Never Enough

It happened that my Ex got an internship at a place that was too far away from her home, but near’ish to mine. I offered her to stay at my place and declined her proposal to pay a share of rent. She wanted to commute by train, but the schedule was rather impractical in the mornings and I insisted on driving her. It was an excellent opportunity for me to love bomb her and to progress our relationship to the next stage. Unfortunately, the next stage in a narcissistic relationship is devaluation. When we were planning the arrangement, we called it our Sweet Month.

We woke up at 6 in the morning, I made a quick breakfast and coffee for both of us, we drove for 50 minutes to her workplace, and then I drove for another 50 minutes to mine. I enjoyed the time with her a lot. I had a purpose.

On the first day of the internship, she came back thrilled from work. I was happy for her, but also a bit jealous, as she wouldn’t show this amount of excitement for our relationship. However, her excitement wore off quickly. After two or three days, her motivation was gone and she had to push herself to go to work. I’m not entirely sure why that happened. She had some criticism about the place that I can’t judge about. One time she mentioned: “I’m not allowed to speak [at work].” I interpreted this as that she lacks the speaking skills of German language and the self-confidence to participate fully in the work routine and prove her professional skills, which she undoubtedly has, to her colleagues. Note the subtle wording of victimhood: it’s not that she’s unable to prove herself, it’s that others don’t allow her.

Though I don’t enjoy getting up early (ask my boss, he’ll confirm), I got used to it quickly. I was energetic in the mornings to take care of my Ex and drop her off at work safe, sound, and on time. “Why are you so stressed?”, my Ex asked me one morning. In the car, she drew a connection between my morning behavior and her observation from the cooking incident: I have a temper, become stressed and impatient. I wasn’t stressed in the mornings, I was contentedly taking care of her. Yet she shamed me that there is something wrong with me.

Narcissists have difficulty in emotional self-regulation and rely on other people to regulate their emotions. Their target senses this as a toxic behavior, since the target’s needs and feelings are invalidated in order to serve the emotional needs of the narcissist. My Ex didn’t enjoy going to work, was fatigued and anxious about her future, thus I wasn’t allowed to be active and energetic.