Life With a Narcissist

As a long-time reader of People Magazine, I remember vividly when someone asked Christie Brinkley how she was doing during her divorce, and she responded, "Just google 'divorcing a narcissist.'" Oh, how I wish I'd done some Googling...before I got married.

I was halfway through a HIIT workout when my husband came downstairs. He mumbled something that I didn’t hear, so mid-way through an ab set, I grunted, “What?”

“What???? Gosh, you’re just so sweet and pleasant, Laura. I’m so glad I’m married to you.”

It almost sounded like a compliment, but for the tone of voice. He stalked out of the room, and my muscles gave out, my cheek coming to a rest on the rough wool rug.

I’d like to say things got better, and it seemed at first like they might. He complimented Caleb for helping make breakfast and praised Violet for using the potty. Then I took Violet with me to pick up the groceries, and left the boys at home. When I got back, he was still sitting in the same recliner, and the boys were itching to go outside. I can’t begin to describe the apocalypse that would have happened if I had been the one in my underwear in the recliner, but obviously rules are different for men. I told the boys they could stay in the driveway while I brought in the groceries, but Violet had to stay inside. Because she’s two, you know, and she needs someone to watch her at all times. She didn’t take that news well and the tears began to flow.

James came out to the garage and told her he’d stay out there while she played. I thought maybe he was going to play nice. I was dragging in the groceries, but I found the sunscreen and took it out to him. “Can you please put this on her?” I asked. He is the parent who is hysterical about sun exposure, to the point of fighting me about the pool membership because the kids would be in the sun too much.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he snarled. I was kind of surprised by the ferocity of his response. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Just spray it on her,” I responded, and I put the sunscreen bottle on the trunk of his car.

“DON’T PUT SHIT ON MY CAR!” he bellowed.

“But you’re the one who’s always worried about sun exposure and I have cold food that has to be put…”

“I SAID, DON’T PUT SHIT ON MY CAR!

I fled inside.

Moments later, Eli appeared, asking for a washcloth and soap. “I’m putting food away. Why do you need a washcloth?”

“Dad says my neck is dirty because you don’t wash me well enough. He says I need to wash it off.” I looked. His necked looked tan to me…not dirty. And Eli, at 7, showers by himself. I’ve coached him through the process a number of times and, well, he’s 7. Sometimes he does better than others. I wiped his neck with a wet paper towel.

“Looks fine to me,” I told him.

Eli disappeared outside, but moments later he was back. “Dad says it’s still dirty. I need a washcloth and soap.”

“Then go get one from the bathroom. You know where to find that stuff.”

James reappeared in the house, with the other two kids. He was furious. “He has dirt caked on his neck. You don’t bathe him well enough.”

He stormed upstairs after Eli, and moments later Eli reappeared with a bright red neck. Aside from the red, there was no difference in the skin, but he was certainly well-scoured. I can only imagine how that went down, since Eli is so ticklish that he falls apart when I put lotion on his neck and shoulders.

“You have to teach him how to bathe!” James bellowed.

“I did. And he…”

“No you didn’t. You just throw them in there and sit around and do nothing while they shower themselves.”

“I don’t do nothing. I’m bathing Violet. You can handle bath time, then. If you’re going to criticize, you need to handle it yourself.”

“I did handle it…when Eli was a baby! You like to forget that!”

“I don’t forget that, but that was over seven years ago. And now you’re criticizing, so you need to handle it.”

“You don’t ever do anything. You sit around here and don’t do anything. You like to brag about your $1000 a month that you make. Do you know how little that is, after you pay taxes? It doesn’t pay anything. I pay for the house, for the food, for the gas and electric. You just spend your money on stupid fun stuff like a pool so you can lounge around and do nothing. You don’t do shit. You should be a little more grateful for the life I provide for you.”

He made sure I was crying, and stalked upstairs. Half an hour later, he was back. “Good luck supporting three kids on your thousand dollars a month. You’ll be living on food stamps, in government housing. You won’t be doing all the fun things you like to do.”

And here we are again. James conveniently ignores the years I spent working 2-3 jobs while he was taking grad school classes and working out. And he conveniently ignores the year he was out of work and I marched back to work far too early after having Caleb because, frankly, I was the sole provider. He also conveniently forgets that we still paid childcare for two kids while he was out of work because he refused to watch the boys, and how I still did all the cleaning, cooking, and nighttime parenting. Because, you know, he coached freshman track. So he was doing SOMETHING.

