Game # 7: The breaking you down begins

• Let's re-cap the first 6 games.

• He sucked you in, and sucked you in fast. Speed of light fast. He flattered, he charmed, he seduced. He brought you into an intimacy by "sharing" deep feelings, fears, desires, wants and needs. He related to yours. He slept with you right away. Adorned you with attention, and you are like no other woman was.

• He made you feel special, unique, different from all others, while he also subtlysuggested what he liked/didn't like in a woman, challenging you to be one, not the other. He bragged, he showed off, he made his opinions/beliefs and desire to always be right, intimidating to you. You want to please him. Meanwhile, he gave red flags-more than a communist parade about what he's really about-and you missed them.

• He implied commitment, or he rushed into one. Maybe you married him. He has you feeling as if it's you and he exclusively, either overtly or implied with words everyone would read into as commitment. You're "his girl."

• You begin to see signs of a "darker" side. He's got problems with people, he's haughty, arrogant, and angry at other's alot. Other people are stupid and "dont understand me." He tells stories of his childhood, past relationships, current life problems and you may discover a personal issue, ie, drinking, drugs, financial, that rationalizes to YOU the strange behavior emerging. You want to "help."

• He begins to control you, and the first way is to isolate you from other men. While many abusive men do this overtly, many do not-as you learned from the post.

• Now he is beginning to push you away, and to pull away from you. You believe this is a normal sign of "cold feet", as many well-meaning relationship advisers tell you as normal men feel they are falling for you, they often retreat for a bit. You believe the same of this guy. Except what you don't know yet-this retreat is permanent. Welcome to game 7, which is.....the start of breaking down your self-esteem, worth and confidence.
  

By now, some of the “nice guy” bullshit has been eliminated and in it’s place, is the backing off, seemingly cold feet, distancing and moody guy. You’ve noticed mood swings, he’s come off on you for no reason at all when you haven’t done anything wrong, he’s blown you off a few times, he’s distance and rejecting your affection-whatever the source of your discontent, you know that communication is the cornerstone of any relationship to work. Yet you bring something up and it enviably turns into an argument.

He begins to find fault and is highly critical of you. His reactions to things are abnormal. Here's an example:

Shortly after I met my biggest and LAST abusive guy, I expressed to him how much I love red wine. He of course, hated it. I used to also, until I was “turned on” to a particular kind. I went to buy a bottle of It, because I wanted him to try it. If he liked it, then maybe he’d venture into trying others. I loved trying to convert non- wine drinkers into wine drinkers. If he didn’t like it, that’s okay too…..more for me. While I was at the store, I found a bottle that had his name on it. He has a rather unusual name, unusual that men his age typically didn’t have it. It was more of an “old man” name. The label said “Sweet His Name.” I thought that was hysterical, since he was a lot of things- but sweet is not something I’d ever describe him as. I thought he’d find humor in that too, and that we could have a lot of fun drinking it and seeing if it tasted awful-to which I would’ve razzed him and had a lot of fun playing with him about an awful tasting wine that’s named after his "sweet" ass.

He however, took this and completely thought it was weird. One, weird that I was giving him a bottle of wine, and two, that it had his name on it. He even asked me if I had made the label, since the design was a sketch drawing portrait of someone. It’s ironic because I do draw-but not wine labels. I was thinking to myself" what kind of a weirdo reacts this way to being given a bottle of wine?" and annoyingly thought " Oh yeah, I drew the label-complete with a bar code and the surgeon general’s warning on it, idiot." What the hell was wrong with this guy?

Instead, his reaction was so persistent and so weirded out, that I really began to wonder if it was me. Was I being creepy bringing him a bottle of wine? Was it too soon to give him a “gift”? We had only been seeing each other a couple weeks. Was I coming on too strongly, did he take as I really thought he was “sweet” and I was like psycho-ish in love with him already? I believe that’s how he intended me to feel, and what was a very innocent gesture for someone I liked, filled with humor and the hopes of fun, was now twisted into something weird, hurtful and confusing. This didn’t happen just once- at first, anytime I attempted to be nice to him, I was met with this attitude.

When I dropped off a birthday present at his house with a girlfriend of mine when he wasn’t home and didn’t answer his phone all day, I was read the riot act and interrogated with the 3rd degree as to what I was doing there, what it was I would’ve done if I saw another car in his driveway, what was my intentions, and that it was simply psycho that we had done that. The next day, he’s calling and apologizing profusely for getting loud, he knows that he does that, he didn’t mean to yell or make me feel like a child, he knows that he’s given me reason to react, blah blah. Dr Jekyll /Mr. Hyde. You accept the apology though, as I did….because he seems so sincere, he’s explaining things to you now, he doesn’t want to hurt you, he didn’t mean to be an asshole-and you forgive it. He’s being nice now. This is a sign in your mind that THIS is who he really is, not this mean guy that over -reacts and takes everything you do wrong, then accuses you of always taking him wrong. No, underneath the bad guy, is the good guy...right?