I’m Divorced From a Narcissist

And my son asked me how I didn’t know

A few months ago one of my now-grown children looked at me with an anguished face. And then with an exasperated tone, he asked me a polarizing question.

“How, did you NOT know WHO he was?”

We were in the midst of yet another encounter with his father. In an otherwise healthy divorce, if there is such a thing, spouses have the ability to communicate and put their children first. They navigate the sadness, sorry, and upset like adults. This has never existed between my ex-husband and me.

I divorced an extreme personality.

And herein lies the unfortunate aspect for families like us.

Even if I don’t interact with my ex-husband, my boys still do. They continue to encounter what I once experienced and attempted to exercise myself out of. Never in a million years did I realize my children would resume my place in their father’s life.

Forced to take over a role I once played.

The same irrationality, inconsistency, unpredictability, and emotional abuse.

I’ve often said children understand two adults who don’t get along. But they don’t comprehend a parent who isn't able to put them first: divorce or no divorce.

Kids expect to be loved and prioritized despite a failing union, and they should. Children deserve to feel loved. A conflict between parents shouldn’t absolve this.

I thought about my answer.

Honestly, I didn’t have one. I was young and naive. I was innocent in the ways of the relationship world. I didn’t understand the family of origin. I didn’t understand my own personality.

I didn’t understand an unhealthy man could be tied up in such a pretty and unassuming package. I’m not saying I’m perfect. In counseling, I found out I’m an enabler, a pleaser, and a fixer. We are all flawed to some degree.

But there’s a difference between faults and personality disorders. Yes, I realized my ex-husband was a diagnosed narcissist. I knew divorce would take him out of our day-to-day lives. It was a necessity. We had to get out of a bad situation. But sadly, it took him out even more, than I wanted it to. Because back then, even I believed he was a better father than a husband.

Even I craved that connection between him and our boys.

I think you would have to be a terrible mother to want otherwise.

Who would wish to take a parental relationship from their children? To rob them of one of the two people in this world who know their value above all others. Who realize they are perfect, immeasurable, all things good in this world.

That they alone hung the moon.

Certainly not me.

I did my due diligence in the infancy of our divorce proceedings. I called my ex-husband and I told him our boys missed him. I explained how confusing it was to them that he lived only miles away but never came calling for them.

He was unphased.

But children have big hearts.

They don’t give up as easily as a misbehaving parent.

My boys hung in there, they kept waiting for their dad to surprise them. To be that once joyful guy who made them feel loved. Who made them believe they were his world. But it never happened.

So they adjusted to their new normal.

But their father couldn’t stop disappointing them. Not only because he was missing from their everyday lives but because he distorted reality and relationships. When they did need him or seek him out, he still wasn’t available.

A canceled Father’s Day in favor of meeting a woman he knew for a month. He lived in his world while they craved some inclusion. The examples aren’t worth noting. There are too many to name.

What is worth noting is the repeated message.

The unnatural distance between a father and his children.

I used to think it would be terrible for a mother to hinder a relationship between a father and his children. Until I saw my boys hurt over and over again. Until I witnessed them suffering the same emotional malaise I endured for years.

I always say, most people don’t choose divorce.

It’s the unfortunate result of exhausting all of our options. Most children don’t want a divide between one of their two most cherished people in the world. And no good mother would endorse it.

Unless it is the unfortunate result of exhausting all of their options.