Prototypes and archetypes (part 3)

I know some of you hate email exchanges with empaths, but I don't care. They're interesting because they force you to see yourself through someone else's eyes, and that is always enlightening. My responses are in bold:

I can't thank you enough for putting your time and energy into giving me your insight, that is really an incredibly selfless and generous thing for you to do, to really take an interest in people and their problems - just thank you, thank you, thank you. A couple other things that strike me as contradictions - if i would ask him in front on his friends if he needed something, like a soda, he would get mad at me and tell me i baby him, but then on another occasion he would fight and ask me why i never yell at him to whip into shape, like tell him he's being irresponsible and he shouldnt go to the bar but instead stay home to study for a test. I would tell him that it wasnt my job to do that, that that seems more like treating him like a baby than anything else. If he is a sociopath, why would he ask to be "controlled" like that? consistent with my thought that he is conflicted, feels out of control himself, wants to stop feeling that way, so wants help from you to help him manage his behavior. Babying him could make him feel even more out of control/vulnerable. It's fine for him to admit himself that he has issues and needs help. It's not fine for you to suggest independently that he is needy and out of control because it freaks him out even more--headtrips him.

Also, one time I asked for a kiss (not that I had to ask everytime, ha, just that he wasn't easily accesible at that moment) and he said "why would you ask? thats why youre so weak and have no power in this relationship, if you want a kiss, just take a kiss" - again, isnt that giving up control? He wants you to be strong, take what you want from him when you want it so he can pretend that you are a strong person that is with him because you want to be, not because you are needy, weak-willed, or feel somehow pressured to be. If you don't act that way, then it is just another reminder to him that he will destroy you eventually, and that you are an unwilling victim. Harder for him to justify being with you then.

(Maybe those are stupid examples, but they just popped into my head). He's said that something about me, without me even doing anything, just makes him become irritable and in a bad mood, like he can feel his blood start to boil, but im the only one that does that to him he doesnt treat anyone else like that. one time i came over to see him and he was in one of his moods and he said that he didnt know why, he wasnt angry before i got there, and when i leave he knows that he'll be mad at himself and all he'll want to do is be around me, that he doesnt want to be mean to me but he can't control it, but then if i left to let him cool off he would beg me to come back and would be loving and apologetic. And i guess you mentioned something like that in your letter, but can there be a specific person that makes your blood boil sometimes for no reason, but other times theyre the only person you like and need? And do you therefore resent them for the anger they make you feel and the moods they put you in? He's conflicted. I realize I keep saying that, but it's true. He's frustrated. You are both what he wants and a reminder of his deficiencies. You represent an itch he can't scratch, a thirst he can't quench. And you probably make it to easy for him to be bad, and get too hurt when he does. He resents you for both of those things.

My ex really does seem more content without me now, like he just doesnt miss me, doesnt really even want to talk to me or be friends. I know a lot of people feel that way when they end a relationship, but i guess its just so odd to me because after 2 years of back and forth, this one is most definitely final, and it seemed like without provocation from me, because we didnt even talk for a month, it very quickly turned into a true dislike for me and our relationship. It's probably not a dislike for you, per se. If I realize that a relationship isn't working out, it's driving me crazy because I can't be better, I'm always being bad, and it's hurting the other person -- so I'll just end it suddenly like that. Better for the both of us. It's not that I hate that person, although part of me blames them for not being able to help me out, pull their fair share of the load in the always fraught with difficulty sociopath/empath relationship. It feels like a double drowning. Can you really fault someone (empath) for freaking out while they're drowning and taking you down with them when you are trying to help keep them afloat? No, not really. That's just the nature of someone who is drowning. It would be like getting mad at a bee for stinging you. But can you blame that person for your own drowning? Yes, they certainly were the cause, weren't they, even if they couldn't help themselves. Double drowning victims just physically freak out and start clawing for survival. It's a natural survival instinct. People emotionally freak out in a failing relationship. It's just a survival instinct, but it's often not at all productive. When it starts happening, the best thing both people can do is to completely get away from each other. These things end in murder suicides.

This latest string of events leading to the breakup - wanting or needing to talk to me every single day while i was gone, visiting me, saying it was the best time he's ever had, that we have so much fun together, that he truly loved me, then abruptly breaking up with me a week after i got home, (the day after he said he wished he never said anything, he would have been happy to just to keep "trying" to make himself love me because he wanted me in his life, asking me if we could still be friends) to then never really needing or wanting to talk to me again, and now says that those 2 years were not particularly fun for him. Does it come that easy to a sociopath to just stop feeling good thoughts about a person and to have a genuine dislike for someone they once really "loved", or do you think maybe i am just trying to attribute what could be just a normal reaction of a person after they break up with someone, into something much deeper? He wanted to love you a certain way and he couldn't. Now it sounds like he is trying to blame you for not being loveable rather than blaming himself for not being able to love. The latter is the real truth, not the former. He may never acknowledge this in his lifetime, but that doesn't make it any less true.

I remember something else he said this last time we talked and i had made him feel badly about himself. He said something about how hard it is for him to rationalize what he does and how he acts when he's around me. he said that i am the only person that makes him feel like he's a bad person, and he hates that (although except for this one time that i actually came right out and said it, i've never tried to guilt him into feeling badly about himself or tell him he should feel bad about who he is), but he also agrees that i know him and his underlying feelings better than anyone. Right, he knows what is going on, in his heart of hearts. He just isn't willing to face the music right now. He's self-deceived, thinks he is great and worries he is a monster. Really both are true, but he just can't reconcile them in his mind right now, can't accept reality.
He said that he hasn't felt badly about himself and who he is in a month (since we last hung out) and he's felt great, and that he doesnt want to sink back into feeling how he was when he was with me. Yeah, I've felt this way about people. Think about it this way: certain people bring out the worst in you. Sometimes it is because they are a bad person, but other times it is because they expect too much of you. You try to be there for them, but you can't. You're constantly confronted with your failure. If you worked at a job where you sucked but no one ever fired you, would you quit? Or would you keep yourself and everyone else in misery and just keep trying?

I could understand if i made him feel bad by telling him what he did wrong all the time or putting him down, but i was really always supportive and encouraging to him, which he even got angry at at times. Is it plausible to think that its easier for him to ignore these conflicting feelings he has of himself when im not around, and has maybe transfered that into a genuine disdain for me and our relationship? Or again, am i grasping at straws here? No, you're right, it's easier to ignore his own inadequacies when you're not there reminding him of them. Like deadbeat dads who not only don't pony up the child support, they stop seeing their children because they are ashamed and the children are a constant reminder of that shame.