Do Me a Favour if You are Unmarried

Truly study your upbringing. Look at everything you accepted and got used to as the nor. Look at the behaviour, temperament and attitudes you were raised to expect and thought of as typical of those who loved you.

Look at your parents. Compare them to other parents. Nobody is perfect, but maybe the love your parents exhibited towards you, the love you grew up thinking was love, is flawed. Maybe it’s not love. Maybe it’s not what you deserve. Maybe it’s not what God would define as love.

Identify any negatives from your childhood and early adult years. Ask if you have healed- if you need healing. Do not marry, not even get into a relationship while wounded. If you don’t marry another one who will wound you, YOU will become the harmful one. Destroying the one who put their heart in your hands.

If your parents were constantly affirming, wanting your best and caring about your needs and taking your wants into account, if you got used to the concept of respect being a two way street on which both you and your parents met half way, you are on your way. You are closer to marital bliss.

But see, the narcissist is wily. You can come from the best family ever, where real love and respect were modeled and still fall for a narc. Maybe she seemed like she needed help, and you were taught to be a helpful guy…Then she nabbed you. Little knowing that’s all she’s able to do, take what you give her but never give you anything but harsh words, sarcasm and sorrow.

The problem is that narcissists are perfect at showing you their good side. Even if that side doesn’t actually exist. They are especially adept at taking the quality people. The kind people. The ones who are firm and unbending. They know they can use that against you because you have told yourself to be loyal and to never “speak ill” of someone else.

Perfect victim.

Silent victim.

I only know of one spouse- especially in our very silent Adventist world- who has spoken up publicly about being married to a narcissistic man and what she says is true. He was a charmer. You could NEVER imagine he would do the things he did. I met him.

That’s the problem. They aren’t the typical bad boys or manwhore girls. They are the good guy next door. The innocent girl. And so nobody would even believe you unless they are really wise or really love you.

Being married to a narcissist is a loneliness only another spouse of one would understand. Everyone assumes you are happily married only because that’s how YOU act. You never show how you feel inside because you have no choice but to keep going because frequently, there are children involved. The lady was able to speak her truth because her children were grown up (except for a teen daughter) and had seen enough to make their own pronouncement, “Our dad is whack.” But the other victims of narcissists I know don’t have that luxury yet. They can’t even split up because they worry the children will be raised by awful moms, with the victim men only having visitation rights. Or, if female, they worry that they won’t be there to be a positive influence when their toxic dad has them.

I’ve spoken to a lot of spouses. What I’ve seen is that some men are so intent on not being like a cheating, wondering dad, that they trap themselves with a girl who knows he will stay no matter what. And she becomes the “no matter what.”

Or you have the girl who grew up being told she’s nothing. The very first guy who claims to believe she’s his everything, seems to be her salvation and so she chooses him. Not knowing that soon the mask will fall off and she will come to realise she is actually nothing to him because he is so full of himself. No space in his egotistical heart for HER heart cries.

I’ve seen so much pain that I am jaded. I don’t like weddings. People all begin with hopes and dreams. They think, “ MY one is different…” But too often, their one was only different when s/he wanted to acquire them. They are merely a trophy. And one day down the line, be it a month or ten years later, the scales fall off and they realise their one didn’t want a marriage. Just a badge of respectability.

Marriage, a real marriage, is the meeting of two minds. It’s the attempt to make two hearts beat as one. It’s a process of give and take. “You want that? Ok, it won’t kill me, let’s do it!” And, “Aww, thank you so much!” Marriage, a real godly marriage, is when the enemy comes from outside and you both fight against it as one.

If you are single, I hope you remain happily single. And if you are married, I hope you have found the freedom to be yourself and to be loved for who you are and what you believe in. If not, if you are miserably married, I am so terribly sorry. I’ve seen the damage- though invisible to the outside eyes that see your ever present smile. I see it in your words, I feel it as if seared into my heart.

And if you are the toxic partner. If your husband or wife is crying hot tears and keeping a lot inside because of you and you don’t give a d—n because only your feelings matter anyway, God have mercy on your soul. Because I certainly don’t have any mercy to spare. I hate those who cause pain so casually and then want to be begged or appeased, making the innocent party beg for a crumb of love while giving themselves fully. I really despise gaslighters. I hope you ask God for a new heart. You definitely need one. In fact, you need a heart- period.

Yes. Totally different to my usual stuff. But it’s been on my heart for among time. Narcissistic people are abusive. And it’s an abuse we don’t talk about. We need to start because wounds are forming every day in the silent victims who the church has taught to be quiet. Words do harm, just as much as sticks and stones, and the scars may be invisible, but they are permanent- with only more flesh being flayed away with each passing day.

I hate all forms of abuse. I’ve seen how the church treats the abused. I’ve been vilified for helping a woman who was almost murdered, run away to stay with her very worried bosses. I was vilified by church elders. I was apparently meant to gk speak to her not to find out what he did, but to make her go back to him, despite my find out that it wasn’t even his first, second, or third time!

Thankfully, I belong to God, not to the church. The church …No comment. My heart is safe with God. He will never harm it. And so is yours.