Chatting with a friend recently, it became obvious that she was rather enamoured with a super ambiguous guy. A little probing revealed, however, that he has a hell of a lot of female friends. A lot. Like when you see those shows about hoarders where they can barely move for all of the stuff piled up around them and they feel super attached to stuff that they’re never going to use or appreciate. Mr Super Ambiguous collects exes, love interests that he’s turned down, and even befriends the exes of his own friends.
As soon as I heard about this, a code red alert went off for me. “You’d want to watch yourself there with all of those exes. You don’t need to be another one in the collection”, I cautioned. Things were so ambiguous and not moving anywhere. At this point, she was still thinking that he was that special and putting him on a pedestal. I had to remind her that she is pretty damn great too. Undeterred, she reassured me that these friendships (erm, more like a harem) were genuine. She said he has all of these female friends because, well, he’s so intelligent, funny, and quirky.
Here’s the thing: Some people love collecting exes.
I don’t mean that they go out of their way to make partners into exes by deliberately botching up relationships, although I suspect some sabotage to resist commitment and then console themselves that they’re Really Great People ™ and A Really Good Ex ™. No, people who collect exes have egos that need almost constant ‘supply’ from the pool of people who have tried to forge something with them in the past.
These exes are like medals. Dear Ego & World, look at me. I’m such a good and great person that I can remain friends with all of my exes.
Ever-present exes, however, often keep potential new partners at bay or are disruptive if the relationship progresses. Even the most secure people in the world would feel rattled by going out with someone who spends most of their time juggling their exes. It’s even weirder when it also includes ex-love interests too!
People who collect exes and who in fact collect ‘supply’ are what I’ve joked are ‘haremologists‘.
If someone collects attention but is pretty indiscriminate about it and doesn’t have a harem per se (like people who trawl for attention on introduction ‘dating’ sites, Facebook et al), they’re more of an attentionphile.
Some ‘haremologists’ extend this penchant for collecting exes to collecting those of their friends. Look! Your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend likes me and I’m making him/her feel better about having been with you.
A number of my early relationships started this way. The friend of an ex would swoop in on his broken-down donkey disguised as a white horse. In these situations, you love the attention and the diversion plus, let’s be real, you get a kick out of remaining connected to your ex. You do, even if you try to pretend that you don’t. It’s also knowing that you spending time with their friend has likely pissed them off. Side note: some people like going out with their friend’s exes because it’s like they’re pre-approved.
When someone goes out of their way to become or remain friends with their friends’ exes, it elevates them.
They enjoy listening to these people express their hurt over the breakup, and sometimes, they also get to enjoy noticing but pretending not to, that they’re falling for and trusting them. Then the haremologist gets to have a brief romance and then turn it down, or they might claim that their interest has been ‘misunderstood’ and that they just want friendship. I’ve heard a lot of versions of this story where the haremologist claims that they’d assumed that they were ‘kindred spirits’ coming from the same emotional place and leaning on each other for friendship and support. Yeah, of course.
The sad thing is that once you realise that you’re in a harem, even if you’re peeved at being messed around, your ego then worries about not being in the harem. You worry about being ‘replaced’ or passed over. You might find yourself hanging around for reputation management.
While many people are friends with an ex or two, just as many aren’t.
It’s not a badge of honour to be friends with your ex, and it doesn’t make you a Good Girl/Guy.
Too many people are obsessed with saving face and maintaining faux friendships because they think that only not-so-good people don’t remain on friendly terms with their exes.
A hell of a lot of people also remain ‘friends’ with their ex(es) because they:
1) Want to keep an eye and keep them in their pocket as a rainy day option in case they change their mind, and also to ensure that they haven’t made a bad decision.
2) Are not over them and are effectively re-auditioning in the hopes of being picked up when they realise that they can’t do better, or when they have a lobotomy.
3) Are still sleeping with them, but calling it ‘friendship’ makes the bitter pill of no official title and relationship easier to swallow.
4) Don’t really like him/her that much but can’t bear the thought that they [the haremologist] may feel similarly so they have the faux friendship for reassurance.
5) Need to validate something and prove it to their ego, peers or ‘everyone’.
Genuine friendship with an ex is self-evident and unforced. It’s organic. It’s not baggage, because the friendships are not being carted around as a way to avoid letting go and/or as symbols to reassure the ego.
If a someone is in the habit of remaining in touch with all of their exes, their ex love interests who they didn’t reciprocate the feelings of and even their friends’ exes, these ‘friendships’ are important to their ego and are serving a purpose. Their motivations and lack of self-awareness cause a pattern of problems. If you have been let down by somebody who didn’t reciprocate your interest and now they’re all over you like a rash to keep messaging them and keep up a ‘friendship’, they have form for this. How do you think they accumulated their harem? It’s like, “Here we go again. Yet another woman/guy who can’t control their emotions and is falling for me. What can I do? All I want to do is ambiguously be friends with them and they all go and get the wrong feckin’ idea. Ah well.”
My friend eventually discovered that she is indeed a member of his harem. It’s as if this guy is carting around a cemetery of all the women he’s ever been involved with or who’ve expressed an interest in him. The ghosts of unavailability past. I’ve seen this so many times in reader stories. It’s as if these people all read the same playbook. All of this carry-on is reassurance that they’re not shady and is about maintaining illusions. The pursuing of ‘friendship’ which may be little more than lots of messaging, is about getting harem members to forget their own feelings so that they can stroke his/hers and assuage them of their guilt.
When I see people carting around their exes and devoting so much time to tending to these ‘friendships’, I wonder: how the hell do they expect to have room for a romantic partner?
I regularly ask people who expend excessive amounts of energy on keeping their ex in their life: Exactly what part of moving forward with your life does your ex fit into? You say you want to meet somebody and have a mutual relationship, right? Why are your life plans based around how to keep your ex in your life? Why is there so much focus on trying to keep them happy? Let this ‘friendship’ go!
The easiest way to ensure that you don’t end up in someone’s House of Exes doll collection is to ensure that your self-esteem isn’t reliant on validation from ex-partners or people who don’t reciprocate your interest. Know that line between being friends and disrespecting yourself because you’re trying to have some crumbs rather than none. Make sure you don’t take their seeming rejection of you and their inability to give you what you want personally. It’s not about you. Stop pumping them up!
Your thoughts?
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My thought is: EXCELLENT!
You’ve really got this subject down to a science, Natalie. 😉
Great article. I remember when I was blissfully ignorant about narcisstic harems and all things AC (sigh).
I recently dated someone from work who had a lot of “female friends” along with various other red flags / FOCRs, but I foolishly held on to the fantasy of turning a cockroach into a frog into a prince . . .
Once upon a time in a land far away . . . .
I met a man, a seemingly “single” man who told me he wasn’t “dating” anyone else . . . a high end professional man, someone I met by “chance”. . . .who IM’d/texted me nonstop, came by my office every day, called me every night, had lunch with me every week, made plans with me every other weekend (when he didn’t have his 6 year old son), and told me he “really liked” me . . . it seemed like such an auspicious start . . . .AND YET
Oh, the red flags . . . .Run away! Run away!
One of the first things I noticed about my AC/EUM was that he bit his nails. . . a lot . . . to the point that he’d lost about half of his nail beds. Along with some other hygiene issues, he only showered every other day and didn’t always wash his hair . . . . Ewwww
He drank heavily . . . .to the point I was concerned that he had a drinking problem. It was not unusual for him to binge drink on the weekends when he didn’t have his son and for him to come to work with a “sunburned” look where he appeared red from head to toe. . . Hmmmmm
He told me early on that he was in therapy for his divorce and could not keep his son overnight . . .Ruh roh
He had a couple of “close female friends” at work who had “been there for him during his divorce.” He told me they were “just friends” and yet he seemed to spend a lot of time with them outside of work . . . . one on one. . . . without me
Eventually this became a problem in our relationship, and when I called him on the carpet for his boundary busting behavior, he revealed why he was in therapy. It turned out to be court ordered: sex addiction, porn addiction, intimacy disorder. FOCR!
He then told me that he thought the “timing” was off for us, that he really liked me but wasn’t ready to be “exclusive” yet (Really?!) and that he wasn’t going to leave this OW (whom I suspect he was seeing the whole time we were going out).
A week later, while I was still reeling from the big REVEAL, my AC made the private decision to “commit” to this OW (who works just a few doors down from me). She of course turned out to be one of his exes. He just didn’t bother to share that information . . . .the ole Dripfeed Maneuver
Needless to say, the last few months at work have not been fun, as the AC will not stay off my floor (between his ex/new gf and yet another harem member . . . . apparently they all “hang out” together). I wish I could re-write this fractured fairy tale with a happier ending . . . . and yet I suspect I will look back someday and realize that I got one.
Lifes lessons from the AC. When in doubt, opt out . . . .
There’s one other reason why men collect harems – they actually hate women.
Deep down, these men really, really hate women. They see us as objects, pretty little heads, not nearly as clever or brilliant as they are, by our very nature. And so they really do ‘collect’ us. It makes them feel powerful and in control.
And then they get to be in charge, and they get to control a group of women, which makes up for all the times they felt smothered and hurt by the women in their lives when they were growing up (or NOT growing up, as the case may be).
Men with committment issues often have this deep inner battle with a smother-mother which is driving it all, and the ‘collecting’ thing can be a way of compensating for it. The relationship with the mother can be really ambiguous – partly sexual, partly enjoyed by the man, who is complicit in it because he gets his mother’s undivided attention, but also hated and resented at the same time, because she’s smothering him.
So accumulating a harem means that they still get lots of female attention, just like Mummy, but ‘I’m in control this time’, unlike Mummy.
I think/hope that the other reasons Natalie has given here are more common, but there’s also always the option that your guy is a closet woman-hater … I seem to have been very blessed in my acquaintance with male woman-haters, but that’s because I was a woman-hater myself for years. Once I cracked that particular Da Vinci code, a lot of other things began to fall into place.
‘Coz when you’re a woman, but you hate women, that kind of leaves you … where, exactly?
In Texas, women who hate women are called Republicans. 😉
Karen — love this! LMAO!
Karen – Ain’t that the truth? I feel the same way when I see gay Republicans or Afro-American Republicans. It just doesn’t compute.
As for the comment that all these guys secretly hate women…I don’t believe that’s the case. Yes, there are misogynists/sociopaths/narcissists who dislike women so much that they enjoy toying with their emotions as a game. But I believe what at the root of the commitment phobia is a deep fear of being rejected or smothered by a woman…and a fear of losing their freedom. They love the attention they get from having a harem of adoring fans, even platonic ones. But like Natalie said, by labeling it as a “friendship”, they get a free pass to pursue other women romantically and can also justify the occasional ooops-we-accidentally-had-sex-last-night-after-having-some-cocktails. My ex had played that card with me several times until I got wise and realized I wasn’t moving on as long as he had even a tiny hook in me via the friendship card. I have been no contact with him for 15 months and haven’t had even a teeny weeny urge to contact him…and it’s been so nice.
As for the comment that all these guys secretly hate women…I don’t believe that’s the case.
No, not all of them. But yes, some of them. And it’s good to be aware of this, because it IS out there, and it can be very destructive to your self-respect.
The fear of losing freedom is often caused by early smother-mothering. These men have learned that ‘woman’ = ‘loss of freedom’.
Of course, their idea of ‘freedom’ is ‘doing whatever I want, when I feel like it, with no regard for the consequences’, which is toddler-like, to say the least … Part of maturity is realising that your freedom ends where other people’s begins.
I’d say in my ex’s case, it was having a disconnected mother that causes him to collect women. “I couldn’t get Mother to fill up my void inside, but now I can get lots of other women to do it. So there.”
I know a women like this – she has a huge harem of exes along with rejected love interests. A couple of years ago I began distancing myself from her owing to my realisation that she was EU in our long standing friendship. I was getting a lot of anxiety and anger which was immediately relieved after the epiphany moment and taking action. This was surprisingly easy once I trusted myself enough to act. – All I did was stop ‘chasing’ her, I stopped fitting in with her last minute plans, I stopped initiating calls. As a result our contact dropped right off and there was the proof in the pudding. Right effing there in front of me! There were no dramas just relief to feel how good it felt doing right by me.
She still text messages very occasionally (maybe three times this year – she loves lazy communication) asking me how I am. I take her at face value and have called each time so as to let her know ‘how I am’, in the evenings so there is time for a chat. I don’t remember her answering these calls and believe I left messages saying “got the text call back for a chat”. When she has called back (weeks later from memory in typical EU style) we chat politely enough but I feel no investment whatsoever any more and it is clear to me that it’s just a matter of time before we lose touch altogether. These are the ‘natural consequences’ of her emotional unavailability with me and my taking care of myself when I recognised the lack of mutuality in our relating.. This friendship has died a natural death. Reflecting on this I strongly suspect that she positions her female friends similarly to her harem of exes/interests. I decided to stop my part in that dynamic and there isn’t much left over between us. The benefits to me have been huge – the space she once occupied is now taken up by supportive, mutual EA friendships. Part of me is sad but that is just the part of me that wishes she was someone she is not.
lizzp – this is sniffing around, trolling for narcissistic supply. It feels really ugly, doesn’t it?
Nina, yes, it feels ugly because you sense that their interest is centred only on themselves. You are objectified and only serve to fulfil a function. It’s not relating, not an exchange, not a relationship. Once I got clear on that and registered her emotional deficit as ‘fact’ it was impossible to care any more about the state of our ‘friendship’ or to muster any interest about her life. You can’t have a mutual friendship with a person like this.
Oh, me too! Me too! I had one of these! And I have done the same thing, and feel much better for it.
You expressed this perfectly. Saved me the effort. Thanks.
Wow, Ethelreda. I often felt that about ACMM, that he actually hated women. Sexually, he takes no joy in the female anatomy except for the parts that pertain to his pleasure. I know what it is like to be with a man who likes to please a woman, and ACMM is not into pleasing….I have felt there might be latent homosexuality…but that’s another subject. However, I’ve known 3 men with low interest in pleasing a woman sexually: ACMM, another AC with a harem, the third was a low-sex drive passive underachiever who needed to be led into a relationship. And I wondered about latent homosexuality with all of them, so maybe that’s my bias. All 3 had very authoritative mother figures who bossed around the father. ACMM had the father leave home when he was 12.
I noticed that ACMM seemed to need to have a romp just before any kind of “family” affair – Thanksgiving, the yearly “wife business trip” he attended. I’d get two or three visits the month before family summer vacation. Like he needed to have some kind of “secret” to hold over everyone – maybe his wife in particular. He also seemed to like to “corral” his women. In FWB Round 1 with ACMM, I was stunned when he actually invited me to his home for his wife’s birthday party. I had a feeling he was sexing up another coworker – a married woman – and he invited her too. I declined going and told him there was something wrong with him. I remember him hemming and hawing, backing out of my office saying he “just didn’t want me to feel like I was being excluded”. Probably in his past, he dealt with some other side piece who made a big deal out of NOT being invited to his home – hanging on to crumbs – thinking she must be important if he would not invite her. I can hear the delusion now, “Why CAN’T I come…I mean..we’re just havin fun…..this doesn’t mean anything, right?”
Single EUM also has a harem, but it seems to be fading out – he doesn’t have the charisma required to maintain fantasy. I’d go to his gigs and be sitting with 3 or 4 female “friends’…I realized that we all slept with him at some point. I remember seeing confused hurt looks on some of those women’s faces, wondering where they stood in the whole thing. A few times I clarified my role early on and did my best to show ‘I am not in competition here’.
ACMM “bragged” that all his exes hate him.
This sounds similar to a relationship I was in recently. What does ACMM stand for? Thanks!
ACMM – ass-clown married man
ACMM = Ass Clown Married Man
Elgie R, my first relationship (woman-hater) had a bi-curious streak in him, but his real thing was straight sex – he was more of a hedonist than an actual gay/bi man.
However, my last relationship (woman-hater) was pretty much textbook closeted gay.
You can’t have a smother-mother without an absent/ineffectual/weak/disinterested father. I think it takes a combination of the two to damage a man’s sense of masculinity in this way, so that he sees women as the enemy, but other men as an unattainable cause of yearning and craving for love. This was most definitely the case with my last ex.
It was such a lucky escape.
Yes, again to what you say.
Ex AC EUM NARC says himself that his father was weak and ineffectual.
Also continually said that marriage or indeed a live in relationship would be like being trapped stuck in a box with someone his idea of hell. He in all his life has only lived with someone for six months.
I also had a theory that he fell in love with men but had sex with women because he could never identify himself with being gay. I say this because of how he talked about men and it was different to how he spoke about women.
Another comment he used to make was it is amazing I’m not gay this was in reference to his upbringing.
Wow! I definitely think you’re onto something here! I’ve accused my ambiguous EUM of both having a harem and of hating women as well! In his case, it wasn’t a “smother” scenario per se. He has a contentious relationship with his mother and he frequently describes her as “controlling” and “crazy”. Two adjectives he has also applied to all women in one conversation or another. ALL of his exes are “crazy” as well. I would argue with him that when a guy says ALL of his exes are crazy he should look at himself because HE is the common denominator.
He is not friends with his exes but almost all of his friends are female (and I suspect a few of them have been “interests” that never materialized…) When he posts something on Facebook, it’s a scene. He instantly gets like 10 “likes” or comments – and 9 out of 10 are from females. All of his co-workers are female and he thinks nothing of having lunch with them every day or going to happy hour with them every week. He would ignore my texts for hours, sometimes days, but he would come home from work (where he just spent ALL DAY with these women) and spend all night back and forth with them on FB. (We work together and have several common friends – so I’d sit there like a loser torturing myself by watching it unfold!)He blew hot and cold with me – texting me all night into the wee hours or hanging out all day/night his house and then POOF!…gone for days…sometimes weeks! Whenever I asked him if he wanted to hang out, he almost always had an excuse. We only ever hung out when he would ask – at the last minute, of course! I always felt like I was competing and he would say I was “crazy” or “being ridiculous” if I pointed any of this out. He’d also accuse me of having issues with one or two of the women in particular. But let’s face it, what woman wants a man who almost exclusively hangs out with other women all the time and only asks you to hang out at the last minute??
The women in his harem all think he is such a great guy (it is very important to him that he be seen as a good guy) – they are like sycophants! They hang on his every word, laugh at every joke, and give him an instant ego stroke whenever he needs it. I thought his initial attraction to me was because we were friends first and would discuss this type of stuff at length. I definitely challenged him and I really enjoyed our conversations. I thought I was different and I thought “I was that special” – UGH! – I could kick myself now! I fully acknowledge my own mistakes in this whole scenario! I am ashamed to admit that ultimately I became part of this harem and ended up competing for his attention (and almost always lost).
