Ep. 15: John's Story Part 2

This is part 2 of John's story- from toxic dysfunctional family, to marriage to a covert narcissist, to divorce, and the parental alienation that occurred both during as well as after the divorce. 

This is a story of triumph over pain, of creating rock solid impenetrable boundaries, of finding your people outside of your family of origin, of creating a life you love, despite what the abusers in your life do or don't do. 

John shows us how to live life outside of abuse, of manipulation, of rejection. 

You can find him on Instagram at: @malevictimsofnarcissisticabuse

You can find me on Instagram at: @chantal.contorines.coaching

or via my website at: www.chantalcontorinescoaching.com

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

Grab my free parenting resource:

https://chantalcontorinescoaching.myflodesk.com/free-how-to-guide

Join my monthly membership for protective parents: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com/monthly-membership

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

Grab my free parenting resource:

https://chantalcontorinescoaching.myflodesk.com/free-how-to-guide

Join my monthly membership for protective parents: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com/monthly-membership

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome everybody to The Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that you can learn to live a life that you love despite what the abuser in your life does or doesn't do? Last week we had John of male victims of female narcissists on for part one of his story of triumph. Toxic dysfunctional family to marriage with a covert narcissist to divorcing a covert narcissist and the parental alienation that ensued, but actually started while he was still married to her. This week we have part two with John. So without further ado, let's continue. And on one hand I feel discouraged about it. And the other hand I'm positive. My son is the golden child. For people who don't understand the golden child, the narcissist kind of picks one child that can do no wrong. And that's my son in the four kids. And their relationship is not so healthy. Again, because of enmeshment. And on one hand that's a relationship that discourages me the most because I think that she's really got her tentacles into him. And then on the other hand, I go, you know what, all it would take is one girlfriend to go home with him and to watch some of this and to go, what the hell is wrong with you? And it might make sense in just a moment where he goes, oh my God, my dad was right. Yeah. this can happen. This is where the hope is always there. The hope that doesn't go away. It just takes the perfect storm of each child being in the right place at the right time or the right message by the right person is delivered. And it's not coming from you because they've been brainwashed against your input into this narrative. Yes. And particularly with covert narcissists my Ex is a covert, I would rather deal with a malignant narcissist any day of the week. Oh yeah. It's so much more obvious. And everybody around you knows. when you go to divorce, everybody goes, duh. This person is awkward and malicious in public that no wonder you wanna divorce them. But with a covert, so much of the narcissism flies below the radar and it's very passive aggressive. It's the micro criticisms. It's the death by a billion paper cuts. It's not one specific thing that happened, but every day there's a little bit of something new that chips away at your self-esteem and your confidence and erodes your self-worth. Totally. And so you're completely reliant on this person and it's done over such a long period of time. It creates this narrative that's very hard to beat. And I'm certain that with whatever she was saying to my children before we divorced, and when we divorced, they were ready. They were prepared by her. When I divorced, the narrative quickly turned to he left us. He abandoned us. And that's not, that is not the narrative. I left her and wanted relationship with my children. And they've chosen now not to have a relationship with me, but she also forgot, she omitted the, like the big parts, like her actual role. Oh yeah. Yes. You did engage in the divorce. You are the person who activated that, yes. But you didn't abandon your children. You tried to work on your relationship for 27 years. Yep. And at some point you just have to say, you know what? It's just not, she's, this is not gonna work. This is absolutely, there's gonna be no change, there's no growth, there's no healing, there's no connection. And the divorce, I really believe was hers. As I've thought about this and pondered my experience over the last five years. I've had to go back, not just, rethink the divorce, but rethink marriage and what marriage is really all about and marriage from my understanding, and I think this follows with track with most people. Marriage at its heart is a relationship of family between two people. You are family when you have a spouse. And that is meant to be the center of absolutely everything else that spins around it. Kids spin around it, house spins around it, wedding rings, spins around it. Wedding license, marriage licenses, spin around it, cars and all of this stuff, spin around it. But it is the relationship at the center. What I realized in 20, 25 years in, I don't even remember the time we went, there's so many therapists. She sat in front of a therapist one time, 20 some odd years in, and the therapist asked her, why are you here? And she goes I abandoned our relationship emotionally three, three months into the relationship, and I've never been back. And to hear that I instinctively knew that was true. that's actually probably the truest thing she ever said. I have a couple of those that you get rare moments of honesty from the narcissist. She said, I abandoned our relationship three months in. I said why would you do that? You ought to fight with your dad. O okay. One of these things is not like the other, and she said you guys were apart for a while. You guys, didn't talk for a while and I figured you would abandon me. like you abandoned him. And I said, so I've been chasing