I’m certainly not!
It always surprises me when I read in forums how people are having a difficult time maintaining No Contact with their former narcissistic partners over the holidays. From what I remember, the holidays were an especially miserable time to be living with a narcissist.
So to celebrate a narcissist-free holiday season (besides actually celebrating), I decided to write a list of all the things I definitely don’t and won’t miss about spending the holidays with a narcissist.
I won’t miss….
- Trying to find a gift for a person who subscribes to instant gratification and buys himself everything he wants throughout the year so there is literally nothing in the world I can buy that he needs or even wants;
- Buying him a gift and then watching him open it as soon as I wrap it (he “hates surprises”) and then seeing the look of disappointment on his face as he sets it down and never touches it again;
- Having no gifts to open on Christmas eve because he: a) doesn’t like to wrap gifts and therefore hands me my gifts as soon as he gets them; b) see item #2;
- Not having a Christmas tree. Not only would he refuse to help me buy one, put it up or decorate it or put it away, but he complained about it being in the way. I eventually just stopped decorating for Christmas at all;
- Going to his company Christmas party, watching him drink enough tequila to kill most people, and then getting in the car with him while he insisted on driving, hoping I make it home alive, and then watching him scream at a police offer when he gets pulled over for speeding. Good times!
- Spending every Christmas day at a football game. I like football, but this was a tradition that only HE wanted, and it usurped everyone else’s desire to spend Christmas with family (family other than him, that is);
- Ignoring my family on Christmas, every year (see item #6);
- Not being allowed to cook on Christmas. He always accused me of “showing off” when I cooked. Problem solved! We always ate Mexican food, at a Mexican restaurant, after the football game, of course!
- Holiday traffic-induced road rage;
- Spending another Christmas season, Christmas day or, for that matter, another miserable year with a person who takes pleasure in making the people closest to him, as miserable as he is.
Happy Narcissist-free Holiday Season to those of you who have escaped the narcissist.
And for those of you who are still living the nightmare, I hope that 2018 is the year you decide to start living your life again.
Pam McCoy is a writer, author and co-host of Crazybusters.