If you’re reading this, I would assume you are starting to read all about narcissists and piecing together everything that made no sense in your relationship up until now. Erratic behaviour, ebbs and flows between love bombs and hurtful insults, gaslighting, all that wonderful jazz that probably left you with a nice bout of PTSD and serious trust issues. I got all that and then some.
I also read that the only way to get them to leave you alone or lose interest is through grey rock if you cannot do no contact. Essentially, be as boring as possible and only communicate where necessary with no emotion no matter what is said. I have been keeping to that since February for the sake of my mental health. It’s been almost a year, and I thought maybe just maybe things were calming down and he would get sick of waiting around for a reaction and just move on to his next victim. He’s been going back and forth between pretending to be nice and wanting to apologize and raging with incoherent messages. After an attempt to apologize and bury the hatchet had failed with me reiterating I wanted nothing to do with him and our only communication would be regarding our daughter, I thought I had gotten my point across. 2 weeks had passed with little incident and no drama, we had some drop offs and even both asked each other for help when we had some work conflicts during our time. All resolved very peacefully. I had hope we were entering into a phase of indifference.
Fast forward to a couple days ago, and he managed to get to me again. It bothers me so much I let this affect me after all the progress I made through therapy and no contact. He sent me a message saying he wanted to change our daughter’s name to have his last name. Back story here is my daughter was born and he insisted she have my last name because his father was abusive and an alcoholic and he said he was ashamed of his surname. I asked several times if he wanted to reconsider but he was adamant and said he would make plans to change his last name either to my last name or his mother’s maiden name. My problem with all this is I have come to realize my narcissist did not have an identity of his own. He seeks to mirror whoever he is around, which is probably how he fooled me into marrying him. He takes traits of the person he is trying to con and just pretends to be that person and manipulates to create the illusion of soul mates. It is the strangest thing ever, he would one day say he doesn’t like a food. Then a week later say he likes it today. It wasn’t a one time thing it happened all the time and I found it so bizarre. I’m very much consistent to a fault, unless new information has altered my perception I’m the same person I was 15 years ago today. He would change his opinion on everything on a daily basis and call you crazy and rigid for calling him out on psycho behaviour.
Now, I draw the line when it comes to my daughter. Few reasons here. Because he is so inconsistent, I feel if he marries another woman he may decide he hates his dad again and petition to change her name again. It isn’t something that I want decided by him. He was a complete control freak and I refuse to let him control her in ways that could negatively affect her growing up. Your name is an identity and if someone who has no identity keeps trying to change you because they view you as a possession I am not ok with it. My argument was that this is my daughters name and my daughter’s life. She can decide for herself when she is old enough, which gives him plenty of time to decide on a new name for himself in the meantime. I said if at 12 she decides she wants to take his last name or both of ours, I will be happy to support her in her choices but will not let him decide since he went from hating his father to wanting to make sure his last name was present. Really insane how you can change your mind on a topic you were so passionate about which leads me to believe he just lied about his dad to get pity. Disgusting.
Now, I sent my response to him a very concise message. What he came back with was an absolute attack and flurry of harassment and lies. It was a long winded message basically where he compared me to his abusive father and projected everything he did to me as my actions. It was the most mental thing I have ever experienced from him and that is saying a lot. He accused me of calling the cops against him for kidnapping (nope that was him), being abusive (I am 5’6 he is 6’3 and there has never been violence of any sort) and saying I spit on him (what in the utter fuck??) and it went on and on. He basically said I was an abusive piece of shit for thinking he was capable of being deceptive (oh I guess trying to plot to get me arrested and take away my child was just another day). Then added you are disgusting and I’m embarrassed you are a mother because you could give up so easily on your family.
Fun fact, after he did everything he did he asked his lawyer to ask me if I would consider reconciliation. I don’t understand the logic of saying someone is abusive and disgusting and then being ANGRY they won’t take you back. It doesn’t align very well. I also don’t understand why if I was the abusive awful one, why is he the one always trying to apologize and I am the one avoiding interaction? It seems odd if you were abused that you don’t seem to fear your alleged abuser at all and keep trying to get them to react. It is so messed up on so many levels. The sad part of this is I believe in his twisted head he believes everything now. The only way he can live with the fall out of his actions is to blame me and it is insane that he could manufacture memories of things he did and decide it was me.
I had put my daughter to bed before I read this message. I was having a great day otherwise. It totally floored me, and as much as I know those are all lies and everyone in my life knows they are lies, I was still deeply affected. I go back to the person who cared so much about this person, wanted nothing but good things for him and our future. I cannot believe he is so sick in his head that he can be this delusional. The other part that makes me sick is if I was not so fortunate to have so many friends who have known me for my entire life and know exactly who I am, he would have absolutely ruined my reputation. No doubt I can see him telling everyone he meets about this and them thinking what a vile disgusting woman I am. Luckily I don’t care and it has no impact on my life. This is his only mode of survival, trick new trusting people who don’t know his past to believe he is a victim. It is insane after all the vindictive callous things he did to me and my daughter, he still believes he is a victim. All these are documented in police reports but reality does not exist to the delusional. Deep in my heart, I know something in his life made him this way and I cannot bring myself to fully hate him. I am happy and wish he could find happiness but I don’t think he ever will. I am not living the life I expected for myself at 35 and that is okay. I am grateful every day I escaped and for all the blessings of each new day. I am happy to have my daughter in my life the majority of the time to try to help shield her from her dad and teach her love and empathy. It came at a cost, as I am not able to trust anyone new in my life and will no longer be that naive girl again. He changed the world for me.
My last thought is that, if you stuck with me for this long, I pray for you too. I am not religious but life can be so hard and you just don’t know why bad things are happening to you. It seems we will never heal fully, but we will heal to be something different and that’s ok. I was upset at myself for crying and being so affected by his words but that reminds me that the old me is still in there. If I wasn’t affected, I would be inhuman like him. He would have won and my soul would have been withered away and black like his. I did not cry because his words hurt me, I cried because I mourn who I thought he was and who he showed himself to be. I cry because I mourn who I was and who I become. I let myself be upset, made my daughter her lunch for school, and then went to bed. I woke up in the morning happy and grateful. My mental health in tact, no one in my house to demean me, and love and support all around me. It was a beautiful day and I have a beautiful life.
~D
Narc Recovery Project 