Narc Upbringing and Trust

The New Roof

Its taking me so long to get this out.  My feelings are rapid, hard to tell what's going on sometimes, slow it down.  What was the real problem here?  Was it that DH took the side of a narcissistic woman?  Or was it that I was too focused on not being able to take care of myself, and making the decision out of fear.  For me, this would be normal.  To stay in bad marriages, well what was the alternative?  The rest of the world won't have me, so this seemed to work for me until the coming of the Lord.

Along with the understanding that I'm an ACON, came new ways of living.  I didn't understand before, how my mind was formed from birth, how my upbringing made me the way I am.  I eventually did escape my abusive marriages when the pros of leaving outweighed the cons.  Then I could go.  I've also learned a whole lot more of valuing myself, treating myself with the same respect that I want others to treat me.  Or hopefully how I want others to treat me.  I always expect to be treated badly, and was never shocked about it.

I am an educated woman.  Not just high school here, I am educated in the world of engineering and science.  When I get to think, therein lies the real me.  I think I formed this way, for my mother was uneducated, so any thinking and forming new ideas gave me a break from the engulfing.  At least in my head anyway.  This was a world she could never enter, and there I found my peace in the labs of the chemistry class, all through high school even.  It helped me escape bullying even, for to me, to think is freedom.

It doesn't always work well though.  If I am too overburdened, like lately, its hard for me.  I like the idea of thinking, but I could never put the other stuff away, it seems.  That's when I get confused, lost and disoriented.  I go into town and I forget where I'm going, its hard to understand me at times.  Its hard to understand myself.

I am also (well it was a test I ran on myself) 80% feminine, and 20% nerdy boy.  Ha ha, now I know I'm making sense.

Ok, back to what I'm trying to talk about.  It wasn't the fact that DH lurved his SIL more than me. That I can handle.  But I could not function in a way that normal people do.  I am a target wherever I go.  I am afraid.  Tell him to leave, then no money, no support, these are tangible crisis areas.  You might poo poo the concept of it, but for the sake of being real and present, this is what it is.

So I have a plan.  I was afraid, and I couldn't think for the longest time. I fully understood that I was under narcissistic attack, and I also realized my limitations, too, as well, maybe more profoundly than I realized I was under attack.

This came about as a huge reckoning, that it wasn't the fact that being under attack was my main problem.  The problem was, was I able to take care of myself in the event that everything came apart? Now, now, I know what you must be thinking, and I was thinking the same darn thing.  That I shouldn't have those thoughts, or place barriers on myself, that I am enough, I'll make my way in the world no matter what.  Easy peasy, right?

Wrong.  I wasn't being realistic and present with myself.  Yes, I am enough, born that way, but when you're an ACON, you can believe your enough, ok?  Just sometimes you run up against a brick wall, and you need time to recoup, to get better, till you can say you're alright.  The event at hand was horrible, and my own DH did not stand up for me, was the issue here.  He couldn't or wouldn't take care of me at a time I desperately needed him to.

I've been trying to explain, here and there. I was sharing about how to deal with narcissists.  Confront them?  No, mother loved that.  She loved to be confronted on her abuse.  Then I remembered a story that goes way back into my childhood about a family that sold their farm just to get away from us.  It is no small thing to sell your property, to move on.  But they did it to get away from the sheer malicious envy of my mother.  Mother was spreading rumors and gossip.  Mother said this full time homemaker and wife was a tramp.  It wasn't true. I knew this, I went over there enough times, and I tell you the aroma of cookies, and pretty decorations still play in my head. One of the best memories, and I still have that memory, it was so good, just a tidbit of good from a horrible childhood.

I still feel like mother plays on in my head too.  I have never amounted to much.  And to tell the actual and authentic truth, if DH did stand up for me, it would have been more than my "lesser than" mind could ever bear.  What does this mean?  I don't know.  I'll try to put the pieces into place.

My mind is all over the place on this one.  I prayed for God to help me get it straight. I knew I was seething on the inside, so it made it all so hard to think.   And I also remember a psychology professor told me that studying for tests and exams is all about how you put information into the right places into your brain so that you can access them at will.  Otherwise you have no hope. You may know everything, and its not that you have never learned it, its there, its just lost in the network of your brain.

