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I Married a Narcissist

My Daily Struggle for Patience

By Tonya SherwoodPublished 6 years ago 9 min read
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I went into "Attitudes Bar" on a whim to find a part-time job to earn some extra cash. I used to frequent this establishment some years back with a neighbor of mine before his untimely exit from this life.

The first day I started working there, he walked in. I had already been chatting it up with what seemed to be the local, everyday crowd. They saw him zoom into the lot like he was going to come right into the building and almost all at once said, "Oh, here comes Mike. You better watch out for him!"

I didn't really think anything about it until he walked in and sat next to a regular patron and said, "I'm gonna get me some of that!" I know he didn't mean for me to hear him, but unknown to him, my hearing is excellent.

I turned to him and said, " You keep thinking that and see where it gets you! What do you want?"

So, that's how we started. It was a long few months of him creeping on me before I decided that he was worth a shot. We talked a lot about our lives and had a lot in common and he didn't run in fear from my current situation. I was living with my seven-year-old son's father and needed to get out. It was not the ideal situation for anyone to want to deal with, but he was still chasing me. I made a choice that I find to be questioning everyday since.

I was siting in the family room looking at my child's father and it just clicked. "I don't want to do this for another year," and I walked out.

That was the first night we spent together. The next day was filled with all of the awkwardness of the morning after, and man did I look crazy! I have naturally curly, red hair, and wow was, I a sight. We laughed about it and he dubbed me "Medusa" forever.

After I went and stayed with a girlfriend of mine for about a week, he mentioned to me that I should move in with him. Mind you, he was still living at home with "mom and dad" and he was 40 years old. Yes, of course this was a little strange and somewhat of a big red flashing warning sign, but I met his parents and they were wonderful. I made sure to have a conversation with them before I made the decision to go ahead with this awkward plan. I immediately fell in love with his mother. Such a sweet and loving woman, ready to listen and help you out with just about anything. And of course with a mother like that, how could he be bad, right? That turned out to be the biggest misconception anyone could ever have.

I knew he drank because I was serving him, but to what extent, I had no clue. He would always come in right after work when he got back into town. He drove about an hour each way. Attitudes was on the home stretch and his last usual stop before heading home. He always slammed two beers, all of this taking no more than ten minutes, and he would head out the door. He would go home and shower and then would come back in to chat and drink some more.

After I moved into his parents' house, I learned that this was an all night and every day thing. This, of course, was our first disagreement. He would drink way too much and his attitude would become ugly. So ugly, in fact, that his parents became aware of his disgusting behavior and attitude towards me. On a few occasions they would have to come downstairs to stop him from screaming and pushing me around, or when he had me cowering against the couch. I was afraid to have my son there because his fits disrupted any time I did. I can't count all of the times we argued about his drinking and I, of course, was always blowing things out of proportion and the next day, it was like it never even happened.

The next issue we started having was my work schedule. Even though we met at the bar I was working at, this was no longer acceptable. I needed to have a day job and couldn't work past a certain time. So I, being the people-pleaser that I am, quit my job and started to look for one he would approve of. I don't know how many times I had to do this, but I'm still dealing with it today and it has been eight years that we've been together.

Unfortunately, we had to deal with the unexpected and sudden death of his wonderful mother after about a year and a half into our relationship. Things were really at their worst after this. Drinking was his way to cope, and along with that came the unspeakable rages and delusions that often plagued him while in his cups. He then decided it was OK to get physically abusive along with the emotional and mental. After not being able to get him to realize his behavior was nothing normal, I left. I left a few times, giving us at least one to three month breaks for him to get himself together. Things would be OK for a short time, but always went back to the same old crap eventually.

We did end up renting a house together on our own and lived there for four years, during which I started to experience some health issues. The first was my appendix. I had to drive myself to the hospital and call my son's aunt to pick him up because Mike couldn't deal with it. After I had a CAT scan and learned that I needed an emergency surgery, I called Mike to let him know. He didn't come to the hospital until the next day when they were releasing me after recovering from surgery.

