Don’t Know What You Want
“I don’t know what you want, heaven knows I have tried. Every day I have spent my time in the pursuit of your happiness. It was easy at first because you seemed so happy. I don’t think I had seen anybody who acted in such a care free manner. Nothing seemed to bother you, hold you back or distract you. You moved with such intent, acted with defined purpose and I must confess I found that attractive. The singularity of your aim was evident to even the casual observer. You shrugged off mishaps, shirked disaster and dodged catastrophe as if you had once pledged that you would never countenance anything that could hinder or hold you back. It is admirable and impressive. With that ability to glide effortlessly through life you always seemed happy, or at least that is what I thought. You made me happy too. Goodness knows you did. You did it better than anybody else and with such conviction. I can place my hand on my heart and confirm that I have never experienced anybody like you. Your capacity for love exceeded anything I had witnessed before. Everything else paled next to you and your blazing golden sunshine. You chased away the gloom, you lit up the darkest of days and you always did so with such confidence and fortitude. It was easy to love you, you made it easy. Who wouldn’t love a god who had deigned to walk on the earth in such a manner? Of all of the billions making their way across this planet you came and you chose me. Me. Two small letters yet you made those letters fill your life and there was no room for anything else. I had never been the focus of such love, attention and affection and do you know, I doubt I ever will again. There is nobody like you. I mean that as a compliment, I honestly do, nobody loved me the way you did. If I had not seen it happening and felt it envelop me I would never have believed it and believe in it I did, with every ounce of my being. You know I almost felt obliged to love you. How could I not after all the things you did for me and everything you said? I would surely be a cold-hearted harridan to have denied you the most perfect love after what you showed me. I could no less reciprocate what you gave me than walk away and I fell hard and deep for you so that it made loving you easy. I gave everything for you but if I am honest, at least at first, it was no chore, no arduous exercise or thorny path. It was bliss. You invigorated me, you elated me and you inspired me. You became the centre of my world and thus I loved you in every conceivable way that I could, with my eyes, my mouth, my fingers, my breath and my heart. I woke and the first thing I thought of was you. I found you filling my thoughts often and repeatedly as I considered how best I could return your wonderful love. I sculpted my life around yours as I cooked for you, I shopped for you, I listened to you and I counselled you. I soothed your fevered brow and held your clammy hand as you slipped into a chaotic slumber. I laundered your clothes, I searched for your keys, I supported your endeavours and I lauded your achievements. I made myself the best person you could ever want by your side and I strove each and every day to maintain our happiness for our perfect union. I invested everything I had in our partnership as I wanted to be Robin to your Batman, Hutch to your Starsky and the Sundance kid to your Butch Cassidy. I portrayed nothing less than the perfect visage to all of those who admire you. The bended knee people, the hand-kissers, the bowing people and those at your elbow and over your shoulders. I gave them no reason to doubt us, to doubt you. I smiled when the pain tried to prevent me from doing so. I blinked back the tears when they wanted to pour. I searched for answers even when I began to realise that none would be forthcoming. You made me twist, turn and dangle as you had me like Don Quixote, tilting at those windmills because they might be giants. You made me think that enemies lurked behind every corner, their long-fingered jealousy ready to steal what we had. I searched for them, ready to strike them down in furtherance of what we have, because I believed in you and I. I gave every minute of every day to you, I cancelled my plans, I let friends loose and irked my family in order to give you what I thought you wanted. I cleaned, I worked, I bathed, I trimmed, I cut, I dieted, I measured, I washed and I did so all because of you. I had come so far along the road with you that I was not going to stop because somehow I knew that we would succeed, all I had to do was find what it was that you wanted. That is me, you see, I am a giver and you are a receiver. That does not pain me because I have spent most of my life being a provider and a giver, that is why I was put on the earth, to care, to worry, to look after and to cherish. That is my role and I have discharged myself in this role with utter dedication and distinction. I know I can lie straight in the bed, even more so because you no longer frequent it with me and do so in the knowledge that I have done everything I could for you. You could not want for more. You could not want for a better person than me. You were the best for me and I wanted to be the best for you too. They say that when you are going through hell you should keep on going, but I cannot. These shaking hands, my scarred forearms and thinning hair tell me otherwise. The incessant dull ache in my brain, the stoop that I have acquired and the ever present sense of dread threaten to consign me to oblivion. I thought that if I knew what you wanted, if I worked and tried, I could ascertain what it was that you wanted and then I could give it to you and we would be one again. We would be us. We would be happy.
I don’t know what you want.
But I cannot give it anymore.”
21 thoughts on “Don’t Know What You Want”
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It applies to both..
a tragedy..
😢
I think I have witnessed both. The narc is always claiming to have done so much! At the same time a Narc would also say when you ask very direct and simple questions, “I don’t know what I want!” My answer, “Don’t you think it’s important to know what you want?” Yes, a narc will exclaim that YOU don’t know what you want, then turn around and state, “I don’t know what I want!” when pressed for answers. Ah, the wonderful world of the constant confused state and altered reality.
While I’m relatively new to this site, never before thought much about narcissism, (and yes, I’m in a recovery/growing mode), I think that HG has written this from his perspective.
And to HG, I have been reading about narcissism for a couple months. Your work is the best that I’ve read and you have my sincere appreciation for your insight.
Thank you K, i appreciate you saying say and welcome on board.
Claudia, are there no support groups to find for you? I know some in my country and even when HG helps a lot to understand what happened to you need people who really understand your pain and comfort you. You need much more comfort than possible here. I know that all the others on this blog try to help you and each other, but in the middle of everything is only HG and his addiction to nastiness and positive fuel. Please try to find such a support group. It is not enough to listen to HG and his words. You must be in the middle of attention, no one else. And you need to talk about it, over and over again. This blog is only a part of your recovery.
