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| Love Junkies and Heroin Addicts Continued...
I had really opened my heart to this man. I truly believed he was the love of my life whom I would be with forever. I believed I had finally met the man of my dreams. He was everything I had ever wanted. But somewhere along the line I realized I was the only one really involved in the relationship. He took from it what he needed but he never truly involved himself on an emotional level. I was used to emotionally unavailable men. In my experience, men just didn’t open themselves emotionally, at least not the majority of them. I figured in time he would allow himself to be more vulnerable. But it never happened. Over the years I gave more and more of myself emotionally to compensate for what was missing. When I finally left, it was because I was spent. I was emotionally drained. I was physically ill. I had nothing left within me to give. I knew I needed to recoil and get my energy back. Yet when I left I didn’t think he would just go away. I thought maybe he would realize how important our relationship was and start giving more of himself. Instead he gave it to someone else, apparently more worthy than I. My ex-boyfriend had sailed off into the sunset with Ms. Perfect, and I was left on the shore with the emotional garbage that seemed to say “You are really messed up” all over it. Most people in my social circle agreed that I was messed up on some level. After all, I broke up with him and he dealt with it just fine but I simply wasn’t coping. Sifting through the emotional garbage I found pieces of my abandonment issues, my jealousy, my dependency on him, my feelings of complete worthlessness, my fear of rejection and so much more. I envied him, the man who could just pick up and move on without missing a beat. The more perfect he looked, the more imperfect I looked. “No wonder it didn’t work out, I thought!” I obsessed through all the pieces of my past three years with this man. I remembered all the times I was hurt and disappointed in his behavior or in his reactions. “Maybe I just expected too much” I thought. It seemed the more I focused on how messed up I was, the deeper I fell into depression and despair. I realized I would never have a happy relationship because I was carrying so much garbage around. I was obsessive! I was dependent! I was jealous! I was an emotional wreck! Meanwhile my ex was so brilliant. Nothing ever got to him. He was never fazed by the emotional landscape of his life. Anything could be happening around him, like family upsets or even a crisis, like the explosion that happened in our neighborhood park that sent flames shooting into the air threatening to destroy our neighborhood and possibly our family as well. He was so cool and collected while my son and I were hysterical. I had always admired this man for his ability to be so composed on an emotional level. Perhaps it was because I could be so emotional and his composure was somehow comforting. Reflecting back over the relationship, once it was over, however, I realized that I had been more emotional than usual with him. I was out of balance! I thought about the description of a heroin addiction and realized it was really no different here. When I fell in love with this man it was the greatest high in the world for me. It was as if the Gods were smiling upon me, giving me everything I had asked for, everything I had prayed for. Finally I was worthy! Finally the Gods had brought something beautiful into my life. I was so grateful! I told all my friends that my prayers had been answered. We were the perfect couple, so well matched, so beautiful together. But over time it took more and more to get me to that place where I believed I was the luckiest woman on earth. The drug I had to take to get me there was “denial.” I had to deny what I was really feeling and paint a pretty picture over the top. I had to remind myself that I had it good! That I was lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life! Like a heroin junky I was continuing to chase after those initial highs even when it meant suffering the lowest lows. Before long I was scraping bottom, searching for scraps of my former life. What was once so beautiful had become a desolate landscape of pain and sorrow. I could no longer be satisfied by this relationship that once filled my every need. It wasn’t until I learned about narcissism that I realized he was part of the problem. Yes I said part, not all.
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