Sure, Anita. I feel I may have gotten too elaborate in my previous post so I’ll just summarize it here:
I think I grew up seeing my father treating my mother respectfully and as an equal and so internalized need of respect in my relation with R and thus, felt upset when he didn’t have time for me for weeks at a stretch, got irritated when i did anything wrong and shouted and verbally abused me. So I expressed my concerns but in return he either left midway or shouted at me and blamed me for being non-understanding or said ‘sorry now leave it’ but behaved the same. Here my low self-esteem came into picture and i believed what he said and believed that i was the problem and wasn’t good enough for him to treat me well. The same cycle continued and the very same issue till it reached a point where even my politely stating something made him snap at me and ultimately verbally abuse and by this time my self-esteem had sunk so low that I just couldn’t see if he was wrong or I. 

I want to write it down before my self-doubt creeps in Anita and I start doubting even these thoughts. I’d immediately seen your post and have thought for good 2-3 hours about it. Sorry this has ended up being a little too long, I’ll await your reply.

I’ll start by saying Anita that thank you so much. I genuinely wish that all the good things that you’re doing here come back to you in bigger and brighter ways. You may not know how much of a help your advice has been to me. Today was my most productive day at my office (well my work from home, crazy pandemic days) just because I had a clearer head from all your and Peter’s advice. Your mental clarity and capacity to empathize is astounding. Thanks so much.

Coming to your observations, gosh this really made me think and I feel I’ve figured a lot of things out and have a clearer idea about why I’m still stuck on him even after 1 year and why I still doubt his abusive tendencies.

1. I think it’s the exact opposite of my parents having any hostility between them. The nasty fights I talked about were mostly about mom being upset about something and talking about it for maybe 2-3 days but dad always being there and then them sorting it out and they were very few and I never saw them raise their voice.  The fact is (and I swear I’m not idealizing since it’s my parents) that they have one of the most beautiful relationships that I have ever seen. So they are childhood sweethearts, each others’ first and only loves both emotionally and physically and are now together for around more than 30 years. Mom is very loving but dad frankly is absolutely next level amazing. Unbelievably good and respectful to mom.  And I feel in a twisted way that is my problem. Gosh it’s so clear now Anita. I have always idealized their relationship. Mom would often tell me, when we were in high school we’d do this, we’d do that and I have always found their love very pure and the fact that they have been each others’ only partners really special and have wanted the same always. I remember feeling really smug in school telling my friends that my parents have been together since forever and that they’ve a really cinematic love story. I remember telling my mom (shit why did I not see all this before) when I was in high school that I want a similar thing, I remember categorically telling her that I don’t want to have multiple partners in life, I just want to have my one and only relationship and then tell my grandkids about it. I might sound very narrow minded while saying this but I’ve felt for the longest time that marriages that are maybe mediated by family or 2^nd or 3^rd relationships don’t have the spark and innocence and the passionate cinematic element that high school first loves have. And that is what I wanted. So when I got together with R, I was 21, it was my first emotional and physical love and I remember telling him that he is my own fairytale. I would love going down the memory lane of our relationship and discuss our initial days together, and now I know why. He would sometimes joke that we didn’t exactly meet during high school but since he was my very first, I would be like no, you’re my high-school love. So basically now that I think about it, I think one of the reasons why I was so obsessed with sticking to him and am obsessed with not letting it go is because I feel like my fairytale is slipping away. I think that is why I want to keep a part of it alive within me and can’t bring myself to let go because it’s like symbolizing pure puppy true love for me, despite the abuse. I literally told my mom over the phone a week ago that I’m open to dating other men but I don’t think it’ll be as untainted and pure as what I had with him and now I know why I think that. Because despite all the abuse and tears, it was after all my first relation and the fairytale that I’d wanted since I was old enough to understand romance. Oh my god Anita, thank you so much for making me think about this. This is why I have become so cynical to love again, because I feel it won’t be as pure because I have seen my parent’s love as purer than the other relatives of their generation and I attached it to them being first loves and high school sweethearts. My mom questioned me that how can I call my relation with him pure and why I think my next relation with a better man won’t be pure and I just said I don’t know but now I think I know why. I have idealized the concept of first love (which I think maybe we all do to some extent, correct me if I’m wrong), come to think of it, I’ve grown up watching sappy romantic movies and reading Jane Austen novels and  my parents’ real life example just made it feel possible in real life and, despite all the bad things between R and me, I saw it as my own fairytale, my own first and only love as whatever comes after him, even if the most loving relation, won’t just be my first, won’t just be my fairytale, it will be preceded by another love. So I took the abuse because I couldn’t see my first love dream fail.

