Really confused by his mixed signals

Firstly please let me apologise for the length of this post. Sorry x.. I'm feeling really confused regarding a guy I'd been seeing.. We went on a date over several years ago and got on really well but we never went on a second date but friended one another on Facebook although never stayed in touch.. Fast forward to July this year and I received a message via Facebook from him saying he seen me about our estate a fair bit over the last several weeks and asking how I was. We chatted via text over the next week, then met up for a walk the following week, and a couple of walks the week after for 2 or 3 hours at a time and just fell into chatting away as though we'd been in touch since our date all those years back and there was a strong physical connection/chemistry between us.. three or four weeks in we slept together. He then had a week off work, and we spent time going walking, cycling, out for a picnic, enjoying a cuppa and a chat and falling into bed together a further few times. He then went quiet on me over the next week, short one word/one sentence replies to texts, I put it down to his long and rather stressful week back at work, as being manager he had a lot to catch up on following his return to work after his hols. We caught up for a couple of cuppa an chats, and walks over the following few weeks, and slept together again. The day after we slept together he invited me out for a walk, but he was really off with me, snappy and on occasion made a few mean comments, it was like he didn't want to be with me. The next day I messaged to see how his day had been at work and he eventually responded about 4 hours later with, 'not ignoring you, shit day x' So I empathised with him and said I was there if he needed a chat. The next evening he messaged me to say, 'another shit day x'. I again empathised and said it sounds like work was really quite tough at the mo. He responded, 'Yep, it's easier to shut myself away and ride my bike', I said I could hear things were difficult and it sounded like he needed some space, and that I was here if he needed a chat.. and I left it there. Towards the end of the same week, I received a message from him wishing me a nice holiday away (I was off on hols for a week the next day) and to please let him know when my two sons and I had arrived safely. I messaged when we had arrived and during the week of my hols he messaged almost every day in the evenings to see how we were/what we'd been up to. The day after returning home from my holiday, he asked me round for a cuppa. We chatted away about my holiday, his work etc, then he told me he was sorry but that he couldn't be in a relationship with me because he didn't want to hurt me. We decided to remain friends which we were both happy with. Since then (over the last 3 weeks) he has texted me every few days or so and we've chatted via text, I've not initiated any texts in that time but have responded to his and enjoyed the little bursts of messaging. He invited me over for a cup of tea last weekend and we had a good old chat, but he was also flirting with me, chatting about our previous bouts of lovemaking, what he thinks about/of me, and hugged me tightly before I left to go home. Over this last week he's again been pinging a text every few days, and yesterday he sent me a picture of the box of teabags he'd bought for me of my favourite tea, and this afternoon he invited me round for a cup of tea. I popped by this afternoon and we chatted away about our week, he then turned the conversation onto him setting up a dating profile for me, which I thought was a bit of strange thing to say. This led on to some deep conversation about past relationships mostly mine, and him welling up with tears and apologising for hurting me, which led to me shedding a few tears. We then talked more about this and that and conversation flowed back to relationships and our lovemaking. We agreed we are strongly physically and sexually attracted to one another, and I told him that I can't have the physical attraction without the emotional attraction, I can't just switch that part of me off, it's just how I am. He said he understood and said he struggles so hard to make the emotional connection for fear of the past repeating itself and being afraid of change. There were more tears on my part, as I felt quite emotional at this point (I've a lot of other things going on in my life at the mo - mental illness with my son and my father). He hugged me, told me I'm beautiful just as I am and told me he's there if I need a friend. I left a short while later once I calmed down, and he stood up as I did said come here gorgeous, and pulled me in for another hug and we kissed one another's cheeks. Just before I left he said, 'I'll get the fire pit set up one evening when the nights get a bit darker and we can sit outside and chat with our cuppas'. I'm not sure if writing all this down helps to explain why I'm confused.. I'd like more, but I'm not sure if he does or doesn't because from my point of view I'm getting mixed messages.. So I guess I'm asking for an outside perspective because my perspective feels somewhat blurred.. What are your thoughts? How do you see this from your perspective? What would you do in my position? Thanks for listening/reading x

He's looking for a FWB relationship. That's why he's telling you you're gorgeous (maybe you'll continue to bed him) while offering to set up a dating profile (so you can't later say he led you on). It's not that he doesn't like you, he probably does. But you're not "the one" and you never will be, even if he gets his act together. You're the best option for sex in his life, right now. You're good company when he feels like having company. You can do with this whatever you want. I saw a fellow for FWB after my husband died. We were NEVER going to be together for various reasons, and I knew that going in. After a few months, I emailed him and wrote that I couldn't give any other man a fair shake while I was still emotionally /sexually involved with him, so I wouldn't be seeing him any more. We text occasionally (very occasionally, I have found a real partner). I think of him fondly, maybe he thinks of me the same way--but it doesn't change anything. I'm fond of lots of people that don't play a huge part in my life. Bottom line: years ago, your lives were probably simpler, **and you never even went on a second date.** This isn't going anywhere.

My two pennethworth, SunnyClimes (great name!): Completely and utterly agree with all of OldMainer's reply. (Nice one, yet again, OM!) But, additionally and importantly: Proper FWB is a mutually consensual, (in whatever ways you manage it - )EQUALLY beneficial agreement (e.g. he pays for the takeaway meals and also, for example, plays handyman in an emergency) that gets discussed and agreed - before you move a muscle - ABOVE-TABLE, not under it, so that you're both aware of exactly what you're getting into and precisely how it will all work - again, before either of you even moves a muscle in that direction. PRIOR to your telling him your background as, it would seem, majorly pricked his conscience - this guy WAS attempting the sneaky, Player-style, wordless route of manipulating you into that position of convenience - AND all at HIS. Plus, the one-word replies after what had just gone before, were just plain rude and hard-hearted, but might have been down to self-absorption, just not thinking from your point of view at that point. (There again, Player and Commitmentphobe aka Emotionally Unavailable are synonymous anyway (unless they're actual Narcissistic Peronality Disordered) so...) Even leaving that demonstration of his ability to (passively) be a User, aside - FWB doesn't suit women* - psychological-biological FACT! (go google) - one reason being, their minds produce more Oxytocin than men's, which means, having sex with them bonds you as if you WERE having a relationship, as then makes you hungrier for more...but not getting it. Cue, Misery City. (It started as an above-board arrangement between men - homosexuals...in the 80s I think...seems about right.) You want a relationship. Although, actually, what you need and I suspect are re really after, above all else, is human comfort, via a proper mental-emotional connection with another adult, and were (subconsciously) willing to "pay for it" with sex just because you're still active in that respect ("while I'm down there?"). So I think, now that you've opened up and endeared yourself to him, ignore the squawking of your ovaries and keep him as a purely platonic friend. The comfort should quickly start to outweigh the sex as will make the idea of giving in to it again, not worth the risk. (What helps GREATLY is to not shave your legs nor shower before going round there. If he pushes, say, No, I've realised you're worth more than that and that you were right - we definitely have great potential as friends or mutually-adopted/outsourced siblings (flattery (true) + reminding him of his own rule). Or just say, No, we discussed and agreed this already. If he really, genuinely has formed an attachment to you, he won't push again. If he DOES, then that would suggest his true agenda, and recently brotherly noises and actions, are not honourable. Because if he's attached to and feeling comforted and comfy with you, he won't want to lose it, either. Frankly, you don't sound as if you could cope with a connection type that could too easily get broken (bf/gf), unlike a close but strictly platonic friendship. If you can't do that - demote him in your mind and ignore said ovary rumblings - then you'll just have to stay away and seek a friendship that you have to start from scratch and build on properly, by the book. Or seek some sort of support charity in your community, i.e. coffee mornings to meet your neighbours, that sort of thing. You're obviously a very attractive personality, that much is clear, so you won't have trouble, other than controlling the anxiety waves/attack you're, I assume, experiencing(?) lately (we all are, actually - all over the globe). It does very much sound like when you broke down in front of him, you not only "got through" properly and woke him up to himself, but, he also got 100% proof that you couldn't possibly be the type that (if his own story of woe is true) would repeatedly hurt him like his last ex or exes. You seem very gentle and open-minded. As a male friend, SunnyClimes, and IF his behaviour and what he says, all genuine - he could be fantastic. He has a sort of cuteness about him AND flashes of sweet considerateness and seeking-to-please (the pic of your fave tea's box, e.g.). I mean, for a supposed bf that would be cheap and lazy wooing, but not for a male friend. Yeah, keep this (seemingly) (more time spent, required) potential diamond friend-for-life and shag some idiot instead, LOL. (joke) But, seriously, I would take him up on helping you compose a dating profile, actually. When I was on Match, I kept contacts with the people I admitted weren't my type but did make me laugh and I liked their thinking (mutual) so we ended up continuing to matchmail and showing each other any messages or profiles that we thought could from anyone Iffy. He could be your secret weapon and know instantly if ever some guy was trying to hoodwink you or lead you up the garden path. WELL handy. Don't waste him and don't taint him - nor let him do the same. He's obviously nowhere near ready to be anyone's boyfriend again yet, but he does (it seems) have the ingredients for a brother-sometimes-dad figure. (And men need women and their skills and perspectives, too.) And as your dad is out of action (what's he got?), that would plug that gap too and stop the draughts.

Hi Old Mainer and Soulmate.. thank you so much for taking the time to read my post and to reply, its very much appreciated. I have spent the last week, rightly or wrongly self-analysing my situation with this guy.. Prior to meeting up with him (since our date several years ago) I had been single, no dates, flings or otherwise, no one special in my life for just short of 4 years. I had been thinking about dating again as I felt I was ready to share my life with someone.. and he happened to get in touch, as I mentioned in my post. When we went on our date many moons ago, I had enjoyed his company then, and I liked him. He was the first date I'd had since my previous relationship ended, I had been living with my partner for several years and although we still felt much love for one another, we had drifted apart and were heading on different paths, so I ended the relationship. He asked if I would like to go on a second date, which freaked me out a bit, and I turned him down.. I remember realising at that moment that it would be quite unfair of me to accept a second date as I was still trying to come to terms with the end of my relationship (a few months previous) and I didn't wish to hurt him by potentially dating him when I could feel I was not yet ready. So we agreed to remain friends and connected on Facebook liking one another's posts and comments over the years. I digress.. so I had been thinking about dating again and he popped back into my life so I thought I would give things a shot this time and spend some time with him, catching up and getting to know him. A few weeks in we spoke about our own thoughts on relationships.. I mentioned that I was looking for someone to spend time with, and develop a relationship, but that I was unsure how things would pan out being as I care for my youngest son (he's autistic) and in recent months, for my dad too, which left me with a small amount of time to devote to a relationship, but that with the right person I had a lot to share. He told me that he was unsure, that he wanted to be in a relationship, but that as soon as he was in one he didn't want to be in one and that this was down to not wishing to get hurt which is why he's put up so many barriers around him. Maybe this was him telling me that he wasn't looking for anything long term, but equally wasn't really saying what he was looking for? I remember after the 3rd time we slept together, probably after seeing him for about 6 weeks by this point, we lay together afterwards and he said to me, 'I hope you're not getting to attached, I'll only hurt you, I mean it', I thought this was a bit of a strange comment, and perhaps I stupidly should have taken heed of what he said, however, I was by this point beginning to feel attached. I remained with him for the rest of the evening that day, he asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner, to which I said would be lovely. He cooked the meal, chatted, poured us drinks and served up.. when we'd finished eating he became a bit snappy with me, I just put it down to him being quite tired by this point in the evening as he's not one to stay up much past 10pm. So at this point, I said I would head back home and leave him to relax, and being as I live close by he said he'd walk me home. This was at the point where he first went quiet on me the following week (the week he returned to work) Another thing I noticed was there was a huge amount of intimacy from him in the bedroom.. but hardly anything outside of that, no hand holding, touching me (unless as a prelude to sex), no kisses - apart from maybe a kiss goodbye. He was big on cuddles, but only a cuddle to say goodbye (apart from the one of comfort last weekend). Sex was always initiated by him, if ever I initiated anything he would avoid it - 'I'm knackered after such a long week', 'I'd better get the dinner on/get my stuff ready for work'. I assumed that this was due to his 'barriers' he'd put up around himself, and needing to have control over what happened when? When he was all in interested one minute, cold the next, and then back to being interested, I put it down to him perhaps going through the 'pulling away' stage where he felt unsure, hence my giving him space and time. I guess I totally misread the situation between us, or perhaps I subconsciously chose not to see what was in front of me.. I thought I would have learnt by now from my past mistakes by now, (hence the long length of time I remained on my own) and been better able to see what I was allowing to happen.

A couple of wee viruses in your intimacy programming I'd like to weed out before commenting on your latest: "He asked if I would like to go on a second date, which freaked me out a bit, and I turned him down." "Freaked me out", even "a bit", is inappropriate, as in, overkill, for describing feeling responsible for him and his feelings whereby you took a unliateral decision - even when you throw in "too soon to date" as an explanation. So, soz, but that justification of yours doesn't do it for me because it would have me believe this: that you think you're his MUM or something, and, his being only six ("ahhh"), therefore get to make life-affecting/altering decisions and choices FOR him, when, actually, he's a grown man, and as such, taking care of himself as usual (certainly at that early stage of acquaintanceship) is HIS business, HIS exclusive job to do. Would you tie his shoelaces for him as well, and choose his underwear? LOL. You are not that incredibly over-entitled and arrogant as to steal someone else's agency, come off it. So that didn't do it for me, I'm afraid. Rather, I think that was your super-ego at the time (which is mainly your parents voices still echo-ing round or popping into your head), going - "OMG, you're being mean - nooooo! - find a loftier reason, quick-quick! One that makes it you being CONSIDERATE!" which indicates that you've been over-civilized. I suspect even just sticking your tongue out, like any normal kiddie does for a while (which is just a natural phase), got you needlessly reprimanded. Am I close? If you're GOING to aspire to be an earthly angel, then, do it properly and start training to bring out your lethal combat skills. Angels : "God's" formidable army, innit...not, God's bunch of zen buddahs and pacifists, floating onto the battlefield with cups of sweet tea, ready to sweet-talk their enemy counterpart into seeing reason (yuh, cos "evil" counterparts, the "Devil's" angels ("God's" rejects) are well-known for being endowed with thus well receptive to kindnesses and reason, aren't they just (NOT). Start with re-releasing your not-so-nice side...try roaring about something still angering from your past and keep trying until you suddenly feel it...that missing (locked-away) part of you re-joining you. Don't be surprised if the roar morphs into crying again.) "Freaked-out", in fact, as every adult knows, describes sudden instability as triggers alarm (as split-second turns your conscious thinking off, puts your inner animal in-charge, choosing either Fighting, Fleeing, Freezing or Fawning - to-suit), not this over-conscientious feeling of over-responsibility that you describe. (Nice try though, Your Conscious - and cheers for the leakage of the closer truth, Your Subconscious! LOL) So - FREAKED OUT. "Wheuuuuuuuugh!.....Shiiiit!...."Ermagheeerd".... Aka Stunned. You choose Flee.....iIn the form of turning him down despite you did like him, which indicates you were trying to self-medicate a panic reaction in yourself...move instantly a huge distance back from the source of 'danger' (his ardour/interest). Fair comment? What made you feel suddenly scared and insecure like that? Was he too hot when all you were used to was Cool interspersed with Cooler rather than the (normal healthy) opposite (but not to extreme)? Did you feel he was so incredibly keen he could almost eat you alive if let off his leash? Did he feel too instantly 'heavy'? Or needful or needy? What with you having grown used to the more, mere side-by-side co-existence with your long-term ex? Did you "smell" something off/iffy about him? Or had you (or might some say) been actually mistreated by your ex "husband" and were still stripped of your ability to trust, especially at that close-range? Or a mixture of any of those things? Other? Look at it this way: you followed-up with saying you two could be friends. But actually, what you did was move him to a distant mountaintop from yours and proceeded to send him occasional smoke-signals. And for, quote, years. That is nowhere NEAR Friendship. What - you weren't even ready to trust again, enough for just steady, platonic friendship? That's more than merely Not Ready To Date Again, isn't it. Not that he'd have known that, back at the time. Do you suppose he did this I'm Interested, No, Wait, Disinterested... deliberately - to get back at you for that incident (because he read it/you wrong)? To put you into HIS place...taste of own medicine or something? And, now that he recently "broke you down", saw your underneathies, as NOT the type who had it in them to have done that ("led him on" then deflated him - his suspicion at the time?) for mean-spirited reasons, just because of your own state at the time - he's just come away feeling stupid, guilty (whoops, shit, misjudged her) AND relieved, ego-equalised and happy? Hence the sudden increase in warmth - "come here, gorgeous", and the firepit evening offer? (Still doesn't make him ready for romance, though. Might save him some recovery-journey time, tho...speed him up more to your more-advanced level - which is still important for friendship.) And here's another clue: *********** And now we have this: "and he happened to get in touch" Means: I was feeling ready and at that precise point he walked into the room so - he was WELL convenient! Saved me a journey! (Doesn't sound like a Ready attitude to me. Sounds more like, I need a cuddle but I'm too knackered to go out and earn one.) *********** Hahaha - "I hope you're not getting attached" and then cooks you a meal, hahahah! This bloke doesn't even know WHAT he wants or WHAT he's doing. In fact, there are two of him at the moment (or were at that point) - one says don't get attached, the other says, ignore him and sample my maritable nurturing skills, ta-daaa. (If I were you, I'd make that my future, forever piss-take. Like if he asks you to pass his beer, say, "Well, okay, but - don't get too attached, it'll only hurt you, I mean it", LOL LOL LOL.) But, yes, you've been getting mixed messages the entire time, haven't you. Just need to ask something for a second, just in case: Are you a bit bored? In need of a challenge? Or just love intrigue? Do you think he sensed that smothering himself in a shell of intrigue and challenge would add to his attractiveness of allure in your eyes and make you keen enough for his liking this time? Like a naked-on-the-bed bloke, being ignored until he places a luxury cream cake on his stomach, so, because she can't resist cream cakes and he's not exactly unattractive, the cake cinches the deal? Have a thinkipoos. *********** "I remember after the 3rd time we slept together, probably after seeing him for about 6 weeks by this point," Yeah, see - far too soon. The Oxytocin "got you". Don't do that again. A bloke who intends to sleep with you for the rest of his days is quite capable of waiting a good few weeks longer than that OR AS LONG AS UNTIL *IT IS TIME TO*. You don't DECIDE, either of you. What's all this deciding nonsense these days? Watch Blue Lagoon with Christopher wotsit and Brooke Shields and learn how it's SUPPOSED to go! (Naturally...as a product of a worked-on BOND. A PRODUCT of a whole process. Or it should if you're receptive for pairbonding for-life, anyway.) *********** "when we'd finished eating he became a bit snappy with me, I just put it down to him being quite tired by this point in the evening as he's not one to stay up much past 10pm" OR...maybe it was his nappy needed changing? Are you listening to yourself? Anyone would think you'd been wined and dined by your own toddler son! Is one kid not enough and you're still broody for another, despite haven't the means or time? What strikes me even more is the fact he LETS you, when, actually, it's really unsexy! Ah...wait up...is he looking for someone to finish his mother's job because she didn't get to finish it? Trying to find his girlfriend, some of his mum, and a friend-sister, all in the one person? ************ I'll tell what I DON'T like that I keep noticing, though: he takes his moodies out on you. And the point where he switches isn't preceeded by any warning, nor rhyme of reason you can see (hence grabbing for implausible kid son-type reasons). Red Flag. This is what makes me keep wondering whether you might be being "treated mean to make you keen"(-er, this time). Revving you up to where you BEG him to become your proper boyfriend, courtesy of the effect on your brain of what's called Intermittent Reinforcement. The make like a fruit-machine because those are too addictive in how they prime you to need to chase the next pay-out that is bound to happen again, despite you don't and can't know WHEN. Sucks you RIGHT in and turns you obsessed...until you realise you've put your capital AND all your winnings so far, back in the bloomin' machine...but because you're addicted, you go back for more anyway, until eventually your putting this month's salary into it. Being Emotionally Volatile like he keeps displaying, is neither acceptable in a grown man towards another - especially to a woman(!) - nor acceptable in a romantic nor platonic new friendship setting. Many a woman would choose that moment to protest and insist she now has to leave, not sit there and take it while making excuses like he's a "tired Teddy" pre-schooler. No, no, no. It's a warning sign of something Not Right. Because if you can be volatile during your "interview" then once you're safely IN the job and RELAX...how much more to follow IS there? If he does it again, I would do a "DO YOU MIND?!" or "I think that's my cue to leave" reaction on him, see what happens. Because, what with this additional data, I tell you - despite he said HE doesn't want to get hurt, so far, it seems to be purely and only YOU who keeps getting slapped or stung. And you aren't even DOING anything at the time. It just suddenly comes at you. Seemingly whenever things have been harmonious. Have you not noticed that? Is this a grab you, panic, push you away thing or a Player's well-worn ploy? I'm going to stop here because his having done it right after the dinner on top of the times before, have tipped the scales somewhat. So I am now concerned this could indeed be a Player tactic straight out of the Player How To manual. So now I've lost trust in him. As well as you, I mean. ************** Aw, god - and now we have THIS pellet of poo to add to the table: "Sex was always initiated by him, if ever I initiated anything he would avoid it - 'I'm knackered after such a long week', 'I'd better get the dinner on/get my stuff ready for work'. I assumed that this was due to his 'barriers' he'd put up around himself, and needing to have control over what happened when?" No. It's called, We will have sex when *I* decide - because *I* want it - not you. All On HIS Terms, Never Yours. That screams Master-SLAVE. Sex Slave. FW effing B, but DIS-honourable Bloke version. Made possible by messing with your head, playing games (PLAYER), to get you firmly addicted and under his control (and schedules). Secret, selfish Bstd, basically. Right, that does it. Stop the bus. Turn off the engine. Let's have you re-read your own posts, slowly, going over the facts in the entire chain of events under this NEW light: Player. Player using the Pity Ploy (it disarms you against standing up for your rights, like: Switch and go snippy and snappy on me one more time, Pal, and I'm off home (who the eff do you think you are!)...in your less in-your-face way, obviously) AND Intermittent Reinforcement (randomly sweet into mean into sweet...). Trying to get you ADDICTED. Which happens for real and messes with more than just your poor head. ************ Okay, I see you didn't self-assert straight with your MOUTH but did basically say "Screw you, I'm goin' HERM!" with your feet. Note he immediately panicked (oops, gone too far) so adjusted the dose by offering gentlemanliness in walking you home. Hmmmm.... that could be considered Monitoring as well. I'm going to hazard a guess that you were back to chatty, friendly, etc. on that walk home, as told him, no he HADN'T gone too far and could activate Step 2: "This was at the point where he first went quiet on me the following week (the week he returned to work)" Yeah, you can use work as your excuse just as he can let it pose as his excuse FOR him, but, like I said earlier - there isn't one. One can be busy WITHOUT being rude, inappropriate and off-healthy-script, given what's preceeded the sudden freeze. Busy-busy does NOT equal Arsehole. And why WOULD you, with someone you seem to want to at least build a FRIENDSHBIP or LASTING FWB with? Yeah, no. It's not making sense so it's false, a lie, artificial. Contrived - that's the word! Over to you again. ...Well, once I've read and addressed the rest: "Another thing I noticed was there was a huge amount of intimacy from him in the bedroom.. but hardly anything outside of that, no hand holding, touching me (unless as a prelude to sex), no kisses - apart from maybe a kiss goodbye. He was big on cuddles, but only a cuddle to say goodbye (apart from the one of comfort last weekend). Sex was always initiated by him, if ever I initiated anything he would avoid it - 'I'm knackered after such a long week', 'I'd better get the dinner on/get my stuff ready for work'. I assumed that this was due to his 'barriers' he'd put up around himself, and needing to have control over what happened when?" Huge intimacy. Only in or on the way to, the bedroom. Right. And as a safety measure right before you leave. ************** Right. I've done the jigsaw puzzle now (thank you for the missing pieces) and here's what all this evidence means, i.e. the well-worn play and script it fits, in my opinion: He got hurt. Repeatedly. And angry. You (what you did or he thought you did in the past) got lumped-in with these women. Decided to become a Player so he could still have regular sex with the "dreaded enemy", rather than just his right hand,but without having to risk his own heart and ego. Just her risk hers. Opened the Player How To Manual. Knocked on YOUR door and started practising the addicting process on you (sweet-mean-mean-sweet, "Oh I want to but I daren't"...few bars on his violin...Being REALLY ATTENTIVE in bed (faster, harder addiction via the knicker dept). This means, "I hope you aren`t getting attached" then becomes a sign of impatience: "Are you getting attached yet?" in-disguise (see it?). But then you surprised him (understatement!) with your pure heartedness as made him re-think your past rejection reasons weren't personal. I.e. he's not a genuine, as in issue-laden Player, hence had a Conscience that is big enough it got WELL pricked. Felt like a shithead-bully and decided to stop and ditch the game/process. Additionally saw genuine, meaningful Friend material so transferred you to that department. THE PROOF WILL BE THIS: HE DOES NOT REPEAT THE SUDDENLY-OUT-OF-NOWHERE GOING BAD-MOODY AND SNAPPY AT YOU. EVER AGAIN. AND DOESN'T SEXUALLY TRY IT ON. EVER AGAIN. If he does - if he even goes NEAR that nonsense again - we'll know for certain what he is - Player (or worse - woman-hating Narc abuser) and have GOTTIM, Red-Handed! Let's watch that space, shall we? Back to you. Thoughts? PS: I now think this might be why you panicked all those years back. In which case, we know he's been "this way" for a LONG time, that behaving like a MALIGNANT Player, is not some new reaction of his to having been hurt one time too many, and that coming on here might have just saved your bacon.

