A Narcissist’s Final Move
Don’t let it fool you
I begged my ex-husband to seek help for what we gently referred to as his “anger issues”.
But he thought therapists were hippie freaks, and psychiatrists were drug pushers. He had an Archie Bunker philosophy that made even taking a Valium a clear sign of weakness. So for twenty years, he held on firmly to his beliefs and raged at us at will as we suffered silently.
We tip-toed, made excuses, lied for each other, and bent ourselves to his will in order to avoid an outburst. It required a lot of attention and focus, but being careful was better than the alternative.
In what was to be the last year of our marriage, he shocked me with the proclamation that he was seeing a social worker. This came a full year after I confessed that I was unhappy. . . a full year of him watching me go to therapy to “fix my problem”.
But he was talking to someone? A professional? He was willing to change? He was even talking about going on a couple’s retreat!
I wept. I told him this was the thing that might save us. I even believed it.
Until I didn’t.
I went with him to this social worker. She had us sit in chairs facing one another. She said she could save our marriage in eight sessions. She talked about what a beautiful love story we had, and how much he loved me. She rolled out a dry erase board and made two columns.
We were to each list three things about our marriage that we were dissatisfied with. Then, we had to consider our personal responsibility in order to understand that blaming the other person wasn’t the solution. In my column, it said that I felt emotionally unsafe. I asked her incredulously, “How could I bear any responsibility for feeling emotionally unsafe?”
She suggested that if I didn’t like the way he was speaking to me — I could say something emphatic like, “I won’t let you speak to me that way, and if you continue to, I will leave.”
I shook my head and told her, “Well, that wouldn’t work.” She was doubtful, and innocently asked, “How would you respond if she said that?”
He sharply replied, “I would tell her to go.” The social worker jumped back, startled.
He smugly continued with, “And I’d tell her not to let the door hit her on the way out.”
I looked at her and said, “He’s mean, but he’s not a liar.”
I attended two more sessions with him, not because I thought it would help, but because it seemed the “right thing to do”. I was thinking if my kids asked me one day if I tried, I could say that we went to therapy together.
But this “therapy” felt like an ambush. She was charmed by him, and I was the bitch who was leaving.
At what was to be our very last session, I asked him if I could have a moment alone with the social worker. I carefully explained to her, “We are getting a divorce. I have been in therapy for a year, and have learned that he is emotionally abusive. I can’t save my marriage, but I can save myself. I hope you will help him because I want him to be better for our kids.”
She didn’t answer me, but nodded and glanced at me in a way that I’m not sure was befuddled or condescending. She didn’t seem to believe me.
He had fooled her, as he had been fooling me for years. I can almost forgive her because he’s so good at the game.
He had made his final move and played all of his cards. It was the very first time I didn’t fall for it.
You need to get far enough out that when you step back into it, you can see the manipulation for what it is.
Before he moved out, he told me, “Everyone knows you have mental problems. That’s why you’re in therapy.”
He told me, “I gave you everything and you threw it away. You’re such a terrible person.”
He says to me now when I don’t accept his broken promises or the way he disappoints the kids, “I don’t know what happened to you. You’ve changed.”
He’s right. I have changed. He hasn’t.
And I’m not playing his game anymore.
