Love gone....into the shadows

My last post was the appreciation for the lover that I believe I am.  Now for the lover who I am trying to forgive.  I am a toxic person at times.  I have been described as manipulative.  I have been told I have a way with words that is seen as a way to talk my way around anything.  This is a quality of the romantic in me, the shadow side to my lover.  This is the part of me who I am stopping to look over this month, ironically designated for the lover...the valentine.

This toxic lover has been exposed.  I am a narcissistic person, not absolutely but partially.  I have spent most of my adult life setting goals that make me happy.  I had breakfast with close friend and in a conversation about being a lover, it was revealed and I found how I am manipulative.  I am manipulative and deceptive about my lustful desires.  I decorate myself in altruistic motives.  I convince myself that I am being attentive and caring.  I convince myself that I in this moment for the other.  The other being the person being loved.  There is a paradox in that yes I am an attentive and caring person, but I have minimized the narcissism and lust in the formula.  I have tried to justify my romantic qualities without acknowledging that in most cases I have had a motive.  I have deceived myself into thinking that I am serving my partner for their good, and ignoring that a part of it is serving my own desire.

The analogy that comes to mind is the where is Waldo book.  I feel like my self concept of my romantic quality is so distorted and biased with caring, sensitivity, and creativity that I cannot see Waldo.  Waldo being my narcissism and the busyness hiding Waldo is my altruistic romance.  I have a illusive insecurity to exploit love, to feed off of the vulnerability that I can create with the tools of caring, sensitivity, and creativity.  I had hid Waldo's toxicity in a collage of trusted yet manipulative scenes.  This is tragic and hard to own. I'm ashamed and scared.

As I criticize my romantic facade, I hope to remain kind to myself but real enough to induce change.  This is credited to those who have pulled away the veil that allowed me to enter into the defense of my romantic facade.  I recognize defense as an indicator of vulnerability. I looked for the insecurities that hide behind this deceitful and manipulative romantic facade.  I don't know how to process this realization, but I thank Greg a companion and source of wisdom for opening my eyes.  He revealed the importance for looking for Waldo in my pages of romantic collages.

There is a part of me, the romantic, that loves to hear what I want to hear, and I have learned how to achieve this in wicked ways, not absolutely but in part, I'd like to believe in a small part.  I am not forgetting that my goodness and golden side, true self,  outweigh and foreshadow my shadow.  I am publicly forgiving that I have motives that are driven by insecure understanding that vulnerability is a shortcut to intimacy.  I acknowledge that my insecure need to be desired has driven my romantic facade to exploit compassion and empathy to profit at the expense of another's trust.  I see that there is a sacred contract that must be signed and honored when dealing with vulnerability and I have violated this contract.  Please Lord forgive me!