Parenting with a Narcissist

“Do you want A or B?”, the narcissist asks.

He wants you to choose “A”. It’s what he really wants to do. You’re supposed to know this, and if you’ve been with a narcissist for a while, you’ve been trained to give what he wants. Or perhaps you’re just a generous person, and he knows if you know he wants something, you’ll want him to have it out of the goodness of your heart.

So you choose “A”, for whatever reason. Doesn’t matter. The narcissist gets what he wants. Or maybe it’s a non-choice, because the narcissist really doesn’t care, but he asks, because he gets to say he respects you and asks you your opinion, even if he knows it’s only about things that don’t matter to him.

But what if you don’t choose what he wants? What if you give the wrong answer?

You choose “B”. Maybe it’s what you really wanted. Maybe you really thought he was giving you a choice (silly girl), and actually told him what you wanted. Maybe you don’t give in to him this time, because you’re tired of always giving in or you truly believe this is the best choice. It doesn’t matter.

The narcissist doesn’t get to do what he wants. And that’s a bad thing.

He’s furious. Now he shows his real side. He may start off being passive aggressive. Perhaps he starts with cajoling, gently guiding you to the “right choice”, because you were too stupid to figure it out on your own. If this doesn’t work he will try harder. He’ll argue with you. His resentment starts to show (how can you even think about depriving him?)

If you still don’t get it, you better duck, because he’s going to blow. He’ll punish you. Somehow, he will turn it, and you’ll find yourself defending yourself against abusing him. (How do you always get into this position, girl? Oh wait, you’re involved with a narcissist.)

And then after he’s done, and you’ve gone from feeling special because he’s asking you what you want, to feeling like shit, because you’ve just been ripped a new one, he’ll go right ahead and do what he wants…just like he had always intended. And feel very self righteous about it, because you were so mean to deprive him in the first place.

Of course there are variations in this, but the basic elements are there. Narcissists are great about respecting your right to choose – as long as it’s about nothing important to them or you make the right choice…theirs.

So I’m thinking, how about a “Brilliant Move Spotlight” day?

I’ll share my narcissist’s Brilliant Move, and anyone who’s inspired, can share theirs.

Ready? Drum roll please….

He snipped the dog in five places when he trimmed back her coat. He’s not a groomer. He is an asshole.

Most were small in diameter, but obvious cuts, snips – not scrapes. But one was so large, it was a good half inch across – on her chest, where there really wasn’t anywhere near as much hair to cut as the other areas of her body.

Now, to give a dog that close a haircut, to where you’d go down to the skin, you’d use a shaver. Not scissors. But he used scissors.

Brilliant Move.

You’d think he’d stop after the first time she bled. Maybe by the second or third time, he’d realize that gee whiz, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

And I can’t believe she’d just lie there all relaxed, while he’s cutting her skin with scissors. He had to have held her down – asserting his dominance, no doubt. Because of course, she was defying him – not reacting to anything wrong he might have been doing!

He continued until he snipped off a chunk of her skin so big not even he could deny the stuff flowing from her chest was blood.

When I went to pick up my daughter, and got the dog, he explained to me it was so hot he wanted to make her cooler, and he didn’t realize he snipped her until he saw her chest. This was done without my daughter present, and after he was done with her, he told my daughter not to touch her. Presumably so she wouldn’t freak out when she saw the bleeding.

Oh, did I tell you he did that once to my daughter as well? Yup. She had a bandaid on her she couldn’t pull off. So he pulled up on the bandaid and where it was stuck, he took a pair of scissors – a regular freaking pair of scissors and cut the bandaid off her skin. Which worked great. The bandaid came off – with a piece of skin. She jumped and screamed. He said “What???” with annoyance, and then she showed him her bleeding arm.

Brilliant Move!

If he was too stupid to realize ahead of time that you don’t use scissors to separate tape from skin, that we’re not talking about surgical precision instruments here under the microscope, and if he can’t remember that another bandaid he was supposed to keep on her had slipped off, because he used too much gel, then you’d think he’d finally learn from the sight of blood from his own child’s arm…

Not to do this to a little dog, not to get too close to skin with a pair of scissors, which he should not be allowed anywhere near!

But you can’t tell him anything. He will insist on his way. He was defensive when he handed the dog over. And I knew – I knew that if I yelled at him and told him not to get anywhere near the dog with scissors again he’d be right at it the next time he got her. Because…

YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!