2. So my father is like super respectful to mom. I remember his friend telling my mom, I was present too, that he is the best husband he’s seen. Now I remember often gushing over how nice dad is and very closely observing and appreciating his attitude towards mom, telling her I want R to treat me like dad does. I remember one day mom telling me to stop doing that (this was before I told her about his abuse). She told me to not set dad as my only parameter. She told she was afraid that if I become too fixed on finding a partner who treats me exactly as dad treats mom, I may not appreciate my partner for what he brings to the table if it’s different from what dad does, even if just as good. I think that is the reason that I argued Anita. I think I framed my previous post wrong, I wasn’t submissive since the beginning, I would take a stand from the beginning but eventually felt so inferior with his gas lighting that ended up crying and begging. We had arguments since the very beginning, as soon as he left the city because I was always used to seeing very respectful behavior from dad towards mom, I was very sensitive to his lack of respect and time towards me. Dad gives mom a lot of time till now, and I remember thinking when R would be like I’m busy with work all the time, that everyone is busy, dad is also busy but he has a minute for mom when she calls. I think I have seen respectful behavior at home and that’s why was unhappy with R’s conduct towards me. I remember I told the friend that I talked about in the last post, about R not letting me go to the washroom stuff and he was like, you’re being too sensitive, you could have said you have to go once again. But I felt bad as I immediately thought of my dad and compared. I remember when I was smaller and we would even be running late for a movie at the theatres, even in that situation when I’d be like dad I have to use the loo, he would always wait for me. So I think that is why I thought he was rude, that is why I didn’t like he didn’t give me time. I think that is why I felt something was wrong, the problem was that instead of seeing him as wrong, I saw myself as wrong. And why I did that, is the third point.

3. Coming to why I took it all. This is where I would love some guidance Anita. I think there were the following reasons:

• First was obviously the first love obsession that I talked about in my first point.
• Secondly, I would say what I saw around. So I see my friends in ‘friends with benefits’ relations, I see friends who are like we don’t talk daily, my cousins who are okay with husbands not answering calls even once when they are out, and just people in general who are in all sorts of relations. This frankly makes me doubt myself and feel that maybe I am expecting too much. So on one hand I kept feeling bad because I am used to seeing a super loving husband in my dad but on the other hand I stay because I see all kinds of relations around and feel that maybe the way I want to be treated is not possible in my generation. A friend of mine literally told me that why do you want him to talk to you daily and I just didn’t know how to explain it to her. I end up feeling maybe he is normal, maybe all people are like this and I have unbelievably high expectations of good conduct from him. I think he’ll get a chilled out girl with normal expectations and I’ll end up being the unrealistic one. Now I know that he was abusive by any standard but back then this is what I thought. I would be lying if I didn’t say that a part of me even after reading all about abusive tendencies still fears that what if he has a better relation with another girl who will give him more space, what if his abuse was a result of my high expectations but then my better sense says that what I am expecting is not too much, it is basic and people who are in such relations don’t see what I am seeing.
• Thirdly, and this is the biggest one but the most difficult one for me to accept so I’m saying this last: my abysmally low self-esteem and this is where I do put a little bit of blame on my mom. So as a child whenever mom would be upset with me, she’d say the following politely but firmly: she’d compare me to other kids, look at Elise, will she ever argue back with her mother, all children are so disciplined, plus she had this one exact line if I’d not agree to what she was saying when she was scolding me: ‘Improve your nature Jenny, I am your mother so I take it but if you don’t change it, your friends and partner won’t take it’, she’d also say this one exact line, ‘you are just behaving like xyz, this is how she used to behave’ (xyz is my cousin sister who unfortunately had a very unfortunate life and strained relations with family and separation from her husband) and that Anita, that bore into my head like one big nail. I don’t even need to introspect for this, I know this. I am very confident on the outside, I give my opinion, I argue when I feel somebody is wronging me but deep down, I believe that I have the most pathetic nature in the world, and if I don’t change it, I’ll have as miserable a life as xyz, if my mother herself said this who loves me the most, then it has to be true. When I realized this a couple of years back, I went and told mom and she apologized and said that she didn’t mean any of it and said it in anger and ever since then she’s done more than enough to make it up, she’s expressed umpteen times how I’m the best daughter and has never repeated that ever but it doesn’t budge, now I see everything from that prism. I’m like I still have bad nature but she’s saying all this because she doesn’t want to hurt me and that is exactly why I took all that R gave me. I saw it as my fault because I was a bad gf and I have bad nature and he is abusive because I am irritating him with my bad nature, when he gets a better-natured girl, he’ll be okay. His telling me that I cause that abuse, don’t understand etc etc further reinforced that and by and by I began feeling so inferior and low that from fights and arguments, I went to pleading and begging. That is why despite identifying him as rude even before getting together with him, I stayed with him, because I saw myself as causing everything and he said the same thing. But today I definitely know better.

