Einstein said that, ‘imagination is more important than knowledge,’ and that’s true, except when it comes to our relationships. When I was young I use to write my name and the name of my crush du jour on a piece of paper and surround it with a big heart. When I closed my eyes at night I was and did so many incredible things, things that never seemed possible in reality. I had a rich fantasy life. And I carried that ability to fantasize with me into adulthood.
As I traveled from relationship to relationship, early on I would create a vision of how I wanted the relationship to be – I’d insert the specifics of the person I was dating, but the reality was always vastly different than what I pretended it was.
When he would do something that correlated with my vision, I would revel in his good behavior, when it didn’t, I labelled it unimportant and somehow, I would forget about it. I got into the pattern of making mountains out of molehills of his good behaviors and molehills out of mountains of his bad behaviors.
I would ingratiate myself to his family members and friends and even sometimes, his children, believing that the more his loved ones wanted me in their lives, the more pressure he would feel to keep the relationship going. They would become my allies and I would try very hard to please them. My people pleasing and my over-giving behaviors would be on overdrive, and I’d make so many excuses for his bad behavior because I convinced myself that he would eventually mesh into the person I wanted him to be.
We can all justify any thing if we really want to. The difference between healthy people and those that live in a fantasy world, is that healthy people see things for what they are, they say it like it is and they act accordingly. Those that live in fantasy land, try to adjust their reality to fit the fantasy, seeing only what they want to and ignoring things that they shouldn’t. They look for hooks and allies they think will help secure their place in the relationship.
What people in this position fail to realize is that these hooks and this chronic over-giving sets them up for more failure. Mainly, because a Narcissist won’t appreciate all that you’re doing. To an entitled, manipulating, ego-maniac, your over-helping is something they believe they deserve anyway, it’s also a sign of weakness to them– they don’t see it as, ‘gosh that Joan is such a sweetie, she does everything for me – I really appreciate her.’ To a Narcissist when you give them everything, they compartmentalize you as easy pickins. Remember that they get bored really easily and that the more you hook yourself into their lives, the more uncomfortable they feel and the faster they want out.
When we live in a fantasy world we ignore those obvious red flags and we get confused by their behavior, because it doesn’t fit with our picture and we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re in love. We get baffled by their behavior, because we can’t understand why they keep checking out, when being together feels so damn good. We can’t understand why they keep fighting the fantasy and that they are acting like they don’t want what we want.
Because we live in fantasy land, what we’re failing to see is that our partners behave the way they do, because they don’t feel the same way. I’ll say it again because it’s important that you get this, YOUR NARCISSIST BEHAVES THE WAY HE/SHE DOES BECAUSE THEY DOEN’T FEEL THE SAME WAY THAT YOU DO. The how’s and why’s aren’t important and are only excuses.
When we live in reality, we can see that the act of someone pulling away means, that they aren’t on the same page as we are. There’s no excuses, no rationalizing or minimizing – it just, is what it is. We call them on it and if it continues we leave. Healthy people judge the action by the action alone, because they know that actions speak louder than words. They don’t get tripped up on trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They know pretty quickly that it just doesn’t fit.
If, on day one, it’s great you’re flying high and basking in the glow of love and then by day two, he’s out the door with a flimsy excuse and you don’t know when you’ll see him again, you have to stop thinking about how great day one was and forgetting the rest.
You have to consider what happens to you every time they leave, the pain you’re left in, what it does to your self-esteem. Stop only looking at the good times and start looking at the whole picture. Only seriously desperate people would put up with being treated that way – and that’s not you.
You have to realize that this cycle keeps you stuck in it. You start off longing and pining for them, they come back, your emotions soar, you’re almost manic, then they leave and you’re crashing to the ground and it really hurts. You feel depressed , you can’t function and then after some time has passed, you start to feel ok – you accept that they’re gone and you start to feel better about yourself…and just like that they sense their presence is needed and they make another appearance – because let’s be honest, if they left and didn’t ever come back, this would be easy – you’re not struggling with them leaving, you’re struggling with their constant reappearances – because you do start to feel better about yourself the longer they stay away – then they somehow senses that you might be getting over them, so they make another guest appearance, just so they can jerk your chain a little more and so that they know you’re still available to them.
