Discarded, Stonewalled, and Now Looking for Closure. .. is this a hopeless wish?

[selfrecovery]

9 weeks ago, my NPD boyfriend took me to lunch, and shortly thereafter cruelly discarded me (zero warning). That entire week (month even) had been FINE, and he always seemed happy to see me. I asked him why he was dumping me after SIX YEARS, and he just told me he didn't want to be with me anymore. I asked him if there was someone new, and he looked me in the eye and denied it.

The discard was sudden, and he gave me ten minutes (complete with a verbal countdown) to plead my case, and then he told me to GTFO and then physically pushed me out of the car and sped off. Shortly thereafter he BLOCKED me on all social media, phone, messenger etc. I had ZERO opportunity to contact him, to get questions answered etc.

Within the first week, he removed the blocking, and currently we have access to all lines of communication...though I do have to say that if I delve too deep into any topic, he threatens to block. Example: why didn't you tell me about your side chick, why didn't you let me go in the summer etc? His tactic was always to BLOCK, hang up, stonewall etc. I told him that blocking me is manipulative and he LAUGHED saying that I was toxic and that was the reason why he blocks me.

Turns out he had a new girlfriend lined up (I had suspected something early in the summer, but he continually denied everything). I have since met with him several times (to exchange belongings), and each meeting I have asked questions to get clarity.

He had the gall to tell me he's "really happy." He knows how to hit below the belt, and a lot of things he says have no filter and he is hurtful.

We had dreams of getting married, moving in together, travelling the world. I was BLIND to his verbal abuse, his manipulation, his control, his bullying. . .because when times were good, they were really good. Now he's moved on, and I am BLINDSIDED, alone, and craving answers for closure.

Last week he promised he would answer my questions (I texted them to him), and on Friday night he facetimed me to tell me something funny that happened during the week. This is all so confusing to me, and even though all signs point to the fact that I should be GLAD HE LEFT BECAUSE HE WAS TOXIC, I still find myself wanting him back, and more importantly wanting closure.

I'm not at the NC point (more like low contact). . .but other than that, is there ANY ADVICE ON HOW I CAN MOVE ON?

How can I still want him back even in light of his horrid treatment? And is my need for closure just hope in disguise?

I spend much of my day thinking of him, wondering if he's treating his new supply better than me. . .and then my mind reels. I am very depressed and feel so empty.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome! You have found a good place. Being dumped like this a very painful experience. It is also a chance to look deep inside yourself as to why you might be vulnerable to such people, why you managed to ignore red flags, in what way  you enabled his treatment of you. You are hurting now and you could use this to really get to know your soft spots. If you do this painful work now, you might not be vulnerable to such bad treatment in the future.

[helpmeplease]

Hi Selfrecovery, I just wanted to say I have been thinking about you all day. I will post later  this evening when I have more time. x

[selfrecovery]

Welcome! You have found a good place. Being dumped like this a very painful experience. It is also a chance to look deep inside yourself as to why you might be vulnerable to such people, why you managed to ignore red flags, in what way  you enabled his treatment of you. You are hurting now and you could use this to really get to know your soft spots. If you do this painful work now, you might not be vulnerable to such bad treatment in the future.

Thank you so much! I just found this board last night and I hope to get some healing support here.

[selfrecovery]

Hi Selfrecovery, I just wanted to say I have been thinking about you all day. I will post later  this evening when I have more time. x

I appreciate the good thought and your response!

[bloomie]

Hi and welcome!

What a painful and confusing set of circumstances.

I am so sorry that you have been treated so poorly and are hurting. I get the questions and uncertainty all of this push-pull behavior is bringing up in you. I also get the lure of thinking if only you KNEW WHY you were discarded or not wanted or mistreated you could disengage emotionally.

I say this ever so gently, but I have never, ever found a suspected PD person who could treat me with disregard and cruelty to be helpful and sincerely willing to be honest and help in my healing from the damage they have done me.

Take a good look through the toolbox and glossary above. Read the traits and and tactics that are used by people who may have serious defects of character and an inability to authentically love. Read the posts of other members and look through the other online resources and find great vids that describe this exact scenario when we are in a relationship with a suspected malignant Narcissist.

You have found a place where others understand and will support you. This is your healing journey and you don't need an abusive person's assistance to move forward, process all that has transpired, name what has been done to you, and heal. Surrounding yourself with in real life support from friends and family and reaching out like this are far more reliable paths to living in a healthy and empowered way.

Hope to see you out there on the boards!

Keep coming back and sharing. It helps a lot!

