Narcissism
The First Time a Narcissist Made Me Feel Powerless
I should have run for the door
I always say I never married the man I dated. He didn’t show his other side until we exchanged vows. It soon became clear there would be no negotiation.
The conversations varied from mundane to serious.
“I think I want to go to law school,” I say.
“We aren’t paying for law school,” says my husband.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
“My mom needs me to take my cat,” I say.
“We are not taking the cat,” he says.
“But my mom is sick and she can no longer care for him,” I say.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
“I asked you to bring me something else from the store,” I say.
“That’s what I bought,” he says. “You want something you need to get it yourself.”
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
“The wall needs to be painted,” I say.
“I’m not painting the wall,” he says.
“Can we pay someone to paint it?” I ask.
“I’m not paying anyone to paint the wall,” he says.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
“We are only going to have a few babies,” I say. “I want you to pick me up from the hospital.”
“I’m not picking you up,” he says. “I’m a busy man.”
“We can see if the hospital will let me stay until later in the day,” I say. “So that it’s closer to the end of your workday.”
“Your sister can pick you up,” he says.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
“They told me I need someone to drive me,” I say. “The oral surgeon has to use anesthesia.”
“I can’t take you,” he says. “I’m a busy man.”
“Why can’t we schedule it for a day when you’re not as busy?” I ask.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
There was a common denominator to these discussions.
My husband wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.
If he didn’t disagree or feel challenged or feel like he was being told what to do, he was otherwise laid back. I hesitate to use that word now because, in reality, it turns out I had married the opposite of an easy personality.
But covert narcissists do not present as overt narcissists do.
They can be even harder to detect because their control is passive-aggressive. A covert narcissist’s demeanor can appear less manipulative, extreme, and domineering.
In between these extreme conversations, he seemed like a great guy.
It’s the reason I stayed.
But these exchanges with a narcissist made me feel powerless. It was evident no matter how I felt he didn’t care. I could ask him nicely, I could get upset, I could cry, I could get angry.
It didn’t matter.
I could tell him I was worried, I was stressed, or I was sad.
It didn’t matter.
A narcissist doesn’t care about your feelings or emotions. But I hadn’t yet heard the word narcissist. He hadn’t yet been diagnosed. I didn’t understand what happened to the guy I had dated for nearly six years. I was confused.
He had never exhibited this degree of callousness or cruelty while dating.
I would never have married him.
Falling in love with a narcissist is bait and switch.
This one thing, confusion, is what accompanied my sense of powerlessness. I recently wrote, The First Indicator of a Narcissist to help explain the moment I knew something was terribly wrong.
The powerless conversations weren’t enough of a clue.
At least not to me, because many people can be difficult when disagreeing or arguing. My husband was also self-employed so he blamed many things on being a busy man.
But I was wrong.
People shouldn’t feel repeatedly powerless in marital conversations. The average individual is capable of some degree of compromise.
Narcissists do not compromise, narcissists seek to win.
It took eight years of this troubling cyclical pattern for me to leave.
I should clarify, for me to leave my husband the first time.
I had finally been married long enough to recognize the cycle. About twice a year, when something was important to me, I would approach him and all hell would break loose. I would cry for weeks until I finally figured out a way to problem-solve on my own and we would move forward.
There was never a resolution.
It was simply me picking myself back up and moving on.
I didn’t go to law school. I didn’t get my cat. I bought what I needed at the store. I painted the walls. My friend’s husband painted the baby’s dresser. I drove myself home from oral surgery. He did pick me up from the hospital because my neighbor told him he had to.
There are too many other examples to share.
When the narcissist’s world operated as he deemed fit everything was fine. When the narcissist wasn’t challenged everything was fine. When the narcissist didn’t have demands put on him everything was fine. When the narcissist agreed with what we were doing everything was fine. When the narcissist wasn’t angry everything was fine.
Narcissists trick the ones they choose to love them.
It’s the emotional Yin and yang of their two sides that keep us with them.
I should have left the first time a narcissist made me feel powerless.
I had no idea these conversations would one day seem mild. A narcissist exhibiting child’s play. They would escalate far beyond these exchanges. The narcissistic monster reveals himself more and more with time.
But these were clues, the infancy of a narcissistic controller.
Because some illustrated a distinct lack of empathy.
But even the simple ones were telling.
He didn’t have the right to tell me unequivocably there would be no law school. He should have expressed empathy and conversation when my mother was too sick to care for the cat I had brought home during college.
He didn’t marry me, he controlled me.
There would be no further conversation.
No problem-solving, no alternatives, no negotiation, the answer was no.
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