You probably keep thinking that they come back to you because you’re special and unique (well you are, but that’s not why they keep coming back). Don’t get this confused, they doen’t keep coming back because they’ve figured out that they miss you, or that they’ve realized you’re the one. This kind of sentiment isn’t possible for someone that isn’t capable of introspection or empathy. ALWAYS remember, they think only about themselves and what they want. They aren’t thinking about you. At least not in the way a healthy person does. When they think about you, it’s about how their needs can best be met and by whom. They have no idea how much you’re hurting when they leave – they have no idea about the depression or how much you beat yourself up emotionally. They don’t have any idea – your feelings are collateral damage and believe me, they aren’t losing any sleep over it, because they know you’ll take them back, so you couldn’t be that upset about it.
As easy as it is to blame them, they aren’t wholly at fault. This keeps happening because you keep allowing it to happen. You either don’t leave when you know you should, or you keep taking them back. At some point the onus has to be on you to put an end to the insanity.
The key is figuring out why you continued to put up with being treated so poorly and by putting an end to it, because really only you can. This is something that is entirely within your control.
This blog is full of comments and stories from women and men that had the courage to leave their abusive situations and how much better their lives are now that they are free of it. It’s time you put an end to the craziness and added your name to the list of success stories.
Your Comments!!!!!!!!!!
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I realize how late I am at finding this article, but it is helpful to me to put it into context. I’ve been having a fantasy “relationship” for months now with a man I see regularly (because he works at my local gas station) and was friendly to me… but I just today discovered he is 40 years younger than I am, and I’d been fantasizing he was the one for me and that he was also attracted. He does talk to me and is friendly, but admitted today he forgot my name even, so much for that being the “ideal” …
So what a weird thing to figure out… makes me wish there was a thing like time travel, but there isn’t so I’ve got to let go of the whole thing so I can move on and meet someone more realistic for me. It’s partly the whole coronavirus madness… I moved across country almost a year ago, 3000+ miles from all family & old friends and I was trying to meet new people when the lock downs started… and I am very socially isolated here. This particular man was one of the only two human beings I was able to talk to for even short times face to face without a mask during the first 2 months of lock down. The other guy I knew was younger than me and also friendly but we’re kind of friends so that’s OK.
This information is so helpful and uncanny. I would be interested in knowing more about the history of the development of this theory. I have a hard time with labels, but the syndrome is undeniable.
I encountered someone that I met a year or so ago. I was coming off of a long period of not dating, since I had already suffered many difficult relationships in my past. So my radar was way up (about myself) when I started having crazy, intense feelings for this person almost immediately upon meeting. We met due to professional reasons, but the relationship quickly took on a personal quality, talking for hours, attending social events together, etc. Thanks to my careful nature, I never let on about my feelings as I was trying to scope things out first until I felt certain it was something worth pursuing. This was very difficult as I was physically attracted to him, and he seemed so amazing on so many levels -everything I had dreamed of and waited for. Until one day, shortly after admitting some feelings for me, he said that he had to “go away” for a while, and he didn’t mean physically. So he did and the shelving and de-valuing began. He became totally distant although he remained in contact with me – in other words, I was leaving him alone. But he would constantly text me and when I would respond warmly, he would get colder. Eventually he started criticizing everything I did and said and treating me very coldly. Unfortunately, even though a romantic relationship never began, it might as well have because I still suffered through all of the shit that comes later. I honestly think this guy is fully aware of how everything he does affects me and has become increasingly cold and mean as all I show him is indifference for the most part. Such a mind fuck.
The thing that kills me is that there are a few people he met at the same time we did, and he has seemed to develop good relationships with them and I am the only one he has shut out. That mystifies me and makes me question myself – although they are not of the opposite sex, which is how I explain it to myself. He freely admitted on many occasions to me that he has major mommy issues.
Anyway, it’s crazy how these people get under your skin. I am proud of myself for never letting on that I had feelings, because I think it would’ve been worse. Still hurts tho, to lose someone you felt so much for.
@Remo4:
THIS. You said it right here, perfectly:
“I have come to realise that that intense, overpowering romantic certainty isn’t a sign that I have Found The One: it is a sign that I have found a situation which accurately resembles my relationship with my father, and seems to offer me the chance to relive it and make it come out right, this time.”
