Parenting with a Narcissist

One day he calls. He’s as nice as can be and engages in friendly conversation.

I’m civil, but I learned long ago not to read anything positive or hopeful into such behavior. I have no desire to linger, but I’m not rude. Sometimes it helps to leave him in a good mood. My daughter might benefit from it, when she has to be with him tomorrow. For her, I’ll play along.

The very next day he appears at my door. Knocks once, and steps in, not even waiting for me to answer. I look at his face. His eyes are shiny, almost wet, his face is red. He’s not drunk. No, it’s not that. I can feel it. There’s that familiar rage, the one I know so well. It’s just underneath the surface waiting for the slightest excuse to explode onto the scene. He cannot hold it.

He asks if she’s ready. Well, almost…he’s early. He immediately starts yelling. He needs her to be ready when he says he’s going to be here. His hand is jabbing at the air as he speaks. He’s daring me to a fight.

I point out he’s early. He immediately argues, like he’s pained at my thoughtlessness, like he’s had enough. It doesn’t make sense. He’s irrational. I realize he just wants to punish, to dump on someone. Something happened, something offended him. He wants to strike out…and I’m there.

But I’m no longer willing. This isn’t the yesterday of long ago.

I cut him off short. “What’s up with you?” I ask. “Time has nothing to do with anything. You came in here with an attitude. Chill out!”

“I’m not mad”, he lies. Classic response when he’s called on an outburst. “I’m not yelling.”

“Um…yeah, you are. Cut it out!” He looks at me like I’m the one who suddenly changed. Maybe I have, but it wasn’t sudden. It was only after years of putting up with shit like this. And it’s been years since I’ve stopped. But he’ll never see me. He’ll always treat me according to his need.

I turn my back on him, and walk toward my daughter’s room. He heads out the door and waits for her in his car.

I never used to fight back like that. I used to argue, all right, but I tried to argue with reason. I’d point out how unreasonable it was for him to demand she be ready to walk out the door when he arrived early. I’d say she started to get ready beforehand, how nice it was she had already gathered this or that in anticipation, etc.

And I would have wasted each breath it took for me to push out those words in the midst of his rage.

No more. I don’t waste my time. I address only that he’s being abusive now – not the alleged reason for it.

Funny, to recall how back in the day I would have been blown out of the water with this sudden changed behavior, trying to figure out what made him go from being so nice to so vicious in less than 24 hours.

But I didn’t even blink an eye. Because, you see, when you’re involved with a narcissist, it’s just *sigh* another day, another episode.

It does get better though. Not because they do, but because you do.

It’s been years since I escaped.

And it’s been years since I’ve cared about the people he cheated with on me. In fact, I thank God I’m free of them.

But a simple comment I had made in regards to another comment posted on this blog, bringing up the time I had inadvertently come across incontrovertible proof that he was seeing someone he swore he wasn’t (and then duly ignoring that proof and allowing him to berate me for finding it) triggered emotional memories that I did not anticipate.

Because I don’t care about him anymore. And the last thing I’d want is him back in my life. BUT there are strong psychological impressions that are made in extreme emotional duress that leave their marks on you “forever”. I don’t know if that’s absolutely true, because I haven’t lived forever, but I have lived more than a few years since…like over ten years, and yet, I feel, tonight, an emotional pain inside me and something close to that crazed feeling of obsessive attention, a morbid curiosity to learn as much about my competition as I can.

And I HATE it, because it’s all so stupid, and yet, here I sit, aware of these emotions inside of me and wondering about people, wanting to know about those who are worth less than toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

And even though I am years away in time and miles away in distance and levels ahead in growth, on this night, like some kind of falling off the wagon addictive response, I find myself dealing with a change of chemistry in my brain and in my body that makes me feel emotions I now recognize as unhealthy. I feel a little bit crazy tonight.

And so, I take the time to still my mind, to calm my thoughts, to rein that feeling of obsessive compulsion to know where my “enemies” are to protect myself, to not be blindsided by the next sucker punch of a threat that no longer exists for a prize that no longer shines, but has been revealed for the pile of dust it is and always was.

This is a sickness. Narcissistic personality disorder, and just plain low character, meanness, manipulation and deceit even without the disorder is an illness.

