You can’t stop the Narc. You can only hope to contain her.

Life is not supposed to be this hard!

It’s not. It’s just not supposed to be this hard. I mean, on paper it all seems so easy. I have watched other people succeed at it. They are good at being kids. Good at school. Good grades. They know how to talk to other kids. High School. College. Good job. Marriage. Kids. Retirement.

I mean, that’s a pretty good blueprint. If I were going to design how life should go, that would be it.

Sure. Anyone can be a backseat driver. 

Okay, if you’re still with me, you’re saying, “What?”

Yeah. I’m writing it and I’m saying, “What!” Well, I’m actually screaming it in my head as you can see by the exclamation point.

I was terrible at being a kid. No clue how to do it. High school? College? Job? Marriage? (How I was a co-creator of two of the most wonderful people to ever walk the planet, was God’s joke on me). Retirement? You are kidding.

I can explain my entire life in one word, follower.

That’s right, follower. My definition may differ from yours, so stay with me. Someone who does not want to upset anyone. Someone who refuses to stand up for himself and ends up alone, broke, and totally misunderstood.

Oh, and let’s add that he loses control of everything because if someone stronger comes along, just like the bully in the schoolyard who demands your ball, you give it up for fear of… fear of… what? Fear of what? And that is the answer. Fear. You live in constant fear.

Let me give you an example. I think about this all the time, yet don’t know why. I was thirteen years old and after seven years of the only school I had ever known, I’m now in a bigger school with more students and schedules and three minutes to get to the next class.

Most of that year was traumatic. I was not prepared for seventh grade. But I tried my best to suck it up and keep my mouth shut.

I learned a few things:

• I learned where the lunchroom was.
• I learned that unless you really wanted kids and administrators laughing at you, call it the lunchroom, not the cafeteria.
• I learned that most parents gave their kids money to buy lunch. It was a smart move. Why? Because if after class, someone you were talking to had lunch next period, and you walked with them to the lunchroom, you kept the momentum going by standing in line with them and then finding a table to eat. 

My mother made my lunch, which, looking back, was a sweet thing to do (or she did not trust me with the $1.25, the price for lunch). But it aided me because very few people spoke to me. Since I was the only one with the brown bag, it designated me as the one to figure out what to do when everybody walked to the line to make their purchase.

Do I go to an empty table and sit by myself or go to the end of a table where there are kids that I know but dislike me and wait for the abuse? Oh, such fond memories, but it gets better.

A few months into my misery, a guy who I knew from elementary school, who I’ll call Barry, and who used to play ball with me the previous year, started on his road to maturation. As I was in the hall walking to the lunchroom, he would sneak up behind me and with his palm wide open slap my brown paper bag. The juice went flying and I would have to grab my turkey roll sandwich in the baggie before someone stepped on it. Mission accomplished, Barry would smile and say something like, “Kaye, you are such a loser. What a weirdo.” (Yes, back in the mid-70s weirdo was big).

This went on for months until a teacher saw our little dance in action. He stopped the line walking to the lunchroom and told Barry to pick everything up. This was even worse as everybody halted to watch Barry hand me my food and my ripped brown paper bag. There was snickering and laughter and of course the words, “What a loser that guy is. Way to go, Barry.”

I held back the tears. Everyone knew I held back the tears. And there is nothing worse than being the loser whose lunch was just smashed all over the hall and calling attention to it after months of this same practice and trying not to cry.

That was seventh grade, and it is stuck in my mind. All I wanted to do was cry. 

A Common Theme

I was crying last night. That’s right. I’m 59 years old and was watching a re-run of Blue Bloods. That’s right. A re-run of Blue Bloods. Jamie asked Eddie to marry him. They go to the Reagan house for Sunday dinner… together.

Frank looks at Eddie and says with surprise, “Oh, Officer Janko.”

Jamie sheepishly looks at his father sitting at the head of the dining room table with the family staring at them. “Just Eddie today, Dad.”

Eddie looks at both and says, “Not just Eddie today.”

“Well, as of this morning, the future Mrs. Jamison Regan.”

Not the crying part yet but getting ready.

A few words and looks of shock by family until Jamie says, “We’ve written vows. Turns out she’s been working them for quite a while.”

Eddie turns and says, “It turns out so has he.”