I'll still address this last bit, regardless that I pressed the Stop - Danger button: "When he was all in interested one minute, cold the next, and then back to being interested, I put it down to him perhaps going through the 'pulling away' stage where he felt unsure, hence my giving him space and time. I guess I totally misread the situation between us, or perhaps I subconsciously chose not to see what was in front of me.. I thought I would have learnt by now from my past mistakes by now, (hence the long length of time I remained on my own) and been better able to see what I was allowing to happen." Translation: Not another pigging Narcissist, surely! Hah. Wish I'd read this (over-cautiously put) denouement first. Case seemingly Closed. You DO suspect he's iffy as well as fake. No, you can't learn from past mistakes with Covert, CEREBRAL Narcissistic Abusers if what you're now meeting is a different STYLE, e.g. Covert SOMATIC (pushes your physical as well as mental buttons to addict and control you...high sex drive from testosterone overload incidental with the personality disorder). That's why they come in Threes...like bloody evil buses. Only when you've tried all three types are you able to avoid either and all of them forever after. Although, really, you just to see a fin sticking out of the water and yell "Shark!"..."Swim, Johnny, swim!". People don't generally yell "Hammerhead!" or "Blue!". Just "Shark!". LOL Anyway, glad to see you fully awake, finally, cos now I get you and how you communicate (in code, LOL) and that I HAVE INDEED been reflecting what you've been transmitting, which has been back-forth hence even made me go back-forth. Never mind...got there in the end. YES, IT APPEARS HE IS A COVERT, SOMATIC, NARCISSIST WHOSE NEED OF WOMEN CONSISTS OF REGULAR SEX ON HIS TERMS, I.E. NOT HAVING TO WASTE HIS MONEY VISITING BROTHELS. You don't buy the Cow if you're getting the milk for free - as the saying goes. And check out what Martha Stout (google) says is the Number 1 Red Flag re your NPD AsPD Sociopath (big S because all Narcissists are "sociopaths" as a descriptive of how they ended up that way - human hands, not born like it) (stupid clinicians, haven't thought anything through, have they, ....but not Martha...): (Brace yourself) "“After listening for almost twenty-five years to the stories my patients tell me about sociopaths who have invaded and injured their lives, when I am asked, “How can I tell whom not to trust?” the answer I give usually surprises people. The natural expectation is that I will describe some sinister-sounding detail of behavior or snippet of body language or threatening use of language that is the subtle giveaway. Instead, I take people aback by assuring them that the tip-off is none of these things, for none of these things is reliably present. Rather, the best clue is, of all things, the pity play. The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.” ― Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door " And that's because it instantly disarms you. You can NOT take someone who deserves it by the scruff of the neck if they trigger your PITY. Pity makes you...well...hah!...a really huge dollop each time makes you make excuses for them as if they ARE a toddler - YOUR toddler. They trigger you into Mummy mode. Like you've kept doing! I hope he does henceforth prove he's ditched the game-playing, and was only a wanna-be, not a gotta-be. Because - de-loused (if Narc Fleas is all it is) - he had scope as a brother figure. But that, usually, can be a large part of WHY you feel defenseless against not being drawn back against your will time and time again, by which I mean the, "ACH, SO NEAR BUT SO FAR....WHAT A WASTE OF AMAZING POTENTIAL" element as poses as frustration come irresistible dangling carrot. HOPE. Hope, shoved to the ground...Picked up and dusted off....shoved to the ground...repeat, repeat, repeat. When they mess with Hope - that's one serious head-effing they're doing. That's serous biz. And he fits the Pity Play - oh, doesn't he just! Been using that practically non-stop! Again, on that score, we watch that space now and wait for the jury to come in... Or you decide to ditch now and let him prove you wrong AFTER the fact, if he wants to or even could? Your choice.

PS: He's nowhere NEAR as clever as you. Explains why he's trying to drug you as well as keep you dizzy and not knowing which way is Up (STILL not sure of where you stand with him or whether where you stand is GENUINE). But you ARE too polite, mouth-wise. It ties our own hands. So don't make it an unmoveable on-off switch, put a 0-10 control knob on it so you can adjust it to suit whatever type of person you're dealing with. A customised output. Capiche? Autism, you say. And you're the mother-ship. The carrier. I reckon. You like routine. Same every day (basics, anyway). Hence no dial, just on-off flick-switch. And you're incredibly kind-hearted, generous-hearted, all that. And cautious (sign of intelligence). Autistic or Aspergic? Anyway - jigsaw piece falling into place just in: "I just put it down to him being quite tired by this point in the evening as he's not one to stay up much past 10pm" Thus far, I'm putting it down to him having another FWB that he rings at 10pm. With him looking positively Sociopathic according to Martha (but hidden enough that you've seen only "arsehole"-ness flashes), you would not by any means, repeat, any means be the only sex-slave. Spaths like to organise themselves a fragmented Harem (maybe they're descended from ancient Chinese Warlords and their COMPOUND (yes, walled and locked) of Concubines, eh, there's a thought). So rather than ASK you to leave - which begs the question Why? - he makes you want to leave. Starts being subtly nasty, making you suddenly uncomfortable, wrong-footed and clueless what else to do but get away. No more sex with this guy, he could give you something nasty. I'm deadly serious. As is what you could catch. Ugh. He could ruin or even REMOVE your entire future sex- thus love-life. Viral Castration. Maybe he really intensely hates (despite still wants to shag) women, so much so that castrating them is precisely what he's up to - or comes as a side-bonus? I am SO PISSED-OFF, though. It used to be "plain" benign and malignant narcissists "everywhere" but suddenly, following the chaos, stress and pressure of Covid and the global economic crisis, all the pigging sociopaths have comes out of their holes and are the ones who are "everywhere". So, not an increase per se but a coming out of behind closed doors (getting chucked-out or divorced now no-one has the luxury of consciously choosing to tolerate them, i.e. "with everything else, you're now literally BEYOND "too much" - out you go!"). If abuse went up 400% during lockdowns then so did inevitable, reactive DUMPING by the suddenly toughened-up victims. Innit. Back to him: And this: "He told me that he was unsure, that he wanted to be in a relationship, but that as soon as he was in one he didn't want to be in one and that this was down to not wishing to get hurt which is why he's put up so many barriers around him. Maybe this was him telling me that he wasn't looking for anything long term, but equally wasn't really saying what he was looking for?" Now we have clearer evidence, my response to reading this has also updated. I would now say: Oh, f**k off, you Out-Of-Order, Quality Control Reject, you. (Talking him, obvs.) Effing mental cripples, that's what these "ooh, scary monsters" are. The scary monster bit is just acted posturing but which, mixed with their incredible impulsivity and seething rage as (when genuine) (usually self-cranked up from initially faked anger) controls THEM rather than the other way round. Because I'll tell you: whenever doing so has been my only choice - I can out-scare them every single time. Never failed. See them curl up on the floor in the foetal position when I do. Scary, my arse. Kids in dinosaur suits. All it will take to eradicate them is one skipped generation. One gap in the family line. By which I mean, those kids too intelligent and non-socially influenceable as lets OLLOCKS in through the ears and not straight out (rejected) again - they, the Healthy Mini-Mes, are allowed to go on to marry and reproduce (after the cuts and bruises have healed) but not the mini-Narcs, mini-Spaths and mini-Malignant Psychos. Genetic test, psychometric test - Yes or No. Too simple. They must suit governments somehow. Or too many of them are now in too many high offices and other positions of power. Or is that just an And rather than an Or? (Sorry - thinking out-loud.) (Pissed-off) (Not yours or any other victim or near-victim's fault though, obvs. A product of too-long ignored social sickness that some of us have been screaming out warnings AND explanations about for bloody decades and decades. I'll go sit on the bench with the Global Warning/Climate Change bunch, eh. They know how it feels.) PS: Do I sound angry or just over-tired? (Haha, you'll have to catch me first! (just joking))

You're still right now caught up with him, aren't you. So what's the latest, then?

Thanks for your last reply.. within which there is a lot of truth, things that hit home with me.. What made me suddenly scared on our date all those years back.. Gut instinct kicking in saying, all he's talked all about is his ex wife as though he is still in love with/pining after her.. watch out!'.. at that point in time I listened to my gut instinct having not long been out of a relationship where with my ex-partner it was all about him, his sadness, happiness, future never us.. same with my ex husband.. and yet in the years between turning this guy down several years back and meeting up with him in the present day I ignored my gut instinct and ended up dating/in a relationship with men who behaved much the same.. I ignored it again this time.. Why? Because I was lonely, because I feel overwhelmed with my life and I was lonely, and he showed me some attention.. gut instinct quivered but I shut it down.. So I caused my mixed feelings and allowed him to contribute to them. I, at some level, could see what was happening but chose not to put a stop to it and instead allowed myself to be sucked in. Latest.. he still messages once or twice a week, I reply.. He's asked me over for a cuppa a few times, I decline.

