Matt,

Okay, wow, now that is a relationship to wrap my head around. No wonder about the confusion.  Your Ex sounds like he could use  some alone time to straighten himself out first.

Yes. But he won’t. He doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with him. No wonder I wanted him to read a few of the men vs women psychology books that I had read, mainly about love and relationships. But now I know that he wouldn’t read them – he is too sure of himself and of his way of living life.

There is a whole lot of selfishness there to be able to walk into peoples lifes like that and rip everything apart, throw it onto the ground, and walk away with no remorse. That is like a picture of a Tornado ripping through the landscape leaving devastation behind.

YES!!! Matt, this is absolutely stunning, but that was the exact image I had in my head when it was all over, and that I have still when thinking about his way of going through life. Exactly like a tornado moving from one structure (i.e. woman) to another leaving nothing but destruction and devastation in its wake.

I am sure there were many fun times, and times of hope, but he was a master manipulator that was able to get everything that he wanted.

How can you tell from what I wrote that he was a master manipulator?

I mean, narcissists are brilliant manipulators, and I do believe that he was one.

But then I am not a psychologist myself, and I can’t give diagnoses, especially such serious ones.

But it sure felt like he fitted the description and behaviour patterns of a narcissist. (There is an excellent site by Natalie Lue called Baggage Reclaim on narcissists.)

But again, maybe I think he is a narcissist because I want him to be one, that is I am looking for the proof of it and I find proof.

Just like in the past, when I was with him, my mother would say that he was manipulating me, but I in all honesty couldn’t see how exactly he might be manipulating me.

Everything that he said made sense. We discussed lots of things, too, naturally, and he proved to be observant and tolerant etc., etc. In fact, he was the first one who said that I might be afraid of life. (I’ll say in parentheses that he might be afraid of life, too – and actually mirroring me on a few other levels, otherwise we wouldn’t have been attracted to each other. But again, maybe I am seeing this only because I want to see it.)

Narcissists often choose deep-feeling people who tend to analyse (and maybe overanalyse) themselves. So did he. He would never try to prove me that I was wrong when I was accusing him of something (or, rather, venturing a guess as to why he was doing what he was doing). He would say, “I can’t make you believe that it is not so if you don’t want to believe it. It is not so – that is all that I can say.” And then I would turn to myself, try to put myself into his shoes, and I would see that I would be behaving exactly like he was – in a calm and dignified manner. Just an example. Or that other time, when it seemed like he wasn’t as willing to leave no stone unturned as he had been before to come and see me. I would complain that he stopped coming to spend Christmas with me, and he would say, “But didn’t I come and spent two Christmases with you?” And that was true, but that was – what, five years ago? And again, he had perfect reasons for not doing it like waiting for his entry visa be done through work two months later rather than applying for it as an individual. Again, I am not sure whether I wouldn’t be doing the same if I were in his place and still feeling all that I was feeling. Or one more. I would ask him, “What would you do in my place?” And he would go, “I can’t give advice, I am an interested party.”

And that love life of his. I heard of his two failed marriages from a colleague of his who had known him for twenty years and was gossiping to other ladies before his arrival. (No one could predict that he and I would be working on a joint project back then.) No wonder, almost any woman who would fall under his charm (and he IS charming, chivalrous, generous (also in bed, by the way), knowledgeable, was about to achieve that position that he had been dreaming about – so there was literally no resisting) would pity him, think that she – oh she would show him, poor thing, what true love is and hurry to his “rescue”.

Out of curiosity, what is the biggest thing that you take away from that relationship?

My main take is that there are no soul mates. You see, I was so romantic (and stubborn) thinking that if I do everything right, sincerely believe, wait long enough, my “prince” would come (“as certain as the sunrise in the East…”). In fact, I was trying to implement in my love life the same rules that had worked for me in my work life – play by the rules, be fair, work hard, and with a bit of luck, you’ll get there.

Now I tend to think that chance (or luck) plays a far bigger role that any one of us wants to acknowledge.