Over and over, he reminds me that teaching isn’t a real job. That I got three months off in the summer. (I worked several jobs every summer until I had kids, when the cost of childcare no longer supported it.) He forgets to mention that I gave up a tenured teaching job that paid really well when we moved down here. For the job he just HAD to have.

He tells me I’m cold and unemotional with the kids. He claims I never hug them or love on them. He claims I’m brainwashing them. Why? Because I tell them, “This is not how a man should treat a woman.” It’s the only thing I know to do.

When I was sobbing uncontrollably, and Violet was sobbing uncontrollably because of it, he muttered, “Oh, so you’re going to make a scene out of this, are you?” Because a real man makes a woman cry, then accuses her of manipulation.

I would like to leave, but I haven’t because I’m quite certain a family court judge would give him partial custody. He looks good on paper, and he can be charming if he wants to be. He is perfectly capable of controlling his vicious temper if he wants to. He doesn’t. The thought of my children having to navigate his moods without someone to speak truth to them is more than I can bear. So I stay. At least I can tell Eli, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” when his father picks on his size. Because yes, he does treat the kids just as badly as he treats me. He screams at them and swears at them. Today, he hollered, “I’m not going to let you raise my sons to be fags.” All because I let them play in the shallow end of the pool instead of demanding that they go off the diving board. It scares them. I believe in letting kids work their way up to conquering their fears. He’s downstairs right now pretending to be super dad, trying to love up the kids so they think I’m the crazy one. But Eli knows, and so does Violet. I worry the most about Caleb. He wants his dad’s affection so badly, he’ll believe anything.

Trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg. No, he’s never hit me…but my mom, who has seen how quickly he flies into a violent rage, is sure he will. And sometimes I wish he would; it is easier to prove physical abuse in a court of law. The effects of a decade of emotional abuse are more elusive.

I’ll never judge a woman for staying, and I’ll never judge a woman for leaving. For every set of “irreconcilable differences”, there’s someone else like me, fighting and praying for the truth to set her free.  I’ve remained mostly silent all these years because, frankly, it’s embarrassing. I mean, I fell for this man. I married him. I had no idea people like this existed, but I still bear the responsibility of my choice. I mean, who wants to say, “Yep, I was young and dumb.”

But I feel like I need to start telling my story. My husband will go crazy if he finds out, but you know what? Evil prospers in the darkness. I’m not keeping his secrets anymore. I’m throwing open the doors and letting in the light. If the light reveals that I am, in fact, unlovable, a terrible wife, deserving of this life I’ve lived, then so be it. I’m just tired of living the lie.

It Is Better Than This

Today my husband, who has never met a vegetable he didn’t hate, decided that we (yes, WE) are going to do a Daniel fast starting on the 1^st. I’ve explained my hypoglycemia to him approximately 500 times since then, but apparently I am crazy for thinking I need the protein I get from eggs and meat. He is furious with me for “not supporting” him, furious that I “won’t even try it.” I did try it. In my twenties. I was so sick the doctor thought I was having panic attacks and put me on Lexapro. When my friend’s dad (also a doc) showed me how to portion my meals and eat protein snacks every few hours, I felt like a whole new person. I am never going back to how I felt in those awful months. Why would I?

I also know that when I totally give up sugar, I binge when I’m finished. And I know that short-lived challenges don’t produce lasting change. I make lifestyle changes in ways that I can manage long-term, and it pays off. I feel absolutely no calling to do this Daniel fast. I do feel ready to tackle training for another half-marathon, boosting the amounts of healthy vegetables I consume, and creating a schedule for my life that involves waking to an alarm an hour before the kids get up to go a short workout and read the Bible.

Oh, but starting tonight, I’m not allowed to have my cell phone plugged in next to my bed anymore. My cell phone is my alarm.

No, I don’t use it in bed. I don’t check it first thing in the morning. The volume isn’t on, and there’s no light. (His volume is on, his light is on, and sometimes he checks it at 4am when he can’t sleep because he took a marathon nap the day before. But whatever.) I am 38 years old, I’ve single-handedly kept three children alive through the baby stage, I worked successfully as a teacher for 14 years, and I run my own business. But I can’t make my own decisions about my cell phone.