That's true.  From that, I learned at just throwing memories out there.  If DH was very loving it would be torturous for me.  I think I said that before.  He has never crossed that boundary.  Sigh.  I made the mistake of sharing at others blog, now I have to regurgitate the information.  I have a weird sense of myself.  To have been with this so long, and to realize that I wasn't picking up any cues, was hard to take.  I'm learning that now, but so hard to get there.  Feels risky.  Of course it feels risky and scary, Nmom would never have allowed it.  This venture into new territory and boundaries is a difficult road in fear.

It hurts me that mother attacked a wonderful and gracious family.  She actually set out to destroy them.  Kind people, who had no way of coping with a spiteful, narcissistic woman next door.  I feel sorry for them.  Now, I meander my way through life, with mother's dirt on me.  That I don't deserve much.  I don't deserve anything really. Just survival, and that is exactly the way mother put it.  Don't do much for me, just cause.

If I had to suck up to a man to take care of me, there that is the way to go.  Mother left me 8 thousand dollars in her will, with one caveat, this is what my aunt told me, "Your mother said you will need the money, for when the time comes, it won't work with him."  I was ashamed of sharing that on my blog or with anyone.  What will you guys think of me?  Of course, my aunt told me this over the phone, which is something I really appreciate.  It doesn't always work that way in my family.  At our meeting, my aunt told me lots of stuff about our family, how my dad was so cheap, and that mother sacrificed to keep us fed.  My dad was not much of a provider, and my aunt made sure to say that right in front of my DH, who was sitting right there in the restaurant table, right beside me.  He got the lowdown on my family, stuff I never even told him, why would he have to know?  I felt degraded, but I knew boundaries would be crossed, I learned that lesson very long ago, boundaries did not exist. A lot of the stuff she did say was true, but she left out a whole lot.  Mother did seem to be deprived, and helpless, but there are real facts about my mother that leaves her out of ever being innocent.  I let my aunt talk, I didn't care anymore.  I was wondering why we were sitting in a restaurant, since she did have a home we could go to.  I felt dirty at that point, and even DH mentioned it to me why we were not meeting her at her home, but I didn't know.

8 thousand dollars was supposed to be my meal ticket for life.  It was all I had.  I was resentful over mother giving it to me for that reason, and we spent it on the roof.  Which all seems so very foolish of me.  I am expecting this to be my home forever.  It was an expensive roof, it took all the money and then some, and it will never have to be replaced, it is a permanent roof.  There I need no insurance, I got my insurance now, I have a roof.

That caveat stuck with me.  8 thousand dollars was for my survival.  Maybe I should be grateful.  I would have been, if she have not stuck it to me.  I was intending on building my life with this one man and I wanted everything to be permanent with him.  I bent over backwards to please him.  I cowered even.  I thought now I would be vulnerable, and he wouldn't do any thing to hurt me.  I didn't want to believe that my mind was actually working against me.  This wasn't real vulnerability. Everything became a mess with me.  I was scared again, just like I was before.  I was terrified I was going to end up alone, with nothing and no one, just because mother had said it.

So I was afraid the second my aunt gave me the money.  It was terrifying actually, and I hope I am explaining that one well.  From the very first day of hearing of no contact, I just loved it.  To me, it was my ticket out.  No longer am I to have to beat my head up against a wall, and try to make nice with narcs, this was all over with.  Done.  I was happy to finally have the acknowledgement that this was not working, never will work, and I could just leave the whole mess behind.

I had to think some more.  People have said of mother, and I believed this for the longest time, that she only hurt people because it made her feel better.  Ok, that is true, but not exactly.  I saw mother, who could have had good friends, who could have done better, actually choose the lesser of people to make her friends with so she could have a steady source of supply.  And she didn't teach me that I had nothing to cling to in life because it was a loving message, coming from a loyal mother who was only trying to teach her daughter to stay safe.  She told me that to destroy me.  Mother never wanted better, she only wanted supply.  It was what she lived for.  She wanted to see me go down, and I know that for a fact now.

