First time poster, trying to figure out what to do.
Hello everyone,
I am starting to realize after the fact that I ended up in a sort of situationship with a vulnerable narcissist. And I was looking for a forum or place to really discuss it. I've had people push back on it which is tough because I literally studied narcissism, hell I was even published for some research into it. And so I had this egocentric idea that I would never fall victim to it and yet I did.
Met a guy last year who really clicked all my buttons for me physically. And he has a lot of trauma and it really activated my caretaking and nurturing side. We had a fight about a year ago where I told him I needed them to be more supportive when I'm hurting and it was a pretty basic ask (a hug when I'm hurting). Instead he escalated, rewrote reality, shut down, got defensive, and ran after telling me that he wanted distance and space and talking wouldn't help and that he was done. Instead I got the hover treatment. He later referred to it as us just not talking, or me avoiding him, or glad I took the hint to leave him alone.
I generally don't think he's a bad person truly. But what makes it tough is he put his hands on me to hurt me. Not in severe ways, but it was things like stomping on my feet when I was on a date, pushing me into friends at events, shoulder checking me on ice, kicking the back of the calves, and more. I also had to deal with emotional manipulation where he kissed my friend on his volleyball team in front of my friend's fiance the week my friend and his fiance got engaged. As you can imagine that didn't go well for him. Or when he kissed my friend who was roofied to make me jealous. All while refusing to communicate. I tried to be diplomatic like when you shut up to interview at my job I got him a coffee and a donut, got him a Christmas gift telling him he meant a lot to me and I would like to reconcile. But that failed.
When we spoke to reconcile, he gave the old darvo treatment. He denied hurting me, told me he wasn't that kind of person, that if he did do it he was just drunk or places were busy, and that I do stuff too like when I bumped into his friend getting him a hug for his birthday, and that I was some awful terrible person for talking about what happened. That I made a private issue public, that I apparently talked badly about him calling him violent abusive or aggressive. In reality I would tell people the things he did to me and that's what they would jump to and I would try to preemptively defend him. He also told me some other stuff like I can talk about it till I'm blue in the face and no one would ever believe me, that I was reaching out too much and should have taken a hint, while prior he told me he didn't like me making assumptions, and I realized he wasn't going to take accountability in apologize and given the physical nature I needed to guarantee my safety so I told him I don't feel emotionally physically safe around him and he told me fine I'll just stay far away.
Instead, he's been watching and hovering around me. I know he talks bad about me because I hear about it from other people and I just don't care. His friends have said things like oh something happened but I took it too far. And other people have said I could have taken it farther. I don't hate him, and I can tell he's still impacted by me. Because when I've kissed other people or dirty dances with other people I can see that it makes them uncomfortable and he has to move to another area.
I just don't know what to do, he means a lot to me truly but it's also stupid. Like all he had to do was take accountability and apologize and he won't. Instead he chooses to not communicate and hover and watch me and it irritates the hell out of me. I decided to unblock him on social media and re follow him. Not to like all the stuff or watch, but more to leave the door open if he does decide to apologize because he did mean a lot to me at one point and I see him 2 to 3 times a week. I am seeing him start to maintain more relationships than he used to. But I also don't know if that's really the case or it's just a facade. Honestly I just don't know what to do. It would feel easier if it was just someone I could just hate. Like I had a guy who has several ppos on him who put his hands on me and I comfortably blocked him and have not looked back. But with this guy? I just can't seem to do that.