I saw this meme and, immediately, it reminded me of what my narcissist did to his first wife.
My narcissist’s first wife, Prissy, left him for another woman (the daughter of our minister) about a year before I met him.
I remember him telling me about this and, I immediately felt so sorry for him. I could not imagine the embarrassment of your spouse leaving you for the minister’s daughter in a small town like the one we lived in and an even smaller church where everyone knew everything about everyone. I had heard this story before I ever attended the church, but this was the first time he had shared it with me. My response to him sharing this embarrassing and traumatic experience with me was to ask him “How did that make you feel?”
He looked at me with a smirk on his face and said “Relieved.”
Over the next year or so, my narcissist explained to me bits and pieces of his relationship with his first wife, and how he quickly realized after they were married that she was not someone he wanted to be with. He felt that he had settled for someone beneath him. Prissy was overweight, came from a poor and lazy family (per my narcissist), and struggling to make it through the community college she attended at the time.
He shared that, around the time he married her, an episode of Seinfeld had just aired where George’s fiancé dies from licking the envelopes for their wedding invitations. As he watched that episode, he secretly wished that Prissy would have fallen victim to the same fate. I remember watching this episode and being taken aback by the utter indifference George felt to his fiancé’s demise. My narcissist didn’t have the same reaction to the episode that I did, instead, he took it as a situation he wished he had been in.
I also learned that my narcissist had gone to great lengths to distance himself from Prissy and act coldly towards her in hopes that she would end their 20-year marriage. He would not share his feelings with her, include her in his hopes and dreams, or make her feel of value. Moreover, he stopped having sex with her. Apparently, on more than one occasion, she cried when she caught him masturbating to porn just an hour after she had begged him for sex. His justification was that she was ‘fat and lazy of mind,’ so he was justified in treating her like day old bread.
I understood not wanting to be with someone anymore, but could not wrap my head around why he didn’t just leave her.
Why act cold and heartless instead of admitting that you got married at 20 years of age – before your prefrontal cortex was developed (although I highly question whether it ever developed) – and had grown apart by the time you were 40? My narcissist didn’t feel a bit obliged to hide his motivation and, boldly (and even pridefully) blurted out ‘I didn’t want to be the bad guy who broke up the family.’
Instead of being forthright and taking responsibility, he instead decided to emotionally abuse and physically cheat on Prissy so she would be the villain and him the victim. He told me about his affairs (I will discuss those in a later post) over the years and his tactics for being cold and cruel to Prissy. The ultimate goal – to get her to leave him so she looked like the villain who broke up the family and he the victim and hero who supported his promiscuous wife.
Over the years, I came to realize how effective this technique was for him. He made sure that everyone in our community knew why he and Prissy were separating and that ‘he supported Prissy in her efforts to find her authentic self.’ She looked like the cheating wife and he looked like the wronged yet supportive husband who cared for the LGBTQUIA+ community.
I would hear comments from time to time such as ‘Isn’t it wonderful how he still supports Prissy even after what she did to him.’
I even heard downright false statements such as ‘I feel so bad for him, you know Prissy moved women into their home while they were still together?’
In hindsight, I am sure that he planted those seeds about Prissy inviting other women into the home during his marriage to gain some more sympathy points.
Ultimately, everyone felt sympathy for my narcissist – the poor cuckold man…and he got exactly what he wanted – rid of his first wife (whom he lovingly referred to as his albatross) and the admiration of the community.
