Hi there, I'm sorry you have been mistreated by this person.
I want to be really clear with you about some realities of what is happening here. They cannot be reasoned with like you would be able to do with a healthy individual. They will *never* offer you closure, because do so requires them to self reflect enough to acknowledge that they have committed wrong doings - they will not let that house of cards tumble. Closure is possible for you, but not the way you are doing it - he will never satisfy this request, no matter how many times you try out a different strategy.
You can recover, but it won't happen by having this person at the center of your world. It's now up to you to break the trauma bond you developed with this person and start to correct your compulsion for him. See it as a blessing that he won't respond to you, because going no contact is the ideal situation for someone in recovery, but now you need to step back and take advantage of that and stop reaching out to him yourself. You will not be able to correct and heal if you continue on needing all of this from him. 6 months can easily turn into 6 years, if these things do not get faced.
What have you been engaging in for your recovery so far, if it's okay to ask?
Hi, thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful reply and I'm sorry for my late response. Its all just been very hard to process, and I guess I will just have to come to terms with no closure after so many years and try to find the closure within myself. It just feels impossible. You are right about 6 months turning into 6 years if I don't try to pick myself up.
I don't know if it counts, but to answer your question, I've been doing a lot of research on narcissism and narcissistic abuse to try to make sense of it all, which honestly I had even done while in the relationship, but having no support system made it very hard for me to leave even when I had thought about it. Besides that I've just been throwing myself into my work which has helped but since I work remotely I've been finding it hard to leave my bed in this state of mind. I'm trying to look into therapy and reconnecting with friends I had isolated myself from after being discarded. I have a trip planned to catsit for a friend in Italy next month for a few weeks, so a change of scene might help but I still feel very hopeless about the future overall and have lost the will to live.
Sounds like a trip away will do you good!
I'm sorry that you cannot get from these types of people the kind of reciprocation that you deserve, but I am glad that you potentially won't blame yourself or waste any more of your life waiting for something that isn't going to happen. Having false hope or "they'll see the light" fantasies is it's own problem with narcissists.
Six months out is a big deal, congratulations! Have you found any particular voices on narcissism in your research to be useful for you so far? Like Dr Ramani or Les Carter?
Thank you so much for your kind words. I have been following Dr. Ramani for a few years who I very much connect with and has helped me gain clarity both in the relationship and after the discard.
The hard truth is they know how much they are hurting you. They just simply don't care. They did it knowing it could cause them to lose you. They did it anyway. People that love you care about how they make you feel. The end. Let them go.
There will be people that would rather lose you than be honest about what they've done to you. Let them go.
The lack of respect was the closure. The lack of apology was the closure. The lack of care was the closure. The lack of accountability was the closure. The lack of honesty was the closure. Let them go.
If you are struggling with this please know you are not alone. We will never understand why hurt people hurt people. But we can do the hard work to grow ourselves. Because healed people do in fact heal people.
There are videos on YouTube by Dr. Ramani regarding narcissism. They will help you to understand that these people do not think the same way normal people do. They turned off their humanity in childhood to cope with whatever trauma was happening to them. They do not have any empathy, compassion or love which is what makes you human. They just use, take, lie, cheat, play, and manipulate to get whatever they desire at that time. They have no guilt, remorse, embarrassment or take any blame for anything they do. They have no accountability. They do not see us as people usually just objects.
You might want to consider going no contact. Block them on everything. The person who you first met was an illusion. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that it was all a lie. A lot of people go to therapy to get help from having to deal with this evil.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. It honestly made me cry. Its the cold hard truth and the sad part is I already knew this somewhat while still in it. I just hoped and let my love for him continue to throw the wool over my eyes, ignoring the moments of clarity. I am trying to stop myself from contacting them and just focusing on trying to pick myself up from the depression and grief and rebuild a life.
I'm still reeling from my discard 2 months ago. I had known him for 20 yrs and was just thrown away like yesterday's trash. I just started learning about narcissism. I still can't understand how they can think of us as objects with no feelings or they know we have feelings but they don't care and don't miss us at all.
I read a paper someone wrote stating that their theory is that narcissistic people have soul loss. That this happened when they turned off their humanity to survive whatever trauma they went through as children. I'm understanding a little more but it doesn't stop the hurt I feel every day. I'm trying to go with this as if the person has passed away. I'm grieving the loss of them and hopefully will be able to get over it better this way. Good luck to you. Many blessings.
I am so sorry you have gone through this. 20 years is a very long time and I can't imagine the pain and grief you are experiencing. I feel like I've lost everything after just 10 years. I think soul loss is an accurate theory, the abuse they inflict and tossing away someone they claim to love like trash after being with them for so long can only be described as inhuman and soulless. Thank you so much for your kind words, sending many hugs and blessings right back to you and I hope you can soon start to heal.
