Chapter 7: ...On The Bright Side

"Living well is the best revenge." - George Herbert

It’s not lost on me that a lot of what I’ve written here has been pretty dark. I had a friend refer to one of my articles as “another gut punch” when talking amongst a group of mutuals. And necessarily so - my story has been pretty dark on a lot of fronts, and the topic of narcissist abuse from just about any angle is not an easy one, nor is it a topic one should take too lightly.

But I don’t want to leave out the shiny bits, the genuine good that has come from it all. I’ve been blessed to have found an amazing woman/unicorn who has been my wife for over a year now, and that’s quite the change for a man who once swore off women and dating entirely. I have the opportunity to be step-father to three grown women with lives of their own, but with whom, along with my wife, I have shared tremendous healing in a healthy family dynamic.

Where It Started

As I’ve mentioned in previous essays, by the time I left the marital home with my late wife, Anne, I was done. I’d been on the inside of an outwardly fine, but internally abusive marriage for over 16 years and it had taken its toll. I’d been worn down from decisive, assertive, and protective to just trying to get through a day without dealing with yet another emotional meltdown; yet another attack on my boundaries; yet another manipulation; yet another attempt to make me smaller.

She committed suicide 4 days later, later, leaving me to pick up the pieces and try to figure out just what went wrong.

It didn’t take long for me to jump into researching on my own, everything from dating coaches to evolutionary psychology to cluster B personality disorder specialists, all in an attempt to understand. I went to more than a year of therapy looking for an outside opinion on everything I was feeling, learning and doing. I wrote regular journal entries in the form of letters to Anne as a way to shed anger and unwind the knotted mess of thoughts in my head. I spent hours and hours of quiet contemplation. I hit the gym regularly to get my body back in order.

In short: I did the work.

What I Gained

Going back into the dating market in your late 40’s is… fraught. But I realized that everything I’d learned to that point was academic and really had no bearing on the real world until I put all of that effort to work.

And so the first thing I found out in the dating market was, perhaps not so surprisingly, myself. I found ample opportunities to apply the boundaries I’d developed (see Chapter 5) and exercise the long dormant part of my brain that says “no, I don’t have to tolerate that bad behavior”.

Out of all of that came happiness. Not the sort you experience when you’re out with friends or laughing at a good movie but a deeper, and more satisfying joy in being comfortable with oneself and knowing that, whatever happened, I could be satisfied with my own company for the rest of my life if need be. I wasn’t seeking a particular outcome with every person I met or every relationship embarked upon, but each one taught me something.

That’s not to say some of the lessons didn’t come without pain, but pain is a great teacher if you’ll pay attention to the lessons. On more than one occasion I was instructed for ignoring my gut about a person but I gained valuable experience in learning to recognize certain signs and move quickly once I understood what the other person was showing me about themselves.

And time. Time is always on your side if you agree to not be in a hurry. Time will grant you insight into others as they slowly drop the public mask and let you see the real person inside. Sometimes it’s beautiful in there, and other times not so much, but time will slowly grant you Truth if you simply don’t fall asleep at the wheel.

To summarize: I gained patience, understanding, an outcome independent mindset, and a certain satisfaction with who and what I am. And that, friends, equals freedom.

The Payback

The day came where I was presented an opportunity and a risk. I started talking with a girl who, outwardly, was my opposite in many ways. And yet the more time we spent together, talking and laughing, the more it was apparent that we’d been practically made for each other. Not in that butterflies in the belly, giddy sort infatuation way, but rather like two people who’d been through the same kind of hell and done the work to get out. We understood each other.

We recognized each other.

There’s a funny thing that happens when two people come together after they’ve survived living with a narcissist for years and then done the work to rebuild themselves and their lives. They don’t come together with the belly tingles and obsessive thoughts of a flashy new relationship as movies and books so often portray. Instead they just find a quiet peace together because their boundaries are clear, their expectations understood and agreed upon, and their needs, met.

The Best Revenge

The covert narcissist I lived with for 16 years wanted to destroy me; to damage my soul; to bring me low so that she could stand higher on what was left. What’s more, she pushed every button and set every trap she could think of to get me to explode and look like the bad guy. Instead, I left without another word.

But George Herbert had it right and my best revenge isn’t in being bitter, angry, or broken. My best revenge is to have discovered peace, happiness, joy in life, and genuine love and respect. That doesn’t mean I won’t speak frankly about what I dealt with, or that I never feel anger for what she put me through. But it does mean that I am free in all the ways she never intended.