It’s never okay

So the reason I decided to pick up the blog post again today was because something happened that I just couldn’t handle again. As I said in my previous post it’s not like nothing has happened but every once in while and it just crosses that line.

We had to put our dog to sleep last week. Last. Week. Immediately after, he was talking about getting a new puppy which I was adamantly against because I knew it would end up being me waking up with the puppy, feeding the puppy, cleaning up after the puppy, etc.

Well, two days later he went and bought a very expensive puppy. She is cute and she is smart but our priorities are not in the same place. I’ve explained in another post how much we need different things that just cost too much money and here he is spending thousands of dollars on his hot rod in the back and a new puppy.

He took good care of her for two days and then it shifted to be coming my responsibility. And when I brought it up to him he stated he thought our other dog (who is afraid of the puppy) was going to hurt her if we left her outside with him. So when I brought up that I felt like I was the one taking care of her when I was the one who said I didn’t want this right now his answer was to either just leave her in her shit her put her outside and kill the other dog if he touched her.

Meanwhile he’s texting and talking to his friends and family about how he has already potty trained her and exaggerating how the other dogs react to her.

We got her I think on Tuesday by Thursday it had become my responsibility. It’s now Saturday and when she was crying at 6 o’clock in the morning to go outside it with me who woke up from down the hallway in the room with the door closed to put her outside. Yet he was sleeping in the room right next to her. After I put her outside I want to try to go back to sleep and at about 7:30 she was barking to come back inside. again I was the one to wake up and let her inside at which point I also gave her food and water and shut her in the kennel so that I could go back to sleep. Not even 60 seconds after I had lay down again I hear him putting her outside.

I walked out there and calmly told him that I had already let her outside for an hour and her just let her back in with food and water. He responded with something like, “I didn’t know that” as I was walking back to my bed. Then he passed the bathroom in the hallway and came into the room where I was laying to use the bathroom in there. After he close the door to the back. He made a remark about how he doesn’t have to follow my rules. When he came out again calmly, I told him that I had woken up at 6 AM to let the puppy outside left her out there for an hour I tried to go back to sleep and then again woke up at 7:30 to let her inside and give her food and water. I said when I heard him put her outside I came to tell him that I had already done all of this and asked why that was a problem. He says that I lectured him and went on and on in detail about everything that I did to take care of the puppy. I objected and said I was just telling him what I did that I didn’t sign up for and that’s why that’s a problem. It escalated from there and he made some shitty remark as he walked away and now I was angry two and got to make myself some coffee. He made it like how was he supposed to know that she was doing all that when he was asleep but I was asleep too and I was much further away from her than he was and he kind a closed door and not even a minute after I had just finished doing all of this to take care of her he gets up and thinks he’s doing it and when I let him know but I had done it’s a problem and I’m lecturing him. He started talking over me not getting letting me get a sentence out and ignoring anything I was saying. I continued to calmly repeat the same sentence over and over again to which he just kept talking over me about how I’m so unreasonable and how I don’t listen and on and on about how horrible I am because he couldn’t stand to listen to what I was saying.

So I started doing it back. I started just talking about how I’m just going to talk and talk and not listen to anybody and talk about everything he says and go on and on and not hear anything and keep talking so I don’t have to listen to him and act just like he does and go on and on just like this. Well this pissed him off now I’m acting like him. It’s OK for him to treat people that way but not for people to do it to him. He turned the TV up so loud that I could not hear the coffee maker that was right in front of me. He was sitting in the recliner smiling because he was so proud of what an ass he was being and so I walked in front of him, between him and the TV. He went from smiling to giving me a threatening stare. When I started calling him out on his behavior, not yelling, he stood up and leaned forward shoulder first and pushed me away from him with his shoulder in my chest. I said wow you’re gonna rush me with your shoulder because you’re angry? I which point he got in my face yelling telling me that I was in his face and asking me if me if I wanted to go there. I said I wasn’t in your face like this I was standing in front of you. He moved and I walked away. He told me I was a cunt. Now I was furious and trembling. I told him that I was done along time ago because he was done and stopped trying and does exactly this; he gets angry and he gets physical and verbally abusive and that is never OK. I asked him if somebody was physical and verbally abusive with his daughter but whatever OK and if she should just not get mad.

I disengaged from the situation and I’m now sitting in my car to write this post and get it out of my system so I can move on in my day since it is only 8:30 in the morning on Saturday.

