Let it go and move on?
I heard a song by the Dixie Chicks which was written for a different purpose. The refrain haunts me for their sentiments mirror my feelings.
They sing:
“I’m not ready to make nice. I’m not ready to back down ‘cuz I’m mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round. It’s too late to make it right, wouldn’t do it if I could. ‘Cuz I’m mad as hell and I don’t have time to do what it is you think I should.”
Conventional wisdom is to let it go and move on. What is there to let go? When the partner with whom you’ve been walking on the path changes course and doesn’t provide information you need to have to make informed choices about your own well being, it casts doubt on your ability to make any choice and standing still seems best.
Societal mores suggest we should forgive and forget. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel angry about the emotional abuse I suffered every time I complained about not having my needs met during the years we spent together. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that the man who claimed to love me and willingly accepted the role of being my source of emotional support while my mother was dying and had held me and made love to me a few nights before scoffed at my anguish about not wanting to be left alone on the night of her funeral by saying, “Wah! Wah! Wah!” Perhaps I should forget how he raged at me in a public restaurant that day and told me to kill myself as he stormed away. Perhaps I should forget he neglected to mention he had moved in with another woman weeks before. Perhaps I should forget he feels no regret about any of it.
Because I love him, I persisted in my quest to understand. He led me to believe he was with this new woman because they were setting up a business at her house. He stayed up after she went to bed each night to correspond with me. He seduced me into setting the topic of my mother’s funeral aside for a while by feigning distress about not having a soft landing for his musings. I adapted and gave him what he wanted in hopes I would eventually get answers I needed to have. He pontificated about his vast awareness of others’ needs and wants and how it was his choice whether or not to grant them. His utter lack of empathy for my concerns were obvious.
When I finally grew weary of his self importance and called him a liar, he asked what he had lied about. I chose to remind him of a conversation, after the funeral, when I specifically asked if he had decided to move in with his partner and he had answered he was just getting some things done. All he said to this was, “So what?” The email exchange slowed down a great deal after that conversation. When I wrote again and asked for honesty, he replied that it wasn’t complicated and asked me to let it go and move on.
Of course it isn’t complicated for him. He chooses to not self examine because, in this case, he could not avoid seeing his imperfections. He’s found a new source of Narcissistic supply and a safe place to hide from the wreckage of his past.
We hope, when we are in our 50s, that we are dealing with a responsible adult when we choose to give the gift of love and become vulnerable. Although I used to characterize him as being childlike, he is nothing more than a child in a man’s body.
Thanks for your articles. I have read many of them and totally relate. I was with a N personality for two years. I threw him out and was so angry I couldn’t recognize myself. He found a replacement for me very soon after. I’m still agonizing over the relationship – I think my mind has been scrambled and I’m finding it hard to let go. I remind myself all the time what a b…..d he is and a narcissist, etc, but I have to keep coming back to it. It’s not easy – I feel for you… I also have a story of a funeral. We were at a funeral and I was feeling badly about the loss of my friend. He snarled at me and it just blew my mind. We had a HUGE argument after the funeral and I decided I should leave him. He was living off me, living with me paying all the bills. He was fighting a custody battle and trying to ruin his ex. I believed his lies about her. I think this is one of the reasons I find it so hard to let it all go. I feel terrible that I fell for his b……t. Funerals seem to be too much for these 6 year olds…
Hi Lynda,
You’re welcome.
I agree that the most difficult part about freeing myself from the bad experience is letting go of the stupid decisions that I made in the name of love. My N didn’t have me paying all of his bills. At age 53, he still was able to rely on his mother for that.
He did have a way of convincing me there were things that he needed which I could afford to buy. A nice vacation, for instance. While we were away together, he was gracious and attentive. When we returned, he accused me of trying to obligate him by taking him along at my expense. He lured me into helping him with many work-intensive projects at his old house, and got angry with me for reminding him he had agreed to return the favor of my time by helping me out with things at my old house. Because we spent most of our time at my place, my grocery bill was affected and I don’t recall one time that he offered to supplement it. His idea was that he was “letting” me do something nice for him. And, I was stupid enough to think that was some sort of honor.
But his bad behavior on the day of Mom’s funeral is the thing that I can never forget, along with the fact that immediately and several months later, he denied having done anything wrong. I guess I understand that “wrong” is subjective. Regardless, there just are some times that ought to remain sacred and peaceful. When I think of the way he looked when he came to pick me up that day, how he wandered around at the memorial service laughing at his own jokes, and especially the way he treated me when no one was around to see the real him, it remains unforgivable. And the fact that I invited him into that event is something that is hard for me to forgive too.
Phoenix