I loved a narcissist and it's ruined me

I am so beyond broken. I need some advice and support. I'm so scared of my own feelings that I still have a hard time thinking about letting him go.

A little backstory: I had recently decided I was done dating after another failed attempt to date my best friend, J. J and my friendship has spanned about 4 years and has been a back and forth/fwb/best friends merry-go-round most of that time duration. I fell in love with him but it was never mutual, which led to a lot of heartbreak on my part when we still spent time together as best friends, but he never wanted to date me. We still always continued to hang out and regardless of whatever happened, he was my best friend and continued to be. I tried dating other people, but it never seemed the same. So, I was content to be single. Until I met C.

C and I met through our place of employment in January of 2013. At first, I was absolutely not interested but another coworker hinted around and one thing led to another and he asked for my phone number. Within a short amount of time I was “hooked”, is a good way to say it. C was alarmingly charming, suave, persuasive – he was a little older than me, seemed established, we had a lot of things in common. It was, in my mind, the beginning of a perfect relationship. I’m one of those women who does crave that very male/female relationship. I like those “roles.” He was experienced, stable, handsome, manly, aggressive. It was the first time in 3 years I had stopped thinking about J and wanting to be with him. We flirted through text, talked on the phone and when we would casually see each other at work for 4 months. Of course at some point during this time, I tried to see about us actually going out on a date or spending time together, but he was also so “busy.” He said once things slowed down, he wanted to. He liked me – a lot. It was a constant stream of praise and admiration for me, but not a lot to back it up. Normally, I would have cut ties way before and moved on. But, this was different – or so I thought.

For all those months, something kept me hanging. He was vague about what he wanted or didn’t want at times – even though we hadn’t been alone, there was so much sexual tension that unless you have experienced something like this, you would never understand. C didn’t even need to touch me and I was turned on – and it was undeniably mutual. It was like two live wires every time we saw each other or spoke. I’d never dreamed anything like this could be real – it was truly like something out of a movie. I was blindsided and would have done whatever he said. Which, my normal mind knows wasn’t good, but it didn’t seem to matter.

He decided to leave his position at his job in May of 2013 – almost six months after we met- and move back to where he had been living before. We saw each other 2 times before he moved – the first times we spent actually talking to each other and spending time together. And, that’s when we slept together. Addictive is the best word I can think of. It was perfect, what I always wanted – passionate, sexy, he complimented me constantly, he knew exactly what to do. It was surreal. Like a dream. After those 2 times, he moved and I didn’t speak to him for about 3 months. I had tried to text him and he would ignore it or say he was depressed or busy. I felt sorry for him so I just tried to live my life and leave him alone. In September of 2013, he called me out of the blue one night and it was like nothing had changed. Not a moment had gone by. He started calling me pretty frequently (always late at night) and we would spend hours on the phone… often until 4 or 5am. We talked about anything and everything and what we wanted out of life and found that so much of it was similar. Yet, he never tried to meet up or have a date or see where else things could go. He came back to town 2 more times in September – I met some of his family, we slept together again… we would stay up all night talking and dancing and in those moments life was real and it was good. Until the morning came. I remember specifically one morning after we had spent the time together I came downstairs and he was watching tv. It was awkward because he didn’t seem connected to me anymore. I asked if I should stay or go and he said “No matter what I say, it won’t be the right answer.” I asked him again and he smiled at me and said, “You can leave. Maybe you can come back later.” I said okay and left. It was like he was either hot or cold. And, it always hurt. Yet, I came back for more.

After the visits in September, he called me almost every night. The thing was he always pushed me to be better than I was – he knew the things I wanted to do with my life and he tried to push me to do them. He offered to help me find a job or a place to live, etc. But, he would also say things that alluded to a future without him – “you should move overseas, “one day when you’re married, you should…” Yet, he constantly told me how much he liked me and how he wasn’t ready for a relationship, he didn’t know where things would go. Finally, out of the blue… I never heard from him again. I was devastated. Three months went by and in December, my best friend J, decided he wanted to date me. It was what I had always wanted – I loved him, our relationship had the foundation of what normal, healthy relationships are built on. He knew everything about me, I never had to play games, we had things in common – the sex had always been good and now he loved me. We never sat down and had a “let’s date” conversation – it just happened. And, I was happy. But, I was also broken. So, we began to date in December and by January things were good. C wasn’t always on my mind and I hadn’t heard from him so I was moving on. I found out he was dating someone (surprise surprise) and so it was what it was.

Until February of 2013 – I woke up one morning, in my boyfriend’s bed, to find 2 missed phone calls and 3 missed text messages from C. J had known everything so I told him and became angry. Why now – 4 months later – would C try and contact me? I deleted the messages and the number and went to work. I had NO intention of getting in contact with him. I was happy and he had hurt me beyond belief. At 5pm that day, my phone rang again. It was him. I ignored him and texted him to say we had nothing to talk about. He was calling to apologize and wanted to explain some things. I said okay and he could call later that day. And, he did. He apologized profusely and acknowledged he was cruel and mean. He had been in therapy and he was sorry for what he had done to me. I accepted his apology and that was that. We texted here and there, casually, over a couple of days and it died off.

