new here... what is this?

[salome]

Hi all,
I have a very strange situation that I need some advice with. Over the last year I have become friends with the father of one of my daughter's friends at her nursery. I'll call him Bob. Things were going well, we hung out a lot, the girls got along great. There were sleep overs and even a joint family weekends away with our spouses. Then suddenly things escalated and looking back, I can see a lot of red flags in his behavior that weren't clear to me before. But I guess in hindsight we are always smarter.
Bob expressed jealousy of my other friends. He would joke about that I was not allowed to make friends with any other dads at the nursery. He flooded me with messages, invitations to things, repeatedly asking what he could do for me to the point where I would come up with things so that he would be okay... like  help taking my daughter to swimming lessons for example, or pick her up from a piano class. when I was running late.,. That kind of stuff.  When it finally got too much for me ,I wrote him to say I needed to lay down some boundaries as I was beginning to feel uncomfortable band that I wanted less intense contact but that I really wanted our daughters to stay friends.
Then the emotional outpouring started. Tears, snot, the lot.... and a lot of requests for explanation., a lot of "I wish you coold have told me sooner"
The barrage of messages got so intense, that I ended up writing a No contact message and so far he has been respectful of that. It's been two months which also coincided with me being away for work for a longer period of time which was helpful.
But he has recently contacted my family to ask how he could make amends and is always trying to get our daughters to meet up (through my mother, whose number he also has.)
What do you think this is? I feel like I may have inadvertently become the favorite person of someone wBPD. But whatever it is, it has been really unsettling. I have made my boundaries very clear but perhaps I have to impose no contact on the girls as well, which would be very sad...

any insights would be much appreciated!

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome! You have found a good place.
Whatever this is, it seems weird.  Have you considered doing a fade-away instead of declaring boundaries? Just being less available, taking a long time to respond, being polite yet detached and boring?
Check out the Toolbox for boundaries and other strategies that might be useful to you .

[guitarman]

Welcome. You are not alone.

This behaviour reminds me of my undiagnosed BPD/NPD sister. She would love bomb new people she met and they would become her new best friend. They would then drop her when she became too intense. She would then move onto the next person, her next victim.

She would always need someone, anyone, to feed her narcissistic supply. It's a pattern I observed her do for many years. She always had to have a new best friend.

You need to protect yourself and your family. Trust your gut, not your head or your heart as they can lie to you. There are all sorts of red flags raised for me when you describe what has been happening.

Set firm boundaries and stick to them. You don't have to JADE that is justify, argue, defend or explain yourself.

You may like to follow the author and counsellor Kris Godinez who explains this type of behaviour and how to cope with it. She specialises in Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome.

Her YouTube channel is called "We Need To Talk with Kris Godinez".

Keep calm. Stay strong. Stay safe. Keep posting.

[salome]

Thank you so much for your replies. It does feel like I was love bombed and the whole friendship developed very quickly and always seemed to be more important to him than to me, although I liked him a lot and was happy to have found a parent friend at the preschool.
I have BPD in the family and was familiar with it so in some ways I was able to react quite quickly when I realised things were getting weird. (But I still have this feeling that it was somehow my fault, although I am able to fight that on an intellectual level.) And I also feel sad for him because his behaviour caused exactly that what he was so afraid of, namely me not wanting to be his friend anymore. It's so frustrating to be on the receiving end of this stuff.
The advice from the Toolbox not to engage in JADE was very useful when I "broke up" with him. I didn't respond to any requests for further explanation and wrote "Don't ask me to explain anymore, I have explained everything already and have nothing more to add."
What makes me sad is that the friendship ended like a car crash. I set boundaries that unleashed a huge, emotionally manipulative response, which in turn caused me to end contact completely.
The next question for me is what I do with my daughter and I am grateful to have this space here for support. He is already signing up his daughter to a summer camp, having found out my daughter is also going. We are now wondering whether to pull our daughter out or whether my husband or best friend should do all the pick ups so I don't run into him. It feels very stalkerish and I resent feeling like I can't move around freely..... so I need to figure this out.
I guess I should move this conversation to the section for co-workers, friends etc ?
I will definitely check out Kris Godinez!
Thank you all again