Never Enough

The story so far presents a distorted image to the reader. It wasn’t just the aforementioned negatives, there have been a lot of positives as well. There were walks while holding hands, affectionate gestures, fun activities, romantic dinner nights. If you had met us, you would probably have thought that we are a happy couple in love. We were. It was a happy lovestory to outsiders and a traumatic experience to insiders.

Our relationship was an emotional rollercoaster to me. Coincidentally, I love rollercoasters. They make me feel alive. My Ex, despite all the distancing, has given me affection and words of affirmation. She said, she was glad to have met me. I was glad to have met her. I enjoyed being with her, feeling her presence, the intimacy between us. I was emotionally invested. After one fight, I told her: If it doesn’t work between us, I will still be glad to have met you. She replied that she feels the same.

I have given a glimpse before why I would endure such an experience. It was a combination of feeling pity about the hard time that she had, guilt about letting her down, and occasional appreciation that I received from her. I had developed a trauma bond and feared being alone. She was cantankerous, but also frail. I was harried, but wanted to be gentle and please her. I told myself, I have to break habits after being alone for this many years. When we were together, I was flooded with feelings of happiness. I clinged to these feelings and to a fantasy that I kept chasing. I fell in love with an idea of how our relationship could be–without the, as I perceived it, complaining and unfairness.

It was easy to justify why she was cranky. She had a difficult time, objectively. She had experienced abuse in her childhood, disappointments during adulthood, moved alone to another country, went through a breakup immediately before our relationship. She was working on securing her career in Germany, but at that point, it was uncertain whether she would succeed. She was stressed and anxious about the future. My Ex said that she’s looking for happiness and peace. I could sense that she is loaded with fears and frustration, which often burst out in the form of teardrops or anger.

I had to be considerate and understanding. I was, but sometimes it was too much for me. Thus, I had to try harder to please her. It matched my inner child’s belief that I have to put my needs second and please loved ones, or else they will abandon me. However, I wondered: will it get better or worse, once she feels secure in life? I was hoping for more joy and less complaining once her mood gets better, but I worried about more demands and control once she feels stronger. I felt the emotional abuse, but I decided to bear it and hope for a change.

We haven’t been long enough together for a long-term assessment of the relationship, but experiences from other survivors of narcissistic abuse are clear about this: it never gets better, it only gets worse. If you are in a narcissistic relationship, you have to give up hoping for a brighter future and instead accept the current reality as how far the relationship dynamics will get. If you want change, you must change yourself by setting boundaries, and drawing consequences for yourself if your boundaries are crossed.

My Ex once used the metaphor of the blind leading the blind for our relationship. She saw the tension between us. Neither of us understood the reasons and how we have been functioning in the relationship according to our childhood traumata. After I learned about attachment theory, I realized that we both have an insecure attachment style, have been unaware about our emotions, didn’t communicate effectively about unfulfilled needs and thus couldn’t resolve conflicts in a healthy way. We got used to and adapted to each other, thus it seemed that it’s going better over time, but resentment continued to accumulate.