She didn't take responsibility for her own life and it was all my fault or other people. She blamed people all of the way back to elementary school over thirty years ago. I just feel wasted.
Did we date the same person?
My ex was 50 years old when I first met her, and it was the exact same story, blaming her mother, her father, her first husband, her second serious relationship bf, her third serious relationship bf, and then me.
What I learned later was that this pity play was just what she did. It got repeated to other people and was one of the first things she did when meeting a new person. How do I know - well she played this story to a really good friend of mine who told me that she'd played this story to him as well - almost word for word.
Most people talk about their jobs, their past times, their hobbies, their kids, you know when shooting the breeze. Because that is what builds our identity, it is who we are and it is what we want to talk about. But for my ex, her identity was wrapped up in victimhood. It is a great way to get sympathy and to make herself look like the heroine who has had to overcome all these problems and to come out the other side. But what is really going on is a manipulation. To make me feel sorry for her and for me to want to make her life better. And for me it brought out the rescuer side to my nature, and I fell for it and I fell for her. Huge mistake.
All I had wanted to do was to make her life better and for us to have a good future. But within weeks, we were spinning around the Karpman drama triangle (victim/persecutor/rescuer) and four months later, after a sudden and brutal discard it was definitely me that was the victim and she was my persecutor.
I felt wasted too. I had tried so hard.
I'm quite a long way out of this now, and have been NC for over 6months, and it does get better as you come back to yourself.
The lesson, for me at least is that I needed let go of this rescuer side to my nature. Sure it is good to help people, but helping someone and being their rescuer are two different things. And for me the self learning is that I cannot rescue another person. And also, to realise that people who give you the pity play, as the first thing they tell you about themselves are to be kept at arms length, until you know them much much better.