I’m sorry for the long rambling post but the idea of him as a “collector” has really struck a nerve! The dichotomy of acting like women are so crazy and beneath him yet consistently surrounding himself with women has always confused me. Another great post by Natalie and a really interesting idea, Ethelreda!
Yes, I often wonder why the women in his harem don’t see him for who he really is.
Exactly. The “friend” label is more so the guy can validate himself and feel like a great guy. In his mind, after all, look at how all these exes still want to be in his company even after the courtship has ended. And, is it really a “friendship” these guys are offering? Friends do listen to each others dating stories, give advice and offer perspective about their personal lives. Will this guy really be a friend? I think not.
I learned a lot about woman-haters from my first serious relationship, and from my last one.
In my first relationship, he hated – HATED – his mother openly with a passion, and as a result, I got abused, physically and emotionally. But I was able to get away.
In my last relationship, he hated – HATED – his mother and his unmarried and interfering/smothering sister covertly, silently, gnawingly, with a passion, and as a result, I was managed by text, my expectations were eaten away, I was ignored until he wanted to have contact, I was gaslighted, I was publicly humiliated, I was kept ‘secret’, and all the while, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. But he was Such A Nice Man, A Churchgoer, A Solid Citizen, With A Good Job.
Overt violence, I could understand. This kind of deep-seated rage and covert violence was completely new to me. This is where BR was a lifesaver.
Well sounds like you are better off without that jerk!
I dated a couple of guys similar. Spent all day on Facebook. Then in my company kept checking it or texting. Sorry this is unacceptable!
When I asked if he would like to do something after work in the weekday, he just made excuses. But could make time to see his ex though and be out with his friends all night. When I asked him about it, and mentioned him not having enough time for me, I was the one accused of being ‘mental’-shady behaviour indeed. Of course he painted me out to be the bad guy, posting heart breaking messages on his Facebook, I’m the least drama queen mental person you will meet. Of course he wanted to get maximum sympathy from his ‘gorgeous’ female friends. They don’t know him, I saw a very different side to him on that night when he shouted at me and sent me home in a taxi late at night.
Another guy who I suspected still had a girlfriend, his phone would constantly go off, he was even know to check it after we had sex and he would keep texting(yet again) He had tons of female friends and pictures of them(a bit creepy). These types of scenarios can never end well. Anyway I choose to end it as he made zero effort, we were still in the early stages of ‘dating’ but felt more like a booty call. Again I only saw him once a week if that, on his terms and endless excuses.
Never ignore red flags, your gut will always tell you something is wrong even if you don’t have the evidence. I haven’t been wrong as yet!
Technology has caused a lot of problems. Does anyone know how to meet a guy who doesn’t have a collection of exes or female friends he fancies and wants to sleep with? I think it is only possible if you are with a guy who is unattractive, less confident and socially awkward.
Figuringitout, your story rings so many bells! My ex-fiance is exactly the same, has a huge harem, everyone loves him, they all think he’s so nice and so much fun. Grr 😉 It started out as a fling between us, then he got really serious and we lasted 2 years with me thinking i was the special one who had changed him! But in the end he cheated and reverted to type. I don’t think they ever change..
We work together too and its so painful seeing him move on and the adoring harem are ever present, hanging on his every word and cackling at all his jokes! He’s changing jobs at Xmas though thank goodness so not long now…
I think I was “trying to have some crumbs rather than no crumbs” as NML says above. The whole experience was humiliating and I have ZERO self-esteem at this point. I can’t believe how I tricked myself into seeing what I wanted to see because I was lonely. I just settled for the slightest bit of attention from him. I know the working together thing is soooo difficult, so hopefully you won’t have to see him after the job change! Onward and upward, right?
You are def better off without any attention rather than just crumbs. I was there too and found with the crumbs i just felt sooooo worthless and not good enough. But now that i have removed myself, i can at least talk myself into a stronger place and feel more in control! Onwards and upwards indeed, you can do it! Do you have to work together directly? We are in the same company but luckily our interaction is minimal.So glad he is leaving. If he wasnt then i would have started looking for a new job. Is that an option for you? x
PS. Totally get the loneliness, its a killer. I often go to bed early and sleep in late (at the weekends) just to avoid it! Try to keep as busy as you can and get obsessed with something else. Anything! My house is cleaner than its ever been..;)
Fortunately we don’t work together directly, Ellie. But I find myself looking for him at work and just today I saw him on my lunch break. It’s a heartbreaker to say the least. He was sitting in his car waiting for one of his harem members to come out of the building. Such a simple gesture warming up the car and pulling up to get her. Something he would have NEVER done for me. I had to be a secret that NO ONE at work could know about. Like I’m some horrible troll he can’t be seen with in public! Yet he can go to lunch every day of the week with one or more of these women. Ugh-it just kills me. I try to keep busy but my mind always wanders back to him. Wondering what he’s doing, who he’s hanging out with, etc. It’s exhausting. Having friends in common on FB doesn’t help. I’ve eliminated some but I can’t bring myself to eliminate everyone. It’s like part of me still wants to “check-in” or something. It’s self-torture, really…I’ve read all of Natalie’s posts on FB, getting over someone, and my own emotional unavailability and read her books as well. Sometimes it almost seems like I WANT to see him pay attention to these other women or something to validate that I am unlovable. I have beat myself up over this for a couple of years now for even getting involved with this guy. Obviously I am avoiding the good guys. I am stuck with the “doing the work” part of this whole process. I have written 100 unsent letters, talked to my friends ad nauseum, blocked and unblocked his number from my phone, and so on. I just can’t seem to let this one go. And this is a horrible time of year to be lonely. My job just ended a big layoff and part of me wanted one or both of us to lose our job (terrible, I know) but we were both safe. I just really don’t know what else to do. Good luck with the Holidays and good luck with the job situation!
P.S. I can do the sleeping thing-I just can’t get that into cleaning my house—but I should! HAHAHA
I find your comments very interesting, Ethelreda the Unready.
The ex EUM AC NARC has a harem quite a large one. He gathers them round for lunches or dinners at least once or twice a month.
He feels powerful and in control because he gets to decide who will be invited this time round depending who has done what for him over the month.
Just in recent conversation with him he was telling me how one of them always wants to be on the invite list and not on rotation. He was almost gleeful that it won’t be happening for her and she is no more special than any of the others in harem and will therefore be put on rotation.
I never thought about the harem relating to their relationship with their mother.
His mother favoured him and treated him like more than a son discussing her sex life with him and other problems that really aren’t for children’s ears.(a smother mother)
He definitely is in control of the harem.
Not too sure if he is a woman hater, but he has never committed to a woman not for very long anyway. They are always punished for some perceived slight.
Thank you for your insightful comments.
100% on target. Very common, too. Especially with Southern European and Middle Eastern peoples, country of origin or U.S.A./Australia/England/etc.
E,
I do agree some men (all cultures)hate women, they are afraid of their emotions and women are able to bring them to their knees. So the only way they can deal with it is to mistreat them first, as they assume the women will at some point mistreat them (which is not always the case, but the men believe this nevertheless).
Most women do not hate other women, but everyone has a different experience. Some women who have low self belief will “hate” on other women who are in powerful positions in the workplace, at least that is my personal experience.
Back to men, if the man is immature, it is usually because he has unresolved Mummy issues, but he may not even be aware of it himself. I have had a boss who was adopted, Lord have mercy. He was terrible because he was a guy who married a woman who wore the pants in the family and he hated it, so he took it out on me at the office. He forced me to quit, by exploding at me during my yearly performance review. I didn’t quit right away, but took a paid leave while they “investigated.” The other men in the office (an engineering office) said nothing in my defense, so I had to hit the door. The guy made sure that if I stayed, I was supposed to take training UNDER him, and he was the one who started screaming at me during a formal meeting. Before I left, I blew up everyone else’s game (told Home Office HR who was watching porno’s after hours on company computers, who’s doggie was pooping under the cubicles in the back office). Oh it was rich, yes, those were the good old days.
But, back to men, they are no match for a clever woman, and it is all Greek to them. So they “hate” what they don’t understand. All of my bosses who have “hated” women were really insecure and all were immature, come to think of it, so you are correct on that account.
So entirely true ! My two exes bfs that were EUM commitment phobes did this exact same crap! And would brag they were friends with all their exes. It was my motivating factor to not give them the pleasure of satisfying their need to show people they are a great guy but cutting them out of my life and not giving friendship as an option, because quite frankly my “friends” don’t pull shady crap and disrespect me! I don’t need crappy friends, thanks ! They pushed friendship hard and I was very resistant and told them they make a crappy bf and I don’t stay friends with crappy bfs. Flush !!
I dont know how Natalie does it every week! I have been involved with men with harem issues – some are attentionphiles in that they indiscriminately want to be mr. nice guy to the whole world, their public image is very important to them. Some are keeping ‘the ghosts of unavailability past’ (love it!) around.
I think these men need validation from women – just not that much from their girlfriend (this is especially true if the harem is filled with ambiguous friends or not quite girlfriends). Those women are still ‘perfect’ to the EUM, they’ve never been seen at 7 in the morning with unwashed hair, or stressed after work, and best of all have never called out the EUM for anything. Plus the EUM feels like the stooges ‘I dont want to be in a club that would have me as a member’ and so by agreeing to be with them, you’ve already downgraded yourself.
I’ve realized that EUM need validation and you’re already playing a losing game because by having called them out on their EU-ness in some way you’re less than perfect, you can’t validate them, you’re the thorn in their side, the reminder of everything that is demanded of them and that they dont want to give like commitment, consistency, decency, respect of others, and consideration of consequences. So as the gf or the ambiguous friend du jour you are less than the rest of the harem by definition – you are set up to be not good enough, and to compete. So for all of us on this site, mostly EU in some way, people who have lived with feeling not good enough as young people and now set ourselves up to always feel not good enough in romantic relationships.
Some of these women dont even know they are in a harem – they think they are just friends, its the EUM who is dramatizing and likes to hang on to ambiguity in his head. And that ambiguity can be used to create the barriers he needs against the romantic relationship he’s actually in.
Excellent response, Suki! You guys are on point tonight! I agree with all of the above!!! I felt like as his friend I was cooler than the others because I wasn’t like them. He seemed to like when I’d call him on his BS during one of our many “deep” conversations. But once we became more than friends, I somehow became “less than” and just like all of the other “crazies.” I was kicked to the curb with the rest once I had any expectations of him. He didn’t like me as much once he saw that I liked him despite his flaws. “I don’t want to be in a club that would have me as a member” — perfect. The more I was attracted to him, the less attractive I became to him!
Suki you’re spot on! it’s true, they’re so insecure and constantly seeking validation and these harems are there to remind them that ” I can’t be that bad if they’re still in touch with me”. Like this idiot that messed me around kept saying things like ” I’m such a bad person and I’m average and so messed up”, when he told me that recently I said, well yes it’s become clear to me that you are messed up, you are you own problem and solution. I’m certain that he has a harem of women to stroke his ego, reassuring him that he’s a great guy because he acts charming and sweet enough for them not to think otherwise so when he makes these honest statements about himself they’ll (myself included at one stage) reassure him. But i’m done with his shit, I don’t have enough energy to find a higher self- esteem for him, I have my own stuff to work on now.
Suki, woah, sister! Just woah. Every word is so on point. I was involved with a girlfriended EUM and you are right, her opinion did not matter to him at all. After some time, when I started asking for action and not just words, he suddenly had a “change of heart” and went back to his harem. Sometimes doing some veeeery ambiguous things – like clubbing all night with our colleague – and then telling me I was crazy and they were just friends. This is when I was called “crazy” for the first time. For being hurt. He does this kind of stuff all the time and did it before me. Goes to movies with one of his female friends. And no, the gf is not invited. Or other things. The difference is that I could not put up with it. It was bad enough that I was the other woman. Now I felt like I was made to compete with those harem women. I broke it all off and of course now he emails me saying how good a person he is, how much he tried to be my friend after we broke up, but I am so selfish for not acknowledging his good acts towards me. Yea, it’s me who is selfish. Not him. Somehow this type of men need this confirmation that they are the good guy. Though it’s funny because, just like in those EU relationshits, it’s us who should do all the work and it’s us who, in their opinion, should give them this badge of “good guy TM”. Or us, who should forget the past and pretend to have amnesia. Them? They are not gonna work on anything to actually deserve that friendship. As someone said here already – no, pal, you are not a good guy. You lied, cheated and put my life in danger. I don’t want to be friends with you even if you were the last person on Earth. Now move on, I gotta go meet my real friends.
Suki, I have been loving your comments since the last post. So dead on, along with everyone else’s posts here. I started No Contact a couple of days ago for the EUM who blew hot as fire online and phone and in person, then for a time after I visited, then has gone relatively silent under the pressure of “the blues”, which he knew I would be sympathetic to, as I suffer the same. I’m so happy I’ve decided to go N.C., and this post hammers home how good that decision will be – which NO Contact does: clears your eyes and helps you see your relationship to this person.
I think Natalie and Suki point out a really crucial point: the moment you start to point out ambiguity (last post) and call out the “friendship” for what it is — usually a one-sided search for validation and staying in the discomfort zone — the EUM lashes out, becomes quite nasty. I remember early on, when I called out the EUM’s really hateful stories about his ex’es. He told me he had every right to pile verbal upchuck on them, and that I should back off (though he was confiding in me!)
When I was empathetic and tried to hear him BUT didn’t express myself, I was “good.” A good friend. When I didn’t call him out on his alcohol or drug use, I was a good friend. A good friend, apparently, in the EU world, sticks around to validate all of a EUM’s decisions, no matter how self-destructive or blocked they make him. I realize that my definition of friendship (presence, hard conversations, working through difficulty) is very different from his.
So this post really illuminates something for me: when my role in not validating him stops, he is then reminded of his unavailability, and how he is mucking around with people’s emotions without any accountability, how his inconsistency and disrespect are actually very real. The more I stick around, the more it validates that bad behavior. When I stopped talking to him a few weeks ago, his reaching out (still online) became increasingly irritated.
If being a real person with real feelings and real values makes you, or me, less than the rest of the harem, I’ll happily be less than the harem. I happily opt OUT of the harem … I also think the harem offers just what Suki points out: the opportunity for the EUM to look like the good man, the desired man, the good dude.
I feel better after two days, already. I can see how he is more concerned with looking good online – talking to my friends, liking their posts, being sweet to them (they know how he has treated me). I am trying to figure out how to handle our mutual friends, especially his crew of friends, who send me respectful messages and several added me with “EUM has rhapsodized about you for the past month” as introductions.
My EUM, I have also noticed, is titillated (really, really) by the drama caused by his ex’es, whether they continue to try to reach out to him through mutual friends, or even by hooking up with his own friends … Though he’s made a show of getting them out of his life completely, he continues to receive and obtain information about them through a host of channels. I now remember how our conversations were peppered with this kind of information. I tried to brush off hearing about how these women were “insane nightmares” who ruined his life, as he put it, because he was “looking for a stable, accomplished, good woman” – who he said repeatedly, was most definitely me – to be “quiet” with.
In person, he said repeatedly that he almost “didn’t know what to do with me,” because my ambition/focus/loyalty/drive was, in his words, too much for him. This was confusing to me – he complained about his ex’es being out of control nightmares with drug issues – but my sobriety, relative stability, and desire to communicate respectfully, in a healthy way – was ALSO not his style. (When I would talk about my personal issues, he would leap to the task, and I felt he almost perversely enjoyed my troubles.)
Thanks for this post, Natalie. Hope everyone finds the answer.
Amen. Thank you for helping me realize I’m not weird for not wanting to be someone’s friend. I was feeling like I was just uncaring or cold because I didn’t see the point.
I had an ex do that; “I want to be close friends,” yadda yadda barf. He “friended” me on FB once and I accepted, soon realized how stupid that was and unfriended him. He twice more tried to get me to “friend” him and I have ignored him entirely. He had been disingenuous and dishonest with me re: other women so I had dumped him.
I told him about being friends: “Without honesty, there is no trust. Without trust, there is no relationship except for the most superficial.”
Has anyone else noticed that when you run into these guys (as I have recently), and they give you their spiel about friendship…and you actually DO that, and back away from them because whatever you had is over…they keep popping up into your life to “check on you”? I recently dated a guy who, after much hot and cold/back and forth said “I just can’t do a relationship right now, but do you want to come over to mine and hang out?” To which I said no. He’d told me to think about it all and let him know what I thought. So I did. I told him I needed more than what he could offer, and I wasn’t going to sit around and wait in a faux friendship with him, and that we could be friends–real platonic friends–once I’d gotten over him, but that anything before that would be a mess I didn’t want to get involved in. No hard feelings. We just want different things and it sucks, but that’s ok.
Fine.
So I stopped contacting him, I unfollowed him everywhere but fb, and let go, so to speak. Then a few months later he’s all over my comments and liking all my stuff. Then silence. Then he pops up again. And again. But if he really wanted to contact me (as I’ve told him earlier), he can also call. But he won’t because he doesn’t actually want any of that. I guess in his mind I was supposed to make a loaf out of those crumbs and rebuild a connection with him in my mind? So I’d “hang out” and be “friends” who have sex with each other? No. He said friends, so now we’re friends. It’s as if they push you toward “I just wanna be friends,” but then when you go there and be “friends,” they sort of chase you down for the extra attention.
But far be it for you to believe them, or end up in bed with them! Then all of a sudden you’ve got the wrong idea, and you’re clingy, and you’re pushing yourself onto him.
PS: He’s got tons of female friends. A bunch of them are ex-interests/girlfriends. Made a point of talking about them. And gave me the friendship is very important to me speech before asking me to come over to his.
It’s partly a communication issue, because when you say ‘friends’, you probably mean ‘being on good terms, having interests in common, having the occasional catchup and good conversation, taking an interest in each other’s lives’.
When he says ‘friends’, he means all that too – plus fuckbuddies, plus a get out of jail free card for when you get ‘needy’ (trans = ‘hurt by being used and discarded’), plus the right to do Facebook monitoring … etc etc etc …
Yep. “Friends” to them means something else to most people.
Love that I’ve come here and read all this at just the right time. I am done with my “friend” now but this all just affirms why it was a good idea.
