What went so wrong with me, and what was going so right with the New Supply?
It was a question I asked myself every hour of every day in the weeks and months following the narcissistic discard I experienced at the hands of the Gay Narcissist. And the recurrence of that question was not helped by my living situation, since I decided to cohabitate with the Gay Narcissist until our shared lease was up.
I believed cohabitation was the best situation for me. I could keep the Gay Narcissist close and continue to pretend that there was something left worth fighting for between the two of us. As toxic as the situation was, it perversely helped me feel not completely knocked down and powerless.
The Gay Narcissist, meanwhile, used this arrangement to not only live comfortably, but to promote his newfound love for and life of adventure with the New Supply.
And I was his audience of one.
One of the greatest torments a target of narcissistic abuse can experience is the gnawing fear that he or she failed at being the best partner possible. Even worse, this fear metastasizes into the sickening panic that the next partner will “succeed” where you “failed.” The toxic person who treated you with dismissive contempt will melt away and transform into the perfect partner you always wanted.
This obsession drove me to the brink of madness on a daily basis.
Dread, Confrontation, And Instant Relief
To this day, I don’t know how intentional the Gay Narcissist was in flaunting his fresh relationship with the New Supply. He was certainly energetic in doing so, but in all of the postmortem analysis I’ve conducted over the years, I am uncertain how much of it was passive negligence versus active manipulation.
But a great many of them remain fresh in my memory.
One of the first happened mere days after the revelation of my discard for the New Supply.
I can still hear the whispers coming from the bedroom of the Gay Narcissist. He had a stomach virus the night before (I asked him if he needed anything since he was so sick), and stayed from work the following day. When I arrived home from work myself, I checked in on him.
A little while later I heard him speaking in a low and seductive voice from down the hall. Every once and awhile there was a soft chuckle. I listened in, and he was talking about upcoming plans at the Retreat.
And so, there it was. He was on the phone with the New Supply, carelessly flaunting his new relationship with my replacement.
I sat in the living room with an instant physical reaction to all of the emotional turmoil that fell upon me in that instant. My heart raced. I felt dizzy. I shook with incredible tremors. And all the while I didn’t know what was worse: my despair over the undeniable true, or my boiling rage of the callous indifference of the Gay Narcissist.
But I dreaded a confrontation with the Gay Narcissist above all else, despite all of those feelings. He enjoyed a fight and relished twisting my arguments into ammunition against me.
Still, I needed to defend myself. So, I stood up, walked down the hall, and slammed his door shut.
I felt instant relief, like a splinter picked out of the skin’s shallow surface. It was one of the first actions I took in the post-discard arrangement to stand up for myself, even if it was small.
After some time passed, the Gay Narcissist emerged.
“Why did you shut my door? Is the food here?” he said from the hall. He assumed I shut his door so his conversation wouldn’t be interrupted by a doorbell—all while preparing to feed him.
Before he disappeared into the bathroom, I confronted him face-to-face.
“You cannot do that again,” I said.
“What?” he said as he partially obscured himself behind the bathroom door.
“Despite how you feel… this is very, very hard for me,” I said. My voice choked. “I am clearly processing this differently than you, but how do you think it makes me feel to hear you so clearly talking to him like that?”
The Gay Narcissist stared at me without words. The slack, dumbstruck look on his face was satisfying in the moment.
His jovial is-dinner-ready tone changed to something low and somber.
“He was only calling to see how I was. He knew I wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t go to work… that’s all.”
He avoided any kind of apology. All he had were justifications. And his handling of me and the situation was different, almost alien. I was no longer the “boyfriend” of the Gay Narcissist. And with that word comes power—power over another person, if you treat it that way.
He dealt with me, now, in a more openly transactional way, and one with more deference. Gone were the days where he could accuse me of controlling his life since he already unburdened himself from those chains.
He was probably calculating, in that moment, his own needs in the situation and the timeframe he had to work with. He did not want to interrupt his living situation, upset his delicate finances, or his overall comfort.
So, he spoke to me civilly, if avoidant.
“Okay,” he said when I again repeated that something like that can never happen again.
It was strange and foreign.
“This Guy Is On Another Planet”
“I am fucking outraged at how this guy is treating you,” the Lovely Therapist said when I explained the event to her.
When I knew the relationship was crumbling and I felt the walls of my life closing in around me, I did what I needed to do and found a professional third party to vomit all of my psychological bile onto. Chewing off the ears of friends will only go so far. I needed the sanctity and refuge offered by the office of a shrink.
I call my particular shrink the Lovely Therapist because she was a sharp and intelligent young woman who was also quite pretty. But it was her compassion and empathy I found truly lovely.
As I spewed out everything going on under my shared roof with the Gay Narcissist, the Lovely Therapist would curve her eyebrows and slacken her lips in such a way that told me she was especially sickened by my reports.
“This guy is on another planet,” she said.
I often found myself apologizing for the actions of the Gay Narcissist and explaining away everything he did. I always felt like heaving from the unending stress of the entire dynamic, but I still found enough strength to make excuses for his never-ending parade of bad behavior. Not just to the Lovely Therapist, but with friends and family I’d explain everything to.
“Now, I don’t want any negativity,” I’d say. “I’m just as responsible for everything falling about as he is.” Then I’d pause. “Maybe more so.”
I believed all of it for a time, too.
But that would slowly change.
* * *
If you’re interested in learning more about narcissism, toxic relationships, dark personalities, and sexuality, then I highly recommend the books below.
Please consider buying through the provided Amazon Associate links. While the content on my website is yours to read for free, I do appreciate any support offered toward my work.
The reading list includes:
Should I Stay Or Should I Go: Surviving A Relationship With A Narcissist (Dr. Ramani Durvasula)
The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap (Dr. Ross Rosenberg)
The Sociopath Next Door (Dr. Martha Stout)
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World Of The Psychopaths Among Us (Dr. Robert D. Hare)
In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding And Dealing With Manipulative People (Dr. George Simon)
Being Homosexual: Gay Men And Their Development ( Dr. Richard Isay)
The Velvet Rage: Overcoming The Pain Of Growing Up Gay In A Straight Man’s World (Dr. Alan Downs)