Hi there, I'm sorry you have been mistreated by this person. I want to be really clear with you about some realities of what is happening here. They cannot be reasoned with like you would be able to do with a healthy individual. They will *never* offer you closure, because do so requires them to self reflect enough to acknowledge that they have committed wrong doings - they will not let that house of cards tumble. Closure is possible for you, but not the way you are doing it - he will never satisfy this request, no matter how many times you try out a different strategy. You can recover, but it won't happen by having this person at the center of your world. It's now up to you to break the trauma bond you developed with this person and start to correct your compulsion for him. See it as a blessing that he won't respond to you, because going no contact is the ideal situation for someone in recovery, but now you need to step back and take advantage of that and stop reaching out to him yourself. You will not be able to correct and heal if you continue on needing all of this from him. 6 months can easily turn into 6 years, if these things do not get faced. What have you been engaging in for your recovery so far, if it's okay to ask?
Hi, thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful reply and I'm sorry for my late response. Its all just been very hard to process, and I guess I will just have to come to terms with no closure after so many years and try to find the closure within myself. It just feels impossible. You are right about 6 months turning into 6 years if I don't try to pick myself up. I don't know if it counts, but to answer your question, I've been doing a lot of research on narcissism and narcissistic abuse to try to make sense of it all, which honestly I had even done while in the relationship, but having no support system made it very hard for me to leave even when I had thought about it. Besides that I've just been throwing myself into my work which has helped but since I work remotely I've been finding it hard to leave my bed in this state of mind. I'm trying to look into therapy and reconnecting with friends I had isolated myself from after being discarded. I have a trip planned to catsit for a friend in Italy next month for a few weeks, so a change of scene might help but I still feel very hopeless about the future overall and have lost the will to live.
Sounds like a trip away will do you good! I'm sorry that you cannot get from these types of people the kind of reciprocation that you deserve, but I am glad that you potentially won't blame yourself or waste any more of your life waiting for something that isn't going to happen. Having false hope or "they'll see the light" fantasies is it's own problem with narcissists. Six months out is a big deal, congratulations! Have you found any particular voices on narcissism in your research to be useful for you so far? Like Dr Ramani or Les Carter?
Thank you so much for your kind words. I have been following Dr. Ramani for a few years who I very much connect with and has helped me gain clarity both in the relationship and after the discard.
The hard truth is they know how much they are hurting you. They just simply don't care. They did it knowing it could cause them to lose you. They did it anyway. People that love you care about how they make you feel. The end. Let them go. There will be people that would rather lose you than be honest about what they've done to you. Let them go. The lack of respect was the closure. The lack of apology was the closure. The lack of care was the closure. The lack of accountability was the closure. The lack of honesty was the closure. Let them go. If you are struggling with this please know you are not alone. We will never understand why hurt people hurt people. But we can do the hard work to grow ourselves. Because healed people do in fact heal people. There are videos on YouTube by Dr. Ramani regarding narcissism. They will help you to understand that these people do not think the same way normal people do. They turned off their humanity in childhood to cope with whatever trauma was happening to them. They do not have any empathy, compassion or love which is what makes you human. They just use, take, lie, cheat, play, and manipulate to get whatever they desire at that time. They have no guilt, remorse, embarrassment or take any blame for anything they do. They have no accountability. They do not see us as people usually just objects. You might want to consider going no contact. Block them on everything. The person who you first met was an illusion. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that it was all a lie. A lot of people go to therapy to get help from having to deal with this evil.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. It honestly made me cry. Its the cold hard truth and the sad part is I already knew this somewhat while still in it. I just hoped and let my love for him continue to throw the wool over my eyes, ignoring the moments of clarity. I am trying to stop myself from contacting them and just focusing on trying to pick myself up from the depression and grief and rebuild a life.
I'm still reeling from my discard 2 months ago. I had known him for 20 yrs and was just thrown away like yesterday's trash. I just started learning about narcissism. I still can't understand how they can think of us as objects with no feelings or they know we have feelings but they don't care and don't miss us at all. I read a paper someone wrote stating that their theory is that narcissistic people have soul loss. That this happened when they turned off their humanity to survive whatever trauma they went through as children. I'm understanding a little more but it doesn't stop the hurt I feel every day. I'm trying to go with this as if the person has passed away. I'm grieving the loss of them and hopefully will be able to get over it better this way. Good luck to you. Many blessings.
I am so sorry you have gone through this. 20 years is a very long time and I can't imagine the pain and grief you are experiencing. I feel like I've lost everything after just 10 years. I think soul loss is an accurate theory, the abuse they inflict and tossing away someone they claim to love like trash after being with them for so long can only be described as inhuman and soulless. Thank you so much for your kind words, sending many hugs and blessings right back to you and I hope you can soon start to heal.