Maybe if I consistently went on dates, sooner or later I would come across somebody with whom I have chemistry and with whom we match on the intellectual level and the level of values. Just out of the sheer number of people I would meet, increasing the probability so to speak. Maybe, as I said in that other post, when I have nothing else to do, this will be what I’ll busy myself with.

I am not sure that getting close too quick is such a big no-no. My parents met at a ski resort in February, got married in July, and I was born in March next year. They have had their issues (and have still), but, as my mother says, they both (having been married before) knew what they were looking for when they met, so they both were willing to adjust for the sake of being together after they “clicked” initially. They are still together.

But I sure do now think that if something sounds too good to be true, it most probably is. I can’t deny that throughout the duration of the relationship I was mentally ready for him to ghost on me. Only five years passed, and that never happened (and we had lapses of about a year of not seeing each other two times plus those attempts of mine to break loose), he kept communicating constantly (I insisted on phone calls, and he complied), and just when I relaxed and thought that there was nothing to fear, that he got used to me, that one can’t be infatuated that long, so it must now be love that is calmer, but more solid – right then he fell in love anew. Turned out that his passion never becomes love, it burns out, and then he craves a new passion.

And all the psychology books and articles would claim that “infatuation lasts for about a year”; even with long-distance, we had exceeded that limit by much. Later on, about narcissists, women would experience that drop in their interest for them after several months, with me it was still going strong in Year 6. He and I were at my acquaintances’ place, and I was told by an elderly lady (again, talk about experience!) that I was very lucky and he was a keeper (!). Even my girlfriend who visited us at some point said that it was obvious that he loved me very much. He charmed a few ladies at my work (I can safely say that I (we) somehow managed to keep it a secret from everybody at work thanks to that joint project).

There were some things that I noticed and didn’t quite like, but when I tried to reason, they were balanced off by other things, that couldn’t be ignored either (have a whole list in that sealed envelope). He wished me a happy birthday in our last year, said that he loved me very, very much and then, just one month later, met that woman and it all went rapidly downhill.

Also psychologists don’t write about narcissists claiming that such cases are very few and far between. Well, they seem to pop up more often now, and I ran into one head-on. Reading all those psychological books and trying to be understanding of his “male nature” was akin to trying to raise a wolf puppy as a regular dog puppy – this simply can’t be done and regular rules don’t apply here.

There was also that ingrained respect for older people and people with more experience, etc. Well, now I have proof that indeed age, experience, past relationships do not necessarily lead to emotional intelligence. I was also looking for somebody to tell me how it should be, to answer my questions. Now I know that all those answers are not all-encompassing, they would be different for other people AND I need to look for those answers in myself and not in another person.

There were a few things though that made my recovery much easier than that of his wife #3, for instance (she STILL has their pictures together on her social network sites).

One is that it was long-distance. I also wonder whether it was long-distance that prolonged his love’s “shelf life” as I call it.

Another one is that I “keep scores.” My Dad somewhat scolds me for that (he goes something like “It is not good or worthy of you to think and pay attention to what and how much the other person has done for you for you to do something for the other person”). And it is not like I am calculating or anything. It is more like I am too sensitive to the concept of fair play, give and take and the nuances in the other person’s responses. I hate being a nuisance, so I normally easily notice the unwillingness or less eagerness to maintain interaction on the same level. I retreat then. It is certainly harder if I grew attached to the individual (like it happened with the “most recent guy”), but I can’t stand imposing myself. Along the same lines, I have some internal sensor that prevents me from physically investing more than the other person. I may be pining over him emotionally, but I am watching my actions very carefully. With my ex, I would insist on going Dutch everywhere unless he was very vocal about paying for me. We did have a joint account for his expenses in this country, and it was technically easier for him to pay my cell phone bills in our home country, but that was about it. So there were not that many legal ties to cut when the breakup occurred.

