I hiked the Los Liones Trail yesterday.  The view reminded me that life doesn't need to always be intense. Normally I have music blaring in my earbuds.  I sing along my hikes and ignore any thoughts that might be trying to break through.  I don't have to think when I have someone else's emotions to ride on. I forgot my earbuds yesterday and the only words I heard were snippets of conversation from the groups on the trail as they passed me by. It's been almost a year of not hiking and I had my old lady dog with me. She's still sleeping it off.  My pace was super slow but I felt accomplished after my 3 miles yesterday.

My thoughts that wouldn't shut up was about a giant perspective shift that took about a year to show up for me. It was a time to let the dust settle on a marriage.  It was time to learn to love again. It was a time when I found a job where I'm surrounded by men that treat me better than I've ever experienced in my personal relationships. 

Starting with that last statement, I'm on the finance team at my job.  The men I work with are intelligent and really great men.  On my team, I'm respected and cared for.  I can make a statement or express a concern and I know they hear me.  I can ask a question and even if they don't have an answer, they will find one and I feel valued.  The owners of the company talk about their wives with so much love, respect and admiration. I've had friends tell me to raise my expectations in my dating life, but I never experienced what was talked about until this job found me. I never expected my job to cause so much healing in my love life. 

When my marriage ended, I wasn't warned that we had problems.  What was normal to me was painful to him and the end was there but I didn't know it. I had no clue we had problems when I was told my marriage was over. I had never imagined my marriage could be better because it was what we made it and I was okay with it.  I would have never come to the same conclusion he did. 

I convinced myself that not dating anyone else and being willing to take him back was enough to get my marriage back.  For so long I held this idea that I was his victim. He left me. He stopped taking care of our bills and they became mine. He took me off of his medical insurance and I was abandoned.  He created new family traditions and I wasn't part of them anymore and I blamed him for the changes I never asked for. It took a couple of years to see I could be happier without the life we planned.  It took a while to realize I liked having someone to come home to and someone to share my bed with, but it didn't have to be him. Making plans on my own means I'm doing what I want to do and I like taking care of my own wants and needs. Most days I remember to be grateful that I'm at a place where I have all I need and most of my wants as well. 

I spent this last year in a relationship with someone else. At first my fears of deep love and trust were so hard to get past.  A few months in and around the time we lost our twins, I decided to love him unconditionally.  No matter what he said or did or how much or little he gave, I would love him. I would make space for his needs, no matter how hard it was to get him to show up for mine. I don't mean to smear what we had.  He brought a lot of good to my home and my life.  He helped me be a better mom by setting boundaries for the boys and he showed me how to love deeply when I never thought I would again. I chose him over and over and over again, even through our short break ups and now that I'm fairly certain I'll never see him again. My own limitations never allowed me to fully trust him.  My own fears pushed him out and away and he was so patient with me.  At the end of the day, it was love and a lesson and a relationship I will always cherish. Toward the end we weren't building up as much as we were tearing down.  But he taught me so much about myself.  This time I'm not a victim. 

I never allowed him to support me in a way that I would suffer his loss.  Not really. I pay my own bills, so help wasn't taken. I loved without condition, so distance doesn't take away my ability to love him. I lived in the moment so other than missing him, he didn't take away a planned future.  I chose to love him enough to try to feel what he felt, no matter what I was feeling at the time. Even if that compassion came a few days late. For a year I connected my treatment of him to his reaction and it helped me see things differently.

When my marriage ended, I found all sorts of support in finding out what a narcissistic sociopath is. I'm not a therapist.  I can't diagnose anyone, but a few shared traits had me convinced that this is what I was married to. A year with someone else and a choice to love differently gave me a different perspective. 

There are lists you can look up but I'll include the basics here.  

1. Self importance is a big deal. They tend to feel that they are the most important people they know, even if they don't have the experience or ability to back this belief. They exaggerate achievements. They are the best at all they do.

2. They're preoccupied with the zeitgeist of existence. They have ideals of the best relationships, and these relationships require complete obedience. They know the most successful businesses or jobs and will tell you that you should follow their career advice which might include complete dedication to their career. They feel they have unlimited power, unmatched intelligence, and their beliefs are the only ones that matter. These fantasies interfere with their ability to keep meaningful relationships. Real life is rarely perfect. And knowing how to get what they want doesn't mean they need to put in the work for it.

3. They believe they're special and no one else can understand them because no one else is special like them. They won't bother with people they don't see as high status. They feel no one can understand them so they don't feel they need to share the thought or joke that you won't understand anyway. On the other hand, they might want to be a hero or savior. They might be attracted to people in bad situations. They can enter a situation and become a hero. They feel they can rescue you and make your life better, but the improvement only relies on them.