I could not have said it better. Reading this statement really hit me, because I am so guilty of feeling this way with my Narcs, I now realize, and that I too, am guilty of the fantasy relationship.
I clung to my most recent ex, and the the Narc prior to him, for this reason in the beginning, despite my gut saying that something was off and that I needed to run.
With the both of them, I was convinced they were The One and the attachment from both side was intense.The bond felt cosmic and the relationship like something out of a terrible Nicholas Sparks novel, or so I thought. Now I know, thanks to this blog, that this was a trauma bond (because of my history with an abusive narcissistic mom) and that what fueled the intensity in these relationships was them putting me on a pedastal, devaluing me and then pulling away.
My problem reading this was my response: “Oh, this means I’ve got it wrong again, I’m in the wrong again, I’ve acted in a stupid shameful way and I ought to hate myself for being so crap at everything.”
Shame was a dynamic of our relationship. He took a couple of months to decide to be with me. The day after he agreed to start, he phoned and changed his mind. Then the day after we slept together he did the same. I coaxed him back into it. So it began on this note: I was the woman who had pressured him into this: I was so, so lucky that he’d agreed to sleep with me at all, and I would have to try very hard to be worthy of him. This was never said – it was in the air though.
I always felt ugly and worthless and had been alone most of my life. I thought it was because I was ugly and worthless. In fact I can see now I was alone simply because I believed myself to be ugly and worthless. I just hid.
Fantasies… After every break up I had an idea of how I could make it all better. Lay down groundrules. Not take him so seriously. Not over-react to what he says and does. Fine, if he’d obeyed the groundrules and reciprocated my efforts. He didn’t.
I suppose I presented myself to him as a doormat – a cheap, tatty doormat – and he treated me as such. I suspect you couldn’t be with one of these people if you didn’t do that. If I didn’t feel so bad about myself, then the second time he ended the relationship in the early days, I’d have thrown up my hands and walked off.
But I felt SO SURE. I have come to realise that that intense, overpowering romantic certainty isn’t a sign that I have Found The One: it is a sign that I have found a situation which accurately resembles my relationship with my father, and seems to offer me the chance to relive it and make it come out right, this time.
He is a very damaged and unhappy man. But there’s nothing I can do about that. I tried all I could. Nothing helped.
A month before it ended, we were in his car. We were coming up to a red light and he accelerated. He had been talking so much about violence and suicide that I thought he was going to kill us both. Then he braked hard. Laughed at me for being scared: said you have to do more than that in the driving test.
Yeah, they make you speed towards a red light in the driving test. The utter contempt in saying a line like that!
I suppose he was trying to scare me. But who knows. Maybe he was actually going to go through with it. I do not know.
I write this here, now, to remind myself about how important keeping No Contact is. No nice little chats. No sympathy if he’s in terrible distress. No just this or just that. It’s over. Like I thought it might be in the car that night.
I left my husband 5 months ago and I’m still struggling to reconcile the reality of our relationship with the fantasy. I have to constantly remind myself of the hell he put my children and me through. I met him when I was 19 and we have been together my whole adult life. I’m 38 now and even though the only thing he contributed to our marriage was being the financial provider, I have to learn to be emotionally self sufficient and not wait for the few and far between crumbs he used to throw me that got me through the long stretches of misery and rejection that was our relationship. I finally got the courage to leave him, and yet I still long for him, or rather the fantasy I created about him. It’s really frustrating and hopeless at times. Especially now around the holidays. Thankfully I have a very good counselor to coach me through the depression and my darkest days. I’m trying to stay strong for my kids, otherwise they are likely to follow in my footsteps and end up in unhealthy relationships, too. They deserve so much more than to be in the middle of a toxic marriage that only survives because of the fantasy I’m so desperate to let go of. This blog has been a wonderful place to go to when I’m doubting myself and second guessing the act of leaving him. I look forward to the day that I feel indifference to him. It will be the most monumental day of my life.
