Marital Woes Without Marriage

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The Raging Storm

The smooth and handsome narcissist (narc) had been denied my hand in marriage. I mutely expressed my displeasure with his proposal. I never spoke on it. I never said a word. Even when he confronted me about it, I remained mute. I just listened to his deafening tone express how angry he was that he had wasted his time going through all the trouble to pour out his heart of platitudes for me. Despite the anger that he expressed, I saw a simmering rage within the chambers of his chest that he dared not let out with me. His rage was the seething kind.

In studying about people with narcissistic personality disorder, I learned about narcissistic rage. This rage is an outburst of intense anger or silence that the narcissist experiences as a result of a perceived or actual setback. This rage of disappointment can be experienced as explosive or passive. If explosive, the narcissist will yell, scream, hurl insults, and even become aggressive towards others. They may even threaten to harm others or themselves. If rage is passive, the narcissist will punish others with the silent treatment by sulking and refusing to engage at all.

The narcissist’s rage occurs because deep down the narcissist’s illusions of grandiosity, entitlement, and superiority triggers inner inadequacy, shame and vulnerability (Ni, 2018). In the case of the smooth and handsome narcissist of my story, his rage was activated because he was not getting his way, he had suffered the narcissistic injury of my rejection to his proposal, and he saw himself losing control over me. Despite his promises of change and a grand future with me, I had chosen to take a job out of the state. I was preparing for a move. The smooth and handsome narcissist was unhinged.

The Big Move

Despite the rage that the smooth and handsome narcissist displayed, I was unmoved and proceeded with preparations to begin a new journey towards advancing my career. I planned to move, and I was moving without the narcissist. I needed a fresh start. I needed change. I needed to be with out him. I believed that I loved him, but since the proposal, I remember the still small voice that told me that I did not actually love him. I did not love him at all. I loved the grand illusion that he presented to me. I loved the charisma, the sense of humor, and the manly protection I believed he provided me.

On the flip side, however, the smooth and handsome narcissist was mean in spirit. He crushed my own spirit every chance that he could do so. He insulted me and made such disparaging remarks against me. I often felt unloved by him, and he made sure that I knew that I was unloved by expressing his love for everyone else but me. I always felt that something was wrong with me despite my intelligence. I was never really sure of anything around him. I felt completely disrespected and disregarded by him. He let me know that I was lucky to have him … that I was lucky to have been chosen by him since I was not the most attractive woman … a downgrade from his normal beauties. In fact, he would often tell me that I had “the face that only my mother could possibly love”, and he was not so sure she loved me either.

So, this was the man that I was moving away from, and inside of myself I was excited to be running to freedom. I was escaping so much. I was finally going to be free from so many entanglements that fueled my battle with depression. I was leaving an area where I felt bound and constricted for just being me, and I had been “me” long before the smooth and handsome narcissist entered my life. I had been “me” since birth. Yet, that “me” had never been accepted and always needed to cower to the voices that silenced me with their onslaught of vicious words and other abuses. I was unable to be me freely in this place. So leaving to start some place new was a major turning point in my life. I needed this change. I needed to move. I no longer saw marriage as my ticket to a changed and happy life especially if I had to marry the smooth and handsome narcissist.

A Surprise Pregnancy

Three weeks after I had silently denounced the smooth and handsome narcissist’s proposal, I moved to begin my job in another state. It was a major change for me, and it represented a freedom that I had never quite known. Outside of college life where I was open to a new world after first leaving the home of my parents, this move was different. This was a move that I had made all on my own, and I was moving with the best of wishes and worst of regrets. They were not my wishes or regrets, they were the wishes and regrets of others. Nevertheless, I was starting on my own without attachments and without entanglements … or so I thought.