"Thanks for your last reply.. within which there is a lot of truth, things that hit home with me.. What made me suddenly scared on our date all those years back.. Gut instinct kicking in saying, all he's talked all about is his ex wife as though he is still in love with/pining after her.. watch out!" (Not reading ahead, as per - ) That still doesn't adequately justify "bit freaked-out". Nor even if you'd been a bit skittish, still, from your exes. Maybe you don't know because with the pressure on to give him an answer, all you had time to grab out of your handbag (memory banks) in order to draw a comparison thus a frame of reference with which to identify your feelings, was simply what had been uppermost - the Normal Guy file containing The Usual, Normal Reasons & Excuses. *****And let's remember this: Mr Poor Me dreads and fears getting hurt and yet so far, exclusively, the one getting her heart and ego stung, slapped, pinched - each time for nothing - out of the blue where the timing makes WORSE than no sense, but OPPOSITE to expectation, i.e. Inappropriate Effect (google) on his part... the only person getting drip-drip hurt, badly mistreated IN VIEW OF THE QUALITY YOU ARE, de-valued, belittled, humiliated, has been YOU. Keep focussed on that, please.***** Makes more sense if it was that you smelled he was iffy, made that excuse - aided by his present circumstances at the time as affects Normal-Healthies so why wouldn't it, him... reached for a file, not enough response time to dig deeper - only Normal-Healthy, usual reasons and excuses - and voila : He misses his wife, is still too attached to her, isn't emotionally available. Gotcha (positive version) 1: BUT YOU STILL TRUSTED THAT YOU WERE EXPERIENCING AN ICKY SENSATION AND SAID NO TO DATING HIM (crowd goes wild). (Were you ever cheated-on? Or someone you knew cheated or got cheated-on? Or, just a prior bad experience dating men in his situation whose prematurity of rejoining the dating market wasted your time?) But it depends: QUESTION: describe all the ways in which he talked about her, including any quotes that you can remember? ************** Sometimes, you see, malignant Narcs/Spaths prime you for the fauxlationship in the run-up, by tricking you into tying your OWN arms. One of the way is, telling you during 'normal' acquainting conversation, how "horridly" the ex treated him (when really it was the other way around - this Projection and Stealing The Victim Cloak, btw, being one of the proofs they DO know and understand how badly they've been making the victim feel, as should trigger empathy or at least sympathy in Normals but in their case - solely on a COGNITIVE level instead of emotional as well). It goes something like this (replete with spot-on mimickery of when Normal-Genuines do it): "And she would constantly flirt with other men deliberately in front of me, to hurt me". (Real Life scenario following that particular lie: ) All the victim was doing was politely chatting back as ensued her apology after she'd accidentally bumped into the bloke (LUDICROUSLY furthest from her type anyway - first clue) at a craft fayre stall. Spath then had a go at her about it LITERALLY all the way home in the car, while she was trying to concentrate on driving (thin, wiggly, country lanes). He did that deliberately - FOR A FULL HOUR - so that her hands were tied (but no by him using his hands), this time on the steering wheel and gear-stick at 40-50mph, therefore too dumbed-down to properly defend and re-assert herself ("I'm polite to strangers, if that involves a bit of chatting so be it, it's who I am, if you really hate it this much then you'd be better off dating a clam"). Bark-bark, needle-needle, accuse-accus, insult, belittle, talk down to...For a full hour. Accusing her of being someone nothing like her, basically (being painted Black is particularly hurtful and frustrating). Back then, she'd generously assumed his over-jealousy was part-and-parcel of his being so incredibly in-love with her and just reactively insecure in himself, still ("totally fixable!") thus feeling unworthy of her. Nope. *Pathological* Jealousy and Possessiveness, based on a bad agenda. He didn't want any man, even a fat, balding grandad of a bloke, stealing his Golden Goose, or EVEN MORE TO HIS POINT, wanted to force her out of that Nice Person habit of hers by making her feel her niceness normalcy in fact constituted flirting to a (seemingly) normal diamond like him, so should be ashamed...so she'd never do it again thus wouldn't ever find herself OPEN to being stolen (or ego-boosted by any outside male attention), PERMANENTLY....PLUS, it was another great excuse for an opportunity to kick some more self-confidence and self-worth out of her - ie. permanently from BOTH ends. Other comments (seed-planting manipulation tactics) about their ex are, . 5he was mean with money, made him pay for everything (i.e. the victim's had enough of for too long footing all bills for another grown adult perfectly capable of supporting himself), - She never wanted sex (true, but only because he'd begun using it as a tool to distract her from an issue/heat her back up/PUNISH her if ever she got too cocky (which means, tried to enjoy normal, adult rights, including stick up for herself)) - Was a bad mother (too constantly bullied and beaten to win Mum Of The Year - or it's BS)...drug-addict...whatever they can tell will work on you. Whatever gets him his way and/or reduces the joie de vivre..life-force of his previously sparkly, people-attracting current. And because this occurs when you're mid-head-over-heels, not having seen behind the mask yet, you respond by vowing in your mind to be BETTER THAN THE EX. WAY BETTER. You think that's all he needs to be healed. And your inner animal hears and heeds the threat of what it would mean if you ever acted even remotely the same (because you and it know the fate that befell her - she lost him/her relationship). Plus you're a proactive fixer in whose interests it now is to get him fixed so..."no biggie". OR THE OPPOSITE - which raises your bar even higher: (Said here and there in little snippets) Although it didn't work out, she was lovely, really....Was a great cook... Really hard-worker...High libido, attentive in bed, never said No to me (- note the inappropriateness of discussing this with you, although you probably won't if he slithered the topic of conversation there beforehand)... Really generous, gifts and paying for everything... It can be even subtler: He's eating, say, your Mac Cheese...first time you've cooked for him... You find yourself having to ask..."Yeah, it's nice, yeah...I mean obviously my taste-buds are still trained to my ex's Mac Cheese but, mmm, yeah!". The backhanded compliments, the giving with one hand whilst taking away with the other (leaving you with zero or less than zero)... See it? The slid-in, cowardly answer is, It's alright...not as good my ex's. NOW what is the in-love partner male or female going to do (next time)? TRY HARDER - because you're in-love and VERY into making him happy (for once, poor picked-on bubbie). And yet at the same time, they increasingly start barely lifting a finger in your direction. So yes, I'm interested to know how he talked and described about her, definitely. ************ ".. at that point in time I listened to my gut instinct having not long been out of a relationship where with my ex-partner it was all about him, his sadness, happiness, future never us.. same with my ex husband.." Narc and Narc. Yeah, I think PART of why you turned him down was his seeming unavailability but the other was a recognition of a faint whiff, if you want my honest opinion. Probably SO faint you couldn't articulate or rationalise it. Maybe it wasn't even about spotting/sensing parallels between his and any exes' actions. Maybe is was just the smell. Otherwise, if it HAD been to do with him or you not being ready for actual romance together yet - explain to me why the "let's be friends" but followed by shipping him off hundreds of miles away and plonking him atop another mountain? Gotcha. ;.) I don't have time, sadly, to type everything I spot in these posts, but - try this, please: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ The guy wants you go to home because, you assume from his prior lies, he's really-really tired. Yeah, that's what I do when tiredness comes over so suddenly like that, as has me so desperate to go to bed I have to abandon all politeness and pleasing treatment to a woman I want to in whatever format, keep, to get the person to leave now-quick-quick! I DELAY my going to bed MYSELF by OFFERING....TO WALK THEM HOME. Oh, ruh-huh-huh-HEALLY? Error - Does Not Compute. Gottim. My scenario does compute - and leaves nothing out....unless your house is literally less than 5 minutes away from his? But even then - in that case, why the need to be walked? Still isn't gelling. Gottim again. " and yet in the years between turning this guy down several years back and meeting up with him in the present day I ignored my gut instinct and ended up dating/in a relationship with men who behaved much the same.." Perfectly common, as I say - they tend to come in threes. OR RATHER, WE TAKE THEM ON THREE TIMES. Because Thrice is a Pervasive Pattern, innit (so that's good instincts). I mean, what other way of self-ensuring you never go near let alone inside a wolf's cage again, regardless of the weight of temptation ("phwwoar!")? Come away having been non-stop barked and growled at? Having been that and nipped/bitten? Or all of that and having lost your arm? The trouble with the malignants is they include a (first real - infatuation - then feigned) gorgeous side...or sometimes ARE in a great mood (even spoiled kids can be put in one, eh), whereupon you get to see their intended default (had they not been infected or broken)...but it still amounts to two extremes: Heaven or Hell. And then one day, you realise Hell has become the predominant state of affairs and/or they start committing terrible acts (drip-drip-drip-SPLOSH-TSUNAMI). Plus are usually fantastic in bed (seemingly) or fantastic at making you chase back after sex (starvation into desperation) (see other thread '...what's the point'). This is why the worse they are or the longer you've been with them, the harder to "one-two-three-DUMP" it is. But if you keep the pace SLOW for the first 6 months to year, this can't happen (and any Narc who can't succeed without Rushing will lovebomb/bully harder and/or just bail). None of this conversation nor ideas for experimenting subtly towards disrupting his (or any malig. Narc's) mask or not, can do any harm to a normal-healthy, nor to the Narc for that matter (bar failure) because all you're attempting to push are his Normalcy buttons and then give him the stage to see what he can do. But it's this: granted, the experimentation can be do itself via the passing of time and interaction...but by then, too many hooks are in to dare try extricating yourself. There are rightful, normal things one can do to Poke the wolf and see what he does. If you're interested because you need to see for yourself (a bit). "I ignored it again this time.. Why? Because I was lonely, because I feel overwhelmed with my life and I was lonely, and he showed me some attention.. gut instinct quivered but I shut it down.. So I caused my mixed feelings and allowed him to contribute to them. I, at some level, could see what was happening but chose not to put a stop to it and instead allowed myself to be sucked in." WOAH! Not having read ahead - I really wasn't expecting that! Not that intelligent level! Do you want a job? LOL Seriously - do you want to be an adviser on here? Crikey. I'm impressed! It's not ALL there was to it, though. Not nearly. Because, you see, you're self-blaming. That way you haven't COMPLETELY been taken for a ride because you "were aware but ignored it". But no. You won't have been aware. Aware OF, but not Present and On-Duty. That's why malignants are called Emotionally Dangerous (it is NOT sensationalism). I know psychiatrists who were stuck in Narc/Spath marriages! Intelligence has anywhere between zero and too little to do with it, and what portion does gets spun round too fast and/or drugged - same enough effect for the Narc. Meanwhile, your innards are now unprotected and they can just reach in. THE 'SOME LEVEL' WAS NOT PRESENT AT THE TIME. If it's been injected with Heroin and furtively locked out of the meeting room (shoved in the cupboard) then how is it supposed to deliver any warning and instructions to take action to those present inside? It can't. Fact. And LOADS of other factors... You may as well tell me this: I got raped, but I could TELL there was something iffy about the bloke behind me and I still took the short-cut home along that ill-lit street, wearing a short skirt, so it's my own fault. You're allowed to wear a short skirt. It's a fashion, not code for Rape Me. You're also allowed AND EXPECTED to fall back onto societal laws of polite, both-party-protective, interaction, which says, "Err on the side of normality (caution) so as not to offend the other, and presume normalcy and innocence" - especially when you're put on the spot (response time pressure, can't think, so resorting to social habits, etc. into which you have been heavily conditioned your whole life - and quite right too because it's what comes under BEING CIVILIZED. Even IF it's failed once or twice - you still have more times when it worked. So normally it DOES work. Why would you opt for something that normally doesn't? (What *I* am always interested in knowing is - why she had to walk home at night all by herself and why govts haven't fixed what causes these broken and dangerous predators in human-being form.) Bottom line: she got emotionally raped because he's a disturbed man whose poison (resentment and hatred at women for rejecting rejectable him, sexually) happens to show as rape - disturbed solution + revenge for the price of one act. NOTHING the victim does that is Usual, Normal, Healthy, or Clever works. Because the point of these mentally disturbed 'Antagonistic' types is that they cannot and/or refuse to allow another human to have any influence on or over them (let alone power), plus normalcy/sanity is either missing from their heads or getting sacrificed, so how are they supposed to either appreciate or listen ot reasoning borne from those things? At the same time, however (Narc Hypocrisy), they expect to 'persuade' YOU, and by force. This is a real-life sound byte of a Narc (during a rage - mask half-off): "No, sure!...I can't 'MAKE you' do as I say. But I can make you wish you had." Let's boil it down further (for future ref). And understand, this is not me repeating myself as in treating you/any reader like an idiot - it's de-virusing and re-programming you healthily as I go (repeat, repeat, repeat...bit-by-bit out of the barbed wire to freedom the exact same way you went in)...."while I'm here?"...and, LIKE barbs on barbed-wire - from all different angles, so... If you travelled back in time to the deep South, USA, would you accept self-blame off of a Plantation Slave because he told you he'd KNOWN (or should have) on SOME level that his Master was leading him to the tree because he intended to to tie him there and whip his bare back, in such a tone as to suggest guilt and shame? NO WAY, you'd say. You were powerless to avoid it. You were a Slave... no agency, no outside help...Learned Helplessness... Slave. (You ceased being in - or en route to in his clutches the minute you came here. A Rabbit-Hole back UP....to daylight, where finally you can SEE the ruddy barbed-wire sticking into you all over, and can choreograph your reversing-out. It was an option open to you. Slaves don't have options...and even when they do they've lost the capability of grabbing for them. Coming here was you having spotted an escape tunnel, reached the opening and popped your head out of it.) The enslaving doesn't take, only once you consciously decide to 'go for it' with someone, you know. Not with any Malignant. It happens at Hello. At Hello. This is a mental version of the physical version. Same sensations, same damage. They USE the mental version because it leaves no visible evidence and avoids him getting banged-up (well - USED to...phew, bit of progress finally). A rapist removes your one defence - your programming accessibility and normal, optimum iQ, the minute you feel his presence and get shunted involuntarily into stressed mode (even imperceptibly), shunting to Fight v Flight as turns off conscious thinking to avoid wasting your chance to avoid the danger via hestitating but instinctual reflexes are almost instantaneous. That first shunt is when the actual act of rape takes place. If you went out tomorrow and it happened AGAIN, however, despite you've got the amount of evidence your particular mind needed now (being a very thorough detective, say), THEN we might turn to examine you. But even then, all a fair and realistic-minded person could conclude was this: The risk of damage from not seeing to the over-prolonged need for company was less near thus less threatening than Idealize-into-Devalue stage of a fauxlationship. Of course the former one. Her mind weighed the risk of Loneliness aka urgent need for Company up against the risk of Another Bloody Narc/Player and - the former was the more pressing, more immediate need so obviously won! Particularly as Conscious you was High and your hairless inner ape in-charge. It chose what IT decided should come first. If it HADN'T....THEN there'd have to be something wrong with you. If they get you when you're down, including over-starved of company and cuddles, then all that does is just makes their job easier and faster for them. That's all. Even if at the time they bag you you're UP, they'll still get you - because you're a normal, healthy, decent person (Narc num-nums), strong enough to in whatever ways prop up or reinflate other humans. Berbom. And they need constant propping and reinflating alright, oh boy do they...but they are incapable of asking nicely because they're incapable of accepting a potential No - or even having to "ask" (kings aren't expected to ask, servants are expected to pre-empt, even be mind-readers). They use your NORMAL-HEALTHY PROGRAMMING against you. Even (especially) your most basic, the one you don't have immediate access to or control over, like, your instinctual reflexes. So if your inner animals screams, Get me a friend or lover or just someone - quick - I'm dying of loneliness in here! - that's what you'll do - and they'll be ready with a Loyal Friend For Hire sign. Likewise, if a Tsunami's coming at you at the same time as a wasp is bothering you - sod the wasp, eh. That's what normal people have evolved to do and Narcs know that. You were a 'sucker' for one reason: a fine, shiny, fully-working, prime specimen in whatever way they spot will be useful to them in myriad ways...whom they waste no time in catching then getting *HIGH (no longer compus mentus). Ok? In situation normal, you know you should or shouldn't and how to act accordingly. But not dizzy and drunk and (it's official!) high on Heroin/Cocaine, made by a mix of your own, intercepted brain chemistry, with him the Fat Controller who pushes the Huge Dose + Start Addiction group of buttons. You can't say it's my fault because I was (or felt like I was) lonely so I was desperate. You CAN say, I hadn't finished learning (what was evidence, what wasn't, whilst collecting more) and therefore hadn't met Enough Of Having Enough (Evidence) point, because that relies on completed processing, whereas I'd had one after the other which was obviously just too much for one person to process and come to terms with in any usefully brief timeframe. But that, again, is only true regarding spotting and emotionally reacting correctly to any early warning signs, meaning, we're back to - High as a kite. It's rare NOT to get captured. All anyone can do is escape. At the very first opportunity and no messing (mess later!). Before comes the inevitable time when you no longer have the strength and sobriety. But escaping urgently relies on knowing you should. Which means you need to be.....(drum roll)..... ***** SHOCKABLE - TO FULL CAPACITY ****** Shock snaps you out of drunkenness. Every time. But prior or ongoing Narc sliming muffles your senses and radar, innit. Plus if it's still stuck up your nostrils, neither will you be able to smell it on 'someone' else. You can't smell something you're already always smelling, can you. People with no slime on them, on hearing and witnessing the chat-up style of a Narc, think, YIKES! - UGH! . and, Does he think I was born yesterday, giving me this tacky, cliched, nonsense come-on? They're sufficiently appalled to find him creepy and disturbing - shuffle away or walk off - not even THINKING about having to be polite or save the offensive person's feelings in case they're wrong or something - because that's how threatening the smell is (with a clean nasal passage). If, however, you're in danger from whatever-starvation - any food in any state, plonked in your lap, will do (one hook). And then suddenly, you're talking to them (two hook)....and finding out things that make you feel sorry for them (three hook).... (Eerily enough, the closest similarity to how they initially hook onto you is - a Tick...on the end of a blade of long grass or branch where animals/people regularly pass by.) HOWEVER, not even being unaccustomed to narc vibe and behaviour can always save someone. A malignant narc parasite has access to too many other of the Healthy's buttons. Or can be sauve and sophisticated enough to fool those who are slime-free. Depends on the Narc and how maestro he is at his constantly-repeated, sole life skill, and/or whether his slime smell differs from the last. You can have a go at avoiding, though - course, it's just sensible to try. So it definitely helps if AT AND FROM HELLO you know what to immediately start background checking for - PER EVERY TYPE (3 overall with the joy, health + wealth-sucking predator) and which style (overt-covert, grandiose-vulnerable, somatic-cerebral etc). In terms of the early, dating stage, these include: TOO keen, too touchy-feely (punctuating points with a nudge to arm or thigh or as if he thinks your attention will wander otherwise), a liberty-taker (e.g. on the first or so date, helps himself to your chips or lighter without asking - e.g. acts like your very long-term boyfriend), letting you do too much of the talking (interviewing rather than conversing with you), telling you what, and why, a poor wickle lambie-pie he is (normal blokes try to impress some, showing their best features and strength, not attach themselves to your nipple), wanting the date to last hours, wanting to see you again too soon, referring to you and he "We" in a way that suggests he's your boyfriend already, wanting to get physical too soon, wonderfully attentive which is actually OVER-attentive ("FAR superior/this/that to normal, clonky blokes") an adulation and contact-frequency level you've never experienced before...more like some romantic movie character, then RUSHING you into what feels like Intimacy but which is PREMATURE and/so, if you stop to feel, just Intensity doing a convincing impression (especially when back by his vocalisations as sneakily influence what intention or meaning you attribute to his words and actions), wanting to introduce you to friends and even family far too soon, etc., etc. Point is, too many Pink or Red Flags together or in quick succession, etc. There's another: Not putting a single foot wrong for too long (over 6 months), either. It's all there on the web nowadays to collect up into a document (- no one person tends to feature the TOTAL signs, frustratingly). Here's a good'un, though: Knowing enough that he is "off", to come onto a forum or to ask anyone in RL for feedback or validation of your concerns, suspicions or general complaint (ta-daa). "Latest.. he still messages once or twice a week, I reply.. He's asked me over for a cuppa a few times, I decline." Well, this is interesting. Yeah, you do know he's iffy AND to what degree (one that demands caution and creeping silently backwards). Hence why you're choosing to do the Slow-Mo Goodbye, trying not to call yourself to much to his attention and suspicion. At the same time, it facilitates even GREATER evidence by representing you giving him yet more rope to see if he continues hanging himself, but where if he gets bored and nods off (rather than trying to fix the situation), it still leads to the same 'diagnosis' (I mean nothing except - another warm hole + revenge against exes and all hateful women generally through getting to use and abuse them to show them how dumb they are and why they should defer to men - because it's safer (puke...like mafia protection raqueteers)). Clever cocktail, actually. Solution and Experiment in-one. You get the best of both worlds. Win/Win. Yeah, you're a clever one alright, missus! If you need to stretch it out, tell him work's suddenly really busy (hah). Or that you've come down with Covid. Anything to keep him thinking nothing's wrong and him happy with you staying away. Funny how it always has to involve you making the effort by going over to his - plus the fact all he OFFERS is a cuppa at his. What - as if friends don't meet at cafe's and pubs any more? Hah. That's revealing. To me, it appears he's quite happy to not actually see you (you specifically) as long as you appear to still be happily in the game (responding to texts). Gosh, that was a long one! Roger - Over? PS: That really was a surprise at the end there! Superb determination and decisiveness - like it. And keep remembering: if he's NOT Guilty of being too iffy, he'll float back up to you (so to speak). PPS: Sorry for any missing words or spelling mistakes up there, or paragraphs duplicated or in the wrong place - it's late, I'm too knackered to do a read-through, plus not suited to a laptop keyboard (bloody mouse switches to another place if one of my fingers so much as nears the inbuilt mousepad thingumywotsit), but fingers crossed it reads ok.

PS: Isn't it so damn frustrating when - finally one you DO fancy comes along or back along, only to find out they're secretly completely undateable or, worse, aren't even ON the mating scene for dating purposes - just mis-using and abusing that venue. Commiserations again. They do HAVE amazing potential, though. That bit - sensing it, seeing "nearly-so-nearly!" flashes of it - is NOt just a projection on the part of the Normal. But it's like this: They themselves can't ever access it or won't ever (no need for it). So it just sits there, smelling sweetly while serving inadvertently as another luring aid to Helpers/Encouragers/Fixers/Healers/Rescuers, basically, nicest type of people in the world.

PPPPPPS: Ticks are indiscriminate, however. But then, Ticks aren't so deludedly in-love with themselves that they think they deserve only the Chateau Briande of the two-legged host/hostess, innit.

PS again: Did you ever notice how Wylie Cyote from "Road Runner" only ever orders equipment from ACME?

PS: If you want to paste in his texts offering a cuppa so I can get a really good look and feel of him - feel free.

Oh earwigo - typo - sorry: "The risk of damage from not seeing to the over-prolonged need for company was less near thus less threatening than Idealize-into-Devalue stage of a fauxlationship. Of course the former one." Was NEARER thus MORE threatening than the later-coming Idealize-Devalue stage.