But that wasn't the end of the story.  Just when I am starting to feel safe, came this message from mother.  She paid 8 thousand dollars for me to hear it, it was that I was never good enough.  I am not to feel safe, I will be needy forever.  Education or no education, I am no good. That's what it was.  So I tried to hang on to something, and we know in relationships that is bad to do.  We can't hold on to someone, we are to allow them the freedom to decide for their own selves if they want to be with us. I knew this for a fact.  I had taken a course in that, but even before that, long ago, I knew what this was, and it wasn't working for me, so I needed to dig deep, find out what was really bothering me and solve that problem first.

And the truth was, I didn't screw up that badly in life.  I don't have a trail of messes behind me, not really.  I have been able to solve most of my problems.  One bill, a credit card that is over ten years old, is way past the due date of collections, and when I told that company who called me looking for the money, that they would have to sue me or I'm taking this up for harassment, they were gone.  And as far as I know this stuff is taken off my record too, I have a good standing on my credit.  No money of my own, but I have a spotless record, really I do.  My point is, that I had to pick up that darn phone and tell them to get lost, and I did.  It didn't feel marvelous, we do want to pay our bills, but this was not solvable, so our government had instituted statute of limitations to help us, and I used it.

See, what my problem was I was believing my mothers lies about myself.  When reality clicked in, I realized I can take care of myself.  I took a course in understanding men, and while I'm at it, I'll give you a secret.  Just so that you know, and if you are a woman this is going to be very helpful if you've been brainwashed.  You don't have to give a man sex.  Exactly.  There are lots of biological reasons for this, but just realize that.  So any pressure you feel regarding having to give him sex to keep him around is bogus.  It never worked that way.  Sure, men have taken the sex before, of course.  But they don't need it from you, until you are committed in your heart, and that is just a plain old fact.

It still plays on in my mind, how these neighbours we had growing up, were supposed to be very bad people.  That is what mother said.  According to Nmom the husband was abusive, the wife cheated, he had a roaming eye.  But all I saw in my child's mind was this perfect and loving family.  Of course, I knew and believed mother to be always right but where was the dirt?  I didn't see it, but I believed it simply because of mother's say so.  Mother intended on brainwashing me right up until the very end. She didn't care, or even know how my relationship was, she just made a prediction.  And there I was trying to pick up the mess, real or not.  It may or not have been a mess, but I was not prepared for any tragedy, and here was mother trying to make sure I would be provided for, nonetheless.  Overall, I always believed mother to be right, regardless what I saw in front of me.

No doubt, things are a mess now.  My narcissistic upbringing has brought me challenges the regular folk don't understand.  So as I realized I was making all my decisions from fear from that point on.  I am afraid of my future.  What was going to become of me.  So I clung to DH for dear life, and I let his douchbaggy ways just slide by.

Ok, you know the stuff that happened, I described in the previous two posts.  But I couldn't think. Something inside me screamed that I had no chance in life if I didn't stick by him no matter what.  I love the advice I got, however, as good as it all was, I'm afraid that it wasn't present with me.  Tell him this, or tell him that.  That was all good, but it was no help for a woman who had no power, and had no right to be taking chances with her relationship.  I couldn't expect anything out of him, he had all the power.  He didn't need me, but I needed him, so what the heck was I to do with any kind of advice?  He didn't need me, he was successful.

First of all, I had to come up with a plan.  I needed to get him out of my mind, and the situation I just put aside.  What would I do without him?  That was my real problem here, not the SIL, not the freaking out she did, but what was I going to do?  I had to be realistic.  I have been a targeted source of supply for so long.  My career is in the toilet because of it.  If I could focus on that and only that, I know I could figure it out.  I was not to confuse myself.   It took my down some terrible mind trips.  I can only share a few on here, I felt defunct, worthless.  I prayed, and I remembered some things.  Lisette's post made me think, then Q's post made me think.  All I felt was "lesser than" my whole life.

