September 2, 2018, turned out to be a Sunday afternoon like no other. What started as a normal hamburger, hotdog, and French fry family meal quickly became the most bizarre of the bizarre confrontations in my marriage. While my youngest daughter was preparing to make hamburgers, I started prepping the deep fryers for the French fries. This was a common weekend family meal that we made as often as once a month. All seemed fairly normal, but that would soon change. Emerging from his windowless hole...the office in the garage, my abuser stomped into the kitchen and declared, "You know what I always hated about our church picnics?" The question struck me odd. My brain quickly raced to remember when he had ever attended a church picnic and what had gone wrong. The only recollection I had was when our oldest son almost drowned at age 6 in Gator Bay. That was a pretty bad church picnic experience in my book. But I couldn't make the connection to why he was bringing it up 13 years later. Let me step out of my story for one moment to say, it's not uncommon for a narcissist to bring up the very distant past. They are incapable of experiencing life and accepting that bad things happen. Narcissists see the world as full of people to blame for things that happen...or things they imagined have happened. And everything happens "to" them. Before I could even articulate a guess, he informed me angrily, "Deep-fried hotdogs!" If ever there was meme face for What The ____, I am sure I was making it. Deep-fried hotdogs? My brain couldn't even process the idea. It would be months before corndogs ever occured to me. And I was still trying to figure out when he had ever attended a church picnic in recent years. Trying to diffuse the situation and get back to prepping for dinner, I calmly shrugged and said, "I've never seen anyone deep fry a hotdog." He continued on and I responded flatly that "I didn't know, and I didn't care." Of course, that was the wrong answer. Narcissistic abusers must be heard. They must be believed. And they must be worshipped for their ever so enlightening thoughts, their gifts to the world around them, a world full of lesser individuals who just doesn't understand how great they are. He hurled insults and names at me and stomped back into his office. But I knew it wouldn't be the last of it. Sure enough, not too many moments later, he returned. He demanded that he "talk to me" in the bedroom. He didn't care that I was in the middle of deep-frying fries. I was forced to follow him. Forced because narcissistic abusers cannot be denied. In the bedroom, he made threats about "cutting [me] off" and abandoning me. He said I would be "all alone" and that no one would "want" me. I stood there blank-faced and bored through his rant. Over the years, I had heard these things and so many others so often from him that I simply stopped caring. Sadly, I had accepted that this is what my marriage was...a narcissistic abuser seeking to control everyone in the home and exploding over the smallest of things. I tried to keep distance between us, but he kept trying to close it. When I asked him not to come any closer, he lowered his shoulders and stomped 3 steps towards me. So, I turned, reached down, and grabbed my purse to retrieve my 9 mm. I took the safety off. I kept it pointed at an angle across my body to my left and pointed down. He taunted me to "just do it". I calmly explained, "I know the law. I know my rights. Every time you have beaten me; I have been unarmed. I'm not unarmed today." He continued to taunt me to shoot him. He loudly insisted that the gun was pointed at him even though it wasn't. At one point he made a very childish ridiculous taunt saying, "I triple dare you to do it." I stared at him with a bored expression. I was not going to be provoked. I merely stood ready to defend myself should I need to against the narcissistic abuser who too many times had the physical and emotional advantage over me. Not today. I remained calm and confident. The choice was his. I had politely asked him not to step any closer to me and he had bulled his way into my space...right up against me...until I was now backed up against my nightstand with nowhere else to go. His actions would determine whether he would walk away or not. I had merely let him know that I wasn't going to make it easy to be his punching bag today. If he wanted to break my ribs again or throw me to the floor again, there would be a consequence. He continued his taunting and spewing nonsense two inches from my face for at least 15 minutes. I told him that he was delusional. Still getting worked up over things that happened in high school, replaying situations in his head that only make him angry, dreaming up imaginary conversations and situations...some even with me, this is the fantasy world of a narcissistic abuser. Narcissistic abusers do not live in reality. He started throwing out terms like "gaslighting" and "manipulation". He eventually backed up about 18 inches and sat on the bed to the left of me. He complained that all he wanted to do was has a "conversation" about why he hated deep-fried hotdogs that they make our church picnics. I told him that the reason I didn't care about deep-fried hotdogs was because he lies more than he tells the truth. Because his words are so untrustworthy, I had to choose whether it was worth my time to investigate whether they deep fried hotdogs at church picnics that we never attend (that he says we do attend) or to not care at all. I chose not to care. My honesty just ignited his I'm-cutting-you-off diatribe and he railed at me about being nothing more than a "sugar daddy" to me. I countered each absurdity with how little I cared ...about being "cut off"...about "being alone"...about whatever it was that he dreamt up to throw at me to prove to me that he could still control me. It wasn't working that day. He started lecturing me about how broken our marriage was and again I said, "I don't care." He told me that if I thought I was going to get half his income that I'd better think again because there wouldn't be an income. Again, I said, "I know. And I don't care." He got in my face again and called me some ugly names, but mostly it was that I was a "fat, lazy, worthless, uneducated, mooch". It was so endearing. He stormed off to his cave in the underworld and I finally got to deep fry French fries. This is typical narcissistic abuser behavior. They love to ruin everything because narcissistic abusers can't be happy. I wrote in my journal about this incident, "I have just about reached a level of complete indifference with him. I was calm. I was flat. I was unemotional. I was more worried that the fries would not be done with the burgers and hotdogs. I've heard all his threats before. I'm useless. I'm worthless. I'm disrespectful. I'm ugly. I'm fat. I can be kicked to the curb. Wah wah wah wah wah wah. So, do it already. All I really want is peace and to not be beaten. He's never shown me love nor been affectionate and if he started now it would seem phony. I think I would throw up if he tried. If he doesn't like the responsibilities of being a husband and a father, I guess he shouldn't have lied about who he was when I met him. I didn't lie to him. If he had been honest, I wouldn't have married him". Continuing, I wrote..."...his toxicity. It's suffocating me. When I could get out and away from it, I could breathe and function. Now that I'm stuck with it day in and day out. I'm breathing in toxic fumes all day. If I could run away, I would. Oh, how I wish desperately for the Lord to rescue us from this". And rescue us, He did. You can read about that in my post April 27, 2019 - The Point of No Return #DomesticAbuseIsNotOkay
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The purpose for this blog is to be a beacon of hope to others trapped in abusive relationships and to educate others to recognize abuse that may be going on in the lives of people you know. There is real help available to domestic abuse victims, but sometimes it is hard to find and hard to take that necessary step to freedom. But there is a way out. I want to share all that I have learned so far on this journey into my new life as well as everything that I will continue to learn along the way.
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Psalm 22:24 "For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him."
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