The Art of Passive Aggression, Part Two

It takes effort and energy for me to handle any interaction with the NSP.  I am not a slick and smooth operator, who handles the psychopath with a wry smile of confidence, and a deep breath of satisfaction.  No.  When I ignore the NSP, it takes effort and energy; I don't like it.  It takes self-control to avoid responding when he baits me.   I often have to resist checking email from him, which is why I have protocols in place, which can be read here.

The Narcissist's Game 

The NSP (Narcissistic/Sociopathic/Psychopathic) father of my children tries to engage me with his  nonsense games.   He pushes and violates boundaries.  It is subtle to the unknowledgeable observer, but I know the deal.    He wants to time-waste.  He wants to bend me over backwards.  The contact is via email, of course, since I will not see him in person or talk on the phone. Oftentimes, I can simply ignore him.   Sometimes, due to shared custody, I must play his silly game.

Recently, he accused me of not being responsive to him in the coordination of activities for our children (a big no-no in shared custody).  He demanded that I respond to his goodhearted, earnest and lovingly fatherly awesomeness 'for the sake of the children' (always that ploy).  He asked me some weird, inappropriate questions, all dumped into an overly lengthy, wordy, pompous email.  It was purely a trap to engage me in some narcissistic, mind-numbing, nonsense.

This particular matter has been lingering for the unimaginable length of nearly a year, which is totally-completely-100% unreasonable.   In fact, the matter was closed and settled for weeks, because I shut the nonsense down!  (I had let it go on longer than normal as a sort of experiment.)  

He's insane.  He is a Psychopath.  If he were sane, normal, decent, kind, and reasonable, the issue would have been easily settled in one month, maximum.  It would have been a month of easy, languid emails.  We could have been flexible!  What works for you? What works for me?  Let's work together!  Yay!

If the guy was sane, normal, kind and reasonable We Would Still Be Married!  He's not; And we're not.  So, in order to get his rocks off, and get some narcissist attention, he attempts to engage me, and make a relatively simple situation, utterly complicated.

On the Horns of a Dilemma.

In this situation, I have two options, neither of which work for me.

Option 1: Bend to his (ever changing) will.  Do what he demands.  This doesn't work, because I am constantly jumping through hoops, just like the marriage.  I'm out of the marriage.  I don't play that game.  

Option 2: Argue with him.  Reason with him.  Negotiate.  Compromise.  This doesn't work, because then I am caught in the web.  He can accuse me of further nonsense.   He has baited me because he wants to catch me in a trap.  He wants to be able to accuse me of wrong-doing.  He wants to be able to have something in writing that proves to the world that I am bad.  "You See?" he wants to proclaim, "She is a bad mother!  She will not co-parent!"  He wants to wrap me up in his web of craziness.  No thanks. 


The Bottom Line

This is where passive aggressive techniques work wonders with the NSP.

When I feel that I must respond, but I want to still avoid the trap he has set, I respond in the following way:

1. Ignore the Nonsense.  He wants (more than anything) for me to argue with him and defend myself.  I don't.  I won't.  He can't make me.

2.  Assume Nothing.   He's done a lousy job of asking me direct questions on purpose. It's not just laziness on his part, he wants to engage me.  If I fill in the blanks for him, he will assert that I have done it wrong.  (It's such a dumb game.  He's such a passive aggressive a-hole.)

3. Play Dumb.  I know what he wants, I can read between the lines.  He asks me 8 questions, none of which have a yes/no response.   I play dumb, and I ask a benign question like "What do you mean?"

4. Apologize.  I say a meaningless apology like, "I'm sorry.  I'm confused here.  What are you asking me?"

5. Redirect.  I will respond to his lengthy nonsense email via text.   If he writes me 1000 words on a text, that's crazy.  So, I'll respond via text, which sometimes ends it.  Or it will at least delay it.

I can't make him go away.  

I can only slow down the game, and make it no fun for him to play with me.  