Imagine the wife, if you will, that I mentioned believed mothers gossip about herself?  Just stay with me on that, for now.  I am going to put myself in her shoes.  Ok, stay at home raise children, but I'm a tramp?  Must be a tramp, for that woman says so.  I know your belief system at this might be a little off, but imagine if she believed my mother's smear campaign?  Mother only hated her for being what she was, a good wife and mother, which the narcissist sought out to destroy.  My mother was so good at this, and she could walk around in a relative overt style.  She could have you believing something of yourself just on her say so.  Yeah, my aunt called mother mean sometimes, but other times mother was very nice.  And mother struggled to get by.  She had no resources of her own, the men in her life all used her.  She had nothing.  That would make anyone feel sorry for mother.  But what audacity did mother have to attack people she was jealous of?  I know, we all feel jealous at times, but is it normal to launch a smear campaign like the one she did?  I think mother was out to destroy, and there was no pity with mother, the fangs were out.  This poor impoverished woman, my mother, was just pure evil. To take a wholesome and loving family, and mother tried to bury them in dirt.  My mother, my poor innocent mother, who was only mean because she was just angry?  Or hurt?  That is what my aunt tried to tell me.  It was difficult to go back home with DH, I'm grateful he didn't ask any questions, but I felt horribly ashamed.  All the dirty laundry.  But, when I put myself in the shoes of the woman that mother smeared, this was like a gift.

One day we were all sitting peacefully in the livingroom.  This man busted into the house, and layed into mother for the shit she stirred up.  My mother denied the gossip, and even informed him that maybe he should open his eyes, that his wife was cheating on him.  Even as a child I knew that his wife didn't drive, she didn't have men over, and it was impossible, we were very rural, can't even walk into town, it was far.  Well, my point is, the man denied it, his wife denied it, and I saw firsthand that mother was wrong, but I wouldn't come to understand till now.  Mother was wrong.  This is a foreign concept for me, and I'm loving it.  It will spell my freedom.

Well, we did have friends growing up, http://joanfrenchy.blogspot.ca/2015_04_01_archive.html, but they were as crazy and mixed up the same as we were.  I didn't feel that way at the time.  To me, it was great when they came over or we went to visit them, but I never knew this family all had sex with eachother.  I wasn't supposed to know that.  Mother did shame them too, but it didn't matter. They got used to mother and the way she was, they were not expecting any better.  The mother had sex with the sons, and the daughters were too.  I know, and that is why I can't put this blog on the google search engine, its too dirty.

I mean, whatever, it doesn't matter, but I do want everyone in the world to read this.  And my brother that hit me too.  I used to think he was so cool.  His "cool" friend was a member of that family.  They used to go to rock concerts, and I remember looking at them in envy that they got to go to a KISS concert, and I was not going, and I didn't know why.  I didn't like rock music anyway, but I never felt special as they were.  But my brother's friend wasn't so cool afterall, he was having sex with his sister.  These were not good people, and we were going on camping trips together, hanging out together, brothers hanging out together, and on the outside I suppose it looked normal, but it never was.  Seemingly normal, but diabolically evil is what we were, and I was part of that clan too.  There was no escaping it for me.  They could handle the smear campaigns of mother, who cared right?  For people who lived like that, don't matter what mother said.  She couldn't hurt them, they were like the broken dolls that mother got to play with, which were already broken.  Mother was like a bad kid with toys, if they were broken, it was ok, there was nothing she could do to ruin them more.  They didn't have any friends besides us either, we were it.

When you are soaked in this environment, and they are the only people that are your friends, you become them, even though, well, you know the evil they do, and you see it, but you don't see it.  To you, this is all normal.  Afterall, you want friends, and no one else will have anything to do with you.

It was easy to believe mother.  You saw yelllow, she would say red and you just believed her.  I accepted this crazy family as our friends,  Smear campaigns galore, mother had nothing nice to say about them, especially their mother.  They were dirty, sloppy, but what can you do?  They lost their farm to backtaxes, I remember I was only about 10 and I didn't know what backtaxes were.  They moved to the city, and we continued the friendship, and I don't remember how it all ended, but one day the friendship dried up, and never went there again.

So as children we believed what the NP said, for otherwise, well, there is no otherwise.  But can we change that belief about ourselves.  I am beginning to believe I can, just by doubting the bad thoughts about myself.  Not fight them, but just say no to them, that they are not right.  Let the bad thoughts happen, then curtail it with, a resounding, "no".

