Hi all. First post here. It’s been almost 4 months now since my narcwife kicked me to the curb after our 9 and a half year marriage. We met each other a couple of months after my 30 year first marriage ended. I know… too soon, right? That marriage was mostly just a friendship for both of us with almost no intimacy…. although we created and raised two perfect daughters for which I am forever thankful for. So… when I met this lovely, charming narc, I was gullible and a perfect target for being love bombed by her. For that first year with her, I was living in a dream, or so I thought, and felt sure that I had finally found real love, intimacy, and friendship all bundled together for the first time in my life. When the intimacy stopped and the abnormal behavior started, I learned quickly that challenging her on anything didn’t do any good. But I was already addicted to her and stayed that way until the end mostly keeping my mouth shut. That final night when she left me for some stupid false accusation, I let loose on her for everything that I had been holding in for so many years. I didn’t know anything about narcissism during our marriage but now that I do know, I am confused and pissed off. Especially with the part about being a target and being abused emotionally for her own benefit. The weird thing is that I still care for her and feel sorry that she can’t see her own personality disorder. Even if our marriage was for her own selfish reasons, she really did make me a better person than I was when we met. I love her kids and we are still close, and they also know that their mom is a little “off.” Along with me, we all feel sorry for her because she is headed toward a bad ending to her life unless something changes. I would never again want her back full time in my life but I really want to see her healed from this and maybe just be a friend. I know that history shows that healing from narcissism isn’t very likely. So here I am today flip flopping between feeling sorry for her one day and angry the next. Here is what I am thinking about doing now…. I was the main picture, video taker for all the years that we were together so I have priceless memories on my computer now with thousands of pics and vids of among other things, her 8 year old daughter as she grew into an adult. Also both of her grandchildren from their birth until age 5 and 7 now. Lots of other great memories for her of her friends, parents, many without that awful me in the picture. I know that the best revenge against a narcissist is to just have no contact and let them destroy themselves. But would withholding all of these pictures and videos that she has asked me for, count as revenge? Since we didn’t have a “real” marriage and it was more like a “fake” marriage, why would she care about fake memories? That would be exactly the way I would explain it to her. Would reality hit her then? I know that these thousands of memories that I have and might not give to her will really, really upset her. And then I would say that if you agree to change through therapy, then when the therapy ends and I am convinced that you are healed, then you can have all these pics and vids back. I feel like I need to somehow persuade her for the sake of her family, me, her friends, to try and convince her to heal from this instead of all us watching her self-destruct. I would appreciate your thoughts… and thanks in advance.
Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with giving her the photos she's asking for. But I always feel guilty about the idea of revenge. I'm terrible at it and when I tried it recently couldn't stand myself and had to pray in repentance about it. With my own daughters, because there was no digital photos back then, I put all those memory photos in a box for our daughters to fight over later.
Withholding any items, picture or whatever, is not going to make her face her issues and heal. "Convince her to heal".....not likely. Facing her disorder and healing from it would have to be her idea, not yours; otherwise, it's not genuine. The chances of that happening are very slim. She still has control of your mind and is living there rent free. That is giving her supply, what narcs want. You're making your own healing about what she does with the additional hope of remaining friends. If you truly want to heal from a narc relationship then you must realize that what you already know about "the best revenge against a narcissist is to just have no contact...." is said so much for a reason, it's true, very very true! You don't have to watch her self destruct if you stop watching her. With love and understanding, I mean only to respond to your statement "I would appreciate your thoughts".....with my thoughts. I wish you only the best. Please look out for yourself. Prayers and hugs.
Thank you Scat and kelly72 for your thoughts. It's really not so much about revenge with these pictures as it is a last ditch effort to shock her into reality by withholding something that "should" mean a lot to her. I suppose it's the Christianity in me that is having a hard time walking away from someone who is sick, mentally, especially knowing that she is the daughter/mother/grandmother/sister/aunt to so many in her family that I have really grown to love over the last 10 years, I care more about what they will go through in the future with her than anything else. More important than even getting her back as a friend to me. I know the odds are against it. I don't know. Ugh. Still not sure.
@purplexed18 I am a Christian. It’s a very sad truth that your Christianity is highly exploited and played on by these types. We can still be great Christian people without giving in to ill intent. In fact, the book of Proverbs, especially chapter 19, you will find many wise words referring to evil intent. Specifically (and I’m not a Bible scholar) look at 19:19 and you will find words that mean “you cannot change the evil person, you are wasting your time trying”…that doesn’t mean you can’t pray for them or pray for the professionals that work with these disorders. You will not change the future of her children. She will be in their lives no matter what you do. I reiterate that it’s best to walk away completely and pray for her and the family but you are the one making that choice … so I will pray for you. Take care.
HI, welcome to the group. I just wanted to add, whatever reaction you are wanting her to have by giving her the pictures will not be what happens. Most likely it will backfire on you. You can give her the pictures, but don't expect her to have any specific kind of reaction. No contact is the best way to go.
Thanks Kelly72 for your perspective from a Christian standpoint. It helps me to understand that it is best to just walk away from evil... which is what I plan to do. However, it doesn't mean that I have to walk away and do her the favor of taking my precious time to transfer all of these picture and video memories to a flash drive for her. Does it? The hurt that she will feel by not having visual memories of her and her family growing up will not compare to the hurt that I feel now for what she did to me. Does that make sense? I will most definitely pray for her family and, hard as it is, I will pray for her too.,
@purplexed18 If it’s yours and you did the work then NO it isn’t your responsibility work for her. If she wants them that badly then she can pay someone to do the work for you. Someone you’d trust handling the pics and videos without some kind of malicious tricks. She’d likely never pay for it. This is all a concocted petty complaint on her part because she can’t find anything worse to pin on you. She wants attention and supply.
Thanks. There won't be any extra effort from me to do that for her... and I sure won't let anybody do it for her off my computer either. So sad for her and probably frustrating too since I have the upper hand on this issue. Speaking of memories, how do you and all the narc survivors of marriages deal with the pictures and memorabilia from relationships that you later find out were probably "fake?" I am tempted to throw away everything that reminds me of her. But doing that takes away some of what I thought, were the best times of my life. I'm confused about what to do and wonder what everyone else does...
I have an amazing story 6 years now since my last post on my narc wife. I have had no contact with her since 2018. She texted me this past April to tell me that she had found my Bible at her home that somehow got mixed in with her stuff when we divorced. We got to texting about our lives and it turns out that we both were living in relationships with our partners that had no future and were both anxious to move out. We were getting along great and decided to move in together on a short-term lease to see if things would be better this time around before we made any kind of long-term commitment. We were convinced that none of this would have happened if not for her finding my Bible and contacting me. We were convinced that because of that, this was God’s plan. But guess what… she was a little better than before but definitely held onto some narcissistic traits. She’s gone now with no regrets this time. Morale of the story is… Once a narcissist… always a narcissist. Stupid of me to try again, but the Bible was a big factor. Why would God do this to us?