I didn’t even know I did this
Hurtin’ Cowboy’s comment rocks! And Sav, just like upanddown said, how do middle age people meet? I know you’re leaving it up to serendipity, but I would love to see a future article on steps to build healthy self esteem and any non-web based ways to find a date! Also, I’ve been finding I have been attracting married men into my life?! Why?! I get rid if a Narc and now get multiple invites from “happily” married men…Is it because they too are emotionally unavailable? What on earth in my subconscious would be inviting them in?! I’m nice and don’t feel like I act any differently around them and then all of a sudden I get the, wow, if I was single, I’d date you…text me because even though I’m married, I’m lonely…what on earth?! And for the record, I’ve gone no contact with these crazies too. It just seems like I can’t attract an emotionally healthy man for the life of me…why?!
Sex was mention here a few times, particularly in Samantha’s post.
I did too, confuse sex with love. Men, other people, particularly narcs, do not think sex = love.
For us, codependents, sex would be impossible without love, we don’t do sex like, excuse my language, having a bowel movement. But some people do! For some this is a basic instinct, a physical act, and nothing else. They will play the game to get it but… that’s different than actually loving somebody. It’s possible to love without having sex. That’s how we love our children, other people, that’s how we should love ourselves.
You see, when I unexpectedly got pregnant, I didn’t know that for some people sex doesn’t mean much in terms of responsibility of the physical act. I expected feelings of guilt, responsibility, feelings, any feelings and now I understand (18 years later) that they were not there. It was my imagination, my fantasy that he should have fatherly feelings, that it’s in my power to awaken him into it. B.S. Al he wanted was an abortion, just get rid of this unpleasant consequence, just free me of bad aftertaste. And I didn’t. It took me 18 years to figure that one out and I only did that because our kid went totally astray. The kid was smarter than me and couldn’t stand his dad’s narc pressure. Oh, life!
Thank you for writing all of these articles. I just found them last night, and have been reading all of them all day. And, they all sound like my situation. They are really helping me a lot.
I have been seeing a narc for 4 years now. He pursued me at the beginning a lot, everything was great. But, I should have been done with him after two months into the relationship when I found out he slept with another female. Fast forward 4 years later, I am still in the vicious cycle of his nasty games. He has a harem of women. I have only found out because of spying. He has told me I am his #1 always. But, I am never good or have been good enough for him to be in a relationship with. Although now in the last 6 months he has seen now 3 other women exclusively. We had been hanging out for the past 2 months almost every day, everything was fine, he wanted to hang out all the time, oh yeah and he also wanted me to spend money and come to him with alcohol or food. We also haven’t had sex in how long. He hasn’t wanted to have sex really within the past year or two. I just think every time I hung out with him what I am doing, why I am letting him do this to me. I felt like I was going crazy.
Last week he withdrew from me once again, he didn’t care to talk or hang out. Finally over the weekend after questioning him a bunch, he told me he was seeing another girl exclusively. Oh and not to mention that new woman I found he is seeing is a woman who is married, but apparently left her husband for him.
I am a wreck again and depressed. I feel so dumb, how could I let him do this to me again. He blocked me from contacting him. But, I am finally coming to terms and thinking that it was a fantasy relationship, and I am ready for the no contact. I just hope I am strong enough when and if he comes back that I do not talk to him. I can’t count of how many women I’ve known he has seen/slept with during the 4 years of seeing him. It is soooo hurtful. And, I do not know why I have put up with it. I just can’t say no to him.
He acted like I was the crazy one and why was I upset when he told me this past weekend that he was seeing another girl. Ugh! Oh and another thing he also told me a few times lately that he is a sociopath, which kind of scared me. He is definitely always hot and cold, I never knew how his mood would be.
Anyways, thank you for listening. This is the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life. I can’t stand the constant heart break, but I also can’t imagine him never being in my life again.
Hopefully I am strong this time, and don’t let him come back.
@Brokenheart — Reading your post about your situation was very upsetting. I went through it too.
Toward the end of my relationship with my Narc, I found out that he had several active profiles on shady dating sites and hook-up apps, and that he kept in contact with a woman while he was out of town for work — a woman that he had strung along for years and always ran back to whenever his current relationship did not work out. He did all of this while I was supporting him financially.