This is it Anita. I’m literally crying with relief right now because I feel I’ve literally poured out the most core issues of my life and have gained clarity.

It all comes down to my very low self-esteem Anita. I mean imagine, even after mom told me he is abusive, a couple friends a few times said his behavior is wrong, I read up so much on narcissism and found him to be similar, you so clearly said he is abusive, I still feel, in some corner of my heart that still maybe I made him abusive, maybe I unreasonable, maybe I am not telling people the things rightly, maybe I was the abusive one and not him, maybe I am not as good as my mom was to dad and don’t deserve that respect, maybe mom just lucked out as most relations around are okay only and even the so called abusive people end up with a gf and wife so how bad can it be, it’s an endless pit, one endless pit. I am feeling embarrassed saying this as you may also think how can I still feel this but that is just how low my self-esteem is. I feel a little proud that I’ve done some work on myself in the last one year that now at least one part of me can see his abuse and call him out on it and not fall back into his attempts to come back, that I have built some esteem. What has even helped is another friend of mine, so he developed feelings for me that unfortunately I don’t have for him and we’re just friends now but the kind of love and respect and appreciation he showed towards me Anita is exactly what I want and that made me think that no I am not wrong, and undeserving of love and that the way I want to be loved is not unrealistic.

But my biggest fear is that tomorrow I’ll see him have a perfect life with another girl and it will reiterate that I was the one who was at fault. I literally dread that day and so thinking that he’ll be as narcissistic to whosoever he ends up with feels comforting.

I will work on my self-esteem. And I will let go of him Anita. Somehow all this makes it clear that there’s a reason to me feeling that I am wrong and that reason is not me actually being wrong but my childhood hurt. I now believe that I know how to respect my partner and so I do deserve the same respect. I’m sorry I’m overwhelming you with very long posts.

We met Anita. We were a part of the same circle though there wasn’t much interaction. i had been told by common friends tho that he likes me. Then around 6 years ago, we just happened to start talking and it escalated pretty quickly, in 4 months he’d asked me out and 2 months after that he’d to move for his work (his shift had been finalized before we got together and we were sure that we’ll see through it).
I just remember that before we began talking regularly, I used to think of him as very rude, based on his way of talking. His friends also always teased him that he’s very rude to people in general but can do anything for those he loves. I definitely chose to see the latter part of it.
I don’t know Anita, I never really felt too loved by him, like there were moments of sheer ecstasy and times when his words and actions made me feel really loved but they were extremely far and few in between and almost non-existent once the honeymoon phases after every reconciliation ended. Most often than not, his words and actions just did not match, he’d be like you’re my everything, my no. 1 and then regularly cancel dates with me to have drinks with friends whom he would anyways regularly meet. I feel that he liked me and so initiated a conversation with me but then I ended up falling far more for him and he’s just loved me enough to want to keep me around but never enough to make me even one of his priorities, at least sometimes.