I know, I know, all this sh*t is freaking exhausting.  I agree.  Protocols and procedures to interact with an ex-husband?  Seriously?  YES!  He's a freaking disaster, so I respond like a well-trained pilot; I whip out my manual of How To Land The Plan In A Disaster, and I follow the procedure in the manual.

The really hard part is: I have had to WRITE THE FREAKING MANUAL WHILE I'M LANDING THE FREAKING PLANE.  And this is why I feel it's important to share my experience.

Am I exhausted yet? 

Yes, it is exhausting.  But I must deal.  I had the rotten luck of getting conned by a con-artist and I had children with him.

Sometimes it's like a puzzle, an intellectual problem to be solved.  How to deal with the monster?  How to respond to cause myself the least about of trouble?  How to deflect, and sustain the least amount of damage?   Sometimes, it just feels like a whirlpool I am caught in.  A riptide, dragging me out to sea.  I have endured the nonsense for far too many years, and I am worn from it.  I feel war-torn.  Thread-bare.  Like a broken-down house.

Luckily, I have a coach, who walks me through it.  My touchstone and friend, Agnes, wraps her mind around the problem too.  We bounce ideas back and forth, strategize, and laugh together about it  because it can be very very funny.  It's so nice to have someone to share it with, otherwise it would be very isolating.  Also, when I am tempted to engage him in a fight, she will often talk me out of that tree.

Here are some gems that she wrote to me recently:

"Any contact with the man is such a waste of time.  The point is "engagement" -- his endless circular argument.  Time wasting."

and

"Ns are not reasonable. With them, it is the opposite of communication. They do not want settlement,  understanding, or peace. They want strife. It's all about control and destabilizing the victim."

What about you?  

Do you have a technique that works when you you deal with the Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath in your life?

Do you have a coach, or listener, or helper?

Take Care,
and I wish you peace,

AKA Rose Lee Mitchell

The Art of Passive Aggression, Part One

Why must I employ Passive Aggressive techniques to deal with the NSP?  Boundaries.  He has no care for boundaries.  In fact, he relishes opportunities to violate boundaries.  Why?  It establishes dominance.  It creates conflict.  It tests the water for future violations (abuse).  It wears the target down. 

Photographs by Toni Frissell
Public Doman
"Woman in tennis outfit, 1947"
"Weeki Wachee spring, Florida, 1947"
"Victoria Station"

I write about being silent when the NSP tries to pick a fight in this article "Nothing to Say."

How do Narcissists Get so Much? They are Parasites.

Narcissists often seem to possess so much.  People, money, objects.  Narcissists are parasites.  The parasite lives off a host sucking the nutrients.  Rose's last post detailed how her Narcissist sucked the energy out of her; she was used as a servant/slave while he went off to do important stuff (a.k.a. make money).  A successful narcissist is a different breed of cat.  Even the ones with money and success are parasites.

I, too, married a Narcissist.  Mine was perfect on paper: recently divorced, recently moved to our city, hired with tenure to a prestigious university.  

I was swept away and I married him after only knowing him for six months.  We never had an argument in those six months.  Any disagreements we had were resolved amicably.  It was an easy going and companionable relationship.  

The first rumblings started a week before the marriage, but I didn't recognize the symptoms.  Within four weeks of the marriage he showed his true colors.  The cyclical mood swings which characterize the abuser: my Narcissist cycled every 7-10 days with THREE days of silence!  After 2 1/2 years, I left.  I was exhausted.  

He was a parasite.  And, you know, I never really figured that out until after the divorce was finalized, since he was so good was he at hiding his avarice.  He made more money than I did.  We were both well employed professionals.  When he was hired with tenure at his fancy university, they gave him an option on  a university-funded mortgage at exceedingly good interest terms.  At one point when he was house hunting, we talked about buying together.  But, I told him that I had no interest in buying property with a man with whom I was not married.  (Boundary setting.)  Well, he chaffed at that a bit.  He just got divorced after a 20 year relationship.  Yet, I was fully in agreement that it was too soon to get married.  Then he says that he will never marry a woman unless he lived with her.  My attitude was, we'll worry about that in the future.  I think that I handled it well.  The point being is once a Narcissist has his sights set on you, he will lie in wait & string you along.