Eff him.

That’s what I should have said twelve years ago when he berated me for half an hour because I put a closed, room-temperature bottle of water on his precious bedroom furniture. Let me repeat: it was sealed. Room temperature. Not a chance in hell of condensation from that sucker, but he was sure it would leave a ring and ruin the dresser. He didn’t ask nicely either, he pointed out all the ways I didn’t respect the value of the dollar or his stuff. He made me out to be completely worthless. I was shocked that someone was speaking to me that way, especially someone without a job and living in his grandpa’s ramshackle rental house. I should have put on my stilettos and walked out that door, but I didn’t.

I should have walked when I told me he loved me after one week and then took it back the next day. I should have walked out every time we battled over my desire to wait for marriage to have sex. I should have walked out when he told me he was concerned because the rental house I shared with two friends was kind of dirty, and he liked a “clean house”…while standing in the middle of his own house that looked kind of like a frat boy’s room on a bad night. I should have walked when I had a terrible day at work and he told me men like to come home to a happy, perky wife. (In his case, he still wasn’t working, so really I was coming home to him. And he is never happy or perky. But whatever.)

I could go on and on. I could tell you how my five-year-old won’t quit saying hate, and I couldn’t figure out where he was getting that word until the trip home from Ohio where my husband screamed at me repeatedly: “I fucking hate you! I fucking hate you!” Certainly that isn’t the first time he’s said it, but I’m kind of desensitized from years of verbal abuse. Caleb is also toying around with the “F” word…probably because it seems so effective when Daddy uses it.

I could tell you about how he berates my oldest son for being a sensitive soul. I could tell you how he tells my daughter to shut the fuck up, how he says in front of her that all women cry really well for attention, even though I personally gave it up long ago. I could tell you how I would leave tonight if I could be sure that a family court judge would understand the power of emotional and verbal abuse and give me full custody. I can’t, and I also can’t send them to live with their father every weekend when I can’t be there to protect them. So I stay.

On the off chance that you are reading this and not yet married, let me tell you the things you should be looking out for, things I overlooked in those early months of dating because I was truly afraid no one would ever want to marry me.

I should have paid attention to the way he tipped. If he is stingy with the people who serve him, he will be stingy to you. You shouldn’t have to be embarrassed by the way he tips your servers. And pay attention to the way he treats his mother and his grandmother, even (especially) if they annoy him. Does he hang up on them while they’re still talking? Does he call them names? Does he say they’re crazy when they’re sick instead of showing concern for their well-being? Then run. Because it won’t be long until you are the one annoying him.

And how does he argue? Does he listen to you? Like, really hear you? Or does he just tell you why you’re wrong? A narcissist is always, always right…even when presented with a mountain of evidence to the contrary. I have not really been heard in over a decade, and there’s no sign of that changing. That ten-thousand dollar wedding isn’t worth it.

Look, too, at how he handles household responsibilities. Does he do his own chores, does he help you cook (or at least clean up)? Or does he sit on the couch and watch TV while you work. If he does that now, he’ll continue when you have kids and I promise, you’ll resent it. The eternal adolescence of the American male is destroying marriages, because after all, who in their right mind wants to be married to a teenage boy? Ugh.

If you are moving forward as a couple and making decisions together, are you an equal part in those decisions, or does he badger you until you come around. Does he agree to disagree? Does he focus his attention on changing himself or on changing you? A normal, healthy person will embark on a Daniel fast individually and invite the other person to be involved. A narcissist will tell you that you’ve stopped losing weight and you need to do something about it…and then bully you until you give in.

And when you disagree, how does he handle it? Does he continue to affirm his love for you, or does he call you an ever-worsening barrage of nasty names. Are strong women “bitches” or “leaders”? Does he consider women leaders or followers? Does he make generalizations about all women? When you are rightfully frustrated with him, does he accuse you of being on the rag? All of these are signs to lace up your running shoes.

Grace has given me three children that I love dearly in spite of my mistakes, but it truly sucks to raise children while using their father as an example of how not to act. At least once a day, I have to ask my sons how their father’s behavior makes them feel, in hopes of helping them see the consequences of unbridled rage. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to be me. You want to be free to have a brain and use it. You want to be in a marriage partnership, not a marriage dictatorship. You want a husband who is brokenhearted when he hurts you, not one who accuses you of crying to make him feel bad.

