Tag Archives: Narcissistic Fathers

The effects of being raised by a narcissistic father

Is He A Narcissist Or Is It Me?

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I received the following email the other day and had to post it and my reply. I may have been a little harsh in my response, tell me what you think.

hi – i love your blog.. it really helps… my ex bf and i broke up 5 months ago and i havent talked to him since the break up.. he hasn’t reached out.. i think he was cheating on me in the end with this new girl. i miss him a lot and that upsets me because it wasnt a real person. i wish hed call and say sorry, i wish this was just a bad dream..

This is my story with my ex..(well the short version) we met at a show 5 years ago (well a little over 5 years now) and we texted for a full month before we met – anytime we tried to meet he would make excuses.. i got tired of it so the 3rd time he did that i decided to screw it and went out with my guy friends.. the min he saw I was doing that he asked me to come over.. and we started dating .. he would text me and call me all day at work.. the first few months i guess the first 6 or maybe more..there were some weird things but really things were great like really amazing.. and then all of a sudden it flipped it was like he would suddenly get really angry and then really sweet.. and be depressed all the time.

After the first year I found out he was 20K in debt from pot. (i found out with his parents) they paid it off. He didn’t have a job at this time.. he appreciated I understood.. His parents had begged me to stay with him .. and I understood he just had a rough year.. he did the same thing the next year.. with still no job though.. and I found out from his parents he was in debt again – he couldn’t even tell me..his parents smoke pot.. so the fact that he lied to them it was shocking.. I’m very against pot.. and he blamed that he had to lie to me because of my beliefs towards it .. both times.. and so on and on time went.. he kept saying he was going to go to grad school because he couldn’t get a job (hes my age.. I’m 29 now) he had never really had a job and it went on and on.. there would always be a double standard with everything, I either called too much or too little.. no matter what I did there would be fault.. if I would push him it would irritate him.. i just couldn’t win.. he would lie and lie and lie and make up excuses about his career.. it went on and on .. my friends never liked him and my parents refused to meet him so he would make me feel so bad about something that wasn’t my fault. (I’m Indian he’s not – but they didn’t like him because he didn’t have his career together) and he would say mean things at times.. not that i sucked or any of those kind of statements.. just when we would be having a fight really really harsh things…

He would always say my standards are too high, nothing satisfies me, nothing is enough for me.. no guy could make me happy.. he would say that a lot when we fought… anyways it had been 5 years this year.. and i told him that if he didn’t want to go to school or didn’t want to anything with his career its fine but understand the consequences .. he always did things that made him happy at that moment, but never planned or thought about what the consequences would be and then would cry how it didn’t work out.He was living at home.. but his parents paid for him to move into the city (I’m from ny) and they pay for his rent..hes barely making any money.. he has a job now .. I asked him, ‘ look I don’t want to get married now but I would like to by 32 I mean we’ve been dating for 5 years.. and he would get mad that I’m comparing myself to other people-all of his friends are married and sorted .. he’s the only one who’s in this situation..

Well I finally convinced my parents to meet him and he flipped out said harsh things.. and all of a sudden we broke up.. while he’s telling me he loves me .. and flips things back and forth said a million things that weren’t true.. and played games and manipulated the whole time.. some of it which I picked up and called him out on and he would be quiet when we were breaking up .. He wanted to end it and i was a wreck.. but then he wouldn’t leave my apt.. I said, ” look if we are done you need to leave” and he wouldn’t.. anyways after the break up he played more games by block/unblocking me on fb.. started a twitter war..

I found out through twitter who the girl he was cheating on me with towards the end.. and now they are all lala.. he smokes with her.. she doesnt care about careers I can tell.. and when we met he told me he was vegetarian.. and now hes eating everything under the sun, when i found that out I was devastated .. because it told me he lied about everything .. I couldn’t believe it, who would lie about such a thing.. and honestly i dont even care that much what you choose to eat.. wouldn’t stop me from dating someone who ate meat.. yes its easier but it certainly isn’t a decision point..

Now I see them all happy and I question is he who I think he is a narc/socio or just an ass.. i guess the question comes from was it me or not.. and will he do it to her.. I ask this not just for my sanity .. because if it is me .. I need to understand what I’m doing wrong so that this doesnt happen in the future.. I dont think I could have done more than I did with the relationship.. I was always loving, supportive,caring.. its my nature.. my friends think I was in an abusive relationship – naturally they know all the stories.