The final nail in the coffin was him deleting me from his friends on all the social networks that his wife has access to (he left me on the one where she is not present and where he hasn’t been for two or three years) – I presume I would constantly pop up as a friend suggestion for her as she would for me. THAT given that we are still coworkers; that I wished him well and didn’t bother him with calls or texts or emails after he finally told me about that new love of his; that given that we had talked about how cool it was in Scandinavia where all the exes remain friends and visit each other!!! Not to mention that when we got acquainted and he fell for me, he befriended me on ALL the social networks where he could find me…

Also as for “keeping scores,” if I really like the person (no matter what age or sex), I can do a lot for him or her just because. I tell myself that I, myself, would feel better if I did XYZ or would feel bad afterwards if I didn’t do XYZ and I do it expecting nothing in return. If I get something from them, so much the better, if not – I won’t hold any grudges and it won’t matter at all.

I suppose I also reinforced my natural inclination not to judge people. We truly never know what the other person is going through or where s/he is coming from.

Oh, and one more thing. Since he was not the last person on the corporate ladder, even though I never revered people in high places (well, not that high), I would be wary of them and a little bit shy and awkward. Now I don’t care. No matter what position a person holds, I treat him or her even and with respect and that is it. Like I would treat anybody else.

In terms of the most recent guy, that does go to show how important chemistry is, and how powerful it is. For you to have gone through what you did with your ex and still continue to put yourself in a situation which has all of the makings of a very hard relationship to make work.

Oh yes, those were exactly the thoughts that raced through my mind as I went to bed after our cuddling that night. I even made a list as to why I shouldn’t be pinning my hopes on having a new relationship with him. And I was still in that in-between state. It was super nice to cuddle with him, but I still had too many memories of how it felt to cuddle with my ex (the mind already struck that relationship out, I knew that it was not something I should wish for myself, but I still hadn’t yet got out of the habit of thinking about him) to embrace him coming into my life. But then he texted me the next morning asking how I felt after that half-night because of him, we started communicating very often, he wrote that he was figuring his life out, that his wife and his upcoming counselling trip was the “last-ditch attempt”, so I kind of started thinking that I simply happened to come into his life when everything was more or less settled in his mind regarding his marriage. At the same time, there were other signs, like that “don’t fall in love with me, I can’t even fix my marriage”, so deep down I was ready for him to ghost on me sooner or later. That basically happened four months later.

Now, looking back, I think I can see that life turned out exactly how my gut was telling me it would, but probably later than I thought it would. But it still did. But again, maybe I am trying to prove to myself that I had known it all along in my gut.

As for a very hard relationship to make work, am I not romantic wishing to fight for the love of my life??? Just kidding.

So lets talk about challenges. From everything you have wrote about, I can assume that you are extremely intelligent, and have worked really hard to get where you are. 

Matt, I am also pretty. One woman in a meeting, very stylish and elegantly dressed, once told me that I could email all my friends pictures of Robin Tunney’s photo session and tell them that they were mine (Prison Break series). “You are simply not wearing proper make-up [I only do mascara and powder], but if you were, you would be a copy of hers.” Women don’t normally acknowledge other women’s appeal.

Even my mother, who sometimes exclaims in mocked despair, “Who would ever marry you?!!” (after I do or can’t do X, Y or Z) quite often looks at me and says that I am very pretty and she can’t understand why I don’t have a line of men waiting by my door to invite me somewhere. She herself has always had a few admirers.

Is there something there about the challenge of winning the affection of these men who on the outside look unattainable.

That was the reason for my starting the “Need Help Understanding Why” thread. Yes, they are unattainable (or are they – with the divorce rate of today?), but what on their outside make them look unattainable to me? And I am positive that I meet many unattainable men every day; what makes me fall for some, but not for the others? Well, now that I think about it (and that I am no longer a student falling for her male professors), I think it may be that I get some signs from them that they might be interested, might be experiencing those first symptoms of liking me. Knowing that men are reserved and keep feelings to themselves, I dwell on it and decide that they are feeling more for me than they show. So my attachment is born. They may forget about their natural male interest in me after several minutes, but I would still be thinking about it, maybe making it grow out of proportions, like a true romantic would.

As for the challenge per se, I don’t know. I still tend to think that they should be showing some initial interest in me first, for me to start thinking about them. But then they decide against it or forget about it, but I have already grown attached to the idea (if there was chemistry in the first place).

