Is it possible that they are manipulative at some point with people in their life who they don’t value, but once they meet someone they respect, be someone genuine ?
The relationship ended one year ago but he still haunts me. I (29F) was in a relationship with a guy (34M). He was very charming at the beginning, gave me lots of compliments about my beauty, intelligence,... (I know that’s a red flag….but I still got hooked..). He also has this nice guy face and has a lot of friends (Don’t ask me why, but I was convinced that he was a very good and kind guy).
One day, as we were eating out together, he told me that he used to have a crush on a very good friend of mine (they don’t know each other personally, just by sight). I didn’t know how to react and I didn’t get the point of him giving me this information if he was considering building something with me. I asked him if it was still the case (he said no) and told him that I didn’t want to force him into a relationship with me. I asked if he was happy with me and he said yes. He then regretted telling me this detail, because “he wanted to be so transparent and having a clean start with me that he ended up being clumsy”. Anyways… I didn’t make a fuss out of it, even though I couldn’t see my friend the same way as I used to anymore. She became a source of stress in my head but I tried not to think about it because I didn’t want to become “the jealous girlfriend”.
As time went on, a few months later, I catched him reacting with flirty emojis to all her stories. (Reminder: they’re not friends). His excuse was that he was just supportive of her (she never replied, just liked his comments). Again, I felt that he was being secretive and that something was off but he managed to give me enough excuses to give him the benefit of the doubt. That night, I didn’t feel so well so I didn’t want to snuggle and I needed some space. He made me feel bad that I didn’t want to hug him and he said whining : “I don’t want a relationship like that”… From this day on, I couldn’t really trust him anymore and he said that something was broken for him as of my reaction to him supporting my friend (excuse-me ??).
The relationship then went on for 3-4 more months. All my friends liked him but I was never at ease with him even though there was nothing tangible to blame. He had very kind words, but his attitude showed disinterest. It was very weird. We had beautiful conversations, he made me feel like I was special when we were talking but during the day I felt like he was irritated by me. I was also crying a lot in this relationship (like every two days) and I thought that I had a problem. I thought that I was so broken that my nervous system couldn’t handle a healthy person (lol). He encouraged me to see a psychiatrist, so I could heal something within myself.
The day we broke up (the story with my friend had become a secondarily thought), the theory was that we couldn’t have a relationship together because I still had to heal too many parts of myself. And I was actually okay with this, I couldn’t stand the idea of being a burden to someone. So I was quite relieved about the separation. One month later, he came back to me. We tried to get back together again but the feeling that something was off quickly came back. So I decided to end the relationship. He insisted that we go to the restaurant to “end things well”. There, he cried and said that he hoped to get back to me once I’ll be healed. That we were like soulmates but there was this evil force between us. He managed to make it seem like he was still in love with me. I then suggested we find solutions so we could still try to make it work. But directly he said no it's impossible. And he leaved crying (now I think those were fake tears, but at that moment I was still thinking I was being paranoid).
A few days later, I went to the restaurant with my friend he had a crush on and she told me that he texted her a lot and asked her to go for a date during our month of break-up. She showed me the conversation. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why couldn’t he just be honest and why did he need to string me along ? I confronted him but all he could do was justifying his actions instead of owning them. The phone call ended on a: I hope you'll have a beautiful life Jen.
From this day, I cut all contact to him and removed him from instagram. Directly after that, he put his profile on public. I also removed him from my list of followers. But now he keeps hoovering by watching my stories.
I texted him, maybe 5 months later, to get my belongings back. He brought them in my briefcase and inside my belonging he put a gift in my belongings.
Is this a form of narcissistic abuse ?
Thank for reading until the end
EDIT: i edited some sentences so they're more comprehensible. I think you guessed english is not my mother tongue 😄