He’s still at it – collecting attention from women and men alike. I suspect too he might have some feelings for men but isn’t comfortable being openly gay. He prefers to maintain the image of a man who likes the company of women.
He sees them only in one dimension though. He has a “type”. And they are mostly young and naive or older like me and flattered because this guy seems so “nice”.
These guys are everywhere it seems. The internet has just made it so easy for them to flourish.
I completely know what you mean here. And Facebook really is the best tool imaginable for men like this! I broke down and slept with my ex again this summer and ever since he’s been “liking” everything I put up, occasionally messaging me, but hasn’t seen me since! He too, has a harem, that I’m ashamed to admit I’m a part of. And truthfully I’m a part of his harem because I can’t seem to find another man I enjoy sleeping with as much (sorry as that is to say!). The most difficult thing is when you’re physically attracted to the wrong person or wrong type (which I most definitely AM!). I’ve been out on many dates with guys who are WAY better than this guy, yet I don’t seem to FEEL anything for them! Natalie has spoken to me in the past about my OWN emotional unavailability, and I know she’s right. I just don’t really know how to change it, despite her brilliant articles (and I really do mean that, she’s spot on every time!).
Marina,
Have you gone to the root of your problem? Maybe then, you can move on to something healthy.
I think you change things when you address your own issues, and begin to love yourself. This ‘relationship’ sounds quite lonely and hurtful.
Marina, I know how you feel. The best sex partner I’ve had was my exEUM. And finally, after a year I am starting to see other men. I used to go on dates and think “What the point? Sex is not gonna be as good as with X”. It was unfair so I’ve stopped dating for a while. As Allison rightly says, the reason for your sexual attraction to your EUM is not his glorious penis or amazing sex skills. The reason is YOU. Once you face and feel it you will understand that you can direct your life (including your sex life) into any direction you want. I promise you, you’ll have men who you will be attracted to. You’ll have amazing sex. And you will have amazing sex AND love with the same person. Isn’t it awesome that all of that is not in your past but in your future? Just waiting for you to do some inner work and head in the right direction.
Agoria Paige,
Same thing happened to me with an ex, we became friends again then ended up in bed because I fell for him, for the first time i think, didn;t feel that way when we were in relationship. so told him i want a relationship and he said no. i stopped all contact. it’s over now and i haven;t heard from him. I don;t think he’s a collector, but he was EUM.
Perfectly said, Agoria. “Friendship” is a loose term with no boundaries for them, suiting them how they need it, when they need it. It’s not a friendship based on mutual reciprocity, respect, exchange, consistency. It’s a cop-out. I don’t have any real friends that treat me the way EUM ‘friends’ do.
In other words we can hang out and be f-buddies! Don’t fool for guys who pull this. Go and find one who does want to give you his time and commitment. Doesn’t seem to be many around these-days!
After 8 months of absolutely zero contact with my EU, married ex-girlfriend, and journaling about 50,000 words on the subject of our disasterous love affair, I’m finally at the stage where I have accepted that my ex and I had too many insurmountable core value differences, and we could never expect to become a full-time, cohabitating couple. She needs a lot of control, predictability, and she hates change, so her wife is probably ideal for her in many ways because she’s passive, allows my ex full control of their finances and lets her make all their major (and minor) decisions. I could never accept the role of a docile, obedient mate. I think my head would explode. All my ex lacks in her marriage seems to be sexual fulfillment, adequate financial security, adventurous travels, shared cultural interests, humor and intellectual stimulation. Apparently a calm, never changing environment suits my ex, so I can accept and understand why she has lived in the same apartment and kept the same hairstyle and dressed the same way for 25 years or more. I embrace change and would grow stir crazy after 25 years of all that same old/same old. But finally, I can apppreciate what was good about her–stuff like a sparkling wit, beauty, intelligence and even some budding artistic energy. But with all that other stuff I didn’t like, especially the marital infidelity, I could never live with an OCD clean freak who insists on calling all the shots or she gets passive aggressive and vindictive. And not to be insulting (because I truly adore 98% of all Jewish people I’ve met), but the ex was the epitome of the cliche’d Jewish Princess, and at my age this shiksa no longer finds moodiness and frequent kvetching even slightly amusing. By accepting the fact that I don’t want to be with a married woman (even though I dated her 10 years ago before, and after I left her she rebounded with her current wife), I can’t live with a domineering, perfectionist nag with limited interest in sexual intimacy. Plus, I am not about to hand over my money to anyone to manage for me. As if! Anyway, I have finally released the resentment I thought I held toward her, but it was actally because I knew that we could never work out as lovers, and it seemed like a really raw deal fate had given us. But now in retrospect, I have counted my blessings that I am not stuck with a person whose innate neneed to control and her myriad quirks would have made me nuts within a month or less.
While I think we still need more time apart so she can heal the damage our affair did to her marriage, and I can let the best memories I have of her fade into easily managed monochromatic snapshots of the good things we shared. I find myself very peaceful as I await the potential of a new love entering my world. But in the meantime, I’m having so much fun doing what I want to do with whom I want to do it, I think I could easily end up single for a long time, with companions who, like me, don’t want to race to find a mate ASAP. It turns out I really enjoy my own company and solitude never makes me feel lonely. So who knows? Maybe I will end up being the love of my own life. At least I don’t kvetch or nag myself. Now it’s onward and upward! 😀
Oh Karen, WELL DONE. Congratulations. Peace in our time, or at least very close to it.
All my ex lacks in her marriage seems to be sexual fulfillment, adequate financial security, adventurous travels, shared cultural interests, humor and intellectual stimulation.
You always make me laugh out loud; thank you once again!
I’ve had men pull the *friendship* card before to manage my expectations down. And in each instance, I have ZERO tolerance for this and simply refuse and walk away. No fuss, no muss. And each time, they are baffled as to why I don’t want to agree to their terms. I tell them that I have a lot of friends already and just don’t need any more friends. Their face just doesn’t register, sort of like a machine going tilt. And they quip: “But, but, but why can’t we be friends? why not with me? Every ex I’ve dated has remained my friend.” Ok, well not me! I reply. They are so predictable, that I just laugh at this point. If they had put up that much of a fight towards dating me, than trying to convince me to remain friends. Go figure.
“Why can’t we be friends?” Because you treated me like dirt. Because you treated me with ambiguity. Because you were disingenuous. Because you lied. Because you did not treat me with respect. Because you are selfish, me-me-me oriented, immature, don’t take responsibility, blame-shift, and whine. Because my true friends Do Not Treat Me That Way. Why would I want to be friends with a mess like that? Flush.
Nina,
That is exactly why we should not stay friends with the ex AC’s and that is why I don’t..he’s tried that crap on me but I refuse to fall for it.
Amazing. I am writing this out and putting it on my wall.
This is so spot on, I recently got the “I really don’t want to lose your friendship” after I set a boundary by saying I wasn’t going to keep in touch with him (ie: txting) unless we were actually going to be friends (ie: have a cup of coffee, meal and converse face to face). Shockingly I haven’t heard from him in almost 2 months, sadly for me I have to see him at work (from a distance thankfully) but reading this puts all the pieces together.
Am now kinda reinterpreting that “I don’t want to lose your friendship…..” as really meaning: “I don’t want to lose the opportunity in the future for an ego stroke, sex stroke, eye candy hit.” I think it’s not about “friendship” at all.
After dumping one guy who wanted to be “friends” (not friendship material, dude!) I realized that some of my FRIENDS, my women friends, also didn’t treat me with basic respect, and I actually have had to part friends with a few of my female buddies as well. Sad, but necessary. A real eye-opener!
Nina,
Yes. Over the last two years or so I too have had to let go of several female friendships. I say ‘let go’ but what has occurred actually happened organically through simple and consistent action (not words or conversation about the issues with these specific friends)in applying boundaries and being true to my values and needs aka treating myself with care and respect in my relationships/friendships. I had to apply conscious effort when I first became aware of the EU habits within myself – habits that were pulling me into EU dynamics across the board, not only with male love interests. Over time my new and healthier faith in myself is making me happier and more grounded..Just as Nat writes that friendship with an ex will happen ‘organically’, it seems to me that friendships can also end ‘organically’, via the rule of natural consequences, when at least one party is exercising healthy relationship habits and good enough self worth to exit the dysfunctional dynamic. Actually, Elgie R, I saw, has something very incisive to say about that in the comments here (great point if you’re reading Elgie).
I have some ways to go with self sabotage: as I think Happy B(in a comment on the last article)expressed it in relation to dating being her “final frontier’, for me self sabotage in my creative life is the ‘final frontier’. I am doing a massively long run up but I will take that leap of faith.
Ethelreda
I agree with you 100% that these ‘collectors’ of so called friendships with their ex’s actually hate women.
I said to the ex AC once that he didn’t seem to like women as he said all his ex’s are crazy b****es. Well, the man did protest too much in his denial and went on to cite how much he ‘loved’ women … Ha! When I ditched him I was told that I needed to see a psych, I must have been another one of his crazy ex girlfriends who had finally seen the light.
I have a girlfriend who collects her ex boyfriends. One will call up, bring around a bottle of cheap wine and a pizza, she hops into bed with him and then tells me he still loves her – with a smirk on her face – and then she doesn’t hear from him for months, but, she still thinks all of them are in love with her. I’ve given up trying to explain that it isn’t love sweetie, you’re being used for FWB sex whenever they feel like it, she is adamant that all these men love her. Christ on a pony! Sometimes I despair of how silly some of us are about men.
Pauline, your friend who thinks all the guys who use her as FB’s really love her, is also a bit of a narc — thinking they all love her even tho their actions are quite the contrary. Very sad, though, for her to have to make up this fantasyland for herself. My sister does the same thing, saying that all these guys — married, co-workers, whatever — even women (she’s straight) — are “in love with” her. I think she’s just a narc.
Hey Nina,
You could be right about her being a narc. Her inability to see what’s right under her nose is difficult to deal with. I have given her the BR site and asked her to have a browse through but so far she hasn’t had a look. Or if she has, she thinks it doesn’t apply to her. Oh well, it’s hard enough changing one’s self let alone trying to change some one else which is an exercise in futility most of the time.
“Christ on a pony!” Ha Ha!
Her denial is really sad! Wow!
Today I have a man contacting me again, we were interested in each other before, he told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship wanted to be friends, I said no because I was very attracted to him.
The last time we saw each other was in March when we went on a trip where I injured myself and then I didn’t hear back from him. I asked him why he didn’t contact me afterwards to see how I was. He said he got scared because I was cranky and he didn’t want anymore drama and realized he wasn’t ready for a relationship.
I ran into him in a place we both go to a few weeks ago and he connected with me to clear the air. We had a nice chat and dinner and I felt attracted to him again. He told me he took his ex back because she was sick, but now it’s over.
He calls me now but is not letting me know his intentions, just calls to say hi and isn’t making any plans with me, I guess this is the ambiguous friendship thing. I mentioned that he will eventually let me know what his intention is, he said he’s getting to know me. He lives in another city, not too far away, but comes into town often.
I’m not investing in it emotionally and letting things unfold as it is too soon to know. Plus I don’t like the way he behaved before, so I don’t know if a relationship would even work. I think he’s scared of me and he can take it as slow as he likes, as long as I don’t get invested. If he tells me he only wants to be friends, I’ll have to withdraw.
Whatever.
This is a complete waste of time! Red flags all over the place.
This guy did not follow up after you hurt yourself, and you’re talking to him again????????????????????????????? “He said he got scared because I was cranky and he didn’t want anymore drama and realized he wasn’t ready for a relationship.”
Don’t get it! Writing is on the wall! You’ll be on here in a few months upset how he treated you, knowing who he already was. On you.
Allison,
I’m not surprised to hear this from you. I thought that after I wrote this post. I guess I will have to stay away from him, i.e not give him too much attention when I see him at community events, but I don’t think anything will happen because he will be scared again and I don’t want to get dumped because I’m cranky, which I will be! especially after how he treated me.
I just broke up with someone and I feel like I might be on the rebound, at least I felt that way last week. Thanks for putting it bluntly.
Whatever,
he is a boatload of heartache. People do not change, for the most part.
Healing is more meaningful and reflective when done on one’s own. Moving on to another is not dealing with the issues.
I would block this guy, as he is not a potential partner, or friend- sounds like a jerk.
Am now kinda reinterpreting that “I don’t want to lose your friendship…..” as really meaning: “I don’t want to lose the opportunity in the future for an ego stroke, sex stroke, eye candy hit.” I think it’s not about “friendship” at all.
After dumping one guy who wanted to be “friends” (not friendship material, dude!) I realized that some of my FRIENDS, my women friends, also didn’t treat me with basic respect, and I actually have had to part friends with a few of my female buddies as well. Sad, but necessary. A real eye-opener!
Whatever, I think that guys use “scared” as an excuse. It might more realistically mean “No able to go there, be mutual, be consistent — because I’m emotionally unavailable.” When they say “scared,” it’s a bit manipulative, cuz then we jump in and say “ooooo baby, don’t be scared! We’ll go slow and I’ll never hurt you!” and they get to have a bit more cake before dumping us again. “Scared” means “I don’t know myself” and/or “I’m just dishonest and using that word gets me cookies when I want them.”
Whatever….…move along…….nothing to see there.
He’s not offering you anything. He’s hanging around waiting for YOU to convince YOURSELF that he’s offering something……. and then , after you have sex with him, he’ll disappear like a fart in the wind.
Are you really THAT eager to pretend you have someone in your life? And you ARE emotionally invested. You are investing a lot of HOPE.
I can’t believe you used the term “unfold”. How do you unfold nothing?
Thanks Elgie, you are probably right. He says he wants to get to know me, but what does that mean anyways, and i think he will go back to his old GF no matter how much he says he hates her and her insecurity, plus this is the dude I spoke about a while back that used to be an addict and has been clean 27 yrs and is heavily involved with NA. I didn’t like that back then and I don’t like it now. It appears that these guys can talk about their feelings, but when he bolted on me, and told me he bolted because I was cranky on our outing and he didn’t want anymore drama, isn’t that the true proof that he CANNOT talk about feelings, at least not the tough ones. What good is that for me, a guy who will think any disagreement or show of crankiness is a reason to bolt. I need to muster up the courage to ignore him, and not get invested, it might be tough, he is damn attractive and have just been dumped by a guy who also bolted, just disappeared. Why would I invite back a bolter? I have to re read what others said about dating an ex addict, if anyone has more to share on that, it would be good. I thought he could do intimacy better because of all the work he does on himself, but I’m starting to wonder about that.
He is doing the work of addicts to stay of drugs.But he is not doing inner work he needs to nurture a real healthy relationship. We have to know what a healthy relationship looks and feels like. You need to spend sometime on you.
This post is so interesting! It really echoes a lot of what I have been observing about my own life recently. Its true, if the ex is the kind of person you can be friends with it has to happen in its own time and mutually with no hint of disrespect. This is also assuming that they were friend worthy in the first place. The guy I had my longest relationship with I would NEVER EVER want to be friends with again after the way he treated me.
With subsequent exes, I have always needed a lot of time to get over the romance but also to ascertain if they can be real and true and loyal and supportive platonic friends. This takes time to see.
Its weird because I tend to end up going out with people I have been friends with before and you really notice the difference in how some people treat romantic partners/vs opposite-sex friends.
Some men (and women) make great opposite-sex platonic friends but really bad partners.
Its up to us to spot who should stay in our lives as friends and who should not.
I guess everyone should be considered on an individual basis. HOWEVER if you are able to see a pattern of staying friends with exes or people you’ve had romantic connections with who do not respect or treat you well. Its then time to perhaps go against people pleasing tendencies and think about what is best for you. We all deserve to be surrounded by loving and supportive people.
Bx
Natalie and All,
Does this behaviour of collecting women for a harem ever ceases? Will they ever stop calling, texting and emailing? Who continues this type of behaviour when they have been told to “stop contacting me”? I received an email after a year. Do they ever stop?
Deborah,
They eventually stop especially if you stop responding. They will get the hint. I learned that sometimes they want you to react in away that makes them think they were not that bad. Some people can’t fathom that you don’t want to be their friends even though they you treated poorly. It’s as if once you accept their so-called friendship then they can walk away feeling like they weren’t that bad because you want to be their friend.
Deborah — they stop when they’re dead.
You have to be the one to permanently pull the plug.
LOL! What we allow will continue.
Nina – “They stop when they’re dead.” It’s so true! This line made me laugh out loud. Good one. And it dawned on me, that these men are also desperate. I mean, reaching out to us here and there for 2-3 years after the courtship had ended. How desperate can you be? Imagine if I tried contacting a guy for 2-3 years after it’s over, I’d be labeled as a psycho for sure; yet when men do it, we seem to tolerate this.
I had a guy sext me a few weeks ago; we had a fling or two several decades ago, and he was recalling one event fondly. (he’s married, and we’re FB colleagues but not close) I responded I did remember, vaguely, but that was over 20 years ago …. I think he was just sniffing around for a narc hit, and I did not give it to him. 20 years!! Sheesh! They never give up, I think.
20 years later?? That is a record for sure. I’ve noticed over the years that when married men have problems in their marriage, they tend to act overtly flirty and sexual. Instead of addressing their issues, they go on the prowl. I can tell when men at work are having issues, because they start aggressively coming onto other women. When I question them, they state they are having problems with their wives. So predictable…
They do stop when you say it and REALLY mean it.
Silence is the best way, never respond to any fishing texts and let any unknown calls from numbers not on your contact list go through to voice mail and delete from there. Mark their email address as spam and it drops into that folder so you don’t get the see any messages from them in your inbox. My email provider deletes all spam mail after 30 days so I don’t bother looking in there.
They do eventually get the message when there is no response at all.
The only reason they are trying to get in contact after so long is that they are bored with nothing to do right then or they think they may have a shot at a shag (you know, the old we did it before why not now for old times sake haha!)
So lame but some people fall for this old line especially if they are going out of their way to be ‘very friendly’. You may think the AC EUM MM et al may have changed but they haven’t. Still the same old leopard with the same old spots.
I’ve met a lot of men who have female friends and exes hard to find one who doesn’t. Most guys I have dated have remained friends with their exes and continued to see them- why?!
I know when my ex partner starting meeting women behind my back claiming them to be ‘platonic friends’, then I could no longer sit back and take it.
We need to understand with men there is attraction, they never make friends with an ugly woman, they hope to eventually sleep with them or date them. It’s more of a passive way to get it to happen I guess.