As they finished reading them, and the family turns silent, I am crying. Actual tears.

Oh, and there is more.

Rocky goes the distance with Creed. Adrienne is running through the crowd, loses her hat, sneaks past Pauly, and boom, into Rocky’s arms. Both she and I understood that all he wanted to do was to go the distance. Tears.

Rocky II, he gets up after 9 ½ seconds. She’s home crying. He’s got the title and I have tears.

The boys are riding their bikes straight towards the scientists in the park and the next thing we know, ET has them in the sky in front of the setting sun heading to the spaceship. Where are the tissues?

The shows and the movies are old. I’ve seen them dozens and dozens and dozens of times. It’s the tears. The tears are new.

When Will cried in Uncle Phil’s arms wondering why his dad didn’t want him on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

When it was revealed that Lt. Colonel Henry Blake’s plane was shot down and no one survived on M*A*S*H.

It’s a Wonderful Life and Casablanca and Field of Dreams and The Way We Were, and…I mean, you get the picture.

I’m not me anymore. At least I’m not the me who I used to be. I know. I know. We all change and as we get older, we get wiser. I know things now that I never knew or never paid attention to previously. But I miss the old me. I think that has something to do with the tears.

Let’s Explore

I don’t watch a good deal of sports anymore. It means little to me. As my sons were growing and their taste changed from Buzz Lightyear to LeBron James, we always were watching a game. It meant the world to me.

When I was growing up, there was always a game. Always. My dad loved sports.

And here’s the thing. I am/was a sports geek. You know the scene in City Slickers when Helen Slater asks who played third base for the Pirates in 1960 and the three friends answer in unison, Dick Groat. That is/was me.

Yankees. Jets. Islanders. Miami Heat. Monday Night Football. Bowl games. March Madness. Super Bowl. The Red Zone. YES Network. NBA League Pass. And on and on and on…I missed nothing.

The Narc knocked it all out of me. As I’ve said in past essays, she’s dead and still kicking the shit out of me!

So, the theme here is I’m 59. Last time I looked; I was a man. Is this true menopause or what?

I did some checking. Thank goodness for the Internet.

The ‘male menopause’

• mood swings and irritability.
• loss of muscle mass and reduced ability to exercise.
• fat redistribution, such as developing a large belly or “man boobs” (gynecomastia).
• a general lack of enthusiasm or energy.
• difficulty sleeping (insomnia) or increased tiredness.
• poor concentration and short-term memory.

I see little about tears and looking back at my life. But those tears of emotion are real. It’s not just television shows. It’s songs. It’s photographs. It’s thoughts of my two sons and the days lost. (Oh, I’ll explain momentarily). It’s hearing of people who have had to spend the past six, seven, eight months working from home and hearing about the positive from the virus. “How great it’s been. It’s been a blessing to be home and rediscover our family.”

Then there was this. I’m on YouTube and there is this old episode of Gomer Pyle. That’s right. Gomer Pyle. My mother used that television as a babysitter, so there is not one sit-com from the mid-’60s through the late ’70s that I do not know.

Anyway, Gomer goes to Washington, DC to sing in a contest and loses his voice. By the end of the show, Gomer’s voice returns, and we hear this: 

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear the unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To write the unwritable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
The reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will be peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world would be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable
The unreachable
The unreachable
Star

To dream the impossible dream
To reach the unreachable star

By Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion

Well, I see him singing The Impossible Dream with that operatic voice and I start welling up. I Googled the lyrics and I ask myself when have I ever fought? I mean really fought. Never. I don’t fight. I did not fight Barry. I never fought my parents. I did not fight with my father when he told me that the future I wanted in journalism was a waste and to forget the communications that I was going to study at Boston University as I was being shipped to study textile engineering down in North Carolina to help the family business which he was quietly planning on exiting. I certainly did not fight to keep my kids. Oh, I tried and the judge helped but the Narc was having none of it. And when my brother and sister altered my mother’s estate by removing my kids (her grandsons) and me, I tried but the court said, “Sorry. Not enough incriminating proof.” So, what do I do? I go right to surrender.

Let’s take a step back…again

I walked away from the woman I was/am head over heels in love with (no, not the Narc) because that is what I was told to do.

Yes. That’s what I said. I was told to.