So, one day he sees this house.  I went too.  I never looked at the house.  I went to the yard & sat down.  A realtor seized on me.  I told her, "I'm a visitor.  I'm not buying."  She scampered away.  After he saw the house, he suggested that we go into the city and have dinner.  Not typical for him.  Always working on his courses & research.  OK.  So we strolled in the city.  Had an expensive meal in a sidewalk café which he paid for.  We strolled around the park & ponds.  All lovely & romantic on a late August afternoon.  On the side of the pond, he proposed to me.  Hmm.  I thought you didn't want to get married?  "Well, I saw the house.  I see us in it.  I want us in it.  I see our future there.  I love you."  I told him I needed to think about it.  Apparently, the next day, he spent almost four hours in the house with a realtor!  He decided he wanted it.  Oh, by the way, I agreed to marry him & buy the house with him.  Within 24 hours, I found that he had made an offer on the house BUT he signed my name to the offer!  I should have walked away then.  He was like, "You were at work.  Time was of the essence."  Huge boundary issue.  Forgery.  But, I overlooked it.  

We bought a house & planned a marriage.  We were married one week before the closing.  Everything was a frenzy.  Did I notice that he did not send wedding invitations to any of his friends from that place he came from?  Yes.  It was far away & short notice & he was busy.  He preferred to send formal announcements after the ceremony.  I realize now, had the sale of the house fallen through, there would have been no marriage.  You see, I was getting married to a man I loved.  Later, I would understand, he got married to buy a house which he could not afford on his own.

At that time, the mortgage market was booming.  But, he couldn't get a second mortgage (to supplement the university mortgage) because he was not a permanent resident alien in the United States.  That's where I came in.  The citizen.  But, in the end, we did not get a second mortgage.  Both he & I ponied up equal amounts of cash with the university mortgage.  Before we went into it, we decided everything would be 50/50.  OK.  After we moved in, all the guy did was WORK.  Work on his job.  Work on the house.  And the money he wanted for all his renovations.  All the time, I was broke.  My checks were spent before they ever walked into the living room.  All the time the emotional upheavals but we never argued about money.  He picked fights every 7-10 days.  My position was to always remain calm & to give him what he wanted to keep him quiet.  

One day, I put my foot down.  He wanted something for the house.  I said, "No.  I cannot afford that.  The thing works fine.  I'm not paying for that."  A day later, he came back.  "I'll pay 67% & you pay 33%.  How's that sound?"  OK.  I paid.  We also had a joint account for the household costs.  Laundry soap, food, etc.  Well, I noticed that he paid for his personal dry cleaning with that debit card.  Also, I noticed that he used it at the drug store to buy his shaving supplies, etc.  Hmm.  But, I said nothing.  Once I destroyed his sweater which he had thrown into the wash.  He made such a scene, I had to buy him a new one.  The next time he put a sweater in the wash, I said:  "At your own peril.  If it is destroyed, I will not replace."  He sent it to the dry cleaner, & I paid 50% for that cleaning.  Hmm.  

About eight months after the catastrophic crash of the stock market & the housing market, I told him I was leaving him.  Three hours later, he came back with a printout from the internet.  He said, "The house is worth 60% of what we paid.  I assure you, I will buy this house from you & take this crash into the calculation.  You made a bad investment."  I still didn't get it.  Anyhow, lucky for me, after he had FOUR appraisals, the house never really lost value.  I lost everything which I invested in renovations; I lost half a car; I paid for his divorce lawyer; he broke my possessions & stole my stuff.  But, I got almost all my equity out.  Still, I didn't get it.  I didn't realize even then that he was a financial parasite.  I thought that he was just a mean & spiteful, malignant narcissist.  We were divorced within 11 months of my leaving him.  It would have taken less time but he dragged it out.  And, in November when we finally signed the separation agreement,  he needed 90 days to raise a mortgage to buy me out.