I’m going to put this out of my mind and focus on positive energy and raising my level of consciousness and focusing on good things.

It’s been too long

I’ve been doing a lot of work on raising my level of consciousness and vibration and I’ve been really struggling trying to avoid confrontation. It’s been a while since I’ve written a post to vent my feelings, maybe that’s part of it. I didn’t want to write a post because I was feeling like it would be putting attention on negative energy and in that case increasing the negative energy but I think when I write it down when it happens it’s easier for me to then release it without revisiting it in my mind over and over again.

Just because I haven’t written anything doesn’t mean nothing has happened. It’s been mostly words, names and/or actions to be controlling or to hurt my feelings. The last time he did something I didn’t even write a blog post I just did a private Snapchat video of myself because I was to shaken up that I couldn’t even write it down. He was flipping out in the garage going on and on talking to him self loudly and I crushing cans. I couldn’t hear everything he was saying but could make out some things. He was saying things like stupid bitch and why don’t you fucking…? He wouldn’t look at me or talk to me so I can only assume it was about me. I sent him a text after that asking him if I was who he was talking about and he never responded. He ignored that text like I never sent it.

There’s also been many times where we were going somewhere as a family and he didn’t want to be involved. Things like Magic Mountain, all the holidays that just passed, he didn’t come to any of my family functions. My parents just had their 50th wedding anniversary. My brothers and I put together the whole party and he didn’t contribute in anyway and didn’t even show up for the party. My mom has an annual family gathering after Christmas. He didn’t come to that either. Basically, anytime I have invited him to do anything with us, he didn’t go. Besides the name calling that continues here and there, mostly as a something he says as he’s passing me or in another room has continued. Those times when he’s talking to himself, so angry about this and that, seem to have gotten more frequent.

Like I said, I’ve been trying to ignore him and not write it down and put it behind me and focus on positive but there is a great tension release when I can write it down and have it documented and move on from it. So I can just try to live life every day without how he feels about me I feel determining how I feel about myself.

Flying monkeys

So I guess this could technically go onto red flag but I just wanted to share how they (Narcs) can turn people into flying monkeys right in front of you.

So my previous post I mention how my husband sister and her family were over at our house last weekend.

Somehow the Muslim religion got brought up between my husband narc and his sister and her husband. While I was in the same room I was not part of the conversation. I’ve stated many times to him and my kids how the terrorist attacks by Muslims are extremists. Any religion or country or belief system is going to have extremists that push the boundaries and set a bad example. Whether you agree with this is beside the point. When the conversation was going on my narc husband stated something to the effect of, “People say that the terrorists attacking us were extremists but that’s not true; they’re all like that. That’s just stupidity. ” To which his sister responded something like, “Yeah it says right there in their book that they believe everyone else should die.”

Point 1- He meant that I say that and was saying my opinion was stupidity.

Point 2- He’s having others talk about my opinion in front of me without their knowledge.

Point 3- Neither one of them have read any part of the English translation. I know because I have and they are clearly only speculating from here-say and media

reports.

About 5 minutes later somehow the conversation got turned into one about drinking alcohol. I haven’t posted about this but let me tell you he’s been on beer drinking streak. To the point where a six pack will be gone in a day or two. To the point where I buy some weird ass flavored alcoholic beverage that I know he will not like and he will drink the very last one when he has other beer to drink. (His father died from alcoholism and he talks shit about people who drink beer every day all the time.) He goes out to his garage and takes a beer with him and comes back inside multiple times to get another beer. Yet, when he was having this conversation with his sister and her husband, he told them that he rarely drinks beer. That he had a pack of beer that he ended up throwing away because it was in our refrigerator for two years and that it went bad so he had to throw it away. This is such bullshit. I don’t know WTF he is talking about. He has made accusations to me in the past saying how he could see me becoming an alcoholic when I am the one who rarely drinks and when I do drink I rarely have more than one or two drinks.

I am the one who buys a six pack and it’ll last a month or more. Anyway he told them that and then also stated how the only time he likes to drink is when he is working on his car because of the metal taste he gets in his mouth- that the beer helps get rid of it. He forgot to state the fact that he’s been working on his car every freaking day for a couple months. But that’s not drinking a lot of beer. What the fuck ever dude.

I just glanced at him and smiled and kept my mouth shut instead of stating the obvious retort about what a lie that was.