Then I asked myself this question. What would I do if I had all the money and resources in the world? In my country, a man can leave a woman poverty stricken, no problem, not the first time this would ever happen.  So what would I be doing if I had everything I needed to live a good life without him?

I spent a whole day thinking about this.  Let's suppose I had 5 billion dollars.  All to my own that no one could ever take from me.  What would I do about my problem with DH?

I wouldn't want to leave him.  I wanted to stay with him.  I never wanted to leave him.  I want to stay by his side, be as loving and supportive as I possibly could be, and help him along with his career and life.  Wow, and that came as a revelation to me.  So I decided to try to make a plan.  I wanted to be in such a place of assurance.  The only reason I was putting up with crap from him, and others is because I felt worthless.

I wanted to figure out how I was going to start my life back, and here it is.  Our church has a summer camp.  I just asked them yesterday if I could help out, perhaps join in with the staff there, be it cooking, cleaning, whatever. They are desperate for help now, so I think I could talk my way in there. Well, everyone knows me there, and I got the guy's email, so I put it in my purse and left.

Here's the thing, I'm only worried about being around people all day.  And if I can get paid, but it would be food and lodging, good enough, just the people thing.  Yes, I know, I require a lot of private time, might be hard to find there.  But to tell the truth, I've always been big about having an adventure too.  It would only be for the summer, and I would have to find another adventure later.  But it is a plan.  And its first things first, in the fall, other things will come up, and in the meantime, I won't be homeless.  I could go apply for housing, a small apartment in town, at very low rent.  It takes months for that to come in, so I could apply right away, and in the meantime, work at the summer camp.  Its a little unpredictable, a lot scary, a bit exciting all at the same time.  If I have to be safe and secure all the time, that comes at a cost too, this is planet earth, I don't think anything will ever be too certain here.  I kinda like the idea of taking chances.  And if I end up on welfare in that tiny apartment, at least I can say I tried, and I didn't let MN's rule me.  Rule me in my relationship, destroy my life, I stayed fighting, and it was an adventure.  And then I could start on something else, a new plan, perhaps venture back into my career.  One step at a time.  But this thing about working at a summer camp is cool, its not a archaeology dig, not fun like that, but the relative uncertainty is all there, just the same.  I would have the feeling that I am embarking on something new.

It wasn't a certainty yet, I wasn't going to go there yet, so I didn't ask for the job outright, I wanted to just see if work was available, and it was.  So I gave myself a big hurray for that.  Listen, when do we ACONs ever give ourselves credit for anything?  I asked, and I got, and that is good stuff.  I made myself feel good about myself for that.  Its important, to recover something that is needed in our lives.  I think normal people credit themselves, and praise themselves, we can too.

For so long I didn't know what I was up against.  All it felt like was that the world was against me, and I couldn't cope.  It felt awful.  Now, armed with the knowledge of what I'm up against, malignant narcissism, and being a targeted source of supply, I can make things very different than they were for me in the past.  The dynamics have got to change right?  Will that be an adventure too?

As bold as I feel about all this, the truth of the matter is that I would be doing it right now, if that is what I wanted.  Just like I realized.  There is something that I want more than that.  I do want my relationship to work.  Only problem is, I don't know what I'm dealing with, with him.  Is he a flying monkey?  Is he a narcissist himself?  Why do I have to struggle with this?  I know it seemed all he did was wrong, but like I said, was I even expecting any better of him?  I mean, I don't know, I really don't, and so since I got one problem off my back, this is what I will focus on.  It comes as no surprise to me that I don't expect the best of people.  I don't expect to be treated well, and I wouldn't know what to do with it if I was treated well.  So its one thing at a time.  I can recognize good people, I can recognize bad people, and I am about to tell you how I do this.  And to me a very thoughtless email from the SIL,last summer, its like my mind went back in time, and its warning me that it is a very bad person.  Its like that email read itself to me, "hello, here I am, do you recognize me?"