Thank you, Mona, for your kindness. There is no other support for me than H.G. Tudor Site, and his Blog. This is why I am on here a lot. It is my only therapy. I live far away from the city, and there is not much therapy here. I have no one else to confide with about this because friends do not understand. People who do not understand say things like, “Get over it, already!” Or, “Quit ruminating over a bad relationship; everyone gets into bad relationships.” No, they do not understand how the brain spins after this type of abuse and how we need time to unravel out all the details to help it better settle with each of us. I have flashbacks from not only this last Covert Narcissist, but also severely from the Histrionic Narcissist. The remembrance of the situation with the Histrionic Narcissist is so painful for me. I feel angry and crushed. I cry, sometimes, a lot. I cry mostly because I did not know what a Narcissist was back then, and thus I did not know how to protect my children from him. I ran to a phone outside to call a shelter, but could not leave him because he said he’d keep my two baby boys. So, for years, I tried my best to humor him so the abuse would not be so terrible. I kept close watch of my boys, but the Histrionic Narcissist was 6’3, and so much bigger than, I. I am petite. My heart is beating fast, right now, just in remembering the horror of it all. I dissociated a lot to keep my sanity. Thanks to The Lord, he went to jail and so I, and my babies, got away. Due to the way I grew up, I had no street-smarts, and did not know what to do. I called the police a few times from physical abuse, but they believed him, still. You could not see the physical abuse because he did it where I would have had to undress for anyone to see. So, no one saw. I took my boys under my wings the best I could. I never got therapy for any of that, either. Sorry it’s so long 😟.
Claudia, please do not excuse for telling your personal story. You have every right in the world to do it. You experienced so much horror. I understand you now much better. “Good” persons who should have helped , failed or ignored your pain or even helped your abuser. Perfect insane world. And after so many years of surviving, only surviving, it is difficult to find a stable bottom. What is wrong, what is right? Where is help? Is there any help? And HG tells the truth about abusive behaviour. Perhaps it is really a big help to understand your own history (to believe that your experienced reality was reality) and you are able to recover. I read on other sides that you did not find a suitable support group. And even there!!! you found no help or understanding. I am sorry for that. Sometimes it is so terrible! I wish I could help you and I apologise, that I did not answer earlier. You deserve it!!! People who survived such an abuse earn every respect I own. If it helps a little bit, tonight I will not sleep and think of you. Feel a little bit embraced. If I could I would bring you a cup of tea or coffee and would listen to you all night long. Thank you for your sincerity.
Mona, thank you so much for your beautiful compassion. I am always looking for something, or someone, to hold onto; an anchor. I want you to sleep, though! I do not want you to stay awake. Sleep. But, your words to me are so kind that it brings tears to my eyes to know that someone out there, somewhere, understands. Your kind words are a single, bright light of hope, amongst a jet-black, merciless, turbulent ocean. I do see your light, and I thank you for it! The Lord blesses me through you ❤️
This would be my narcissist speaking. He always acted like he did SO much and could never please me. It was actually the other way around. The day I left, I called him to check and see if he was okay….he had a pity party about how hurt, confused and in shock he was. In the background, I could hear the football game playing.
That night, just hours after I left, he had a prostitute in our bed. In less than a month, he moved a prostitute into our marital home.
In the meantime, he tells his colleagues at work how I have destroyed his heart, he is so wounded and in such pain. He did everything for me and cannot understand why I left him. He did all he could to keep our relationship alive. They believe every word he says.
This is exactly my situation, too, Sweetfreedom. He always said, “After everything I did for you!” He didn’t really do all that much for me except make me cute memes with my name on them, (which I can make, myself, in 5 seconds). Or, after abusing me with his constant Triangulations, Switch and Bait, Provoking me to no end, and name-calling, ETC..after he got my intended reaction, he’d say, “Wow, you just don’t appreciate anything, do you?” And yes, all our mutual friends believed every word he said…every lie, and lies mixed with bits of truth, laced with omission of the more important details, like when I confided in him that I was born with Alcohol Withdrawals due to my mom drinking so much while she was pregnant with me, and him saying he was gonna tell everyone that I was “born drunk”. (Such exquisite class)! What a sincere “soulmate love” he had for me.
Yup me too
Is this the Narcissist speaking, or the victim, H.G.?
You decide Claudia.
I loved him so much…with all my heart. He made my heart dance. I adored him like no other, and every one of his friends said that he adored me, and that they had never seen him so smitten. He fooled everyone. In the end, he set up the most hateful smear campaign ever. He said all kinds of falsities and lies mixed in with only bits of truth. No one could see through him. He had vowed his undying love to me over and over, only to better brutalize me. I still cannot comprehend it. Even now, tears drop down onto my tablet as I write this. It is difficult to get over something like this. It’s a long recovery process, especially when others who have never been through such a thing cannot understand it. I never talk about it anywhere, or with anyone, except here. No one else understands the very deep pain of such abuse.
Thank you, H.G. for trying to help me, and others, better understand.
You are welcome.
Claudia, I believe this is the victim speaking because the narcissist never know what they want and are never satisfied with what you give them-only in the moment. The following week it changes to something else. At least that has been my experience.
Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria , I agree to a point . Just a few weeks ago I would have 120% . I like Claudia do not speak of this & only come here to read, journal & HG’s YouTube & journal more. In the weeks since I’ve been here I’ve learned so much about my narc but so much more about myself , my person,who I really am is returning ..the fog is lifting I can read this from both sides. Thank you HG for helping me help myself
You are welcome JMT, thanks for saying hello.
Me too. And when I’d call him out on it is either get met with temper or a blank state. Smh
Im thanking the victim