This began another tailspin – he was going to come to town and asked to stay with me. That’s when I told him I was dating someone and that couldn’t happen. He asked if things were serious and didn’t’ want to interfere. Eventually, I again stopped hearing from him. For months, I didn’t think about him a lot. But, he was there in the back of my mind. Would he have tried harder if I wasn’t dating someone? Did he really love me and that’s why he was leaving me alone? Maybe he was in a better place. I was in therapy and my therapist, based on everything I told them, believed C to be a narcissist. I wrote down everything she said so I could hold on to it and believe it because if I could grasp this, maybe moving on would be easier. I started reading about narcissism and believed this is what the whole relationship boiled down to. Everything matched up perfectly. This helped at times, but then J and I have been having a difficult time at times settling into a relationship after being friends for so long. We’ve been going through the normal, difficult couple things. And, so, over the past couple of months my mind has been resting a lot with what happened with C and how maybe our lives would have been great if it had been the right time. We wanted everything so similar and had such great chemistry – how could it be bad? It seemed the more the days went on, C consumed my thoughts. Constantly. I had long deleted his number, but I knew other ways to get in contact with him. I thought about it daily. But, I always talked myself out of it. I’d recount the time he told me to leave or the time he smacked my ass after sex when I was leaving and became angry and wouldn’t go through with it.

Current: Fast forward to this WEEK. Almost 6 months after the last time we spoke. C contacted a mutual friend and wanted to know if I was still dating that same guy and wanted to contact me. I almost died – after all the constant weight on me recently thinking about contacting him and here he was trying to find me again. Surely it was a sign. Yes, I was still in a relationship. But, part of me needed to know if things were different with him. I consented to meeting with him –

Okay, disclaimer: so this is where things go very badly. I am NOT looking for sympathy because of my actions. What I did was absolutely wrong and I have taken full responsibility for it.

He asked me to come see him and catch up. I told him up front I was still dating someone and he didn’t need to have any expectations. He said he missed me and we had been in two different places before. So, I thought maybe he’s a changed man. I don’t know what I thought – it’s like another person inhabited my body. I had NO intention of crossing the line with him – I just wanted to talk to him. It sounds trite, but it’s true. We met and it was like no time had passed – we ate and walked around. He lives in a place I want to live, he travels, he’s free… it’s what I ultimately see in my life. We talked about what happened. In some part of my mind, I hope he would say he had had time to think and he realized what he missed out on and wanted to be with me. I didn’t know how I’d react, but why do this to me again if it wasn’t for something significant? We ended up back at his apartment and continued to talk. He said if I was single I could come up and visit him… not that we could be anything. He said he wasn’t in a place to be in a relationship. He didn’t know what dating meant, etc. etc. etc. Enough time has passed for me to accept this so I wasn’t mad. He said he just missed his friend and he was tired of feeling guilty for having hurt me before. I had come to a place where I simply wanted to have him in my life. As someone to occasionally talk to or bounce ideas off of – I knew he would be someone to challenge me. I’d believed for a long time he was my soulmate – and soulmates don’t always end up together, but I wanted him in my life in some capacity. As you can guess, things escalated and we ended up crossing the physical line. I didn’t sleep with him, but it was enough.

I left and went home. I was numb – on one hand, it was perfect. On another, I knew what I had done and I was sick. He wasn’t in a different place – we still wanted different things, ultimately. And, more importantly – I had cheated on someone who love me and who I loved and who took care of me emotionally and would never have done this to me. I ended up telling J the next morning – he was devastated. I wanted to die. I still wish I could just go to sleep and this would be a nightmare. This was not what was supposed to happen. I know I made a stupid decision and like I said, I’m not looking for sympathy or “poor you”, but I have been on a rollercoaster with a narcissist for 2 years. I feel emotionally raped. C texted me the next day and I told him what happened – he said he didn’t want me to have to go through this and this isn’t what he meant to happen. I sent some long drawn out “we want different things, blah blah blah” and his response was – “I never intended for any of this to happen. Hopefully there will be a silver lining.” That was it. It was like the nail in the coffin – it doesn’t matter what I do, he will never want to be in a relationship with me. I’ve started reading about relationships with narcissists and it seems this is common – they love you to the extent they can, but it’s never a whole, healthy relationship. It’s a fairytale. It’s passionate and sexy and mysterious. But, it’s like living in a dream. It’s not reality.

J and I have decided to take some time apart for me to think about what I want and why I did this. Right now, I’m just trying to reel everything in and not be in bed when I’m not at my job. I feel broken – but this time it’s my own fault. I can’t blame C, I can’t blame J – I blame myself. Deep down, I know J will take care of me and that all the “important” things in a relationship, we have. I have love and security and emotional stability and someone who knows me better than anyone. But, I worry that I am still going to want the passionate, aggressive side of things. Am I ever going to realize that’s not permanent – that all that brought me was heartache? Will I ever forget about C and will I ever stop fantasizing about the life we “could have” had? Part of me even now worries if he was to contact me tomorrow or a month from now or God forbid years from now, I would cave again.