Well this is my story in its shortest possible form (which isn’t very short – I have lots of examples of his behaviour just a lot to type)

I dont know if this helps.. but yes. oh something I must mention he ruined almost all of my birthdays.. birthdays are a big deal for me .. and he would always find a way to ruin them ..

How do I know if the person I was with really is a narc/socio and was not just an ass to me? I go back and forth on this a lot. He lied to me about everything from day one which has come out since the breakup… well I know some of the lies which makes me think there is a lot more i don’t know.. he seems more honest with her – it hurts me so much that he lied to such a degree with no care. we were together for 5 years and it never mattered to him once. But he seems so happy with the new girl.and she’s the polar opposite of me. I mean she talks like skank on twitter like no tomorrow.. talking about their sex life etc etc..

I wonder if he’ll contact me, if he thinks about me, if he still has number in his phone, if he looks at my twitter page or feel something that i blocked him.. i feel a bit stuck and hurt. Sometimes i realise i even want him back even though i know he did horrible things to me this makes me worried for myself.

How do i really know who he is and that he hasn’t changed and will do it to her? I keep going in circles with this.. i want an answer .. my mind is so lost.

i would truly appreciate your thoughts and advice..

thank you so so so much.

From what you say your family is against this union from the get go, I understand the cultural differences and even if it may seem silly to you are you really prepared to cause problems between you and your parents for a man who is basically a loser from the word go?
You have to ask yourself why you are attracted to a man who has none of your values. He does drugs and you are dead set against drugs. He does not have any career goals and his parents have to bail him out constantly and even so he lied to them more than once and YOU. If he lies to his parents do you really think he is ever going to be honest? 
Who cares if he is a narcissist or if he is different with this new woman? He was not right for YOU! Why on earth would you want to marry a man who doesn’t work, has no motivation to make anything of himself, does drugs and is still supported by his family AND none of your friends like him and your parents are against it.
Ask yourself, why do YOU want HIM? not what is wrong with you. It is not wrong to have different goals, morals, values, wants and dislikes than a man, it just makes you incompatible.
You have spent 5 years trying to change him into a man you would be happy with and he has proven time after time after time that he is not going to change. So maybe he has found a woman who doesn’t mind the drugs and his lifestyle, that does not mean you were wrong or at fault. You know, not everyone is going to love you or even like you.
You met a man you were attracted to, you got to know him and realized he has none of your values and you should have walked away 3-4 years ago but instead you have kept trying to make him into the man you want him to be and you would marry him why? with the belief that once you were married he would change? Are you that desperate for a man in your life that you would take any loser that comes along? 
Is having a man more important than being happy? Do you want this constant friction? fighting, lying, drugs, bailing him out financially? Do you want children? do you want to raise children with this man? Is this the kind of home you can see having children happily running around and him being a doting responsible daddy taking care of his family?
I don’t know if he is a narcissist, I DO know he is a spoiled guy who’s parents have always bailed him out, he is a stoner and they rarely have the motivation to have a successful career on top of that why should he if his parents will bail him out when he gets in over his head? He gets depressed, awwwwww poor baby, he is not your problem to fix. If he wants to grow up and be a man it is his responsibility to do that, YOU can not save him from himself.
I am sorry to be harsh but I get frustrated when I hear a beautiful young woman describe an absolute LOSER and then wonder what is wrong with her and she still wants him. WHY? 
If you want to find love, find a man with the same interests, goals, and culture as you. You will have a lot better luck. 
Value yourself enough to walk away when a man mistreats you.
Good luck
hugs
Carrie
 

A Journey Back In Time And A Glimpse To The Future

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I recently was asked by the Canadian Center for Victims of Violence to write my story of domestic abuse for their monthly newsletter. She explained that the newsletter is read by law enforcement, politicians and other people responsible for change.

I was of course honored to be asked but also felt the pressure of responsibility that I was being given an opportunity to make a difference in the way victims of abuse are viewed. I wanted to show that victims of abuse are not weak, co-dependent and some how responsible for their abuse and that abusers can be someone you would never suspect. I wanted to convey how my cries for help were ignored and how important it is to believe and support victims. The woman who asked me to write the article said it could be 2000 words and if it went longer they would break it up into two parts, one would be published in Sept and the other in Oct. As you all know I can tend to get wordy but thought I could manage to tell my story in 4000 words. 

It took me a couple of weeks of stops and starts, whole days spent trying to find the words only at the end of the day trashing the whole thing and starting over again the next day

I would find myself typing away and having to stop, watch a video or I would have to lay down and take a nap, I started dreaming about James, not night mares just dreams with him in them. I started to feel depressed. I didn’t know where this was coming from, I have been writing about my relationship with James for 3 years without a problem. I was unable to stay on task, I spent days literally typing a paragraph and then napping for an hour, whole days wasted thinking and not accomplishing anything. I started to worry I would never get the article written, nothing flowed. 