He also used triangulation constantly — he always tried to let me know that other women were after him to make me feel like shit and bad about myself.
I totally get it. I know what this does to your self-esteem. How it makes you feel about the way you look. It made me crazy. It made me a shell of a human being. I didn’t recognize myself.
You should be outraged. Not only does he not care about you, at all, he is throwing in your face that he is sleeping with other women. You are in a harem unwillingly. Not only is he abusing you emotionally and draining you financially, he is also putting your health at risk. I don’t mean to be preachy, but he has seriously put you at risk for contracting an STD. You can get material things back but your health is the one thing that you cannot always correct or get back, especially our reproductive health as women.
You are better than this and you know it. Your life WILL get better once you get rid of him for good. You sound like you are almost there. Please know that you are not alone. Just 8 months ago I was where you were at, crying and reading Savannah’s blog. I got rid of him and am a completely different person.
And trust me, dating a normal, non-Narc man feels like night and day. Every aspect of it is exponentially better, including the sex.
hi Savannah, I read this article with great interest! I woke up from a long fantasy and the reality shocked me to the core. Like some of the others here, I am still in a state of shock. For me, it’s after 8 long months.
After I finally dumped him, the Narcissist I was with emailed me and told me that our relationship was all about him using me for sex…using my body. That devastated me. I never knew that he was thinking like that, the whole relationship then was a pack of lies, and yet he never had the honesty to tell me if that was the case. What decent man would think like that in a relationship? What decent man would try and take down a woman in that way? I was innocent, my only crime was loving him. But he had used me for money, for sex, for an escape from his family, for his image, while all the time he was connecting with women on Facebook, on every site under the sun. The others here might think that was silly, to be so devastated by the words of a complete b*. But it plunged me into a depression, followed on by tablets. I couldn’t believe that the man who had said to me day in day out of our relationship that he loved me, actually cared so little for me. I awoke from my fantasy one morning in April when I heard birds singing outside the window. It was as if they were speaking to me, telling me I needed to get away from him…they told me, or they awoke something in me, that I needed to get to know myself and to get away from him. I told him to come and collect his stuff, and I have never spoken or seen him again, not since the day he got out of my bed and went down the stairs, closing the door behind him. I can still hear the sound of the door after him.
But it doesn’t stay closed – he has been looking me up on line. As another commentator said here, was it not enough to torment me during and after the relationship? Why follow me, even now, into the virtual world.
@Samantha – He is continuing to follow you online and torment you because he is convinced you’ll take him back, and is looking for the opportunity as to when to do it.
I kicked my Narc out 8 months ago. I told him to pack his things and was completely emotionless and cold when I did so, because I was so over it. He continued to contact me at work and send me emails for six months after the break up.
You have to remember that a normal person, when broken up with, understands that breaking up means WE ARE OVER. Narcs do not understand this. They are convinced that you will give in every time they come back around and never reject them. Normal people also understand that if they upset or hurt someone, that person may not want to speak with them or see them. Narcs do not understand this, either. They will abuse someone and then be SHOCKED and flummoxed that the person they hurt wants nothing to do with them.
The only way to send a crystal clear message to your Narc that you are NO LONGER a source of supply for him is to keep No Contact and not respond to them. Forever.
Just a thought for everyone who is still struggling with No Contact and is hurt by their Narc’s hot and cold behavior:
Imagine that your dearest friend, someone you truly admire, love and respect, was dating a man/woman who treats them the way that your Narc treats you, and then told you that this was happening to them.
What would your response to your friend be? You’d most likely tell them to kick that man/woman to the curb. Be outraged. Ask them why they are tolerating this and tell them they can do better. You’d probably also say that the man/woman they’ve chosen sounds like a broken-down, a lot of drama, a leech, a loser, and just doesn’t care about them. You’d probably want to shake your friend, to snap them out of it, to get them to wake up and value themselves and to leave this person.
If you would stand up and advocate for a dear friend this way, then you CAN do it for yourself. You can shake yourself back into reality and get away from your narcissistic abuser!
Excellent article!
