summerisgone's story

Freedom from guilt, he said.

(I'm not a native English speaker, so if there are some mistakes, please understand.)

I was in a relationship with a guy for 8 months until 4 weeks ago.
He is British, and he's been staying in my country for more than one year. I went to England with him for Christmas and saw his family and friends, and he made a 180 degree turn. I could not understand what happened in England because everything happened so abruptly, and I was extremely confused.

One day after we completely broke up,
I happened to google "personality disorder" and that was when things started to click.
I always thought he was overly sensitive about criticism that almost made him look abnormal, and he himself once professed that he fought back at "what he perceived to be an "attack". The exact same description as Sam Vaknin said except it was "attack" instead of "criticism".
After that, I started seeing the "Red flags" I hadn’t seen before and realized the "D&D" was going on all the time along with our relationship, but very insidiously.

I'm 100% sure he is mentally disturbed, and more of a shy/cerebral type than somatic one.
But I'm still confused whether he is a full-blown N or not.
Because even though we've broken up and there's no way I'll be in contact with him in any kind, but I want him to be better. I want him to experience the happiness and pleasure we all experience when in a mature love relationship.
I need some insight and help from you. Thank you all for reading this.

Narcissistic Parts

- The reason he quit trying and decided to end everything was for "Freedom from guilt". He said he couldn't bare injustice, conflicts, unfairness, and judgment anymore and is not willing to sacrifice the freedom from guilt.

- A quote from his email : "There's so many things I want to do to you, and only a few of them are sexual. I feel like Jesus, except instead of wisdom, I have something much more selfish and sinful to give, and instead of to everyone, I only want to give it to you."

- Another quote : “I think the hardest aspect of breaking up for me, is losing someone's affection, even just thinking that someone no longer loves me, after having been loved by them so completely. as you seemed to.”

- There were many times he stopped talking to me for no obvious reason including when I had the flu. I was sick but he insisted on going out to have some "fresh air" .But I knew that was BS because I knew he was so hungry. After we had lunch and did some stuff he wanted to do, we came back to the hostel and I took a nap. We were going to a football match that night. So I woke up after an hour and started to put on clothes and the only thing he asked me was "Are you ready?"
So I asked him back "Were you gonna ask me how I feel now?", and he said yes. That's when he stopped talking to me. It felt like he was shameful but somehow giving me punishment.

- He bought me some knickers and socks with the most childish characters on them and said to me that he wanted to make me look as childish as possible. (I'm 4 years older than him, he is 25.)

- When I was suffering from bladder infection, we went to a bar. (I don't remember who insisted on going for a drink) And we both ordered Tequila Sunrise (which is basically orange juice and a shot of tequila with some gradated red liquor.) After I came back from the bathroom, he told me "Was it like this?" pointing at the cocktail. Yuk. I was so angry.

- He never wanted to friend me on FB, the reason he said was that he gets jealous so easily so if we are friends he will check every men out and become paranoid. That was fine with me since I'm not a big user of it. But one thing is bothering me. When he logged on to FB in front of me, there were over 30 PMs, and he checked only a few of them and signed out. He also locks his laptop all the time, and is very careful not to be looked upon.

- He slapped me when I was simply making fun (not severely, just lightly) of something funny he did.

- He never showed any residual affection or remorse towards his exes.
He said he broke up with them because they became boring to him.
He said that on the first anniversary with his second girlfriend, he brought her to SUBWAY for dinner and a very cheap hostel afterwards. And his ex lied to her family they had a great time. I asked why, and he said "I had no money!"
Another episode, he said he once asked a female friend to come to stay with, and she did come. He brought the girl to a fancy restaurant and that night she tried to sleep with him. He refused and she cried. I asked why, and he said "She was uglier than I thought."

- He never used the expression "make love".
It was either "F#$%" or just sex.

- And so many typical N's behavior: overreaction to what he perceives to be an "attack", excessive desire for getting "compliments, admiration, and adulation ", trouble with admission of his routine faults, the blame shifting, impulsiveness and impatience, and the sudden onset of D&D when I thought our relationship was on its peak.

Below are the reasons why I still want to believe he's not a full-blown N.

- He wrote me a poem when we were still good. I hadn't given it much thought before and I re-read it after we broke up. And I cried.
It was the admission of his immaturity and inadequacy towards the woman he described as the sun, the sky, and morning.

- He once in a while, not very often, said to me that I'm wiser, that he was impressed how patient and not jealous I could be, and that he wanted to be wise. In the beginning of our relationship, he admitted his weaknesses and tried to work on them. So it was working for a while, but he stopped trying.

- His sister said to me that he was never invested or into any previous relationship, but when he was seeing me, he was so into me and moaning every day that he wanted to see me.

- He gave me a replica of my favorite painter’s painting for Christmas present, which is the most moving and worthy present I’ve ever received.

- During the relationship, he paid for almost everything. There was no financial problem he caused me.

This is my story.
I am moving on now. I sometimes blame him for what he did to me, what I didn’t deserve but I am getting better. I don’t miss him, I don’t want to be involved with him ever again and I don’t think he will ever contact me again since I kind of exposed him in my last email. (I hadn’t known NPD, but I told him about his stupidly overrated big ego and the things it caused.) So this is it.

But, since my love was sincere, and he seemed to have known his problems, I hope that he will learn and become a better man one day.

What do you think about him? Is he still hopeful?