My problem was having a plan to resort to.  That was beating me up so bad.  Until I could even begin to figure out what was going on with him, I had to make sure that whatever I was doing wasn't because I was too afraid to leave, if need be.  I had to have that put in place.  Not a plan of certainty, but a plan.  Like Anthony Robbins says, "if you want certainty, then go to jail."  Kinda funny, but it is true, and my plan is as certain as it gets.  I do have an education too, so if I can use that I will.  But for now, this adventure does sound good.  Armed with the knowledge of malignant narcissism, this will be new territory for me.  Its not the same old path of feeling rejected all the time, its a new road.

But let me put things in perspective.  I want to see if DH is worth any more of my precious time I have allotted on this earth.  I am tired of getting bullied over those emails, I will not be suffering like I did last summer over this.  I have figured out that I am worth more than that.  Just with being able to come up with a plan to take care of myself, I don't need, need him for that.  But is funny how I got it all screwed up.  I did ask the camp counselor, and that is a big thing.  For me, to even reach out for my needs, is a big thing.  This just is very hard for me.  I don't ask for help, I just don't.

So, as far as DH goes, I have to decide to choose to need him.  That's it.  Not need him like life and death, although I can choose that too.  It has to be of my choosing, if given a choice, what would I do?  Otherwise, I could make it on my own, if I want to do that too.  The point is to choose, not a have to.

As you might know I take part of a relationship group online.  Funny, I didn't put any of that knowledge to good use, while I was exploring this.  I kept running into more questions, and I couldn't figure it out.  At home, we were not getting along.  fighting started, even after my attempts at staying away from him.  Fighting all the time, is confusing for me.  I get tired, I start giving in.  I don't think this is unusual for an ACON, when did we ever win?  Fights would scare me, they still do.  DH is bigger than I am, he is bigger and taller than either of my exes.  This is scary territory for me.  Lately, when he starts walking up to me, my first instinct is to run.  He doesn't even understand this.  When he talks and he's angry, its friggin scary.  I don't know if he is doing it on purpose, there is lots I don't know.

So much I don't know.  I don't know if he is going to hurt me.  I don't know if he is going there this summer.  I don't know, what he's thinking.  For me to even work with him, I needed my plan, then I can figure this out with a clear head.  Not a needy state.  Worried that I can't make it alone, stuff like that.  So I got that covered.

As I sought out advice from my relationship site, one thing became very clear to me.  DH and I have stopped communicating.  Things came down to insults, hateful things, which were really all about significance.  He wanted significance, so did I, and he was not relenting on this matter.  I couldn't figure out if he was a flying monkey or was he just trying to fight for himself and his rights.  And the whole thing just became utter confusion for me.

How to peel out of confusion?  How to stop the confusion.  If there is a way in 30 days or less to find out for sure, for sure, if he was one of the freaks there is only one way.  And it is painful for me, and every ACON might disagree with me on this, I'll run that risk for now.  I have got to know.  I have got to know for myself, so that when I embark on a new adventure, I will be doing so knowing that I did all I could do here.  I don't want to waste too much time on this.  The clock is ticking.  Life goes on, and I am determined to make the best life I possibly can.

Want to know what I have to do that will save me a bunch of time?  Well, before I talk about that, I just want to explain what human value is.  It is something that we give, like money but worth so much more.  The human value I have to give here is trust.  I have to give him trust, and that means that I have to trust him, regardless of what is happening right now.  For what is happening here right now, might be a result of something I did, I know not my fault, but I seem to fall into big messes, regularly, so time to switch things up.

Did he take his SIL side over mine?  He says he didn't, but this might just be an attempt to gaslight me.  I don't know.  I don't agree with him on the matter, that's for sure.  The other night we had a huge fight over it, just like we had over the past few weeks.  I decided at that point to never fight anymore about it.  I am through fighting him on it.  He believes and thinks what he wants to, and I don't want to run interference, or tell him how he is to behave around me.  I'm just not going to do it anymore.

Afterwards, when we both calmed down, he sat there, and watched him being upset.  I just watched and observed.  He said I was crazy again.  He said that he didn't understand me, he doesn't get it, and I am making him feel bad.  Then he took a few more breaths and then said it all over again.  I just watched and listened.  All this does is make him feel bad, this does nothing else.  I can't convince him he is being disloyal, and he believes he is being loyal, and there is nothing else I can do.

