavender. My father was an extremely handsome (like a movie star), very smart man with many talents and an impressive career. However, my mother (quite a loser in all those fields) told him (and me) daily we were both seriously mentally ill, not able to survive on our own, totally dependent on her and had to be eternally grateful to her for taking care of us.
My father put up with this abuse for decades (probably until now). Instead of getting away from her, he abused me (they both abused me) and became an alcoholic.
Lavender, please don’t become a person like my father. I beg you! Have the strenght my dad didn’t have. You can do it! Listen to all the wise advice in here.
Hope I’m not digressing too much… Anyway, if I had a wish it would probably be that my father had discovered Baggage Reclaim, say, 40 years ago.
It’s slowly dawning to me that my dad has been subjected to aggraveted, cruel, ongoing emotional abuse by my mother. Yes, I’ve been through the same myself, and that was the most painful thing for me of course. But still, it hurt me tremendously to watch her doing this to him, too, even if I was never close to him and even if he abused, intimidated and ridiculed me too.
It was horrible. I think watching something like this is just plain horrible for any person who has a heart.
This was not “healthy adult interaction” which I was “only too little to understand”.
What I observed there was something to cry about.
I’m sad.
Oh so great stubbing fags out on your sofa..and pissing in the sink !!!!! YES …I let him in thru the broken windows..and he pissed and ” graffitied ” over the place ” I wos here ” ….his frickin fingerprints are all over the place …and seem indelible….999….I’ve been frickin burgled..call the BR police …
Cave
I dated the very same ” needy ” guy.!!!
Well said.
Cracker yes…….
When i needed a therapist while i was with the AC to get clear in my head from all the brain washing….i had a talk to him than and i told him that my therapist knows all about us LOL my AC got mad at me…….i was so astonished i couldnt believe he said: grr now you make me mad you make me look like an a..hole…..
Wasnt he funny? Always all about him.
Narcissistic/dangerous people are inclined to try to control perceptions of themselves by any means necessary which is why they isolate you and will be very against you talking about them/your relationship to anyone. They will bully, charm and lie to keep the lie bubble intact. They will also claim even if the police or a counsellor etc deem them to be dangerous that you’ve lied or that they’re amateurs not professionals.
Sounds like my ex. After all the bullshyt he did, one time when we were speaking I mentioned that I can’t wait to write my book. His response was: “You’re going to make me the villain in it right? You’re going to make me the bad guy” WTF?! I told him that I wasn’t going to “make” him anything and any mention of him would be the TRUTH! Funny how he assumed the book would center around him and his antics at all *roll eyes*
I know! I know! Thank you all for letting me vent! I am on my way to recovery, this time I am so sick to my stomach, I do not think I will get the “high” of him returning. I think he knows I am sick of his crap as well, maybe he will not bother me? If so, I will NC fir sure!
Yes narcisstic.But it is hard to recognize in the beginning because they make you feel so special and maybe i was needy thats why i was amazed by him. But now i just feel sorry for him.
And I would like to add that I was 49 when I finally woke up to my past.And I am so glad that I did as I was eaten up with misery and just went from one dysfunctional relationship to another,constantly playing to a pattern which was comfortable because it was familiar.
There really is only one option,Lavender and that is to break free of the madness.Life is so much better when you do. Lots of luck and hugs.
It’s not funny but reading lavender s posts and feeling aghast at the madness …suddenly .made me remember ..I’m not that clean too ..I have convieniatly thought this was my first EUM / AC …but as I read lavender ..I thought back properly to my ” first love ” age 18 , three years together…but wait ..he used to make myself weigh myself every Friday night …and if I had put any weight on..he would tell his mother that I only wanted green salad that evening ( while they all tucked into lovely food ) …and when I threatened to leave he would say..don’t bother you are too fat for anyone to want you …you are mine ( age 18 I prob weighed 9 stone ..size 10 !! – ).no wonder I developed an eating disorder in my twenties…..bring on dipstick number 2 …still young ..but at family Sunday dinners he would instuct his mum not to serve me pudding ” she doesn’t want any ” …PS ..no one had asked me if I wanted pudding ….actually I did !! ( and was still a normal size 12 ).