For two months, the smooth and handsome narcissist came to visit me. He continued to keep up the pretense that he loved me and wanted things to work between us. For a time, I almost began to believe him. However, I was starting a new life, and I often felt like the narcissist did not mesh with my new life. I felt like he was still stuck somewhere else. I felt as if we were in two different geographic planes, and in a literal sense we were because he did travel from another state to see me. Yet, I was feeling somewhat suffocated by him while struggling to hang on to him because he represented familiarity. I thought that maybe he would change. I thought that maybe my being in a new state was increasing his desire to change.

At some point, however, he began the narcissistic discard phase with me. He soon began making comments that I might be better off without him, that I might meet someone else, and that I might even want to consider dating just to see if marriage was still an option with him. Strangely, this was the first time since he had re-entered my life after our breakup time that I could actually “feel” the meaning behind his words. He was preparing to discard me for sure. He had come to hate hearing about my new life even though he pretended to listen and smile his way through my expressive details. He had come to treat my new job and my new apartment with disdain, but he also treated me as if I were ignorant about my new surroundings. He always ended up educating me about the areas surrounding my neighborhood since he was more familiar with the city even though he had never lived there nor had ever lived outside of our previous state.

I was not sure about what was going on, but I knew that he was preparing me for discard. My heart knew this. My heart felt this. My heart felt broken over this. Although I had not accepted his proposal, I still felt as if I was the one being discarded as trash. I had not accepted his proposal because I needed time to develop trust. I could not see why he did not understand that. Did he not realize how badly he had hurt me … how badly he had broken my heart? Did he not realize that his continuous cycle of abuses against me damaged me in a way that I could not fully trust myself to completely trust him? I did not trust his words to me of love, but I trusted his words to me of hate. Is that not puzzling?

Only three months after moving into my new place and starting fresh, I found out there was going to be a baby on the way. A baby is always exciting news, but I was not even aware of the announcement of this news until someone else told me. A mutual friend that the narcissist and I shared had visited with me bringing me a pregnancy announcement that would confirm the discernment and intuitive “knowing” I could never put my finger on in the past. If I were having a baby, that might have been great, but it was not me. The mutual friend announced to me that the smooth and handsome narcissist was about to become a father. He was having a baby. The ex-girlfriend of his ex-best friend was pregnant, and he was the father!

A Prenuptial Showdown

Preceding predicted upcoming nuptials, I decided to pay the smooth and handsome narcissist a visit. It was a must. In my heart of hearts, I had to see for myself that all of what I was told by a mutual friend was truth. I could understand the narcissist’s desire to move on from me, but the timetable for events did not add up in a mathematical sense. I had only moved to a new state three weeks after his proposal, and he was continuing to see me up until his preparation for a discard and up until the mutual friend visited me. In fact, because the mutual friend was connected to him through familial bonds, I was certain that she was his messenger. She was sent to prepare me because he did not have the guts to tell me the truth himself.

Needless to say, I visited him, and once in the area, I contacted him. He agreed to meet with me. Not one for being purposefully rude, I congratulated him on the news of his new girlfriend’s pregnancy. From there, a circular conversation began in which he evaded a multitude of answers to my many questions. According to him, he was planning to do what needed to be done to take care of his child, but he wanted us to be able to work things out. I was dumbfounded by the fact he believed we could actually worth things out with him starting a family. I wondered how he even knew that he loved me based on his behavior. I was hurt. I felt hurt even though I may not have had the right to feel hurt. After all, I did reject his marriage proposal. I did move away. Yet, I still felt hurt. I was literally in pain. I felt sick to my stomach.

What proceeded from my mouth next shocked me, but I said to him that there was no possible way that he could love this woman, a woman he had cheated with behind his best friend’s back all within a matter of less than six months prior to his being with his then girlfriend. Even though I saw the rage build within his eyes, I kept talking. I further exclaimed that he was a two-timing backstabber who had destroyed his friendship with his best friend all so he could have what his best friend had while pretending to actually love me. I continued saying that all that time he had lied to me, and he had been cheating on me before we were even beginning to rekindle our broken relationship. I told him that it was obvious to me that this new woman had always been there, and he had been lying to me the entire time. I further told him that he only settled for this new woman, not because she was pregnant, but, because I did not want to marry him.