you emotionally all these years. Would you call that abandonment? That was just what I thought I didn't wanna be abandoned, so I said, oh, okay. So you abandoned me first. Yeah. Because before I would abandon you. And that's exactly when. Silence,'cause they've got no, they've got no response to, but that's like the most honest confession I've ever heard. Totally.'cause that's exactly the crux. It's the abandonment, their fear of abandonment is so huge. Which is why they abuse people, to keep them tethered to them because Correct. They believe that they're not worthy. That if they were actually just themselves, people would not love them. People wouldn't stay, they would, and it's at some level, you say that, and I think that's spot on because at some level, they're sabotaging the relationship. I used to tell her, I said, you're just taking a hammer to our marriage over and over again. It's like you got this giant sledgehammer and you're just trying to destroy it. And that really is what it's like. But I had to go back and I had to realize that, that the discard is divorce. When you say that this relationship at the center, I'm not going to participate in this anymore. That is the divorce. There are people who are not married and have children. Children are not a marriage. There are people who share rings together who are not married. There are people who have kids together who are not married. There are people who buy houses together who are not married. those kinds of things are the icing on the cake. They are not the cake. The cake is the relationship. And when you decide that you are out, that discard. That discard is divorce in a marriage, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, of course. And what I did, I cashed the checks she wrote. I'm not gonna pretend anymore that we've got a relationship. We didn't celebrate anniversaries anymore. There's nothing to celebrate. I would tell her we don't have a relationship. You don't want one. There's not enough honesty. There's not enough love here to go have one. And I stopped pretending. And part of that was the divorce. So while I legally divorced her, I did not emotionally or spiritually divorce her, until kind of the end. And I'm like, all right, if this is what you want, a marriage is a relationship of two and not one. two people to make a good marriage and only one to make a bad one. And when they opt out. there's no getting it back. Going back to our conversation at the beginning with narcissists, people who say they were narcissists and are now self-aware, narcissists are just not self-aware. And they don't get better. They get worse with time because they lie to themselves, which is the worst when you build a life of lies. You can't, it's a house of cards. It is a house of cards. You don't get better. Hopefully as a human being. And with God's help, the process for every human being who has personal growth in mind, who has spiritual growth in mind. It's, I want truth to be the foundation of my life, and I'm building on truth and honesty and a lack of pretending. And that truth is what makes me a better human being. Over time, if you pour deception in. Where truth belongs, you become horrific towards the end of your life. and that's why things with narcissists just don't get better in time. They collapse. They actually collapse. Yeah. Because they burn so many bridges by the end of their lives, they become these lonely entities with people who don't actually like them. All these people who have, been in relationships with them, either platonic or romantic, when there's no more fear left, They end up being isolated by themselves with nobody who actually loves them. Now, for you, you had a family like this. You're married to a wife like this and you've had the pain of children who have turned against you because of their mom. And this is the reality of so many. Yep. You said something really important'cause so many people are like, it just happens while you're still married. They're already sowing the seeds of discontent and discord with your children because they have to be the chosen parent. Correct. they can't stand the competition. They can't stand that. Your children actually probably feel safer with you because your energy is a different kind of energy than this parent. you're actually parenting and not having to, exert power and control over a small little person who's just relying upon you for their safety. Correct. So you've had all of this is tremendous pain. This is not just, you were married to one and then you divorced and your life went on. You must have hit a, like a bottom of sorts. How did you come back out of this? this is The key. you still have pain. You're still a father who doesn't have the relationship he should have with his children because you've been loving and engaged. This wasn't because you checked out of the relationship. This wasn't because you weren't a present and engaged parent. Your children have chosen, and I use that word with quotes, because they actually haven't chosen, they've been coerced and they've been brainwashed into believing A story. But how have you dealt with this pain? Yeah. How have you created this life outside of that pain? Yeah. So I, I think for me it started from the time where I was married. The last two years were my process of separation. Something a therapist said to me,'cause I was having these conversations with her and trying to be a husband and a good husband and leading her in the right direction. And a therapist said to me, she goes, I got a question for you because these conversations you're having with her are ridiculous. Can you think of one conversation you had with her that really worked where you saw some fruit on the other side of it? And I sat back, Chantel, and I thought no. Like I couldn't think of a single conversation. My therapist said then stop having these conversations. and that's where emotional separation for me started. I'm like, okay, do you know what. You've been on a short leash before, now this is long leash. We're gonna let you travel where you want to go and you're gonna do your own thing and I'm gonna do my own thing. And it felt like living a single life while you were still