Thanks for replying again, much appreciated :) My ex-husband cheated on me with his best mates wife, I was 29 (ex was 25) and I was 7 months pregnant with our 2nd child by the time I discovered their affair. We were all friends and looking back there were signs something was going on, signs that made me stop and think, but I brushed them aside, told myself I was being paranoid, but equally, it left me feeling unsure and further reduced the trust between my ex and I. I began noticing other things and I 'investigated'. I found concrete evidence when he directed me to his wallet for a receipt to return an item and I saw a folded A4 piece of paper with his name, a heart and his best mates wife's name on it. I took it out and read it. She was declaring her love, and her pain at not being with him all the time etc, and also mentioned if it wasn't for your wife then we could be together always. As it was Xmas time, I waited until after and then confronted him with it. He denied it until I produced the letter and he then admitted to it and that they were in love and it had been going on since just before she and her hubby (his best mate) got married (we went to their wedding and something seemed a bit off then). After it was out in the open, he fessed up to two previous affairs during our marriage. The day i gave birth to our second child (I allowed him to be at the birth) and we were settled on the maternity ward, he told me he had to go because his now mistress was pregnant with his third child. That was 20 years ago now. He married his mistress and cheated on her too, although they still remain married. That's the only time I've been cheated on.. 6 months after our separation, and 3 months after giving birth to our second child I was back on the dating scene. I very quickly met a guy and we were together for 7 years before I called time on it. We shared a joint pain when we met, with both he and I having just separated from our ex hubby/wife. Looking back, he was a bit OTT at the start, buying me stuff, taking me out to dinner, breaks away, etc. We moved in together after about a year together. We shared other interests and it was okay for a while, but his traditionalistic view of how a wife/partner should be, his need to control his life and those around him, his outbursts of anger, and our differences in parenting drove me away, over the years I began to develop a very different outlook on life, and future for my two boys and I, so much to his disgust and anger I called time on our relationship. Following that I became involved in 2 or 3 destructive relationships.. A player, which through my rose tinted glasses I failed to acknowledge, believing things could be different. I called time on it after 3 months.. he continued to chase me down and sweet talk, telling me I'd got him all wrong.. A guy who was emotionally manipulating, everything was my fault and I was useless etc, and at the time I believed him.. I called time on it after 2 months after he hauled my son off of the sofa that he wanted to sit on even though there was a sofa free to sit on.. A guy who after a few weeks told me he was Bipolar and that he can sometimes get low, but that his medication keeps him stable. My friend is Bipolar so I thought nothing of it, it's a condition he has and he manages it.. However, after 6 months of messing with his meds and not taking them as he should of been, storming of in anger at the slightest thing, I thought best to call it a day, as it was affecting me. Trouble was he apologised, said his meds were causing problems and he was going to get it checked, he asked if I could come to his psych appt and I did. I ended up continuing the relationship for another year, but things only got worse. It felt emotionally abusive and draining, he was starting to shove and pinch me and criticising me but telling me it was just a joke, I knew I need to leave, but I felt too frightened. That was until one weekend when he blew up at my children and his own, then drove off leaving his 2 boys with me I'm tears. After calming down he returned picked his boys up, ignored me and went home. I ended it that day and endured a few months of threatening behaviour before he finally left me alone. A few year later I met a guy who I used to work with many years previous. We got chatting, went out for a drink and started dating. He came on really strong at the start, taking me out for dinner, days out etc. He declared his love for me within a few months, which I found a bit uncomfortable. After about a year I told him I wanted to call time on things. He said to take my time, think things through and he'd give me space. Then rang me after about a week, chatting about the things we'd done together over the last year and the things that we could do looking ahead. I said I'd give things another try, the next few months were okay, then it went downhill, he just didn't seem interested in doing much together unless it involved his passion - avid football supporter for his home team, fishing or going out to hang out with his mates and their other halves to get rat arsed. So I called it quits and walked away. He keep calling me for the first 3 or 4 months for a chat at least once a week I was happy to chat over the phone, but no more than that and he soon tapered off and stopped calling me. The came the 3 and a half years of just being within my own company. Then this latest guy popped on the scene.. In reference to how he spoke about his ex-wife.. Funnily enough it was like all the other guys in my previous relationships.. he loved her, she cheated on him, she was at fault, he wanted to stay with her despite her cheating and offered to try to make it work, but it was like he wasn't good enough and so he let her go. Now she's married to the guy she left me for. We still talk as we have a daughter together etc.. When he spoke to me about his relationships since his wife.. each one has left him, each time it is their fault.. The first one moved away for a job and he tried to make it work, but she wasn't prepared to negotiate.. The next one mentioned cheated on him.. The next cheated on him too and he took her back 3 times for which he felt he was stupid to have been so nieve thinking it would work, this one preferred money over and above anything else which the guy she was cheating in him with had plenty of. He tell me this the one that really messed him up.. The most recent one left because she got angry with him because he couldn't explain to her why after 3 or 4 months he'd suddenly shut himself away from her for a week or two them came back. That he'd told her he needed space to sort his feelings out but that she wasn't having any of it. In the last in person conversation I had with him, he told me that on his stag night he'd kissed a few women, and throughout his marriage he had done so too, but they were only stolen kisses.. I must admit I didn't think much of that, you're either with someone or you're not, not kisses with one or more, and fully fledged relationship with the other. He mentioned that all the women he's dated just walk away/leave him and its because he's never enough. Over the last week the texts from him have dwindled, I've had a few texts from him informing me he's having a bad week, he's been poorly, this or that hurts, he's tired etc. To which I've replied with short answers.. it sounds like you're having a rough week.. Sorry to hear you've been poorly, hope you're soon on the mend.. Sounds like you're feeling really knackered, hope you can get a good night's sleep.. No invites for me to join him for a cuppa.. I think he's possibly sensing this interaction is slowly running out of steam.. I must admit, this thread has been a learning curve for me.. or a wake up call to past memories I'd locked away? It's been difficult to read, some hard but much needed truths uncovered, but most above all most helpful.

Sorry to keep you - will reply tomorrow!

Heya! "he told me he had to go because his now mistress was pregnant with his third child." Yeah, and I'll bet he got mucho sadistic pleasure out of telling you that at that precise moment. Far be it for a nasty git like him to make up some other reason to spare your feelings. Nah. Only ADULTS do that. That was a deliberate punch with deliberate timing from a nasty, seething child in a grown-up suit. But O.M.G. I am so incredibly sorry (not to mention furious) that a woman as nice as you has been mistreated so wretchedly for so long. And very proud of you as another fellow survivor for the fact you're still standing AND still have VERY strong, good instincts, Modom. :-) If you wanted to, once you feel capable, you could stick around and warn and advise others on Narcissism, and how actually NOT petty it is ( if one thinks it is then one is proving one has only ever experienced or read about Benigns). After all- you definitely have enough experience! All you lack now are the technical and colloquial descriptives and labels. You also would no doubt appreciate first-hand how it's pointless hating the Adulterating Mistress because, whether she's a less than moral person or not, she'll still not be as bad as him. She'll be being as used and duped as the Betrayee. As an unwitting cosh to beat you violently over the head with (and vice-versa if she "gets lippy"). But as you know, they love trying to stoke psychological warfare between the pair of you because then, with so much dust getting kicked up by the perpetual b*tch-fight, he gets to get up to his nefarious business, unnoticed, and get away with it. In fact, the mistress should be pitied. So it’s details like that which are needed more these days. What do you think? ******************************************** Anyway... That level of traumatiisation - a personal Nuclear Bomb to your heart AND whole world - puts you in psycho-emotional Intensive Care with a fractured spine and two broken legs...for 2-5 WHOLE YEARS if you include Occupational Therapy and see Recovery as when you can function as if you never met him (or, less frequently, her) and realise he hasn't popped into your mind for a month or more now. A subsequent limp, plus casts or scars, once you're back on the Savannah (walking again, approaching fully healed), you see, is even more attracting to a (social) predator than the scent of blood. You can still get away if you're bleeding but no bones broken...but not if you can't run. Only a COUPLE of experts are starting to come round to the idea (which, I'm sorry, but I would always spout and, manners for the only nasty-nasty group of mental patients who should be governmentally-contained be damned!) that the Malignants, those with no human, affective empathy (along with varying degrees of missing conscience, remorse, shame, guilt, remorse, morals, too) ARE all anywhere between Thugs..Muggers..Rapists..Murderers. Serial killers but nowadays switching more to committing it by going in via the victim's mind. Slow-Acting or Slo-Motion Murder. Logically, there’s nothing to argue that. I see being cheated on by what you believed was your mate for-life but turns out, malignant NPD, as being lured there first then (if you refuse to succumb to being now't but a good little slave scapegoat) pushed off the side of a cliff. So speaking of which: congratulations and admirations on not having gone down the plughole or committed suicide. And I mean that literally (well, not THE plughole, obviously, LOL). But yeah - kudos. (Is the kiddie you were carrying in your womb at the time alright since s/he came out?) Either this (yes it is -) attempted, double murder (cuckoo!) - via a million papercuts and/or one machete chop to the incubating mother - is what they're trying to achieve (cuckoo!) or they just don't care (cuckoo!) about that consequence (as long as they-they-they are ego-happy/cocky/smug/superior/the winner (cuckoo!)) and - or because - it's a pleasing, handy side-benefit (cuckoo!). It means they detest you (cuckoo!) - yeah, lovely you! - to your very core (cuckoo-cuckoo!) because, try-try-try as they might, they have failed to get you (cuckoo!) permanently (cuckoo!) under their over-huge (cuckoo!), predating-dominating thumb (cuckoo!). They usually are, highly, unrealistically, even, misogynistic (cuckoo!). (Female Spaths despise (but fancy and don't mind fleecing) men, too. Not much difference between the two genders at this level.) PS (parenthesis mine - narcs meaning the malignants): "Not all cheaters are Narcs, but all Narcs ((at every opportunity)) will cheat". Normal-Healthy-Decent person-spouse: "I'm sorry but I'm not happy and haven't been for a long time, and nor are you, so to try to save this marriage we need couples counselling asap" "I'm so sorry, but, having had long enough now, the counselling obviously isn't working so we need a trial separation for a year, and then reconvene and see how we both feel and wish to proceed" "I'm gutted, but we've tried all there is to try so we now have to face the truth and seek a solicitor each, to get a divorce". You'd both be really sad and disappointed, feeling defeated, even, sure. But no-one would come away with serious, life-threatening injuries needing IC hospitalisation. You'd just be A Divorcee - and that's all. You wouldn't need a long spell in Intensive Care. So I don't care what anyone else non-bravely says or avoids saying. ALTHOUGH, I have just recently noticed others agreeing. The rest tend to just keep on keeping-on saying, 'to destroy you'. How nice and vague and polite thereby diluting thus MINIMISING. (Probably the type who need to do a Number 2, eh.) Well, bullies rely on victims' politeness/inhibitedness as well as their silence in order to keep getting away with it, scott-free. Not me, thanks. I'm not going to shut up until over-blown narcissism does (or my fingers drop off). *********** Committing Adultery is not, never has been, nor remotely logically from any angle ever COULD be, a solution to no longer being in-love or even liking your faithful, trusting Numero Uno, or still loving them but incapable of living under the same roof with them - either/or. It defies logic. Doing that - being that heartless - particularly when in most cases the victim didn't even deserve a dirty look because s/he did nothing but be a brilliant spouse - comes under another main, Narc identifier (if present with a whole handful of repeated behavours as emerge as a Pervasive Pattern), called: THROWING FAT ONTO THE FIRE - aka ADDING INSULT TO INJURY - when it would have been QUICKER and SO much easier - presumably for him too - to have just said and done a sincere apology. But they don't do learning-growing-improving. Nor logic. Nor being sensible, productive, mature, health-preservative/other-protective......nor normal and healthy. They're not normal, they're anti social as in against society as in hate people as in despise any one person they get to know well, often including kids. Oh, and animals. Anything with needs and a happy disposition (they HATE that!). They don't work. They're not normal people. It's official, now - they're closer to animal. Badly trained, only barely domesticated, i.e. semi-wild (but always intrinsically wild) prone to sudden random nipping or attacking. Dogs, Foxes, Rotweillers or Wolves, that's how I often think of them. ************ Anyway, I hope you told EVERYONE what he'd done - including your neighbours! Did his ex-best mate sound the whistle? What did he do? Did you and he talk and support one another? Usually, it's YOUR best mate they cheat with - to ensure the already gigantic wrecking-ball has double the impact (or comes at you AS two). But in his case he seemed to want to reduce to tatters his own (we won't say best friend because they're nobody's friend, but -) 'ally/tool'. Do you have any idea why? Did he always seem too jealous or competitive with him for Friends? Did he used to slag him off to you behind matey's back? ************ "I was 29 (ex was 25)" Bit young for 29, isn't that? Why did you prefer or not mind that (at those ages) big age-gap? Didn't you feel you might get mistaken for his big sister or something? ************* "and I was 7 months pregnant with our 2nd child by the time I discovered their affair." Ooooooooooooh, Houston..... Yup. That plus the obvious Moral Corruption it involves is the level of either a malignant Sociopath or Low-Functioning Psychopath alright (those two are like cousins only the former is hot and impulsive, the latter cold and calculating - both cruel and spiteful). Bstds always wait until you're pregnant before Devaluing (torturing) you because they see your being pregnant by them as you now Fully Incarcerated, meaning, now they are free to do with you whatever they like without causing you to leave them - because you won't dare to because you are now totally reliant on them ("think of the baby!"). One of the things they want to do is (CUCKOO!) if they are THAT GOD-LIKE AND POWERFUL as to be able to kill two birds with one stone. (These are your empty-hearted, sadistic, conscience-less, remorseless, pull-the-legs-off-of-spiders/torture-and-kill-kittens or cellotape-up cats for fun and fascination, merchants.) (WHAT, IT TURNED OUT, YOU WERE MARRIED TO.....UUUUUUUUUH!......HEAD-*UCK) ************** "We were all friends and looking back there were signs something was going on, signs that made me stop and think, but I brushed them aside, told myself I was being paranoid," Normal. Yes - you can't believe it. Even seriously-questioning your own sanity for the first time ever in your life, feels more reasonable and plausible - POTENTIALLY REALISTIC! - to your mind than the possibility that "something is disturbingly wrong with this man...I think I might have married a real-life mental case" - which is because you do sense the insanity of him...but it "doesn't even bear thinking about". It really doesn't. (So now you know why when an equivalent betrayal of this size, speed, weight, impact is done to kids with fragile and tiny minds, it either actually breaks their mind or injures it for decades, possibly for life.) So, yes, certainly for a while, you've got to throw the blinkers on because the alternative is too terrible. But a factor might have been that you couldn't be bothered quite enough to keep caring so didn't have the motivation fuel for trying to do anything about it. There's that, too. You do spend most of the relationship fragmented by oppositional wants and needs because, of course, they've been making you run TWO relationships (with Mr Jekyll and Mr Hyde). And two with yourself: OMG I'm a battered wife / Nah, not me, that couldn't happen to a sass-pot like me! Actually, the more sass-pot you are, the more you attract the bored-with-the-same-ol-same-ol-play-&-script veterans in need of a fresh challenge (or because they're aging and need to prove themselves). This is the point where your mind fears it can't take the force, weight and pressure all-at-once - panics - and tannoys for Self-Delusion to come to the rescue. Self-Delusion, employed by a healthy brain correctly, is supposed to be an air-bag come padded safety-suit. You feel the impacts but they're muffled - or see only one or two at a time (because the padding's hard to see out of). It's a survival suit. That's what you were doing there...surviving. Now't wrong with that - no-one said you can't go at your own pace, particularly if you're permanently exhausted already. ...You trying not to go insane with the insane level of grief and mental, total joints-dislocation (being deliberately, violently un-hinged). It's a huge explosion because they don't just nuclear-bomb your marriage, but in the process, everything you had been taught to believe in, and expect, and thought was good and true in this world, your whole mapped-out life security into the future and old age, even deathbed....the rules you were taught were reliable re. how the world and everything in it is and works. They really are abominations of nature, aren't they. Suddenly, you think back over all the seemingly strangely dark fairytales from your childhood and realise that, although overly symbolic for kids, they were bloody true. Unfortunately, the How To & What To Expect manual passed down from the parents/elders omitted this section. Instead you got hinted at via "fairy Stories" at story time. Then you got coached at school (Stranger Danger) aged 8 or so. Then you became a teenager that, along with feeling invincible via the new quality called Arrogance whose dial you hadn't mastered yet, felt that because you were now too big to bundle into some stranger's car, you were no longer Vulnerable, plus the worst you had left to deal with (bar adult lifestyle challenges/struggles) were grumpy or bitchy types. Nobody told you that thugs, killers and serial-killers, once DNA Forensic Evidence got added to the crime-solving mix (I RECKON), would switch to PSYCHOLOGICAL assault and murder instead, to avoid leaving any concrete, physical evidence as could result in them getting banged-up for-life (or if you're a spath or psycho, just hampered for a while, no biggie). With everything they do - Malignants are constantly intent on escaping confrontation and getting away with it. Your so-called husband tried via the slower but still effective psychological route to kill you ("Look - no hands!"). Either to get TOTAL control over, finally, or - if it still failed - to replace you and destroy all trace of you. You obciously had kept on and on and on withstanding or out-stepping him until he lost patience and decided to just cheat at it and 'hack it off'. Basically. You have my DEEPEST, DEEPEST condolences (- you and any other poor sods who are nodding along in recognition as they read this/you). I'll start a new one in a sec...

Sorry - got interrupted so I'll finish up tomorrow, hopefully afternoon rather than evening. I am NOT going anywhere tomorrow after the week I've had - gaaaah!

Tomorrow as in today - hah, didn't realise it was approaching dawn!

