Narcissism

The First Time I Left My Narcissist

Why I left, and why I came back

We’re sitting in my OB/GYN’s office. It’s the day before I am being induced with our second son. My husband looks at the doctor and says, “How long will this take? I have a two o’clock appointment.”

My doctor is no nonsense.

Put another way, she is a ball-buster. She rises out of her chair, comes across the desk, and meets my husband’s face.

“You’re having a baby tomorrow. You’re going to need to cancel your schedule.”

As soon as we got into the car, my husband says, “I’m not picking you up from the hospital. Your sister can.” He’s annoyed that his work has been interrupted. Therefore, he’s refusing to get me and our newborn baby.

I try to negotiate.

“You can pick me up later. I’ll wait,” I say. “We’re only going to have a few children. I want you to get us.”

He’s inflexible. A signature move when he disagrees with me or doesn’t want to do something. I cry and continue the entire way home. I’m nine months pregnant, but the tears are lost on him. I get out of the car and am met by neighbors on the sidewalk.

My friend walks up to me. I can see the distress on her face.

“Why are you crying?” She asks. “You’re going to have a baby tomorrow.”

“He won’t pick me up from the hospital,” I say.

She walks deliberately up to my husband, not unlike my no-nonsense doctor. Looks him in the eyes and says, “You’re going to pick your wife up from the hospital.”

This is early in my marriage.

I have no idea what narcissism is.

Or that my entire person is being engulfed by one. I am still looking for the guy I dated. Mystified by the one who has replaced him.

How cruelty and charm mingle seamlessly within someone.

He ultimately agrees to my neighbor’s ultimatum and picks me up from the hospital. Funny how certain personalities can make a bully back down. And their imagined bravery evaporates in the reveal.

But he had finally crossed the line.

One I had moved tirelessly over our eight-year marriage.

A year later, I pack up my three- and one-year-old little boys and head to my sister’s. I announce I am done to my townhouse buddies and say goodbye. I have no intention of returning.

I don’t have a plan but I also don’t have a fear.

My mom raised her children alone, so can I.

A delivery man knocks on the door. As he hands me the flowers, I say, “If those are from my husband, he would need to buy the entire store for me to come back.”

After three weeks, he wears me down. He convinces me he is not only willing to go to marriage counseling, but he will also find one. I am resistant, but I cave. I’m not sure why.

I am still young and possess the moxie my independent mother filled me with, unaware I will one day lose it.

No one is going to mistreat me.

And I have now identified the cycle.

The reason my loveable charmer turns evil twice a year.

The switch flips around my needs.

Day to day, I ask nothing of him. But if I need to be picked up from oral surgery anesthesia, ask for a room to be painted, a holiday to be special, get mad at him for staying out all night playing cards, or question him about anything.

All hell breaks loose.

The beauty bursts, the beast emerges.

Exactly the result when my doctor challenged him. She told him what to do. This is something you never do with a narcissist. Because no one tells them what to do.

They decide the outcome of their world.

Or you unleash their anger.

And expose the cruel beast.

The narcissistic hunger won’t fade until fed.

My husband put me in my place because my doctor made him mad. Someone has to pay for making a narcissist do what they don’t want to do. They will exact punishing revenge to regain their control.

They will get their way even if another tells them they can’t. He wanted to work, not cancel his appointment. So he showed me he could.

We go to marriage counseling.

It’s a bandaid.

It takes a highly specialized counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist to identify and diagnose Narcissistic personality disorder. That professional won’t enter our lives until years later.

But for the next six years, I feel as if I have my best friend back.

It’s cycle-free.

Knowing what I now know, even I find this impossible to believe. I’m not exactly sure why. Either it was — ‘narcissistic in it to win it,’ mode or he wanted to retain a version of his world. The man with a successful career and a beautiful family.

It was the first time I left.

But it wouldn’t be the last.

*HOW did your narcissist lack empathy? I’d love to hear your examples. I give further examples of mine in the following two articles.