Well, two months after the divorce, and exactly a year after I left him, I was contacted by a woman.  She had been with him from the day on which I moved out.  (They can never be alone.)  He swept her off her feet.  Loved her.  Wanted to marry her.  She moved into the house after 8 weeks of dating him.  (My stuff was still there because he never let me get it out.)  I would learn, that first month that I was out & she was in, he proposed to her.  He wanted her to buy my share of the house!  She refused.  But, that week, his parents gave him the money in cash to buy me out.  (So much for needing 90 extra days to raise the money--his parents gave him the money some four months prior to the date he signed the separation agreement.)  What she didn't know, but I had e-mails from the same time frame of their first weeks, no bank would give him a mortgage to buy me out.  (After crash.)  He was proposing to her to get her to buy me out.  (He was sending me e-mails to come back to him at the same time he was proposing to her!  Whatever woman was of no difference, just whichever one would help him keep the house!)  She never knew that he was refused mortgages.  (She's the one who told me about all the appraisals.)  She made more money than him; she sold a house for a small fortune; he had her move all her antiques into his tiny house.  Apparently, she paid the taxes on the house but refused to put any money into renovations.  She paid for all their meals out because she earned more than him.  In nine months, she was out $55,000 with him.  And, he wouldn't let her get her antiques.  (Just as he wouldn't let me get my stuff.)  In the end, he stole from her & broke her stuff.  He cleaned out their joint bank account which had $4,000 in it.  He did the same to me but our account had only $400 in it!  

Another  bit I learned, he portrayed me as pathologically secretive.  (A.K.A. boundaries.)  He couldn't live with a woman who was secretive.  He got all the numbers to her bank accounts!  All her expensive jewelry went into a jointly-held, safe deposit box!  He never got around to giving his account numbers.   She paid for all his trips to her house in Florida & to her other place before she sold it.  The two of us realized, "He's a con-artist."  He gets women to subsidize his standard of living.  After that, I contacted the ex-wife.  She told me that she lost a bundle of money in her divorce!  She, too, had made more money than him & he exploited it to the fullest in the end by getting half of the value of the house which a lion's share had come from her originally!  Also, he stole from her a valuable collection of three hundred year old books!  In our house, he had an "office" which covered 25% of the entire floor space of the house!  He had thousands of books.  But, there was this area which displayed a prize collection of three hundred year old books!  The ex-wife let them go rather than dicker with him.  Good riddance. 

In the end, it all came together.  I saw.  Everything was about a house.  The man married me to buy a house which he could not afford.  And, when he divorced me, he was prepared to marry another woman to keep that house.  I subsidized his standard of living.  Oh, and did I mention the taxes?  I am self-employed.  I made clear that I wanted to file independently.  But, he insisted that we file together.  During the marriage, I felt that all I did was pay taxes.  After the divorce, I would learn.  From his pay check, he would have the minimum amount deducted.  At tax time, we would share what more we owed.  Each year of the marriage, I would pay more & more in quarterlies to the IRS hoping upon hope that would cover it.  Never did.  In the end, I learned that I had been paying approximately 60% of his personal income tax on his salary!  Also, paying 50% or more of his personal living expenses.  Within days of him leaving that woman who contacted me, he had a new woman.  Also, very successful.  Eventually, he sold that tiny house which he purchased with me.  Now he lives in a huge place which he bought with the new woman.  Good luck to her!  


By AKA Agnes Parnell



Photo Credit: Nick Kenrick 
"A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams."
Used under Creative Commons License.  Via Flickr.com

Photo Credit: Alvaro Tapia
"Vampire"
Used under Creative Commons License.  Via Flickr.com