My Husband’s Very Narcissistic Christmas

Every holiday was ruined but this year was the worst

It’s Christmas Eve morning and I’m cooking. I grab my phone as it rings. It’s my sister checking in. I hang up and it’s followed by another sister and then another. All three have the same conversation.

“You’re still sick,” they say. “Something’s not right you need to get to a doctor.”

“I will go,” I say. “Promise.”

My husband lounges in the next room. The irony is not lost on me. The man who lives with me day in and day out hasn’t noticed how sick I’ve become let alone worry about me. It’s been nearly three weeks and I’m not getting better.

This is just the precursor to how this day will unfold with him.

I return to cooking, cleaning, and present wrapping.

I totally intend to keep my promise after Christmas. Deep down I know I shouldn’t wait. Two of my sisters are nurses. They don’t typically show alarm unless there’s cause for it. I just want to get through the holiday.

A little while later there’s a knock at the door.

Two of my sisters are on my front step, “Get in the car,” they say. “We’re taking you to the urgent care.” Of course, they know me. They realized I had no intention of going.

When we arrive the doctor scolds me. “What were you thinking?” he asks. “You are having difficulty breathing.” I leave there with three prescriptions, one of which is an inhaler.

I get back home, my husband is still equally unphased. I still don’t feel well but I want to get ready for dinner. I remind my husband of his promise to pick up my uncle.

“I’m not going,” he says.

“But I told you that’s what I want most for Christmas,” I say.

My beloved Uncle is aging and instead of seeing him only on Christmas Day, my wish is to have him spend the night with us. It’s a conversation we have had weeks ago.

I’m no novice when it comes to my husband so I understand I must barter for this.

“I said you didn’t have to buy me anything just go and pick him up,” I say.

But my husband doesn’t care about the deal we made. Though I will soon find out he’s kept one end of the bargain and bought me nothing. It sounds absurd that I have become accustomed to negotiating and sacrificing in order to get what I value most.

Now the little energy I have left is gone.

The holidays are already busy and chaotic, I am tired and sick and now emotionally drained. Plus I have lost hours between the doctor and the pharmacy pick up. I surrender and go to rest for a bit and fall asleep. Today I would know better but at this point in our marriage despite having hurt me, he has not extended it to my family.

I don’t believe he’s going to leave my uncle the priest alone on Christmas Eve.

But the good Catholic boy does just that.

My phone rings again and my sister is upset. She’s left the holiday party she’s attending to get my uncle. When we didn’t show up, he began calling my sisters to find out why we never came.

I have underestimated the man.

No, the narcissist because I don’t fully understand who he is yet. I am sick to my stomach. The thought of my sweet uncle who is like a father to me sitting in an assisted living home waiting on Christmas Eve. I’m dumbfounded. Never in a million years, especially as sick as I was, did I think my husband wasn’t going to go and get my uncle while I rested.

I thought he would get over whatever mood he was in.

I can no longer muster the strength to cook the big meal I had planned. I do something else for my children. I have already made the breakfast casserole for the next morning and will celebrate more fully then. It’s early enough in our marital problems that my kids don’t understand everything that has transpired.

My family is another story.

I wonder if they will ever forgive my husband for hurting our uncle.

I certainly don’t want to. And it’s foreign to us. A family of first responders who make sure strangers are taken care of. This is beyond comprehension even for my alternatingly charming and cold husband.

Christmas morning our boys delight in everything.

I watch my husband open gift after gift. I had gotten him about a dozen presents. When the last few items are unwrapped my children's mood changes. My husband gets up and ushers them to the basement to try out a game they have gotten.

My boys stop as they pass me.

One of them says, “I feel bad for you mom. There wasn’t anything for you under the tree.” They are still at an age where they make things at school and have given them to me during those festivities.

I don’t know what was more shocking.

Watching my husband shamelessly open everything I had put so much thought into, not getting me even one thing, or ignoring my last-minute change of heart about the deal we had made.

It occurred to me it might upset our kids if there wasn’t anything for me to open. Days before Christmas I told my husband this. I explained they were old enough to notice and I had purchased three things on sale, a total of fifty dollars, he could just wrap and give me.

But he never did.

They sat upstairs in his bedroom closet.

I limped throughout the rest of the day.

I kept going over and over the events. How he didn’t notice I was so sick when my family who didn’t live with us did. How it took someone outside of our four walls to care enough about me to worry. How he let me do every single thing for the holiday when I felt wiped. How he callously took his anger for me out on an elderly man. One who filled an enormous void in my life after my father left me. How he discarded any last-minute concern for our children who get as much joy in giving as receiving.

But even more disconcerting, in true narcissistic form there was zero remorse. He never told me he was sorry or apologized to my uncle and my family. He brazenly and arrogantly joined the group later that Christmas Day. My family took the high road.

He never told our boys he was sorry or that he forgot to buy mommy something.

The narcissist didn’t care.

And the narcissist had ruined many birthdays and holidays before, this was just the next level. My narcissistic husband had turned from happy narcissist to unhappy narcissist. It was an escalation.

Making the narcissist outdo himself this particular year. And emerge outside his own four walls. Of course, my family knew my truth. They witnessed my pain but he had yet to flagrantly involve them in it. Ultimately, they did forgive him because like me not only had he not been diagnosed yet, but they loved him and wanted to see the best in him.

They didn’t discard his actions they just cared enough for him to hope for change.

My husband never deserved the type of love my boys, my family, and I reserved for him. The kinda love that is eternally loyal and never gives up on someone. Even when they’re at their worst.

Fortunately, I no longer have to shed tears on days meant for joy.

Or barter and make deals to survive a holiday.

My husband can now have his own individual very narcissistic Christmas.