[selfrecovery]

Thank you so much for taking time to respond. It has been 9 weeks of separation after a 6 year relationship. I have good days, but lately I feel like I am backsliding. I think of only the good memories and qualities about him, and it makes me miss him so much.

The last three months of our relationship, I kept a daily journal of things he said/did and when he "disappeared" - he would pull these disappearing acts where he would be "napping," or "playing video games." It was all so fishy, and in hindsight I realize that my gut was telling me something was off. So my notekeeping kept stories straight because he ended up gaslighting me on everything.

I just need closure, but I am seeing that this needs to come from within vs from him. This frustrates me to no end.

Thank you again for your positive words. I really appreciate it.

[helpmeplease]

Hello, how are you feeling now? I am glad others have replied to you. You are not on your own. It's brilliant that you have found this site. I could not have coped without the support I found here. The more you read other people's posts, the more you will start to recognize  behaviours and scenarios and things will start to make sense. You will find you can relate to what other's are saying and you will feel less alone. When something like this happens the pain and the shock is unreal. When this happened to me I thought I was going to die and I felt as if I was falling. I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe he was behaving like that. I was hurt to the core, absolutely numb. Even though I had a unpd partner before and I could give names to the behaviours this time, this hurt more because I was absolutely besotted with him.
I had lies, I had the callousness. The "countdown" is just disgusting cruel behaviour. My ex stonewalled me, he blocked me, wouldn't answer the phone or texts, wouldn't  answer the door. It should have been me blocking him. He and his son would laugh at me in the street  and in shops( I live in the same street). Once my mother had fallen and I asked a neighbour to go and get him to help he refused to come. My ex gaslighted me, blamed me for my behaviour, said I was the cause of the break up with my jealous irrational behaviour. Look up the term "darvo". I think I probably had a  bit of a nervous breakdown not just from the split but from the way he twisted it to make me feel as if I was the one who had done wrong. I tied myself up in knots mentally trying to understand his behaviour, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. The relationship felt fast moving a swirl of confusion. I made myself ill with the guilt that I had caused it, that I had been unfair and abusive to him. I spent a long time tying to explain to him why I had acted that way, trying to get him to understand my point if view. He was impossible to reason with. He did understand he just sulked because I tried to stand up to him and he didn't get his own way. My issue was that he was absolutely obsessed with his married female friend. Think a Charles Diana and Camilla situation. He talked about her constantly , he did errands for her, bought her flowers, she was continually ringing him wanting things done. He took her to work she would intrude on our time together and she knew everything about our relationship, he would tell her where we went  and what we did. He wanted me to hang out with her but she was rude and aggressive towards me. She was disordered, she has a diagnosis. He thought she could do no wrong, and he got off on my pain, distress and confusion. She would do things like give my ex her black lacy corset to give to HER father to wear  for his bad back!!  I was there when my ex gave it to her father when he called with his shopping. The old man looked puzzled and said I don't know how she wears it. Even if by some stretch of the imagination it was to genuinely help her dad, why couldn't she have given it to him herself, why involve my ex. This was the sort of crazy mind blowing stuff I had to deal with. My ex saw nothing wrong with his or her behaviour, couldn't understand my reactions. It was like being part of some sick and twisted game. I lost my temper with him called him an abusive man and  that caused the ghosting the stonewalling. I wrote him long tortuous letters trying to explain why his behaviour made me feel upset. It was a waste of time. He was toying with me , enjoying the situation.  His mind works in a different way to mine. There is no empathy, it's all about him, what he wants and needs.
Have you encountered the term trauma bonds? It will help to explain why you are craving him. I desperately wanted him back even though he had behaved disgracefully. I couldn't help myself, even though I knew intellectually what he has done, I couldn't help my emotions. You can't turn off feelings just like that.  He was lovely to me until he couldn't get his own way.
In  a weird way it helped me understand my first ex. I had been comparing and contrasting both their behaviours. With my first ex I didn't understand a lot of what went on, so this time it helped me to clarify certain behaviours and scenarios and I remembered things that had happened. It gave me more depth of understanding about pds.
At the beginning when I was discarded I replayed events over and over again in my head, I couldn't sleep. It was probably CPTSD. This has lessened but I went through a terrible time. I still think about both exes practically every day but its more in a philosophical way, processing what happened.
Someone on here said to me the pain will have a beginning a middle and an end, they were right. I am probably just past the middle now. After the pain the anger will probably come, I had all sorts of revenge fantasies playing in my head, the anger I felt towards her especially was white hot. Think Ruth Ellis and David Blakely. I would never have done anything ,I don't condone anything like that. It's never the answer. There were times though when I could understand how being tormented and being driven to distraction could cause someone to become unhinged. It's an awful feeling to feel out of your mind like that.
What helped was this forum, Woman's aid forums, a website called Chump Lady which makes you laugh. I went to support groups in real life and the women there understood. Rape Crisis have support for emotional abuse too. I told my story and gave a presentation in front of a group. I started walking. This helped just the act of putting one foot in front of the other and being outside. I went on courses and started volunteering in lots of heritage places as a tour guide and doing crafts with children. I took up some hobbies. All this is on hold at the moment of course but it's something I will go back to when this is all over . It's rough but you will get there. Keep posting on here. Take care.xx

