Narcissistic Abuse Survival

I’m going to make this next chapter as short and sweet as possible. There are other topics that I want to get into, but I still feel that the base story is important here. At the time, it seemed normal enough and I want to share that. Knowing my experience, and listening to most others who have endured this kind of abuse, it isn’t usually until the “end” that you realize, or start to realize, how abusive and traumatic the relationship really was.

The first half of 2009, from what I recall, was fairly normal. In 2008 Sly moved out of his apartment and into a friend’s house, and I still lived back at home with my parents. I was working at a CPA firm, and he was still working for the company where his uncle hired him. We would see each other on weekends, and a night or two during the week. On the weekends, we would usually be out at a bar somewhere or at darts. There was always alcohol involved. That seemed to be the thing, and still is today, at least for him.

As summer drew closer that year, I noticed that there was growing distance and space between us. I questioned it, and him, several times. He stopped taking my calls, answering texts, and just acted like he didn’t want to be around me. I made every attempt I could to communicate with him, but it fell on deaf ears.

That summer I went on a trip to Cocoa Beach and then to Orlando with Sly, his sister and his parents. His mom had a work function, and thought it would be a good family trip. The first day I spent with his sister at the beach, where we met some new friends, drank and danced and had one of the best days. During that trip we also went to Arabian Knights, and I spent a lot of time with his sister but not so much him.

He always hated the beach, and always had something negative to say about other people or something involving the activities we were doing. As the weekend progressed, the more detached we became and it came to the point where we weren’t even speaking to each other. He acted like he was miserable. On the way home at the end of the weekend, I attempted to get him to talk to me. He refused, and acted like it was me that did something wrong. “I don’t know why you have to act like this!” he’d say.

Needless to say, a couple of days after we got back home I ended things…. At this point, he’s now living on my brother’s couch. He refused to answer the phone, or texts, or anything. I actually tried calling from a payphone, and he answered, and as soon as I said hello, he hung up. I drove to my brother’s house, and good ol’ Sly was there. He did come outside, and I said to him “you’ve got about two minutes to say something to me, or that’s it.”. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and I could have (wish I would have) knocked the smirk right off of his face. That was it. I was crushed, but I always bounce back fairly quickly.

That summer was one of the best times of my life. I spent hours with friends, I drank, I partied and I was happy. I met some wonderful people, and made some amazing memories.

One night in early July I was at the bar and I got a text… from Sly. It said “can we talk tomorrow?”. I haven’t heard from him in months. It was over. It was done. And now a text….

I’m not sure exactly what I said at first, but I know I was thinking a lot about what had been, the summer, where I was, and what I wanted. I was still young and apparently naïve. That next day would be the day that I made a decision that would change the rest of my life… I knew this before I responded with “I have to be home tomorrow to do some things, but you can meet me there”.

I know I said in my first post that I wasn’t going to go into detail with the “narcissistic words”, but I will reference them from time to time. Narcissists do what they call discarding. The summer of 2009, I was discarded. Another term is hoovering… essentially where they try and suck you back in.

That Sunday in early July of 2009, I was sucked back in. Truth be told, I have always been an open book. I say too much, I think too much, and if you talk to me, I’ll sit there and tell you my whole life story. Of course I tell those close to me everything in my messed up little mind, including my deepest, darkest secrets and fears. For someone who seemed to have a terrible memory, Sly remembered those things that I once told him about myself. He sat there, without prompts or notes, and literally poured his little (evil, hateful) heart out to me. He said he messed up, he’d realized what he lost and that I was the best thing to ever happen to him. It didn’t matter to him that I had anxiety, that we could get past it, we’d just have to work together. We’d move in together, we’d get married one day and we’d have kids… not just one but four! <- I want y’all to remember this part for later in the story…. It was everything I needed to hear; it was everything I wanted in my life; it was everything I dreamed of.

In September, the 9th to be exact, we moved into our first apartment together. I had just lost my job, quit actually because I hated it, and I was starting school for elementary education. I had also just started Paxil for my anxiety, as it was “agreed” that I could be a little out of control and maybe some medication would help us work through things. At least that’s what I was told… and agreed to. I mean, after all, this was the start of the rest of my life that I’d always wanted… I had to do my part, right?

Every day I’d look for a job, clean, cook, do school work. We’d still pay darts on Tuesday nights. He’d go to work every day and each week his check would get deposited into our new joint checking account. I was given a certain amount each week that I was allotted to spend on groceries or anything that we needed, and I was made to be in charge of paying any and all of the bills. I was never given usernames and passwords, but he would give me amounts for his credit cards to pay each month through bill pay. Honestly, at the time, I never thought anything of it and never asked questions.

In March of 2010, we adopted a pup from the SPCA. Well, she was estimated to be about a year old. She was a black whippet – lab mix, and I loved her. Soon afterwards, on March 15th, I would start the job where I still work today. Yeah, I never finished my bachelor’s to be a teacher, but more on that later as to why.

March 17th comes up… St. Patrick’s Day. Sly’s favorite holiday, really the only holiday he seemed to like and the one I could care less about. But, one thing I learned is that narcissists either want you to remember a holiday or event, or they want to ruin it for you. In this case, he wanted me to remember it. March 17th, 2010… the day he proposed. I had gone home after work, and got changed, because of course we were going downtown to Molly McHugh’s. I’m not going to bore you with the meaningless details of the ten minute walk towards the lake, and his sorry excuse for a proposal… All I thought to myself, is this year is turning out to be great! I got a great job (that I struggled with for months), the best dog, and now I’m engaged!

The only thing I remember after this was working, going to school (online), playing darts on Tuesdays… and arguing. It was always the same argument. We were literally roommates who barely spoke, and never spent time together. He was gone at work half the time, and I was home alone. When we’d talk at night he was always drinking, and I rarely knew where he was or when he was coming home. It was always a “maybe”. I found porn on the computer, and then I found a credit card statement that showed several transactions equaling over two thousand dollars for a one night trip he took to Key West, on a business trip, by himself. When I questioned it, I was told that I shouldn’t be looking through this things and if I was going to be a good wife, I needed to trust him, and that he wasn’t doing anything he wasn’t supposed to. What was I going to do?

He would go out on nights, with certain people he worked with, or would go over to their houses on a weekend night without me. If I ever chose to even ask if I could go out for dinner or a drink with a friend, I was told that I shouldn’t be going out, that I had things to do at home. If I was going somewhere, he’d be with me. Darts was always my thing. He of course, had to make it his thing as well.

Next post will start in January of 2011… where my world would be turned upside down because of a mistake he made, but I paid the price…