I eventually went to the doctor and got anti depressants, something I have avoided for 3 years, but I had to get a handle on this lack of motivation, I have my application for funding to re educate to complete and it requires a lot of time and I hadn’t even started on it. I had two open houses to prepare for, one each of the last two Sundays. I was feeling overwhelmed and I was concerned enough to consider giving up the blog and abandoning my plans for going back to school. 

Then it hit me why I can write here and I couldn’t write one 4000 word article for a publication and it was the same reason I had struggled when I wrote the article for the magazine. When I write for the blog I take an incident and write about an aspect of the relationship, or I am responding to a comment made by someone coming into the blog, someone asks a specific question and I relate my experiences as a way of answering their query. I realized that I have never had to tell my story from start to finish, I have remembered the whole relationship and written about every aspect of the relationship and even had epiphanies while writing here but I have never looked at the relationship in it’s entirety.

When I got to 14,000 words and still was not done telling my story I realized I was in big trouble, no problem I only had to cut it down by 10,000 words!! and I hadn’t even touched on whole segments of my life with James. I wanted to explain the whole relationship in a way that people would really “get it” but you know what? there are no words that can adequately describe what the victim goes through and I need to stop feeling I have to justify why I stayed as long as I did.

On Monday I started to cut it down and by Tuesday I had it down to 9,300 (or something close) words. I stayed up until 3 am Tuesday to get it finished but I got it done. I had relived the whole relationship from the first time I met him, I relived the excited anticipation of our first date, the feelings of love growing and I remembered thinking how lucky I felt, I remembered how strange it felt to sleep with him at first and how after not too long I couldn’t sleep without him and how I thought I could get through anything as long as I could lay my head on his chest at the end of the day. I remembered how for 10 years I got butterflies in my stomach every time I heard his vehicle or saw him pull in the driveway. I remembered how hearing his voice always made me smile even at the worst times. God I loved that man, I thought I knew him inside and out, I thought I knew his passions and what made him happy, I thought he was always going to be in my life and the bad shit I saw was not the real him; I thought I knew the “real” James and the connection was too strong for either one of us to deny. I relived it and let it go.

When I wrote out all the times he screwed around, all the times he demanded I pay him money, the times he threatened me and hit me or destroyed my stuff, the times I woke up and found him sleeping with his face on the keyboard of his laptop because he had been watching porn and fell asleep and another little piece of my soul broke away. And when I thought about all the lies, the horrible soul crushing lies and how he tormented me with blame, shame and gas-lighting, I could finally connect the two men who were one. 

Then I did something I haven’t done for a long time, I went and looked at his picture. i stared at it, I tried to remember what his voice sounded like, how his lips felt, what he smelled like, how his hands felt, I remembered I always loved his hands, hard working big hands that made me feel so safe and in the end threatened my safety. I looked long and hard at the pictures and for the life of me I don’t know what I saw in him, why I thought he was so sexy and good looking. And I looked at a picture of him and Marisa and I really stared at it trying to, I don’t know, see something I missed? What I saw was a woman in love in the early pictures of them and a woman in pain in the last pictures. I know she thought as I did that she had met her soul mate and was so blessed to have found this wonderful man and I am sure she is thinking they will be together forever and no woman has ever loved him like she does and she knows him better than anyone ever has. That destiny brought them together and for better or worse they will always be together. I realized that the man I was looking at was not the James I knew, not the James I met and not the James I left. This James is Marisa’s James, mine is dead. 

After I emailed my article off with a note saying “I know this is 5 x’s longer than it should be and I give you my full permission to edit it all you want, I just can not work on it any longer.” Then at 3:01 am I went in to check my blog activity before I went to bed and there right at the top at 2:57:34 was Powell River and my heart stopped. Just the thought that he was in my blog at that exact time caused a reaction, what was the reaction about? I only knew I wanted to get out of there right now and clicked the screen closed and went to bed. 

The next night I was tired because I was up so late the night before and fell asleep on the couch. I was awakened by Stella barking and realized someone was knocking at the door. I checked the clock, 11:15 pm, my heart was pounding almost out of my chest and I went to the door and asked who it was and they said, “It’s me”. I stepped back from the door and yelled “Who?” and they said “Wayne”. I felt myself exhale and realized I had been holding my breath; and I realized why I had to get out of the blog tracking app and why it was so hard to write about the relationship in it’s entirety. I am truly afraid of him, and the fear comes from not knowing who I was in love with for 10 years, and because I have every reason to be afraid.

