I’m really embarrassed to write this but I think it’s the only place I can, as I can’t tell anyone in RL.
I am 30. I started a new job last year. I don’t have many family and friends around, they are all abroad, and last year before Christmas I lost my mother suddenly to a brain aneurysm and I could not get back in time to be with her. I have found this extremely hard to recover from and I am still dealing with some of the repercussions. I went to work at the same company of a family friend of my dad’s side of the family, who was very nice to me and took me under his wing (will call him P.)
P became someone who learnt about what had happened to my mother as I had to take time off work. He comforted me, covered for me, and he used to make me feel special and give me responsibilities that I wouldn’t necessarily have had at my level, and basically I was love bombed but I did not know I was being love bombed .
I told him everything. From how lonely I was, about my mother, about how I felt I wasn’t good enough. He was very emotional and protective at first and really looked after me. He would break professional/personal boundaries and hold my hand and cuddle me and come over to my flat after work, but I would want it too and would let him because I suppose I was lonely and I thought that we had a relationship that was perhaps going somewhere.
He told me at the time that he was divorced.
P came on so emotionally strongly that he acted like he had found his “soul mate,” like he had, had some realisation of how emotional connected we were. He told me there are reasons that two people are meant to meet. He was like a best friend and over time I allowed myself to believe that there was nothing untoward as the contact between us, for a good while, was not sexual at all and very emotionally intense and close.
Then one day, after about 9 months of emotional love bombing, completely out of the blue, I came into work and P blanked me and completely shut me out. It was such a shock, I had chest pain and felt like the earth had just swallowed me up. I had told him everything, he knew everything, I thought we were so close, and I could not understand why suddenly he had shut me out. I thought I had done something wrong. I had fallen from being the “golden girl” to nobody.
I went to him asking what was wrong, and he would brush me off. Then eventually when I managed to get an explanation he told me that he had decided to cut me off because he had a sexual interest in me and he knew it would not go anywhere and he couldn’t torture himself by being close to me anymore.
Wanting his approval (and I presume attention and love) back again, I said I would not be averse to that. I suppose I was semi in love with him anyway for everything he had done for me and because he had showed me his best side. We cruised along in a dating mode for a while where we were just kissing and holding hands. He (supposedly) travelled a lot abroad and so was away for long periods of time and in intense texting contact with me. When he was away I felt relieved that things were back to normal and that nothing I could do could prompt things to change. I wished that I could freeze that moment in time as I felt secure again. When we were together and kissing I tried to take things further, but he always held back. I found this strange and contradictory considering that the reason he had stopped speaking to me was because he was sexually interested in me. He also never had an erection, no matter how close to sex we got. Yet he would always check in every day and tell me I was amazing and ask if I needed anything.
Then a few months later, he blanked me again.
(I know, so many red flags)
The reason this time, after I had gone to him and asked, he said, was that he actually had quite deviant sexual tastes which he was ashamed of and he could no longer get erections from normal sex anymore and he just didn’t think I would be into what he was into and he thought we should call it a day because he was worried I would not be able to meet his expectations and then it would ruin a good friendship.
I know, I know...
I am so embarrassed to tell you what they were but they basically involved him being the master and me being the slave, being forced into agreed sexual acts, degraded, treated like a slut, dressing up for him, hurting my own body.
And slowly, over the months, I did it all. Stupidly.
Soon the relationship became only about the sex and he completely controlled me and never spoke to me about anything personal or tried to relate to me at all. He never checked in, never asked how I was, seemingly forgot the whole reason we were ever friends in the first place or his declarations of having a soul mate. It was the longest period which was sustained without him suddenly blanking me. Whatever he wanted, I did. At work, in bed, anywhere. It got to the point that at any time day or night, he would call me, come to my flat and force himself on me in any way he wanted. Obviously it was consensual because I had agreed to this being the style of interaction we would have, but I felt like I had been mind controlled into enjoying it - because I did start craving it and wanting it and needing ‘this kind of attention as a sign of his care for me.
