axa,
I understand too well about how you feel.
I tended to go back to Jodi over and over again and then kick myself later for it. It was always the same. It was an online relationship, cause as she said and I obediently agreed, "we only get along online so it's meant to be just a computer relationship." that was called, Jodi not wanting to see the things she once said we had in common, because I didn't totally fit her description of everything she wanted, which changed like the weather, anyway.
It would be the same thing...me trying to chat with her online and observing her just sit there, pondering what I wrote, and not commenting until I happened to mention something about HER. Feeling ignored and devalued over and over again and telling myself "well at least she's still talking to me" UGH! I settled for the crumbs in that relationship!
Once I started telling her how I felt, that I noticed she never commented till I said certain things, she went through a common pattern that I later saw with the next person in her life...it went like this:
Oh, I don't mean to ignore you, not at all...I'm sorry you felt that way...to I can't BELIEVE you'd think I was ignoring you!...to "well you need to really deal with those insecurity issues!" (mind you, this was all in the same conversation with her, one response right after the other)...then, I got to see it when she did the same thing to someone else, just a year later..."I'm sorry, I can't BELIEVE, That's YOUR problem!" There was NEVER an "I'm sorry, I will really try harder to hear your heart and validate you"...WHY? do you ask, could she not say that? Because Jodi was geared only to ZOOM IN on anything that pierced her protective armor over her image. She could let me "ramble" but not have a thing to say until I said something that made HER image look less than PERFECT to me or to others. She was always so quick to defend her "self" to me, to make sure I saw her as benevolent, always "there" for me, etc....when, in actuality, the complete opposite was true.
She used me to find out info about her next "friend" so that when she ditched me and picked up with her, she'd not behave in ways that would tip her off or in ways that she could "compare notes" with me and get the same idea about her...anyway, sorry to get all into that again, or am I? It does good to talk about these things sometimes, if it means someone here can feel less alone and bewildered.
Bless you, axa
Better days are ahead!