Continuing on... I need to clear some things up and bring others, and what they meant, to your attention because these things will otherwise stay stuck in your mind, despite on the conscious level you might have dismissed them and still think them immaterial or trivial. Picture a glass revolving door with an entrance gap (data in). The interior is your mind (where it's processed to a satisfactory conclusion). Opposite the entrance gap is the exit gap Until you "notice" these remnants of confusion, they cannot leave via the Exit and just stay inside, going repeatedly around and around... "My ex-husband cheated on me with his best mates wife, I was 29 (ex was 25) and I was 7 months pregnant with our 2nd child by the time I discovered their affair. We were all friends and looking back there were signs something was going on, signs that made me stop and think, but I brushed them aside, told myself I was being paranoid, but equally, it left me feeling unsure and further reduced the trust between my ex and I. I began noticing other things and I 'investigated'. I found concrete evidence when he directed me to his wallet for a receipt to return an item and I saw a folded A4 piece of paper with his name, a heart and his best mates wife's name on it. I took it out and read it. She was declaring her love, and her pain at not being with him all the time etc, and also mentioned if it wasn't for your wife then we could be together always. As it was Xmas time, I waited until after and then confronted him with it. He denied it until I produced the letter and he then admitted to it and that they were in love and it had been going on since just before she and her hubby (his best mate) got married (we went to their wedding and something seemed a bit off then). After it was out in the open, he fessed up to two previous affairs during our marriage. The day i gave birth to our second child (I allowed him to be at the birth) and we were settled on the maternity ward, he told me he had to go because his now mistress was pregnant with his third child. That was 20 years ago now. He married his mistress and cheated on her too, although they still remain married." 1. Just to mention: this young man sounds VERY nasty and cruel-hearted for only 25 and too old, ordinarily, not to have grown out of the natural narcissistic phase aka Early Childhood (Terrible Twos onwards) then Teenagehood (Teenager From Hell years). He had to have 'started young'...the damage to him done pretty much from bith. And got worse in the natural teenage narcissistic phase (doorway to young adulthood and beyond). No point in feeling sorry for them, though. They hate that and detest (and punish) you even more for it. They're not that little boy with the potential to be sweet, kind and good any more and never again will be. All kids start out selfish little animals. Then they're ferrel, then they're civilized (the correct way, to make life easier for them as well as other people they mix with). If to whatever extent they aren't ever civilised by their parents, etc., then why WOULDN'T they be, quote, closer to animal than human (with scans proving underdeveloped plus atrophied brain parts to-suit). Angry, Ferrel kids whose brains got stunted from constant mistreatment and/or neglect (in the womb or/and once they're out) - so we add Thick, too (only clever for some self-sufficient, predatory animal intent on animal pursuits). 2. No you didn't FIND. You were manipulated to find. "HE DIRECTED ME". Could have got his own receipt, couldn't he. That was set up. 'Let the Triangulation begin'. Either the mistress stays the mistress or you get demoted to her rank...and then swapped about. (Try an award-winning - and stunningly beautifully acted and filmed - Chinese movie called "Raise The Red Lantern" - you'll see crystal-clearly, step-by-step how it's done and what it does to the women (sex slaves) concerned.) It's too easy to keep an affair from your spouse if doing so is your aim; plenty manage it. HE LEFT IT SEMI-EXPOSED TO ENSURE YOU'D FIND IT like some sick, massive Jack-In-The-Box containing a bomb that first punches you in the head before exploding (but isn't necessarily fatal). It's a common tactic, meant to completely cow you as he finally puts a leash on you and becomes your Owner, with you his "b*tch* who will eat, sleep, wee when HE says. (Some train their mutts to keep hostile guard over the spouse and attack if she goes too close to the front door) (I know). If the bomb doesn't work and instead of being cowed you're on his back for him to explain himself, etc., you're fake-discarded as well. If that doesn't work, either, you're abandoned either pretend again but harder or for-real (depends what he's got waiting to receive him, whether the replacement Supply is better or he'd need to get everything he wants in bit-here-bit-there form from a number of women). Malig Narcs tend not to ever 'resign', you have to fire them (and even that doesn't keep them coming back). Spaths (the half narc-half-psycho), it's either/or, but if you dump THEM and show you mean it enough to never take them back, will trash your house (or you), steal stuff, etc. They go particularly ballistic if they don't have a readied lilpad to leap to as means having to enter and swim around in the cold water to find one ("Work - ugh!") - because you're their job (with accommodation, no bills, free food, toiletries...whatever to whatever degree they can manipulate you to get stuck providing). Free lifestyle, basically. 3. Note it was Xmas Time. All maligs LOVE to ruin special occasions, Xmas, Bdays, Christenings.... Nothing is sacred to them (they think it's all put-on b*llocks). Like the wild dogs they are, they see no problem urinating against an Alter (and worse). 4. "I waited until after and then confronted him with it. He denied it until I produced the letter and he then admitted to it " Playing Dumb. Pretending he'd left it in there by-mistake and forgotten. Really, just drawing out your pain and enjoying watching you being forced to play frantic barrister. 5. "After it was out in the open, he fessed up to two previous affairs during our marriage" Then THIS...is complete ollocks... "and he then admitted to it and that they were in love and it had been going on since just before she and her hubby (his best mate) got married (we went to their wedding and something seemed a bit off then)." ...and is just his attempt to colour it "understandable" (Pity Ploy) to diffuse your anger and avoid the full consequences. If it's love, it's lofty, isn't it. Funny though, if I were in-love with someone, I wouldn't feel like marrying someone else. And I especially wouldn't be able to bring myself to have another relationship followed by another, with anyone that wasn't "Her". His aim was definitely to get a leash on you and have you walking forevermore on huge eggshells, then (in case you even accidentally 'drove him' to do it to you again). It would only ring true if it'd been this one woman all the way through. See it? So evidently there was no FEELING involved, was there. He probably just didn't like that "his competitor" 'WON' and, needing a ploy to put you forever in your subserviant little place - chose his wife in order to get one-up on HIM 'while he was down there'. This guy treats people like they're wooden objects. And obviously (stabbing his friend) doesn't mind being a LONE wolf. Psychopath (Low-Functioning). Ok, he did get started early, in a way - came out with the susceptible-to-badly-reforming/deforming circuitry blueprint (where very healthy, skilled parents could have shaped him instead to be a Star. (However, that takes - what now? Work. A fair day's pay for a fair day's work.) Poor little (late) sod could have gone the other way. Any idiot is allowed to have a kid and 'raise/neglect' it to be just like them or worse.) Was he great mimick of facial expressions and tone, or was his face mainly a bit robotic with his speech quite flat and demeanour calm and still? Did he walk and move more slowly than the norm? And of course we can add the "gotta go - having a baby II already love better, with my TRUE love, which isn't YOU" nonsense. Let's take a close look at the next bit...

"That was 20 years ago now. He married his mistress and cheated on her too, although they still remain married." And that is why he had always hankered after her. Look at what a perfect, uncomplaining, subserviant little Homekeeper-Slave she is. That or she's not and was only ever after his money so doesn't truly give one WHAT he does or with whom? I'm sure he cheated on her with MANY more women than the ones whom he chose to shove in her face when he did. I can positively guarantee it. Three, eh? Room for any more? I doubt it. She'll have been more easily controlled in her permanently exhausted state, then? Two had proven not enough power to exhaust his captive, eh. Yeah, no, he's a Spath. A psycho will have copious one-night-stands on his, say, frequent business trips away, but he's not interested in DOMESTIC crime, especially not for his sense of power over others. He's 'cleverer' and more daring (no human taboos) than that petty level. The crime as far as the wife's concerned is in conning her out of her entire, natural life, using her as convincing window-dressing, a cover for his REAL self and (usually medium/high-level criminal) double life and lifestyle (in deep secret)...Your (rough or gentleman), "nothing personal, just business" bank robber. Question: How did you get to dating a Spath level at only 29? Did all this desensitization to evil banker conduct and behaviour get done in child or teenhood? Or were you narc-free before then but just very unlucky the day you bumped into him?

(With "gotta go" as Point 6...) "That's the only time I've been cheated on.. 6 months after our separation, and 3 months after giving birth to our second child I was back on the dating scene." 7. Adding the trauma of childbirth so soon after, itself was too soon, let ALONE trying to date at that premature point! You would have still been DRIPPING with slime (plus leaking atoms of blood in the water). Hence: ****************** "I very quickly met a guy and we were together for 7 years before I called time on it." "We shared a joint pain when we met, with both he and I having just separated from our ex hubby/wife. Looking back, he was a bit OTT at the start, buying me stuff, taking me out to dinner, breaks away, etc. We moved in together after about a year together." 8. Too soon! "We shared other interests and it was okay for a while, but his traditionalistic view..." 9. HAH! That's ONE word for it! Seething dinosaur. Jury's in: Spath. (Making fatherless kids everywhere out-of-sight he goes.) "...of how a wife/partner should be," 10. Chained to the kitchen sink, mainly. Free housekeeper, mummy, vocal No.1 Fan in front of everyone...50s housewife...whatever he wants you to be/do. But always chained to the kitchen sink in your pinnie. Ever seen the original Stepford Wives film starring Genevieve Wotserface? DO. You're in it - WITH HIM (but you escape). What happens 'to you' is symbolic, but, heavily. You'll get it. "his need to control his life and those around him, his outbursts of anger, and our differences in parenting drove me away, over the years I began to develop a very different outlook on life, and future for my two boys and I, so much to his disgust and anger I called time on our relationship." 11. Differences in parenting.... Don't tell me: answering back gets the kiddie something as OTT as, standing in the back garden in the rain, arms out to the sides, facing upwards, holding heavy bricks like that for an hour. Kind of like those differences?... whacko Sergeant Major, seems to have zero clue about how to treat and handle kids? Plus the fact he had no right to, unless expressly asked to and/or conferred and agreed with regarding what discipline - because the kids were YOURS? Even without that, though: Yup. Spath. But - in terms of early flashes - mighr well have proven to be a BIGGER one. 12. As I'm sure you could soon see, only YOU had pain. He had gross indignation...and was determined to plonk you into the empty side of the bed before it had a chance to go cold. I doubt he did share you interests, just pretended (again, to speed your bonding up). ************************ "Following that I became involved in 2 or 3 destructive relationships.. A player, which through my rose tinted glasses I failed to acknowledge, believing things could be different. I called time on it after 3 months.. he continued to chase me down and sweet talk, telling me I'd got him all wrong.." Whereas, the whole problem was - you'd got him all RIGHT. He sounds like a plain narc. 13. I suspect, therefore, you were just limbering-up for any future real thing with these few. Practising dumping the dud. See Lily's thread for the last couple of months re Auntie. She's just successfully completed her Dump Thrice as well. Reckon she'll meet someone nice soon, just a male friend......etc. ***************** "A guy who was emotionally manipulating, everything was my fault and I was useless etc, and at the time I believed him.. I called time on it after 2 months after he hauled my son off of the sofa that he wanted to sit on even though there was a sofa free to sit on.." 14. WOOOOAH! WE KNOW WHAT THE 'WHOLE' OF THAT FRACTIONAL FLASH WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE, DON'T WE! Jeez...dodged a bullet. Glad you went straight from 0 to 60 there! He certainly had. Your son's sense of safety in your solo hands must have SHOT up after that. Well done! Picture a 50p coin, and underneath it, two 20 Pence pieces and EITHER a 10 Pence or another 20p to the side of them. This is a Spath's over-entitled idea of rightful family heirarchy. You're underneath with the kids, same size or maybe slightly bigger. But not nearly as big as him. (Puke) DINOSAURS. King Of The Castle - overtly - even in company, especially other men (look at how it's SUPPOSED to be done, lads - I'm better at taming women into their rightful place(s) than you..I'm a superior Man. (They're showy show-offs, even if not mouthy about it like the Overt Grandiose.) Psychos aren't, they're stealthy and don't drop the mask, not until THEY want to.) Yup - "antisocial/inappropriate behaviour" - Spath (still). ***************************************************** Was your dad or whomever a Spath? ***************************************************** "A guy who after a few weeks told me he was Bipolar" (Did you meet all of these on web dating sites? If so, which ones?) 15. Oh, earwigo...Yeah, right. PITY PLOY. That, or Depressed or Impotent or Just Recovered From Cancer, blah-blah..., point is, Fragile. They spot-on mimic normals from genuine situations. You can't fight back with someone mentally ill and fragile, as well as unpredictable, can you. Plus nothing they do is their fault, it's the affliction. "RAPID-cycling Bipolar", was it? Eventually up & down or sideways as rapidly as, say, two-weekly basis? 16. A genuine guy with BiP would do the gentlemanly, conscientious thing and inform you about his illness by about Date 3 - BEFORE you could get attached for now't (if you didn't like it) - AND, more to the point, BEFORE HE COULD. See the chasmic diff? "and that he can sometimes get low, but that his medication keeps him stable. My friend is Bipolar so I thought nothing of it, it's a condition he has and he manages it.. However, after 6 months of messing with his meds and not taking them as he should of been, storming of in anger at the slightest thing, I thought best to call it a day, as it was affecting me. Trouble was he apologised, said his meds were causing problems and he was going to get it checked, he asked if I could come to his psych appt and I did." 17. This one was sneakier, I'm noting. But also - note the huge risk of having you in front of his psychiatrist, able to ask questions and get at least a feel of the truth! THIS IS CALLED A "SOCIOPATHIC REVEAL". They get bored so create a thrill for themselves, precariously placing the 'relationship' too close to the cliff-edge or train-track. 18. So why didn't he sort his meds toute suite the minute he could see he was hurting you, his most important person in the world? See. It was BS. Either he was misdiagnosed or was more controlled..managed, as in kept placid with a more innocent, less antagonising-sounding (they antagonise easily as you know) diagnosis but where the meds were the same. Or perhaps narc co-morbid with BiP? (Don't suppose you got a look at the label(s), did you?) "I ended up continuing the relationship for another year, but things only got worse. It felt emotionally abusive and draining, he was starting to shove and pinch me and criticising me but telling me it was just a joke, I knew I need to leave, but I felt too frightened. That was until one weekend when he blew up at my children and his own, then drove off leaving his 2 boys with me I'm tears. After calming down he returned picked his boys up, ignored me and went home. I ended it that day and endured a few months of threatening behaviour before he finally left me alone." 19. Whereas it should only have stayed the same or improved. THERE IT IS. Shove and pinch you ...as well as with his tongue. These Spaths and Mailg. Narcs, on the other hand, PUNISH you for having tried to escape from him (baad slave) - once he's got you back and can tell he's lulled you into a false sense of security that everything's going to be okay this time. Because the higher the fall, the more it hurts or injures. Plus it's to crush whatever remnants of Confidence and Bravery you managed to garner and employ - your escape ladder. You've been pushed off a cliff or a dodgy height quite a few times, haven't you. (You DEFINITELY qualify to respond to others on here.) ********************************* "A few year later I met a guy who I used to work with many years previous. We got chatting, went out for a drink and started dating. He came on really strong at the start, taking me out for dinner, days out etc. He declared his love for me within a few months, which I found a bit uncomfortable. After about a year I told him I wanted to call time on things. He said to take my time, think things through and he'd give me space." Then rang me after about a week, chatting about the things we'd done together over the last year and the things that we could do looking ahead. I said I'd give things another try, the next few months were okay, then it went downhill, he just didn't seem interested in doing much together unless it involved his passion - avid football supporter for his home team, fishing or going out to hang out with his mates and their other halves to get rat arsed. So I called it quits and walked away. He keep calling me for the first 3 or 4 months for a chat at least once a week I was happy to chat over the phone, but no more than that and he soon tapered off and stopped calling me." 29. A few years, i.e. 2. Too little, in view of. Again - too soon! Yeah, you see, having known them from arm's length is pretty useless, really. It's when you get UP-CLOSE then "closer than close". 30. Came on really strong - there it is. 31. Uncomfortable, uh-huh. 32. He said what? The incredible cheek and arrogance of him! You'd just finished telling him he was no longer IN the job-position that PERITTED him to SUGGEST LIKE A COMMAND, HOW YOU OUGHT TO DO DIFFERENTLY. Awww...you don't know your own mind, loook. (Ugh.) (Bet he's never tried that on any boss who was firing him. Just you/other women. Boss would say - "EEEFFFF OOOFF, YOU A-HOLE, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE BEFORE I HAVE YOU THROWN OUT (...ARROGANT SOD)") 33. By talking about the good times he was warming you back up, pushing your buttons. I call it "Oh, but - remember Paris!" 34. The future plans and promises bit is called Future Faking. You woz manipulated back in, luv. With lots more things like last time but better with which to fill your - wait for it, Ms Lonely - DIARY. 35. Your punishment, therefore, was him NOT showing you the promised good time - the exact OPPOSITE, in fact. See it? He kept you for sex-and-supper-etc-on-tap. PHEW - plain Malignant. 36. Hadn't he wanted to say all this to your face, though, for greater impact? No? Funny, that. Cluck-Cluck Covert. Sneaky-weasley. And no flower delivery? Weren't you worth it? Uh-huh. Cheapskate, miserly, Malignant Narcissist. Well, at least this one was milder, meaning, shows you were heading in the right direction back DOWN Narc Mountain (some). Also explains why you've dumped this one so swiftly and easily. You'd done him already - look! 37. But - FISHING, eh? With his mates? Is that what they're calling it nowadays? Mind you - fishing isn't so FAR from the truth. That means, a lie wrapped in truth. Ths one was Cerebral. However, it is still a Spath move to do a "Sociopathic Reveal", this case, contriving the activity to blame for his absence in order to enable him to use the double-entendre, 'FISHING'. He indeed WAS fishing. Might WELL have been WITH HIS MATES (she's a bitch, boo-hoo, help get me fixed up with a replacement so I can escaaape heeer, boo-hoo). But EE WOZ CHEATING. Dating behind your back. (Spending money on them rather than days/evenings out with you.) Maybe not every time. But keeping you, keeping your side of the bed and sofa warm, while avidly seeking your replacement. Shoulda sent the bstd an invoice for Housekeeping Services Rendered - I would have. ********************** Right, then. Those are satellites - who was the "Mother Ship"? Whom is it that you were/are DETERMINED to see things work with 'this time round' (-no, this time, no-this...)? Particularly huge ship, was it? Or just looked it to a kiddie? ********************** Roger - Over.