From that scan, it was brought to my attention that I had huge cysts on my ovaries, which I was aware of, but not how bad. I had been dealing with the complications of them since my teens. Not looking forward to another surgery right away, I put it off for a while until the pain became unbearable. I set up an appointment with the doctor the surgeon from my appendectomy gave me, and he suggested that we remove the troublesome right ovary because it was so big that it had twisted my tube and ovary upside down. He really wanted to take both out, but I was still just under 40 years old and had only one child, and he didn't want me to enter menopause in an instant. Again, I was dropped off for surgery and then picked up at the time of my release. At home, recovering was much of the same, except when friends or family came by to see how I was doing. He would then become the most caring individual you could ever meet. That's when I discovered his ability to act like a human being when he had an audience.

The most ridiculous thing I've been dealing with is how I have to go to bed when he's ready or else he can't sleep, and it doesn't matter how I'm feeling or if I'm just not tired. He screams at me for being selfish because if he doesn't get his sleep, he could hurt himself at work.

I also can't keep or see any of my friends or family because he has alienated them. They couldn't stand him and I always defended him, so after a while it just became easier to just not see them and deal with it. If I did want to see anyone, he would constantly nag me about how long I was gone or how they were more important than he was. He is the most jealous person I have ever encountered. Even my time with my son suffered because I was paying too much attention to him. My son lived with us for a year before he asked me if he could move back in with his father. How could I refuse knowing how Mike was treating him and all of the unspeakable things he has had to hear or see.

So some time goes by and not a lot has changed, except Mike and I are all alone in the house except for my cat. I woke up one night to Mike chasing him with a shoe trying to beat him with it because he meowed. I often caught him being mean and abusive to my poor kitty for just acting like the cat he is.

I obviously tried to get Mike to realize that he wasn't a good person and that he needed to do something about it, but I'm sure we all know how that went.

A little more time goes by and I started noticing certain things about my body after I stopped taking the birth control pill after my last surgery. I told Mike that if there was going to be any prevention after that, then it was up to him. Well he never did anything about it, and guess what? I'm pregnant! Which was amazing to me with only one messed up ovary. After I took a test and told Mike about it, he was not very enthused. We were sitting on the back patio off of the kitchen and my son happened to be there at the kitchen table having a snack. The first thing that came out of Mike's mouth was, "Well, this was the last thing I wanted!" I obviously was immediately upset and went to walk inside to get away and cry so my son couldn't hear, but from the expression on his face, I could tell that he had heard it all. I ran to the bathroom and shut the door and cried my eyes out and after a couple minutes, there's a small knock on the door.

"It's me, mom." So I calmed down as much as possible and opened the door and let him in. He walked to me and put his arms around me and said, "What a dick!" God I love that kid!!

I laughed and said, "Boy, you ain't kiddin!" From that moment on, my son has hated Mike and only deals with him when he wants to spend time with me, in which Mike is a total douche to both of us and just ruins any time we have together.

So I'm pregnant and I'm about eight to nine weeks into the pregnancy. I worked at a grocery store at the time and one day while I was at work, I started to bleed and have pains. I called Mike because I didn't have a car (that's another story all in itself). I thought the reaction I would get was for him to come and pick me up and take me to the ER, but all he said was, "What do you expect me to do?"

Instead of arguing with him I worked the rest of my shift, and when he got home, he was not happy that I still needed to get to the ER.

Long story short, I was losing this baby and the only remaining ovary I had, and was to be scheduled for surgery as soon as possible because I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, and if anything burst, I could bleed out in a matter of a few minutes. Great! As soon as I was admitted and taken to my room, Mike left. Yes, he left me there all alone after I found out that I'm losing the one and only chance to ever have another child, ever.

To be continued...

relationships
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