Cherry, I dated a guy like that once. Tons of women “friends.” He mentioned how women are “jealous” of one another around him (typical narc-speak, by the way). I finally realized some are ex’s that he may shag on occasion as fallbacks, and some are not-yet-fu*ked women who are in the pipeline, being groomed for future manipulation.
A lot of people are saying that the EUM (or we can assume EUP or person) TALKS a lot about women, the talking is an important red flag even above the having of these friends – after all, some of these women dont know they are being used by him to keep relationships at bay and some of them might not like that idea.
I dont need to talk about my male friends blah blah at every possible turn. EUPs do. They WANT you to know this – set you up for competition. And they want everyone to know how irresistible they are to women because they doubt their own likability.
AND you can compete in other ways. Compete with his work, compete with his social life, his tiredness, his relationship break ups, his life plans, etc. I think this is back to ‘he’s just not that into you’ – if a person is interested, they will show real interest, be motivated to consistency. Not like consistency is some golden achievement but because they will actually want to spend more time rather than fight you. Because I think inconsistency is a fight – hot and cold means inconsistency means not wanting you to know where you stand (which is also achieved by talking about the harem). It doesnt make HIM a good match just because of consistency but it makes the relationship worth considering, at least there is a there there.
EUMs treat you badly and when you call them on it they resent you for having turned out to be less than perfect – the harem is still perfect, they can retreat to that and hold you up as comparison. EUM told me that feeling bad about how he treated me makes me similar to his ex. That is, his ex and I evoke the same feelings in him because I guess he had to step up in some way (he paints her to be a maniac, and she does sound it but I wonder what he would have done to drive her to the crazy).
[also as usual I was reading some of the comments and i’m like wait did I write that last night under an assumed name! because we have all had the same thoughts and experiences].
Dang, it’s funny the word “friendship” pops up here today.
My “ex” (fling?) whom I’ll call Z (I’ve written out the whole story once before on here) caught me in a vulnerable position last week after months of no contact. I had told him when we split up that it’s just too hard for me to keep seeing him/sleeping with him because my unrequited feelings are too painful.
The group of neighbors (where we originally met) planned a party for this past Thursday and invited me to come and stay there for a few days. Z and I both moved to new, but different, cities back in the spring and carried on our “thing” through the end of the summer. The main event was a karaoke party at the bar where we used to congregate. The organizer sent out an evite to basically everyone who had recently been a part of the group. I RSVPed, saw that Z’s name was on the invite list, but it did not even occur to me that he would attend (since he wasn’t as involved with them, seemed to have moved on when he relocated, and of course my name was on the “attending” list). I was looking forward to a fun weekend away with the old gang. I checked the guest list the day before the trip and Z had not RSVPed. A couple of my friends and I talked excitedly on Facebook about seeing each other soon (which Z would have been able to see).
So I get there, meet up with everyone, we go out to dinner then to a bar we’d rented out for karaoke. We’re mingling, when suddenly Z is standing before me. Looking like he must have been hitting the gym since I last saw him (of course). He hugged me and made his way around to greet people. I started tearing up and dragged my friend outside with me for a few minutes. I asked the organizer if she knew he was coming and she said he RSVPed at the last minute. She didn’t know the whole story about me and Z. I kind of avoided him for most of the evening but then at one point he sidled up to me and put his arm around me and said, “I’ve missed our friendship. I hope my attendance isn’t going to ruin the night for you.” I could barely say anything because I was so stunned. He goes, “Ending things was the right thing to do. Not easy, but the right thing.” I told him I didn’t want to talk about that right now and he let me be.
I got fairly drunk just to be able to tolerate the circumstances. At one point I was outside having a smoke and he came out, tried to make small talk while I was super uncomfortable. He asked if I expected to see him there and I said no, did you expect to see me? He said yeah, saw my name on the RSVP list, and that, y’know, he wanted to come to see everyone. Which is hard to believe since I don’t think he’s even kept in touch with folks since he moved away. Then as we were all leaving the bar afterwards, he asked me and our friend P if we wanted to smoke some pot back at the apartment complex. I stupidly accepted and so did P, so Z drove us back and we smoked up in the parking lot behind my old building. I was acting pretty normal/cheerful thanks to the alcohol and weed, I guess. Then P went home and it was just me and Z sitting outside.
I feel so dumb for not going inside as well. I soon started tearing up and we were just staring at each other, him making sympathetic noises/faces at me. He was like, “Oh, I just want to hug you,” and sat next to me rubbing my back, staring into my eyes and crap. Then he basically made me relive the whole “It’s not you, it’s me” song-and-dance as I sat there crying. He was like, “I could not resist you. I was attracted to you and we made a great connection … “ I asked him if he was apologizing to me for something and he said no, but I am too amazing and special a woman to have treated so frivolously. I was like, “yeah.”
Then he tells me he doesn’t know if he should snuggle me, and I told him he should because it would be good to feel some nice touch (ugh, so dumb). “You’re not getting your touch on!?” he asked incredulously. I started crying more, said no, nobody wants me, I don’t want anyone else, I don’t think I will find anything as satisfying. Getting down on myself and giving him an ego boost. It was so humiliating. His hands running through my hair as he lay next to me. He then lectured me about how I should not want him, he is a mess, I am too negative and need to open myself up to happiness because I am something special and super and wonderful and I deserve to be happy. Like, look at where opening myself up has gotten me, you know? He also felt the need to remind me that I’m a lot of “fun,” and I told him I don’t ever want to hear that kind of thing again because it’s sort of an insult at this point. “I don’t want to just be someone’s ‘fun,’” I said, and he nodded in agreement. Then he abruptly said he had to get going and I got my stuff out of his car. Again he kept showering me with flattery, telling me how much he likes me, that everyone likes me and I have a lot going for me. I said, “I don’t know how to think of you,” and he said, “It’s probably better that you don’t.” And I walked away as he started his car for his hour-long drive back to his home. I spent most of the next 48 hours crying. It was terrible.
I feel like he ambushed me, ripped off a scab and left me bleeding and vulnerable and too disarmed to tell him off like I should have. Twice now (Thursday and the day we split up) I have missed opportunities to stand up for myself and tell him what’s what and it’s eating away at me. Or just to walk away! He caught me off guard and I just turned into a pitiful puddle. Which is why I can’t be involved with him at all–he has all the power and he knows it and it’s bad for me. I HATE that I have once again given him an ego boost and come across as weak, that he pities me. It kills me to know he has resumed his party/fun lifestyle and is having sex/”getting his touch on” with other women. But I know now he was right when he said he is messed up. I knew, deep down, all along. I am so disgusted by both of us.
Oh, and as we sat on the grassy hill behind the building where we’d both once lived, he chuckled and said, “Remember when we banged right over there?”
“…I wish I could forget it.”
“Sorry.”
Ugh ugh ugh giving that cocky bastard an ego boost. That’s all I was to him.
Sarah-dontseeyourselfasplainORsmall – I am sorry to hear that your relationship with this fellow has hurt you. Please note how I phrase that – I dont say HE has hurt you, I say the relationship. He can have this ambiguous relationship and not be hurt. You cannot. The onus is on you to protect yourself. But you know its okay to be hurt and to be sad. That is life. We grieve for what we lose, what we never had, what we know we are incapable of. Please dont tell anyone that you are not lovable – you can tell your friends and family that really understand you, no one else needs to know this [and also trust me that everyone feels this way at some time or most of the time, it doesnt make you plain or small, but it is a mark of our self-preservation that we dont tell idiots this information].
You are putting a big blinking ‘kick me’ sign on yourself. All our feelings are okay, but feelings are not facts, and feelings are best kept from non-friends. You sound like you have a nice fun group of friends, they rent bars to do karaoke. ANd some ambiguous male friends that occasionally will give you a cuddle – you know, if you could just accept that thats all it is, you would not mind what happened. Your mutual dynamic is one of approach, avoidance, tears, bad feelings and making up. One of you just does it ‘better’, with more self-deception, higher selfishness and better self-preservation (thats him of course).
The odds are high you have got an ego boost as well (he came out to stand with you and smoke, you went out to continue the night with another friend etc), and your relationship depends on drama. Its okay! Its all okay. You’re just hurting yourself with your thoughts [i dont condone his behavior, it is inconsistent, somewhat insulting, and game playing, but it is a dynamic of two]. If you decided not to be hurt, he would have no power over you.
There is no cure – but I think changing your screen name to Sarah-thatWASplainandsmall might help. I dont think you’re plain! You’re dramatic! You smoke and have angry confrontations with not-quite-ex-not-quite-bfs! You’re intense and enigmatic! Accept it.
Sarah, (and I highly doubt you’re “plain and small”!) He is a horrible, horrible manipulator. Fishing pole to reel you in, cast you out, blame it on himself (all fake), leave you reeling. He is a mess, but he is more than that; he is downright cruel, because leaving you reeling is exactly where he likes you to be. He no doubt does that with other women too, I hate to say (these guys don’t just do it to one woman, while being all nicey and genuine with the rest, believe me!!!). I am so sorry he got into your head with his blowtorch and messed you up. I know you will be able go get over it; he really is Not a nice person.
sarahplainandsmall
As awful as this sounds, you did get to heal some more in this situation as you clearly were not over Z yet. I think this helped, but please don’t do a repeat, I don’t think you will, this will make you stronger.
You are a very smart women thanks for helping me get though a tuff time in my life in my 50’s. I have read a lot on your pages and it has help so much thank you. I am much strong due to all your post.
Best Wishes Pam
I agree with you Pam. This site has been such a lifesaver for me also. Three cheers for Nat & the beautiful readers who have been lucky enough to find this blog! Nel xo
I waiver back and forth on this issue. Sometimes I think I can be a friend because it’s my nature to not hold grudges. But then I remember that he never really was a “friend” to me…I was just a sexual toy over a 5 year span. He has a huge harem and constantly mentioned a name here and there, or would take a phone call from them while I was sitting there. Or would actually ask me “Is it wrong to want someone that is committed to someone else?” And was mean enough to actually invite two of us to the same dinner at his home. I didn’t know at the time that he had slept with her; she knew about me and was furious and totally upset that I was there. Who does that? I know…this is the guy that sent me many, many disgusting text messages. And never called me before 9 in the evening. And sometimes would have sex with someone else, take a shower, then invite me over. And then would ignore me for days. Blah, blah, blah… Okay….perhaps I just answered my own question…why should I remain a friend. I’m better than being a part of his harem.
Rewind,
When will you end this drama!
You have never said anything positive about this guy, I can’t understand why you keep this going!!!
End it, already!!!!
Rewind,
This is not about holding “grudges,” but respecting yourself enough not to stay in this sick dynamic.
Allison,
Your straight forwardness is magic. Thank you. Sometimes I need the Cher slap to remind me where I need to be.
Rewind – Please search “trauma bonding” because that is exactly what is going on. The more this guy treats you like dirt, the more you bond to him. I had to discover this dynamic on my own and I wish someone had told me about it. But now that I know, I would like to share with you and help you get healthier emotionally.
Thank you, Kellia. I will look it up.
If a person treated you poorly when you were dating them why would they think you would want to be friends with them? They aren’t stupid they know they hurt you, so why not just move on and let things be, but nooooo! They have to keep coming around trying to make themselves feel better about the way they treated you so they can let themselves off the hook. They are being selfish and when you remember that you won’t be receptive to them.
The EUM I dated tried to informally be my friend by putting on the same charm he used when we started dating, but I was smarter and wiser and knew exactly what he was up to. So I never just gave him the attention he so craved from me. I ignored him, did not call him because I realized that he didn’t deserve any attention from me. I just disappered. Of course he called a year in a half later to inform me of his upcoming nupitals and to meet up in attempt to get my attention, but I saw through it and declined his offer. If I had accepted, he would have thought that the silence from me not real and that he could have me anytime he wanted. Well, I proved him wrong.
This!! I’m sure that my ex’s motivations for trying to be my friend stem entirely from huge guilt at having been such a d*ck to me! They want to convince themselves and others around them that its all ok, cos look we’re friends now so i cant actually have done anything that bad…
Steph, I just don’t understand this being friends with your ex (but I do understand being civil with your ex, especially if you have children together). In any relatonship, when you split up, in vast majority of the cases one party is very hurt. Continue to hang around your ex is just very painful in such situation, you’re vulnerable to jump in bed for comfort sex or whatever, your ex can keep his/ her paws and spy on your life, your ex might feel bad about leaving you and this is his/her way to deal with guilt, you don’t really move on, you continue to pine for your ex etc. Many split up because of a serious reason, like feeling abused in a relationship, they were cheated on, lied toetc. Seriously, people want to br “friends” and go back for more abuse??? Once a guy f$$$ks me up we can’t be friends. If I’m interested in a guy and he doesn’t reciprocate, we aren’t friends either, I’m not a masochist. And what’s this nonsense about “not holding grunges” and “being a bigger person”? Just excuses for continuing to look for validation and/ carrying a candle for someone. These post split-up friendhips have become such a cultural thing because we no longer have courage and guts to say a relationship is over. Instead, people think they should continue a relationship on a far more ambiguous and lax terms instead to go NC (at least for some time) and heal in peace.
Sooooo true, Mephista! I’ve gone back to ex’s for comfort, to be the “bigger” person as a “friend,” and felt much smaller, and actually dirty for not honoring myself. I don’t think it makes us “bigger” or “mature” to be friends with an ex, esp. if there was a lack of respect in the relationship; we wouldn’t take that crap from our real friends, so why do we think we “should” take it from them? They don’t measure up to the standards for friendship. I’d rather have 2 – 3 real friends, than many “friends” who are frenemies, shag-sniffers, narcs, etc. Life is TOO short!
So well said period.
Mephista – I love your post and agree with it 100%.
I’d add one more reason to the list of reasons why people insist on being ‘friends’ with the people they either used to have sex with, wanted to have sex with, or who wanted to have sex with them.
Because they think it’s Rockstar. It’s Hipster. It’s Cool As Hell. Think insouciant je-ne-sais-quoi, think inscrutable. Think black and white 1960s French films, the floppy-fringed actors in over-large sunglasses, black knit tops and hipster pedal pushers, permanently smouldering Gitanes ciggie dangling from the fingertips, hunched over rusting vintage cafe tables in the 7th arrondissement, curling their lips and carelessly shrugging off emotion. “Yeah,” they croak softly between deep inhales, “We had a thing, me and her. Once. But, bouf.” Wrapped around their ankles, lying on the cold pavement, a couple of cast-off ex girlfriends trying to look cool and self satisfied. “He still loves me” they pout, the black velvet mascara streaking their faces.
But they don’t look Rockstar. Or Hipster. They look like jerks and they smell of desperation.
Ok Griz, got the Jean Paul Belmondo, but how are YOU?
Big smiles all round here, thanks! 🙂
Nat’s words on ex-collectors had me nodding my head, then shaking my head, then nodding, then shaking… everyone has an agenda. Everyone.
Casting my mind back, I’ve been in four serious, full-on, long term relationships (incl one marriage) and four exclusive but less serious relationships that went on many months. None of those guys were hateful or antagonistic about their ex-girlfriends, but none of them were actively friends with their exes either (similar to me and my exes). But every single time in each of those eight relationships, a couple/few months in, there was always one ex-girlfriend who couldn’t resist turning up, sniffing around, looking to see if she could get her claws back in. Knowing full well, of course, that he’d moved on with me. One turned up on my first boyfriend’s door with an ‘I miss oo’ card. Another knocked on my later boyfriend’s door clutching a bottle of wine. Another walked around and around my later-again boyfriend’s dorm til they ‘accidentally’ bumped into each other. Later years again, another one started trying to hang out with my boyfriend’s sister all of a sudden and so what a surprise they could ‘catch up over a drink’. Sure, I could have said ‘hey well maybe they’re just being friendly!’. But no — just, no. Because they weren’t really friends, because they were certainly not trying to be friends with both of us (I wasn’t included), and because I wasn’t born yesterday. Let these sorry cases run around after all their other ex-boyfriends if they’re that lonely, they’re not having mine. In each and every case I casually slapped those grasping claws away and played merry hell with my boyfriend over it. I always made sure these women never saw or heard from my boyfriends again. I just don’t want it going on, not while they’re with me — that’s where my boundaries are. Reason being, everyone has an agenda. Everyone. I believe this little grain of wisdom I once heard — that outside of every healthy and happy relationship between two people, there’s invariably a third person trying to get in.
For anyone who’s read Gone Girl, the novel which was made into a film recently, there’s a brilliant few pages in it called the ‘cool girl rant’ (google it if you like, highly recommended). The author unpacks the ‘Cool Girl’ myth that reminds me a lot of how Natalie does it. I’m pretty cool about stuff, and I’m definitely a girl. But there’s no way I’m ever a ‘Cool Girl’. Because I have this terrible habit of being a real human being.
Happened to you 8 times in 8 relationships, you say?
In each of those relationships, one guy and one girl were involved.
Assuming you didn’t open the door to these women coming after each of those guys, I can guarantee you that each of those guys–and/or their friend(s) or family–did.
Not even necessarily by doing all that much. All anyone would have to do would be to tell the ex that the guy was involved with someone new (you).
And don’t kid yourself: ALL guys–EU or not–LOVE this attention.
The guy is part of the equation. Period.
Grizelda, you have that scene written perfectly!! And another reason why those films are “noir” — they are dark for the reasons that we continue to voluntarily hang out in that noir-ness, that darkness, maybe asking ourselves how low we can go.
I love love love your French film description here!! Spot on, girl!
Loved it, too.
Wow, Grizelda this sounds like apoem your a wonderful poet.
Now I’m confused. I’m on good terms with almost all my exes/former love interests. I’m good friends with some of them, but without fail, that’s the cases where we had been close friends before, tried dating, both agreed that it wasn’t working out, and went back to being close friends. I just do not like the idea of having enemies (which is what a long-term no contact looks like to me, when you make a conscious effort to avoid contact with a person, not just for the initial transition period, but for years or for the rest of your life). Does that mean that I collect exes, or have a harem or whatever? I hardly ever see/hear from these guys and certainly do not make an effort to maintain our friendship – again, except for the ones that had been my friends in the first place. I’ve met up with a few of them on a few occasion (and obviously see my friends regularly) and none of us seem to want to rekindle the old flame – the feeling is just no longer there – the person feels like a sibling. I know I can come to them for help or advice in an emergency, and they know the same about me. My last ex is the only one I’m not sure about staying in contact with – it was a dysfunctional relationship and a bad breakup – we tried staying friends for a bit, but that only made things worse. He got together with a mutual friend a few months after he left me. Frankly, I miss her more than I have ever missed him, and she’s one of the main reasons I’m still in some form of contact with this guy – or rather, with both of them. He’s the only man I dated that I would consider going full no contact with (did that with him for a few months, in fact). He’s an exception though. I imagine that a lot of the men who keep some kind of contact with their exes do it in the same way as I do – i.e. they treat them the same way as we do other people who’ve moved in and out of our life, but whom we didn’t have a real falling out with and have no reason to completely cut contact with. I know my current bf stays in (very sporadic) contact with one or two, doesn’t bother me.
