Needy

They are the needy ones! Way more needy than anyone else. So first off, saying this about you is nothing more than simple projection. Secondly, they want us to be dependent on them so they need to start telling us we are. When I told my EXNH I was leaving, he just kept saying "Well, I'm the only one who understands you," implying that I would never find anyone again who "gets me." That's manipulation!

I think we are needy . . . but what an N thinks of us is always bullshit. They can't even relate normally with another human being. Coming from them it is an INSULT meant to cripple your self confidence :( That's all it is, coming from them. AND a projection, a huge one. I will speak for myself only here. I was extremely needy. I was lonely and very afraid. It is human to be needy. When you feel very broken down, we reach out for others. This is natural. I DID need, so much. Being needy doesn't mean I am bad or weak. It's just what happens to people who don't get enough positive support. I tell you this, I was 100 times more needy after my N got done with me. I was weaker than him. I am not a predator. I can't begin to be rapacious and cruel to knock another person down. He was a professional at it. I loved him, and he was clever enough to have me thinking he loved me too, while he systematically destroyed me. I really REALLY think that an N calling us "needy" is different than really being needy. Does that make sense? In my heart while I write this, I feel great respect for all our troubles. And do not in any way mean that the N is "right". I think the Ns in our lives are evil incarnate. They are opportunistic, they "know" what to say to hurt and undermine us. In my own definition, I was very needy. I did need a lot of support. I needed so much that I participated heavily in a domestic abuse forum, like, many times daily. THERE I got my needs met :) With people like you all here. I just want to stick up for our TRUE, understandable neediness after going through what we went through. Who wouldn't be "needy" during these relationships? And afterward for a while? It's OK, and natural, is what I'm saying :)

They come on so strong initially, and are so attentive and interested. Then when that stops, we think we did something wrong and we work twice as hard to get it back to the way it was. We do become "needy" in a sense....because they make us that way. I know what you mean about not wanting to be viewed that way and then being cautious, even with friends. Healthy relationships, real friendships though, would not require us to become "needy". Our needs would be met and the relationship would have reciprocity. Try not to worry about appearing a certain way to your friends. Real friends know you, know what you are worth, and would never make you feel needy or guilty for reaching out.

Yep I got called needy all of the time. Actually his exact words were always "you expect too much" when I thought that I MIGHT get flowers on Valentines day. Just little comments like that made me always walk on eggshells. I would always have to watch what I was saying and when. He would tell me "I WILL call you later OK?" So I would never call him because he told that me HE would be the one to call. If I called him for something throughout the day I was told that I am too needy and take up too much of his time and "expect too much" for him to talk to me during the day. I was NEVER this way before. Not in any relationship. I am exteremly independent and used to pride myself on doing stuff by myself. He made me feel so needy and like I needed him. And then once he got me totally dependent on him he left me and said "you are too dependent on me now, go find your own life". THANKS ASS!

This is pretty amazing. Like many of the members here, I too have in fact been self-sufficient most of my life and had never been described this way until I'd encountered a narcissist. I truly had to be self-reliant, having been raised by enormously self-involved parents. Then I became responsible for being the 'grown-up' in my personal relationships as well...often having to be the 'bigger' person: being the first to resolve conflicts and introduce reasoning and rationality into the conversations. Every now and again I'd ask my significant other for something specific, e.g. my deployed ex to occasionally write home or something as mundane as bringing home an ingredient for a meal I was preparing for us both to consume. It was usually met with resistance, annoyance or altogether defiance. And when I confided in my all knowing mother about this, she righteously replied 'You're too needy...'. As if women were put into a man's life to serve him and his purposes only and whatever it is we want, we shouldn't 'trouble' or 'nag' him for it, but simply do him a favor and take care of ourselves by tending our own needs. I am so sick of this attitude. Relationships are a 2 way street. It's so disappointing that sometimes the people who mean the most to us do the least for us.

Yep, we're all needy. I was in so many relationships where I wasn't allowed to ask for anything that by the time I got married I had trained myself to do everything and ask for nothing. When I was pregnant, I was working in downtown Chicago and had to walk three blocks and take two buses and a train to work in the morning and again at night to come home. I had morning sickness all day and night for five months. One evening, about five months in, I was coming home especially sick. There was a hot dog stand in the train station where I got off at night, and the smell of it made me so sick. I called my husband and asked him if he could pick me up at the next station because there was no bus and he hung up on me because I was so "needy" and couldn't do anything for myself. When I got home, an hour and a half later, he was napping. The N I've been with now: one night I was on the phone with my 83-year-old mother and I got scared because she seemed a bit incoherent and that's not like her at all. I called the N and asked if he could come sit with my daughters (they were already asleep), and I knew he was next door watching t.v. at his place. My mom lives a block away and it was just for a quick check. He sighed this huge sigh and said, "SURE Honey, What ELSE can I do for you?" He said that a lot, about the tiniest things I asked him, included when I'd asked him to look at me while we were making love, when I asked him to pass the pepper at dinner, when I asked him to pick up my daughters at school (his child goes to the same school and are all picked up on the playground).

Totally understand. He never called me needy but I always walked on eggshells in terms of when I should text him, how often, content etc. In fact I never called him unless he invited me to or I was returning his call. And after he pushed me away, I'm reticent to call even my friends, suggest we should do something or go some place together just in case they think I'm leaning or needy and say no. So it's quite a lonely place to be but you're frozen there. So I understand. I am not and never have been a needy person but they make you feel that way.