Author Topic: My friend expects me to (feels he is entitled to) reciprocation....  (Read 301 times)

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SriDharma108

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My friend does this thing where he establishes in himself a certain quality of relationship with me, where he says he loves me immensely, that he would do anything for me, that he's totally sacrificed and surrendered to me, and so on and so on (it really goes on, I can't remember all that he says but he's got endless lines affirming the depth and quality of our friendship)

Now I just don't feel at all the same way he feels. We haven't known each other long enough to be at the level he is professing. We have "known of" each other for about 10 years, but we have not spent much of the time directly intimately developing a relationship. For 5 years strait we never saw each other at all. For only 1 year did we spend much time together consistently, but then our relationship was very strained and he was an enormous stress and harmful to me. So we really haven't actually developed this degree and depth of relationship that he so desperately seems to need.

So here is the problem I'm having and where I'm asking for advice.

He expects me to reciprocate the same degree, the same depth of trust, surrender, love, affection, etc. that he claims that he has for me.
I feel like he's playing some sort of emotional manipulation trick, to force me into giving him what he needs in a relationship.

If I don't reciprocate with what he expects I should give him at certain junctures and events in our relationship he gets emotionally worked up, sometimes mad, sometimes sad and depressed. He doesn't understand why I don't love him as much as he says he loves me.
The thing is I feel very strongly that he suffers a pathological Narcissistic Personality Disorder and that he really only loves himself. The so called love he professes for me feels empty, contrived, with all sorts of strings attached. It's painful, smothering, demanding, manipulative love. It's definitely not real love at all, it's very painful and is coming from his pathological PD.

Is there a name for this phenomena where he expects me to reciprocate with all these deep intimate relationship qualities specifically because he has them for me.
That since he feels so much love for me that I should feel the same love for him. That the type of love and the qualities and expectations that go along with his love for me should be returned.
I feel from him an overwhelming sense of entitlement and expectation, that I should reciprocate the way he wants me to, because he has these feelings for me.

What is this called? How can I present this to him so he can see what he's doing. He is relatively open to look at these issues, he knows he has issues. It has taken a long time but he has come to be able to acknowledge and admit to the issues that afflict him. And is trying to work on things.

Besides that phenomena in our relationship I constantly get the feeling that he's holding me hostage in so many subtle psychological emotional ways.
Now I'm quite aware of things, and strong, and I largely don't let him get away with the games he tries to pull.
But it makes him mad or sad whenever I don't play into his games or let him take advantage of me.
Though I still feel this constant sense that he is trying to hold me hostage.

Just to note. Not sure how much it matters.
We are both male.
Neither of us is gay. We have never had sex, never wanted to.
I'm in a healthy marriage with a female I'm very happy with. He is single, but just broken up from a relationship with a female.
I feel like he has transfered some of the "stuff" that he co-depended with his last girlfriend now onto me. Nothing sexual or physically intimate. Just subtle psychological relationship factors. Stuff he used her for, now he is using me for.
I only mention this because a lot of the way I present things might sound like intimate male/female relationship stuff. But it's not, it's just platonic between males.


 

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