There is a feeling somewhere between full on hatred and adoration. I'm trying to unpack this feeling and what it feels like. I'm trying to conjure it, I suppose. Because somehow, I can't necessarily feel the hatred that I ought to feel toward my narcissist.
Nobody gets this, really.
A good friend recently told me I ought stop seeing the world in "Narcissists out to get me..."
I had some explaining to do. So explain I did.
I told him how the thing that kept me trapped was not the fact that I see the world as a bunch of narcissists, but rather, my own wanting to see the best in people, in everyone, in my own narcissist for years. This was the piece that held me hostage for 17 years. And only now am I more free because I see his narcissism and that consequently, I can't heal him.
But, even still I'm not to the hatred point. There are times it seems close. There are times I wish for the relief of his non-existence which feels something akin to hatred.
And all the same, he has indeed, suffered so much. There is great pain. Regardless of his ridiculous choices to not deal emotionally with that pain, I cannot add to it, today. There is still a far off part of me that loves the idea of him becoming a different--healthy person one day. Perhaps, the new She will somehow conjure it out of him.
And even still there is this ultimate pain, buried deep that for me is that I would have given anything, maybe everything for him to just step onto the healing path that he never would step onto. And so, I watch my kids pained by a breakup, a divorce. I watch myself, and I watch a woman step into his life who seems kind, sweet, lovely, and good. And though my family gets angry at her, feels all the indignation in the world, I feel hope and gratitude at her being with and near him.
I suppose most ex wives are jealous, indignant, often aiming to thwart things for their husbands that are no more. Somehow, I feel nothing of that. All I feel is hope that somehow she makes him the man he could be. Somehow I hope, even still. Because being him and being her with him is enough burden on its own. There is no reason I need to somehow add to that. And nobody will get that unless they've lived intimately with a narcissist.