He had every opportunity available to show me that he is being disloyal, and all I see is someone who is scared, and trying to be brave, but scared, nonetheless.  He is trying to hold his own position, maintain his dignity, and if dignity is all we accomplish from all this, it might be worth it, it might not.

All I know is that there are certain members of his family that are toxic to me.  That will continue to target me.  Whether it is overt or covert, regular people don't see it.  And I don't know what flying monkeys see.  I know that families can sometimes be very weird, yet try to make appearances of being normal, but normal people keep away from.  Flying monkeys and narcissists are one in the same, and maybe the monkeys are way more harmful, for they carry the power that the narcs can never carry, that is to carry on their secret and torment you with it.  Simply put, flying monkeys give the narcs their power, and I have nothing to do with that.

I can't ever change that.  God has revealed these things to us in secret, and its like regular people could never know.  Do we want to win?  Do we want to fight back?  Of course we do and its not wrong to feel this way, but I'll tell you this is an age old problem here, of biblical proportion.  Do you really think you have the power to change it?  And God said all these things are actually defeated, so what do we do in the meantime?  I don't know.  He's taken care of the problem, so just know these things are already defeated.  I know it doesn't feel like it, but it is.  So whenever a narc throws itself into a spiral, you can sit back and realize their day is coming, and that they are actually done.

So I don't know what I'm saying here.  Its very painful to live now, and I'm just waiting for it all to be over with.  Not talking about killing myself, but I realize everything will be hard, and I can't do anything about it.  Everything is unpredictable too.  And that I hate.  Don't I deserve some peace in my life?  Jesus said I have His peace, he says that He is my portion, that really should be good enough.

So I do have my relationship site.  Lots of good stuff there.  How to add value, and I'm doing it.  I actually think I had never learned trust.  It is intangible to me still, but not as foreign as I once thought.  It wasn't what I thought it was.  I know that I have to learn to trust an fallible human being that could hurt me.  So what?  Getting hurt, means I'm alive right?  He could very well be that flying monkey, trust will smoke him out.  You don't need to do much more than that, no games just straight out trust.

So if trust is like an investment, then when you give it you could expect some kind of return on your investment.  Maybe, or maybe not.  It depends on what your banking on if it is worth the investment. Sometimes we think that someone needs to earn our trust, and that's very good, but thats a rather safe investment, and what I'm talking about will not be safe.

So I read the stuff on whether he is a good man or not.  He does treat the women in his family well.  All women he is respectful of.  He doesn't demean people.  He doesn't go into pornography.  He doesn't have a roaming eye.  He doesn't get into trouble, goes to work.  He is all of those things.  Just this one thing, and its not so little.  Look, I don't know what this loyalty thing is, I think I do, but what I do know is that I can have it if I inspire it.

But here is what my perspective on ACON trust is.  We trusted our parents, and even when they were doing everything they could to screw us over, we still trusted them.  We gave up the right to keep a proper balance.  Then after a long time, we stopped trusting, somewhere we decided that was a good thing, and its true, it was very valid and good, and served us very well at the time.  But didn't help in relationships.  In a way, I think I lied about being trusting, and I lied about that one so well, that I convinced myself I was trusting, but I wasn't trusting at all.  I was waiting for him to do me wrong.

I think I do trust, but do I really?  Do I trust DH?  Have I ever?  Well, I'm learning a lot of what trust is, and what it isn't, now, I never knew it before.  It is not being stupid. Allowing ourselves to be doormats for the other person, it is not that at all.  It is a lot more involved.  And there is a part 2 to trust. You are paying attention, not in auto pilot.  For when you are seriously trusting someone, you have to understand and hear what he's saying.  Its part of the trust bucket.  If he feels like I don't listen to him, what good is trust for?  It would be meaningless.