Thank you so much for your blog….and this post really hit home. I have walked away from my Narc experience and it has been about one month with no contact. But this post hit a lot of the things that I need to constantly keep reminding myself of in order to stay away. The number one being that the man that I fell in love with never existed in the first place, he was a fantasy of the man I wanted him to be. Reality can suck sometimes, but it doesn’t change reality by hoping for it to be something different and ignoring it.
Thank you for these posts. I have been in a relationship with a narcissist for 7 years. He had me quit my job, move to the East Cost where he had me all to himself to manipulate and control. Everything I did was wrong, he actually told me I screw everything up, told me to leave, go home, was hot and cold, never knowing what I had done wrong. I walked on eggshells and it got so bad because I heard EVERYTHING he said wrong and I thought I was going crazy and started to doubt myself and my memory. I started recording our conversations, he hated that. This May I couldn’t take it anymore and packed myself up and my family helped me come home. Sometimes he makes me question myself as I don’t have a job, living with my parents till I can get on my feet. I will start to do good and feeling positive about myself and then he emails me, tells me he loves me and all he wants is for me to come home. Then he tells me that he wants the divorce soon because he is getting married soon. He met women in Paraguay and Costa rica and has found love and if I don’t want him, someone does and God is opening his heart again to love. This man doesn’t know how to feel ANYTHING!! He has written off his sister and now his two son’s. Who does that?? He is now quitting his job and moving to another Country to start a new life with a new love, but again he wants me to come home. This would be the best Christmas present as he has said. I cling that I know God woulnd’t have wanted this kind of relationship but i struggle with if he can change. I guess I still look at the reasons I fell in love with him, but then I hear how that may not have been real. That hurts! He makes me flip flop and then I get depressed, I hate this and just want it to stop!!! I just want a life, to meet someone who is capible of loving and caring who will treat me right, but how do middle aged people meet? I have heard that someone of narcissistic abuse can be spotted by another narc. Is this true and what is it that they can spot so I can make sure I don’t make that mistake again. Thank you for your blog, I alwasy feel stronger when I read them.
@upanddown — Yes, Narcs can spot a codependent or someone with low-self esteem a mile away.
Think of them as predators. Are you familiar with nature shows? The apex predators throughout the animal kingdom always spot and go after the weakest prey. This is why a solo orca will attack baby or older seals, or one that is injured, and big cats do the same thing — they pursue the slowest and physically weakest animal because they want the easiest catch and don’t won’t to get hurt in the process of getting dinner. Notice how a lion will not attack an adult elephant or hyena by itself? It’s because they know they have no chance to win.
I swear that Narcs have a heat seeking missle for us: The uncherished children, codependents and those among us who have trouble sticking up for themselves. Healthy people repel them — they know that healthy, confident people will not put up with their bullshit and probably won’t even agree to go out with them. They either don’t approach because they know their charms won’t work, or they give up quickly. A Narc will test you very early on to see how much they can get away with.
Go look through Savannah’s archive of articles on here. She has many that talk about how to change your energy that way you’re no longer a beacon for Narcs, and how to set boundaries. Boundary setting is the most important thing.
Thank you Savannah!! am goin thru the exact thing now!! but on reading your blog I know what to do now. I was blaming myself but you give me the courage to end it. Thank you
Yes, absolutely right. I have had to go back and think hard about why the early stage with my narcissist felt so good, and why those good feelings kept me in the relationship despite all sorts of gut feelings after a while that I was being “put on the shelf” (the classic devaluation stage with a narcissist). I learned as a child to dissociate, to separate my actual experience from the way I wanted things to be. I even learned to question my own view of reality; it was as if my parents said “what are you going to believe, your own eyes or what we tell you?” I chose not to believe my own eyes — it would have been too scary and painful for a child to see that his parents were too young to have two little kids, were dangerously inattentive and immature, and provided little real nurturing love. Fast forward to my encounter with the narcissist, and I see that the early “overvaluation” stage felt fantastic because I have always been HUNGRY for deep, 100% validation, the kind I was supposed to receive from my parents but did not. Then, when the emotional whiplash kicked in (how could she be so perfect and “too good to be true” one month, then seemingly indifferent and tough-shelled the next?), I was not equipped to see what was happening. The trickle of good feelings fed into what psychologists call a “confirmation bias” — it confirmed what I wanted to believe, which was that the narcissist was in fact the perfect match. The dissonant data (painful absences, seeming indifference, total focus on her self) was carefully edited out. Right up until I couldn’t ignore the red flags any more and my sense of dignity kicked in (thank God). Even now I remember certain things fondly, but I have to constantly remind myself: yes, this is good evidence that I am capable of real love and deep feelings. But it does NOT mean she is. She is sick and twisted, a hopelessly lost and crushed soul stuck in an endless loop of pointless self-gratification and self destruction, doomed to die alone and unhappy. I am working on this: keeping it real, but turning the powers of my mind toward healing and wholeness. Not fantasy. The truth is we who read these pages are capable of great love. That is the truth, not a fantasy. So yes, keep it real: realize your own abundant capacity for love and joy. Cultivate it in yourself. Soon enough the universe will send people your way who appreciate that. Real people, not fantasies.
