Quote Originally Posted by chaim View Post
Haha, at least he gets attention. He seems to need it.
I mean since the firing in 2001, you can see year-after-year why he and Glenn would have been electricity and water. Totally opposite personality types and two very different men. And you can see how Felder would be absolutely draining to be around. If Felder struggles this much with all relationships, after awhile you have to look at the common denominator - Don Felder. All of the people he's had falling outs or had breakups with couldn't have all been wrong or bad people or "the problem". It leaves only one to blame.

I personally believe Felder is a vulnerable-type narcissist. Instead of the malignant narcissism or grandiose-type that most people think of when they think of a narcissist, those types of people are sneaky about it, passive-aggressive, and will needle you to death over a period of time. In a way, it's even worse than out and out narcissism if there is such a thing. At least the outwardly types are obvious to figure out and avoid. These types of people like Felder you often don't realize how they are until you get close to them and by then the emotional abuse has already set in and those people are energy vampires and are draining to be around. Yet what they really yearn for is true connection but they don't realize they are driving people away. Had Felder been more self-confident and aware in his real strengths and realized he wasn't going to be like Glenn, it would have been a whole different tale of events not only for Don Felder but likely for the entire Eagles band and their fans. The band breaking up may not have even happened. But Glenn was going to make darn sure he wasn't going to do it twice. And thus we have the firing of Don Felder. A right move IMO. The band probably felt closer than ever afterwards and certainly everyone would have been relieved to not have toxicity in the "workplace". I can only imagine Felder's last call to Glenn and how it must have sounded. It's just lame.

In the same breath though, I DO think Felder has had a rough go of it in the last 20 or so years especially. I would argue a lot of this is by his own making, but I also believe he truly feels victimized and isn't just claiming to be. That doesn't mean he has been, but I feel like he truly thinks he has been wronged. In that regard I share my sympathy with Felder. I want him to be happy. He certainly influenced my life along with the rest of our guys and he's a masterful musician, however troubled he may be. He deserves to feel content. But I think him feeling victimized has just caused him to be more insecure and feel the need for more attention and respect he feels entitled to. Hence his own self-named band, him singing the songs, being center stage where he probably thought he belonged (yet didn't IMO), etc. But it all started with his whining and needling Don and Glenn in the 70s and decompensated from there. I think in actuality, Felder probably has a lot of regrets, but he's making the same mistakes over and over. After awhile, it's harder and harder to feel sorry for Felder and you just want to gently smack some sense into him and enlighten him to his own behavior and humble him a little in terms of what he's good at and isn't good at, and have him be truly self-confident in what he does do great and realize he was never meant to be a leader or an A-type person like Glenn and that is perfectly okay and he isn't a lesser person simply for not being frontman material or a leader. Sadly, he feels he always was, and just feels like he's been oppressed.