Kimmieh

I am having a hard time tonight because I was supposed to be with him this weekend and I feel lonely and sad. I did sent him an email making it very clear that he cannot justify this behavior. The email was more for me than for him, but I think I was able to communicate that if he does not work on himself, he might do some serious damage to people close to him.

I am determined to get past this quickly because he is not worth pining after. When I broke up with AXBF, it was my saving grace that I would come here and read my old threads. So I am making a list here to be able to go back to when I miss this guy. My reminder that it's good that this is over. If I can't help thinking about it tonight, I guess I can turn it into something that helps me move forward.

- He did not remember crucial information about my family. I had to tell him three times that my brother-in-law died of alcoholism because he kept forgetting (I have one sibling...)
- He rarely asked anything about my past
- He liked himself in the role of the caretaker, but I remember that there were several mornings on which I woke up and he had been up and was eating or had eaten and did not ask if I wanted breakfast (this was at his place)
- He thinks very highly of himself and is convinced he will be highly successful. He thinks he is smarter, more attractive, and more capable than he is
- He loves to be seen as wise and capable and will offer advice on things like relationships or success. But it's all formulaic ("work hard and you will be successful," "just do xyz and abc will happen"). He does not consider that people are individuals. When he offers advice, he often comes across as patronizing and condescending
- wants desperately to project an image of being capable, strong, smart, successful, and a caretaker
- Craves praise and wants admiration
- He is extremely competitive and wants to be the best at everything
- Has a difficult time with other people's emotions - does not want to deal with them
- He can be callous about people's struggles when he thinks that they brought them on themselves
- Judgmental about people he deems less capable or successful (while not being that successful himself...) - will judge people for being on welfare, for example
- After the break-up and following my comment that he lead me on, he wrote me an email (in which each individual point was numbered...) justifying why he did what he did. He did not once acknowledge that he did something wrong or should have done things differently. All he did was trying to look like a stand-up guy who supposedly cared about me and wanted to ease my pain. For this he fabricated a story (which contradicted earlier versions)
- He would have let me drive 9 hours to see him while he was seeing someone on the side and seems to think nothing of it
- At the same time he will lecture people on their "jerk boyfriends"
- He loves to white knight women
- I was (intuitively?) never comfortable talking about negative emotions or fears with him. I was worried I would be judged. Everything had to always be light and fun and carefree (which was fun for the honeymoon stage, but I did begin to miss seriousness and deeper connection)
- He will insist he is right even when it's clear he is not and it's obvious he is just reaching. He might later acknowledge his mistake, but now it feels more like another way of image-building ("see how I am growing and maturing")
- It's always always always about image
- He said once that he does not see the point of making an effort to keep in touch with friends if they don't have an immediate relevance to his life

I should say that these are not things that are overwhelmingly obvious. He was also, as contradictory as it sounds, attentive, perceptive, sweet, caring and he was lots of fun. We laughed a lot. And I have to say he did do wonders for my ego because he was always so smitten with me and told me I am just so amazing and beautiful, etc...

Now that I made this list I am shocked because I was able to explain so much of this away or outright ignore it (we did have arguments about his blatant judgment of people, but I thought it might just be his rigid conservative upbringing). I was so smitten myself with how easy and comfortable and fun everything was. I am not sure what happened there. I told a friend the story from beginning to end today and he just looked at me and said "sounds to me you had a narcissist on your hand." Hi, my name is Kimmieh and I am the queen of denial...."

Kimmieh

Thank you for giving me a space to work through these things. <3

Kimmieh

My friend found it interesting that he dropped the break-up bomb right after we had an argument about politics during which I severely challenged him and his viewpoints: "He said he planned to tell you, but you had a normal conversation for two hours with no indication. And when you challenge his ego, he drops this on you."

We have had political arguments before, but never as heated. I was in a belligerent mood by that point and found his views outright ridiculous (far-fetched conspiracy theories). I guess this was really the first time in six months that I was not careful to be diplomatic and probably bruised his ego quite a bit.