Bastards ( yes all …still angry !!! )
Fitnessfreak, been there too. Had one of them at age 19 – he was about two stone overweight, and I was tiny, but he still told me to lose weight off the top of my thighs. (He was a basher as well, and a really bad drunk and a shrieking verbal abuser.) And so I got down to about 100lbs. Worse, a super-thin female ‘friend’ praised me and said ‘You’re really taking good care of yourself now’. OH THE IRONY.
Weight ballooned with PTSD domestic-violence-induced nervous breakdown and chronic depression mid-20s. Eventually recovered, got off drugs, got weight off again all by myself and for myself, not for anyone.
So food, men and I go WAY BACK. And this is why I now have my own pasta machine, in my own home, and why NO ONE but NO ONE lectures me on food and tells me what I will and won’t eat. I am not thin, but I AM healthy, and I am managing just fine.
You live and you learn, though – think of it all as a really hard training course, but you’ve now got your degree and have graduated. Now use the knowledge and start thinking for yourself, not for other people!
(And plus, pumpkin ravioli is to die for.)
Yup “ditto” Fitnessfreak as my first ex would say. The controlling b*stard also scrutinized my weight, especially when I gave up ballet and aerobics, he said I’d lost my muscle tone but was not to put on one pound in weight. I was 18 and was 7.5 stone, size 8/10 for pitys sake. He was so possessive I wasn’t allowed to wear miniskirts/snug dresses, so I looked like a mess in baggy mens style clothes (so not to attract others).
It’s the opposite to Lavender’s case of being told to wear ‘sexier’ clothes but still the same mental cruelty that comes from someone so controlling. In the end he admitted mental cruelty and we ended things. Hope you’re doing ok Lavender.
One of my recent exes acted annoyed because “I ate so distgustingly much” for breakfast. The thing is, I was seriously underweight, had trouble finding clothes that fit and was struggling to not lose even more pounds! However, I ate even less then because I wanted to be “a good girl” and please him. I was in my thirties already… Funny enough, he was heavier than I and ate junk food all the time.
Luckily, I kicked him out of my life after a few months (for many reasons). At that time, I had gotten so much used to not eating that I was probably on the verge of becoming anorectic. I took me quite a lot of work (such as always cooking my favorite meals and forcing myself to stay at the table until I had eaten enough) to get used to food again.
@EllyB – this is horrible! He sounds controlling. This guy I have been talking about in these posts used to always chastise me for eating things like apple pie for dinner when I was busy. I used to say “you are right etc”, instead I should have said “I spent 10 years with an ED, so if I want to eat pie now, I will eat pie…”
Thank you also for your comment about your father. It really struck a nerve with me.
I really hope you’re feeling better after getting rid of him!… and that you’re eating yummy things.
Lavender,
omg! This post made my head spin.
Wow!
Can I just say, I have plenty of friends that are average looking that are with gorgeous, nice men, and plenty of friends that are nice looking and are single.
Confidence, is really attractive. Confidence that comes from telling losers where the door is, is
attractive. Confidence in your own opinion, be it good or bad taste. Also, passion, from having your own interests is attractive.
The guy sounds like a total dicksplash, (lol to use Nat’s word). Mind effers don’t care how low they drag you down. I think it’s part of their challenge to see how far you’d go.
Anyway, now that you’ve confided in us, that’s the first step, in stopping the brainwashing. So well done!
You’re also NC with him, so that’s great, it’s step 2. Maintain NC as if your life depended on it. Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe us now, just trust us.
So step 3 is, get a counsellor, psychologist. If you don’t know where to get one ask your Dr to recommend someone.
Step 4, try to get back in touch with some girlfriends that have never said anything bad to you.
Step 5, keep posting on BR, the women here will support you.
You can do this. Once you’re 3 months, NC you will feel soooooo much better.
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