Dear Angel1972,

I agree with Inky – you really are better off without this guy.
The fact that you are feeling hurt right now is because he has managed to make you doubt yourself, which is what spending time with an emotionally abusive / narcissist will do. With these subtle messages he put into your head that you are a weak, fragile person who cannot manage a relationship until you “get better”. Do not believe him for a second, this was only a manipulation on his part to make you feel and be inferior to him so that he could establish his control over you. He didn’t necessarily do that in a conscious way, but this is the only way he can function, by making his partner feel small, dependent and miserable. The fact that your life evolved around him and that you are no longer in touch with some of your friends makes me suspect that he very subtly brainwashed you into this, as I have heard similar stories before. I wonder, are the people you are no longer in contact with the kind of people who would have seen right through him and could have warned you about him? It usually is the case that these personalities will identify some of your friends and family as a potential threat to them and will subtly make you stop seeing them.

Please don’t let these weakening messages of his convince you, the fact that you were feeling anxiety was probably because you subconsciously felt that this relationship was unhealthy and wrong. No one should say to you that they “love you but” cannot be with you because of what or how you are, unless you are doing something to hurt them which you obviously weren’t. A lot of people deal with very high levels of anxiety and are still in relationships, and their partners support and help them instead of making their anxiety worse. But in your case it does sound as though the anxiety could have been caused by him in the first place anyway.