I was 34 years old and I was told not to marry the woman that I wanted to marry. I was not asked if I loved her, I was just told not to marry her.

So, what does that mean? I was told not to marry her. Who does that?

My parents met Pam years earlier in New York. When I told my father of my intentions years later, he tells me that she is too good for me. Too good for me? Now, I used to believe that because she was so glamourous, I was out of her league. When we were together, it was a Beauty and the Beast kind of thing. (Low self-esteem? Ya think?) So, when I heard his words, it was exactly what I needed to hear, and I ended it. I ENDED IT! (Bold, capital letters, and an exclamation point). Just like that. I did not fight. I did not say how great it feels to be with her. Once again, I say, who does that? 

The very last thing I want to do is sound like I’m whining and making excuses. I don’t want to sound like it, but I am. This was stupid, but I was afraid of hurting my parents. If I tried to become more independent, (remember I moved right around the corner from them because they asked/told me to), I was afraid they would think I was trying to abandon them. It really wasn’t that I was trying to be lazy and dependent, I was honestly afraid that if I tried to move on in my life, I would make them feel hurt and abandoned. And, no, there was no one else. Now I know that in and of itself was a problem for me. My parents were really the only people with who I had any significant interaction. Yeah, that sounds pretty messed up. How in the world did I wind up in this sort of emotional maelstrom?

And let’s not forget the voices. There are people renting space in my head and they have just renewed the lease.

“Oh my god, can’t you own this and stop blaming them for everything?” (Yep, my voices have me worried that people will think I am blaming others for all of this).

For the record, I own it. I did it. But was I really acting like an adult?

“You are an adult, so you are supposed to move out of the house and be independent. You can’t stay with your parents forever. I feel like you are making excuses and are just comfortable with where you are. Your parents basically take care of you still and you are letting them.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? Living around the corner? Stopping by their house on your way home from work to pick up their leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. (The retirees at the Polo Club in Boca, pre-virus, went out to dinner most nights).”

“Friday night cocktails at their house after work? Adult? Really? I’ve often thought that if I did marry her, I would have allowed my family to screw it up.” (Notice I said, I would have allowed them to do so?)

So, when I was handed the Narc’s phone number from my mother, in front of my father, the deal was already done. My mother had given me other phone numbers but this one had a different vibe. 

No. My mother never met her, but her hairdresser did. If Izzy liked her after an hour in his chair, then that was that. This was the one.

They did not think that a single, young (middle-aged?) man could be happy.

They did not think that I could be happy with my own version of happiness. 

They had to find the person that would make me happy.

Does this sound familiar?

Someone who could not say no. People who pushed me into a relationship. A woman with an agenda.

I was miserable but that was me walking down the aisle in front of all my parent’s friends from New York and Boca. 

The funny thing about that wedding was that no matter what I did that night, the Narc was angry. My nieces walked me in to see her in her wedding dress and she whispers in my ear, “I told you to walk in alone. Alone. But not you. Everything’s always about you.” She was dancing with one of my best friends and stopped to count the musicians. “My father is paying for six, not five. I must tell my father. He will be so angry.” When Scott told her it will all work out, she looked at him and told him she had to go. The severity of my situation occurred when she informed me that my sister was having a good time. “What is she doing?” I asked. “Spending more time with your parent’s friends than me. That should be me.”

It was the most contrarian relationship. She sucked my parents in. She pushed away my brother and sister and friends. She continually made the room uncomfortable. (Repeat after me, Energy Vampire). She went so far as to control my job. And it was not just one. It was not until after the divorce that I discovered how she cost me multiple jobs, leading me to believe in each instance, it was my fault. She took my life onto a course I never would have turned onto unless I was bumped from behind.

And when she was done with me, she followed through on one of her earlier threats. She told me that if we ever split up, she would make it her mission to see to it that our kids never speak to me again. EVER!

Don’t get me wrong. I never lived in that fear. I never sat back and said, “Gee, if I divorce her, she’ll move the kids to Montreal, her hometown, or get a lawyer who will convince a court that I was a monster and take them from me.”

