Emotional abuse? What would you do in my shoes?

Sweetcheeks did he ever know what kind of person you were in 20 yrs of knowing him? I'm not so sure because this guy I wrote u about got me wondering whether he ever took any time to get to know me at all. I thought he did but.. his mind seemed full of projections..even delusional at times as he seemed to convey the exact opposite of what I wanted him to see/shared with him. I noticed that for the first time yrs later. Just what HE wanted/needed to see in order to feel ok. Ouch...it was hurtful b/c I invested so much time in him. One day I realised his vision of me was pretty limited and paradoxically it seemed to put things into perspective. You bet you're not a calculating bitch but perhaps it serves him a purpose to see you like that..he can build up a huge wall to protect himself from heck knows what..his past...whatever...he's a prisoner of his own past perhaps and it is not your responsibility if 20 yrs later he still refuses to see that. Like you say resentment and anger are what he sees as valuable. His loss..I'm not so sure with time he'll come to see your leaving as his loss...most likely he will blame you for whatever abstract reason and will justify himself by thinking he was "right" to act that way all along. But you might view it as a release. I really wish you to. Someone with warmth and love to give shouldn't "waste it away" to people who are only waiting to bash you in the head for loving them. I know it may sound simplistic (they are absolutely adorable people in many ways) but if in years they did not learn that most likely they will age and die not having learnt anything...pretty sure you mentioned that too in one of your posts. What to do except watch them struggle while not being able to do anything. Better to walk away. You say when you walk away he doesn't do anything. If your story is like mine (and it sounds like) he doesn't need to do anything b/c he has already learnt when exactly you will appear again. If you "delayed" your reappearance I bet u he'd be forced to take some kind of action..he got "spoilt" in those 20 yrs, I bet your permanent absence will show him that. That's when you might get to see if/how much he cared..through how he acts. If you don't then all the better you (we) left such a dysfunctional relationship

heyday wrote:He could sure but...it is not me the cause of his suffering. It is his own "demons"...that still doesn't tell me anything about how/if he ever felt anything towards me. I have been very honest, wrote him all my feelings...they got ignored. Totally. The excuse always the same, he doesn't know how to express feelings..bla bla..

No, it doesn't sound like his feelings are your fault at all. How do you know in most of the relationships in your life? sometimes you can't always understand people's actions, you can't know, but because you're ending this... its not something i say often... but if you want to end it, you're best off just accepting whatever answer is easiest for you to accept and move on with, if you can do that.

even someone who's very uncomfortable with letting anyone in or trusting can manage a 2 word response to show they read something. sounds like your guy did everything to show he hadn't acknowledged it.

heyday wrote:My only aim is to detach myself.Observing only serves the purpose of allowing myself to see exactly who I dealt with for years...nothing to do with wanting to get back with him. Since I never received any feedback from him it feels like the only thing left to do to understand what I went through. Just for the purpose of turning the page. Then again by observing I only mean if he ever does a move of any sort again.

How to get out of the vicious cycle no idea...to detach is tough...to observe in order to detach is also. What wouldn't pull me back in given I tried in all ways to share my feelings with him?(!) Why the heck does his attitude have to be the "winning" one? Whatever I do the result is the same...what's the point in his mind?

To understand what you went through, understand what his actions did to you emotionally. It really isn't about him, whatever his motives, that effect on you was real. understand how & why you allowed that to happen, assume he doesn't really understand what he's doing either, and just understand what it did to you, and how you need to heal from this.

How about, you just detach. no observation, stop worrying what the point is in his mind and take a look at what he is doing to yours. id suggest you dont observe, because it might pull you back in. Go off, spend time with your friends & family, keep yourself busy, take up a new hobby, meet new people, try to rebuild your self-esteem a bit.

you need to look after yourself now.

sorry, i missed your reply the other day!

sweetcheeks wrote:Where did it get to? Good question, and one that I keep grappling with. I think upon reflection, some of my anger belongs to me: it's not all aimed at X. I do get very angry at myself for going to him all the time. I go for 2 reasons:

sounds like you're angry at yourself because you haven't been upholding your own boundaries - by doing the chasing, you've been breaking them over and over, no wonder you're angry. different women have different ideas about all that, but what's important there is knowing where your own boundaries are.

sweetcheeks wrote:1. I'm emotionally attached to X. If he was the 'normal' human being I witnessed 22 years ago, I'd love him to the enth degree. I fell in love with this wonderful guy, 22 years ago. Apart from his good looks, he oozed so many things that I was drawn to. Where did he go? To be honest, I haven't seen him for approximately 21 years. Who I am chasing right now is a 'look alike', but it's NOT the person I fell in love with.

