When I was divorcing my husband of 20 years after finally realizing that my kids and I could not go on enduring the financial hardship and psychological abuse that he had wrought, I reached out to his family who I had known since I was in my mid 20s to let them know that I would like to remain amicable and on good terms since they were the aunts and uncles of my five children Unfortunately no one responded.
Seven years later we would lose two of those children to suicide. Following the Mass for my second son in January of this year, one of the brothers purposefully approached me at the church though I was studiously avoiding everyone and just trying to keep myself together, standing next to my best friend and my father, eyes cast down to close out my surroundings. I had lost my sister in July of that year and my first son in February of that year. It has been a year of loss and tragedy, and I was not interested in dealing with my ex-husband’s family at the funeral for a second time. When I had enters the church they had been poised in a large semicircle, all 13 of them with their children as well, staring me down. I had kept my head down and avoided eye contact.
Nevertheless, he approached me, put his arm around me. He is a large man and there was no shirking away. He said said “whatever we can do here for you months later while at my daughter‘s cheer competition in A location hundreds of miles from my home I reflected on his offer and being in the mindset to take help where it was offered, though it is not typically my nature I sent him a what I believed was a respectfully worded email recollecting his offer and listing three opportunities For him to assist my children. I believed these were reasonable and moderate requests. I was shocked when he responded with a vindictive attacking email accusing me of abandoning my marriage for no reason and irresponsibly involving my kids who I was trying to help me healthy and happy in the week of their brother‘s loss in expensive competitive travel sports. The email is attached with reductions of names.
This was the first time I realized that the narcissistic tendencies of my former husband had come from the stream that ran downhill from their father and perhaps further down the line. My former husband had told me that his father long deceased used to beat his daughters physically including punching them in the head.
When you leave a situation that involves abuse and narcissism, it is hardly ever without lasting repercussions. You begin to realize that that situation was not created spontaneously.
It made me realize that I need to be intentional with my children to help them be good people respect, respectful of others and not follow abusive tendencies, and narcissistic traits. The challenges that when you have lived 22 years within narcissist and are forced to “coparent” with them for another eight years, it can rub off on you making you take on their tendencies and characteristics as a defense mechanism in conversations and communications with them, as well as sometimes with others it is something that must purposefully be observed, and attended to.
Notes From Real Life 