You are free of him and of the stress he created in your life. That IS a good thing.

The feeling of utter abandonment when you most needed support is awful. I’ve been there. It is a daily struggle to not remain angry about that, even after nearly 6 years of separation. The only solution that will overcome the emptiness is to create something new … new memories to eclipse the pain.

Even though it is tempting to assume that the flavor of love you’ve just tasted is the norm, try to remember that it is not. If you are conscious of the pit you feel in your stomach when you are involved with someone who is suppressing you, you can hone that radar to alert you earlier than the point of deep involvement. The real trick is to honor yourself and what your intuition, or whatever it is that alerts you, with complete faith. It is easier to recover if you’ve done so, I think.

I have and do continue to recommend to people who are not obligated by family or law to completely disconnect from your past … and your ex-narcissist. There is no reason to take their calls, even if it is for a seemingly fun reason like a birthday. Every conversation/exchange that you allow with them opens the door for more lies and feelings of betrayal.

The horror at what you found acceptable during the relationship is part of what I’ve alluded to in other posts as the feeling of loss of myself. By the time my relationship ended, the woman who was me was unrecognizable with regard to decisiveness and inner strength.

Our boundaries are our own to set and keep. Every time we allow them to be altered to keep a difficult person in our lives, we are eroding that very part of ourselves who is our greatest resource at dark times. It is often said that trust is the hardest thing to recover. When we have come to distrust ourselves, we will have difficulty with every decision that we make in the future.

He broke me down systematically as they all do. To this day, I am horrified at the things I eventually found acceptable. He was a drinker initally, and pushed me around several times, but made sure I was around the corner from my son or anyone else when he did it, once pushing me into a bathroom so no one could witness. I left of course, but months later, was back after listening to him weep and apologize.

I’m recovering now. I went through a difficult move, a cancer scare, and a potential job loss and got next to zero emotional support, and even worse, was abandoned when I needed him most. Yet he came back again acting like nothing had happened. I am continuously floored at his evil. He has the stare you’ve mentioned, but even more than that, his affect is almost always flat, he rarely smiles or laughs and I was always uncomfortable around him, but was just talked out of my discomfort a bit by his bizarre explanations. It’s like I’ve been in a dream. Yet I still wake up feeling abandoned almost every day, remembering how alone and frightened I was, taking care of myself and my wonderful loving son, who is only 12, but whose sweetness and light have carried me through the worst of the worst.

My birthday is next week, and although my ex is involved with someone else, I dread every day, thinking he will contact me somehow. I can’t wait for this birthday to be over.

So success, yes, my ex is successful at his job, and at luring women, and at discarding them. A shallow success at best. While I struggle financially and emotionally, I know that I am in a better place now, and will continue to recover now that I have seen what someone who ‘loves’ me can actually be capable of. I won’t be ignoring that feeling in the pit of my stomach, or the feeling of ‘how can he do this to me if he loves me’. Yes, I am jaded and cynical. But I’m not his victim anymore, and I do believe the cynicism will fade, and that will be my success.