[D.]

hello selfrecovery,

I am so sorry this has happened to you.  No one should be treated that way.  It is mean and hurtful.  Infidelity is painful and mean and from my perspective a specific form of abuse.

What great strategies you used like the journal of his behavior for 3 months, and observing your own thoughts about focusing on positive memories.  It is all quite confusing.  I am 8 yrs separated from uNPD individual.  We had been together for a long time.  It ended for similar reasons and in a very similar way.  In my experience he never really gets it and tries to suck me back in periodically.  I think some men enjoy having more than one interested woman...after reflecting on my relationship I saw this pattern with him.  He still tries to engage in "friendship" with me periodically...We have (now adult) children together so there is the need for communication every once in a while.  I noticed you mentioning have some contact w/him so wonder what that might look and feel like for you.

And from my perspective you are spot on about needing the closure to happen internally on your end.  NPD people are too self-absorbed to ever let go when there is always the possibility of getting the attention/fix they desire...

Some things that really helped me to let go were letter writing of letters I don't send.  I finally wrote a pretend letter from him to me apologizing.  That felt great.

And being patient and compassionate with myself that it is normal to go through a process of grief.  In no particular order.  In the way that fits the unique person you are.

You were with him six years.  You had hopes of a future together.  That is a lot of investment.

You show a lot of strength and self awareness to reach out here and be ready to heal.  I trust you to move through this well.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give back by listening and responding here.

I look forward to continuing to see you on these boards.

[selfrecovery]

@helpmeplease and @C.
I cannot express how grateful I am for your thoughtful responses. I am a little unsure on how this forum works, and I don't quite know how to respond directly to your individual posts.

I have been journaling like crazy lately trying to process my thoughts. Some days my thoughts are laser focused, and other days, like today, my mind is a jumbled mess. I try to make sense of our last couple of months together, and his love felt so real. He befriended his neighbor and I noticed that they were communicating via social media. I immediately felt uncomfortable about this and asked him about her. He denied her repeatedly since May, and our last week together (end of September), he did a complete 180. Tuesday of that week, things were awesome. I met him for lunch at work (at his new job), and he was excited that I could meet him once a week. That Friday he was removed and didn't even want my physical touch.

That Sunday, he took me to lunch, then told me immediately after that he didn't want to be with me. He told me to GTFO of his car, and two days later, he started posting pix with her on his social media. He posted captions like, "I'm whipped." It was all so hurtful to me for so many reasons.

I keep re-reading our old text messages. I even searched for verbally abusive words, and when I do, I yield close to 50 results for each abusive word/phrase. This should be a huge wake up call to me that I SHOULDN'T WANT TO BE WITH SOMEONE LIKE THIS, and yet I still love him. I know the trauma bond is strong, and I realize in hindsight that I didn't sent boundaries for myself. My low self esteem always allowed his verbal abuse and manipulative tactics because I was always afraid he would leave. So I sacrificed my own self for him.

All of these revelations didn't come on their own. I have spent extensive time watching pretty much every youtube video on narcissism, and I've read a zillion articles. His manipulation started very early on in our relationship, and my petty self hopes that he's treating his new supply in the same manner. Yes, I am bitter and hurt, and I'm projecting my anger at her.

Thank you SO MUCH again for your kind and thoughtful responses. I am positive that this site will help me heal. . . it's a one day at a time situation. Thank you, thank you.

[D.]

Hello self recovery.  i am new too and you responded great. 

Your story is so similar to mine...my ex took me out to dinner, told me he was leaving, left, then didn't really leave...i had too because every day he reminded he planned to do so.  And although it literally made me crazy, c-ptsd, depression, anxiety i still thought i felt love.  But with therapy, reading, journaling, these forums, friends and Faith i came to see, at least in my case, that my "man antennae" as I like to call it had been wired incorrectly due to constant emotional abuse/neglect from my childhood.  So I started logically telling myself that my attractions weren't health and rewiring.  In my case I know that I had been trained to think abuse was love...