I suggested, perhaps next time, we should take her to the groomer.

That little dog shivered in my arms the entire first night I had her. I had a light blanket around her, as she’s always a little freaky, when I thin her hair out a bit in the summer. She has sensitive skin and is used to having a heavy coat, so it’s hard for her to adjust feeling air on her skin – never mind pain.

She’s better now.

I’m not.

Okay, I’m sure she’s heard all kinds of bad stuff about me. I’m sure she blames me for him not being able to make a commitment/get closer/trust her completely. It’s my fault, you see. Just like it was that girlfriend before me, and the one before her.

And I’m sure that he not only holds me out as the reason for his crippled emotional state, but that he uses me to keep her on her toes, through comparison and jealousy. She’ll never be able to quite live up to whatever standard I represent…just like I wasn’t able to quite compete with those before (or concurrent, at the time).

Because that’s what a narcissist does. Use people. Manipulate them. Pull their strings. Work on their self-doubts and needs, all to his advantage and amusement.

But how about some civility for crying out loud?

I mean, is it too much to actually speak on the phone when you call…when you’re asked to call?

I’ve always acknowledged this girl. I’ve remembered her at my daughter’s art exhibits. Even bought her and her own child their tickets. But my Ex’s girlfriend can be in the same room, and not once acknowledge me. It’s always me, first, who will say hello to her. But I feel it’s because it’s just too obviously rude to not say hello back. Her dislike of me is palpable on her face.

So today, I call, as requested by my Ex, to set up a time for drop off. (That’s something I need to look at.) She picks up the phone, says hello. I greet her by name, and make a friendly comment. I wait for her to comment back.

Silence. Did the line go dead? I don’t hear a sound. Then my Ex is on the phone.

She just handed the phone over to him, without so much as a word to me.

You know, I don’t mean her ill. My daughter likes her, and that’s all that’s important.

But it’s days like this, when I get treated with undeserved disrespect that I find myself feeling like I just had it. I mean, I’ve never been ignorant to ex-girlfriends, and even those who were trying to hit on my N, I never went out of my way to be ignorant…to the point where that was taken advantage of, more than a few times.

But just because I have learned to be more self-respectful, and am better at drawing boundaries, doesn’t mean I spit at people from across them. I just don’t understand this kind of rude behavior.

Then I am reminded that no matter how she treats me it’s small beans compared to how he is and will be treating her.

I don’t need to get worked up about it. If she wants to judge me on his behalf, and if she wants to take that judgment to justify treating me meanly – whatever. My daughter is happy. I’m happy.

I’ll just have to not set myself up to give her opportunities to be ignorant. That’s all.

As for her? Her own ignorance will come back to haunt her. I know. Mine did.

“She laughs at all his jokes – even the bad ones, even the ones that are mean toward other people. She laughs at them all.”

That’s what my dd said about the Ex’s girlfriend.

Don’t we do it? Don’t we start compromising, start denying our own reality a little bit at a time?

It’s not uncommon for girls to laugh at jokes that are not funny, especially in the beginning of the relationship. Who hasn’t laughed at a boring joke or smiled with feigned interest, when the reality of the “guy of our dreams” conflicts with the fantasy we had of him? Who hasn’t been a bit reluctant to give up the fantasy? But then reality does set in and we look for something better.

But for those who get caught in the web of a narcissist, and don’t leave, the truth of the narcissist doesn’t seem to set in. We keep laughing at boring jokes, and we don’t stop there. We laugh at the mean ones. The ones that go against our principles, our values, our ideals.

Maybe we shake our heads or roll our eyes, but we do it with a smile and a “Oh, you cute boys-will-be-boys” look on our faces.

We make allowances here, and we make allowances there, and we keep making allowances, breaking principle after principle, until we look down and see so much of ourselves have been whittled away there’s nothing much left of us but a mere toothpick of a human being.

And that’s not funny. Not even to a Narcissist, because he doesn’t care – because despite what it feels like, your destruction isn’t really his priority. The meeting of his needs is. And if you get destroyed in the process then so be it. If you don’t, it just means you last longer to feed him.

Sadistic narcissists do like to see their victims suffer, but again, it’s not for your sake. It’s for theirs.

It’s about them. Everything, everything under the sun, and the sun, itself, is about them.

