Do The Right Thing

I met Brian through my brother. They were friends who met in rehab. That should have been the deterrent right there, but codependents don’t think before they get involved. I got involved with Brian because he was my brother’s friend, and I trusted him. They were pals, and they supported one another. When Stacey was kicked out of his halfway house, Brian took him in. When Brian had to move to a new place, Stacey helped him get it ready. Stacey, being Stacey, thought Brian was the coolest. Brian was a falconer and did educational programs with his birds of prey, including flight demonstrations. Plus, he was a dog owner and not just any dogs, dachshunds. I fell in love with the breed as my grandmother had them. So my brother was convinced that we would be a good match.

If I had been in my right mind, I would have paid more attention to the red flags that were not just flapping in my face; they were banging me on the head. I would have realized that Brian was not just an addict; there was something else really wrong with him. His behavior was bizarre, like his sense of entitlement. I used to wonder who spoiled him so much that he thinks everything is owed to him. At first, it was funny, but it became clear that something underlying him was beyond my understanding. I was in my own world, worried sick about my brother, and at the time, it seemed as though they were one person, Brian, Stacey, Stacey, Brian. One of the biggest red flags was his addiction. But codependents don’t see things like that, and if they do, they think they can fix it.

I did not notice the scary things about him at first; I only saw the boyish charm, the way he flirted with me, and, yes, that feeling you get when you first meet someone, the butterflies. And you have amazing sex, and he has an amazing occupation, he is a falconer, my brother thinks we would be good together, he’s sneaky, and he is so cute, he’s an alcoholic, and he likes me, and he is a liar, he’s great, and we both love animals, he’s an ex-con, and he is a narcissist, he uses me, and our relationship was doomed before it started. And he had dachshunds, long-haired ones, and we had puppies, and birds, and snakes. Sound chaotic and crazy? That is life with a narcissist, absolutely senseless.

I could have forgiven him for everything if he had just done the right thing. I don’t blame him for not wanting to deal with my illness. And truth be told, he was not able to take care of me. Not in any way, shape, or form, and all eyes were on him. He took the reins right away when I got sick, and everyone thought I was in good hands, including me, but he knew, he knew he was not going to stay around no matter what. So, why pretend to care? I have asked myself this very question literally hundreds of times and have come up with many theories, all of which are more depraved than the next. The right thing would have been to bow out gracefully and let my people know so they, the ones that actually cared about me, could take over.

The right thing would have been to end our relationship before starting another. The right thing would have been to treat me with some respect and decency, even if he was no longer in love with me. Even if he was too cowardly to face me, he should have let me know somehow. But narcissists never do the right thing; they can’t. Brian lacks decency and a moral compass. The way our relationship ended has a name in the narcissistic community. It is called the “discard.” You don’t see it coming, and you have no idea why, leaving you shocked and confused. He not only cruelly and suddenly discarded me with no warning or goodbye, but he also used me throughout our relationship, his courtship, and beyond his wedding. He wasn’t worried about me taking care of his eight dogs while battling cancer and trying to keep my job, so he could go to Tennessee to romance my replacement. Very often, people with NPD will remain in one relationship while starting a new, more beneficial relationship, ensuring that the transition to the new one will go off without a hitch. In addition, they want to stay on the receiving end of the current relationship for as long as possible, a practice called “monkey-branching.”

Brian not only betrayed and abandoned me when I needed him the most, but he also villainized me to justify it. This is the most dangerous aspect of narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy: their lack of empathy. People with cluster B personality disorders struggle to understand empathy or emtional connection with other human beings. They don’t feel it because they can’t, and that makes them dangerous. This inability to feel normal human emotions makes it easy for them to “discard” as they simply don’t care. Brian looked me in the eyes the morning I left for North Carolina to visit a friend and recover from the horrors of chemo, and said he would drive me to the airport, but we should stop at DMV on the way so I could put his van back in his name. It had been registered in my name, and I had been paying the insurance since 2015 because of his DWIs. One of the things he manipulated me into early on. He knew he was getting married in three weeks, and he wanted to tie up all the loose ends. He looked into my eyes that morning and lied to my soul. That kind of broken you can’t fix.

At first, I thought it was crazy that there were all these traits and behaviors. The more I learned, the more his behavior made sense, yet it was no less devastating. Brian is actually a textbook example of a covert narcissist. I have since become an expert on narcissism, and it is what saved me from a nervous breakdown. I have known mental illness all my life, but I have never known a person like Brian, and I hope to never again.