Somehow it ended with me chasing him?!

We met when we were both on an overseas work trip- we lived on different sides of the Atlantic but from the day we met he was texting me constantly, at all times of the day and night. He seemed charming, educated, full of excitement and completely intoxicated with me. I lapped it up. Within two weeks he had flown me out on an elaborate holiday around the states, to disney land and surronding beaches.We said we loved each other, we planned to coordinate as many overseas work trips as possible until we could work out a plan for living together. Over the course of the next 3 months he had flown me all over the place on holidays, within 6 months he had met my parents, I, his and we had decided to look into me moving to his country to start a life together. It was on a shared work trip 6 months in that I realise I must have had my suspicions, he was always on his phone and secretive about his social media (not posting any photos and keeping all his devices private). I checked his messages and saw he was still emailing his ex girlfriend claiming to still love her and be waiting for her to be ready to come back to him. (after she left him for cheating on her repeatedly) I packed up my stuff and moved out of the hotel. He begged and begged me to come back saying that he was an idiot for replying to her that she was still clinging on to him and wouldn't leave him alone and he just cared about her and wanted to make sure she was happy. He cried, he begged and he even said he would jump out of the window if I didn't at least hear what he had to say. By now I was already hooked so despite my intuition I went back. A year went by and a number of occasions where I realised I could not find any support in him, I could not trust him, I was not being heard by him and I was slowly losing my sense of self and all the boundaries and strength I felt I had in my life prior to him. I was already hooked and addicted though so drudged on through even though with my increasing lack of awareness in my own feelings I was fairly sure I wasn't entirely happy. My work agreed I could relocate and so I set a plan to give up my family and friends and move over to be with him (still living with his Mum after having to give up his apartment to his ex girlfriend after he cheated on her). One final work trip to get through before moving I checked his messages and found a similar story with yet another girl who I discovered he was with when he first met me.

When I confronted him this time something shifted and he didn't seem to care about trying to convince me to stay, he didn't come looking for me, he got angry. he put on some lip service about us working through this but I could tell he had lost his interest in someone who he could tell was seeing through him. With all the changes work had made to accomodate my move I had to follow through with this but in the time taken to organise all of this, he had cut off and slowly stopped responding to any texts, calls, refused to help me move. In the end it was one text one morning saying we should end things. He wouldn't give any more than that. Slowly I found out through social media (pictures he was deliberately blocking from his sites that were showing up on others) that he was in fact back in a relationship with his ex (the one he had previously lived with). My flights were booked, my job was secured and I was determined to move countries non the less. In all honesty it was because I wanted him back. I can say it was because of work and because I would have lost my job otherwise but I know it was because I was feeling so much pain at being rejected by my narcissist and seeing him with the girl that I had obsessed about during our relationship sent me quickly into a breakdown- like my world got ripped apart, my blinkers came off and what I saw the raw reality of a situation and what I had been blind to for the last 2 years. I had never felt pain and despair like it. For 6 months I planned the move, living on sleeping pills, barely any food, barely surviving, somehow making broken days through work. All the time he would send sporadic messages saying I should in fact move to come to that city and show him how committed I was to him. If I just moved then it would prove to him that i did in fact love him after wall. Meeting at work events and acting like a couple right up until the point at which we would sleep together then being discarded and thrown away once more. It was the lowest point I have ever experienced and I am still in awe at how I managed to survive.

The time came and I moved to the same city as him and his girlfriend. The day I arrived he came to my place to tell me he had broken up with her and wanted us to be together but we needed to take time to make sure it was done respectfully to his now once again ex. He marked a date in my diary and said on this day we can go public. I am aware writing this now how ridiculous it seems that someone could take all of this and still bear sitting in the same room as this person let alone actively want to chase him and dream of having him in my life for good. That was the level of addiction I was in at this stage. The next 6 months were a mixture of being openly at events together, sleeping at his, him calling into mine for sex then leaving and then having periods where he would distance himself completely and chastise me for misunderstanding what we were- we were very much not a couple- despite a little holiday over my birthday which I misunderstood to mean more than it was (I also discovered he was still texting his ex during this). 8 months into living in the same place, 2.5 years after being together on and off, two times being dumped for his ex. The real clincher came when I then find out he had in fact been dating someone in a whole new country since two months after I moved to is city and was planning to move to that country live with her. When I emailed her to find out if this is true I get blocked from everything by him and told in no uncertain terms never to contact him again and never to attempt to contact her again. She replied and told me she has heard all about me stalking and harassing him and that an email from me has shaken her up and she thinks that I am insane and obsessive and fears for her poor boyfriend and herself. We had a work trip all three of us together where I managed to avoid both of them and he came to me to tell me they werent in fact together and that if I could just make it through the trip without speaking to her or allowing her to speak to me then we could talk about how to move forward afterwards. By this time I was completely aware it was all lies (as it turned out to be- they were fully together the whole time) and despite him continually getting in touch to meet up after the trip, then meet me and devalue me he continued to plan to move to the country where she now lives.

While many shared friends and almost all of his friends have urged me to try and forget him as he is no good to any girl, they have all admitted they do not want to get involved in any other way and so the easiest thing is if we arrange to see each other separately or if we just take some time away from our friendships. Many people admit he is potentially psychopathic as well as narcissistic but also admit that as a friend they are drawn to his energetic personality, his false sense of being 100% engrossed in someone and the feeling of belonging it gives them. It seems no one is prepared to say a bad word to him or to share any truth with this current girlfriend, no one wants to lose this energetic guy from thier lives. So while I have had an unprecedented amount of support from my friends, shared friends and his friends, there is a inevitability that he will still thrive and he will still be revered for being this huge personality that no one wants to give up regardless of which ever girlfriend it is that he brings to the party. he will always be received with open arms. He is now living with her in a country I travel to regularly with work attending events that I regularly attend. At a recent event she sought me out to tell in me very clearly to leave her and her boyfriend alone and stop stalking him and his friends, how she had heard we broke up over three years ago and that I have never quite gotten over it. I am at an age where if I want to seriously consider having a family, having a relationship and just generally having a life, I now need to look into leaving my work so as to not bump into them and taking my recovery back five steps. I am now having to look into leaving this country (as without this job there is no visa) so once again looking to start my life over. This time it is to avoid the devaluation that he and his new girlfriend seem to be revelling in.

No contact has only been 6 weeks now for me but after 3 years of hell, just this 6 weeks of reprieve have literally saved my life and brought back elements of myself that I recognise and have missed over the last few years. Already I am seeing the benefit and the reasons as to why I must have somehow called someone like this into my life, shattered my life into a thousand pieces and planned to slowly build myself up again with a little more awareness, compassion and understanding than before. I still have days where I wish it was me that he was love bombing again and wish I could show the new girlfriend just what lies he is telling her and somehow feel the need to prove to her and others I am not actually insane but I realise this has more to do with me working on me than acting outwardly. For the most part I am just trying to sooth myself into the fact that it is ok that I still feel I have lost out to another girl as what I went through was a very strong addiction that I am just pulling myself out of now. I am hoping to be able to use this forum as encouragement and also as a platform to come to in the low moments as I am aware family and friends are running low on compassion for what seems to be an obvious point that I had a lucky escape from a very dangerous man.

One day maybe I will be able to tell my story in a more succinct way when my head feels clearer, or even better maybe one day I wont even care to tell the story at all!