The Holiday blahs have certainly affected me today.  There was a season when hope was still in my vocabulary and all things seemed possible.  At the time, I had no idea it was a false promise from a Narcissist.

Love is what we are told we need.  Attachment is the downfall of loving, I guess.  But I don’t know how one thing works without the other … and I’ve never seen both work together.  The paradox of that confounds me.

In the movie, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there was technology that wiped out the memories of love.  I sometimes wish that it existed.  But I have discovered another clue into why my soul cannot seem to leave the horror of my abusive partner’s betrayal behind.  I’m quite certain that he would be entirely off my radar by now if I had not been so traumatized by him.

Yet, as I write that, I wonder if it is an excuse for not giving love another try.  Intellectually, I am aware that I’m terrified of being hurt again.  Emotionally, I’m weary of not having that special connection in my life. 

Is it worth it … to have your own happiness so contingent on another being?  That is the million dollar question.

All the holiday commercials on TV this time of year sometimes serve as a rancid reminder about emotions that I once felt.  The illusion of love propagated by our culture is designed to make us want it but, what is it?

When my former beau reached for me, the anticipation of his touch was like an electrical arc charging the air.  Every smile, kiss and impassioned embrace that I shared with him was, to me, an expression of my love for him.  For him, a Narcissist and serial dater, it apparently was some game that he played to prove to himself that he had the ability to amuse, seduce and sexually satisfy a woman.

It could be that the most honest statement he ever made to me was when he confessed, at age 53, that he felt his greatest life’s accomplishment was that he was good at sex.  At the time, he seemed sad about his realization so I tried to encourage him to look at other things that I felt he had accomplished.  It is a female’s nature to nurture. 

Over the course of time since the day of my mother’s funeral on June 3, 2006, when his personality defect became obvious, I’ve come to the realization that he had no bona fide human relationship skills outside of the bedroom.  Ultimately, I’ve evaluated him as being a child in a man’s body, treating every woman, including me, like some toy he had been given to play with until he grew bored with it or broke it … and this man broke a lot of toys before he stopped his serial dating game.

His spontaneity and curious nature intrigued me at first.  I never knew what he was going to do or say next and there were a lot of laughs as a result.  But there also was a lot of confusion at his radical shifts in mood.  My discomfort with his inconsistencies led to an intense debate about his emotional maturity.  Because my heart had already chosen to love him by then, and love is irrational, I rationalized my concerns away by declaring to myself that there was a difference between being child-like and childish, or that our misunderstanding was my fault. 

One thing is certain, being in a relationship with an emotionally immature Narcissist is a losing game. 

My former beau displayed the emotional maturity of a 2-year old when I confronted him with his lies at the end.  It was stunning to behold.  Like a child, he took no responsibility for anything.  He tried convincing me that he had broken up with me months before, which was incongruent with the facts … especially in light of the reality he had been in my bed, making love to me, and telling me how much he valued and loved me less than a week before that time.

For nearly a year after the break-up, we stayed in constant communication in email.  For me, it was an attempt to understand him.  The closest thing that I got to an apology from him as an admission that he hadn’t realized what a “large ass” he was capable of being.  Yet, his statements were non-specific so I don’t know if he was talking about his behavior with me or someone else.  Either way, it was insufficient.  To date, I haven’t found a way to forgive him … and I’m not sure it is required.

My life is very peaceful now, in spite of the reality that the definition of love has eluded me.  During the holidays, we are reminded often that we should feel peace and love for all mankind.  I extend these feelings to human beings but not to my Narcissistic and former friend, for I do not consider sociopaths to be part of the human race.

That’s the title of a movie that I watched again last night.  Although it is moderately amusing and the acting is very well done, there are similarities between the player’s justifications to his peer-aged lover and experiences that I had with my Narcissistic Partner are stunning. 