I resorted to gray rock because all that would happen from me bringing up that it was a lie would that it would look like I was creating an argument or whatever to his sister and her husband. I don’t need to point out his lies, people will see it in time.

He was making an effort to create flying monkeys of them. That’s all it was and honestly they’re his family and she has stabbed me in the back before when I went to her for help. Instead of helping us, she twisted my words around and told him her twisted version of what I said. And that was enough for him to pack his shit and leave me and his two babies.

So I’m done trying to get others to see what he does. They’ll see when he does it to them.

He knows my weakness is my children.

My heart is breaking right now. My children are my world and have been since the days they came into this world. They saved my life when I was at a very low place and battling depression. Hearing about their days and being able to come to them is my everything. Watching their unique personalities grow is an amazing thing to witness. They make me so proud.

But my son is 13 and, like any boy, looks up to his dad and holds him on a pedestal. Most often I try and hold my tongue rather than point out Narc traits in his dad. My daughter is a little older and has talked to me about it herself. But, not my son. I see when he is reflecting his dad’s opinions of me. It comes across in his words and actions sometimes. While I don’t point out or question him on where he is developing these actions towards me (because I know where) I do try and point out when something is not what people ‘normally‘ do or say. In a more round about way of course. For instance, I’ll state another perspective, a more empathetic one, or suggest another less aggressive reason for someone’s actions.

My Narc husband has mentioned moving to a place about 2 hours away, near where he is currently working. It’s a more expensive area. His job moves around. He’s never at one site more than a year or two. The area he has mentioned is very populated and the traffic is much worse than what he deals with now. Sure, for the length of his job at this site it may be more convenient but what about when he goes to the next one? It’s always been a statement more in passing than a conversation and he’s only mentioned it a couple times in the past year.

My son has now started mentioning moving there to me. His dad has glamorized it to him making him consider moving there. His dad makes more money than me and he sees his dad as a financial surplus. Expensive cars and nice things sound good to anyone, especially a teenage boy.

My Narc husband decided to sit down across from me tonight and talk about moving there. It was not a conversation, he was not asking my opinion. He was stating what he wanted to do and very well might do. He went on to tell me why it would be good for our children to move there, too.

I doubt very highly that my daughter would go. She has said she doesn’t want to move until she graduates, which is only a few years away.

But, with my son. I’m not so sure. It scares me to think he’d go with his dad. The influence he’d have on him scares me. He’s still learning who he is in this world and has a big heart, intelligent mind and is talented in anything he puts his mind to. I am the one nurturing those things though. His dad is only interested in cultivating the parts of my son that can be just like him.

There is no male or female in this world that I love more than my children. I understand that they will graduate and move on in life but I’m not ready to miss out on so much of my child’s life. It puts an ache in my chest just thinking about it.

Our families live where we are now. Our resources are here. Our children’s whole life has been lived here and the majority of ours as well. I finally have a great job with reliable income and our children are thriving. I don’t see any good coming from moving until they finish high school. The area we live now is not the greatest and it’s getting worse but I have always said I wanted to move before they reached high school. We didn’t and I don’t want to move until they’ve finished school now.

Plus, I don’t honestly know that I could make such a huge move with someone who I feel doesn’t have my best interest in mind at all.

Catching up

Summertime puts my schedule in overtime. I work full-time and have two teens that want to enjoy their summer and I do my best to let them.
Going to try and make this short and sweet. Bullets are my friends. 😉

Fourth of July
– Took the kids to Lake Gregory on the 2nd. This is something we've never done before. They had a 'water park', paddle boards, pedal boats and fireworks at night. Guess who didn't go.
– Went to my parent's house as usual on the 4th to swim and BBQ. Fireworks at night. Sis-in-law and family came as usual. Had to have and unnecessary in-depth convo with the Narc because of these plans. I did an exceptional job at staying on point in just getting an answer as to whether he was coming with us or not. He tried multiple times to derail the convo into past problems and 'poor me' stuff and I didn't let it get to my emotions or change the convo track. Or not much. We were on our way out the door and already running late so I can't help but feel it was intentional.

Laughlin
– End of July is a traditional Laughlin trip to celebrate his elderly grandmother's birthday. Family comes from CA and CO annually. Last one I went to was 5 years ago. He's went one additional time than me in that time and the only reason I couldn't go was because I had to be in town to sign-up for the in person only, first come first serve bus sign-ups. He waited to decide to go until the Wednesday of that week and didn't inform me until Friday. He wanted to go Friday night but everyone who's ever rented a hotel in Laughlin knows that summer books up quickly and rates double if it's within two weeks of booked dates. We ended up going up on Saturday morning and coming back Sunday night.