That's the problem. when you give someone a chance, you are telling them "i love you, i accept you as you are, all of you, but i dont want you to hurt me. i want to be with you, but only if you want to be with me, and only if you really want me." that chance is an offer, and when you make it, you have to make that offer to someone real, and you have to be prepared for the reality that the other person might not take it, however much you want to be with them.

when you are in love with an image of who you thought someone was, and not who they really are, and are chasing that image, even when they don't really take that offer, that message becomes more like "please take me, i dont want you to hurt me, but even if you do, i guess that will have to do."

you can only control your own actions, not his, but when you are in love with who you thought someone was, you might offer him "chances" to try to make your frog turn back into a prince, even tho this is beyond your control.

sweetcheeks wrote:2. I reflect on my own behaviour: because he led me on for more than 1.5 years, some 22 years ago, I became enraged at the time and wanted somehow for him to feel the same pain that I felt at the time. His procrastinating whilst baiting me (at the time) got me so angry that all I wanted to do was hurt him back. I wanted him to feel PAIN: and to the same degree I was feeling. So, I went out with someone else AND told him about it. He got so incredibly MAD with me, that it was at this point that he went haywire. He never stopped making me pay for it, Instead of reflecting and asking himself WHY I did that, he jumped into the "I'll make her pay" mentality.

did either of you ever get angry, have a good yell at each other about it? talk about it? when something like that happens, you both have a choice - were you going to forgive each other and try to patch things up, or if you couldn't repair it, have to accept that? if he is still mad at you, has it just been left hanging over your heads for over 20 years and never been dealt with?

sweetcheeks wrote:And so , my point here is that I've spent too much time blaming myself for not showing enough empathy, for constantly feeling I've stuffed up when in reality, I need to stop empathising. I keep thinking that if only I do this, or that, or whatever it is he thinks I should do, maybe he'll open up and actually see me for who I really am: full of love, fun, laughs, creativity, honest, loyal and a host of other things. Reality is, he can't see any good in me at all.

maybe the reason he's never seen those qualities in you is because maybe he hasn't really looked? in some ways it sounds like you just haven't ever developed real intimacy together - on your side because all that time you've wanted him to turn back into the man you first knew, on his - well i dont know him.

your problem isn't being too empathic - empathy won't do that to you, its being afraid to let go of the image of who you wanted him to be that's caused the damage. what about the man you see today, if you can look at him without that image of who he seemed to be, do you love him?

and just wanted to add for any men reading this, not all men with problems are frogs, i'm not calling any of you frogs or even suggesting it!!

Sorry, I got locked out for some reason, but fine now.

I'm too exhausted thinking about my scenario any more. When I went to see X a couple of weeks ago, or so, I told him I wasn't going back, followed by wishing him well in his life and future. I think this was a nice ending. I went to see him 1.5 years ago (more now) with nothing but wishful thinking, hope and full of love: he didn't want to take it.

He knows how to get me if he ever changes his mind.

The end. xx

Hey Katana
his feelings are probably not my fault because in most of my relationships people tell me when/if it is my fault somehow..what I mean is they do share their feelings. With him nothing like that. Never knew if it's because I mean nothing to him or if he doesn't know how to share feelings..Guess I'll never know whatever I do. I do know what his actions did to me and am hoping it teaches me to protect myself better in the future and not waste time..

Yup trying my best to detach, am trying to take care of myself like you so rightly suggest. Thanks for your advice!

I'd ask yourself 3 questions:

1. Does he demonstrate any care for you?
2. Do you think he is 100% honest with himself?
3. Does he demonstrate any respect for himself?

If the answer is NO to any one of these questions, then you're wasting your time investing in him.

At the end of the day, if a man can't step up to what he wants, then he doesn't actually want it. It's like sitting down at the end of a long day and saying to yourself, "hmmm, I'd love a plate of snitzel, mash and vegies." However, if you can't be bothered to make it, then you actually don't really want it at all: all you want is the idea of it, that's enough. AND, I think many people view potential relationships the same way.

If he ain't going to buy and cook the snitzel, then he doesn't want it enough.

