Karen Writes

Karen, your posting was a long one, and I wanted to give it full attention. Here is Karen’s posting then I will follow with my comments.

Karen said…
Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for this site, and your information. I am truly heartbroken, and I don’t know what to do. I believe the man that I love and have pined over for so long is a narcisist. I will provide you with my story/issue, and I welcome your feedback, advice, etc.

Back in 2004 I was going through a separation with my husband at the
time. A fellow co-worker was going through the same with his wife. We
became very good friends and offered each other advice through this
tough
time in our lives. Hence, as we got to know each other more and more,
we fell in love. We began dating each other at the end of 2004 and in
May of 2005 we broke up. I devistated me to no avail. We would still
run
into each other at work, which of course was very awkward. I was
heartbroken. That Oct. (2005) he asked me to dinner, and we talked
about how much we missed each other and we got back together. It was
great!
Well…the following May (2006) out of no where he broke up with me,
saying that he needed his space, needed to figure out what he really
wanted out of life. Again devistation for me. He had since moved from
NY
to
Georgia and we comunicated via e-mail very rarely. This past
November(2007), he contacted me (a year and half later) and was in NY
for his
sister’s wedding, and wanted to see me. I was overjoyed. PS – we got
back
together, I’m in NY he is in GA, and asked me to move there, and he
has been saying that he wants to have a life with me, marraige,
children,
etc. He is buying a house, and I went down to help pick out
furnishings
for this house that is being built. He even put my on his life ins.
policy. I was supposed to move there the end of this month (May 2008).
This past weekend, I was really getting nervous (and very emotional
(pms
contributed), and I told him I can’t marry him. My reasoning: Because
I love him so deeply, I am affraid that if we got married (Even though
I really want to, and still do), if our marraige ever had problems,
and
God for bid it ended, and/or we got bored of each other (which happens
in marraiges), we would take the risk of hating each other, and never
seeing each other again. My fear got in the way. We are still going
away to
Las Vegas this weekend together, and he still wants me to come and
visit him over the summer. The next day (after I said that I couldn’t
get
married), I told him hat I was pms’ing and that I am so sorry. I do
really want to marry
him, but I just need some time to get my bearings. He said that ‘that
ship has sailed’ and we can’t ever get married to each other.

What have I done. I really want to marry this man. I don’t want to live
in fear, and I realize it was a mistake what I said. Now, it’s too
late.

He cancelled the trip to Vegas, he said that he bought the ring and returned it. He was going to propose to me while in vegas, but because of what I said, he is dropping the whole thing. He said he wants a relationship that doesn’t require any ‘work’, and that maybe in time we can be friends. He said he also couldn’t guarentee that he wouldn’t run out of the marraige or something down the road, because I am a ‘project’ (whatever that means). I told him that nobody is perfect, and when you love someone, if there are bumps or hurdles you work them out together. He wants a ‘trouble-free’ relationship/marraige. I tried explaining to him that when I said I couldn’t marry him, I didn’t really mean that. What I really meant was that because in the past he kept yo-yo’ing I just didn’t want that to happen again.
Now it’s Sat. I’m not in vegas, and not with Eric. He broke off everything. I even suggested that I still move down to GA, and we live together and then down the road get married. Nope – he said no. :’-( I am truly heartbroken. Here I have pined over this man for 4 years, I was just about to become his fiance’ and I have lost him, and he doesn’t even feel the same way, or care for that matter.

Thank you again.
Karen

A lot of these behaviors are much like the narcisist that I had ran into. I will comment on the issue of emotional abuse that was going on. When you spoke about ring, and then the returning of the ring this is textbook from the narcisist that I had dated. I can’t tell you how many times he would say oh I was going to do X, but then you did Y, so now I can’t do X anymore. These are meaningless words. They only know the strings to pull, and they pull them very well. In your future dealings with this man you will have to learn to ignore this type of behavior. It isn’t condusive to anything.
Mine would say oh I was going to get special present for you, but then you frowned at me this morning when you first woke up, so that blew it, but I had been thinking about getting you that special present for a long time. This behavior was so rampant. Ignore it. You know if someone really loved you they would want you to have the things that you wanted and wouldn’t make them conditional. With a narcisist, they aren’t grounded in reality so why would you even think for a moment that it was true what they had said?
Unfortunately all relationships take work. They often take more work than we feel like we can put into them. Sorry, but this is true. This man wants a relationship that costs nothing to operate, and you know that isn’t fair to you. I think what makes narcisists so difficult to get over is they know you well, they know your soft underside, and they know how to take aim there. They are also charismatic, and charming, they don’t have many other good qualities. It is really difficult to end relationships mostly because of what we see into them, I think we often see things or bring hopes and dreams into relationships and weave those hopes and dreams into a relationship and they aren’t there. It is the hardest thing to let go of what we hoped a relationship could be.