She’s at a friend’s house right now. It’s not too often I have time like this to myself, but as usual, I have to leave in a few minutes to do something. I need to help a dear friend who is facing a health challenge. Though I often feel like I run around too much, I do not resent this. I want to be there. I don’t mind being there for something that’s important to me.
What I do resent is the draw on my time by the toxic Ex, the narcissist I was so attracted and attached to at one time, and who I now can’t get far enough away from. It’s not that he asks to spend time with me anymore…only intermittently. It’s just that our interactions are very draining to me, and I never know if he’s going to “act up” or if it will be my lucky day and all will be civil and fine. And then by his choices regarding our DD, he winds up making so much more work for me…or sabotages what I’ve already done.
Because he has no real regard for reality or truth, I never know what I might get accused of or what shape the latest twisting of facts will take. I suppose I could make a game of it…you know, a predicting game, but I’ve never been a big fan of games. So, why then was I so attracted to such a player?
Well, I supposed I could pick out some reasons, but I swear, sometimes I just wonder where my brains went.
Some are invisible.
I no longer live with my narcissist (N), my dd has to on a periodic basis. Because she is getting older and developing her own personality apart from his she is starting to see and experience another side to her father.
From what I understand, this is what happens with narcissists and their children. While the kids are very young and worshipful, narcissists can get along fabulously with their children. But when they start to grow up and get their own likes and dislikes and become less compliant, more individual, that’s when the honeymoon can end. It can be traumatic for the child.
She is beginning to become the target of emotional outbursts and is learning what to say and how to say when she’s around him. She is
learning about manipulation, walking on eggshells, how to put on a face, when to censure yourself and how to say what other people want to hear. She is also learning contempt for a parent she has to teach proper behavior around a child.
She is learning survival techniques that children learn with narcissistic parents.
I feel like I am fighting for her life, her integrity and character.
It is getting harder and harder for me to let her go, because I am not there to protect her. When he’s in a “good space” she has fun with
him, but he can change so quickly, and the way he hurts her is starting to affect all the time she spends with him. The hardest thing she has to deal with is how he diminishes her, how he trivializes what she’s thinking or feeling and the way he makes her feel invisible.
Oh, how I know how she feels! It’s so hard to know she must suffer through this and at such a young age. I divorced him, but she cannot.
This makes every moment she’s with me all that much more precious. For every denial, I will meet with acknowledgment. For each gaslighting, I will validate. For every act of disrespect, I will honor her. For every appeal to her vices, I will hold her accountable for her virtue. For every lie, integrity. For each derision, love.