Three years ago I found someone who isn't "exciting" in that adrenal way but we are so happy...it is a calm, peaceful and kind relationship.  At first it felt weird, but eventually it came to feel so much better.

And as for the anger towards her what she did was, from my perspective, abusive as well.  I did not date people already in a relationship and choose not to do so.  There is justifiable anger towards both people involved.

It's totally up to you but I had to cut off all contact w/my ex in order to heal and get perspective.  Pay close attention to how you feel after any reminders of him like social media, his texts, etc. You have every right to do what makes you feel as happy as possible in this situation.

Keep being patient with yourself.

And finally know that NPD will do what they will do irregardless of you.  It's truly not your fault.  I hope you feel that way now, soon, one day.

Take care and I look forward to keeping seeing you here on the boards.

[1footouttadefog]

In many cases with an NPD partner there was never true love for the NON. 

In these cases the love the non felt was actually the narcissists self love at being loved being reflected. 

So for a time the non felt like theybwere in this deep loving relationship where they were the center of the narcs universe, in reality the  narc was in the center of the narcs universe feeling all great and confident about having someones attention and love.  During this time in such a situation the narc can be very charming and energetic and warm toward the new narcisstic supply.

Eventually they can be bored or theybturn on tue supply because intimacy exposes their true self. Tuen can vegin to hate that person close enough to know their truths.   Theu eventually devalue this intimate partner and seek supply from a new person who is knows inly the false self they chose to present.


In such cases they may present as a entirely different person but they will totally be into the new source of supply as the previous one.....until they arent anymore.  Wash rinse repeat.


One friend of mine had an ex who was a vegetarian, was anti vax, non drinker.  Now he is a meat eater who is not anti vax and goes to a bbq places and pubs with the new woman.  He is a whole new guy, a new false image.

Sometimes people fall in love with false personna and it was never real, then spend a lifetime trying to get back to that person and what they felt they had with them.

[selfrecovery]

Thank you C. and 1footouttadefog!
I truly appreciate the time you took to respond to me. I think I really do need to pay attention to how I feel after contact and after viewing social media. I have to say I feel more anxiety after viewing social media, and I do feel too focused on waiting for a response from him. Prior to his discard, we texted all day/every day while we were at work. The sudden absence of this has been SO HARD.

Everytime something happens during my day, the first person I want to share this with is him. And I can no longer do that. I am in a state of mourning.

Today we were supposed to meet to have a "closure talk" (and he was supposed to give me money he owed me). He had already rescheduled this meeting, and today he cancelled saying "something came up." It all feels so disingenous, and he's typically not this irresponsible. Part of me feels like he wants to prolong this closure event so that he can drag me along more. I don't know.

And I do realize closure is acceptance and I need to do this for myself, but my mind won't rest until I have some questions answered. And that is what I hope to accomplish if/when we meet.

I have considered going NC, but the thought of that overwhelms me. We were together for 6 years and breaking the habit of being together for so long is so hard to break.

Thank you again, everyone! I really appreciate all of your support and kindness.

[1footouttadefog]

Closure will come whe  you have gone through the stages of grief.  This can happen with or without input from him.

In the end you may never get what you hope from this meeting.  It will be part of the grief equation, one variable among so many.

It will hurt, you cared for this person for many uears.  You can continue to care for him, even love him while he is not part of your life.  In the end however you will get to the ithersode of this and can remember only the good memories and have some fond recollections.  For now look at the whole senario to avoid abuse amnesia and getting sucked back in.

Take care of yourself, this stuff is hard.

[Sapling]

Dear selfrecovery,

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It's awful to be discarded by someone you were so close to for so long. Something similar happened to me three years ago and I remember how painful it was also seeing that person with someone new so suddenly. In my case i felt so humiliated by the new person coming on the scene that I had to go NC and find a good T to talk to. I still woke up missing them every day for a while afterwards. But things will get better.

I agree with 1footouttadefog that you will get closure if you allow yourself to grieve this loss. I don't know if you'll actually get anything useful out of a closure conversation with your ex now. This could be an opportunity to grieve other things too. For me, grieving my ex went together with grieving other losses that also made me feel a lot freer.

This book by Dave Richo called 'How to be an Adult in Relationships' (about mindfulness in relationships) has a chapter on breaking up, that really helped me cope and understand the gifts of the grieving process. I recommend it. Feeling for you and wishing you peace, freedom (and  one day- a lover who deserves you), on the other side of this painful but worthwhile journey