Basically every relationship was just me super-imposing her face to the guys. It was just like wearing an old pair or jeans or well-worn shoes. These guys were familiar, like I knew them. It was like I never left home. There was the unconscious recognition that my co-dependence matched the all-consuming, all-controlling ways of my NM. I had a gravitational pull towards anything that even remotely smelt like and looked like narcissism. These guys were a natural fit.
Now I have to wonder if what I felt was really love.
I know narcissists are not capable of love and empath. That is something they can never show- by word OR by deed and action. It's just not possible when their modus operandi is them always on a self-seeking quest for gratification in all forms.
So it stands to reason if my NM could never love me, then she could never teach me, and if she never taught me, how could I know what love looks or feel like?
Looking back, I cannot access any one strong endearing feeling towards any of my previous relationships. Once I had enough, I would be the one to leave, not getting the feeling of love I came to never expect.
I'd had enough of the non reciprocity. They couldn't give me love -or what I thought was love. Giving equaled love in my book.
I did, however, notice a pattern in all my choice of guys because I refuse to call them men with their child-like attitudes and behaviors.
They were all joined at the hip to their mothers. With the exception of one, they all had abnormally close relationships with their moms. A couple of them would mention how their mother was their 'girl' or 'best friend' going so far as to say "we talk on the phone with each other every day". Like girlfriends? Really?
That should've been my first clue something was off with dude. Another called his mother his 'girl' and would run everything by her for approval. He would call her in my presence and recount our very personal convos to his mom on the phone. Annoying and immature as all get out. He was also a slob and thought I would step into mom's shoes and pick up behind him. And then there was the one who still slept in the same bed with his mom well past the age of appropriateness (sleeping with your parents after four years old is pushing it. I'm not talking about curling up between your folks for an afternoon nap. I'm talking about jammies on, pulling blankets back, jumping in and curling up under mom or dad for the whole night).
There were so many warning signals and red flags but in my quest for love, I bypassed all the road signs: Caution: Dangerous Curves Ahead, Slow, Wrong Way as I chugged along.
I'm pretty sure THEY saw me coming like the wolf after Little Red Riding Hood.
Anywho, I'm sure if I sat here and remembered all the signs, I'd be writing all day. Suffice it to say, I finally woke up to the patterns I had created to keep me gassed up and in the driver seat of co-dependency even though, in the end, it was me who would be taken for a ride.
I know I've progressed because in the past, I would've beat myself up relentlessly about my inability to recognize decent and average (not normal), ordinary people.
However my cool ass rose-colored shades are NOT the in-season look for mental clarity. In fact, I won't wear any shades.. I'd rather enjoy the full strength radiance of reality that lights my world and shines the path I've taken to freedom.
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