Who Knew I Would Be
Single While Married ?
Maybe it’s because I’m a “people person,” or maybe it’s just because I’m a person, but I love laughing with others. I love sharing ideas, hopes, and dreams. I love playing interactive games. I love getting to know others and what makes them tick…
When married to a narcissist, all of that is stolen from you. In my case, he had no desire to listen to me, much less laugh with me or hear my hopes and dreams. He stopped playing games with me just weeks after we married - all family games would happen without his participation. He thought he knew everything he needed to know about me, so conversations were useless. He refused to attend couples’ events in churches. often refused to attend family events, and once the grandchildren started coming along and I planned sleep-overs and special events with them, he refused to participate and often called or texted from another room in the house to tell me to quiet them down.
The years of loneliness cannot be regained. These years where children and others need me less - the years that I had looked forward to spending and enjoying some free time with my spouse: well, he is doing it with someone else: not the spouse who gave him the majority of her adult life, not the spouse who was with him through sickness, through trials, through job losses, through all of the things that make up life - I’m left alone, to manage alone, to remember alone, to grow old alone.
My experience was that I woke up one morning, just days after marrying my narcissist, and wondered where is the man I married? I did not love the narcissist. I didn’t choose to marry the narcissist. I didn’t choose to bring this self-centered man into the lives of my sons. I loved the man he portrayed himself to be. I loved the man who spent hours in the yard investing in my children. I loved the man who talked with me for long hours on the phone. I loved the man who looked at me lovingly and promised to take care of us. That man was gone. “WHAT HAVE I DONE?”
As stated, I was widowed before marrying my narcissist. I parented, traveled, shopped, slept, went to church, and attended events ALONE. One of the things that I struggle over when I think about life with my narcissist is that doing life with someone has been stolen from me. He married me with the promise of sharing life, but in reality, I’ve had to continue to do most of life alone while married to him, and of course, since his leaving.
Single parenting while married to a narcissist is a very real thing. It is also more difficult than single parenting while widowed. The difference? When you are widowed, others understand that you are a single parent and offer understanding and help. When you are married to a narc and single-parenting, you are doing your best to meet the needs of the children, while waiting for the inevitable critique and criticism of your spouse. Make any decisions as to what is best for the child/children, and you’d better be prepared to suffer the punishment/consequences. In my case, it could range from months of silence to public ridicule to being left stranded when there was a real need that involved the decision I’d made without permission.
There are so many parts of this type of relationship that bring pain and leave wounds. One of the most difficult things for me was living as a single woman, a single parent, while married.
More often than not, I felt the additional pressure of handling most of the responsibilities alone, expecting his criticism and mocking of how I carried out those responsibilities without any of the benefits of his love. “What do you mean by that last statement, Torrianna?” An example of a repeated situation: I spent all of my days and nights with my children. I was responsible for their education, for getting them to their extracurriculars, for getting them to church and other activities during the week, for getting them to doctor’s appointments and caring for them when sick or injured… all of it - and I didn’t mind any of it; I wanted to do everything that I needed to do for them. I would have benefited greatly, however, if I had the support of my husband, even if only a “Thank you” here and there. However, all I got was lectures about how I was failing, how our children were not up to par, and how I was responsible for that. My husband would come home from work and pull me aside, telling me that one of the children had done or said something that he didn’t approve of, and I needed to address it and fix it. Often, he would send a text from work, accusing one of them of wrong motives or behavior, telling me I was naive if I didn’t see it or believe him, and ordering me to carry out what discipline he ordered. When I dared to disagree with his assessment or ‘solution,’ he would say that I had changed and was no longer acting as the submissive wife that I claimed to be. This would be followed by the punishment of the silent treatment (for days, weeks, or even months) and under his breath criticisms of me to anyone who would listen. (For anyone who feels that this sounds trivial or expecting too much on my part - I risk those opinions in sharing. For those who have lived in it or are living in it; you understand that this isn’t a “sometimes” event but a lifestyle that is crushing - and that truly little by little exhausts the spouse as well as depletes her of any confidence she may have at one time had in her ability to fulfil her role as wife nad mother.
There is a difference in being alone and being lonely. This becomes very clear when married to a narcissist - I love occasional solitude where I can think and work and pray and focus on becoming more of who I should be. Loneliness, however, is hard! While married to a true narcissist, I sat in restaurants with him and was lonely, I sat at home with him in the room and was lonely, I walked through stores or events with him and was lonely. A true narcissist has no interest in you, what you have to say or what you would like to be doing - he is so wrapped up in his own desires that you can be beside him and be more lonely than if you were physically alone.