married. that certainly doesn't mean I dated or anything like that. I didn't get involved with anybody else during that time. But it was okay, I'm looking out for me, I'm going to begin to build a life of my own without her. this is what I have to do. the divorce process, which only took 40 days, which was beautiful. I had a reasonably easy divorce that I worked nine months on beforehand, but the actual divorce itself didn't take much time. So then, you get to that place where this is not getting better. I'm going to have to start to separate myself and take care of myself first. I made plans ahead of time to have a place to live while I got someplace else more permanent to reside, and then you start building your own life outside of it. And since I don't really have parents, I have good stepparents. When I was in the ministry decades ago, there was a couple who had two sons. The dad walked into my house. I was in my early twenties at the time, and, was working in this church. He walked into my house, which was on the church property, and he handed me a set of keys and he put it in my hand and he said, these are keys to my house. You are now a part of my family. Come and go as you please. That was almost 40 years ago. And guess what? I'm still doing that. And I'm still actively involved in their lives. And I would tell you that he's more like a dad to me than my own biological father. And unfortunately, my lady, I would call my stepmom. They're not really steps, I just don't have another there's no other word for this. Real parents is what I describe them as, or emotional parents. My stepmom passed about a dozen years ago and he remarried to another woman who's amazing and has also adopted me as their kid. They call me number. my nickname in the family is number three.'cause I was their third child, the adopted one. And third number three son, by the way. So these people are my parents. And they're the ones that I'm trying to go and visit in Florida a lot to take care of as they get more elderly and doing things around the house Trying to be a good son too. And so my priorities have shifted to my real family. these people are my emotional family. And my spiritual family in large part. I've even gone so far as thinking about changing my last name to theirs, because I feel like I'm theirs more than I am my own biological. They've shown they've chosen you. They love me. They love me. And they didn't have to. You didn't come from them. Nope. They intentionally chose you, which is actually the best gift because they love you for exactly who you are. I feel it. And when I told them what was going on with my ex, they listened. They believed me and they trusted me. And they were on team John because they know me and they've known me for 40 years. So there was no swaying them in these kinds of things. And I didn't get that from my own parents. So my priorities have shifted and I've had to. Rework the idea of family. And I have, others who are super close that, I, so I've got places to go on Thanksgiving and Christmas and treat me like a family member. And, you've built your own. village. I've had to What is it? I think in the scriptures it says in Proverbs, better a neighbor close by than family far away. And that's what it's like. These folks have become my family. My priorities have shifted to them. that replaces what I had at some level, I'd be a liar if I said that, the biological connection to my biological family is gone. I wish I had relationship with them and still feel that, but I can't engage with them. You can't bring honesty to somebody who doesn't want honesty and have a solid relationship. So I've had to distance myself from parents in anything that looks like pretending in my biological family, and I've engaged these people and they've all become my family. Now, as far as my kids go, my relationship with my, there's nothing that says I've gotta have a close relationship with my sister or my parents for the rest of my days. I feel obligated to my kids. And still long for, hurt for and hope for a relationship with them. I've learned, and it's been five years, which seems so long to me, that I've not really had a relationship with three of the four of them, and I miss them so much. I continue to pray for them and I've realized that this is a longer game than I thought it was gonna be in them discovering if ever, and there are no guarantees, this side of heaven that they'll ever discover it, what's truly going on. But I hope they do. I hope they understand what's taken place. I hope they decide, to be involved with me again. But I've had to play the long game and I'll tell you where I've tried to focus myself in this. And there are days I think I would do this well and days I'm still not sure yet to be completely honest with you. The bigger the hurt and the further away they seem. and with that void comes disillusionment also. You go this, I just don't think this is ever gonna happen. But when I'm more myself and not focused on the void I look back on this, I've had to adjust to a couple things. One, they were parented badly, not because I wanted it, but because the environment was unhealthy and they're living that out in some capacity. And I'm partially responsible for that because I was the parent, one of the two parents. You can't parent healthily with a narcissist, so yeah, it's very difficult to go do. There are wounds on your kids. But the other part of it is trying to be ready for the time they come back and also being prepared for the worst. So my kids are in their mid to late twenties, all of them. None of them are married yet. And I've had to think through what if one of them gets married, am I invited to the wedding? Two, would I go? And of course, three, their mother, I assure you, excuse me, has told them I'm going to be paying for something. So I've had to think about that so that I'm prepared for these kinds of things because they are coming whether I like it or not. if you can anticipate things and mitigate their you'd know what to say so you're not caught off guard. So my answer is, if they decide they want me to be at the wedding, the first question is, why would you want somebody there that you've had no relationship