I have to add that he paid for almost everything for the Laughlin trip, including a 16 person dinner. He paid for the gas and hotel room. Meals (except for one) and some other things.

Yet, rent was paid over a week late this month.

He still hasn't paid his half of the kids' dental bill that we paid cash for. (He told me he'd give me half for the down payment but still hasn't even though I reminded him of the date and time of their appointments multiple times leading up to them. So, I ended up having to cover it.)

Kids started school today and he didn't attempt to help with back-to-school shopping at all.

So, yah. Thank goodness I got my shit together when I did.

Status post – Father’s Day

 So, I ended up just letting the kids decide what to get their dad for Father’s Day. After all, they are old enough to put some thought into it and he is their dad, not mine. I offered some suggestions but they had a hard time finding anything he’d like or want and anything they did find was a few hundred dollars. All 3 of us had completely different ideas from our experiences with the him of what he wanted or would like. We spent more than 4 hours shopping for gifts. 

The day before Fathers Day, we went to my parents house to spend time with my dad. We swam and BBQd and I gave a card and some new tennis shoes to my dad (which he appreciated and thanked us for). I invited my Narc husband to go with us but he declined. ~This really bothers me because he hasn’t had very many male “father figures” in his life and my dad has always treated him like a son. That is a whole other blog post, though.~ 

On FD, our kids gave him cards and gifts in the morning. His initial response to the gift my son chose was, “You guys will use this more than I will.” His response to the gift my daughter chose wasnt much. But you could tell from his bland, blank expression that he wasn’t impressed with anything she chose except the candy. After he opened them he mumbled a weak, “thank you” to them. It really broke my heart because we spent a lot of time going to different stores, spent a decent amount of money and put A LOT of thought into good gifts for him. 

I went to the grocery store and bought steaks among other thing to BBQ for dinner that night. After dinner and having a beer, I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie. Meaning on Netflix or On Demand. ~Totally breaking grey rock. I’m not sure why I did except that I wanted to watch a movie anyway and he was sitting in the other room by himself, pouting i.m.o.~ He said he wanted to go to the theater and so we did. 

The next day, he sent me a text message thanking me for a nice day. He also told me that he paid off the rest of his phone bill. Was that supposed to be a reward for doing right by him on FD? Because I didn’t do anything different than I’ve done every other FD. 

Funny how when a Narc starts trying something different to get a reaction or to see if you’ll match them, THAT IS WHEN they notice what you do for them. 

He finally replied.

More than a week after my original text asking him why he hasn’t been depositing the money that he’d agreed to, he finally replied. Not surprised that it was now a few days before Fathers Day.

Amazing how a simple question turns into a huge back and forth of avoidance and accusations. His first response was “how much is it?” I had just told him in May how much, he knows very well how much and he was avoiding what I had asked. So, I told him how much and said that really wasn’t an answer.

The reason ended up being that he forgot or bought groceries instead. Both reasons are absurd to me. Good thing I don’t ‘forget’ to pay our utility bills or cover the IRS withdrawal every month. Imagine how that would play out. When I am expecting that money to be there and it isn’t, my account could overdraft and/or I might spend money that I wouldn’t have otherwise and the IRS isn’t very forgiving . And to say he bought groceries instead… that has always been something we were both doing. His words were actually “bought pretty much all the groceries” which is not true. I never stopped buying the usual amount of groceries that I have been buying. What he did was bought dog food more often and bought some steak or other expensive meals and other random junk more often. I’d rather we cover the necessities before buying extras.

~~ Yes, I figured out that he likes to put me in this position. It usually happens when I’ve been used to him doing whatever it is and expecting it. Then, out of nowhere he stops. I learn more quickly now and make sure the money is there or expect him not to be somewhere or do something. But, I always ask anyway, giving it a chance that he’ll surprise me. ~~

Without even pausing, as soon as he gave his excuses, he tried to turn it around to put me down and ask 20 questions. Rather than explain each detail or post screen shots, I’m just going to bullet point. Each point could be a whole page of explanation.