It turned into something so different from what it originally started out as, I find it so hard to express here the full extent of it because it happened so insidiously and subtlety, even though when I write it here it seems so obvious. I kept getting hints of what his good side could be like again, then it would be dropped suddenly and I’d crave it again. Also P framed the “degrading” sex as an adventure or journey we were going on together to push us to our limits, like it bonded us or made us even closer. I thought that it was the only thing that he enjoyed sexually so if I was going to have a relationship with him, I’d have to do it.
I’m aware I sound so naive writing this.
I knew that what was happening was wrong and that I was basically being used for degrading sex but could not see clearly what I should do, as I was isolated and immersed in P’s world and under his control and didn’t tell anyone else.
One idea I had was that maybe I should start to branch out more socially and at work and make more friends other than P. P did not say so but it was clear he did not like this and used to “punish” me by ignoring me in small ways when he saw me with other people, male or female, and I would have to get back in his “good books” again. However from branching out and spending more time with others socially, in general chit chat, they told me that P was actually, supposedly happily married.
I was and am completely shocked, considering the lies he told, how much he was available, how he used to turn up 24/7, how he behaved.
I decided to confront him about the fact he was actually married one weekend last month when he turned up to my flat unannounced. It did not go as I thought. Instead of admitting or saying it was true, he just walked out. I suppose I had stupidly hoped that we would have a heart to heart about it (P is very capable of at least appearing like he cares deeply about things and having deep, meaningful conversations with people when needed and I thought that me finding out about his marriage would break the pattern we were in of sex and provoke an open and honest conversation.
Cue another period of being completely and utterly shut out. Much much worse than the last times. And a few weeks ago after it just happened, when I tried to ask him what is wrong or tried to talk to him about it again, he either put the phone down or walked away. The palpitations started again and the feeling like I was going to pass out every time I walked into a room with him in it. So I stopped talking to him and started ignoring him and getting on with my own thing, even though that was extremely hard, for a couple of weeks.
He hated my withdrawal and started calling me constantly. I told him to give me some space as I had to come to terms with the fact it had ended between us. He said absolutely not, you don’t need space, nothing has ended. I need you. I just hid from you for a little while as I felt exposed. The calls were about 50x a day where he was crying and emotional telling me to “admit” that I was in love with him. I felt sorry for him so I agreed that we could go back to “normal,” and told him that I was in love with him.
Since then, he has been completely different every day. Some days I get completely ignored, others I get lovebombed again and made to feel very important. The sex has completely stopped (he has stopped it, as he was completely in control of it). And now that it has stopped and I have been taken off this addictive drip, i see it for what it was and it has made me realise what an awful fucking person he is.
I am having flashbacks of being completely sexually humiliated, him calling me names, all the things I did because I thought he was damaged and that was the only way to relate to him.
I’m aware, after lots of googling i have been exposed (and still am exposed) to some form of narcissistic abuse and he is possibly on to another victim now.
I know that you are all going to say that this is something I should escalate, and I am considering that, when I have recovered sufficiently. But I really want you to tell me:
What happened here?
Why did he do this?
And please give me advice on how I should be acting around him now?
All I want is the result that he does not ruin my life and he just leaves me be. That’s all I want. I don’t want him to want me back but I don’t want to go up against him either. I find him too dangerous and manipulative, and I am sure other people are under his spell too. Everyone seems to love him and think he is a wonderful person.
I also worry that now he knows I’ve seen him for what he is, he will think that I will tell others or his wife, and that he will take preventative action to stop me by trying to ruin my life.
Or maybe he lacks so much empathy he has not even thought about what’s going on in my head right now, or what I might be planning or how might perceive things?
I see him maybe once a day at work. Not working so closely that I have to deal with him all the time, or for long periods of time, but I will definitely be encountering him in private and public situations. How should I be acting?