I did date a man once, a few years ago, who really did come across as actively keeping a harem – staying in touch on FB with everyone he’s dated, meeting up with exes, hooking up with exes, etc. so that’s probably the kind of “staying friends with exes” we should avoid – but I really only met one man like that in my life. Again, an exception, in my social circle at least.
Goldie, to me, your confusion is in the all-or-nothing, either-or thinking. Either we’re “friends” or we’re “enemies”.
Except for one relationship, I am on “good terms” with all my exes. But they are not friends. They are not in my life, they don’t know anything about me since we parted. I would not avoid them in a crowd.
I am a return employee at my current job, worked here years ago, and one of my exes still works here since that time long ago. We ran into each other in the cafeteria, had pleasant conversation, no awkwardness, smiled and said goodbye. We wave “hi” when we see each other. That’s that. He’s not an enemy, but he’s not a friend either. I would not call him if I needed something and would be shocked if he called me out of need of something. Not saying I’d turn down a person in dire need, but if I was a resource for him, then he must’ve exhausted all his “close” resources and is in really bad straits.
Former lover. That’s a category too.
I gotta say though, of the few men who have treated me well during the entire course of our relationship, once the relationship was over, they did not try the “let’s be friends” thing. They are wise enough to know there is a time and a season and some things do end.
Goldie,
I think if you had a mutually respectful break, then there is no reason you cannot be friends. I think it just applies when the relationship ended in disrespect and hurt that one should not consider a friendship.
“…swooping in on his broken down donkey disguised as a white horse.” Boy, have I had some of these! Go Nat! LOL
I will never, ever be friends with the ex AC. He hates women, I mean he truly hates us, treats his mum like total crap (which I should have seen as a red flag but stupidly had my rose coloured glasses on at the time), none of his ex’s have remained friends with him and in fact the last one took a restraining order out on him, the one before that took his son and disappeared but apparently we are the bitches..yeah whatever, I’d rather be a bitch then carry on being his door mat.
Ladies When they have contentious relationships with thier mothers we need to pay attention to that. We learn how to be in relationships by how we were treated by caregivers. And then we pass that behavior on to others. Wheather good or bad he learned it from somewhere.
The reality is if you ever want to have a chance to move on and start a new relationship you must let go of trying to have a relationship with an ex. Sometimes its not about them being aholes. Its about being able to closed on chapter so you can open up another without any complications.
After spending the summer trying to work things out, I have finally given up on my ex-fiance who i’ve always thought had narc tendencies – totally has a harem and refers to all ex’s / female friends as “jealous and obsessed with me”! I don’t have any intention of being part of that and am totally NC (yey me!). Most days are good days now, although i do have the odd emotional wobble, usually if i’m alone at home with no plans, please tell me it gets easier! Love this site 🙂
Hey Ellie, it certainly does get easier! When you feel the odd wobble approaching, my advice would be to make a concerted effort to do something you really love & take a moment to appreciate the little things & relish your freedom out of the narc’s harem! Do you love baking, reading, walking, sewing etc? I’d try to do something like that when I was feeling a bit woe-is-me. And when I finally got over the sadness & recovery from the EUM, it dawned on me how happy I was being away from the control & drama! You’ll get there! Hugs, Nel.
Thanks Nel, good advice 🙂 I seem to have a once weekly meltdown where i cry for ages and then I’m ok again. Will try distraction and see if that helps! Glad youre happy and moved on, i’m inspired! x
Not a problem at all! I do think that crying is part of the healing process as well, so don’t be too hard on yourself for having those wobbles. And you were engaged to the guy so I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that would be! After all, we are only recovering in the best way we know how from someone who has treated us quite appallingly. I can only assure you from across the globe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And if you’ve experienced a narcissistic EUM in the past, your future is so much brighter for having disposed of them! Best wishes to you Ellie!
Thanks, it really helps to hear that there is a light! I sometimes despair at ever fully getting over it, but I’m sure i will, and be much the better for it too! I think my wobbles are more to do with coming to terms with the loss of what I thought we had and my hopes and dreams for the future rather than what it actually was in reality. At the time it all felt so real, but now i can see that there was A LOT of Future Faking going on! Am sending you a big hug and a wave from across the globe 🙂 x
Ellie, yes that is very typical narc-speak! Saying his ex’s and fem friends are “jealous and obsessed” is true narc-speak. Thinking other people are jealous of him, and jealous of each other because of him. You pinned that one perfectly!
Yes, it gets easier. You may enjoy the book “Narcissistic lovers,” which really describes them to a T; you’ll be sickened by it all, and will soon be able to spot a narc a block away.
Ladies When they have contentious relationships with thier mothers we need to pay attention to that. We learn how to be in relationships by how we were treated by caregivers. And then we pass that behavior on to others. Wheather good or bad he learned it from somewhere.
I don’t miss that bull crap at all. I used to feel so damn insecure when involved in that situation. I was constantly told that I needed more confidence. Well, now that I am free, I have confidence. And a confident woman doesn’t put up with that kind of bull crap. And a smart man knows that one good woman is enough. A prize to be treasured. So glad to be free. Thank you for your uplifting posts! 😉
Excellent.article. indeed.
I’ve never offered the friend card to any of my ex’s; that never even occurred to me because breaking up with someone means I’m ending the relationship after mindful thought. I’m serious, and I can’t imagine asking someone to begin a friendship after I just ended a relationship. That’s nonsensical. I’ve always been considerate of the other person’s feelings, and instinctively gone NC.
Men have tried to convince me to stay in the relationship or “stay ‘friends,'” and I’ve had some of them go as far as manipulating family/friends to get me to reconsider, but I never did because once I made the decision to end it, it didn’t occur to me to second guess it.
And, whenever anyone ends a relationship with me, I respect that decision; I take it seriously, and I’m gone.
That is truly how I feel, think, act, and believe– self-congruent.
However, after I ended my relationship with my ex, I joined an online support group, and subsequently entered into an online,fantasy friendship with this guy who was also healing from a breakup, and yep we were each others buffers, and it turned romantic, and boooyy did we talk the talk; we seemed so wise and evolved as we traveled on our healing journeys; we used to write these beautiful, enlightened, ‘namaste’ emails to each other; and … blah blah.
But then he blew narc on me: First, one day, for no apparent reason, he called me a name, and I was like wtf? So I confronted him, and he said it was a term of affection, and I remember feeling that split in my brain when my brain senses mind fu*ks. But, I let it go, hoping it was a one-off. Next, he chastised me for something, saying I wasn’t being a nice person, but it was … I don’t remember, something stupid…total mindf*ck. But, I do remember givining in to him regarding something else. And then, he told me about how he was friends with all his ex’s, and yeah, ha!, I thought that was good, and what makes it so bad, I didn’t even question it’s truth. And, he told me that one ex had just bought him a gift and blah, blah. I didn’t really care about that because we were online whatever’s; he wasn’t my boyfriend. Ok, so it was ambiguous. Actually, the whole thing was stupid, but back then I soon felt like we were a couple, so when he told me he was going to go to brunch with one of his ex’s, I objected, and we had our first weirdo-fantasy relationship argument. Hell, it would have made more sense if we had been playing one of those online virtual life games…at least that would have been surreal.
Anyway, we lasted for about another week ( the whole fantasy only lasted about three weeks, thank God). He ended our mutual lunacy
with some dumb ass, three line, borrowed quote, but I wasn’t finished smoking LA LA, so I drafted an adolescent monologue singing his praises from my high road, and asking if we could still be friends (cue vomit).
I remember not wanting to hurt his feelings. It was important to me that he still thought highly of me. I needed to maintain my class and Good Girl status. And, no, I didn’t want the relationship to end,”Oh shall I hear more!” But then, ha!, as soon as he said, “Yes, we can be friends,” I just thought Ewwwwww, I don’t want this guy as just a friend because that means he wont be my lover. I want my beautiful emails to be delivered to me before I go to bed, and all the other love bombing, fantasy-Shakespearean…, which I’ve since penned–BULLSHIT.
Plus, I don’t want someone who doesn’t want me, so once he ended it, yep, I was gone. And there’s the whole pride thing…. I’ve always had strong limits.
I’m pretty indifferent now; he never knew, I never knew, respectively, me, him.
“Many of us fall into the trap of giving ourselves too much credit. We become attracted to someone, they possess certain qualities and characteristics and then we correlate it to the rest of them and assume that because we’re attracted to them, that they’re someone that’s ‘right’ for us that can give us the relationship we want. Hard as this may be to hear, that is laziness and blind assumptions.”~~NML
“What you place a high value on in others says a lot about what you value or even overvalue in yourself or what you want someone else to bolster you with. If you’re intelligent or even ‘super’ intelligent, I suggest you don’t hide behind it and avoid emotionally engaging because it’s not anything close to an appropriate substitute. Just ask the Florence Nightingales of this world who fix/heal/help or those indispensable types that cook, clean, twist, turn, and contort for partners as a substitute for actual emotional intimacy and honesty.
If you don’t believe you’re that intelligent, putting someone on a pedestal and blowing smoke up their arse is also dangerous because it creates an imbalanced relationship where you’re looking up at them…from below. It’s also important to recognise that we can also be blinded to other great things in partners or ourselves when we only focus on one thing and make too many assumptions about it.
All that intelligence tells you is that they’re intelligent in the area(s) that you noticed their knowledge and skills. It’s one thing if they go on to demonstrate that they are relationship smart but if they don’t, you can’t stay there like a debt collector demanding that they pay up a skill that they don’t possess. While you may be tempted to ‘teach’ them, no ‘student’ learns anything and applies the knowledge in a subject that they’re not interested in or don’t ‘get’.
At the end of the day, like any assumption, if it doesn’t stack up in reality, you have to adjust your perceptions and expectations – that’s the intelligent thing to do.”~~NML
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/the-trouble-with-being-blinded-by-intelligence-in-dating-and-relationships/
“These assumptions are dangerous because we go out with our image of what these things mean, not the actual person which is why it feels like a confusing punch in the face when things go awry.”~~NML
Camillah,
Thank you for sharing this article with me.
I think because my ex and I were friends first, I bypassed a proper discovery phase with him, and “surprise, surprise,” my fantasy-guy was my fantasy-friend first.
I agree with Natalie in that friendship is organic, and my friendship with my ex was organic, and I thought romantic relationships were, also, organic to a certain extent as far as the attraction. Not sure what I want to say here. I need to chew on this some more, but I thought my attraction was an organic sign, yep, that he was ‘right’ for me.
“Marry your best friend.” Er, maybe…maybe not….
Take care, Mirror
I just recently met a guy through my friends that has a lot of female friends. I wasn’t sure what to think but at the same time it bother me. Anyway, he showed a few EUM questionable signs like he would randomly message me on Facebook and not ask for my number after a few weeks. My friends said the he’s shy card but I was skeptical. I then hung around him with friends a second time and he messages me his number. He then asks me what day I’m free for dinner and on a Sunday state Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon roles around and still no solid time or plan of where (internal alarms start going off in me) and he then contacts me around 2 asking me if we are still on and in my mind I’m like um idk ARE WE? He finally says he has to figure out where and says a place and time but I figured he would pick me up. 7pm rolls around and no text asking my address. I then ask if he’s picking me up and his response what “whatever is easier”. This was my indication that I shouldn’t go and cancelled on him. If you can’t pick me up or put some effort into our first date this is going nowhere good. Somebody who is really a gentleman and really into you will insist on picking you and the thought of where he wanted to take you would have crossed his mind all week. I can happily say after so many tears and disappointments trying to seek love elsewhere I am finally loving myself first. On to someone who loves me as much as I do!
Eyes,
Smart!
It doesn’t sound like this dude put a thought into anything.
Can you imagine how things would have been down the road 🙁
Eyes, good choices there! You weren’t going to let him be a priority, when he was treating you like an option. Excellent!
Your on the right track learn to love you first then you will have something to compare other peoples love to. plus self love makes us better partners.
I need advice on avoiding being the female version of this. It just happens that I connect well with guys, but I’m afraid that there’s a chance that quite a few of them may be into me even though we’ve never gone out and I genuinely see them as friends. I remember trying to date multiple people back when I was emotionally unavailable and causing a lot of heartbreak that way…I’d like to prevent it from happening again.
So what can I do to avoid having my own harem of guys who are into me? My plan is to talk to them less, not every day, and only in an academic or professional setting, and to keep what I talk about very impersonal (ie., no sharing feelings). I only share personal details with people I am into who are into me as well, and with people who I consider friends. Is there anything else I can do?
I’ve been this person, and it’s blown up spectacularly in my face so I watch it now. I think you’ll need to consider which, if any, of these guys are hanging around just hoping to get promoted to boyfriend, and which are actually into you as a person. You should also consider if you’re inadvertently giving off mixed signals — do you treat any of these folks in a boyfriend-like way? Try redrawing your boundaries around them to exclude boyfriend-type interactions: dishing on your current relationship with them, physical contact beyond the friend level, late-night phone convos, etc.
Yup. It’s totally blowing up in my face right now too. I think I’ve been too close to this one guy. I just got asked out in a subtle way, might have to take a friend with me.
Linden – thanks for the advice, though. My eyes are far more open now.
I thought I was making friends with most of these guys, but we’re in the stage where hormones abound or we’re thinking dating and marriage. Some of the guys I’ve talked to seem to mistake an impersonal question like “What’s our homework?” as a sign of interest, but I’m also trying not to give off mixed signals (in this case, it may mean that I just never look at them or talk to them again, lol!). I’ve only talked to one guy once a month about music, because we’re both into it, but he just keeps dropping hints that he’s interested in more than that. Looking back, I suppose it’s easy to misinterpret signals and read more into something if the person asking you the question is someone you’re super into… Anyway I’ve also taken a friend’s advice and started burying my head in studies and work. Just in case. XD
I have been lovin these posts by Natalie AND the comments these past few weeks! Gonna have to come to work on Saturday to make up for the time I’ve been spending writing to you guys! Got some new phrases in my repertoire: “ghosts of unavailability past”, “yada, yada, Barf!”. Just wanted to first say thank you to everyone in this smart funny community. Want you to know you’ve all made me laugh and cry . This is the REAL SEX And the City, right ‘here!
Now to my thoughts:
Is it really that these guys want to feel better about themselves, that they aren’t a “bad guy” – that’s why they offer the friendship consolation prize?
I don’t feel that is the reason.
I think it is just immaturity. A lack of comprehension that actions have consequences. Part of growing up is learning that actions have consequences. Treating someone as “less than” will eventually make that someone go away – if that someone has a healthy sense of self. In other words, bad boy, YOU LOSE. You lose access to that person in any way, shape or form. Your bad behavior, or ambivalent behavior has consequences. I also think maybe these EU/ACs have not really experienced negative consequences, because the ones they eff over keep hanging on, waiting for more crumbs.
A lot of these ACs are stuck in a junior high-school mentality.
The 3 former lovers I had who showed ZERO interest in exploring my female anatomy – two of them expressed extreme homophobic opinions, the third AC came from a family of 5 brothers where one of his brothers was gay, and that AC mentioned a few times that he was being “hit on” by men – he was one of the vainest men I’ve known, very good looking…in pre-cellphone days he sent me a picture of himself standing beside a swimming pool wearing the skimpiest tightest speedo I’ve ever seen – it made me blush.
ACMM is one of the extreme homophobes – he won’t even go into a steam bath with other men. He is the textbook inner city NBA hopeful , born and raised in youth basketball centers – aka hidden pedophile central. How did he possibly escape being approached…a practically fatherless boy. He actually had talent, was in a Final Four, eventually went to the Italian leagues and spent time in Amsterdam. I just wonder if there was an encounter, maybe with one of those feminine looking men in Amsterdam…and that he enjoyed it and was maybe surprised to find he’d been with a man the whole time.
With ACMM, in the beginning of FWB round 2, he once called me at 12:30AM to come over one night, I said OK. He called again at 1:30 AM, I said OK. He called at 2:30 AM to say he was right around the corner. I went to my door and watched him pull up. He was stinking drunk, practically falling over the steering wheel of his car. I noted how “pretty” his outfit was as he stumbled out of the car – all Miami Vice pastel, cream shoes and pants, very handsomely “pretty”. When he was leaving, around 4AM, I asked him “You ARE married, right? How can you be out like this??” He said he and wife agreed that he has one night a year when he can go out with no limits. So he had all night and I still got a 90 minute visit. He preferred to spend most of the night in the company of his “boys”, and then go get himself serviced by a woman – to make himself feel like a man, maybe?
I note his lack of physical affection toward me, and I don’t feel it has anything to do with me not being “good enough”.
HappyB, I feel exactly as you do about relationships. I’m deathly afraid of being suffocated, or being in one of those things where you really don’t want to go home at the end of the day. I like the peace and tranquility of the single life – that’s how it’s been for me, anyway. I don’t ache over being alone, I ache over not being loved or having someone TO love. I think I am ultimately looking for the “affectionate booty call”. But BR makes me see that I’ve been holding the bar TOO LOW, and it is my past and my mindset that has proven to be my destiny. Maybe mutual really does exist. Change does not come without change.
