This is my first post, and will probably be long, so I apologize in advance. I just really need to vent, and honestly I need some help or I feel I'm going to go insane.
I've been in a "friendship" with a man for the last 4.5 years. He says we're best friends, but I'm starting to realize I'm just his "favorite person" (FP) because he depends on me for his every need - physical and emotional - and yet devalues me the moment I ask for any sort of reciprocation. I see him every day, and until about a week ago I spent every night.
Because I'm what I now recognize as codependent, I was silent about my own needs for the first three years or so, just content to have someone who wanted me around. My narcissistic mother was incapable of loving me, and right before I met this friend (we'll call him "Eric"), I suffered a long and nightmarish divorce from a man who exhibited many of the same traits that she did. In short, I was starved for attention.
It was when I started speaking up about my own needs that the problems arose. When Eric first started acting like he wanted to be more than friends, I was pleasantly surprised, and naturally went along with things because I did feel for him as well. But then he would turn cold again the next day, treating me once again like a roommate. Compounding the situation was the (many) instances in which I found out he was dating other women behind my back, sometimes sleeping with them, while I was still at his beck and call. He was sorry about those times, but said it was because he "wasn't sure" about me yet, or ready to commit. I had slept with him a few times before I found out about his indiscretions, assuming that we were exclusive, but soon I let him know that it was confusing and unfair for me to be in a friends-with-benefits situation.
So we stopped being physically intimate, but he has still required my presence at all times. At about the 3.5 year mark, he started saying he didn't want to date other people, so we decided to make it official between us. That "official" status lasted about a week, until I was so starved for any affection that I dared ask him one night if he could hold me. His response was so unexpectedly cruel that I was completely thrown for a loop. He immediately said, "You know what? Go home. I don't need this right now." And I became so distraught that he screamed at me to stop crying, called the police, and threw my stuff out of the door.
That wasn't the first time we had such a scene. Most of the time I couldn't predict the triggers, but after a while I determined that they either had to do with my vulnerability (asking for love, etc.) or trying to communicate when he didn't want to. In my mind, the definition of a partner (and even a friend) should be someone you're not afraid to be vulnerable with, and who is willing to communicate for the health of the relationship. It's just unbearable to me that the very things I need are his worst triggers.
In all the subsequent "make ups," I have told him we can still be friends, but that I need a little time to myself once in a while to become more independent. But whenever I assert that boundary (say no) - the raging and devaluing campaign begins. Name calling, threats, ultimatums, some of the most awful things I wouldn't say to my worst enemy. This is typically followed by blocking me and/or ghosting me for several days, only to insist that I pick up the phone the moment he's ready to talk. During these times he has also forbidden me to email him, telling me he will delete any email so I won't "manipulate" him with my "melodrama." Basically, the break up and make up are all on his terms - or else.
I have been traumatized by this cycle over and over. Last night it happened again, when he asked me to come back over (I was taking a planned evening to myself) and I said I was busy, but we could talk on the phone for a bit if it would make him feel better. He got upset and basically said I didn't care about him, so I (stupidly) tried to get him to empathize by comparing my need for space when he needs space. I reminded him that he tells me to leave his home at the drop of a hat when he's mad, and ignores me for days no matter how much I want to talk to him. So I hoped he could understand when I needed some me time, and could see that I was asking for it nicely. Looking back I recognize I could have said it in a different way, or avoided comparing my behavior to his at all.
The ensuing rage, for me "knowingly" setting off his "trigger" has been hell. (He claims that his triggers are when I bring up "the past" and "make him out to be a horrible person," causing him to feel "guilty.") He claims that I do it on purpose, and any abuse he hurls at me afterward is my fault, because I should have known better.
And maybe I should have, at least in this case. But I'm so exhausted at constantly having to walk on eggshells. Our last several "fights" have been caused by me telling him that his behavior is a pattern that's hurting me, and begging him to stop, to make a different decision this time. But me bringing up the pattern counts as bringing up the past, which is his trigger. So he can effectively say and do whatever he wants to me without having to be accountable for it, since "the past" is off limits. I'm perpetually between a rock and a hard place, never able to speak my truth or relax in his presence. And when I tell him I don't want to be treated that way, it's "all about me."
His last text to me was that he's going to be on a virtual date tonight with another woman that he met on a dating app this morning. He told me he's moving on and he's 100% done with me, then (confusingly) also gave me an ultimatum that he will only talk to me again when I'm willing to apologize and commit to not triggering him anymore. Then when I responded, he blocked me.
He's blocked me before, but I never block him back. He's unfriended me on Facebook during a few of these bad breakups as well, and I have to ask for him to add me back. He's deleted all our pictures on social media and changed his status to "Single."
But then he unblocks me. Keeps calling until I answer. Gives me a list of demands. I try hard not to give in, but I eventually cave and speak gently to him, apologizing for my part. Then all is "well," although I am shaken for days afterward.
Would I be wrong to block him back? What would happen? Many of his other friends have "abandoned" him, so if I block him and move on, how am I any different? I still care for him and want to preserve the relationship, even if it's just a friendship, but I haven't been successful at setting boundaries.
I feel like a piece of garbage, and that the last 4.5 years of my life have only incurred further trauma when I could have been healing from the pain of my divorce. But I genuinely love this person and want to detach with love. I just worry the cost of doing so may be my complete and utter destruction. Thanks in advance for reading this long rant, and for any wisdom you can offer.