Like very early on in the relation, when we had one of out first arguments on the phone, he just randomly switched off his phone and went off to sleep, and only switched it on next morning and said a sorry but continued switching off the phone after every argument. I just wish I’d taken a stand then. Later, When we were together, he would just walk away amid arguments or just shout at me and ask me to shut up. I told him that small arguments that can be sorted turn up into big ones because we don’t talk about them. He just leaves midway and when he comes back, he just says leave it I’m sorry and asks me not to start again, making me feel as if i’m dragging the issue and so I let it be until the same issue comes up again.  We fought about the same thing Anita, about him not having time for me and by the end of it i ended up feeling so inferior that even up till now I feel I’m the argumentative one. By the end of it, I felt like I couldn’t express my displeasure without him saying ‘again you go’, the moment i would say something that he didn’t like, he would just snap at me and ask me to shut up. I didn’t realize how inferior I’d begun feeling until when my mother came to stay with me for 6 months towards the end of the relation. She literally told me that all i see you do is cry and plead with him in an argument, you don’t even talk at an equal level or take a stand.
I never really felt pampered by him Anita, like obviously I don’t want to be put on a pedestal or be treated like a princess but I never felt like he was my safe place or someone on whom i could let my vulnerability flow. It was like I have to always be prim and proper, always stay happy and keep smiling and say yes to all he says because if I’m low or felt bad about something, either he’ll leave me alone to deal with it or just snap at me. he didn’t even let me in during his issues. If he were dealing with professional or personal problem, I would check in on him and tell him that I’m here and try whatever I knew to comfort him but he’d just shut me out. I’d be like okay, he wants his alone time, Maybe that was his way of dealing with it but then i’d see he would still be talking to and going out with his friends and family but would shut me out, not even speak properly and ask me to just understand. If i would say you can tell me, we’re in this together, why are you shutting only me out, he would be like you don’t understand anything and I’d feel like such a failure.  Basically as long as my life is perfect, his is perfect, and there are no issues between us, everything was good but if any of these had problems, he would just shut me out and I would just feel so alone. And how long can everything be perfect, so mostly, I would feel like just someone that he likes talking to in his free and happy times and likes being physically close with. That’s it.  I didn’t feel like his partner. When i tried explaining all this to me, he just said that it is the other way round,  i don’t understand anything and I’m never there for him and when I’d tell him that I’m literally sitting here for you, waiting for you to ever need me for anything, he’d be like Really? and would mock me and then leave the room. Plus it was like he always saw the negative things about me in the smallest of things. If we’re eating in  a plate and i end up pouring more sauce than he’d like, he’ll just be what is this and get annoyed, once I’d planned something for his birthday and i was driving him to that place at 12 and got a little lost with the GPS and he began lecturing me that when you’re with me, everything should be planned, you should have done this properly or not done it at all and i felt so hurt anita that he can’t see that i’m doing something for his happiness but can only see the negative in even this, if we’re about to leave a restaurant and i want to use the washroom, he’d be like no lets go, we’ll reach my place in a few minutes because he doesn’t want to wait, when he’d ever tell me to book a cab and its happening a little slowly, he’ll get irritated, even if he’s lovingly asked me to button up his shirt and i’m doing it not as fast as he wants, he’ll get irritated and start doing it himself. It was like I was just never good enough and all i did wrong was all he saw.

I don’t know Anita. One time I discussed it with a friend, he told me that not all of us are the same. He was like not all of us can be emotional support to others and not all of us have the same definition of a love relationship. He said that maybe my partner’s definition of a relationship is more casual and easy breezy while mine is about emotional bonding. That he wants a partner who he can have fun with but then lead his independent life without having to be there emotionally for her. Sometimes I question if i am too emotionally needy. I know I am a little, I know I am more emotional than the average and so maybe need more love in relations but then the fact is that I have not felt emotionally starved in any other relation of mine. I don’t feel emotionally starved by my parents, siblings or friends. I know they all love me immensely and i know that if i need them, they all will be there and they all have been and they all acknowledge how loved i also make them feel so then am i really emotionally clingy? One thing that I have figured as something that I have to work on is definitely my emotional attachment, why did i need that time from him, why was i so dependent on him that i needed him to talk to me, why could i not be like okay, he doesn’t want to talk, let me go and have my own fun, that is how i should have been right, I should have not been that attached to him, hurting myself and maybe also burdening him in the process.

As for the last part about him never doubting him, yes i don’t think he ever genuinely did because his actions never changed or were never even a tad bit more considerate, they only worsened over time. In fact, and I haven’t shared this with anyone, in the last year of our relationship, he had begun verbally abusing me really bad. So if its an argument, apart from shouting, he’ll start hurling all kinds of abuses at me. the first time it happened, i was shocked Anita, i literally couldn’t say anything more, half of the abuses were so bad i hadn’t even heard of them nor have i heard anyone in my circle say those things and nor did i ever think in my wildest dreams also that he could say those because he always said how he hates people who use abuses. I thought maybe i angered him to that extent but then i was like what if he had angered me, would i ever abuse my partner like this even if i’m utterly angered, even if i consider that he got really enraged, does that justify abusing. we are young now with lesser issues, There will be more trying times in life when a person will be utterly frustrated but then does that justify abusing. what if he hits tomorrow in the name of anger? My parents also had few fights, a couple of them did become pretty nasty but not once did my father abuse my mother or vice versa in any way. Sorry i digressed. Coming back to your point, no i don’t think he ever truly doubted his actions, he would say sorry but frankly after a time they felt like words thrown at me to just shut me up than actual apologizing because he’ll be like ‘sorry sorry now lets leave this’ and never follow it up in actions. Plus, he would always be like ‘I know I’m bad but I’m like this only but you are the sensible one, you should know better’ as if its all my responsibility. He’d be like ‘you know its all in your hands, everything about the relation is in your hands’ and at that time for some weird reason i’d be like yes i can handle it but now I’m like this is total shirking of responsibility.