When I told him that his plan to have me back in his life had backfired and had ended, instead, with his rejection, his rage exploded. I had hit a nerve. He looked at me as if he wanted to do more than hit me. His rage made his eyes appear as blackened holes that I could fall into and never find my way out of and back to safety. For a moment, it even felt as if time stood still so that I could take in all that the narcissist was in that moment. I was filled with anger myself … so much anger that I felt no fear. I saw the danger in his eyes, but I was not moved at all. His eyes beckoned me, but my eyes were defiant. Our gazes maintained a steady lock until our gazes were broken by his yell for me to go home. So I did. I walked away, got into my car, and drove home with the intention of never speaking to him again. He had been caught. He had been brought low. We were done.

A Wedding

Around two months after our confrontational episode, the narcissist gave me a call. I no longer regarded him as the smooth and handsome narcissist. He was neither smooth nor handsome to me anymore. I had seen him for who really was as a person even though his mask had been falling around me for the length of our entire relationship. He claimed that he called me because he wanted to see how I was doing. This, to me, this seemed odd because I did not regard him as my friend anymore. I did not know it then, but his phone call was a fishing reel with a string to hook me back in; he was hoovering me back into his vortex of craziness.

I responded that I was fine and returned the question for his response. I imagined that he would explain how great his life was going with a new baby on the way, but he never mentioned it. Instead, he delivered pleasantries of love and explained how much he missed me. I was saddened that he was trying to con me. My heart raced to close this door of madness that I felt every time he entered back into my life. I was still struggling with major depressive episodes, and his continual gravitational pull towards me only made matters worse. Inside of myself, I felt a pressure build within me. I wanted to explode, but I was not angry. I needed to be free of him. I needed him to stop talking. I needed him to go away.

I had moved to another state to begin a new life, but how could I really begin a new life with an attachment from my past who weakened me? He sounded as if he was never going to change and that he was okay with settling for a life in which people disposable to him. I likened his smooth talking to a person with a forked tongue. He was like a snake slithering towards me to capture me with lies. He had not once mentioned his pregnant girlfriend. So I brought her up. I eased the tension that I was filling. There was a massive explosion of words that came pouring from my mouth that I could not have stopped if I wanted to stop them. I, myself, felt totally dissociated from the words. I felt that I was watching and listening to both narcissist and myself talk on the phone.

I told the narcissist that he was about to become a father, and that life was going to be incredibly different. He was getting ready for a new life, and that new life, that baby, was going to change his world forever. I told him that it was okay for him to do the right thing and that I was stepping aside for him to do so. I told him that he should probably go ahead and marry the mother-to-be. It was the right thing to do and that I had no right to have told him that he did not love her. I told him that he could love as he wished, and he could love as he wanted. I wished him the best, and I told him that I simply told him to be happy, and if he was happy, then that was good enough for me.

Our conversation ended, and we both said goodbye. Prior to the ending, there was a calm silence over the phone. There was a stillness. It was a final goodbye. It was a final goodbye for me. The smooth and handsome narcissist was getting married but I was not going to be his bride. My heart was dying on the inside. When we both hung up, I cried. I curled up into a fetal position, and I cried. I did not cry for him, however. I cried for me. I was finally free. I was finally free to walk away. I was finally free from his narcissistic abuse. I was finally free to live without the games. I cried so hard that I stretched out to laugh. Then, I laughed so hard that my stomach ached, and I did not think I could stop laughing. It was a new day. It was a new day. I was stepping into a new day, and I realized that I had dodged all of the marital woes without marriage to the narcissist.

Reference

Ni, Preston (2018). Understanding narcissism’s destructive impact on relationships – An indispensable reader. PNCC.