I realized, truly saw how dysfunctional the relationship was, and how I tried to make it normal and deal with it normally and how futile it all was. By writing it out in it’s entirety I saw how crazy life had become, the tiny thread of hope I clung to for so long. It didn’t make me sad or angry or fill me with regret; it made me think, “My God you really are strong, how did you survive it? how did you go on day after day?” and I realized how far I have come. And once again I am back in peace with my life and I never took even one of the anti–depressants. 

As things tend to go in life I went into my Facebook for the first time since the end of July when I started writing the article and there was a message from James’s son’s mother. MY heart stopped and I checked it right away, fearing something had happened to James’s son . But they were at a family reunion in a town in BC. i guess they don’t really know BC and didn’t realize they were at least a 12 hour drive from me because she said that James’s son would really like to see me. I felt so bad because the message was over 2 weeks old. I messaged back that I had just gotten the message and she messaged back that they were home now. I told her it would have been too far for me to drive anyway but for sure to give her son a hug for me and if they ever get a little further west to for sure give me a call. 

It was kinda the icing on the cake and was another reason I was glad I was in James’s life, I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been with him when his son came out to live with him. Things happen for a reason, I believe that more than ever,

On another up note, my cabin did not sell and it is the last weekend of the summer so it is unlikely it will sell now until next spring, one day, one month, one year at a time and it just keeps getting better. 

Oh and I got my article back from the woman at Victim’s of Violence with some editing and what she had done made sense and made it easier for me to edit it and we got it done. Her comments:

“I have read over your story in detail now- WOW! Your last copy looked great! “

It ended up being just over 8,000 words and will be printed in its entirety in the Sept newsletter. 

I am very happy with the end results. Thank God for editors!

Poverty Is For “Other” People

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Why don’t they get a job? You would never be caught dead begging for money or digging in someone else’s garbage. Don’t they have any pride?

That’s what most people are thinking even if they don’t say it out loud; and some do. Every where you look there are pan-handlers jockeying for position at the most lucrative intersection or the prime location; outside the liquor store. You can’t drive down a back alley without seeing someone climbing into a dumpster or someone pushing a shopping cart full of their possessions. It has become so common place you hardly take notice any more.

Why don’t they get a job?

They must be drug addicts or alcoholics, or maybe they have a mental problem; certainly they don’t have an education, children, or job skills.

These people couldn’t have been YOUR neighbor a few years ago, their kids couldn’t have been over at your house playing not that long ago. You don’t know anyone who would be reduced to begging for money, do you? Well, IF you did know someone in that position they got there by their own doing, they must have made poor choices; you know YOU would never be that desperate. It could never happen to you, could it?

What ever did happen to that nice young couple that lived next door? Such a shame their house got foreclosed on and they moved away; they were good neighbors, hard working, always friendly, they’d watch the house when you went away and such cute little ones; remember when the first one was born, all the neighbors got together and had a baby shower? Nice little family………wonder what ever happened to them. Well, you know how it is` every one is so busy these days; you promised to keep in touch, take the kids once in a while but just never got around to it. I’m sure they’re doing fine, they were young, they’ll recoup¤

Or when the company you work for was down sizing, what a shame “Stan” was laid off only 10 years from retirement, just when the kids were finished school and oh yeah, their daughter was getting married, that’s right and then they were going to concentrate on saving for retirement. Stan had 10 years to really sock it away, too bad……wonder what ever happened to good old Stan….he must have gotten a job somewhere by now.

What about the woman you always talked to when you both went to pick up your kids from school, she showed up looking like she’d been really crying a few times and kept to herself mostly but you and her had a few good chats, she was really nice and had a pretty smile. Then one day she wasn’t there any more, her kids had switched schools, then they came back but you never saw her again. You asked about her and heard she was in an abusive relationship and she finally left the asshole, good for her! She must be doing so much better without him, she must be happy now, just her and the kids without him beating her down emotionally and physically. Good for her she finally left.

That nice young couple? After they lost their house and moved into a rental, he was laid off from the job he’d had for 6 years at the mill and has been getting work off and on ever since, she is working two part time jobs, one at a big box store and the other one at a bank, she gets 20 hours a week from each place which means she doesn’t get benefits or her stat holidays paid and sometimes works 16 hours in a day because she gets scheduled at both places on the same day. They try to schedule their shifts so one of them is home for the kids because day care is so expensive and it’s hard to find a day care that will take kids for a few hours, they want full time children because they are only allowed so many children at one time and can’t keep a slot open for a few hours.