And what if that guy never comes along? Well, stay single. I promise you. It is better than this.

Grace and Truth

I grew up in a version of the church that talked a lot about grace without actually believing it. God forgives our sins, BUT if we keep sinning, clearly we aren’t sincere in our faith. God forgives our sins, but we still have to sleep in the bed we made. God forgives our sins, but only the sins we committed before we believed in him.

As you can imagine, the focus on my spiritual life wasn’t God. It was perfection. And when your focus is perfection, eventually you’ll fail. And when you fail, there’s no safe place to fall, so shame tells you to put up a front, flog yourself daily, and get to work trying to fix the harm you did.

My church also talked a lot about marriage, and how hard it was supposed to be, and how the woman was supposed to submit and suffer long because that was her lot in life. Everyone was expected to get married, and if the person you married deceived you…well, that was on you, too.

I cannot ever remember reading the verse in Ephesians that follows the one about wives submitting…you know, the one about husbands loving their wives more than life itself (Ephesians 5:25). When I read that at 40, I was absolutely floored. I thought the husband did what he felt was best and that “best” usually came at the expense of the woman and kids. I had no idea what love should look like.

My 20’s found me floundering. I’d never had much luck with boyfriends, and I felt tremendous pressure to be married so I could be a “real” person. A colleague introduced me to her brother-in-law, who was returning to the area after four years in the Air Force. He was good-looking, intense, and seemed to be heading down a very successful road. I figured this was it.

There were massive red flags, but of course no one ever told me how a man should treat me. He was selfish, his temper flared over the most insignificant things, his expectations of his new job were unrealistic and he quickly resigned. He mostly spent that summer playing, and he expected me to pay for most of it. He was controlling. He fought with my parents. He wanted me to turn my life inside out for him, and he wanted it to happen on my dime. His philosophy in life was best summed up as "What's in it for me?"

I was confused. He forced me to apologize for things I hadn’t done. He professed his love for me and took it back the next day. From day to day, hour to hour, I never knew what he would say or do.

He professed to be a Christian, but he felt sexual purity was an antiquated notion. “No one actually waits for marriage,” he insisted. I resisted. He persisted. When he got into a fight with his grandpa and had to move out of the home he was renting (for free), he insisted on moving in with me. I was afraid of losing him and I caved. I caved on the sex eventually, too. And then shame moved in and took over.

Shame told me I was damaged. After we had sex, he told me he had an STD that he hadn’t revealed before. He seemed remorseful, and besides, I knew no one else would want me. Shame told me to fix my mess, so I married him. I married the man who told me he didn’t understand why people with money would get married. I mean, if you have everything, why get married? He didn’t have everything – or anything, really – so he married me.

When he lost jobs, I took on more. When babies came and he refused to help or couldn’t cope with the crying, I stepped up to the plate. When he raged at me for all my imperfections, I worked harder to get everything done. I resented him and felt that he wasn’t doing his share, but my upbringing had told me over and over than any married person will feel like they’re giving 90% while the other only gives 10. No one had mentioned a 100/0 split, but I figure it worked out the same. Either way, I had to hide my sexual sin from my parents and the world, so I kept scrubbing the outside of the house and making excuses and doing more.

It took almost 14 years for someone to explain to me that what I was experiencing was abuse. It took 14 years for someone to suggest that I was precious to God regardless of my decisions and my past. It took 14 years before I realized that my husband did not love me, that he possibly wasn’t capable of loving anything or anyone. And even as those realizations crept in, I stopped short of begging God to fix it. After all, Jesus died to forgive sinners, but in my mind, my sin didn’t count. It happened after I knew God. I knew better and chose anyway.

A huge part of healing is staring down the past unflinchingly. It was physically painful, but the more I sat in God’s presence and listened, the more I began to understand where I went wrong. And yes, I realize that no one EVER deserves to be abused. I did, however, make a mistake that helped me fall prey, and it’s important to recognize our mistakes so we can try to avoid repeating them. The act – sex before marriage – was actually symptom of a deeper issue. I didn’t trust God. I believed in Him. I believed he could do miracles. But I didn’t believe he wanted to do miracles for me.

