Why do narcissists bother getting married? It's a question I have endlessly mulled over. Why did he even bother marrying me when he knew he's cheated in every relationship before me? He knew what he did in every relationship before me was wrong because he hid it. When I asked my first husband why he married me 3 months after we got married, he said "because I knew I would never have to take care of you". A harsh, but honest answer. With the narc, he couldn't be honest to save his soul. The analogy of plucking petals off a flower, I love you, I love you not, is similar to that of being married to a narc. A constant state of confusion and emotional whiplash. You never know if they love you or hate you.
Per the experts, narcissists get married because they want someone to consistently inflate their ego and want a constant source of supply. He wanted my confidence, and my strength, and knew he could take advantage of my lack of boundaries so I would serve him. However, he underestimated my level of integrity. I would go along with him until I saw it was damaging to others. I would let him be him until he was self-serving at the expense of others' well-being. Narcs do not like being called out, ever. For anything.
Narcissists get married for image projections. His buzzword was "family man". He wanted to show his kids he could have a "normal relationship". Those were his words. He wanted to give his kids a chance for a family life. He repeated that weekly before the wedding. He took my discipline, structure, and integrity and functioned through it leading up to the wedding. Waking up early with me to get to my studio. Daily walking. Health foods. No cigarettes. Trying to create a structure or routine for his son. He mirrored all of that.
Narcissists also marry for convenience to get their sexual needs met. They do not care about their partner or what they offer emotionally. Narcissists are only out to get their needs met. The majority of narcissists are sex addicts. (Read Behind Closed Doors)
Once they know they have you trapped in marriage, a narcissist sets the tone for the marriage and their feelings become facts. In a particular conversation with his son a month before the wedding, his son asked me "Do you & Dad ever yell at each other?". I noted the observation as a changing point for his son to be aware enough to notice. No, in fact, we didn't. I know now that was intentional in the love-bombing stage. After I was trapped, no one else's feelings mattered and it never occurred to him that his feelings were not facts. For example, if he felt I was doing something, like being provocative by putting on chapstick in public, it didn't matter what I said after that, the fact became, I was being provocative. After we got married, we couldn't resolve any disagreement or feeling he had. I yelled in reactive abuse and the narc raged. They became circular conversations. Narcissists are miserable gift-givers after marriage. Even before the wedding he last minute grabbed a pair of diamond earrings for my birthday and paid for a girl's day out for me and a friend. At the time, it seemed thoughtful. Then I learned, narcissists will find a way to give gifts and make it about them, usually with grandiosity. The covert message is, look, I've spent all this money on you, you are indebted to serve me. He had my friend do the work of researching and making appointments. She then was tricked by his narc mask, he's so good to you, he's so great, etc. (It's the same with his daughter - I'll buy you a car, but you have to live with me.) It makes sense now. We then got married in Aug, and in October, I broke my leg. I was walking on eggshells, physically and figuratively.
Summer of Labor
In early June, he tore his bicep tendon moving shelves out of my store. He had to prepare it to be remodeled. It had to be done then. We didn't have a contractor, set plans, materials, or even a single bid. He said I needed to have patience, he knew what he was doing. He assured me with every question I asked. He had surgery 6 days after he tore his tendon and had a sling for 8 weeks after. Late June, we were driving to Champaign, IL and he was talking about planning a “family and close friends party” on Aug 07. He was texting his high school friend, whom he claims he couldn’t speak to for 18 years due to a previous boss forbidding it. In that text, he told him to come because he was getting married. As he was driving and one-armed, he had his phone hooked into the car and his friend texted back “wedding”? When it popped up on the screen as a response, I remember looking at him and asking if he had something to tell me. He responded “I was going to surprise you and plan it myself” and went on to explain how we were life partners, how no one else could keep up with him, and we had a family to get started. So, why wait? And that is when we decided to get married. We got married at the house and being a property that needed a lot of work, we went to work. It was chaos, especially because he was 1-arm laying sod, driving a tractor, and laying large landscaping rocks. I had brought with me to the relationship a safe with cash in it. He used all $10,000 in cash during that time to pay labor for materials and labor for the house. At the time, I was happy to contribute. He would repeat "this is our house now". I believed we were in this for the long-term commitment. He reassured me and repeated, don’t worry, I’ll pay all your bills, I’m here to take care of you for the rest of your life. The first of the many financial abuse situations I would find myself in with him as I would never see that cash again. It was used for his personal gain.
We were only having family and a few friends. I kept repeating, there was no need to kill ourselves with these intense projects. He wouldn’t sleep but a few hours per night, nearly manic with everything having to be perfect when 40 guests arrived. It was incredibly intense. Inside the house was getting new floors, the outside landscape and grass were getting redone, he was building a bridge for me to walk across the pool, and planning the food. The majority was done by him and the hourly labor he hired from the local nursery.
One day his phone fell off the tractor and was buried in the dirt. It was dead. Instead of replacing it, he went a solid 3 weeks without a phone. His employees couldn’t reach him. He would snap at his brother who encouraged him to answer emails. During that time, his team made decisions during that time that would repeatedly be held against them. And eventually, lead to being fired. His ex-wife couldn’t reach him, but he didn't care, he was manic to show everyone he had a functional "family" life now. This photo was July 31, we got married Aug 07.
It felt real to everyone there supporting me. I heard him tell his friend, that marrying me was the easiest decision of his life. It looked real. Looking through the lens of narcissism, I can see now it was attention-grabbing. Narcissists love the attention on them. Somedays, I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact, none of it was real. That is where my cognitive dissonance comes in and my ability to trust myself has been shaken to its core. He told me he was only doing this marriage thing 1 more time and stated that I was his forever. He seemed so into the relationship. As I read what narcissists do to others, I believe the pattern exists. I also know what I experienced and I believed that, too. That’s cognitive dissonance. I have difficulty reconciling reality to the narcissist's words and actions. In fact, it's impossible. He knew what he was doing and it was self-serving and absolutely evil.
We flew to Las Vegas the week after we signed the marriage certificate. He went all out with front-row seats to my favorite band. That same night we were standing on a balcony watching the fountains and I saw his first dip into his narcissism. He was crying and talking
about how lonely he felt, that he didn’t relate to others and some other gibberish. I couldn’t place what was happening. I was so happy. The atmosphere was incredible. I love Vegas for 24 hours, then I’m checked out. But we were there for that time and I just saw my favorite band front and center. We were married. It was supposed to be such a fun time. Then the narc showed himself. He smoothed it over the next day. He purchased a $12,000+ watch for himself to spite his former employer who only purchased a $10,000 Rolex. The pattern makes sense now. I didn’t see it at the time. I compartmentalized the episode and filed it in his insecurity file. The attention from the wedding, me as his wife, the last minute front row seats, nothing filled his narcissist void. So he went to his addiction of spending. Our first stop was to a dispensary for $600 of weed that he took home in his checked bag and a grandiose watch.
The psychological and emotional abuse pattern had just begun its gradual descent into pure narcissistic hell.
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