That would have been long-term fear. I was always in the here and now. I was afraid of her. She was irrational, immature, and always proving she was one step ahead of me. Calling me ten, twelve times a day or demanding I come home by 6:30 otherwise, dinner will be ruined. Or asking me what I was doing for lunch when my office was twenty minutes from the house. The answer of, “I don’t know,” or “I have about ten minutes to grab something” or “eating at my desk,” was always the wrong answer,

The correct answer? “I am outside your office, I think you can have lunch with your wife, thank you!” To be fair, that happened early in our marriage when our oldest was six months and she wanted to show him off to the people I worked with. These are people she did not know! And she was still angry when I walked into the house after work.

“Excuse me what are you doing?”

Pouring a cocktail.”

“You’ve had enough for one lifetime, thank you. Put down the bottle and wash out that glass. Now! You are an alcoholic. And I threw away those Tylenol, PM’s in your medicine chest. You can stop taking drugs, thank you.”

That is a true story. I used to try to take anything that would clear up my headache after she went to bed. Alcohol? No, she’d somehow hear me pouring. Pot? Outside? Smoke a joint? She’d hear the door open and come down and tell me that I smoked drugs and would call 911. Stand in front of a neighbor’s car backing out of their driveway? She’d hear the thud and tell the neighbor it was my fault, apologize, and then scream at me about how selfish I was for trying to kill myself.

Get over this? How do you get over this? She had to control everything. My family. Her family. My job. The kids. The bills. The mail. The food. My friends (all gone while married as per her command). The exact amount of money I spent each day. My e-mails, texts, and number of miles on my car that I drove.

In other words, give her total control of my life. Simple, right? Unfortunately, I was terrible at this. I suspect most people would be. Most people would have walked away. But I am not most people. I did not. I come from a controlling family. And when my dad died (which only in my world would that happen nine days after my older one’s birth) all hell broke loose as everyone; I mean everyone tried to take control of the family.

My mother tried but continued to fail because her husband of 47 years did it so well that she had no idea how to do it. And well, let’s face it, my brother, my sister, and my wife were all transactional.

Each, in his or her own way always came by the house to check on her and had their hands out, and that poor woman just could not say no.

Sitting shiva for my dad my brother asked when the will was going to be read.

Upon learning that everything was left to our mother he packed up his family and was on the next plane for the coast. (This, by the way, was not awful. Six people adding to her mishegoss were now out of the house).

He called six months later and informed her that he and his wife were starting a new business. He asked for a loan of $50,000 AND when he could not meet payroll, a call immediately went to Boca Raton asking for help. 

The company went belly-up fourteen months later (after he missed payroll for the fifth time), and the loan was forgiven, much to the Narc’s chagrin. “Since they were given all that money, we are entitled to just as much. Tell your mother.”

And on a side note, the Narc paid close attention to my sister’s wardrobe. If she saw that she or her husband or their kids were wearing something new, she immediately informed me that it came from my mother and that we should be entitled to some new accouterments as well.

The enemy of good

I have written a manuscript about my years with the Narc. It’s a fictious version, but pretty accurate. Over the past six months, I have been turned down by over 300 agents, which tells me that maybe the public does not want a story about how a poor schlep and a psychopath ended up together, but it has not deflated me from talking about life in total fear and constant chaos.

Sitting in divorce court, my lawyer and I kept waiting for her to be reasonable and, of course, it never happened. I’m angry at the time wasted, the pain inflicted, the money squandered. I know it’s not good for me to hold on to this experience, but I just can’t let it go.

The judge in divorce court, on three separate occasions, told the Narc to stop playing games with our kids and to let her husband have communication with them.

A magistrate, on two separate occasions, told her that I had been paying child support and warned her about wasting the court’s time.

She made it her business to keep the kids away from me. Her energy level was off the chart. This is what I found fascinating about her. When she wanted something, she would not stop. She would wear everybody else out. She was relentless. 

She had two moves and was willing to die for them. The first was keeping my pre-marital property. I’ve spoken about this before but never explained it. By keeping my photo albums, family jewelry, paintings, signed memorabilia, she had control. Court orders be damned.

The next move? Our two sons. Come hell or high water, they were going to be kept away from me. No calls. No FaceTime. No social media. No Saturdays together as ordered by the court. The older one was pushing 18, so he’d be easy. The younger one? Well, he was 16. It would end up costing her her life, but she did it. The lies in court, to her family, to the moms and teachers at school, and finally to the boys. “You never saw the real him. The judge never saw the real him or his friends. You need protection from that man. He’s a monster.”