After the stores close he goes out dumpster diving, often times he finds things he can repair and resell at the flea market, sometimes he finds toys for the kids, or even food, he doesn’t make a whole lot of money but it is what keeps their heads barely above water and food on the table. They fight a lot these days, the stress is getting to them; the kids have started to have behaviour problems and the oldest one started school but hates it because some of the other kids saw their dad dumpster diving and now tease them at school.

Times are tough for everyone, I’m sure they’ll get back on their feet if they just work hard. Right?

Good ol’ Stan, didn’t you know?
He’s a greeter at WalMart, you know the guy who gets you a shopping cart, smiles and says “Hi” when you walk in.

He got unemployment benefits for a year and then they had to start using the little bit of severance package he got because you can’t collect welfare if you have any money and they had to sell one of the cars because welfare won’t pay if you own two cars over a certain value. It was so degrading for Stan to go into welfare, paid into it his whole life, always worked, and he was treated like a second class citizen when he finally got up the courage to go in because they can’t afford to pay for his heart medication on the little bit they make. He was choking back tears when he left the office. He sure didn’t ever think he’d be asking for a hand out, he believed if a person worked hard they would be ok. Everything they had Stan had worked damn hard for but they remortgaged the house for their daughter’s wedding while Stan still had a job and now they were afraid they are going to lose the house. Forty years Stan worked, raised his family, was a good provider, his wife had worked once the kids got into school and she has gotten a part time job now at a grocery chain store and often works until midnight. It bothers Stan that this is the time of their life they should be enjoying each other, kids out of the house, they’ve done their time, they struggled and they did it side by side; always looking forward to this day. He’s been looking for a good paying job but now a days every one hires over the internet and Stan never even had a resume in his life, he walked into places, asked to speak to the manager and walked out with a handshake and “You start Monday.” Now you don’t even see a person plus they look at his resume and see that he is almost 60, the companies he has talked to say he is over qualified, he tells them he doesn’t mind starting at the bottom but they don’t call back, so here he is at WalMart, putting a smile on his face and handing you your shopping cart.

The woman who left the abusive relationship? Well she isn’t doing so well, her ex husband decided to make her life hell and went for custody of the kids and won, she didn’t have money for a lawyer and he lied about her and got people to back his lies. Losing the kids almost killed her, she could barely function for almost a year and it breaks her heart that she lives in a one bedroom apartment in a bad area and she can’t provide a nice place for the kids to come and visit. They say it is ok they love her but she knows at their dad’s they have everything all the other kids have and even if they don’t say it she feels they are ashamed of her. She was with her ex for 10 years, she had a job but he wanted her to quit when the kids were born. She didn’t mind being home raising them, her husband had a good paying job and even though she had to account for every penny he gave her and never had money of her own; he gave her enough to keep the house and the kids looking presentable. As the years went by though he got more and more abusive and controlling, it seemed he was never happy no matter what she did and she was always walking on egg shells. Sometimes she could feel the tension in him building and she knew she was going to get hit. She would try to not react when he pushed her buttons but eventually he would blow and she would get punched in the head and told he’d had enough and wanted her out.

He did it one too many times and one day while he was at work she packed up the kids and her clothes and left, with no money, nothing. He tried to get her to come back, put on the “I’m so sorry, it will never happen again” routine she’d heard so many times in the past, but she was strong this time, she was determined.

He got reinvolved almost immediately and told every one that she was crazy and he’d suffered through years of hell with her and now he’d found a woman that understood him and appreciated him. He moved the woman into their house, just slid the new woman right into her role as his wife and the woman is so cocky and rude to her; she must believe his lies too. Sure someday after a lengthy court battle she should get ½ of the house but she can’t afford a lawyer and he’s got the best; besides she doesn’t think she has the strength to keep fighting him.

Maybe he was right; maybe she is nothing without him.

She is getting welfare, which barely covers her rent and food from the food bank but having the kids come and stay always put her behind financially and the hydro is going to be cut off today; so she puts on her coat and heads out in the rain to ask for spare change at the liquor store.

Hopefully she’ll make enough to keep hydro off her back for another week. It’s getting harder and harder to believe she is better off, maybe getting hit once in a while wasn’t so bad after all.

You don’t know anyone who begs for money or digs in other people’s garbage, it’s not your problem. Whose problem is it?

Posted by Carrie the Lady Witha Truck