I thought long and hard about the Electra complex as well. I do believe my mother, on her deep subconscious level, is competing with me. But – interestingly enough – even though I do have deep respect and love (now that I am a grown-up) for my father, I never wanted a partner like him. Or maybe I never wanted a partner like him physically. In fact, I am looking for almost everything in contrast – glasses is a no-no, I am normally attracted to tall men, etc. Still, as I was writing in that other thread, I have been attracted to men who don’t fit one image at all. Even with glasses, I kind of liked one of my shooting instructors in January, and he was bespectacled!

I would probably agree that all my likes of men closer to 60 (professors and #2 and one more man with whom though I managed to remain on purely father-daughter positions (a host father)) were an attempt to compensate for that love and care that my father felt for me (and still feels), but decided against showing on the outside for fear of spoiling me.

I would like to think that I overcame that, outgrew that sort of attachment now (thanks to #2!)

Also, as I am getting older, the age range of men for whom I have always felt attraction (35-50) is much closer to my age now than it was twenty years ago. So there is hope here, too.

Still, it would be fun to go on that type of date where you meet a lot of men for only 5-10 minutes and then decide to whom you are attracted. I wonder if that group of men to choose from also had married men, how many married men would I be attracted to?

So the only viable scenario that I can envision (but that is very unlikely) is that we somehow run into each other again, the chemistry still being there and him being already free AND healed and ready for a relationship (from what I could see on his Twitter, nothing has changed in that respect for him – he is still mentally unavailable), and off we go from scratch. As if nothing had ever taken place before.

After reading everything, I think that unfortunately you served a purpose in his life and did not get anything in return.

Not quite. First, I didn’t invest more than he did. I “kept scores.” Noticed that, for instance, he never asked me when my birthday was even though I had given him a book for his. Or that he didn’t check up on me during inclement weather even though he posted about it on his Twitter. I am understanding, I think I know where this is coming from (besides him “just being not that into me”), but I didn’t ignore that completely.

Second, since my breakup was still very fresh in my memory and most of our cuddling and conversation that night evolved around the messes both of us had made in our lives, our written exchanges allowed me to put in writing a lot about my love for my ex and my outlook on life in general (kind of like I am doing it here with you). He also shared some of his observations. He said that my writings (and for the first two months or so he was reading them very attentively, asking questions and answering mine) were also helping him. That was about healing, but there were also a lot of exchanges about almost everything in life, travelling, hobbies, books, films, sexes, and whatnot. All of that sure felt like getting to know each other.

So as I was slowly turning towards him (and he sure felt like a step forward from my ex – younger, taller, just as good-looking, same position, even slightly higher AND without that heavy love life baggage that my ex had), he suddenly went out of sight. And my “turn” was almost complete. I am NOT in love with him (I could just as well fall in love with at least three other men (more in my other thread) if anyone of them spoke up) and was not in love with him yet (keeping my guard up because of those tiny things that I noticed), but I could easily imagine myself kissing him and being intimate with him. Still can. A very interesting thing happened. I had never experienced orgasm with my ex (and he tried very, very hard). I always felt I was about to break the ceiling and get it, but right there it would all stop for me. Well, I have already had two dreams about me and that “most recent guy.” I can’t say whether we were making love or not in my dream, but he was close, just like he was when we cuddled, and I got it. Two separate dreams, two times.

I like that you have decided to turn the page, it sounds like continuing to actively pursue/think anything will happen would only serve to hamper you growing more. As an aside, I do believe that if it were meant to be it will show itself and the picture you are painting for yourself is correct.

Thank you for your opinion, Matt. It was also a good lesson in learning to let go. And to try and live on without closure. Well, I believe I got mine, though, when I confessed my interest in him and got that reply. Now I played all my cards, I know that he is not being shy when he wants to get in touch with somebody (even after a prolonged silence – did that two times already), so the ball is totally in his court. For some reason, that “confession” was liberating for me.

I also believe in things coming and going naturally. I can feel it in a lot of areas in my life that I can do something and will do something after a certain amount of time has elapsed, after I have “ripened” enough so to speak. And then the thing that I have been procrastinating about gets done quickly and with no pain at all.