Elgie R., you have some point here… I mean about homosexuality of some of these guys. Your posts always have great points. This is something new. I have to say that I had very slight doubts during my relationship with the ex that he MIGHT have some secret tendencies/inclination to men, of which he perhaps was not even aware himself. He was a metrosexual, but that maybe is not a sign in itself. He went to a gay bar with his supposedly straight friends couple times and went one time with me (male gay bar). I find it strange because straight guys typically are not only not interested in male gay bars, they stay away from them. My ex used to admire himself in the mirror. He never said so but you could see the look of admiration in his eyes when seeing his own reflection. Yes he was very attractive with a model, slim, somewhat feminine, Calvin Kline like appearance. Beautiful actually. A very cold, model like appearance. Not sensual or sexual. Something very … hmmm… not appealing to females I would think something appealing to maybe guys or pedophiles? Oops maybe my inner gut just spilled out something that he might have been really a closeted gay. But then how come he did notice attractive females and noted their appearance. We did have very hot sex in the first 3-5 months of our relationship. Then he started controlling sex, withholding it from me. He never explored my anatomy, Elgie R, the same thing here. Some of my female friends have the opinion that when a man is not exploring and not interested in the most intimate aspects of the sex is because it’s more intimacy and if they are not into the woman, they won’t go far as exploring and giving pleasure to the woman. It’s just straight sex, physical action, ejaculation, and back up in the shower and sleep or move on to other activities. Like a robot. He did say that guys were hitting on him in the gay bar and other places. And my females friends looking at his picture said (3-4 of them) that there was something gayish in him. something latent or hidden. I had been ignoring those signs and notes back then. After several months after the breakup I started thinking about those things. The guy is 35 and never lived with a woman and never committed even once. With all his great looks, intelligence, great education and job, stable family( I think – never found out about his parents – knew nothing he hid everything from me and they didn’t know about me even at almost a year point of our relationship – different country though they live in), so with all that – he never had any responsibility and commitment except that for himself.
Anyway, it’s something to think about. I have heard from my girlfriend that she had heard so many stories about married guys… cheating on their wives with .. men. And men “turning” gays all of sudden and leaving families. All kinds of stories are around. It’s truly unbelievable one would think, but it’s actually more common than we think. Seems like a lot what holds these men in the secret is families (their own or parents), their reputation, career, profession. They have to act and do their “job” as a man while really being a gay.
One would think, “well maybe we are trying to find more reasons why they were AC/EU or simply didn’t love us,” but there is some point to this. For one, I could never even say or find a single thing to think my ex-husband was gay. As straight as could be for a guy. Lotion for a face? Gay bar? He would rather be killed. Forget about it. So some signs and things make you think.
Also, a very interesting and new point to me is their immaturity. You say, “I think it is just immaturity. A lack of comprehension that actions have consequences. Part of growing up is learning that actions have consequences.” It is so true. We keep blaming them and calling them names, but the truth is maybe they are just immature. Time will come they will not repeat the same mistake and perhaps feel bad for hurting us. I am speaking from my experience of being a selfish and immature young wife to a EA guy for 8 years and only 3-5 years after the divorce I started understanding all of what I did wrong. And especially now, after I was hurt by EUM I can see the boomerang, karma, or spiritual laws, whatever one wants to name these, hitting me full force. I certainly paid my dues, but I am lucky and blessed I have suffered and gone through the entire experience. My hope is that every immature person will get the bill due now notice. Not for us, the debtors. No, for them alone only so that they can improve themselves and be happier and make others happier too. I thought about this a lot and from a spiritual perspective… I sinned a lot. I hurt another person a lot. I got it back to myself. Who I am to judge this last EUM who brought me here. We are all in this. Immature, make mistakes, hurt one another, and goes in circles.
The great thing is that many of us do learn and better ourselves and the world around us.
Sometimes the harem fulfills for the girlfriends they can’t or dont want to have because of their confusions or dysfunctions — and since we are part of this ambiguous relationships or harems therefore we have to confront our own interest in men that are not only not taking responsibility and being ambiguous, but also have harems, AND also have some sort of sexual confusion which makes them really less than partner material in every sense of the word. If you see it from their point of view as well – they have set up their life where these women are really important to them, it keeps them from relationships, and it is unfair for us to think that they should lose the harem, its hard to let go of these relationships. I broke up with one person over his ‘platonic, she’s like my sister’ married harem friend because i felt it unfair to make him choose or ask him to change – they were so close and had been for so long that I couldn’t and didn’t want to compete. Whats strange was that after this he realized how problematic the relationship was and broke it off with her (which also I didn’t like because it should have been possible for him to stay friends with boundaries, rather than cut her out, it seemed cruel) BUT his need for this type of validation didn’t go away and there were other harem members when we tried for the relationship once again (then i went NC). I didn’t mind the harem members, he was just afraid of commitment and used them to keep me out (the harem didn’t know they were in a harem, it was all him).
I have seen one person actually pull this off, transitioning out of the harem – his gf was very ambivalent at the start so i think that helped as she didn’t object to the harem at the time, and over time he realized that the harem wouldn’t work if he wanted a real relationship. He distanced himself from the worst of the harem, the ones who actually didn’t want him to be in a relationship, and they’re in a committed relationship now. If you’re no good at relationships and stay single then I guess you collect a bit of a harem. The question is just if you are still able to manage a committed relationship and therefore feel the need for the harem to go away – thats when it might work.
I dont think there are any solutions – you can’t change them, they are not bad people or monsters, there is a dynamic, you can only change your own susceptibility.
I had a meditation visualization that I created for myself … the guy was a light in space, surrounded by all these other lights (his harem) and I visualized myself quietly unplugging the cord to my own light, so that my own light went off (i.e. no longer part of his harem) and visualized myself floating off safely hidden in the dark, where the “star” and his harem became smaller and smaller points of light the further I drifted away. It was a very soothing visualization, and I often still see myself pulling the plug from the socket and drifting away, when that kind of “harem” feeling comes over me again. Harem = crumbs.
That’s a good one.
I was with a man for a decade who turned out to be gay and was, in fact, actively cheating on me with men. We never went to a gay bar together. He was not metrosexual. He was not vain at all. So, unfortunately, I can’t give anyone any advice because you could have knocked me over with a paper clip when he told me. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. NO. CLUE. AT. ALL. Oh wait, he wasn’t big on sex. So there was that. He could easily go weeks, sometimes months, without. I thought it was because we’d been together so long and that was normal. It was my first relationship so I didn’t know what was a “normal” frequency and none of my friends had been in relationships that long so they didn’t know either. So yeah, that was a big clue, but only in hindsight. Anyway…. 🙂
Diane, wow!!! Unbelievable! 10 years!!! When you just think you have heard everything!
Elgie R, I wondered at this:
I don’t ache over being alone, I ache over not being loved or having someone TO love. I think I am ultimately looking for the “affectionate booty call”.
I know what you mean. But the affectionate booty call is NOT the answer here.
What helped me a lot – and continues to help me a lot – is to start assessing my other relationships, and finding the ones where real love exists, and nurturing those. Then, taking care of the next circle outwards, which is the ‘good friends’ one, and then ‘acquaintances’, ‘work colleagues’, etc.
I think that if you examine your OTHER relationships – family, good friends – you might find that there is actually more love there for you than you realise.
It’s not ‘romantic’ love, but it’s actually better than that. It’s real love, the kind that gets out of bed at midnight to come see you in the hospital after an accident, or rings you up when you’re in bed with a cold, or looks after your kids so you can get a break for a while.
This kind of love is GOLD. But we often don’t recognise it as ‘love’, because we think ‘love’ can only come with an armful of roses and an erection/wide-on. That ISN’T love; it’s miles away from real love. So learn to identify real love in your life, and rejoice in it, and give back to it.
And if your audit of your relationships shows that there’s not a lot of REAL love there, then you go and start getting yourself some. That’s where the volunteering, or getting a pet, or joining a group of likeminded people, really pays off. You start to connect with people who are really worth loving, and when you love them, they will often love you back.
It’s not sexual, but it IS community-building, it opens you up emotionally in a safe way, and helps you learn to be really ‘available’.
And when you do all those things, suddenly the affectionate booty call looks just like what it is – a cheap, dangerous, shoddy, worthless imitation of real love. And you won’t want it any more! (well, you might fantasise about it, but deep down you’ll know it’s a lie that you don’t really want any more).
Ethelreda,
Exactly!
But, if you keep allowing shady people into your life, then you are no where ready to allow folks to get close – I’m speaking of platonic, as well. Not allowing anyone to get close is concerning. At some point you have to begin to trust or your existence becomes quite lonely.
This is great advice Ethelreda. After a really painful and drawn out break up I am now working hard on building and nurturing those relationships you’ve mentioned. Volunteering, having coffee with colleagues and friends and getting to know new people are all things which are really helping me to get through it and move forward with my life 🙂
I have never made a friend while doing volunteer work. Some of my loneliest memories have occurred while I’ve been volunteering.
I think I’m just a lonely soul in need of another lonely soul. I need that man who has often wondered about himself “Why is it so hard to connect?”
My one really good relationship was with a man like that – a man very much like me, emotionally. He joined in with the things the people he liked wanted to do, but was still kind of always alone. We had a good thing. It derailed…but not over romantic nonsense. But still….. it is a 95% happy memory. He was on my side and I was on his.
So…… I’m pretty sure the problem does not lie in the “activities” or the lack thereof on my schedule.
It’s some kind of inner loneliness.
But BR is helping with that. In this case I am not talking about the community of people, but the lessons. You can make yourself lonely by accepting repeated “less than” treatment but not acknowledging to yourself that it IS poor treatment and that you DO want something different. And THEN going about creating a new reality. Case in point is the female coworker who I had the eureka moment about just 3 days ago…she just wants to tell me something negative that was said about me – that has been her M.O. and I almost let it happen for a THIRD time. But I did not return her call, so she did not have the opportunity. And I decided that if she calls me I will stop her before she starts talking, clarify that unless we are talking about work or something about her I am not interested.
And I am considering getting a cat.
I also want to say that I have not felt the least bit close to tears over the AC in months. I have felt a need for validation on occasion, to feel that someone is out there who “sees” me. But I know that is a signal to change things in my life and in my mindset, too. I read for entertainment a lot more now – I was once a voracious reader. Loneliness disappears when I read – amazing how that works. I declutter. Sad to say I have been decluttering for months and months – I noticed that seeing AC did not curb my shopaholism and I knew that was a bad sign. Shopping filled a void, so if AC was so good for me why was there still this void? But now I am excited about decluttering and the local thrift shop is thrilled to get my stuff.
Hey..I guess that is my new mantra – No more useless stuff for this kid.
ElgieR, can I ask – do you have trouble making friends in general?
No one has to be drowning in friends, of course, but it’s really good to have just one or two intimate non-sexual friends in your life, to whom you can really show yourself.
Has this been a problem? I’m asking, because the lack of intimacy in other areas in life tends to make us ‘put all our eggs in one bastard’, as Dorothy Parker said. One man becomes The Solution, when really, intimacy – into me see – is the solution, and you can be intimate with a really good friend.
Do not fear The Impending Cat. I know the crazy-cat-lady thing is a cliche, but really, a pet can be such a rewarding beginning step towards commitment.
Love that Dorothy Parker. No, I’m pretty friendly and can usually strike up a conversation almost anywhere. But you are correct in that I have no intimate friends. Everyone I know is an acquaintance, at best.
It’s funny…I’ve heard women – married and single – who say that, outside of their families, they don’t have any plain old “friends”. I have one long-term female acquaintance – an ex-coworker – she’s a friend but we aren’t intimate friends. She tells me I am her only friend outside of her family circle. I think it is a common issue for women. I overheard a husband at work complain that his wife needs to find some “friends” because she keeps trying to get him to do things with her. And ACMM was very smug about still having some old friends, saying that “Women’s friendships don’t last as long. My wife doesn’t have any old friends”. I remember thinking ‘how could she have friends..? ..you’d hit on every one of them and with your extreme good looks they’d probably take the bait. ‘
Elgie
Very, very, true. I too have really good social skills, am very outgoing, personable yet feel terribly alone. In a small place where your values are at odds with the community you are constantly editing what you say, and to whom. Doesn’t make for a true sharing of the minds. Because of the whole AC debacle and his becoming more involved with events that I used as an escape from him and latest conquest, my world is steadily shrinking for the nine months of the year that is devoid of outside folks. I volunteer a lot and yep, it’s lonely as hell; from now on I do solo volunteering with local organizations or those such as the races, which bring in healthy folk from outside. Colleagues get mad at me because I won’t sit alone during our film fest, I help register folks, I help set up, then I am outta there. I go to the pretty movie dinners, folks give me shite for drinking wine; tis the only way I can cope with the situation, especially if AC shows up. I can’t explain to them my situation so I probably seem to them like a total a$$hole. So be it. I now have a policy of looking at all things social from an ROI (return on investment) standpoint; if an event/action does not aid in my current goals (up classing my home, meeting new, healthy folk from outside, helping/empowering the poor in my community and my students) I don’t participate, especially if it makes me feel more alone and isolated (negative ROI). Time is too precious to waste on things that just cause more pain. We aren’t social inepts, we’re in a wrong situation for us. Get a cat, maybe two. No matter how crappy and hurtful the workday was, how exhausting dealing with mentally ill neighbors are, coming home to a being or beings that need you, want you is a lifesaver. Get an older cat; everyone wants cute kittens, the older ones languish. Older cats won’t trash your home, get into trouble, and are truly grateful for their rescue. I have numerous animals, both farm and pets. Many are special needs critters that I literally saved from death. Some folk think I am a crazy animal hoarder but my critters are well cared for and I have the large home, land, and income to afford to have them. I also have at least 100 plants, some of whom are in bloom at any one time. I come home to appreciation, to caring, to color, to LIFE.
I have left the harem and am strictly NC with my ex-fiance. Its been very hard but i am surviving and quite proud of myself 🙂
The thing is, and its embarassing to admit this, but i miss the social side, the being part of the “in crowd” that came with it. He treated me appallingly at the end and i am better off without him, i know that. But like some many with narc tendencies are, he is the life and soul of the party, always organising great nights out and at the centre of all the fun. Now we’ve split and are NC i’m totally excluded from that and its really hurt my ego! Thoughts? My counsellor says its a self esteem issue and i need to work out why, in my 30s, i am still focusing on wanting to be popular and “cool” rather than looking at what really matters. How embarrassing!! Anyone else ever felt like this?
Your therapist is right.
If it helps, try to think of yourself, standing outside his circle as a good thing. You can see the situation for what it is … superficial and non-genuine. It only looks good – that’s all.
Charisma and popularity are not indicators that someone is a good person. They make people feel good about themselves albeit temporarily. That is why charismatic types have such power.
I know it seems hard to believe but you will get over it. How long have you been no contact?
Thank you M, good advice. I’ve been NC for 3 weeks. We work together, in the same company but not directly, which has made it more tricky but luckily he’s leaving in Dec so it should all get much easier in the New Year.
You’re right, it is all superficial and meaningless and deep inside i know that. The teenager in me just wants to be part of the gang! Ridiculous i know. I have a lot of self-esteem issues to work on…
Ellie, I have, but when i did this mirror exercise it helped me greatly. Focus on yourself,every morning and before bed spend time in a mirror. look into your own eyes and face and say out loud I LOVE YOU ELLIE 3 times for emphasis.As you do this practice your own self love will become more important to you then wanting to be popular and cool. The more you do this you will become more popular and cool to yourself and that will become enough and you will become a part of valuing more meaningful things.
Thank you Valerie, i will give that a try! I def need to try and change my mindset..
Ellie,
Don’t make the changes for the soul purpose of becoming “popular and cool,” but for simply expanding your life.
Prior to AC, my social life was a bit limited. After the split, I did anything and everything to keep my mind occupied (volunteering, dance, classes, yoga etc…) Not only did these new activities open me up to new passions, but it also expanded my social life and self esteem.
Don’t be dependent on others for getting out and having fun, but put yourself out there. I experienced much benefit from the relationship, as it showed how much my life had been lacking.
Thanks Allison. Well done for changing things and boosting your self esteem, not easy at all. I am taking steps in that direction, have been getting out and about with friends more, doing some volunteeering and hoping to start yoga in the new year. Yey us 🙂
Ellie,
Sounds like you’re on a great path! 🙂
Yep, Natalie, I think I need to “Stop pumping them up!”
I remember complimenting the hell out of my fantasy relationship guy, and he was pumping me up as well.
When I like someone, I tend to pay that perspn a compliment because that’s how I was programmed. I think, also, I do it to build rapport with people, or to make friends …to get people to like me. I was a really shy kid, and I didn’t have a clue how to make friends, so I decided to be nice to everyone, and it worked. People liked me because I was ‘nice’ ; it was safe, and I expanded on that idea by doing nice things for people. And my mom really reinforced that idea because she is a martyr.
I became a good girl; it was my identity.
When I like a man, and I’m chasing him, I compliment him because, again, I think it’s a nice thing to do because I think that makes him feel good about himself, I’m stroking his ego, so I’m deliberately feeding him external validation, or, so I thought because I assumed a compliment from me validated him because compliments from others used to validate me.
As a child, I, also, did not develop a sense of self: I survived on ego strength by being externally validated for things I did or accomplished because nobody ever validated me for just being ME. It’s always been because of who my father is, my great grades, culturally sanctioned looks, and other valued skills, etc…or, again, doing things for other people.
In addition, I was taught to build your man up and support him, so I always thought men wanted to be supported, so when I want a man, I support him as a way of showing him I’m interested and also as a way of winning him over. “Hey, look at what I can do for you. I cook, clean, mow lawns, decorate, blah!” That’s what the women in my family did. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Wtf?
What a novel idea to just show up and be myself, and share my life with someone; say how I really feel; truthfully judge situations; stop feeling like I have to do things for other people; and stop kissing ass; and consider my feelings first; and watch my own back.
F*ck people pleasing!
The same men who actually do want and respect, and have always wanted and respected, people like you end up marrying the women who:
* cooks, cleans, helps, supports, ego boosts them;
yes; but she also:
* does whatever he wants in bed;
* (publicly) adores him at all times; and:
* (because she has power over him via the sex) speaks her mind, even if she comes across as insensitive and/or bitchy.
If a guy who always wanted you meets this type of girl on his way to you he will want that girl, more than you, and take her down the altar.
Then realize what he lost with you. Only when it is too late (when he is married).
All because you came second…in time.
They want who you are. But you’re not giving up The Goods, I’d bet.
And women can speak their minds more freely only when they have power over a man via sex.
Sorry to say.
Only exception to the above:
* when the guy meets you first and he is 100& ready for commitment/marriage (so he looks at you seriously); and/or:
* when the guy’s friends marry girls like you; and/or:
* the guy sees that another guy will grab you when he turns his back around (this is the weakest of the 3 exceptions, as the guy will just get rid of the threat and continue to go on being an ac or what-not, or want the woman I describe above).
“women” in line 2 should read “woman”.
Used,
If you’d bet, you’d win.
