“Colin cheated on me,” my husband said.
“Coleen has been reaching out to you,” our marriage counselor said.
“She cheated on me,” my husband repeated.
His anger was clear.
I sat silently.
I was shocked by this revelation.
“Ralph,” our marriage counselor said. “Do you think Colin might cheat on you?” Asked.
My husband said, “No.” “Of course not. Colleen would never do that.”
“Ralph,” our marriage counselor asked. “Are you able to forgive?”
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My husband and I were silent.
I waited for my husband to respond.
He didn’t say anything. I was stunned. I didn’t have any words. I was completely ignorant. I had no idea that my husband had been quietly but seriously angry with me for several years.
He came out for the first time during this marriage counseling session.
The motivation goes back to the moment I shared my feelings.
Or so I thought.
“I feel lonely being married to you,” I said. “Sometimes I dream of meeting someone who is truly interested in me and cares about me.”
When I told my husband how I felt he had nothing to say. Now I know why. This was not seen as an expression of unhappiness or sharing my feelings.
He did not reply because he considered the few sentences I spoke as a betrayal.
I had no idea that this was the moment I seriously angered a narcissist.
Worse still, I have not yet realized that anger is what drives the narcissist out of hiding.
This is when the narcissist becomes most apparent. Narcissists cannot control themselves once you make them angry. Narcissists are unable to hide their need for punishment, revenge, and revenge once the narcissist believes they have been wronged. But it is not uncommon for this to be preceded by something.
When you try to leave a narcissist, their instinct will be to win.
Related: 4 Signs You’re Dealing With A ‘Leech’ Narcissist
To be precise…the narcissist will first try to get you back.
This is what my husband did. As soon as I said those words, he knew I was serious. I was planning to leave, if only in my mind. I’ve gone through many scenarios.
He spent two years wining and dining with me. He took me on several vacations and bought me jewelry.
None of these things represented our normal status quo.
Honestly, I didn’t think I would ever love my husband again. He pushed me this far. The loneliness I felt was overwhelming. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
But then again, I was a newbie to narcissism.
I didn’t know this was a symptom of loving and living with a narcissist.
Simply existing in someone else’s world.
Slowly but surely, my husband got me back. No one was more surprised than me. I wish I had known that this is part of what I now call standard operating procedures for a narcissist.
The narcissist’s rage kicked in shortly thereafter, once my husband felt he had secured my commitment to him again.
And here the real nightmare began.
The narcissist was seeking revenge, retribution, and punishment. Of course, I didn’t know this. Little did I know that the narcissist believed I had “betrayed” him.
I also didn’t realize that the narcissist’s first instinct after that would be to “get me back.”
The narcissist’s second instinct is to make me pay.
Because in the narcissist’s mind, you have wronged him.
This is what started an intense cycle of narcissistic abuse. It has always been present, but covert narcissists are not so obvious. The pattern was more cyclical and less constant.
In true narcissistic fashion, the narcissist went after my weakness. He started drinking uncharacteristically and scaring our children and me. My father was an alcoholic, so a narcissist attacked me directly for my weakness.
It was a two-tier approach.
The narcissist tears you apart and exhausts you.
Related: What It’s Really Like To Be In Love With An Abusive Narcissist
The narcissist weakens you in order to gain more control over you.
Then my husband started driving aggressively while I sat scared in the car. The same man who used to make me feel safe. I was in a car accident when I was in college, and once again, a narcissist gave me another Achilles heel.
This was just the tip of the iceberg.
This turned out to be a fool’s play. The narcissistic rage escalated abusively and made the years of emotional abuse at the hands of a covert narcissist seem mild. I was not qualified for the narcissist’s angry revenge.