There is one funny thing though. When my ex came to this country six weeks after our announced breakup, he was a total stranger to me on the inside despite being of the same appearance and having all those gestures, mimics, habits, features that I knew by heart. (That get-together after the breakup and my trying to win him back even though he felt as a complete stranger might be worth a separate paragraph at some point, it was ugly, and there were some things I am not particularly proud of and that left a bitter taste, but couldn’t help doing.)

But when I ran into the “most recent guy” several times after he stopped communication, it was totally different. It felt as if we were of the same blood, like accomplices, soulmates of sorts on the level of feelings and chemistry, but the “data portion” of our mutual time together had been erased. You know, like interference or noise on a TV screen. Like he knew and felt (and behaved) that I was somebody whom he could trust 100%, but couldn’t remember how it came to be that way. I had the same feeling when he started writing to me the second time, after that six weeks’ lapse. That is why I wrote that if we ever start again, it will be “from scratch”. Well, whatever…

It feels now the same as it feels with my writing to you. If you stop writing (and you are more than welcome to if you feel that this is too much work and emotional and intellectual effort to go through my writings), I’ll be okay.

By the way, I do feel a slight disparity between how much you give me and how much I give you during this interaction of ours. And I don’t like it. So if there is anything I can help you with with your problems, please don’t hesitate.

Correct, with my wife, as unsexy as this sounds, it was like your favorite pair of slippers they just fit and they always feel so damn good to put on. We have some very challenging times and the relationship has not been enjoyable all the time, kinda like when those slippers get stinky, the thought of throwing them away never crosses your mind. I have never had that feeling with my wife that something was missing.

Do you believe this (“always feel so damn good”) happened just because you came across the right person for you? Or do you think you did something, went through some growth that contributed to your being happy with her?

Again, how contradictory people can be. My ex liked a particular type of tennis shoes, a particular type of sweater, etc. So when his old ones would wear out, he would go looking for exactly the same ones, only new. (And so would I with my stuff.) That made me believe that he was a keeper, too. BUT when it comes to software, to electronics, he always upgrades (if he likes the new one) without waiting till the old one breaks down or stops working. It seems to be the same with the women in his life – he is constantly looking for an “upgrade.” Or maybe not so much an upgrade, but something new that that new woman would bring him. Also a feature of a narcissist – I can probably name exactly what he was getting from his wife #3, from me, what he decided he wanted to get from his current wife.

But then, didn’t I stop doing martial arts when I reached a certain point and decided to pursue another interest of mine? And I don’t think I am a narcissist…

I think that when you stop looking for that ideal man, and start looking for people that meet some small need on yours that you will find there are a lot of people out there that can provide you with fulfillment.

I believe that is what I have been doing since I realized that there were a lot of good people on this Earth who would help me if I needed, and I don’t need to have my boyfriend there all the time for me to help me whenever I have a problem. Is that what you meant?

Then that partner in crime will show up. I also don’t entirely agree that a husband must be more experienced and intelligent than the wife. I think that when you find your partner, you will realize that you compliment each other. Sure there are certain things that I know more about than my wife, but there are lots of ways that my wife is way more intelligent than I am, and that is one of the things that turns me on about her. Granted there are some men out there that aren’t looking for that, because they are intimidated buy intelligent women. They know that they can’t control intelligent women the same way, and are probably the ones that you want to stay away from. My wife knows my weaknesses and doesn’t want to use those against me, but rather help me grow through them. You should want that equal partner that holds the same attitude on life as you. Now my wife and I are also very opposite when it comes to certain things and that is okay too. Like I said it is about complimenting each other.

I think what I meant was that fact of life that if, say, a highly educated man marries a woman who dropped out of high school, it is very likely that she will rise to his level on her own, but if is the other way around, it is highly likely that she will go down to his level of a high-school dropout (and start drinking if he drinks – this is a bit of too harsh, but I wanted to convey the idea). This is in general, I am not talking about people who do self-education, who may not have an education, but are smarter than the ones who do. I am talking about the disparity in the intellectual level and how this or that type of the couple would normally end.