with? And second, are you doing this just to get money? I've decided that I would only give money to a child I had relationship with. And not to one who doesn't want me or is going to use me for money, extort me. Yeah. So I've had to think through those kinds of things so that I'm prepared for them when they come. And I've had to play this long game where I'm prepared for the time they come back. And one of the things that I've decided also is that, like right now, if they came back, I think they'd be super disrespectful towards me because they treat me oftentimes, like their mother treated me with this disrespect. I won't stand for that. So if they want to come back, they're gonna have to come back to a place where there's a lack of disrespect for me, and an owning of my position in the family. And if they're not willing to do that, then we're not going to be close. that's just how it's going to go. I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect and right now, I don't think they'd be healthy kids to me. They've been so weaponized. I'm not in for that anymore. I've had 27 years of that and no more. If they want a relationship with me, it comes with a lack of disrespect. These are the kinds of things that are going to need to be resolved in order for us to have relationship again. But I'm trying to keep my heart tender as much as I can, possibly keep it tender. And it is a challenge for me for the day when they come back. Instead of just going, F you walked away from me like your mom did. And'cause it is an extension. This is abuse by extension. And it's abuse by proxy. That's exactly why they do it is absolutely why they do it. They're trying to hurt me because they think I hurt her And they want to continue in this, and I'm not, I'm just not down for that anymore. So if they want to have a relationship with me, it will come with some stipulations. And I understand that nothing's perfect and that these are things that are gonna have to be resolved. But, I do hope for the day where they will want to be engaged with me in a healthy kind of relationship again. And I do think it's going to take more time than I had hoped. I have a friend named Dave who is a child of narcissistic abuse. About 15 or 20 years in, he went, wait a minute. This is just not right. She's lying to me. she's manipulating this. And he goes, maybe I didn't see my dad clearly and has gone back and revisited, this relationship with his father. And he and his father are connected again. And he's irritated with his mother for the gross manipulation and the destruction of that relationship for so many years. So he keeps telling me that it may take more time, but that they're gonna come around and odds are one of them will at least. And I hope it's an infection in the family, that the others see that as well. Like once the dam breaks, others go. But I think it's really important because a lot of people pause their lives. When this type of pain happens, They get stuck, they get paralyzed by the what ifs There's lots of anger and yeah, there can be resentment and bitterness, and hurt and pain and all this sort of stuff. But I think it's important because you haven't paused your life. Yes, we're not trying to gloss over and say that it was like, oh, okay I just woke up one morning and my life is wonderful and I found happiness again. This has been a painful process for you to get to this place. And while you're hopeful, you're also not pausing your life, waiting for your children to come back. You are living your life. This is not the life I dreamed of. What I dreamed of and what I fought for 27 years was happily ever after. I pictured in my head that there would be this realization that she would come around to honesty, that she would come around to intimacy, that she would come around to marriage, and that there would be this, I used to think it was back to what she initially felt, if you understand narcissistic abuse, they never felt it. And it was all pretend from the first place. So you have to resolve that you never had it. And this marriage emotionally was more illusional than it was anything else. And my only path is forward. And I think a lot of my grief occurred those last two years when I realized it was probably not going to work. And I got to the place very quickly, I think after I divorced where. I still to this day, I can speak with complete honesty. I have no regrets over divorcing her. I have not had a single day where I missed her. I have not felt, there have been times of loneliness, but they've been fleeting and it's not near what the loneliness was like being inside that relationship and being in it. There's no lonelier than sleeping next to somebody who should be your intimate ally and wants absolutely nothing to do with you and doesn't love you. I would rather be single than partnered with somebody who absolutely I am feeling where you're crying yourself to sleep every night. Yep. even towards the last couple years of my marriage, I used to, tell her that my back hurt and that I wanted to sleep on the sofa downstairs because it didn't hurt my back as much, which kind of started off true in time, I realized that not only was my back better, but I felt emotionally better when I slept apart from her, because there wasn't this collision, this offset of what should be taking place emotionally and what is taking place emotionally. Like I'm married and I should feel intimacy and closeness, but I was married and I felt loneliness contradiction, that I couldn't resolve. And I thought, okay, if I'm going to be lonely, I'd rather be alone. So sleeping on the sofa did that for me. And being divorced did that for me too. I'm out of this toxicity I feel so desperately alone with somebody and getting out of it for me was peace. And I have guarded my peace. My home is a house of peace. I walk in to the cats, they're wonderful. They're just enough commotion around the house to have a little interaction. And that place of peace is guarded. With absolutely my life, even having you have fought very hard for this piece I have both in from your childhood and also in your adulthood. I'm very careful who I let into that. I don't want to be around people who have