Disenfranchised Grief

The unique grief experienced by discarded spouses of psychopaths and narcissists. 

This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

I think it's fair enough to assume, after a number of normal relationships that failed the lifetime compatibility test, that the person who vows they want to spend the rest of their life with you, at the very least, has your best interests at heart. But a psychopathic narcissist has nobody's interests but his own in the place where his heart should be.

However long you test out the relationship before you convince yourself the love is mutual and enduring, if you marry a psychopath, you will find that everything changes the day after the wedding.

For a start, his/her natural predatory instincts have assessed you as the thing he/she most wants next. For whatever reason. First up, he/she likes your house, your cooking, your income, the lifestyle you can provide for him/her. Or your looks might be good enough to be a trophy wife. The reasons might include your deep inner qualities but only because he wants to possess them for himself. He wants your kindness, generosity, sweetness, humour, honesty, competence, whatever. He also wants your constant adoration, worship, adulation and praise.

What he doesn't want is your illness, your sadness, your anger (especially not your anger), your exhaustion, or any other normal human baggage. He'll stick with you until he's got you hooked - reflecting back at you and promising to partner you in all the things you most hope for, crave, or aspire to. Morphing himself into everything you ever wanted in a partner. Easy. Especially if you give him a list of the things you are looking for (like on a dating site).

From that moment forth, when he has your total trust, love and commitment, it'll feel like you're drowning. You are suddenly trapped in a revolving door of episodic kindness and praise like he used to hook you, and covert cruel devaluation, ending in dehumanisation and destruction of your life. Just like any old parasite slowly starves and kills its host. Like a frog slowly coming to the boil, you'll fail to notice the rising temperature until you're already cooked. You'll wake up dead.

A narcissistic sociopath’s love is more a combination of greed and contempt than any kind of love. His love is just obsession. A passing fancy. He wants you like he wants a new Ferrari or a holiday on a Greek Isle. Once he's got it, the novelty quickly wears off. There are flies. Sure, there are plenty of people like that.

What makes the sociopath different from plain old womanisers is that they'll stick around, taking everything they can get, and plotting ways to make it look like you are the reason he was forced to leave. He needs to destroy the evidence rather than risk tarnishing his spotless reputation. Keep his hands clean. Discredit and disempower his victims. He IS the red Ferrari, out of control, without brakes, careering from one reinvention to the next, ploughing remorselessly through lives, leaving a trail of destruction and a pile of bodies.

The psychopath is addicted to continual excitement, and nobody can remain exciting for the duration of a marriage. Or excited about their mate. Nobody. But you will find that, from the moment he has you hooked, he becomes suddenly and inexplicably bored with you. The excitement was all in the chase.

The drive to WIN at any cost is huge in the narcissistic ego. Once he takes home the prize - the giant stuffed panda toy (that's you), it gets sat in a corner of the bedroom and thereafter neglected. Taken out when there's an audience and shown off with pride. Your achievements are claimed as his own, at the same time as he privately belittles them and holds them in contempt. He'll spend your money for you. He'll charm the pants off your friends and family. He'll even do the washing up 'for you' from time to time. Or make you breakfast in bed. When there are witnesses. They'll tell you how lucky you are to have such an attentive husband. And when they leave, back in the corner you go.

The thing you imagine you see in him as love is not love. It's excitement. It's gratification at tricking you into loving him. At winning the game. That suspicion you have that his lovemaking is just lust is not an illusion. For him, it is simply fulfilling a human need for sex, and no vow or moral boundary is going to prevent him from satisfying that need whenever and with whomever is convenient. The hyper-sexuality is not about his love for you, it's just about convenience.

The reason he keeps marrying and discarding women is because he likes to have his basic needs for food, shelter and sex met all the time, and without too much effort. He is always on the lookout for the next thing that might take his fancy. If he senses your imminent withdrawal of any of the things that satisfy his appetites (narcissistic supply), he'll easily switch to the attentive adoring man he was before he hooked you. He'll smirk as he sees you take the bait again. Then he'll do exactly the opposite of what he just promised you.

His sense of entitlement is massive. It precludes the possibility of love. Since love requires humility. Opening up the heart and allowing another to witness our flaws and trusting them to treat our hearts with respect. Many psychopaths develop very sophisticated stories and word salads to imply that they are humble. They might go to great lengths to prove just how humble they are. People love humility. It garners praise. Anything that garners praise is a worthwhile game.

Charity is another. Real charity, real humility don't advertise themselves, but the psychopath can't resist advertising his. He can't resist telling complete strangers what a humble, charitable guy he is, impressing them. His flying monkeys (enablers) will lobby for him, and he'll be showered with accolades or prizes for charitable works that should really go to the person out the back who's quietly devoted their life to genuinely helping others.

The love thing is just another tiny part of his/her sophisticated 'personality strategy'. If one deems oneself naturally superior to others, one must at least develop the ability to appear normal. To fit in. One must climb the social ladder wearing a mask of normalcy, burying the bodies one steps over to advance, to survive.

With fame or a title appended to one's name, even the red Ferrari starts to morph into a Rolls Royce - the very model of established power and decency perhaps. Unquestionable. Now that is success. That is winning. Climbing so far up that one is no longer held to account for one’s actions. Beyond reproach.

That's the goal. Because there is nothing a sociopath hates more than being challenged in any way. Challenges, queries, being held to account don't fit in with the image he has of himself as Mr Perfect. Most challenges can be swiftly dealt with by using the humble act anyway. Word salads of remorse or regret that flip the blame onto his accuser. He’s sorry he couldn’t deal with the fact that she’s a crazy lying bitch.

The victim then, experiences a more difficult and wily form of grief. Disenfranchised grief. Genuine grief for something that never existed. Not solid tangible death-type grief. But a grief that belongs nowhere in the psyche. A grief that, in a sense, can never heal. Precisely because it belongs nowhere.

There is grief at losing a home, a future, connection to family and friends, and all the broken promises. Like the death of any relationship. But then, there is the disenfranchised grief of loving a person who never existed. Believing oneself loved by a liar who lied about loving us.

It's grief for the death of a loved one who was nothing more than an imaginary friend. That type of grief is crazy making. And I'm sure that many victims cannot escape their cognitive dissonance in this regard by continuing to struggle for years to understand how such a dream love could result in such a nightmare.

Facing the fact that we were never loved, despite investing everything we had. Facing the fact that the love we gave was to an imaginary friend. A ghost. It is this that can make recovery from narcissistic and psychopathic relationships take so very long. We trusted the sheep and were devoured by the wolf. We married Dr Jekyll and were destroyed by Mr Hyde.

We grieve the loss of a false persona.

©Margot MacCallum