Sorry! Just realised I missed some! BTW, I see the Tapering-Off tactic of dumping is your speciality. :-) Again, very good instincts. And again - because that's what you do when retreating from an animal that you can tell could too easily turn savage and either put you in IC or fatally tear you limb from limb, INNIT. All because of their animal-predator "smell". Which you can smell, I note. ASPIE SKILL. ;-) (So do you like to sniff all the leather wallets for-sale in the shops as you handle them?) ************************* " The came the 3 and a half years of just being within my own company. Then this latest guy popped on the scene.." 38. Well, from now on, you know that after that many, even 3-and-a-half years is - well, I'll tell you: one-and-a-half short of the total De-Sliming/Haemoglobin Re-containing period. Galling, huh. But that's life: you live, you learn. In your case, however, I now suspect you weren't even trying to avoid them 'from now on'. You hadn't found your "mother ship" yet - your original Narc offender - so were still pretty-wildly searching, at-speed. "In reference to how he spoke about his ex-wife.. Funnily enough it was like all the other guys in my previous relationships.. he loved her, she cheated on him, she was at fault, he wanted to stay with her despite her cheating and offered to try to make it work, but it was like he wasn't good enough and so he let her go. Now she's married to the guy she left me for. We still talk as we have a daughter together etc.. When he spoke to me about his relationships since his wife.. each one has left him, each time it is their fault.. The first one moved away for a job and he tried to make it work, but she wasn't prepared to negotiate.. The next one mentioned cheated on him.. The next cheated on him too and he took her back 3 times for which he felt he was stupid to have been so nieve thinking it would work, this one preferred money over and above anything else which the guy she was cheating in him with had plenty of. He tell me this the one that really messed him up.. The most recent one left because she got angry with him because he couldn't explain to her why after 3 or 4 months he'd suddenly shut himself away from her for a week or two them came back. That he'd told her he needed space to sort his feelings out but that she wasn't having any of it." 39. Reverse the roles of most of that, if not all. At this point of the proceedings, they tend to tell you what THEY did to the poor ex. Narcissistic Projection and Stealing The Victim Cloak : She loved him, he cheated on her, he was at fault, she wanted to stay with him despite his cheating and offered to try to make it work, but it was like she wasn't good enough and so she let him go. She probably tries NOT to talk to him. I mean, having a daughter together isn't some sort of automatic proof that he and her mother still talk, last time I looked. 40. He's done a lot of cheating, then, hasn't he. And once had to skidaddle to another town, look! After which, she refused to even talk to him. I wonder why? 41. And he left one for a richer woman ...or so his latest ex had thought/been encouraged to think. I wonder why. Wasn't his latest ex sharing enough of her hard-earned money with him for-nothing so this was meant to strongarm her?...his terms and conditions for returning? I reckon. And, in his version, he'd have you believe that being left for some bloke who has more MONEY than him WAS WHAT IT TOOK TO MESS HIM UP? So losing people he claims to love can't mess him up BUT LOSING A GOLDEN GOOSE CAN - ergo, in this truer, roles-reversed case, having had the Spath-version of Luck to find himself a RICH woman (woohoo!), he then ended up (waaah!) losing her (because she got away). Spaths are nothing if not greedy and grabbing. Like bloody PacMan. ...Etcetera. **************** 42. One of the other Red Flags that is (in fact, Martha) reliably present: Unless the victim of the narcissist is a snarky narc as well (albeit, necessarily a lot less bad and powerful) - no TRUE Victim would dream of even accidentally, let alone inadvertently or knowingly, hurt another, especially not in the way they've already claimed they were...because they know what it feels like AND because when we Normal-Healthies inflict pain on another (by accident), we share some of it too. It takes sadism...albeit non-narc sadists tend to enjoy it at the time and genuinely feel bad afterwards. The Malignants are sadistic alright. But that Red Flag does require making investigations if it's to be an Early one: background checks, talking to a DISTANT ex if you can, that sort of thing. ***************** 43. "In the last in person conversation I had with him, he told me that on his stag night he'd kissed a few women," Good GRIEF! And there we go. " and throughout his marriage he had done so too, but they were only stolen kisses.. I must admit I didn't think much of that, you're either with someone or you're not, not kisses with one or more, and fully fledged relationship with the other." Snap! Oh, he's a jar of hearts collector. Ego on two legs. "He mentioned that all the women he's dated just walk away/leave him and its because he's never enough." Well, at least THAT'S true?! This guy either has NO self-awareness and can't join the dots, even between simple Cause & Effect or to Common Denominator (Victim-Bully - "Vulnerable"). Or he knows perfectly well (user who toys sadistically), re-writes history, and just plays dumb. "Over the last week the texts from him have dwindled, I've had a few texts from him informing me he's having a bad week, he's been poorly, this or that hurts, he's tired etc. To which I've replied with short answers.. it sounds like you're having a rough week.. Sorry to hear you've been poorly, hope you're soon on the mend.. Sounds like you're feeling really knackered, hope you can get a good night's sleep.. No invites for me to join him for a cuppa.. I think he's possibly sensing this interaction is slowly running out of steam.." 44. Yup. Been waiting for this bit. Had he been so into you even as a good friend in-progress EVEN A BIT, no WAY would be just let you fade out like this. He'd PHONE...before you cool down too much even for a friend. And he'd say something like, "Is something wrong, only, you've been very quiet? And you've declined tea X times in a row, now. Anything we need to talk about?". Men who are you into do not let you get away if things can be fixed. I've heard too many normal men say, We are not leaving this room until we've sorted this out....please. He won't. Because he doesn't WANT what's wrong brought up above table where you could interrogate the truth out of him. Simples! He'd rather his "thing" with you go slowly down the plughole than walk himself up into the dock. After all, there are plenty more where you came from, not to mention his existing stash (who think he's away on work or whatever and can't wait to see Poor Boo-Boo him again). 45. And that explains why, by the sounds of it, he didn't even ask how YOU were. Just Me-Me-Meeee. 46. But you're worth trying to lazily lure TO HIM with a fresh few bars on his violin. (I'd have said - How's about, ring YOUR MUM and see if she's kept any of your old MediSed.) 47. Yeah, I agree he's realising you're onto him and/or getting fed-up with his practically non-existent show of even friendship keenness. Ill, my arse. That's in case you go MUMMY TO THE RESCUE and rush straight over. But meanwhile, as I say, he's probably not even ill and it's just a great way for keeping you away, still warm on the side, whilst, he hopes, a great cover for his not lifting a finger (even if he did care, he's too busy sifting through more Slave-Benefactor candidates). Oh no! You're another one who's just walked away, look! Funny how that happens to him all the time, isn't it. WHEREAS - let's say he was innocent and thinking, 'Oh god, not again?' and really can't even FACE asking what was wrong (for fear of being rejected). What, the guy's incapable of picking up the actual PHONE and asking you OUT somewhere, like for a meal, and in 2 weeks' time so that he's bound to be back to full health again - to see if that did the trick and had you saying yes? No? Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice. Bleugh. 48. And afore I forget to remind you: someone whom you've not put a foot wrong with yet suddenly switches from very warm within a warm, cosy atmophere to snappy, turning the room suddenly cold? That's deliberate. So is - cold feels colder straight after Very Warm, doesn't it. (An alternative version of the ski-lift before the vertical drop.) He knows what he is. He knows why they 'walked away' (pff, as if to suggest all nonchalantly; I'm sure some positively made a run for it). He doesn't CARE. He likes it that way...just amassing notches on his bedpost at record speed in his quest to come across the perfect target slave-to-be (who's RICH, I reckon). Probably doesn't like how he lost "half of his (HIS) money" in the divorce. No way is he ever going to marry another one. Unless she's RICH. Here - phone him at precisely 10pm, go on. "Is that Domino's Pizza?", haha. Or, "This is X clinic calling with your STD results". Or just say, "It's nearly 10-o-clock, look! Bye!". Haha. Pointless but fun to imagine. :-) Have you got one? Have a go, it's very fun and cathartic. Be as bitchy as you like (you've earned it and he deserves it). ********************** "I must admit, this thread has been a learning curve for me.. or a wake up call to past memories I'd locked away?" Both. "It's been difficult to read, some hard but much needed truths uncovered, but most above all most helpful." Good! And I'm sure it's been incredibly eye-opening and useful - possibly even life-saving (health and sanity-wise) for other would-be victims, too - so thank you. :-) We're not finished yet, though - unless you're done? PS: Doh! Ping just in: 4-yrs younger bloke. 49. Did you have a brother - older? Was he the mother ship?

Ping! ""He mentioned that all the women he's dated just walk away/leave him and its because he's never enough." Here we go. Another bar-setter and Priming tactic. YOU won't ever find him not enough!, you declare (poor wickle bubba, mwa-mwa)....Having no clue that, really, it's that he never GIVES enough. He wants the perks for as little work as possible. Low maintenance Harem. But, so, YOU won't complain. Or even if you do you won't dump him. Because you (not you, a new woman) already pledged your troth earlier ON that you wouldn't, so now you're held to it or facing serious egg on your face, and wishing you'd kept your big mouth shut. (I'd take the egg, thanks, Waiter.)

I met my ex husband at work and we started dating when I was 21 and he was 18 (3 yr age gap). He thought I had only just finished at school and that I was younger than him. We were engaged after 6 months and married 4 years later. I was narc free before I met him although low in self esteem at that time and shy after a bit of a rough time at secondary school (bullying, mostly due to being short and slow to hit puberty). My pregnancy with our second son was exceedingly stressful, especially towards the end of my pregnancy. He was a very unsettled baby, and clingy during his toddler years. He was very anxious and volatile during his infant and junior years. He's 17 now, has anxiety, OCD, is dyslexic and is autistic (high functioning) Over the years he's asked if his dad really wanted him and on occasion still asks. I have no idea why he chose to do what he did to his best mate. They were friends at school as youngsters and met again many years later when my ex started work at the same place he and his then girlfriend (my exes soon to be mistress). He never seemed too jealous or competitive with him for Friends and only had good things to say about him as opposed to slagging him off behind his back. With regard to my exes parents.. his mum and dad ran a business. His dad and mum married when she was 17 and he was in his 20's. She was (she passed away from cancer about 12 years ago) a very demanding and controlling woman and always sought to get what she wanted. She relished her job in inland revenue shutting businesses down and chasing their debt. I found her very overbearing, and bossy, and could be quite unkind with her comments especially on my work life because i had had many jobs (i was trying out different jobs to work out what I did like and the direction I'd like to go), I tolerated her for my ex hubby's sake. She openly admitted to me in front of my ex that she never wanted children.. my ex commented how he's heard her say that that many times.. his dad said he'd only pushed his mum to have a child so he had someone to do motocross with. The majority of my exs childhood and teen years were spent with him being waited on hand and foot by his grandmother (his dad's mum) and the housekeeper. His parents worked all hours and even when they sold the business they left the majority of the care of my ex in the hands of grandmother and housekeeper. I remember them always saying to my ex and I, 'he had everything he could have wanted we bought him things, we took him to Disney world and on holidays etc and he was just a constant pain in the rear end'. To which my ex agreed and they all thought it was funny. They even mentioned that due to his unruly behaviour as a young child they took him to a psychologist. I guess I should have taken heed at the time.. but I remember thinking, poor boy, how could his parent behave that way.. how wrong was I to stay. The day it all came out in the open, I told my family, his parents, my friends.. I felt angry and felt they all needed to know what kind of guy his was behind all his 'gift of the gab'. His ex best mate didnt know about anything until his wife and my ex told him. He kicked his wife (my exes mistress) out and then he shut himself away and went into a bit of a downward spiral. Despite my reaching out he didn't want to speak to me and hasn't to this day. My ex seems to think we're best buddies these days (hahaha).. I tolerate him and am civil towards him for the sake of our two sons, and thankfully don't have to have much to do with him these days. As for the Bipolar guy.. It was type one Bipolar (manic high, suicidal low) with anxiety and psychotic depression. He was all over the place, as was his medication. Unfortunately, yes I did meet all of these guys on a web dating site (except for one) called Plenty of Fish.. I've not been anywhere since a dating site since my last relationship ended 3 and a half years ago. I can't think of anyone or anything that screams out motherhood to me.. My father isn't a narc, or spath, neither is my brother although he is autistic and highly anxious, always has been. I've always turned to my dad for support because he's always been there for me, never judging, and simply listening, although I do remember him getting stressed alot during his working years which made him a bit snappy with my mum at times. My mum has exceedingly low self esteem due to her younger sisters (8 and 10 years younger respectively) always running her down. She has always relied on me to support her. I feel upset when I admit we do not have a close relationship, I love her dearly but we are not close. My parents spent the first 3 years of my brothers life in and out of hospital with him, with therapists etc, whilst I would spend a week here and there throughout with my grandparents, so I learnt and relished in my independence at a very young age. I don't ever remember conversations with my parents about puberty, sex or relationships, I seem to remember working it out for myself, when it came to it. With regards to whom was it that I was determined to see things work with this time round. I'm not sure if I may have misunderstood the question, but I guess I determined to see things work with the traditionalistic sergeant major guy. Why? Because I felt badly burned, and washed up on the scrapheap after my ex hubby. I had 2 children and felt no one would want me, hence my dash straight back into the dating game. At that point in time I also wanted to show my ex hubby that I was still desirable, as well as myself. I think, once you feel I've got my head around understanding all this and I'm feeling capable of being able to help others who've been through a similar experience, I would like to perhaps stick around and warn and advise others on Narcissism.

P.s. with reference to the most recent guy.. he's ended the working week with calling me (yesterday evening).. he's not once called me on the phone to talk until now that is. I missed his call on Thursday which he followed up with a text message to say he'd called and was asking how my dad was and if i am okay. I texted back a short message to say, didn't hear the call, my dad still unwell and I'm all good. He then called again yesterday (Friday) I picked up, he asked basically the same as he'd asked me I his text and then proceeded to talk about himself. I excused myself from the call fairly quickly as thankfully my evening meal was ready to eat. He then texted again today, a fair bit again asking if I was okay, to which I replied I was okay thanks.. and then he went on to talk about his week and himself again. I responded a few times and then just left it just like he used to leave me hanging. Felt quite nice to feel able to do that. I've a feeling it's likely that he'll text again tomorrow and more than likely ask if I'd like to join him for a cuppa.. It seems like he works in this kind of pattern of all in, nothing and go cold, dribs and drabs and then all in and invite round for a cuppa. Repeat.. which I think you may of mentioned is a trait of a spath/narc?

PS: "After about a year I told him I wanted to call time on things. He said to take my time, think things through and he'd give me space." Then rang me after about a week, chatting about the things we'd done together over the last year and the things that we could do looking ahead." 1. Obviously, first there's him refusing you your right to call the relationship Over, as if you don't know or don't own your own mind. 2. Then he says he'll give you space. ("Oh, thanks very much, so gracious of you to give me space when what I've already said I want is separate planets!") 3. And he'd have you believe that space to him means one piddly week - haha! How transparent. 4. Really, his thinking he could leave it that disrespectfully short, aside - it was this: he tried to force you to stick around, warm-on-the-side, while he went shopping for a replacement (or addition?). But thin pickings had him wanting to come back (too soon to have given you any useful amount of 'space'). Blah blah blah. BS. And then when you gave it another try, he continued cruising under the guise of (cough) fishing.

Oh, you're up - and you've posted! Hi! Wait up...