• Blames debt on me, then tells me my share would be 1/3, then says we’ll just make everything 50/50 (which is how it was already supposed to be) -each one contradicting the other.
• Says since I’m asking a question, he has some of his own, which he starts asking accusing questions (i.e. Where’s my wedding ring?? -it was on my finger and always has been, Why am I the only one not invited to a girls thing?? –I didn’t even answer that because I haven’t gone to any girls only things and invite him to everything, which he doesn’t go to and will deny my inviting him.) Plus, about 5 more questions including a remark about being room mates and him not needing a roommate.
• Called me plain mean (I don’t know what about, even re-reading the texts)
• Telling me I only care about money – which doesn’t make any sense because if I only cared about getting money from him then I should be happy with our relationship.
• After 20 years of him keeping everything separate, tells me it’s been me wanting it separate and what a pain it is.  – Yet, I practically forced him to open our joint checking account which he barely uses.
• Telling me I haven’t contributed to our relationship financially until recently. Which is a lie or at least a huge exaggeration. ~Out of our 24 year relationship, about 6 of them was I not employed. I was at home with our children.
• Talking in circles! Ugh! This drives me nuts. I tried extra hard to stay on track this time but not sure how much I succeeded.  – This is where he says something, I respond, he denies saying what I’m responding to and says something else, which I respond to, so he says the original thing or says I said what he started with. Obviously nothing productive ever comes from this kind of conversation.
• Telling me I’m wrong and that I’m twisting facts

I finally had to just stop responding because it was midnight, I was tired and we both had work the next day. That totally pissed him off but the conversation was going nowhere and was exploding into something huge when all I had originally wanted to know was why he wasnt depositing the money and if he was going to be from now on. (Which he said yes he would be. But, to give you an idea how that is playing out~ the next day he got a paycheck, today is the 18th, the money gets automatically withdrawn on the 20th.)

It’s extremely hard to grey rock when you have financial obligations that include both people and when you need an answer to something. 😣

Father’s Day Gift for the Narcissist

For almost 25 years I’ve put lots of thought, time and effort into getting just the right gift for my Narc. It should come as no surprise that it’s never the right one according to him. 

– Says he can’t use. (But then he does.)

– Says he doesn’t need. (Even though he’s been looking into buying one himself.)

– Says he doesn’t know why I’d get it for him because …

– Purposefully doesn’t touch it or use but uses other items just like it from other people. 

– Etc. etc. etc. 

So, now that I’m at a different place mentally in realizing what motivates him, I’ve come to an idea. This Father’s Day I’m going to do what he does. That is, buy him something that makes me look good being the giver, something that I say is for him but is really for me, something to send an underlying message. 

This is more difficult than I expected!

Have you tried this?

Any ideas would be great!

No win situation

I met my husband when I was 14. I had had other boyfriends but nothing really long term. He was my first really serious relationship.We’ve broken up a couple times but we were always back together within a month. 
I remember always talking with my friends, sharing stories about our boyfriends and our good times and our bad times. What I notice though, when I look back, is that any time there was a conflict between my boyfriend and I and I would share the stories with my friend they’d offer helpful advice on possible solutions. The thing is, I’d always already tried their solutions and failed at resolving anything. Every time they’d say try this or try that I’d say but I have and this is how he’d respond. They said well try this then I’d say I have and this  is how he’d respond. 

In other words, there was no resolution because anything I’d try was never going to be the right answer. I tried changing my behavior. I tried changing my attitude.  I tried changing the way I spoke, my appearance, you name it.  I tried changing pretty much everything about myself to try and make him happy, to try and figure out a solution or compromise to try and fix whatever problem we’ve been having. I was in love with him and just wanted to make him happy. 

It took me a lot of years, a really long time, to finally draw line and decide that I was done changing myself to try to make him happy. The problem with that was I no longer knew who I was. I had to learn who I was all over again. In truth, I’m still figuring out who I am. See even though I decided to stop changing myself for other people I’m still the people pleaser.  I still avoid conflict and I still like everybody to be happy.

I’m not sure quite what emotion I feel when I look back at all the years I’ve changed and just done whatever I could to make him happy and realize that he never really did the same. Anger? Sadness? Confusion? Sure, you know lives changed.  We got married, became parents, got better jobs and we moved in and out of houses. Those life events changed us but personality traits and behavior? That stuff never really changed for him. 

Why are we where we are then? When I was young, I thought it was just normal ups and downs of a relationship. It wasn’t until after we were married with children and after a bout with depression that I considered the idea that there was no making him happy. That the problem wasn’t me.