And if you’re not careful, you can become infected. And like some viruses that go into hibernation or hide within cells or joints slumbering until something in their environment causes them to resurface again, the wounds inflicted by NPD’s and their co-horts can reappear, taking you by surprise, even knocking you off your feet.

Don’t stay down.

It’s okay. Even if you have to deal with this unwelcomed reminder from time to time, don’t despair. And don’t stay down.

Seek refuge in your inner strength, and take this opportunity to grow even more. For a moment I was confused, disoriented, dismayed. But then I remembered, at one time this experience was normal.

Now, it’s an aberration. That’s good news!

I recognize it is not where I want to be. It’s that awareness that I celebrate tonight. It’s the contrast that I embrace, that shows me how far I’ve come, that makes me appreciate the glorious difference in my own life between where I was before and where I am now.

I hear not only its pain, but it’s message to me that it’s ready to heal.

And I will not deny it.

It’s true. Or at least, they affect your ability to show your love to other people.

Because you’re so angry all the time, or if not all the time, then during the times you are wrestling with your anger at being used, lied to, abused, taken advantage of, disrespected, made to feel expendable, small, worthless. Which can be quite often if you have a narcissist in your life.

And those things piss you off, and understandably so.

But do you realize how much they make you unavailable to those who do love you, who you love? When a child reaching out to you as a sign of love is seen as another demand upon you, an intrusion of your space, because you are so sensitive at being trespassed against?

Because as supply for someone else’s narcissism, you are so used up, and the insatiable, thoughtless demands of the N has totally wiped you out so that when someone does ask something of you who has a right to, because they’re your little child or a someone you are truly close to, who truly cares for you, that you react as if they just assaulted you.

And sometimes I feel like I can’t help myself, that there’s so much anger lying underneath that when I get pushed again, then I am a bomb waiting to explode on innocence. And it’s not fair.

It’s not fair.

Mother, beware. Father, beware. The seeds you sow by courting a narcissist, by inviting one into your life will grow predatory vines that will reach far into your life, beyond that immediate relationship. It’s like a curse that follows you.

If you raise kids under such a narcissistic parent, do not be surprised when you see the shadow of his narcissism in your now adult kids, the way they relate to you, the way they relate to other younger children you may have.

You think it’s difficult to separate yourself from the narcissist you had once desired? Imagine how difficult it will be to escape the narcissism of your own children if they walk the path of the model you brought into their life.

You condemn yourself to being angry the rest of your life, cutting yourself off from the ones who truly do love you, not being able to love back, not in the way they or you deserve. Unless…

Unless you can find a way to remove that poison from your life. For the sake of the children. You got to set up boundaries. If possible you have to maintain it with distance, but if not physically, then emotionally. Because you’re going to create boundaries.

Do it consciously toward the toxicity. Not subconsciously toward the innocent.

I don’t like her. At all. She’s a bitch to my daughter, but I can’t stand watching what he’s doing to her.

So he tells me he’s broken up with her. It won’t work, he says. Distance, the direction they’re going in their lives. He’s not willing to make the changes in where he lives or works to accommodate her work, even though she’s the one with a real career with promise for advancement. It’s too much to ask him…

Oh, and it’s for her, too. He says. It’s not fair to her.

Right, like he cares. And I think, yeah, wait till you need her for something again.

Sure enough, a couple days later, he gets sick as a dog. Needs to leave work.

And where does he go? All the way back to his house? No, straight to her house, the one he just broke up with “out of fairness”, so she can take care of him for a couple of days. And I know how happy she is to do it. Maybe this will make him see how much she cares for him, how much she loves him.

And she’s not offended he’s come to her after he just dumped her. Because it proves he loves her – doesn’t it? She’s the one he thinks of when he’s sick, she’s the one he comes to when the chips are down. It means he really does realize what he has in her. Doesn’t it?

And maybe this incident will open his eyes, and he’ll realize that he really can’t live without her, and everything will be all right, and this time he will truly, really be hers forever, and they can go from here on, building a life together.

And he tells her exactly what she needs to hear, at least just enough, to keep her wiping his brow and feeding him a light broth so the contents of his stomach can stay down and he won’t get dehydrated, poor dear.