[Copyright 2007 by PhoenixRising and Another Recovering Target of a Narcissist]

Once upon a time there was a bear, a badger, and a raccoon. They all lived in the same neighborhood of caves and burrows.

Bear was a commanding presence, taking up a lot of space with both his personality and size. He demanded constant reassurance of how worthy he was, and how well accomplished he was, even though his den was not out of the ordinary (and mostly dug by Badger, anyway) and he slept all winter long.

But Bear liked to boast. And because he was rather delusional and half believed his boasting, himself, he managed to convince a lot of people around him that he was something special.

The fact was Bear was not only average, which to Bear was unthinkable, he was, also, very lazy and selfish. So truthfully, he was less than average. If it weren’t for the camouflage of his words, people would have not been so impressed with the bear, Bear really was.

But no one was more fooled than poor Badger, who was deeply in love with Bear. Or in love with who she thought he was or needed him to be. And perhaps, because of this, Badger was more fooled by herself than by Bear.

Which worked out great for Bear.

Badger put up with Bear’s mood swings, and agreed with Bear so many times, her neck developed a permanent crick in it due to the constant bobbing up and down of her head.

When Bear growled and flashed his teeth to Badger, and threatened to find someone better, Badger stayed up nights thinking of how she could improve herself.

When Bear told Badger she was not smart, Badger enrolled in school.

When Bear accused Badger of going to school to find a new boyfriend, Badger quit.

Badger danced back and forth at the end of Bear’s strings so much, that she became more and more like a wooden puppet, and less and less, like a living badger.

Bear told everyone Badger was crazy. And indeed, it looked like she was.

Except to Raccoon, who was Badger’s long-time friend.

“What are you doing?” asked Raccoon. “What happened to the fierce life-embracing Badger I once knew? You never let anyone push you around before. Can’t you see what he’s doing to you?”

“He’s not like that!” said Badger. “I know he loves me. No one knows the real Bear, like I know the real Bear.”

And no matter what Raccoon said, what examples she gave of Bear’s bad treatment of Badger, Badger refused to listen. She just snapped at Raccoon, and bared her teeth.

Finally, Raccoon sadly shook her head, and walked away.

One day the spring rains came. It was an unusually wet season. Bear and Badger’s burrow started filling up with water. Straightaway, Bear abandoned the cave and Badger, and found someone else to shack up with, someone with a dry home.

But Bear would return to visit Badger. He told her he missed her and thought about her. (Bear couldn’t be too sure when he’d need her again. A person had to keep their options open, you know.)

But Badger saw Bear’s intermittent visits as proof of Bear’s real feelings for her, and Badger waited steadfastly for Bear’s permanent return, hanging on to the promises Bear left behind like the water logged flowers he picked for her on the way to her home – the promises that he would return permanently…

…maybe…

…probably…

…some day, and take her away from here.

Badger waited, not minding the growing dampness of her home or the slowly rising waters. After all, it was for love.

And the rain kept falling.

One day, flash flood warnings resounded throughout their community, Raccoon, alarmed, rushed to save her friend.

“Get away from me, Raccoon!” Badger hissed. “Bear said he will return and I know he will!” Each time Raccoon pleaded with Badger, Raccoon was rebuffed by Badger.

The waters rose and rose. Fearing for her friend’s life, Raccoon, once again, raced to Badger’s home. From the entrance, Raccoon could hear Badger struggling and gasping for air.

“Come out! Come out!” Raccoon screamed. “Don’t you know he’s not coming back, and even if he did, he’d just as soon let you drown?”

“That’s a lie!” screamed Badger, choking on water she swallowed in her screaming.

Not being able to stand it any longer, Raccoon reached into the burrow to save her drowning friend…and Badger bit her.

Because that’s what Badgers do, when they’re cornered or threatened.

Shocked, Raccoon withdrew her hand. She looked at the open cut. Raccoon slowly extended her arm to the rain, and let the water falling from the skies, run over her wound, as her tears ran down her face.

She turned her back, and left Badger with the rising water. She could not help Badger. Badger was the only one who could make her leave the hole she had dug for herself.

Raccoon’s wounds eventually healed. She had given Badger the best of her insights. She had to let her go.

Raccoon never did know for sure what happened to Badger, except she did hear of a very wet and half drowned badger, who showed up one day in another part of the woods, on the other side of the mountain – way too far for lazy Bear to cross – who set up home, and now runs a support group for the emotionally shattered.

Raccoon likes to think it’s her friend.