Baiting and Bashing, part 2

[obscured]

The original post has been removed but the title "baiting and bashing" stikes a chord.
edit by moderator: Since the original opening post had been removed and the member has since left the board, the thread has been split in two. The (now) first thread on Baiting and Bashing can be found here.

I just left a relationship that started off great and went sideways a month ago.

We dated for a month and then I was having emotional flashbacks every couple of weeks once I developed feelings for this woman. I explained what was going on for me so she wouldn't think it was about her or that I was trying to play mind games. We had been friends for a couple of years too so she knew my moods are not particularly stable. She was ok for five months but then the last month of the relationship she started to give me mild cold shoulder treatments. I would try to get her to open up and express her feelings but she wouldn't and then I would have an efb and then it was all about me and how damaged I am. I had a really bad lapse into my trauma for a few weeks and this really got to her. I decided I had to break up with her because her total lack of support and empathy was excruciatingly painful. Once I told I wanted to break up she confessed she had been resentful for some time that I was not always emotionally available. Then she launched into a long list of my defects and theories about me wanting to remain a victim and also that my efb's were actually me being abusive towards her. Basically she blamed everything on me, painted herself as the victim and then gave me an angry look and just shook her head when I tried to say thank you for the good times. I got up to leave because it was so awkward and I was seriously numb after being given a good serve about what a screw-up I am and her exact words were: "I can't believe you're not going to throw me down on the couch and make love to me."

Yep.

[steamy]

Obscured that's really tough.

I have been experiencing something similar I posted it under a bit of a crisis... My partner has gone cold and is with holding. We have small child which I think has helped to keep things a bit more stable. I can relate to everything you have written. My reaction was to try to talk but nobody would listen and I got so down I was ready to die. I realised that by doing that I would simply be punishing her for hurting me, she possibly represents a kind of mother surrogate. We look for these people who will behave like our parents so that we might re-enact our childhood in the hope that our hurt inner child might be reunited by a neglectful mother. Of course the result will always be the same and we will be hurt and suffer EFs.

I can feel the emptiness and dispair that you must have felt while trying to reconcile with your partner and save your relationship while being ignored and then beaten up for trying to get what you need.

I hope you're OK.

[obscured]

Obscured that's really tough.

I have been experiencing something similar I posted it under a bit of a crisis... My partner has gone cold and is with holding. We have small child which I think has helped to keep things a bit more stable. I can relate to everything you have written. My reaction was to try to talk but nobody would listen and I got so down I was ready to die. I realised that by doing that I would simply be punishing her for hurting me, she possibly represents a kind of mother surrogate. We look for these people who will behave like our parents so that we might re-enact our childhood in the hope that our hurt inner child might be reunited by a neglectful mother. Of course the result will always be the same and we will be hurt and suffer EFs.

I can feel the emptiness and dispair that you must have felt while trying to reconcile with your partner and save your relationship while being ignored and then beaten up for trying to get what you need.

I hope you're OK.

Steamy thanks for hearing me. I am sorry you are in a similar emotional situation. Not being heard and having affection with-held are both very painful experiences. I understand that it hurts so much you feel like wanting to die. If you did go through with it then it would be a punishment and also a very strong statement of how much pain her witholding causes you. The thing with suicide is it is a permanent problem to a temporary solution. You are right, we do look for surrogate mother figures so we can try to re-enact our childhoods. I do that too.

It has been a couple of weeks since I broke up and the strange thing is I feel abandoned even though I broke up with her. I want her to contact me and say "I am sorry, I get it now, no wonder you felt that you had to get away from me." At the same time another part of me is looking back over the relationship and putting things together, like her NLP course DVDs and the way I felt so manipulated at times. I have a very good radar for narcissists but unfortunately I tend to fall for them because my inner child wants that surrogate mother and my biological mother is a narcissist and my abuser.

I hope things have gotten better for you and that you are ok.

[steamy]

Hi Obscured,

Seems that a month has passed already, sorry for lack of follow up. I am OK, but still wondering where I am.

I know that abandoned feeling, its hard to substitute it with positive feelings about the future. I found online dating can help with raising self worth, even if you don't want to go on physical dates.

Apparently my partner said she was being mean because I shipped my possessions home from my last job and it cost us $2,000 in charges and taxes to get them into the country, the European rules seem to treat everything like commercial imports, but she was cold way before that and not much has changed. I need to find a job and get out of here ASAP.

The worst part of the year is over so hoping that things will start looking up.

All the best

[Ronin]

I know that this thread has grown cold, but I wanted to say thank you to those who posted their experiences, It is nice to know that I'm not alone and probably not as crazy as I feel right now.

I just ended a year long relationship (at least I think that I ended it, I can't tell anymore because of all the on-again/off-again) that was, for the most part, nice. She had many traits that I want in a woman. Sadly, she also had those traits that I tend to seek out in women. You know, those abusive ones.

She was very skilled at blaming me. I would try to make the relationship better, but all that she wanted to do was blame me. She would be nice for a while, suck me in, then do a 180 and start bashing me. I would apologize for and own the things that I actually did, but refused to take the blame for what was not mine. After listening to her complain for hours, days, weeks, or in the case of the last thing - over a month, I would point out the fact that she would do the exact thing that she was accusing me of doing. I don't know why I would do that, it never ended well. The would turn into her claiming that all that I ever do is bash her. Suddenly, the attacker became the victim. It was maddening.

When I told her what was going on with me, she then blamed everything on my internal thought processes. She claimed that she never did anything wrong, but, rather, that I made it all up because I'm so damaged.