Self conscious elaboration

My ex may not have been in a similar place to where I was ten years ago.

I know that saying this makes me sound absolutely terrible but I do believe that I’m not entirely narcissistic, egotistic and terrible to say this because there are so many aspects to him which I do think used to make up myself. I think that for so many years, I didn’t feel like I had a place in this world. I went with the flow, and carried on expecting that if anything was very wrong somebody else would tell me. I didn’t feel on a level with the people around me and so I simply followed a current and looked to other people for direction and guidance.

My ex was very much like this, and I think it drove me crazy because it was strange to see aspects of an older version of me in him. This wasn’t his fault, but also I felt as though I was always ready to take criticism. I think a large part of my recovery and my progress has been because I see everybody around me as teachers- I am always looking to other people to show me which parts of myself are causing tensions, and holding me back.

He wasn’t prepared to do that. I know I cannot expect other people to live in the same way I do, and I know that he was probably very happy just bobbing along. However he wasn’t, lol he just didn’t have the drive. This wasn’t his fault, though I feel as though once you get into a serious relationship for the first time, it does demand some personal growth.

I think that in the end, I just didn’t love him anymore, and I didn’t want to give up on love which, when it was good was really good.

I could go into a lot more detail here, because small parts of me think he was a slight chauvinist. He wouldn’t have been aware of it, of course, but I think he needed to see me in certain way to make himself feel in control. I don’t think he really felt in control, in any other sense in his life and so he needed to keep treating me like a little girl, to make himself feel bigger. But he wasn’t aware of this, he had the self-reflective capabilities of a knat, and he would never, ever look at himself in a critical way.

So, I do have a lot of negative feeling towards him now because I ended up so frustrated with him, but I think he kind of liked that. I didn’t want to feel like that and so it gave him power.  Everything became so very negative- I needed him to start thinking in new ways and he simply didn’t seem to want to. I was his first serious girlfriend, and I simply don’t think he had the capability. But then again, there was no urgency in him to grow. He was absolutely fine as he was.

TOO MUCH NEGATIVITY.

I broke up with him eventually, and I should have done it sooner. I have learnt, you cannot expect other people to grow, to adapt, to develop.

That was on me.

Moving on.