Narcissists and New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Mix

Save your breath because you’ll waste your wishes

Every January my husband and I would pour a cup of coffee and make a list of New Year’s resolutions. We were goal-setting believers because of our sales backgrounds. And we were good at achieving them. They could be big or small, attainable or unattainable.

It’s how we purchased a beach house at the ages of thirty and thirty-two.

We made different lists.

We had our personal, family, business, and financial goals. We would increase our savings annually, make plans to grow the business, plan trips, buy something we wanted, do things as a family, and more.

Our personal lists were about what we wanted individually. I made goals to read more parenting books, have certain adventures with my kids, write more, get a book published, and the rest of my childhood dreams.

One subject we didn’t tackle was our marriage. Looking back, it should have been at the top of our goals. Every parent should prioritize their marriage.

Because marital choices aren’t duplicated by how much we love our kids.

Children duplicate the relationship they see between their parents. They go out into the world and attract themselves to a similar relationship dynamic. It’s why the family of origin plays such a huge role in how we choose our spouses.

Do I wish I had made those marital goals back then? Yes.

Would they have worked?

No, because I had married a diagnosed narcissist. We achieved our financial, business, and recreational goals because these were things my husband agreed with and wanted. They were a part of his world vision.

I foolishly believed we were making ‘joint’ goals.

A lesson I would later learn when I divorced him.

When he told me it was ‘his’ money and ‘his’ house. I had simply helped my husband build and acquire what he wanted. He said I worked for him like any other employee he would have hired. He said all I did was answer phones and do paperwork.

In his own incredible words…

Why should I get anything more in a divorce than one of his employees would get?

In reality, he asked me to step away from my career and my individual salary to build a business together. He was now free to go out and sell all day because I was in the office, thereby doubling the revenue.

You can’t set goals with a narcissist. You are their puppet. It doesn’t appear that way but believe me, they won’t go after anything they don’t want. They absolutely aren’t setting a joint goal because this is something you want.

Nor will they ever believe you helped achieve it.

Narcissists don’t play well with others. They want what they want. They are more than happy to manipulate your assistance to get it. And don’t kid yourself, they desperately need us.

Pathetically, they wouldn’t achieve half of what they have without us.

And those marital relationship goals?

I was dealing with a narcissist so really enough said. Even if it appeared my husband was working on our relationship, it would have been through a narcissistic lens. What’s in this for me? How will this elevate what I want? And my life picture?

There is room in a narcissist's life, for only one list of New Year’s Resolutions.

The narcissist’s list.

Save your breath, don’t waste your wishes.

Narcissists and New Year’s resolutions don’t mix.