New Here

I just found this site yesterday. I've spent the past several months trying to get over a man who walked out of my life with no explanation. I see a lot of narcissistic tendencies in him, but I'm still trying to figure out where on the scale he falls. It helps in that it explains a lot, but it's also confusing because there's a lot that doesn't fit him.

I was lucky. He never once hit me, never raised his hand or voice to me, never threatened me - I never, ever felt threatened by him. He never belittled me, never called me names, never put me down, never tried to make me feel like he was better than I was. But he had a huge sense of entitlement, was always talking about people who said great things about him, had to have a large group of friends - many of whom were women - in his life at all times and would talk about these women to me as though trying to make me jealous. A lot of his friends are friends he's had since childhood, over twenty or thirty years. I never knew where I stood with him - one day he would be extremely involved in my life, doing nice things for me and helping me with stuff I was dealing with, then I'd go for days without hearing from him. He refused to say we were committed, saying he was still hurting from his divorce; he'd sleep with me, then talk about he was single and could do whatever he wanted. He was secretive, couldn't handle it when I got mad at him for not following through on things he'd said we'd do (those were the only times he got angry with me and we would fight, to the point where I would cry for hours afterwards, not understanding what I'd done that was so unreasonable), made a lot of promises he didn't keep, seemed to have time for everyone but me. Sometimes he'd bring me around his family and friends, other times he wouldn't but he'd tell me about the parties they had or the things they did and never mentioned why he hadn't invited me. When it ended, he just gradually pulled away - would take days to return my calls, would avoid my attempts to spend time with him, yet every time I asked him what was going on, he insisted nothing was wrong. Eventually he just disappeared without an explanation.

I don't know if it was narcissim or just blazing insecurity. He always seemed to need for everyone to like him. I can look back now on things he told me about past relationships and his divorce and see signs of narcissism, as well as things in our relationship, but I guess I'm still not wholly there yet.

For me, it's the not understanding why he left that I have so much trouble with. The fact that he refused to tell me or even admit that anything was different or wrong. All he'd have had to say was that he no longer wanted to continue anything. I could've dealt with that. But I guess he decided he didn't need to explain anything to me. It makes me feel less than human, that he couldn't even just say "It's over." Would that have been so bad? And is that narcissism or just a jerk?

I've been in therapy for several months, trying to make sense of everything. It didn't help that this all happened at the same time I lost my job. I don't call him, don't text him, don't e-mail him, deliberately avoid places I know he goes when I know he goes to him. But it's hard. I miss him. I hate not having closure. Every time I feel like I'm getting better and starting to move on from him, he reappears. He's done it a couple times with brief e-mails that he never responds to when I reply with a simple well-wishing and asking how he is. I'm torn between wanting him to stay away and wanting him to stick around. Not knowing exactly what he is or what happened makes it difficult to know how to come to grips with everything.

It's been helpful to read these forums - like I said, a lot of stuff fits him, even though a lot of stuff also doesn't. I'll probably be here awhile.