4. They need to be admired. They need to be beautiful and physically superior. They need to have talent and ability that is better than everyone else, and they don't see a point in making space for the talents and abilities of others. It's not possible that someone else can be better than they are.

5. They need a rush. They rely on things to bring them a rush like food, drugs, alcohol or gambling. They may get that fix from an adrenaline rush relationship. They may try to rekindle a flame with an ex to see if they can, or date a married person. They will move on when the rush is gone.

6. They have a sense of entitlement. They are owed everything they want. The reasons they need to win make sense to them, so they don't owe anyone an excuse, or explanation.

7. They will exploit others. They are really good at asking for their needs and wants without offering to reciprocate. They will find ways to get what they want without having to get it themselves. It looks like a game of manipulation. It looks like they need your support when they are capable of taking care of their own needs. They don't want to when they feel that they can get someone else to take care of them. They are takers in life.

8. They lack empathy. They are unable to imagine what you are experiencing, but they're often able to mimic what they think is expected of them.

9. They see envy everywhere. Others envy them, and they envy others. Asking them to be happy for someone else is not something they can experience easily.

10. They are often arrogant or haughty and unable to feel humility. They often need people to feed their ego.

11. Social norms don't apply to them. They are often in and out of jail or they learn how to walk the line so they do terrible things without getting arrested.

12. Their emotions are often unstable. They have moods of anger and aggression. They can be irritable and impulsive. They are often deceitful or share partial truths, enjoying the way they can push and pull responses from others. They are rarely happy, and looking to others to help them feel better about the life they live.

13. Reckless disregard for the safety of others. Driving while intoxicated or picking fights is acceptable behavior. Outward anger toward strangers they think have wronged them is acceptable when they feel they've been disrespected. They are superior at all they do, so they can win any fight they get into.

14. Lack of remorse or responsibility for their actions. They will often make their victims look like the guilty party.

15. Parental issues haven't been worked through. They either love or hate their parents and you will be compared and never measure up. This can be both good and bad.

He's hot because he's a jerk but he's nice to me.  That makes me special too, right? He's strong and dominant but he wants to take care of me.  Until he doesn't and I hope for the amazing man I first met to come back.  We all wait.  We know what they're capable of and we can be patient and wait for that amazing man to come back. Then the relationship ends and I assume he was a narcissist and the only way to heal is no contact.  I was sure I was the victim for so long.  But maybe I'm really not. Maybe I'm a narcissist, if I look hard enough in the mirror. Maybe I don't need to look too hard.  

Over the last year I looked at things differently because of how I chose to walk into my relationship. I chose to love him, knowing I would one day lose him and knowing I was not in a good place to give as much as he deserved. Every time I made him feel insecure by pushing him away, he reacted in a way that I could call narcissistic but it was my action that caused a reaction. I began to look at why he acted the way he did and I realized I wasn't a safe person to talk to. I chose to love him unconditionally, but it wasn't an easy choice, and he could often enough see the rejection on my face, or in my body language. He understood me in a way that no one ever has.  He could read me in a way that I was forced into honesty.  It was uncomfortable and our relationship dragged me through so many tears, but he was worth every single one.

I was afraid of him leaving and I was unable to trust him enough to let him love me the way I wanted to love him. I was repeating a pattern of people giving up on him and I often put him in a position of fight or flight. He often wanted to give up because he couldn't see how much I was willing to fight for him.  It was also my inability to show him how I could fight for him. My fears kept me from trusting him. He had to tell me how important he is and to put him first because he didn't feel he was special and important to me. Stoic indifference and cold rejection were my defenses and in the end, I saw how I was a victim of my own fear. He wanted an ideal life, but who doesn't? I feel there are limits I want to keep in where I live.  I'm in a good location for my older two boys to go to school.  I have family support here.  Moving wasn't a viable option to me and I couldn't give him the better he wanted. There were so many times a talk with my sister showed me how irrational I was.  There were times my ex would say something and I would decide to fight harder for my relationship than I was fighting with my boyfriend.  

In the end, there were some things about me he couldn't build a life on.  This is the normal part of dating we all face.  We're not all made for each other and that is okay too. He taught me to look differently at behaviors.  I felt so much relief that maybe it wasn't me.  Maybe I married a narcissist. Maybe I just pushed him to believe his only recourse was to fight me tooth and nail because I could easily defend myself. Maybe I just needed the reminder that life doesn't have to be so intense.  Not every situation has to work its way into a checklist.  It doesn't have to fit neatly.  Live, breathe, matter, and grow.  That's all I have to do.