And maybe for that moment, he is grateful he has her to take care of him. But he’s gratitude does not extend beyond him, does not go beyond having his needs met. It does not reach out to her, does not translate into seeing and valuing her as a person. Maybe it’s not gratitude. Maybe it’s just happy to be taken care of. Whatever it is, it will linger only for a while until he’s better.

I know.

And sure enough, they’re back together again…for a week or less. And then something happens. And they’re broken up again.

I am so surprised.

I know this ride. I don’t know how it happened with her, but I know with me it would always be a fight. Something he’d start – nitpicking on things, looking for a fight, or jumping on something I said and blowing it out of proportion or picking on what he knew would be a sensitive area, waiting for any hint of anger or upsetness on my part, and then with no small amount of self righteous anger, claim that “he had had enough”.

And walk out my door.

Anything to leave now that my service was no longer required.

And usually I’d be sitting there reeling, wondering what the hell happened, and the hole in me would be so cavernous and I’d be devastated, waiting for him to come back, wanting to talk about it, work things out – not knowing that he would be back, when he needed to. Not realizing that there was nothing to work out, because it already had – just as he intended.

So they break up again – rather, he breaks up with her again.

Another week passes. During this week he has to transport his daughter to school several times without the benefits of staying at the girlfriend’s apartment, watching her t.v., playing her video games, surfing her internet, before picking his child back up again. It’s his first time.

The cost of two round trips per day is prohibitive. He’s both incensed and impressed with his “sacrifice” (wants a parade).

He complains about this for a week. And he tests the waters. He calls me a few times, and keeps me on the phone for extended periods of time making conversation – politics, people, whatever.

But I cut him off the last time he calls in the midst of some brilliant, articulate point he is making, and offend him. I hear the anger in his voice as I hang up.

The narcissist equation.
Cost to self + no admiring audience = pragmatic decision to go back to source of narcissistic supply.

Surprise! They’re back together again.

Until something better comes along. And then, although she doesn’t know it, it will be the luckiest day of her life.

But just in case the new thing doesn’t work, he’ll keep her number. She may find herself on the end of a phone conversation being the lucky recipient of his brilliant and articulate conversations, when he’s found he’s had enough of the other one.

But until then, he will toss her out and reel her in and toss her out and reel her in indefinitely. And she’ll keep trying and trying…until she’s had enough, if there is enough of her left to actually leave.

There’s no love loss, but I really do feel sorry for her. Sorry in only the way someone who has escaped can.

No, really. He truly thinks he deserves one. If he does something remotely responsible, fulfills some small part of his parental duty, does the very least he can do, but takes some effort doing it, then he really believes he should receive recognition and praise – from me!

This man pays no child support, contributes nothing financially or time wise to his child’s education, doesn’t even contribute to the care of his child’s animals, not even when they are with him (I send the food), but he transports his kid to school one week and actually brings it my attention, telling me how much it cost him in gas and time, fully expecting me to thank him and tell him how wonderful he is and just marvel at his sacrifice!

No lie. He even tried to put the words into my mouth.

You think…you just think that after all this time, I would not be amazed. But I am.

What’s sad is that it’s not even nerve. It’s the way he is. It’s how he perceives life, looks at the world – all from his egocentric viewpoint, where every little thing he does has monumental significance, because he’s so grand and it’s all about him.

And if other people have to sacrifice or invest more or absorb his deficits or cover what he doesn’t, well, that’s just as it should be. Because the only sacrifice worth acknowledging are his, no matter how minute, and no one else matters.

If you could have seen how much he needed me to say what a good job he had done transporting her for her education, as if that was above and beyond anything any normal parent would have done…

It wasn’t about acknowledging someone else’s contribution. Everyone likes that. He was clearly put out, and he wanted me to know that and to be grateful for him doing it anyway.

Throw him a parade…and toss me a barf bag.

Sorry, for appearing bitter. Actually I’m not. Just tired. Because he bleeds me dry financially and psychologically (though not as much anymore with the latter, for I’ve learned to protect myself). But the finances is huge. And then he wants me to throw him a parade for stepping up in this one area.

Not amused, but I want to laugh.

And how can you share a joke better than with someone who understands – you, who have ventured onto this blog with your own tales of incredulity big and small?