And that was it. She blocked their phone numbers from me and would text me the days before I was supposed to see our son that he was not ready to see me and that I needed to stay away. 

And what did I do? Court did not work. I went to see a few of his varsity basketball games and texted him that I thought he played really well.

No response but the Narc made sure, like when we were together, to read his texts.

She waited until his eighteenth birthday and went to her attorney. He drafted a letter saying that our son no longer wants me in his life. I now have no reason to see him play ball anymore or have the right to speak to his teachers. However, since he did not graduate until May, I still had to pay child support.

I spoke with my attorney who told me that we could go to court again and most likely win. But knowing what she is capable of, perhaps it’s not worth it. The expense and the wondering of how she would keep him away this time. “So,” he hells me, “I suggest you just move on with your life. She will not stop.”

P.S.

As I mentioned, she died. I learned she died two weeks after the funeral by total accident. It was purposely kept from me. I also learned that the Narc’s sister, with whom I thought I had a relationship, strong-armed me totally out of the picture. Both of my kids are considered young men by the state and I have been informed they want nothing to do with me. 

It is the most painful circumstance a parent could be forced to live with. Your children (does it matter if they are 2 or 22?) living in a world that does not include you. I think about them every day and wonder if that is why I am crying so much.

Moving On

I find recovery difficult. Even though I am no longer emotionally invested in my marriage, the 3-year divorce inflicted a lot of damage. This question of how to get over this got me thinking about how we recover from losses—especially breakups of intimate and important relationships, and especially those which are long term and involve marriage and, in their dissolution, divorce.

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are often trapped in a constant battle between wanting you and pushing you away. Post break- up that means they’ll insinuate themselves back into your life—even if it’s just to fire off an insulting text message (“You need your head examined!”) or ask an infuriating question (“What did I do that was so bad?”). It takes two people to end a relationship and many narcissists refuse to leave without a fight. Translation? Continued re-traumatization. 

That’s why recovering from a narcissist is something else entirely. Yes, I do blame myself for being so stupid. I realized almost immediately after the wedding. Yes, I am angry. She has made my life a living hell.

What makes a recovery from a narcissist different?

Everything good you’ve ever believed about human beings is contradicted. Every thought you’ve had about loyalty, experience, and truthfulness is denied. Every trope you’ve heard about marriage, love, and partnership is hammered into silence. Every idea you’ve had about human connection is trashed by the narcissist’s behavior.

Breakups and divorce are always painful but leaving and divorcing a narcissist is something else entirely and belies how recovery normally works. For example, research shows a correlation between an increased sense of self and growth after a relationship that was perceived as low in quality and which limited the self. This means that recovery from a relationship with a narcissist ought to be a walk in the park. Why isn’t it? Because it’s missing the Casablanca effect. Remember when I was talking about my tears? Well, let’s deep dive a bit, shall we?

Yes. I have given it a thoroughly unscientific name; you could also call it the “We’ll always have Paris” moment.

Remember the scene in Casablanca when you (the audience) and Ingrid Bergman believe that she’ll be staying with Humphrey Bogart, but he tells her she has to get on the plane with her husband? She looks at him and asks, “What about us?” and he answers, “We’ll always have Paris.” While their experience in Paris had been lost—when he could only feel the pain of having been abandoned—by understanding why she left him, that experience and the love felt had been regained.

In many concluded relationships, after the shouting has ended and what Daniel Gilbert has called our psychological immune system has kicked in (permitting us to remember all the not-so-wonderful things about our ex instead of crying our eyes out) there comes a moment of calm and detachment when we’re ready to start over. And with that comes the “We’ll always have Paris” moment when you actually remember some good times—and you’re okay with the memory. You can pick up a photograph of the two of you without wincing and maybe even smile.

That doesn’t happen with a narcissist. Please let me repeat that. It does not happen with a narcissist.

There is no “We’ll always have Paris” moment because Paris—every promise he or she made to you, every moment you spent together, everything you ever believed about your relationship and connection—has been strafed or burned to the ground.

You’re not recovering from love lost or even the failure of a marriage, but from warfare.