I’ve never written all this out and now writing this I’m literally questioning why was i in this and can’t believe that a part of me still feels for this person. I definitely have to work on my self-esteem.
That’s all it was Anita. Thank you so much for caring to ask, I know, I’ve written a lot of extra stuff but it feels so much lighter to have it all out

Dear Anita,

Regarding #2 and what you shared elsewhere about this man: if the behaviors you described on his part are not his emotional reactions to you abusing him or harassing him (ex. calling him names, threatening him, calling him non-stop, etc.), then regardless whether he could be diagnosed by a professional with Narcissitic Personality Disorder or not, he is a very rude and cruel person, not one I would want any woman to get involved with. A man who is this rude and cruel does not change to a gentle and kind man with new woman, not long term.
The first thing i felt upon reading this and still do is self-doubt. That I think is at the bottom of all of it. Over the years, I’ve constantly fed to myself and he’d told me too that his behavior is my causing and while I have, tried to the best of my abilities, to see things for what they are instead of putting it all on myself but I still keep having doubts. I think that is also a major reason why I’m unable to let go. I see myself at fault in more places than i think i should.
I have never called him any names, never threatened however I do admit that there have been times when I’ve called him more times in a row than I feel i should’ve. The reason that I know in my head is this, even though i keep doubting it: since it was a long distance relation, calls and skypes were literally all we had. Now things would be good for a while, specially after a reconciliation (as i said, he’s left multiple times and come back), we’d talk regularly (a couple texts here and there during the day like gm texts and generally one 20-30 minutes phone conversation mostly at the end of the day) but then suddenly he’ll be like I’m busy, people are over, I’m with my parents etc etc every single day for weeks. Amid all this, he’ll be going out with his friends but would be busy for me. I would understand for a while but would generally lose my calm when i would see that he’s going about his day all fine and having time for everything except me. He wouldn’t even have one proper conversation for me to even address this. It would be at these times that one day I would just lose my calm and call him repeatedly. When he would finally talk to me very reluctantly saying hurry up I’ve to go here go there, I would literally break down and then he’d start shouting calling me non-understanding and a cry-baby. I don’t know if this information is relevant but knowing that maybe not calling again and again would have been a more mature thing to do, I can’t sometimes help my self-doubt overshadowing my reason.

Regarding the 3rd point as what part of it do i want to or feel i would carry with me, I don’t really know Anita. I think I already have little clarity from yesterday after reading your and Peter’s perspective and i think I’m feeling a little prepared to at least try letting go this obsessive want to hold on to anything related to him. But yes, I don’t want to have rose-tinted glasses and remember only the good parts while forgetting the hurt and cruelty, definitely not that.

Thanks a lot Anita, yes that makes sense but the way I’m thinking just seems crazy to me. I mean its not like I want him back, he came back, I then refused to take him back, a fact that very frankly I’m very proud of. Some days when I feel low, the only thing that makes me feel good is that for the first time in 5 years I put my self-value and self-love and respect above my love and want for him. So its not exactly that I want the nest to be there. I am also open to building another nest, my mind’s open to the idea at least, but its like I also don’t want to forget that nest, end that nest’s sanctity. But then i fear that this will just make me miserable, hanging between the past and present like this.

I think I just need to accept that that nest is gone and completely open my heart and mind to building a new nest without wanting to hold a piece of the old nest within me and that is what I’m having a problem with. I mean sometimes I feel angry, angry with myself over wanting to remember fondly a man who only hurt me. I don’t know if this makes sense, maybe I’ll think a little more about your perspective, sleep over it and get back to you. Thank you so much for taking out the time, it’s like i was just fighting with myself all this while and I now I have a few people who can help me do this better.