"I met my ex husband at work and we started dating when I was 21 and he was 18 (3 yr age gap). He thought I had only just finished at school and that I was younger than him." You mean back when you first met? " We were engaged after 6 months and married 4 years later." Woah. TOO FAST! To get engaged, I mean. Should ideally (more healthily, which means more set for success) get engaged no sooner than Year 2 and then an engagement period of 2. You were very young to marry, both of you. But, no matter. That's just a Red Herring to the issue at hand, which is, marrying too young whereby you both are still developing and can too easily veer off in different directions is still no excuse for the way he treated you. But surely at 21 he felt far less mature than you? Still a case of, like dating your younger brother? Or had you been a tad developmentally delayed during your teen years by some sort of "I was narc free before I met him although low in self esteem at that time and shy after a bit of a rough time at secondary school (bullying, mostly due to being short and slow to hit puberty)." Research recently in: Kids who are bullied/victimised at home are almost guaranteed to present as an easy target for bullying at school (amongst other things like posture, that'll be the stench of slime). So who primed you to be a target at home? Or was it primary or middle school? "My pregnancy with our second son was exceedingly stressful," I'm not surprised. "especially towards the end of my pregnancy." Ditto. "He was a very unsettled baby," Ditto. "and clingy during his toddler years. He was very anxious and volatile during his infant and junior years." Ditto, ditto, ditto. "He's 17 now, has anxiety, OCD," Aw, crap. " is dyslexic and is autistic (high functioning)" He might have been autistic - with the "lysdexia" (haha) as side dish, anyway, regardless of the affect in the womb of your stress hormones. I hate that ex-beep of yours even more now. "Over the years he's asked if his dad really wanted him and on occasion still asks." Oh, poor little lamb. Oh for god's sake. What do you say to him? Do you tell him that both you and his best mate feel exactly the same to illustrate how it's his father's problem and nothing personal to any of you? If you haven't - try it. Or try this: Daddy loves you with the whole of his heart. Unfortunately, because his parents weren't very good parents and didn't teach him healthily, Daddy's heart is EXTREMELY SMALL and mostly sleeping. But I, on the other hand, have a BIGGER than average, wide-awake one, meaning, I love you to the tune of two parents! Don't, whatever you do, keep him in the dark. Give him the truth. Kids aren't stupid and feel the same way as we do about not knowing the truth and where we stand and why, etc. "I have no idea why he chose to do what he did to his best mate. They were friends at school as youngsters and met again many years later when my ex started work at the same place he and his then girlfriend (my exes soon to be mistress). He never seemed too jealous or competitive with him for Friends and only had good things to say about him as opposed to slagging him off behind his back." Just another lump of wood to him, then. Yep, malig. psycho. "With regard to my exes parents.. his mum and dad ran a business. His dad and mum married when she was 17 and he was in his 20's." And sonny Jim replicated it, look...just one year out (18-21). So you were 'his dad', maybe. In that case, that would make him - the bully - his mum. "She was (she passed away from cancer about 12 years ago) a very demanding and controlling woman and always sought to get what she wanted." Yup. And I wasn't even reading ahead. This is pure texbook. "She relished her job in inland revenue shutting businesses down and chasing their debt." Relished it, eh. Relished getting to devastate people. And I'll bet she didn't do it gently. Ya vull. "I found her very overbearing," So am I and I've only got to this first sentance! "and bossy, and could be quite unkind with her comments especially on my work life because i had had many jobs (i was trying out different jobs to work out what I did like and the direction I'd like to go)," Ooh, quick, someone bang you up! Jeez. What a stupid excuse to try to peck you into subservient position to her Dominator. Yup, that's what she is. SADIST. Cold. Left-brained only. Psycho. I wonder what she was like with a fragile, super-sensitive baby... Good god. No wonder. But WHERE WAS USELESS DAD, THEN? Didn't he challenge her when she spoke to you and others like that? Would you nowadays know to say (and rudely back) - And what business is it of yours WHAT I do or don't do? " I tolerated her for my ex hubby's sake." Still hanging around her, trying to gain her approval and affection, was he? Or had he already become just like her (they like that...they cease snarling and you start getting pat on the head...whereupon acting like her gets to stay and repeat-repeat-repeat becomes habit and repeat-repeat-repeat, second nature...CONCRETE.). " She openly admitted to me in front of my ex that she never wanted children.." OH FOR EFF'S SAKE!!! Oh my god. That is definitely enough to break a child permanently. How many times had she said that and directly to her son? Loads, I'll bet. Jesus Christ, I'm retro-witnessing the murder of a child. (Oh, someone give me the syringes, PLEASE.) " my ex commented how he's heard her say that that many times" Oop - sorry, LOL. ".. his dad said he'd only pushed his mum to have a child so he had someone to do motocross with." OH, WELL. OH, WELL. NO WONDER. TWO PSYCHO PARENTS. He had zero hope. They had him at, Congratulations, it's a boy. Poor boy. Jesus, can you imagine? Yup, he'd have had the humanity kicked out of him from an early age alright. He's trained to move and sound right, but underneath that he'll be literally insane in a humanity-hating way (and particularly mothers). "The majority of my exs childhood and teen years were spent with him being waited on hand and foot by his grandmother (his dad's mum)" Oh great - over-spoiled on top! That'll be where the Grandiose portion of the Narcissism came from. If a monster is what you've got, you must NEVER feed him like that! It doesn't re-soften them, it just makes them overbearingly cocky! Especially if being waited on only practically (and I note you don't add "and cuddled constantly".) She should have been retraining him the right way, instead. But - the overall message all that spoiling gets interpreted now that the once-boy has been reduced to an animal, is this: Here is your reward for being a monster. Or - you, as you are, are king. " and the housekeeper." Oh yeah? Tell me more. " His parents worked all hours and even when they sold the business they left the majority of the care of my ex in the hands of grandmother and housekeeper. I remember them always saying to my ex and I, 'he had everything he could have wanted we bought him things, we took him to Disney world and on holidays etc and he was just a constant pain in the rear end'. To which my ex agreed and they all thought it was funny." You remember WHO always saying - the gran and housekeeper or the cold-fish so-called parents? Yeah, he'd been completely brainwashed, look. So, for example, if he felt bad it "was" (God 1 and God 2 say so) because he was "too sensitive" so he had to stuff the horrid feeling down rather than feel it (which is what releases it out) because feeling it leads to showing/revealing it. He really must be stuffed full of seething atop of seething atop of seething.... But, anyway - UGH, JEEZUZ, CALL SOCIAL SERVICES! It's called kid trying to communicate his utter screaming desperation to be SHOWN LOVE AND CARE and BE HELD. Christ. I'll bet he doesn't even remember, anyway...blocked it out. " They even mentioned that due to his unruly behaviour as a young child they took him to a psychologist. I guess I should have taken heed at the time.. but I remember thinking, poor boy, how could his parent behave that way.. how wrong was I to stay." Uh-huh. They over and over and over...kicked the sweetness and sensitivity and other normal, soft-hearted human qualities he'd been born with, out of him. His humanity. Until mostly only an animal remained, but still with human working parts. Bet he was left to cry in his cot regularly for too long as well. ************** "The day it all came out in the open, I told my family, his parents, my friends.. I felt angry and felt they all needed to know what kind of guy his was behind all his 'gift of the gab'." Well done! And again, good instincts because - YES THEY DO. Without that, they don't know to give him a wider berth in future and could be next in his crosshairs. " His ex best mate didnt know about anything until his wife and my ex told him." TOGETHER???? Please say no? " He kicked his wife (my exes mistress) out and then he shut himself away and went into a bit of a downward spiral. Despite my reaching out he didn't want to speak to me and hasn't to this day." Good, glad he kicked her out. Bet she rues THAT day, eh! Understandable. That was two massive betrayals. Poor man.. And I expect he felt too humiliated in front of you and reminded of it every time he clocked your face. Did you get to hear how he was doing? "My ex seems to think we're best buddies these days (hahaha).. I tolerate him and am civil towards him for the sake of our two sons, and thankfully don't have to have much to do with him these days." You really do have spot-on instincts. These are textbook, safest-, canniest-going, counter-tactics you're instinctually reaching for! I'm starting to think that if there's really no-one from your homelife, then this quest to re-enact with your past, 'unconquerable', might even bloody pre-date you! Crikey, that'd be a new one (on here, I mean). Or have you already read up on them and how to handle them? Or is it just common-sense to you (which would still mean it were unfinished business sat dormant in your genes)? You know too much, LOL. Brilliant. "As for the Bipolar guy.. It was type one Bipolar (manic high, suicidal low) with anxiety and psychotic depression. He was all over the place, as was his medication." Ok. But again - neither is Bipolar, whichever type, synonymous with Giant Ahole. Like your BiP male friend? Equally, he could have just run outside naked in front of the neighbours as choose to slap and pinch you, yeah? But anyway, BiP and NPD are old bedfellows where the sufferer has enough narc traits so it appears that's probably what you had here. Great - a cocktail made of two impossible-to-live-with conditions. It's a b*tch to diagnose, though, because they both share one of the main identifiers: Impulsivity (including risk-taking). "Unfortunately, yes I did meet all of these guys on a web dating site (except for one) called Plenty of Fish.. I've not been anywhere since a dating site since my last relationship ended 3 and a half years ago." Plenty of Freaks. Or Mulch Dot Commie. (Say n'more.) How did I know that, eh? LOL Good. Don't ever. As you now know - you're pretty much guaranteed to end up with an ego. or life-force or conman-predator because, as with other social media - it's PERFECT for fake impressions and personas because the innocent is blindfolded and wearing earplugs (and nose plugs in your case). "I can't think of anyone or anything that screams out motherhood to me.. My father isn't a narc, or spath, neither is my brother although he is autistic and highly anxious, always has been. I've always turned to my dad for support because he's always been there for me, never judging, and simply listening, although I do remember him getting stressed alot during his working years which made him a bit snappy with my mum at times." Ah. There it is. That must have happened when you were still very impressionable, meaning, it stuck more than any other subsequent memory or technically overlaying understanding of them. I wonder how much more snapping happened when you were asleep but got in anyway, without getting registered and memorised. Your template got a bit ucked, is the point. You wouldn't have had a clue, you'd have just followed your feet. " My mum has exceedingly low self esteem due to her younger sisters (8 and 10 years younger respectively) always running her down." Right, OKAY. " She has always relied on me to support her." Reactive narcissistic woman, more like a hapless child...roles get reversed (you being mother to your mother while no-one properly mothers YOU). So your dad would have been always in-charge, then? Talk about lopsided template. No equality there, then. You were bound to be seeking a dominant man whether or NOT your father was actually domineering. Like if he had been slightly plump but your mum stick-thin - now, stood always beside her, he looks FAT, yes? Like that. And I doubt YOU got much inflating either, what with mothering your mother, even if only emotionally. "I feel upset when I admit we do not have a close relationship, I love her dearly but we are not close." She needn't have a nasty bone in her body to be narcissised and incapable of giving. All she woould need would be low enough on the Aspie scale, i.e. near enough Neurotypical, meaning - unlike a more full-blown ASD - socially influenceable = pliable, re-shapeable, squishable. With her siblings constantly pecking at her, growing up - as an especially sensitive, gentle, deeply caring child, she would first have reined her neck in and then climbed back into herself and stayed there, never really seeing and learning enough data. "In her own little world". "My parents spent the first 3 years of my brothers life in and out of hospital with him, with therapists etc, whilst I would spend a week here and there throughout with my grandparents, so I learnt and relished in my independence at a very young age." Mainly otherwise engaged for 3-plus years of your childhood. Whether as a kid you relished the liberty or not, you're still today carrying a parental deficit, particularly motherly. You could have had enough independence for adventuring AND enough parental attention. No need to compensate yourself. YOU WOZ ROBBED. Bit like your walls didn't get finished with plastering and emulsion. Sense? Still - it's easily fixed. And then you'll increasingly find those narcs pretty repulsive (ugh, no I do NOT want a drink, THANK-you). " I don't ever remember conversations with my parents about puberty, sex or relationships, I seem to remember working it out for myself, when it came to it." You self-parented, yup. Bloody lucky you had the above-average intelligence with which to do so, then, isn't it or - there but for the grace of God would have gone you! Phuh-EW. Lucky break from on high. What was brother picking-up on, though, to make him so anxious? Addtionally, however, you were missing a portion of brother. So we have, dominant father figure with a soupcon of maternal (emotional bloke) and a side-salad of brother. You gotta coupl'a holes in your stockings, luv. LOL (Still, who these days doesn't!) "With regards to whom was it that I was determined to see things work with this time round. I'm not sure if I may have misunderstood the question, but I guess I determined to see things work with the traditionalistic sergeant major guy. Why? Because I felt badly burned, and washed up on the scrapheap after my ex hubby. I had 2 children and felt no one would want me, hence my dash straight back into the dating game. At that point in time I also wanted to show my ex hubby that I was still desirable, as well as myself." Well, I meant, whom from your past were you trying to re-enact a relatonship with in order to this time make that same dynamic succeed. But no matter because it's dealt with up there. Traditionalistic....man boss, woman dependent come assistant....50s. Sergeant Major.... even when solo - in command at all times, structuring and motivating. Guy. Like a bro. Yeah (burned, washed up), I'll bet you did! Awwww. That's nonsense. It just means a different demographic, that's all. So many men would GENUINELY LOVE an instant family - emphasis on Love the verb first. But they can't if your office desk is being occupied by whatever idiot all the time, right? He knew you were. That's why he wanted you. It's especially ego-pumping to bring down then permanently cut down to size, disfigure, hobble...RUIN a truly fine specimen. So he failed miserably, then. Hah. Hi, unwitting, self-taught, self-neurotypified Aspie Girl. :-) You're very rare, you know. You're (undiagnosed) Aspie, bro's Autie. By contrast, you wouldn't have been noticable as one. But I tell ya - that confidence where you don't worry and panic like NT kids at getting lost at the zoo, for example, or have no trouble entertaining yourself, by yourself, for hours on end - it's priceless. But let's see...I'll go have a look, see whether Wired new-and-improved is back up and running. It's accepted by the RAS as a precursor diagnosis. Should be even more spot-on now. "I think, once you feel I've got my head around understanding all this and I'm feeling capable of being able to help others who've been through a similar experience, I would like to perhaps stick around and warn and advise others on Narcissism." FANTASTIC! That'll pump you back up - in NO TIME. It's not why I do it, obvs. But it pumps me nontheless, helping people and creating my own, little, counter-active Mexican wave for holding back the rotten wave coming from your nasty narcs. It definitely makes a difference, which you realise when you stop to think about how far the ripples can go. Super stuff. :-) And by the way, I think you're exceptionally cool. (50p please, haha)

Stop Press, eh? "P.s. with reference to the most recent guy.. he's ended the working week with calling me (yesterday evening).. he's not once called me on the phone to talk until now that is." Oh, really. Well, let's not get excited yet. But - it seems to be a good start, a stepping-up finally? "I missed his call on Thursday which he followed up with a text message to say he'd called and was asking how my dad was and if i am okay." You, You, YOU, eh? And well done for having not been there (haha, you know what I mean). " I texted back a short message to say, didn't hear the call, my dad still unwell and I'm all good." SHORT message (tick!). Like-for-like (text). Dead-end sentance, making him have to work even harder. There you go again (show-off! LOL)- Gold Star x 2! I would say that was excellent mirroring but - that's what Aspies are best at, anyway....walking mirrors. (Not remotely like a Narc, though. Not possible anyway - they ain't got enough of the NT wiring for that, it'd be like trying to convert a Microwave Oven into a Tree, LOL.) "He then called again yesterday (Friday)!" UH-OH. This has gone from barely now't to suddenly too much. Pink Flag, it might all be contrived. (Like I said, never get excited - especially until you have a pervasive positive pattern over a longish term.) "I picked up, he asked basically the same as he'd asked me I his text and then proceeded to talk about himself." OH. ("Peeeeee-ewwwww....") " I excused myself from the call fairly quickly as thankfully my evening meal was ready to eat." Because he was being boring or you were finding him newly boring (because he's already turned you off)? "He then texted again today," Three days running. Or two-and-a-third considering it's a text. But basically contact once per day for 3 days. But, how come on Thursday, he didn't try again later? That's bothering me so it means something, but it's subtle and open to dual or more interpretation. I'll have a think and get back to you. " a fair bit again asking if I was okay, to which I replied I was okay thanks.. and then he went on to talk about his week and himself again." Well, to be fair, it does sound as if you're presenting dead-end statements without adding end questions, which is a bit like - he serves over the net, and you hit the ball back but into the net. He has to serve again. Are you? And are you aware and doing it deliberately? " I responded a few times and then just left it just like he used to leave me hanging." OOOOOOOOOHHHHH! ME LIKE. Claws coming back out at last. Good for you! Now't like a wee bit of taste of own medicine to encourage a bit of "Doh!" in a man...IF there's truly any empathy in there to be had, that is. " Felt quite nice to feel able to do that." I'll bet! It's called belatedly sticking-up for yourself (whilst, "down there", return-dosing icky meds). A little of it, if harmless, does you good. "I've a feeling it's likely that he'll text again tomorrow and more than likely ask if I'd like to join him for a cuppa.." 'Tsk. Maybe but...Not another cuppa. Boooring.' Try that. "It seems like he works in this kind of pattern of all in, nothing and go cold, dribs and drabs and then all in and invite round for a cuppa. Repeat.. which I think you may of mentioned is a trait of a spath/narc? Sigh - yeah. Making like a Fruit-Machine. Oh well. Just keep being a firm...hard, sassy, nut to crack and see what he does with that! If the guy IS healthy but not ready/issue-ridden then this - from you - will be very good for him and his (masculine) confidence, by making him face his fears but do it anyway (if fears are what it is) and get used to actually WOOING (working) to earn a woman! Take the friendly piss out of him a lot - especially to "corrr-ECT him, Mrs Torrence" (LOL) - that'll work too. Banter, innit, but with hidden dating training, LOL. Good stuff! :-) Keep keeping me posted. Do you still fancy him, though? Or still want him as a best male bud?

I heavily suspect your ex's father was constantly cheating but kept it properly under wraps (albeit movement and time-keeping clues, etc., and vibes, and just his father's attitude, would have been present). Monkey see, Monkey do. If his mum was painfully cutting, he would have stuck around his (cheating) father more and soaked up the general mindset.

Who primed me to be a target?.. I guess my thoughts lie with primary school. I remember one teacher I primary school.. I was 7, and had just started wearing glasses with a patch over one lense. I was crying about something that happened in class and the teacher turned to me and said, 'why the crying? If you keep crying your glasses will stick to your face and you'll stay like that'. It may have been said in jest, but I remember her looking quite stern and the rest of the class focused on me.. cue more crying. I remember being 8 or 9 and my best friend being bullied by 3 other girls in our class because she was different, I did my best to protect her for want of a better phrase, and they simply added me into the bullying but remained more focused on giving my friend a hard time. My friend left a year or two before we were to transfer to High school. The ones that bullied her then befriended me, but also continued to bully/be mean to me when it suited them. They would include me in things then outcast me and this continued into high school. Two girls at high school took over where the others left off and bullied me throughout high school along with one lad. I eventually snapped with the lad in my last year at high school, and unintentionally lashed out, punching him in the nose and giving him a nose bleed. He threatened to inform the class tutor, but the rest of the class had seen it happen and were to my surprise backing me. The two girls and the lad left me alone after that in the remaining few months that were left before we left school. I felt awful for hurting him, and did try to offer him help and an apology, but at the same time felt glad that it had happened. I have always be upfront and honest with my boys regarding their dad, and have done my best to explain things in a way that they would understand from the age that they started asking questions, and that it was their dad's problem and not theirs or ours. Unfortunately my ex chose his stepchildren and daughter above our boys for the majority of the time and over the years it has eaten away at the boys, but we've always talked about it and they've maintained the relationship with their dad throughout and in a way that suits them and not their dad over the last 2 or 3 years. My exes dad never challenged his wife, she ruled the roost so to speak. I remember when she had been drinking and decided it was okay yo read through my diary that I'd happened to leave out in my lounge when they were round one day. I politely asked for it back reminding her it was my property and personal to me, but she ignored me and neither his dad or my ex who were both in the room too said or did nothing and left her to continue. As to WHO was always saying to my ex that he was not wanted, it was his parents. His gran and the housekeeper doted on him and he could do no wrong in their eyes. At best they would look back fondly and laugh at his behaviours. In answer to whether his ex best mate didnt know about anything until his wife and my ex told him. I'm afraid they very kindly (not) told him together. When my ex and his ex best mates wife got married 3 years after all the fall out, his ex best mate attended the wedding.. he went back for more.. It's really messed up. They became friends again about a year after everything blew up. His ex wife coined him out of child maintenance for his child with her (and also for her child from a guy she had from her ex but which my ex then took on, (as in adopted) and they'd started calling my ex their 'dad' and their actual dads by first name. A few years after my ex remarried they changed all the kids surnames to his and gave her ex husband no choice in the matter, he just agreed to it and they all started playing a game of exceedingly wierd happy families and still do this day. The day everything came out in the open with my ex hubby, he told me that I was his best friend, I was like a sister to him and he'd always love me, but he was in love with K (his best mates wife). I knew at that point there was nothing to rescue, every last ounce of trust was gone. I didn't want to be with him, I wanted to divorce him and I didn't want to be friends, but I knew I needed to get on with him for the sake of our children. I took my rings off placed them in his hand and told him I would be dealing with things. I told him to ring her and tell her I now knew whilst I sat right next to him. He then sat in tears pleading with me not to stop him seeing his boys and telling me he was sorry. I sat and silently watched him. When he'd finished crying he left to go see her to tell her hubby together what about their affair. I knew friends was way out of the question for me and simply chose to be civil and tolerate him. I first read about narcs after the guy that threw my son off the sofa as his behaviour seemed really off the scale, and I had questions I needed answering. I didn't read anything about how to deal with them though as at the time my thoughts were along the lines of, 'So he could have been a narc? Thank god I'm out of it now'. When each of my previous relationships ended, I just always kind of carefully faded them out until they eventually stopped contacting me and left me alone.. hoping that makes sense? Albeit for the ex hubby that is but I've ways kept contact to the bare minimum with him, with any messages or conversation purely related to our boys. Jumping back to the present day.. I don't fancy him now. I did find him attractive, but it's like that's been wiped away. I'm not sure I even want him as a best male bud. I find the recent guy really quite boring now, all I hear is about him, his life, his crap.. its just.. boring and such a one sided conversation.. I could see that before now, yet I still hung round for more.. why do I do that? Why when in the past, in the early stages (first few months, weeks even) do I ignore my instinct, the instinct that flashes up with 'proceed with caution', that waves a red flag in front of my face, that screams at me 'just don't go there, walk away'. Hindsight is fantastic for showing me the error of my ways, but I'm angry with myself for shutting down my gut instinct so many times, in favour of steam rolling into a relationship that really is not worth my time or energy. I listen to it in every other aspect of my life.. but why not when it comes to dating/relationships? I stopped dating, spent those 3 and a half years being just me, choosing not to meet anyone for fear of making the same mistake yet again. To work on myself. And then allowing myself to be caught out again by ignoring all the signs, signs that I have experienced in the past for goodness sake! I told myself throughout that time alone that I needed to listen to and trust my instincts and believed I would do just so if I ever met anyone again.. and instead I repeat the same pattern as before. Its made me question over the last month whether I can or want to be in a relationship anymore. Not Confused by his mixed signals anymore.. I feel more confused with my own, and the same mistake I keep repeating..