Camillah is correct; I picked the wrong men, and I did not go through a proper discovery phase. It was more like, “Hmmmmmm, you’re this, this, and that; I want you; you’re it.” And they were like “Ok.”
My last ex and fantasy dude pretended to share the same values as me: they outright lied, and their actions matched their lies, but they couldn’t sustain the ruses, (and at the same time, I was incorrectly assuming they did share my values, and I consciously ignored flags, and I didn’t understand and/or recognize others), so they tried to change me, (my ex went so far as to try and verbally abuse me), and then I enforced my limits, and one of us ended it.
I really need to “Stop pumping them up!”
But being in a romantic relationship, really isn’t a high priority for me right now; I’m focusing on the relationship I have with myself. I’m too busy getting to know myself, loving myself, and… and quite frankly, I think I’ve given enough to other people; I’ve been on a figurative extended vacation. And, I’m not interested in trying to win some man over anymore.
Thanks for the feedback,
Take care, Mirror
I had the same experience and attitude as you. Your entries read as my once-single-self would write them.
I valued the wrong things for too long. I looked most especially at the guy’s career path. Not at empathy, not at values and ethics, and not at how he got along with others.
Book-smart/success and job-smart/success very often don’t go hand-in-hand with being a good person and not e.u.
Well, if that kind of Barbie doll is really who he wants to lead down to the altar, thank all the gods it isn’t you, and run fast. Ick.
Seriously. I make a point of not being very useful at the beginning of a relationship, because that’s a way of doing the “pick me!” dance. If you’re too useful, you get used. Give a little bit and see what comes back, is my strategy.
“pick me” dance! lol!
I like it. I like it. I can keep that in my
head as a reminder of what not to do. 🙂
Ah, yes. The friend who collects your exes. Beware of these “friends”. I had one in high school. When I went away to the Army she decided she was done vacuuming up my castoffs and decided to go for my current instead. And he and I were engaged too. She really did me a favor, outing him as untrustworthy like that but still, keep a weather eye on these types.
A lot of men one meets at work are trying to play this game — beware! I used to get sucked into it. Knowing that a lot of people do actually meet their partners at work, I would keep an eye out for possible men, but there are just too many games with that in many cases. I also used to get the closet cases hovering around trying to make other people think they were interested in me (and therefore straight). Begone!
Right now there are two guys at my job who I can tell would just love to boost their egos with my attention and witty banter — fortunately, they are utterly repulsive to me on some deep level so I’m not going for it at all.
This is so relevant to me right now..I have spent the last 11 years since my marriage ended either unavailable myself or dating unavailable men (or both). In the last two years I have had some awful experiences where I tried to change/manipulate completely unavailable men into staying with me or becoming available, despite being bright and knowing deep down that there were glaring red flags. One guy last year kept me in his kitchen when I visited, not wanting his kids (who were in the house) to know who I was. If they came in for food, he wouldn’t introduce me, it was utterly appalling..yet I put up with it and would sneak up to bed with him when they had gone to bed, and out of the house in the morning before they were up. Jeez. And there have been others…just as bad in their own ways..
And then two months ago I met a guy online…I was already dating someone casually (I did mention I was unavailable too, right?!?) and I went on two dates with him. On the second date he told me that he was still living with his wife but going to move out soon and that the marriage was over..and I broke my habit and told him there would be no more date UNTIL he had moved out (I thought I was being healthy, but I wasn’t was I?…it should have no more dates FULL STOP). I didn’t even fancy him very much, and spent the first half hour of each date convincing myself that I needed to not be shallow, he had a cool image and was a psychologist ffs..that should be enough.
Anyway, literally a few weeks later the guy I was casually dating came to nothing and I got a text from the living with wife guy with photos of his new place…could we meet? I agreed, and this time I felt like I REALLY liked him..did I convince myself he had moved out for ME? Perhaps I did, but not consciously..he future faked a little bit but I had started to notice other things:
– he had moved very close to his wife “for the dog”. This dog is a child substitute, absolutely no doubt and they share custody… I found out after I called things off that during their marriage (only 4 years) they had had two miscarriages..so a lot of grief there.
– He gave me contradictory reasons for ending the marriage…early on he told me that he simply “didn’t fancy her”. AFTER I called it off he told me that before he married her he had attempted suicide twice after failed relationships and that when he met her he felt safe..but that he spent their entire relationship “waiting to fall in love with her” and that he “never felt that he could completely open up to her, and was worried what would happen if he did” but that he “loved her deeply”. They are friends on Facebook and clearly still comment on each other’s stuff.
– he was pretty inconsistent with contact most of the short time I knew him..sometimes not responding to messages and definitely relying heavily on texting.
– he asked me for a booty call type date on more than one occasion. I think I made excuses for this by way of his intellectual capacity..it could not simply be a booty call from such an intelligent man. I didn’t go.
So the last time we saw each other, we were supposed to be going for a meal. I was ready to leave the house and I got a big long text about how he hadn’t fell well all afternoon and wasn’t up to going out but that he still wanted to see me. I ALMOST cancelled (was dressed up etc) but felt that maybe that was princessy but I was uneasy…I got there and he was prone on the sofa, I have to say no sign of illness at all..but he did keep yawning (something I noticed a few times I saw him…My friend this is not boredom but more discomfort, displacement. We watched a film, got a take away..and then slept together for the first time. The sex was good, the conversation was good, it was a lovely evening and I felt that things could progress.I felt close to him. We went for breakfast the next morning, he lent me two books, he asked when I was free next. I left and then NOTHING….I eventually caved late that night and text to ask if he was ok and got the coldest response “Hi, yes I am fine. Still struggling with being alone in this flat”. He had told me before I left that he was going round to see his ex, to pick up some stuff and see the dog.I expressed concern,about the way he was feeling but said that I was feeling a little vulnerable after last night, and he replied that he was too and wanted to “take things very slow”. So that was that..alarm bells rang and I ended it.
But this one has hit me hard. He pursued me heavily, he clearly liked me, I ignored the red flags above and more and still, four weeks on I am feeling really sad about it…worse than some of the longer term things I have had. Working this all through with the help of Natalie though..
Panda,
You should not date anyone until they’re divorced. Even then, I would wait several years following the divorce – these people are not ready to get into a relationship.
I’m going to get tough, now. You are making many horrendous decisions in your personal life – You sound like you are doing a lot of self-hurt through your choices. I would strongly suggest that you not date for at least a year, and get some serious counseling, as you are on a destructive path.
You don’t sound like you love or respect yourself at all. I hope that you want to change your patterns and address your issues. This isn’t about the assholes that YOU choose, but what you think about yourself.
“What you place a high value on in others says a lot about what you value or even overvalue in yourself or what you want someone else to bolster you with”…..
Yeah, all the ACs in my life were being used by me, in a way. They made me feel like I “fit in”. I felt like their acceptance of me made others think “wow, there must be something there I don’t see”. Yeah, they made feel like I had a cool friend. They are all well-liked, very physically attractive people. They attracted people to them. They made me feel accepted. And they all needed my brainpower at times…so I knew they felt I was intelligent.
Don’t know why the opinion of “others” weighs heavy with me. I don’t even know these “others” whose acceptance I seek..
Panda, you are in the early stages of claiming your baggage. Land mines all around and you were determined to step on every one of them.
Claiming your baggage means looking at “what am I doing or not doing that makes these situations turn out this way?” I think Baggage Reclaim is telling us to claim responsibility for your $hit. What did YOU do to make things this way. What did YOU do to change things into what you want – always while remembering that you CANNOT change OTHER people.
Your post reads like a blueprint of how a woman deceives herself. First sign – any crumb contact from the person-being-desired is chewed like a full meal. It was a booty-call. That’s all he wanted. He’ll call again to manipulate you into another booty-call. If you are happy with booty-call and then no interaction until he’s bored or wants another booty call, then this is the man for you.
Uh…what’s that…?…that’s not what you want….? Well that is certainly what HE wants…so…..the question is….why are you constantly convincing yourself to go along with his program? Huh?
Elgie R.- I wasn’t going to reply this time as I’ve been under the weather, but your post got to me. Of course, I can’t speak for you but I know why, even as an adult, I wanted to “fit in”, wanted to be thought of as smart, etc. My father was very selfish and my mother was very self-absorbed. Where, pray tell, was there room for me in their hearts? I mean, they loved me as I was their daughter but I felt invisible at the same time.
As a child, I couldn’t articulate any of this so, unconsciously, I did the “pick me” dance with my own parents and, eventually, accepted the perceived “reality” that I won’t ever be picked. And, of course, I unconsciously choose men who can’t/won’t pick me and I won’t do the “pick me” dance, even though I really, really want to.
Does this ring any bells with you or no?
There is something in what you say, Rosie.
My BFF in high-school was my father’s fantasy woman, I believe. BFF and I both had severe acne in those days, but I still remember my father saying “WOW!” when she walked into our living room, dressed for a party. All I remember Dad saying to me was “Fix your face.”
And I remember, for future parties, I would do my best to try and dress to get my Dad to say “WOW” to me – never happened.
And I have just in the last few weeks realized that my Mom usurps my originality and likes to outdo me. Whether it’s the clothing I wear, or a design idea for the home. Just recently I found a new thrift shop for dropping off my clutter and it came up in conversation with her, when she asked if I was taking some things to the Salvation Army and I said no I found a place more convenient for me to go to from work. So a week later, she called to tell me that she took a box of her stuff there, including an unopened pair of shoes “and the man said ‘Thanks for these shoes. I’m gonna take them to the shop floor right now.’”. I felt like she was competing over whose junk was better! I mean, there was no reason for her to switch from the Salvation Army! That gave me pause – I now realize that my Mom’s attitude has often been “anything you can do I can do better”.
Elgie R.- I just finished reading your comment about your former fwb. It sounds like he’s a duplicate of your father! I’m glad you’re out of that mess, glad you’re learning to like yourself, praising yourself for qualities and accomplishments your dad was incapable of praising or plain didn’t praise you for.
In addition to being physically abusive, my dad was verbally abusive, a deeply critical man. I used to cry at night wondering why my daddy didn’t love me.
I don’t need his approval now. I’m all grown up. I really like myself now too, am working on loving myself. I’m proud of us, Elgie! We’ve come far! 🙂
Yeah Panda I agree with Allison. You say this sort of self defeating-self sabotaging-disappointment rinse and repeat cycle has been going on for at least 11 years. Your actions and decisions in the dynamic are what Nat has termed “relationship insanity” – that is (auto)repeating the same thought and behaviour patterns in each new encounter and expecting to get a different result. I have been there. If you want to start living a more autonomous life where you experience your own agency, you will need to take a step back. The problem will be found when you address your self esteem and begin to digest what it means to take care of and respect yourself. I know it’s frightening, however the answer is not to be found in your intimate relationship with a man. Look at your relationship with yourself – how do you treat yourself with love,care and respect? and just as important, how you do not to this. Try asking yourself “why do I not matter?”; “why am I not good enough?”; A good empathetic therapist will help you feel the truth – that you matter and you are good and you always have mattered and have always been good. From there, life only gets better.
Panda, you have self awareness which is more than what he’s got.
It does hurt … you’re right. It’s bloody painful because unlike a normal relationship, there’s no proper ending. We have to just close the door and walk away. But I’m glad you’ve found your way here and I hope you know it will get better. Hopefully you will come out the other side of this, knowing what you want from a relationship … even IF you want one.
What baffles me is these women! The narcissist, my ex of on & off 4 years, betrayed me time and time again. God knows how many women, but I am estimating over 250 in these 4 years. It sickens me I put up with it. I allowed it. Not any more. Never again.
My ex had not one female friend he hadn’t slept with over and over – married, engaged, in relationships, sisters of friends. No one was and is off limits.
This is what I don’t understand – they all know about each other. We fought constantly about this. I wasn’t stupid I knew there was more than just ‘friendship’. What I just cannot understand is WHY do these women stick around? I wish I could say something nice about them, but in the 4 years I have known them all, not one is capable of being in a loving relationship. They are all unfaithful to their partners if they have one. He is not that special….WHY would they risk their futures for him? I know I did but I was head over heels in love with him (so I believed). We fought though, I refused to share – WHY do these women have no issue in sharing and are ok with him sleeping with them all??
Evie I’m sorry, but you were one of these women as well. Don’t one again!
Evie- I agree with whatever. You knew he was cheating and you stayed with him anyway. That’s on YOU. Stop pointing your finger at all these women and start looking at yourself, the only person you can mind – read and change.
Evie,
Totally Agree with the ladies!
Good God! Why the hell didn’t you leave after #1??????
Don’t throw this on the women, but understand why you would stick around for this nonsense. I would get tested, too!
We fought though, I refused to share – WHY do these women have no issue in sharing and are ok with him sleeping with them all??
Because you are smart and evolving into a decent human being, whereas they are still stuck in drama-fantasy land?
I’ve run into a few guys when I’ve been dating who mentioned how they were friends with all their exes.
I thought this was a good thing for a long time. “Oh, the guy’s so great to get along with.” I really thought this was a good sign.
I’m just glad I never got to the point where I became an ex with these guys, so I haven’t encountered it personally. I’m glad I read BR to learn another perspective on this. I still have issues – I almost contacted my old AC that I’ve been in no contact for the past 6 months – I was lonely. Then I looked at my list of his crappy things, and got angry at him. Works like a charm. So, I have issues, but at least I don’t have the harem of exes issue, knock on wood.
I had read BR before I went out on a date with one guy whose page I found on Facebook. It was hilarious. To the T, the man has a rotating harem of sycophant women. They’re always liking his stuff, etc. I’m glad I didn’t get involved with him. FYI, a lot of musicians are like this (not all). They have groupies. A friend of mine had a musician “boyfriend” aged 60 years old. I went to a gig and saw a bunch of elderly groupies who were jealous of my friend who was the new catch. She didn’t believe me at first that she was being brought into his harem. She claimed they were all “business associate.” After all, she was his business associate & worked for him for free. He even tried to rope me to “helping” him while he was there. Yick, he was way past his prime. Still, women adore musicians. Careful, ladies. This is an example of “there’s no fool like an old fool.”
I’ve run into other guys since the first and I always beg off when they want to take it further.
Thanks BR!
My ex was not letting me go after we have it two shots over two years for him to “change” and it always went back to square one, and to find an excuse to contact me he texted me a month ago “I am contacting you because I care about you and want to make sure you are ok” . Well if that’s the case, maybe you wouldn’t have lied to me or betrayed me in the first place? That would have shown true care. Of course once I didn’t buy this bc he tried to ask if he could come see me and showed up at my door when I wouldn’t respond, which I didn’t answer my door either. I then made the decision a few weeks back to block him. It was the best choice because no matter what he has to say it won’t change he is NOT the one for me and it has brought my mental peace- peace he wouldn’t allow me to space to have to I can finally grieve and move on. The grieving has barely needed to happen. I guess there are only so many tears you can cry for one person. But please ladies- with these persistent toxic EUM men BLOCK THEM. They don’t stop- you need to make the choice for your own health and happiness ! Stop the toxic vortex now.
Eyes Wide Open:
“I guess there are only so many tears you can cry for one person.”
Gold words.
This is very true.
I testify.
So I went NC and a few days later EUM messages and suggests we find middle ground and stay friends, thank goodness I read Nat’s post a few days before that. I replied and said no thanks, not interested in being friends or more than a friend for that matter. He replies by saying he went on a date this weekend but he’s not interested in her because she’s too fresh out of a relationship. I just sat there thinking what an asshole!! He’s fed me so much bullshit about being a bad person and how he doesn’t know what he wants and how he’s so scared to fall for me again because he feels vulnerable around me, like I could hurt him (all this psycho bullshit) yet he’s out there dating again and would have been interested had she not been fresh out of a relationship. All of a sudden he wants to do the right thing!! Oh and says that he’ll only be ready for marriage in a year! I didn’t ask to hear any of it. Anyway I didn’t respond and I’m slowly starting to feel a lot better and lighter without this toxic individual in my life. Lesson learnt! self-respect, self-love and staying true to my authentic self. Is it normal that I felt slightly irritated though? But in a way that’s enough to help me move on. He took up so much of my year with all this drama and I am now exhausted!! I now realise looking back that there never was a future; I was just a past time, one of the many girls in his harem. *face-palm*
Hann, Its not only normal to be irritated, its good to be irritated! its a more rational response to someone’s b.s. than falling for it. AT the same time you dont want to see him as a monster, because I think sometimes doing that keeps us hooked. Its better to see them as someone incapable of being a good partner. It is unfair and tacky of him to tell you about the women he is dating, unless thats allowed in your relationship (some people do after a while move on and are able to discuss other relationships especially if they are both in other happy relationships) AND also unfair because he is only telling you about that date to hook you further. He exactly wants you to feel a bit less than – to let you know he IS ready to date with the ‘right girl’ (trying to motivate you to do ‘pick me’) and oh perhaps even think about marriage in a year. Presumptuous much! I think most women are looking for a connection first. Any guy that is talking marriage before demonstrating that he is interested in a connection and relationship is just full of hot air trying to tempt you with empty promises because the real deal is too much for him to contribute. ‘doesnt know what he wants, scared to fall for you’ etc. – someone had said a few days ago that the biggest red flag is when someone pursues you WHILE saying these words. If they say those words and fade away, thats fine. If they pursue you and dont say those words, fine (then you can decide whether they are treating you well enough or not). But those words! Not only red flag, but insulting really – ‘have sex with me, I dont know what I want’. Great endorsement.
Hanna, I agree with Suki. Yes you had every reason to be irritated. You’re instincts are 100% working for you. That irritation was your instincts telling you he is *SO* full of crap and you just don’t want to be bothered.
The EUM I had the ambiguous FWB thing with used to always talk about the appeal of other women – generic women, not a girlfriend. “She’s a hottie, she had nice boobs, she was a cutie” about woman I did not know…of course never saying anything positive about my appearance. And even though it was a FWB thing, those comments irked me. When I gave up the FWB thing with him, by calling him to say “no more”, I felt immediately lighter and uplifted. It’s been 3 years and I have not had one desire to go back. We are friends now, because those are MY parameters – and he still talks to me about the physical appeal of all the other women he sees – again , generic women who are not girlfriends – but now I thank my lucky stars that I am not having sex with this man. When I attend one of his band gigs, he always calls the next day for a recap. I play a game with myself on how long we can talk before he brings up other women – 5 minutes?….10 minutes?….20 minutes?