“Shell-shocked” is a word many survivors of narcissistic relationships use, and it fits, as does the military term “scorched earth,” which I used in conversation with my attorney to describe my ex-narc’s legal maneuvers.

Okay. Let’s get constructive, shall we?

Here are four reasons (I am sure there are more, but these are pretty solid) someone is likely to have trouble recovering from a relationship with a narcissist, as well as four things you can do to enable recovery:

1. Nothing was what it seemed.

This is a biggie, because what appeared to be about two people was really only about one—the narcissist. Once you have absorbed this truism, you will find yourself revisiting what you thought was going on between the two of you and what really was. This is wounding enough, and it segues right into the next point…

2. The misery of 20/20 hindsight.

The red flags that people always talk about—those signs that no intelligent person would ever miss but you did—spring up like your dog trying to grab the steak next to the barbeque- during the breakup, when everything you missed before or was hidden from view is suddenly in plain sight.

“One of the most dizzyingly disorienting experiences about uncovering layers of lies is that you end up questioning your judgment about everything, especially if you had a partner who covered his or her tracks by trying to convince you that you were ‘crazy’ or ‘paranoid.’”

Personally, I found this more devastating and painful than anything else, recognizing that I extended my hand and was led right down the garden path. Connecting the dots and seeing how you managed to collude with the narcissist’s efforts to control and ultimately bilk you make you relive the emotional moments again and again, which doesn’t help you move on one bit.

3. You feel like a fool. 

Those of us who are insecurely attached—alas, the very people least likely to recognize the narcissist to begin with—are also inclined to fall into the damaging trap of self-criticism, ascribing something bad in your life to immutable and permanent deficiencies in your character, instead of seeing them as a series of mistakes or missteps that anyone could have made. It’s easy to fall into self-criticism in the aftermath of a run-in with a narcissist. You may think, “Only someone as dumb and naïve as I am could have been taken in by her,” or “There’s something really wrong or missing in me that I didn’t see who she was.”

This kind of thinking is a serious impediment to your emotional recovery.

It’s one thing to take responsibility for mistakes you made—deciding to mollify your partner, being hesitant to leave when you knew you needed to, handing out second, third, and fiftieth chances—and another to beat yourself up for connecting with him or her in the first place. People who self-criticize are more likely to ruminate and get caught in a cycle of repetitive thoughts, which also get in the way of recovery.

Self-blame is shockingly common in people who’ve left a pathological narcissist. If you tell yourself you’re the problem, all you have to do is change and you’re finally free of the pain. This is a handy bit of self-deception when your partner has no intention of changing, but one that completely erodes your self-esteem.

4. You feel utterly powerless. 

A narcissist self-regulates by feeling powerful and in control. To be able to do that, he or she needs someone to push around, which is why it’s impossible to stop the narcissistic train. When you’re robbed of a sense of agency in one important arena—when you’re in a defensive crouch and unable to be proactive—it’s very hard to stay emotionally balanced and in control in other parts of your life, except in superficial ways. Yes, you’re getting out of bed, doing your work, and paying your bills, but much of the time you’re on autopilot. That gets in the way of recovery—as does financial anxiety, fear, and a host of other unpleasant emotions.

Things You Can Do to Speed Up the Healing

Recognizing how traumatic and profoundly distressing your experience has been is an important first step.

You must take care of yourself like you are recovering from a bad illness. Surround yourself with positive things. Try extremely hard to not let your anger, resentment, and hurt destroy you. It will eat away at your insides and turn you into one big ball of rage. When you experience this depth of betrayal from someone you thought you could trust with your life, it cuts you to your very soul. 

You can use specific strategies to try to get off the emotional rollercoaster and to make sure that the experience doesn’t shape you in ways that set you back, without putting on rose-color glasses or denying the pain. I’m not a believer in the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” (What doesn’t kill you takes time off your life and makes you miserable).

1. Use cool processing.

As you think about the events and experiences of the relationship, ask yourself why you felt the way you did, not what you were feeling. Understanding your feelings will permit you to label them more precisely and allow you to manage your emotions more effectively. Try to see the events from a distance or imagine that they happened to someone else. All these distancing techniques—and making sure that you are asking why—can help you stop reliving the moments and prevent emotional flooding. 

Journaling and writing about experiences have been shown to help an individual develop greater understanding and a more coherent narrative of life’s events, but be aware that writing about divorce or breakups appears to be an exception because it may shift you into a “hot” processing mode.