There were some major differences, however.  The female character, played by Diane Keaton, learned within a few weeks of falling in love that her new sweetheart was nothing more than a shameless womanizer.  The second major difference is that Jack Nicholson’s character actually experienced curiosity about the effect he had on his former lovers and sought them out in order to better understand himself. 

Of course, he had suffered an event which gave him cause to recognize his mortality… 

There was one conversation the two lovers shared that felt like it was lifted from the script of my former romance.  That scene occurred on the streets, when Diane Keaton’s character was examining the dynamics of her feelings and disappointments.  Jack Nicholson’s character endeavored to defend himself, just as my former beau had, by saying: 

“I never lied to you.  I always told you some version of the truth.” 

And, exactly like Diane Keaton’s character in the movie, my reply to that was: 

“The truth doesn’t have versions!” 

By the way, I hadn’t seen the movie yet.   

Switching gears to discuss how this dialogue relates to Narcissist people, let’s first examine the need to defend indefensible actions with justifications or rationalizations. 

It is my opinion that emotionally mature adults behave this way and know when they have done something wrong.  If their actions should cause confusion or emotional pain for another human being in their midst, they will take responsibility and apologize.  Their consequence may be that their apology is not accepted.  If it isn’t, they will experience regret. 

Narcissists are not emotionally mature people.  Their motive force is to be gain admiration and, in their twisted world, this permits doing anything necessary to diminish or pulverize those who won’t supply it.  Whether or not a narcissist resorts to physical abuse, the outcome is the same.  Narcissistic brutality is designed to create confusion and cause pain and, after the fact, a narcissist rationalizes their insane behavior by blaming their victims.  And the cycle continues until the victim realizes they are a hamster on a wheel. 

We have visceral reactions to some things.  One of them is the desire to be dealt with honestly.  Perusing online dating sites, one of the most frequent phrases you will find in anyone’s profile, male or female, is “no game players.”  Based on this observation, it seems quite clear that most people prefer to interact with straight forward people. 

If you are connected to someone who “feels” dishonest to you, and they will not talk with you about your feelings without blaming you for noticing and mentioning it, you must decide how to handle it.  I recommend distance and/or disconnecting.  Without rational discussion, there can be no resolution and Narcissists want you to feel unresolved and confused.  Take care of yourself and remember that you’re entitled to ask a question when something doesn’t feel right to you in a relationship.

Time may or may not heal all wounds but I honestly can’t describe my present frame of mind any better than this awesome song by Carrie Underwood.

If you’d like to pick up some of her heart-felt and beautiful music at Amazon, check out this link.

Here comes another day, fraught with memories that comprise a most massive disappointment of my life for a thousand reasons and simultaneously for no reason at all.  My mother, who lived a full life, died two years ago on May 26th.  June 3rd marks the anniversary of her funeral, and another siginificant event in my life … the day my Narcissist chose to end our relationship.

 I don’t know what to think about that event.  I’ve garnered many opinions from others, yet I keep my own counsel on the matter.  A part of me wants to empathize with the stress my Narcissistic lover might have been under but another part of me wants to believe the words of those who also knew him then.  As he is a coward and will not speak of the event with me, his point of view remains hidden.

He came forwards as a hero on the day my mother fell into a coma.  He was at the hospital with me, being everything I dreamed a lover would be at such a time.  We spent hours on the phone talking over things as my mother’s condition worsened.  It is impossible to forget the angelic glow of white that surrounded him as he soothed her dying body in the hospital bed.   At face value, he was perfect in that role. 

The day Mom died, as he walked away from my car to go back to what he referred to as work, he claimed he felt free.  The tone of our conversations on the phone, the week after her death, took on a different tone.  He bagan to tell me my calls were intrusive but he never explained why.  The day of Mom’s funeral, when he came through my door nearly an hour late, unshaven and unshowered wearing clothes that looked as if they had been slept in, I felt the storm he brought with him.  I knew I was in danger with him that day but I had no where else to turn.

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