Truth is, to allow ourselves to trust someone, we have to realize that no one on earth is 100% trustworthy.  No one.  No one is good.  But do you give your trust anyway?  And maybe this can be the adventure here to see how it works.  Now, knowing full well that the other person could screw it up at any time, will be the defining factor.  In dating, our ladies are needing to do this.  30 days of straight trust, and then you move on, if need be.  There is no faster way to weed out the bad guys. Why waste time?

Time is something I don't want to waste.  I have wasted a whole lifetime, and I don't want to do that anymore.  The more I run from DH, the more I'm yelling at him to smarten up, the more time I'm wasting.  It is not getting me anywhere.  I am not learning anything like this, he defenses are up, I have no way to get through.

I've had it with fighting him, I want to see where he is at.  I give him my trust.  Its funny, trust was not what I thought it was.  But as I read a posting on it then I went and sat back down, and thought about it, I made the decision.  Then I would know.  If he can't recognize the human value of trust, there will be nothing more for me to do.  But I have to put my heart on the line, scary stuff?  Of course.  Is it not described in my relationship site that trusting him now will feel crippling?  That it does.  Does malignant narcissists hold him and keep him doing their bidding?  Then there is nothing I can do to stop that, all I want is to know.  Is it me and my own effed up upbringing?  Put my value in, place my trust, and see where it goes.  It won't be wasted, either way, I will have learned how to do this.  To weed out bad people, I want to learn that too.  Why were all my friendships only with narcissists?  I want to know why too.

But after reading of the invisible value of trust, and what it was all about, something funny happened.  I went and sat down on the couch, and I made the decision, I will be adding this value.  Whatever the cost to me, I might be in mental crutches afterwards, but it will be worth it, just to know, I want to see if this works.  I read on all the tools of how to do this.  It isn't easy regardless.

So I sat down and made the decision.  Along with that came a change in my demeanor.  Nothing really, I was just sitting, then five minutes later he came and sat down next to me.  We have not done this in years.  We used to watch movies together, and I was wondering why we never do that anymore.  I found him to be more annoying with each passing day.  And I enjoyed my time away from him more than I did with him.  But this time he came and sat down, it was something we haven't done in years.

Then the next day he asked if I wanted to go with him to do his errands.  I asked if we are going to be doing something fun, or go for coffee or lunch.  He said, "Huh?"  I repeated myself.  He said, "It was a simple question, do you want to come?"  I said no, I was having fun here, and I didn't need to go.  And that was it.  I used to always go on errands, and it was boring, I decided as part of building trust, I was going to be more authentic, I really didn't want to go.  See?  I'm trying to expect the best, not the worst from him.

After he left I sat down to start writing this posting, and then it seemed like he was back too fast, he almost saw my writing, so I closed the computer down.  He appeared annoyed, a little angry, I proceeded with my cheerfulness, and I wasn't going to let his mood bring me down.  And I trusted that he could handle it.  We have to disconnect from him in that way, its called not being co-dependent.  His moods don't dictate how I feel.  I am enough.

After awhile, he was fine, and was getting ready to go to work, then I cooked dinner, and I burned it. You know, I, well, never got away with this with an ex, and he was going to work, he really needed dinner.  We ate the burned food, and he said that I needed to turn the heat down.  I told him that I had no experience with the barbecue, this was my first time this year, and I left the heat up too high.  As he turned the meat over and it was seriously burnt he cut off a sufficient piece and proceeded to eat.  I said I felt horrible about it, and he didn't answer that.  Kind of, peaceful, not sure if this is rare in a guy or not, not what I grew up with.  That I know.

So I apologized, then proceeded to believe that I wouldn't get hurt.  That I trusted him for.  To find silly little things I wouldn't get hurt for?  Well, its a start.  Maybe this trust thing grows, and grows.  I trust him on that, then I can trust him on other things.

The point is to come from a good place.  Not from a place of desperation, and I think I fixed that for myself.  I could take care of myself if I had to, I am so sure of that now.This was all my doing, and I give myself credit for doing that much.

Another thing about trust.  You start by trusting yourself.  Not with another person.  I trusted myself to learn to expect the best from other people, and that is the start.  I plan to get into that some more, that trust is all about yourself, and trusting yourself, and how you take care of yourself when you do get burned.  All this about being enough, means is that you can cope regardless of what happens.