During the final D&D, I needed to pick up some $$$ at the on-campus bank, and here the ex-Psych prof was, doing the blow after verbal blow, and when I tried leaving, he said, "Don't leave!" My response was "You told me to go away. Now I am going away!"
He'd have the same looks of superiority&elation while I was crying in front of everyone.
I think I freaked HIM out when I caused him narcissistic injuries&would stand there smiling. He'd beg&implore, "Stop smiling!" And I'd say with a faux naive voice, "Why don't you want me to smile? What's the problem?" I pretended to act as if I couldn't POSSIBLY know why I was inflicting Narc injury on him&enjoying the process. I acted as if I had been born yesterday!
When the ex-P saw me in pain&weeping, it DID make him feel powerful. I remember my freshman year he'd go around bragging about how he had made me angry by hurting my feelings. His colleagues didn't like that.
The problem is... the ex-P didn't really want the Good Guy image. When I told him my classmates HATED his behavior, he smiled ecstatically.
Superiority and elation....that is exactly what I was striving for. That is exactly the look. 'Wow, I have this kind of power over this little thing. Look at her, a crumpled, blotchy mess in public, all because of me. Not going to hug her, not going to console her, not going to kiss her. This is too much like fun. Pulling wings off a fly.'
When I did walk, I think it caused him phenomenal injury to his ego that I could possibly find the strength to do it. I said to him during the relationship "It's like you don't know when to call off the dogs. It feels as if it's like pulling wings off a fly when you say the things you do."
He always had a lukewarm apology or a vehement defence (he's a lawyer - even better - he knows how to twist his words..)
Oddly, though, he never told anyone about the reasons for the break-up. He simply told people it hadn't worked out and left it at that. His nice-guy image and what people thought of him was paramount to him.
I said to him once "you have an inscrutable face. I never know what you are thinking" and he replied "Good. That's the way I want it. That's because I worked on having an unreadable face. I didn't want to be an open book to people."
When I told my brother about this, I said "what sort of person works on having an inscrutable face?" (I have, according to the ex, a face like an open book) and my brother said "a person paralysed by fear, of being discovered, understood or disliked."
He knew nothing of this person, knew nothing of his character, but he made me stop and think when he said that.
When I broke NC back in '09, it wasn't a weepy, sobby, pining, romantic letter.... I KNOW how the ex-Psych prof enjoyed seeing me in pain. So I went the passive aggressive route, cloaking it all in nice words... and knowing how much my happiness offends him (it always did)
Did I bring up my periods of unemployment? NO!!!
Did I bring up any times of grief&problems??? HELL NO!!!!
Would I EVER bring up my grandmother's recent death??? NO!!!!
Seeing me happy made HIM feel defeated. So I went for maximum defeat. It was a sappily happy travelogue of the Wine Country/Boston, restaurant recommendations, Rick Steves mixed with some laughs at his expense (something else he didn't like-he did NOT like being mocked-it was the sort of attention that sent him running)
I used him as an object. Of RIDICULE.
It's like I sensed I KNEW what he would've wanted when I broke contact... but withheld it. I chose my words carefully. I weaponized my happiness.
He tried to kill my sense of humor, so I tested it out on him as if he were a clay pigeon at the rifle range.
Same here
Susan 32
More ego blows
to susan32