A-men

Hey sweetcheeks that's weird...I was just about to reply to your last post (which was hilarious yet unfortunately so true + 100% relate to it) but..it's disappeared. Instead I just found this post.. to answer your questions the guy demonstrates care for me in the form of hot/cold showers...i.e. SUPER caring/sweet/attentionate then when I least expect it I get a "kick in the butt" i.e. completely ignores me, criticises, disappears etc. That's what's keeping me hooked. Infact I'm so in need of "detox" that I have deliberately ignored his last message to me for over 20 days now...the sick part is that I am secretly still hoping he might write/text again (once I did it and he wouldn't stop contacting me).

Respect for himself you ask? He has zero respect for himself...infact it always surprised me how -paradoxically- he could be so nice to others when he deprives himself of any kind of affection and lives in the past (in the form of a very dysfunctional family). I know he's not worth keeping for my own mental health especially when I have to find myself playing stupid games that I despise in the first place just to test his reactions! Hoping things will get easier with time...am trying to distract myself as much as I can. If only I had gotten a reply to my questions it would have been easier...then again if I wasn't worth an answer I obviously never meant that much to him.

No worries Heyday. I decided to change my thoughts, so changed the post.

The fact you say that your guy shows care is dubious. If he 'kicks you in the butt' unexpectedly, then it's NOT CARE at all. It's manipulation to keep you where he wants you to be. He obviously needs you at arms length, but if he REALLY cared about you, he wouldn't be kicking you. AND, if he had any maturity, he'd want to talk about whatever it is that made him mad in the first place: he'd be telling you how he felt so that you could have a chance to respond and say sorry. The fact he blocks communication suggests that it's ALL about him, with little regard (if any) for you.

A lot of men don't want to communicate: instead, they just play games and seek revenge, thinking that making you pay will solve the problem. Men who do this fail to see that you're not a clairvoyant. You can't guess how they feel, much less reflect on their own behaviour and see that maybe, JUST MAYBE, they did something to you that made you do whatever hurt them in the first place.

People who refuse to self reflect, thus preferring to blame will never learn anything about themselves, or about the relationship.
The fact you've answered NO to two out of the three questions, clearly suggests you're wasting your time.

You'll move on when you've reached your tolerance level, and trust me...you WILL reach it sooner or later.

Hi sweetcheeks, I see what you mean, was wondering if my mind was playing tricks with the answers your wrote You can always pm if you want.
Hmm...for sure about manipulation...it is true it is not love (with a capital L) yet unfortunately I am one of those people who witnessed some beautiful human beings "manipulating" others and it is so so true it revolves around control...yet at the same time they were people capable of huge loving but who were never tought how to express it by their close ones. I know everything I write seems to justify dysfunctional people like the man I mentioned. I don't mean to justify them...I guess I made a mistake years ago when I decided to "adopt" their outlook for the purpose of understanding how they experienced life + what made them act the way they did...perhaps I put a bit too much empathy and ended up losing in objectivity and..self worth eventually..never thought they could be so hurtful..I still never found the answers.. he told me why he acts the way he does but I failed to understand it..I should have known to preserve myself more and not "mess" with him.

You mention about anger and spiteful behaviors. It is very true this man is very angry with everything around him. Not b/c of things themselves but b/c they seem to always remind him of something he never quite could solve in his past. Instead of working on it emotionally (cognitively he is very aware of things and always shocks me with his insight ) he just somehow detaches from everything. Perhaps I did something that hurt him but I will never know. I know I always did my best to behave right with him precisely b/c I viewed him like a bird with a broken wing and felt very protective towards him...Maybe this is what f***d me. Anyway he seemed very comfortable in this position and never lifted a finger to prove me otherwise. So I'm left wondering why I invested so much energy and for what and I definitely feel stupid. Again I wanted to express exactly how I felt before moving on but I am never given the chance. It is not the first time I attempt to move on, I just know at some stage I will hear from him again...my question is...how exactly do I deal with it next time it happens. Each time I go through a "grieving" phase and each time he seems to push a button and get a reaction in a split second. With all the best intentions in the world I might have, how do I not get myself "trapped" again emotionally?

Perhaps I did something that hurt him but I will never know.

That's the problem Heyday...unless he communicates with you, you're just wasting your time.
Communication is the key to:

(a) getting clarity & creating a bond
(b) learning about your partner and getting to really know him/her
(c) deepening the relationship.

Sorry, I know I've changed a couple of my posts of late, but my own frustrations come out first, then the left brain, the "rational" sets in.

Ciao