I do believe the constant need to mention other women is meant to get a rise out of you. Or maybe to make you feel insecure enough to do the “pick me” dance
Elgie R,
Those kind of guys, your ex EUM, the musician, is the insecure one in himself. No person, female or man, would engage in conversations or first of all, even thoughts like that. “Better boobs, slimmer waist, taller, shorter, blonder,” or whatever else.
I have it all so clear all of sudden.
All of these people have issues with their self-esteem and security. We keep digging and dissecting our own (which is good to start healing and repair ourselves), but we forget or ignore this very important fact: Yes, we were sick, and we attracted the sick alike. These guys are sick. They need (if they want) treatment. Insecurity is the source of their behavior.
It is insulting for someone to think so little of you and still expect you to be of service when they need you! Thank goodness I didn’t let it get as far as sleeping together, however I still feel used. A friend of mine (a guy) recently told me that if a guy can get you to fall for him that quickly, he must have experience, moreover, if he’s able to move on easily without being phased that he might lose you, it’s because you were never the only one. It just erks me that he knew exactly what I had gone through in my last relationship and just how much it exhausted me emotionally, yet he sang the song about being different, even went as far as telling me that he couldn’t understand why women stay in bad relationships… but sadly I ended up an option, yet again, to another version of my ex. Suki and Elgie R, you’re both right in saying that he’s definitely trying to make to do the “pick me” dance, he did mention how stunning she was, but I choose me this time and I choose to heal and move away from anyone or anything that makes me feel insecure about myself. I don’t want to feel like this anymore, so sick on the inside. Everything he’s ever told me keeps going through my head, ALL RED FLAGS! I really learnt my lesson this time.
Simon Cowell is a prime example of this!
I find Simon Cowell – a man who has achieved precisely nothing of worth in his entire life – utterly repellant.
He is ugly, and he is unpleasant. He is only really a couple of chromosomes away from being an overweight Russian oligarch.
Why anyone would let him sit in judgement on people with actual talent – and why any woman would let him near her, for any reason – is a great mystery to me.
This rang a bell with me, “The sad thing is that once you realize that you are in a harem, even if you’re peeved at being messed around, your own ego then worries about not being in the harem and even that he/she might choose another member. You might find yourself hanging around for reputation management”.
I struggled with being hurt & Jealous of the current girl in rotation, and it took time for me to stop figuring it out, and to not care that he wasn’t with me. Such a waste of my time and self.
And a Good Guy Friend reminds me that even the current woman he is with, and his home situation is most likely filled with problems, chaos, lies, and unhappiness.
This is exactly what im struggling with at the moment LilDebby. I SO MUCH want not to care. But unfortunately i do…
I have been dating a man like this for nearly a year. He is a widow who lost his wife 5 years ago. His connections with exes and female friends made me nervous from the start (I was cheated on when I was married), but he kept making me feel like I needed to lighten up– close friendships were important to him, he never “abandons” anyone… at some point he also suggested the reason he’s held on to so many ex relationships is because it was so painful losing his wife he wants to make sure he has some friendships to “catch” him in case of a relationship ending again…
a few months into our relationship, after I love yous, after weeks of him dreaming aloud about us perhaps moving in together in a year, he decided to sleep with a “friend” who had recently lost her husband and came to visit. It was devastating, but somehow I convinced myself to stay, made up all sorts of elaborate and sympathetic stories about him and why he’d do this… that it was about grief, he’s just messed up, confused, etc…. and he maintained contact with this other woman after she left (she lives across the country) via skype, email, text, etc… I felt like an asshole for opposing it because after all she lost her husband, etc., etc…
eventually I told him it was too hard, and that if he didn’t back away from her, I couldn’t do this any more. He claimed he did but lied to me, then actually (seemingly) did it (emailed her and bcc:’ed me, forwarded me her reply)…
he has claimed he wants to move on now, but I’ve never felt like he’s been able to truly empathize or help rebuild trust in a serious way.
Twice (at least) I’ve tried to break up with him, and both times I’ve gone back because panic sets in, and then my brain starts spinning all these sympathetic stories about him again. I am trying, but I don’t know how to get out of this loop. Part of me still wants to hold onto hope that things can be different, that we can grow and heal together… though increasingly that’s seeming like a terrible fiction.
He has lots of other exes/ female friends he hasn’t slept with (again) since we started dating that he still wants to remain close with, too… it’s only a matter of time, right? until I get betrayed again?
It is so encouraging to read these comments from others who have been there, who can understand… how do I get out of this loop? Can anyone help?
April,
I think you’re making A LOT of excuses! The man slept with this woman, then kept up the affair after she left. This is really disrespectful, and I guarantee he will do it again. The reason I say this, is because it came so easy, and by the way you responded. You should have been outraged. There are no excuses.
That being said, I would never trust a cheat, and neither should you. You need to address why this has been OK, and why you have been as accepting as you have been.
He will cheat again! This guy is a creep, and if you want a future with a man, dump this dude!
AprilMay, parts of your story echo with my on and off 14-year nightmare with a harem king, which left me a wreck.
Firstly, his claim that he never ‘abandons’ anyone is a justifying behaviour that doesn’t make sense (a.k.a. BS). If we adopt his logic, we abandon people all the time. Do you speak to your old schoolfriends every day? All the people you ever worked with? Friends you had fun with and remember fondly but have now grown apart? Exes? And who goes to an ex when a relationship falls apart?
My ‘favourite’ justification from my ex AC for his harem was that he has so much love to give, and that’s why he has all these women in his life. But as it turned out, he didn’t give any of them real love, it was faux intensity.
Secondly, and linked with this, was your feeling that you shouldn’t get in the way of his relationship with the woman who had lost her husband. My feeling here is that in healthy relationships, you should never have to sensor or deprioritise yourself for anything or anyone. Where do you draw the line? This came from the recognition of a recurring theme, that I would often put others first because I thought they were suffering more, and this would then become our status quo – and not only this, my own strength in holding it together was being used against me. You can be kind, understanding, giving and sympathetic, but if you stop putting your own needs first, you will lose yourself.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be widowed, but I’ve been through and seen a lot of tragedy and crisis, and I know people who got through it without ever behaving disrespectfully towards others. I get the sense that this man doesn’t have strong values or a good enough sense of boundaries, and I’m afraid you’ve also enabled this.
How do you get out of the loop? It looks like you’re on your way out and once you fully internalise the ways this is doing you no good, you’ll do right by yourself. It’s a huge release to stop worrying about what’s going on with other women, and it lifts as soon as you truly walk away. It’s one of the most painful things I’ve ever been through, never again!
Run. I will tell you why.
I have bee in an off-again relationship with a commitment phobe for over 12 years. Been willing to commit, knows he cares. He even acknowledges that I am the best he ever has and wished he went through with marrying me after he proposed. I know.. deep commitment you think. However, his insane obessive thoughts about commitment destroyed our relationship, engagement, commitment before it even got to the wedding planning stages. Do I know he loves me, yes. Do I know he cares still, absolutely. But is he willing to put away all other options for me, no he is not. Something both enthralls him and scares the s*** out of him about commitment to me. He betrayed he thinks he is not good enough. He says who I am with now is a better man. In a way, he is envious of him, not because he is with me but because he is the man I need. That is how I know he loves me. However, he cannot be that man. He is a sabotuer and me holding out hope for him to commit is fruitless. So is the same with you. Once you find the one, and I did, it is easy. No drama. Just love and security. Not all of this, why did he do this and if he will do that. Just run. I say this with care and compassion as a person who usually does not confess my own demons. Run.
In your own words, AprilMay –
“ it’s only a matter of time, right? until I get betrayed again? “
Yep.
As they say in the hood – “Don’t piss on me, then tell me it’s rainin’!”
That’s what he’s doin to you, AprilMay.
Sorry, April, but yes he will do it again and always have some justification for his actions.
I was cheated on went no contact, resumed contact got back with him thinking he would have learnt his lesson, know how much he hurt me blah blah nope next woman to tempt him he did it again and it was much much worse because he was lying his ass off to me.
But deep down I knew he was untrustworthy and I should have stayed no contact and left him to it.
He also came with a history of cheating not sure if your guy does but might be worth questioning him you definitely won’t be the one to change that behaviour.
AprilMay,
It is “a terrible fiction”: it’s hard enough to heal on your own, I can’t imagine schlepping some cheating jackass when I can barely find my feet. I’d rather go ahead and deal with the pain, and it is pain, but go ahead and get the tissues out and cuddle up on the couch, or whatever it is you need to do for YOU to take care of you, and let him deal with him.
Finding out your boyfriend cheated on you was painful, and I’m sorry that happened to you, but if I were you, I’d go ahead and deal with the pain and disappointment. You will be OK AprilMay, you will
survive.
The solution to dealing with the panic and rapid thoughts isn’t to go back to him. Get help for how to deal with the panic and rapid thoughts.
Thoughts are just thoughts; feelings are just feelings. They aren’t truth, nor reason. You can learn to relax your mind and feel your feelings, and commit to your decisions, put yourself first, and…, but you cannot change someone else, nor heal them
After I left my ex for verbally abusing me, I got clear on why I left him, and I remained committed to my decision by attending an Angry Man support group. And, when my mind tried to entertain thoughts of reconciliation, I would remind myself of how he hurt me, and how he would surely do it again, and how I didn’t want to be treated that way, and how I didn’t want to condone his behavior. The only hope I had was that he would get help one day, and I figured the only
loving thing I could do for him was to let him know I wasn’t going to tolerate his abusive behavior, so maybe he’d get help, but sadly that is also a terrible fiction.
Run! Cut your losses, face the pain, and move on.
He and the merry widow are made for each other. The physical loss of a spouse is a special experience, and clearly that’s very important to him to have someone to share that with.
Leave them to each other, and go and get a proper life and your self-respect back.
PS. I have an old, shrewd next-door-neighbour who is a widow but has a wonderful social life with a string of men she seems to meet at the golf club. She advised me, ‘Avoid widowers, because you will never, ever, measure up to the wife.’
I’m sorry April. Clearly you’ve fallen for him but he’s not available and likely never will be.
I know about the panic. I’ve been through it. I think No Contact will help you although I know it seems counterintuitive right now. Just remind yourself of how badly you felt when you found out he’d betrayed you. Then close that door and don’t open it again.
It will be hard but after a while the panic will lift. You will be surprised. Once you break the mental and emotional bind he has you in, you will see the relationship for what it is. You will see him. And you will get over it.
I wish you all the best.
Nat, loved the opening statement about playing the role of doormat. So very true. A friendship should be almost as special as a relationship. Respect, common values/outlook, being there for someone. If a person has proven unavailable, incompatible, disrespectful, how, pray tell, can they function as friend? The only ex I am friends with is my ex husband. Yep, I have many male friends, I am attracted to none of them, none are exes. My “scorched earth” policy of only dating men I need never see again if things go south is a good one. A breakup is fraught with unresolved guilt, pain, anger; how is being downgraded to friend status gonna resolve that? Folks collect harems to collect attention, boost egos, some sort of narc supply. The at work AC must have a huge harem; phone buzzing all the time during meetings and he’s real careful no one sees the screen, it ain’t clients which would be dealt with openly. Some thought harem keepers were women haters; I disagree. The women haters of my experience were more likely to woo you passionately, then abruptly vanish at a time to cause the most hurt. They usually had had really bad divorces not of their choosing and hurt women as a sort of sick revenge. “Grizzly man” had been divorced in ’90, never got over it. He’d spent 2 straight hours on the phone telling me how grateful he was that I was part of his life and disappeared two days later, literally leaving me waiting at a trailhead. When confronted, he’d go into a rage, refusing to explain anything. As half-a$$ed friends, the day I found the lump in my breast was the day he abandoned me for good. The week of my surgery and a bit later when my dog was nearly killed, it was his friends asking if I needed help, he was nowhere in sight. A true hater of women.
WOW! WOW! WOW! ZING!!! I finally now just “got” this post….
Just now remembered some details I’d forgot over the years about my first relationship with a classic EUM/semi-Assclown, Mr. SOOOOO-Super-Important, Super-Busy Man on a Mission. Yeah, “mission” indeed. (disgusted snort) — the one I’d moved all the way from California to Japan to get away from so he couldn’t keep reeling me back in as Fallback Girl whenever he felt a need for an ego stroke or whatever.
While I was very accustomed to being treated like shit, I still felt hurt when he deprioritised me, pushing me to dead-last in his “commitment” queue, wouldn’t even so much as set a date to see me, but would only call whenever he was at loose ends wanting to be entertained; telling me he’d call me on the weekend and then blow me off only to tell me sometime later that he’d spent the whole day sitting in a coffee shop chit-chatting with another woman — the same place he’d taken me on a previous weekend and then ignored me the whole time while he sat there chatting away with that same woman who had been sitting next to us that day.
And when I spent the night at his place (he never stayed at mine), him urging me to get gone before the girls who worked for his day trader business and various other odd chores showed up because I was “too hard to explain” (ambiguous, whatchamacallit relationship much?), i.e., “I am NOT his *girlfriend*. I was just some girl he fucked and couldn’t seem to get rid of, ‘cos he’s “too nice of a guy” to tell me to shove off — and that’s the ONLY reason why!” after pursuing me RELENTLESSLY for weeks until I finally acquiesced, then pouring on the charm and once he “had” me, then he turned into himself and all of a sudden I couldn’t do anything right and was never *anything* enough and constantly compared to his most recent ex…to the harem of girls he employed (or “pseudo-employed”?) …the girl who did his garden for him and then split when she realised she wasn’t going to get rewarded with a shag for her time and trouble after all — she was just being used as a buffer; and the other girl he hired to clean his house; the yoga girls, his massage therapist, his acupuncturist, and on and on and on. Yeah, WTF-ever. Sayonara, douchebag!
These blokes are such stereotypes aren’t they? Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I have to thank my former friend really … he opened my eyes.
Thank you for validating what I felt all along but have always been unable to articulate. Years ago I was involved in a FWB with a co-worker.
He pursued me in a way that led me to believe he wanted a relationship but once I started to treat it as such, he immediately “set me straight” and told me it was not. Nevertheless I foolishly hung around and kept having sex with him hoping it would magically change his mind.
he was my first kiss, sexual partner everything I was so emotionally invested in him I just couldn’t let go. Until he finally ended it after 2.5 years via an extremely harsh email.
Nevertheless he still wanted to be friends. He had been friends with all his exes – – and bragged about how every woman he had ever dated hated it. So no doubt he wanted to keep me in the harem as well. But I simply couldn’t do it. It was too painful.
Off and on and tried to cajole me into coming back into the fold – – insisting that there were no hard feelings on his end. He made me feel as though I was being the immature and unreasonable. None of his other exes had a problem staying friends; I was being too sensitive and selfish.
But in reality it was his way of projecting his insecurities onto me (just as he had done during the time we were FWB). Four years on I’m now in therapy and I have started to build up my self-esteem. I have no contact with him whatsoever and have no desire to. And have no regrets in staying clear of his harem. And in doing so, I can honestly say, It was the best decision I ever made.
Hi, Nora. Way to go. You listened to yourself. Even though you don’t feel like you truly understood the “why” at the time, and you couldn’t articulate the “why” at the time, you knew this harem road wasn’t for you and you didn’t try to pretend that it was. Your ego was strong enough to withstand his manipulative efforts.
I think men like this are totally aware that they are pulling a bait and switch move. It’s all in the chase for them. I’ll pretend to be totally into her, then, once she’s hooked in, I’ll back off and pull serial “hit it and quit its” on her. They intentionally mislead, but don’t own up to it until after the sex. It is painful the first time. But we learn and we get stronger.
You know, I think the really good men, the ones who really want mutual with one person, those men aren’t the ones we breathlessly talk about with our girlfriends. There is no “giddy” high in the beginning. They sneak up on you, just by being there and interested in you. And you starting to notice that he HAS been there, and there is no drama, and you really LIKE him. That’s why it is so important to follow our own interests, because that’s where we’ll find the one. IMO.
This guys sounds malicious–he bragged about how every woman he ever dated hated being friends with him.
At the same time, in telling you this, he provided you with (“fair”) (“fair” to him) warning.
He wants to be friends so he doesn’t feel like, or look like, a bad guy. Plus he wants to keep his supply of women going!
My most recent ex has a bunch of women he met on OKCupid, which is where WE met, on his FB friends list. Not to mention a few exes, or women he’d slept with who weren’t serious. Definitely a red flag…
FB was a constant sources of stress throughout our 2 year relationship. Girls he claimed he hadn’t seen since high school would write “I miss you” “how’s my favorite guy doing” “Love ya”, etc..and he’d act like he had NO CLUE why they posted stuff like that on his wall.
We broke up, and he started adding these heavily tattoo’d models who are half my age, to his friends list. Either friending or following them, like he was collecting THEM. He wanted to get back together with me a few months ago. I stupidly gave him another chance, but we made the vow to get rid of the other people we’d both been (casually) dating after our breakup.
Check this out. One of the girls he’d been dating..instead of telling her about me and breaking things off..he told her he was sick. Not just sick..but down with PNEUMONIA.
I had planned this great road trip together..while we were out of town, the girl SHOWS UP AT HIS HOUSE. I guess to check to see if he is ok? Not only did this throw a wrench in his portrayal of her as “just a hookup”, it ruined my entire trip..dealing with his neighbor texting him to tell him about this girl, and me having to basically hold a gun to his head, so he would text her back and tell her about me.
I asked to see what he texted her…he LIED. AGAIN. Said “I ran into my ex, and we decided to try again.”
RAN INTO YOUR EX? As if it was accidental. Hmm, now why would someone portray it like that..maybe so he could keep her as a back up? Cuz, after all, if he’d told the truth, it would be obvious to her, he was trying to get back with his ex at the same time he was dating her and stringing her along.
Yep..not just a liar, but a harem collector.
Oh tell me about it…
I had a harem. I realized I could not navigate social media without acquiring one unless I consistently rejected additions and kept everything on super lock down private. The attention felt good until it didn’t. These men were just concerned with an image that was projected that they (for whatever reason, who knows) fancied. So I deleted all my social media and got a flip phone. This has been the case for three months. I don’t regret it. At all. I will never go back. I read more, draw more, take bubble baths, enjoy my food without being bothered to photograph it, and enjoy music where there used to be the dinging sound of “likes”. I got high on the attention and called it “healthy sharing”. Pfft. Now I am living. I have a life. And none of it is on “social” media.