Hi again, (Just quickly before I reply...It occurred to me yesterday: another Delighting Dupe was: with my mates. MATES. People you MATE with. See if you can recall any more cheating-related double-entendres and let me know.) "Who primed me to be a target?.. I guess my thoughts lie with primary school. I remember one teacher I primary school.. I was 7, and had just started wearing glasses with a patch over one lense. I was crying about something that happened in class and the teacher turned to me and said, 'why the crying? If you keep crying your glasses will stick to your face and you'll stay like that'. It may have been said in jest, but I remember her looking quite stern and the rest of the class focused on me.. cue more crying." Stupid woman. I sincerely hope she didn't have kids of her own if THAT'S how she routinely treated ones that didn't even belong to her, whom were little captives in her classroom (and that scene doesn't sound like a First to me). You were patently an extra-sensitive (means above avg intelligent) child. And, no matter her subject knowledge - that woman was obvously not qualified to be in-charge of sensitive souls if she was going to unleash her bad moods on them like that. How you felt and reacted does indeed smack, quite highly, in fact, of Aspie-level sensibilities, including self-consciousness. Wired's site is still under construction but I'll plonk the link here and make it stand out so that you can re-find it easily to check whether it's ready (let me know when it is): OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO https://www.wired.com/2001/12/aqtest/ OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO What is your very first childhood memory, how old were you? Do you have an elephantine memory, or just better, compared to other people's (outside of your family)? Do you have any favourite objects that you're 'weirdly' incredibly attached to (e.g. a favourite cup, clothing item, stuffed toy, beach pebble, other) that you've had for years and would feel upset about if they went missing or broke? Have you always found the social greeting dance (Hi, how are you/Fine thanks, you?/Fine, thanks) strikes you as somewhat silly and unnecessary, and wish people would just skip that bit? Are you bodily sensitive, e.g. badly-placed, inside clothing labels can drive you to distraction and you tend to want to ask cafe/restaurant managers if they could please turn the music down a bit? "I remember being 8 or 9 and my best friend being bullied by 3 other girls in our class because she was different, I did my best to protect her for want of a better phrase, and they simply added me into the bullying but remained more focused on giving my friend a hard time. My friend left a year or two before we were to transfer to High school. Are you incredibly brave (socially or otherwise), compared to others?" I'm not surprised. The school obviously didn't deal with it. Bet you were utterly gutted, though, when you found out? "The ones that bullied her then befriended me, but also continued to bully/be mean to me when it suited them." Your bravery (strike above Q - answer's patently Yes) impressed them. But then you got to find out what being their "friend" meant you had to tolerate. I expect every new addition was put through that warped initiation. Point is, though - you hang around them at close-quarters like that and you can become gradually skinned or infected (not that you had a choice back then). They would definitely have desensitized you - teens are highly cross-impressionable, start soaking up (peer influences) like a sponge again. So this was the first time you got infected (mildly, though - Aspies don't let ANYTHING slip in without giving it a very thorough inspection test...some would have slipped through, however, whenever you were tired, premenstrual, feeling poorly, for example). " They would include me in things then outcast me and this continued into high school. Two girls at high school took over where the others left off and bullied me throughout high school along with one lad. I eventually snapped with the lad in my last year at high school, and unintentionally lashed out, punching him in the nose and giving him a nose bleed. He threatened to inform the class tutor, but the rest of the class had seen it happen and were to my surprise backing me. The two girls and the lad left me alone after that in the remaining few months that were left before we left school. I felt awful for hurting him, and did try to offer him help and an apology, but at the same time felt glad that it had happened." (Oh, crikey...should have read ahead a bit.) All of that is nothing minor. Especially adding a boy*. What a horrid time you must have had. But, yup - THERE IT IS. AND more to the future boyfriends point - THERE* No matter that you hit back (well done) - he had still injured you, right when you were entering dating, an highly sensitive (for you, even more so!) age. These impacts IMPRINT, and any conclusions drawn at the time, LAST..and get added to your mental template...a bit like being branded. Haha - left you alone after that? Gosh, you don't say. PMSL (Gold Star!) ****So, from that major, indelible impression, you concluded that you can handle them.**** It was necessary - he made it so (bullying a girl - shame on him!). His parents should have taught him better. But I wouldn't be surprised if he was re-enacting his home-life or expressing his frustration towards it. You never know, you probably did him and his future quality of female interactions and relationships a huge favour. Well, it should have had that effect - unless he had already been too far gone - put it that way. "I have always be upfront and honest with my boys regarding their dad, and have done my best to explain things in a way that they would understand from the age that they started asking questions," (TICK!) You must have an amazing memory to have that much understanding and compassion with kids - other people forget what it's like to FEEL like a kid and have to be told/reminded that, normally, the point at which kids start asking certain questions demonstrates they're mentally and emotionally ready for the (simplified, kid-friendly) answers (TICK!). "and that it was their dad's problem and not theirs or ours." (Tick!) Unfortunately my ex chose his stepchildren and daughter above our boys for the majority of the time (typical) and over the years it has eaten away at the boys (typical), but we've always talked about it and they've maintained the relationship with their dad throughout and in a way that suits them and not their dad over the last 2 or 3 years. (Tick!) You sound like you're doing everything right, and no stone unturned. "My exes dad never challenged his wife, she ruled the roost so to speak." What the petty stuff, like, what to have to dinner or where to go on holiday? Yep. Don't be fooled. It's not uncommon for a psycho to choose a loose-cannon type of partner, who kicks up a lot of dust, so that IN COMPARISON, the psycho looks like the normal, and poor, put-upon spouse when the opposite is true and, meanwhile, the roost-ruler has ZERO access to marital funds (financially abused), acts-up more than usual because she's being neglected, given no emotional support, and her so-called power is just petty household stuff, meanwhile, made to take all the blame for everything that goes wrong". Very common, delberately false impression and set-up. Put simply: good cop, bad cop (but the latter is unawares or blinkered). "I remember when she had been drinking and decided it was okay yo read through my diary that I'd happened to leave out in my lounge when they were round one day." Over-entitled. No regard for Social rules and etiquette. Sneaky (waited until you were out of the room). Definitely narcissistic (benign level). "I politely asked for it back reminding her it was my property and personal to me, but she ignored me and neither his dad or my ex who were both in the room too said or did nothing and left her to continue." THAT'S GANG BULLYING. And atrocious. Unconscionable, in fact. Yup. All three, then - got it. Yuck, you married into a nest. What happened next? Keep going? ************ ***So current matey must logically feel quite mild and manageable by comparison, yes?*** ************ Mild'uns still do damage, though. Just over a longer period (drip-drip-drip). "As to WHO was always saying to my ex that he was not wanted, it was his parents. His gran and the housekeeper doted on him and he could do no wrong in their eyes. At best they would look back fondly and laugh at his behaviours." The perfect storm: given too much attention and doting - but superficially (including because they weren't the parents) on the one hand....bullied to uck on the other. Depending on to whatever severity : Grade A Narcissist to corresponding severity. This case, Narcissistic Malignant Psychopath, Junior. "In answer to whether his ex best mate didnt know about anything until his wife and my ex told him. I'm afraid they very kindly (not) told him together." Bstds. What mind-blowingly, MASSIVE, mind-bomb! Was that cowardice - or sadism - or both together? No wonder the bloke couldn't tolerate going near even you. "When my ex and his ex best mates wife got married 3 years after all the fall out, his ex best mate attended the wedding" Huh?! Strike last statement re why he strangely didn't want to bother with you - this changes everything. You weren't important to the guy in terms of any bit part in any revenge campaign...not being normal, he didn't naturally gravitate towards you like a co-victim understandably would, for human comfort and support. He didn't need it. He wasn't HEART-broken, just EGO-broken (diff/all the diff). He was probably spending ages, plotting on how to get her back or stick it to Psycho, meanwhile enjoying his freedom to collect bedpost notches from unawares wanna-be girlfriends and thereby pump his shrivelled, Blackened ego back up. "he went back for more" Precisely. Who the hell in a million years would want to do THAT - after THAT! Other than another Psycho or Spath. And so it's 'WHAT the hell would'. ".. It's really messed up. They became friends again about a year after everything blew up. " What can happen is this: she was his victim...along came your Thing, convinced her he was her white knight in shining armour as well as Mr Healthy-Perfect - when the truth is he's actually FAR WORSE than the bloke she's trying to escape from! The cuckolded bloke, therefore, has a similar "it's just business, nothing personal" and "all's fair in Love and War", hard-hearted attitude to your ex, and after "getting over it" (not/never), simply deferred to the Bullies (warped) Heirarchy and got newly in-line. Sociopaths have NO SHAME. A Psychopath won't think twice about picking on a Spath. Spaths can have a conscience, but it's not enough - save for making them feel a tiny bit guilty - to make any difference to their overriding urge to smash-grab-take. So presumably, Spath stole B Narc and then years later when it would really hurt - Psycho stole her back. Talk about jungle law for sneaky, devious, but thick as pig-sh*t, animals. (Unlike normal people, ex-Psycho would ACCEPT ex-Spath back into his entourage for reasons including, knowing it'll create a bit of sport and diversion and being welcoming of it....or intending to bide his time and strike the Spath AGAIN. Tweedledee and Tweedledumber...like mutually-hating siblings from hell that just can't leave it or each other alone, even if you'd thought you'd separated them by putting them in separate rooms. This - sparring over a trophy...a favoured toy - is FUN for them. Keep watching that mind-bending space because the macabre show is by no means over....they never are.) ".. His ex wife coined him out of child maintenance for his child with her (and also for her child from a guy she had from her ex but which my ex then took on, (as in adopted) and they'd started calling my ex their 'dad' and their actual dads by first name. A few years after my ex remarried they changed all the kids surnames to his and gave her ex husband no choice in the matter, he just agreed to it and they all started playing a game of exceedingly wierd happy families and still do this day." The conning was probably YOUR EX'S idea, that she, weakly (just a Benign) - or still in Honeymoon wanting to please mode - including her banked-up thirst for revenge against her ex-bully - went along with. Again, common stuff. That woman deserves to be pitied. She will NOT be having a nice time, all these years. Only she won't know the other nine-tenths of it until it's too late. Unless he's strong-armed her into Swinging and going Dogging already? "The day everything came out in the open with my ex hubby, he told me that I was his best friend, I was like a sister to him and he'd always love me, but he was in love with K (his best mates wife)." Oh, that Old Chestnut. Heard it a million times. Anything to try to sprinkle sugar atop of what is still putrid, inexcusable sh*t. ! I knew at that point there was nothing to rescue, every last ounce of trust was gone. I didn't want to be with him, I wanted to divorce him and I didn't want to be friends, but I knew I needed to get on with him for the sake of our children. I took my rings off placed them in his hand and told him I would be dealing with things. I told him to ring her and tell her I now knew whilst I sat right next to him. He then sat in tears pleading with me not to stop him seeing his boys and telling me he was sorry. I sat and silently watched him. When he'd finished crying he left to go see her to tell her hubby together what about their affair. I knew friends was way out of the question for me and simply chose to be civil and tolerate him." I'm not surprised you were unmoved. Crocodile Tears. An attempt to escape any natural consequences. IOW, had knowingly made his bed and now didn't want to lay on it. Glad you stayed silent and that you've been playing and placating him for the sake of your kids. Again, excellent-excellent instincts. "I first read about narcs after the guy that threw my son off the sofa as his behaviour seemed really off the scale, and I had questions I needed answering." Finally, something (not least due to its prematurity) sufficiently shocked and appalled you into action, no second chances. See how that works? Either one RECOGNISES that behaviour or one is now slime-free and can be FULLY APPALLED. Once every last trace of slime is gone, you'll have practically zero tolerance, whether or NOT you have any similar experience to draw on - e.g. some bloke you've only been speaking to for 5 minutes or isn't even a candidate for any type of relationship with you (e.g. new tradesman/contractor), says, "Lovely house you got here - how much did you pay for this/how much are you selling it for/how much would it fetch, then?". You either calmly reply "EXCUSE ME? Sorry, but, that is obviously none of your business" and walk off in quiet disgust, or, if unable to because he's currently got you over a bit of a barrel, just "a look" (raised eyebrow) and swift change of subject or "yikes - the grill...!" and darting back in. You'll find any excuse to blank the outrageously nosy question (and obvious knock-on question: WHO WANTS TO KNOW AND - WHY!). "I didn't read anything about how to deal with them though as at the time my thoughts were along the lines of, 'So he could have been a narc? Thank god I'm out of it now'." Understandable. Normal. Remember, it's not what YOU do, it's what they initiate or then do with a normal reaction or response. But sadly, with *so many of these (M)NPDs around, we have to behave Abnormally to Abnormal Input, in defence/deflection. I'd better clarify: that so-called 15-20% statistic is not that low IN EFFECT. Since a large portion of them can be affecting detrimentally a NUMBER of lives - remember, in the romantic domain, up to as many as 15 women in each port - or have a number of fraudulent 'business' scams on the go at any one time, well...you do the Maths. Plus, those statistics are about KNOWN ones who've been through the judicial or mental health system, and from what I can see, many more have 'come out of the closest' lately, or been encouraged out - or merely encouraged to copy the behaviour. Evil people - from the petty-but-not-so-petty, mind-blowingly selfish & hurtful to the downright injurous, life-devastating, ruinous (or murderous) - have never.....ever....in the entire history of mankind...managed to get the better of the good people of the world. Never. Or not once the good people wake up to it, anyway. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke. "When each of my previous relationships ended, I just always kind of carefully faded them out until they eventually stopped contacting me and left me alone.. hoping that makes sense? Albeit for the ex hubby that is but I've ways kept contact to the bare minimum with him, with any messages or conversation purely related to our boys." Well, of course - backing up slowly from a predator, as I said, because (at that level) you just know when you're faced with one, even a pretty hairless, biped one. (PS: "Why do Spaths wear Platform Boots? To stop their knuckles scraping along the ground. LOL) "Jumping back to the present day.. I don't fancy him now. I did find him attractive, but it's like that's been wiped away." THAT IS EXCELLENT NEWS! As I always put it: He kicked the love and lust out of you. "I'm not sure I even want him as a best male bud. I find the recent guy really quite boring now, all I hear is about him, his life, his crap.. its just.. boring and such a one sided conversation.. I could see that before now, yet I still hung round for more.. why do I do that?" Unfinished business. Cure: read up about each type. Homework: if you can afford it (2nd hand copy on Amazon?) "How to Spot A Dangerous Man (BEFORE You Get Involved)" - Sandra L. Brown, MA. Utter genius of a book, based on extensive research plus interviews with victims...names and describes every type of social vampire and predator (e.g. the, you'd think, quite innocent, "Mamma's Boy", but - NO, actually, he's one of the WORST). It'll be a real eye-opener for you, you won't be able to put it down...probably want to read it three or more times in a row, with every colour of highlighter pen going. For marrieds, it's still Mira Kirshenbaum's "Too Good to Leave/Too Bad to Stay". " Why when in the past, in the early stages (first few months, weeks even) do I ignore my instinct, the instinct that flashes up with 'proceed with caution', that waves a red flag in front of my face, that screams at me 'just don't go there, walk away'. Hindsight is fantastic for showing me the error of my ways, but I'm angry with myself for shutting down my gut instinct so many times, in favour of steam rolling into a relationship that really is not worth my time or energy. I listen to it in every other aspect of my life.. but why not when it comes to dating/relationships?" Various non-conscious reasons: You've unknowingly resumed dating too soon after the last You're high on homemade Heroin (pushing your buttons, i.e. spiking your brain chems rather than merely your drink) You're dumbed down as it is because you're emotionally over-aroused (infatuated), no matter in a seemingly wonderful way You don't expect it "It'll never happen to me" The Sunk Cost Fallacy (same reason for why we wait too long for an overdue taxi) We hate change. 'Better the devil you know' than the Unknown. Normally when things aren't working for one or both of you, your partner raises it (because he doesn't like seeing you unsettled or unhappy), but this one obviously doesn't Desperate for a baby before it's too late You feel you're inconvenient/difficult/whatever in relationships so feel unentitled to cast the first stone or expect better You're not ready to have to face and accept a terrible truth about there truly being monsters out there (of varying sizes) Or you're used to it and naturally gravitate towards what you know how to function(ish) with...your (uncomfortable) comfort zone You have a battle or experiment to finish (same person, different body), not realising what the past antagonist was Your life lacks excitement, stimulation, challenge, direction (they do seem to fit your needs perfectly at the start) Rebellion (against the parents, life, the ex...) You over-estimate yourself, your strength and capabilities (in this alien context) Being an intense person whom needs an intense counterpart (they do seem...) Because - the mental state they get you into - the sex is incredible (until you're hooked) Company, help with living expenses, just a live-in partner, what's wrong with that? You have human needs that demand to be satisfied - and if neglected, they can make you do stuff you wouldn't normally A father figure for your children You don't expect it, suspect past victims and authors are being OTT and melodramatic Because you're a natural-born, normally-talented fixer/helper/rescuer and he appears to need your brand of help, and you're trying to combine boyfriend and patient Because you vowed to, next relationship, try a completely different type We've had our faith in our own judgement 'muddied' or suffocated You've been taught, growing-up, to settle for less than you deserve and/or to have to fight for your basic rights and entitlements You knew you needed toughening-up (but seriously underestimated his extent of hard-heartedness) He seemed convenient You're used to succeeding by working hard and refusing to quit (it normally works) You needed a human taxi out of your abusive marriage (like your ex's mistress-now-er...captive slave) He came with a certificate of authenticity (introduced by good friends, themselves clueless as to what he's like when he gets a woman alone) You know leaving them will be really hard-going (or you believe it will)...because you're superglued (Trauma-bonded) so - you're going to get somewhat skinned (no thanks!) You were actually drunk for-real when you met them (bar, nightclub) and that one meeting was enough for him to get his hooks in. And because you're high on homemade Heroin. ADDITIONALLY on an even deeper psychological level over which you have very little control: Boiling Frog Syndrome PLUS because it was the only route to where you sensed you needed to be led: HERE/TODAY, saying, thinking and feeling this way (and you learn best by the practical, not from reading someone else's experience) :-) It can be a whole cocktail of wants and needs, and I could go on all day. Why - are you the type who can normally drive or operate heavy machinery whlist doing complicated Alebra when on a subtle but very powerful drugs trip AND half-asleep? LOL Well, then. One more (cocktail): Boiling Frog Syndrome PLUS because it was the only route to where you sensed you needed to be led: HERE/TODAY, saying, thinking and feeling this way (and you learn best by the practical, not from reading someone else's experience) :-) ******************************************************************************************** https://lovefulmind.com/posts/boiling-frog-syndrome-and-why-people-stay-in-bad-relationships ******************************************************************************************** Or the ultimate: Because as a normal, healthy, functional human person, you not only contain all the saleable features but also the design faults - this situation specifically: the downside of Adaptation. Ignore that Co-dependency rubbish, however. Although some people are (mainly Narcs, actually) - you don't have to come like that; their effect, deliberate or unwitting, on you turns you that way. Again - a warped, self-penned King wants only the BEST specimen as his slave. That's the point of learning EVERY SINGLE RED FLAG out there. But OFF BY-HEART so that you don't have to be always on-alert and on your guard, the information is now part of who you are (or your Jimminy Cricket, rather) and SLAPS you in the face, shouting, OY!, as opposed to over-politely, barely tapping you on the shoulder going, "Um...ahem....er", too quietly and tenatively - or worse, waiting for you to ASK. You may as well wonder why you went ahead and ate that off shellfish that time as had you out for the pukey count for days or weeks. You don't expect it and have nothing to go on, no way of telling. This is the truth of Red Flag-spotting: With any of the above being the case(s) - picture the scene. Six months along, his report card looks like this: Wonderful, perfect, fun, joyous, lovely, heavenly, comforting, great-feeling, lovely....ouch!... wonderful, ecstatic, fun-fun-fun, comforting, great-feeling, inspiring........ Come on, be real. Who the hell would react to a single drop in a vast ocean? This is how they're clever (at overall, ultimately, being stupid and self-destructive but hiding it exceptionally well - aided by your drunken gullibility and perfectly normal-healthy, trusting nature). "I stopped dating, spent those 3 and a half years being just me, choosing not to meet anyone for fear of making the same mistake yet again. To work on myself. And then allowing myself to be caught out again by ignoring all the signs, signs that I have experienced in the past for goodness sake! I told myself throughout that time alone that I needed to listen to and trust my instincts and believed I would do just so if I ever met anyone again.. and instead I repeat the same pattern as before. Its made me question over the last month whether I can or want to be in a relationship anymore. " You only got back into a relationship a LITTLE prematurely. And look at how much better you were at dumping the duds and, this latest case, knowing something was wrong enough to continue with the utmost caution and come on here. I.e. you stopped, studied, got out sooner than ever before (ta-daa). "Confused by his mixed signals anymore.. I feel more confused with my own, and the same mistake I keep repeating.." USED TO keep repeating. Ketchup, Baby Tomato? LOL I can see where you didn't get to, by going back to Romance-ville. Getting to know and REASSESS yourself, given all the imperceptible growing and developing over the years. You obviously hadn't had a chance to take stock of yourself for a while and were still seeing and operating by an outdated version. Again, common stuff.