Hi all, several months ago, my partner suddenly ended our relationship, she claimed I wasn't giving her enough attention and being nice enough to her, although I was upset, I never showed any emotion and accepted her decision and simply said, "it's your call, take care", I then left and came home.
(At the time, I wasn't aware that I was suffering from undiagnosed Autism and more recently, I've been diagnosed as also having ADHD, this was not diagnosed until mid 2022, when I was 61 years old. More on this later). The split shook me up a great deal more than I thought it would and with being on the spectrum, my character and condition meant I buried myself into trying to work out why she made that decision. Over several weeks, I wrote notes about what I'd done and what she'd done, listing what I saw as good and not so good behaviour and without blowing my own trumpet, I came out of this as a good guy. Yes I have issues, but if I'd done or said something untoward, I would apologise either straight away or as soon as possible afterwards.
I put everything I could into this relationship and treat her as best I could, she was given flowers on the 9th of every month since the day we met, little trinkets and small gifts out of the blue. Things could not have been much better for us.
When I looked back and studied my diaries, I realise her attitude and behaviour towards me changed when I was given the Autism diagnosis. Over the next 203 months, our lives and situation changed, she became distant, spoke to me in a different way, became aggressive, verbally nasty, wanting to go out more and more. the fire went out of our love life, the passion dried up and our once very good sex life ground to a halt. Many times I asked her if there was a problem, an issue, had I done or said something wrong and why was she not as loving as she once was, she just told me she had a lot on her mind, what that was I never found out as she would not tell me or even contemplate discussing it, every time I asked, I was given a mouthful of verbal. One day when I wasn't exactly feeling my best due to not sleeping well for several nights, she gave me a load of verbal even before I'd said anything to her, my already very frayed and frazzled brain was on the verge of going into a meltdown and to try and stop this happening, I said to her, "I'm really not feeling well and don't need this from you at this moment, I need to go a clear my head and have some time to myself", her reply was, "in that case, fuck off and don't come back". I went and sat in the car for a couple of hours and when I'd settled, drove home.
2 days later, she called me and was behaving like nothing had happened and there was no apology from her, not that I was expecting one. After 4 months I decided to stay home that weekend as my condition was really having a flare up and I thought I might be putting others and myself at risk if I was to get in the car. When I told her, she hit the roof, citing, "do you know what I've gone through for this weekend, I've arranged a nice table at our favourite eating places and a special treat for Sunday afternoon", I simply said, "look, you know how this diagnosis has hit me hard and apart from coming to terms with it, I cannot control it. You've know I've had an undiagnosed issue since the day we met, so why is it since I was diagnosed, has it become a problem"? I was told I was infuriating and she put the phone down, I went to lay on the bed and relax, but it wasn't easy with another unsettling incidence with her.
2 days later, she's back on the phone as though nothing had happened and she was behaving normal, but I wasn't in the frame of mind to let this go, so told her I wanted answers to some questions, she said, "if it's the same questions you asked last time, don't bother or you'll upset me", I said, "you either give me honest and straight answers or you can spend next weekend alone and every weekend after that". There was a very long silence and eventually she said, "it's my mother, she's not well, but I don't want to talk about it now, we can talk at the weekend", I agreed and left it at that.
The weekend came and nothing was said until Sunday night, when I brought the subject up and trying to find out what was going on, it turned out her mother was fine and nothing was wrong with her. Inside my mind, I had alarms going off and felt I want to know, but I'm never going to find out as she won't tell me. I tried a few more times and eventually told her that I was ending it, as I felt she was hiding something from me and my gut was telling me to run away as fast as I could. There was no contact from her for a month and when she did call, she asked if I would go to see her, I was reluctant, but as I had a hospital appointment in two days time, I agreed to meet up with her then. We met in a Costa and she had been crying, we had a few minutes of catching up and then she changed in an instant, like the difference between sitting in a dark room and someone turning on the light. She said she had had a some ideas how we can d this or do that, but I stopped her in her tracks, she looked puzzled and asked what was up? I said, "you and I are no longer in a relationship, I can't trust you, I no longer know you, you won't open up to me or tell me why you are the way you are, you no longer want to be intimate with me and this relationship no longer holds anything for me". She burst into tears and wept for a good 5 minutes, with several attempts to try and speak. I was getting stared at by every customer, but apart from continually passing her napkins, I said nothing. Eventually she stopped and started spouting off all the things she claimed to have done for me, without raising my voice and speaking in a very soft tone, I reminded her that although the majority of these things had been arranged by her, but it was I who paid as she hadn't enough money or had forgotten her purse (I never asked her for the money or dropped hints, but apart from a few coffee's at Costa, I'd paid every time we went for drinks or food. This was the day she ended the relationship, so we are back to the begining.
Since then, I've spent time as mentioned above, that I'd collated a list of her behaviour, habits and traits. Without going into the entire way of her behaviour, I've realised she was a full blown narcissist, a sense of entitlement, the need for constant attention and admiration, breadcrumbing, arrogance and lack of empathy and of course, withholding sex.
I'm in a much better place now and feeling a million miles mentally stronger than I was. However, although revenge is never a good thing and not something I would even chuck back in someones face, I have a desire to write to her, listing the things she did to me and the relationship, with a description of the behaviour she showed me, at the bottom of the letter it would state.
The behaviour of a narcissist and you now know, that I know.
It might be childish and nasty, but it's exactly how I'm feeling.