OK, I have to admit I take a little joy in this thought… “(He) is sick and twisted, a hopelessly lost and crushed soul stuck in an endless loop of pointless self-gratification and self destruction, doomed to die alone and unhappy.” After all the misery they’ve brought us, I guess that’s only natural… 😛
It’s ok to visit there once in awhile EyesWideOpen, but don’t live there.
Wow..you really do have a gift, Savannah! I’ve been faithfully reading your blog since April (when my exN dumped me for new supply 3 days after asking me to marry him). After a few months of misery and lots of reading & therapy, I was finally in a healthy place and ready to forgive him. I thought I had completely moved on and wouldn’t be susceptible to his charms anymore. And then, just like you said, he must have sensed it, because he came calling with the friendship card after we interacted over a business-related matter. Although round 2 of our relationship never moved beyond friendship (with some heavy flirting), he just completely cut me off again a few days ago. He said his new supply (who obviously wasn’t fulfilling his needs) saw one of our text exchanges and told him he had to stop contacting me. Classic triangulation, & I fell right into it! Fortunately, I am completely fine. Just mad at myself for stepping back into the old fantasy world and allowing him to manipulate me yet again. No contact is truly the only way to handle these deranged individuals. I’m now back to 5 days and counting!
Right on! I was reading and thinking that I should learn it by heart and repeat it to myself at least 3 times a day.
Yes, I know all this but…That’s why it’s so good to have weekly reminder from you Savannah and other bloggers that there is no magic hocus, pocus, abracadabra! It is, what it is!
I’m still struggling and I’m still at times living in my fantasy world, but I know that one day I will free myself!
Savannah’s blog is truly one that saved me from my own personal mess and began the turn-a-round for me. For months I thought it was something very wrong with me! There was something wrong that I would allow anyone to treat me so poorly. Once I started reading this blog I started my change. No contact for four months! And it feels wonderfully.
I took control and ended what I can only describe as dysfunction, descructive souls destroying relationship! He treated me appallingly at times! And constantly blamed me for his unhappiness! He was violent and sulky and I lived in a sexless relationship! He has moved on and has a new women living with him and is engaged, all in 14 mths of us parting! However I have children with him and have to have minimum contact! I wonder if he lives in a fantasy that we are somehow friends as only yesterday I had a text from him telling me he’d met someone famous at the wkend, I do not care! Do they
Ever go away and get on with thier lives or this a way of forever tormenting me for dumping the lying toad?
Thank you Savannah! This was ME for almost 7 years–back and forth in an unhealthy relationship. You absolutely captured ALL of it. He has moved on to his “new supply” I STILL question…Is he treating her the same way? or better? worse? I’ve read your other articles…it just bears repeating and hearing. Thank you for your wisdom (:
Spot on again Savannah!!
I Lived in a fantasy world about the relationship I was in, which is why I stayed for 7. 5 years, …dreaming it up in my head of how it would improve.
And since separating, I’ve been living in a fantasy land and I’ve spent the past 2 years hoping, renacting, and even trialling a reconciliation.
That was until I found your. Blog!!!
Since reading your past posts, as well as new weekly ones means the fantasy is over. I can now see the relationship for what it was, and the reality is it is far from a real relationship.
Today’s aricle has helped me acknowledg my part in allowing to drag it out, people please and fuel the ego of my past Narc.
Thank you!!