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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ego. [/quote]

It's this. I've never had a romantic interest like this, but I've had several friends like this. And it's actually an abusive behavior they engage in, and that's what makes it hard to let them go. But I'm going to tell you the secret in a moment. Hang on for that.

It's a two pronged approach. First they convince you that their opinion of you is very important. They do this different ways. Sometimes they draw you in by judging other people around you while complimenting you, and it makes you feel special and "chosen." Other times they are just extremely assertive and opinionated in a way that makes you believe that they know best. It kind of depends on what will work best on you.

The second step is they start, and continue, withholding just enough of their approval to keep you hanging on. This only works because you've bought into the idea that their opinion of you is very important. And then they'll be like "you'd be perfect... if you did XYZ or stopped doing XYZ" or whatever it is. It's a form of control. And now you want to please them because their approval has become so important to you. So you try to do what they want. But this just makes them pull away more. It's very important for them that you never actually fully get their approval once they're past the "drawing you in" phase. Because then you might actually feel good about yourself, and they need you feeling a little crappy about yourself all the time, because that will keep you hanging on for their approval.

So even when it ends, even if you end it, that dynamic is still basically in place. Even when you recognize the dynamic, it can still have a hold on you because some part of you still buys into this idea that their opinion matters most.

So now you see the key to stopping it right? You've got to undo that first step. You've got to dismantle whatever convinced you in the first place that their opinion was paramount. And to do that, sometimes you have to go deep into yourself to figure out WHY they were able to make themselves the arbiters of your worthiness. I have found that the reasons often lie in your own childhood, your relationship with your parents or with your family of origin. I know, cliche. But true. There is a reason that this absolutely a$$hole was able to convince you that their good opinion was the most important thing in the world. Figure out what that reason is. Deal with it. And as you do, they will lose their hold on you and you'll stop stalking them online and thinking about what went wrong. You'll even stop being mad at them, to some degree (at least as mad as you currently feel) because you'll realize they no longer have that power over you. You'll discover that you were worthy all along, regardless of what they thought of you. And in this journey, you'll also start to realize that maybe MOST people's opinions of you don't matter. Maybe you can pick and choose whose opinion matters, and you might eventually even decide that list has like three people on it and the name at the top? Yours. And this jerk you dated for a while does not even rank, they are so irrelevant to anything that matters. They were like some kind of weird goblin you met on your way to Self-Actualization Mountain, and they can sink back into the bog with the rest of the goblins and you don't need to deal with them anymore.

Good luck. It's a hard journey but it has real rewards.[/quote]

Wow. This was my ex-bff. I was her only friend bc everyone else was garbage. She made me feel very special. And then once she was secure in that, began withholding her approval more and more. I groveled for our friendship until at the end, there was just nothing more to give.

I stood up for myself and that was the end. [/quote]

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