Since I didn’t trust him with the desires of my heart, I wasn’t willing to wait for God to provide. Instead, a man appeared who flattered me and took interest in me, and I “took” my own blessing. Not unlike Sarah, who thought perhaps God had forgotten to provide an heir and gave Hagar to her husband instead, I figured I would have to go out and get what I wanted.

Furthermore, that command about sex isn’t there to ruin us. It’s there to protect us. My husband’s refusal to honor a Biblical command should have be a clear warning sign that he wasn’t under the headship of Christ. Friends, you can love Jesus and say the right things and look like an amazing Christian, but someone who trusts God and lives under his headship will obey the Bible. Even the hard stuff. What I know now, as I work through the hard journey of obeying God through forgiveness, is that God’s commands are always for our own good, even if they seem archaic and unrealistic. If we’ll lean in and obey, He’ll meet us there. But at 26, I didn’t know. I didn’t think I was valuable anyway. I certainly couldn’t afford to be choosy.

At 26, I was afraid to stand still and wait. Life was passing me by. At 40, life is still passing me by, and I’m still afraid to stand still and wait, but I’m doing it. I have young children now, and I understand just a tiny glimmer of how God parents us. I tell them all the time, when they try to dart out in traffic or hide from me in a rack of clothes at Kohl’s, that I need them to obey me so I can protect them. That “WAIT!” is to keep them from becoming a pancake under an SUV. That “Stay close to me,” helps me make sure the people they encounter are safe. Of course, I’m fallible. But God isn’t. If my children should trust me, how much more should I trust God?

I’ve learned so much, but I’m still knee-deep in the consequences of my sin. In spite of my sin, God blessed me with three amazing babies. But now we’re all trapped in this cycle of verbal and emotional abuse. The cycle of revolving jobs and constantly wondering if we’ll be provided for keeps us all on edge. We never know what will trigger an outburst of his temper.

I’ve met with a divorce lawyer, and unfortunately our family court system will do little to nothing to protect women and children from abuse that can’t be documented with bruises. I think I could muster the courage to leave, quit homeschooling, and return to work in a new field, but I can’t wrap my mind around sending my kids on overnight visits with a father who likely won’t care for them if they get sick at night, who can’t be bothered to follow laws about carseats, who doesn’t see the harm his temper does to his children’s spirits, who speaks lie after lie over them and then turns into fun, playful dad on a dime, leaving them just as confused as I was in the early days.

Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over our predicament, turning it over in my mind, pondering what sacrifice will be required to atone for my sins and set us free. And then it FINALLY hit me: that grace God gives, the grace that promises to completely erase our sins? That’s for me.

I fought it for a little bit. This is not something I did before I knew you, God. In fact, this is something I did when I was finally starting to wrap my mind around how much you loved me. I was right on the threshold, and I chose to turn away and do my own thing.

And a still, small voice said, “This. This is exactly why I died. For you. For the sin you’ve suffered for since you were 26. You don’t have to whitewash it and cover it up. That’s shame telling you to do that, not me. Look deeply into your past, let me help you learn from it, and hand it over to me. My grace is sufficient…even for this. Especially for this.”

And do you know what grace does? It gives you the permission to tell your story, even if your mom and the perfect people in the church hear it. It gives you the permission to tell your friends and your pastor what really happens behind closed doors. It gives you the permission to say you don’t know what to do next, that you feel pretty trapped and exhausted and useless. It gives you permission to pray that the deep, deep hurt that controls your husband will somehow lose its hold, so your kids don’t have to live through divorce, while simultaneously praying that God will do anything necessary to let you live the next fourteen years of your life with joy, not constant crippling anxiety. Grace helps you realize the secrets you’ve been told to keep for over a decade aren’t serving God, and it’s safe to throw open the doors and windows and let in the light. Grace promises to protect and provide for you, regardless of what your husband does. Grace promises to speak for you, when the man in front of you hears you beg him to be kind and tells you you’re an entitled bitch.

Grace gives you permission to quit holding it in and let the tears flow. It gives you permission to be weak. It gives you the audacity to hope, even though, especially because, you aren’t perfect.

I’ve served perfection for long enough, and it’s gotten me nowhere but trapped. I’d rather serve my good, good Father. I'll take grace any day. I wish I'd accepted it sooner.