Hi Anita,

My frustration over this obsessing about my ex is that i understand both the good and bad about him. I feel i almost have the full picture of him, apart from his true thoughts, which he basically seems to hide from everyone. I am aware i got involved with someone who was destabilizing to my mental state, that was already in a fragile state when i met him. I felt that he had a tough time going through his younger years, some bad experiences. From what he has told me of his past relationships i think he learned he could use women but he is also blindsided by them and a little frightened of them…he struggled to understand emotions. This is why i think he fits the profile of a Narcissist. I think he would talk to his friends about not understanding women he was with and they would give their leveled opinion..of course, some of those men were also just as childlike when it came to relationships. But others i met knew exactly what problems he had and just accepted it. Sometimes i felt he was bullied by his friends as they discovered he was easy to manipulate.  it drove me nuts that some random woman he had just met would find she could influence him, or that suddenly he had bought something expensive like a house or a car because it was a good idea at the time. As a friend he was good entertainment i think.

….there is the bad side i experienced, the mood swings he had, the temper, impatience and frustration he had. He  told me about his frustrations with previous girlfriends..but not with much detail, one was anorexic, so was another, one slept too much he said, the other made him jealous with the way she dressed and that seemed to really hurt him, that she might be flirting with someone else. He asked me if i was cheating on him many times but not in an angry way, just in a very insecure way. He expected me to work for him for free, being his side kick in most of his business. It was sometimes exhausting as he had a lot of energy. He told me one ex girlfriend was annoying because she slept all the time, i could understand. I think these girls threw themself into everything, im more reserved and perhaps stubborn…i wouldnt do everything he wanted, i didnt have image issues and i didnt take drugs. But mentally i felt i gave a lot to him…which is why the damage was all there.

On the good side, he was creative and energetic and clever, he was innovative and always had new ideas, he was attractive to me in every way and we were compatible in most ways except for one…that i didnt need to socialise so much and he really did. When were just at home i was very happy, i never felt as good with other boyfriends. He would help me with my own ideas and encouraged me to do things although he would also quickly get frustrated with me. When i say he had a lot of energy, i mean he needed stimulation all the time, ideas, sex, travel, friends, business and fun etc..I found the pace pretty hard to keep up..i think others did too. But this counteracted my natural depressive nature and i preferred it to my natural state. he had some few quiet moments too. He always said jokingly that his ex girlfriend always liked it when he was sick, because then he was calmer and wouldn´t be running off somewhere…thats why i understand it was not just me. He was also the kind of guy that would call up and say that he had broken his surfboard or his car or part of him. Just carelessly. That was hard to deal with, that he was so energetically erratic, but in return for the other good stuff i accepted that about him.

In some ways i wondered if in fact we were mirroring each other. If in fact we were too similar to work out.