2. Personalize, don’t generalize.

People become embittered and armored because they wrongly extract the lessons learned from the behavior of one individual and apply them to all individuals—or all men or women. If you hear yourself saying things like “All men are control freaks,” or “Women will do anything to get their way,” stop and remind yourself that you are talking about one bad apple, not an orchard.

3. Practice self-compassion.

It’s easy to either find yourself hosting the pity party of the century or submerging yourself in an ocean of self-criticism. Instead, work on developing self-compassion, which Doctor Kristin Neff describes as a three-step process:

• First, instead of judging yourself, be kind and understanding. Rather than berating yourself for being stupid enough to get involved with a narcissist in the first place, be gentle and understand how it was that you mistakenly thought the person was someone else. 
• Second, see your experiences not as unique but as part of the larger human experience—meaning that anyone could find themselves in these circumstances. As my twelth grade journalism teacher used to say, you are neither the first nor the last to live life imperfectly.
• Third, be aware of your painful feelings without over-identifying with them. She uses the buzzword “mindfulness.” It’s more useful to keep the idea of cool processing first and foremost in your consciousness—permitting yourself to be fully aware of your feelings while maintaining enough distance that you don’t relive them.

4. Take the high road.

If you are unlucky enough to be involved in an ongoing conflict with your narcissist, fight the urge to engage and strike back, especially if you are in a custody battle. Don’t answer badmouthing, keep a record of it. Trashing him or her publicly will make you momentarily feel better, but it also re-engages you—and that’s exactly what the narcissist wants. If you don’t react, the puppeteer can’t pull the strings.

Think tortoise, not hare, as you work at recovery. The pace may be slow, but you’ll get there, keeping the goal in sight.

And Now

I miss my boys. I cannot say it enough. Every day that we are apart is another day of their lives that I am missing.

I know they have changed. They are young men and not the boys I remember but it can never change how I feel about them. I love them and wonder how they are and where they are. 

It’s just as well they are not around, if they were, I’d probably hug them and cry.

There are numerous ways parents of estranged children are not honest with themselves. We create our own stories about what we think happened, and many times it does not include any mistakes that we feel were bad enough to warrant the estrangement. It is too painful for many of us to see that we did hurt our child.

I was certainly guilty of this. Because we always did our best, and never intended to harm our children, we don’t want to see the ways we did. It takes a great deal of courage to pull the curtain back and see the wizard in all his frail humanity operating the smoke and mirrors. When I did, I could see that I have lied to myself.

I married her. I was involved in creating them. I watched what she was doing not just to me but to them. I was there. I saw her frustrate the 8th-grade basketball coach so much that he left our son off the varsity roster when he was one of the two best players on the team. I took him out of class that afternoon upon learning he was the final cut. We went for ice cream sundae’s and just talked. That’s what I did for him. In retrospect, it was a terrific moment. We ate ice cream and just talked. I did more listening than talking and will never forget how I was his father and was there when he needed me. For the remainder of the day and night, I listened to the Narc shout at me about how it was the coach’s fault and one of the mother’s faults and the principal’s fault.

That’s on me. I was out trying to make a living while the Narc was with them. My issues with her should have no bearing on my kids, but they do. They despise me because of her. They believe her stories. While I have no intention of reliving revisionist history with them, I want all of this to end. I just want to start over. Is that even possible?

To be clear, they hate me for me. And that is pain. My pain. My life became them. Then because I do not fight, they were forced to live without me. And to them, that was pain. So, I caused pain to them.

And selfishly, I want to know how they are. Where they are. How school is. How they are holding up during COVID. I want to know everything about them. I want to give them the advice a father gives a son who is growing into adulthood. I want to tell them I love them. I want to…

The Narc made it clear to her sister that she had to keep me out of their lives. And oh, how she is complying with that deathbed wish!

But I must move forward and pray they are doing well. It’s up to me to steady my ship, release the anger, heal, and be ready for the day they want to be (re) introduced to their father. As much as those voices tell me that day will never come, my support group of my very close friends informs me otherwise. “When you least expect it,” they say.

For now, well, it’s Ghost. Oy, Sam and Molly are sharing a tearful goodbye to get closure.