needless drama, and that doesn't mean there aren't problems in life and things to resolve with people, and death and all these other kinds of things are still a part of life. That doesn't mean they don't exist and they don't, that doesn't mean, I'm trying to pretend that they don't exist, but I'm guarding that space for me to continue to be a healthy place and a healing place for me, and peace after walking into what was a war zone for half my life. A place of peace is most what I need, and anybody that I involve myself with in the days ahead has to fit that. Absolutely. Now, do you have any last minute? Tips for those listening who are going Oh my gosh, yes. Tips or tools. Because there's so many people lack the hope of how is it gonna get better? How am I gonna live my life? How can I live my life without my children being actively involved with me? So I'd say a couple of things there. If you're estranged, particularly if your kids are adult children, when I started the divorce process, my kids were, my youngest was already a junior or senior in high school and was at one foot out the door already. So I was dealing with young adults already and my experience has been dealing with adult children. I had to realize you that initially, particularly you want to vindicate yourself. You wanna speak this stuff, you wanna tell what happened, you wanna tell your side of the story. But I'm here to tell you that there isn't one conversation that you can have that's gonna fix it. And to avoid those conversations, I would resolve to you to tell you not to speak about your ex unless your children ask questions. When they ask questions, they're ready to hear. If they don't ask questions, you let it go until they're ready to hear. And part of that for me also has been being a good parent in divorce, and a healthy parent in divorce as much as I was a healthy parent, in the marriage. Healthy parenting wins. And love always honesty wins. Love wins. And although my children have not figured it out, I do have little glimpses here and there where I've been able to. Speak to some of that without going through the whole story. And I'm waiting for the snap of a finger for them, for it all to make sense to them, and I do believe it's going to happen. Certainly I've seen evidences of that with my youngest in conversations like I described earlier. She's closer to putting it together than she's ever put together. It will never be quick enough for you. No, of course not. You want it to be done because it shouldn't ever be this way. It's no such an unexpected, blindsided thing, which is why they do it, which is exactly why abusive parents turn their children Against a loving parent. Yep. Because I did not expect this for sure. Yeah. I did not think my kids would go f you. I don't want a relationship with you whatsoever. Three of my four kids. I did not expect that to happen, but I do hope that good and healthy parenting in the end. Will win the day. And some of that is not letting your own pain and wanting to vindicate yourself bleed out into the relationship. Because What I think that does is it makes the kids feel somewhat responsible and they're not responsible for what, and they have going on, have two parents now doing this. They have two parents. And they're again stuck in the middle. And as unfair as this is for the protective parent, if you just keep your side of the street clean and you a hundred percent create a life that you love, your children can actually look to you as the model for how to escape this abusive relationship. That's absolutely. Absolutely correct. They need a healthy parent. They need a parent with boundaries. They need a parent, they can lean on. And they also, at the same time need to figure out the unhealthiness of the other parent. And my hope is that they will, and I would encourage you to just continue to be hopeful.'cause again, like my friend Dave says, it can take 20 years. Yeah. And if it takes 20 years, it takes 20 years. So be it. But make sure that you're living for however long it takes for your children to see the reality. And come back. Make sure that you have not stopped living. That you have not stopped. Growing and connecting and creating a life that you love. Always. There are people out there who love you. And you need to engage them and you need to be around them and you need to plan for Christmases and sometimes you need to plan for a weekend getaway. And these are the kinds of things that I've been able to proactively do over the years. So I'm just not sitting around the house by myself. find fun projects to go do. I fix old phonographs that wind up variety. So there are things that I've done that are rewarding and fun and build into my life. Increase my peacefulness, increase my felt productivity. And there are people that I've invested in as well, who I know love me and who I can count on, like family. And those are the kinds of things that have sustained me through the years. If you have family members who are just not going to give you the time of day, I would encourage you to create very strong boundaries, with those relationships. Absolutely. And realize that they're going to continue to try to manipulate you even though you're gone. for me, it's Christmas cards. My mom is gonna send me a Christmas card and in there will be some passive aggressive nonsense that I'm gonna have to contend with if I open it. Last two years, I sat the Christmas card down on the mantle and wrestled with whether or not going to go open it because of my own boundaries, because I knew that there was something in there that was going to be a challenge to my boundaries and a challenge to my piece and all of that. So you have to actively be on protect mode. I did wind up, opening up one of those cards they said they were coming to town, which means, I'm staying with your ex, who's three miles away and we might have the time for a meal with you. So they've got their meals. And then I got a text this past year saying, Hey, we'd like to take the whole family out for Christmas, to a Chinese food restaurant on Christmas Day. It would be great if the whole family could be together. And what they mean by the whole family is my kids who don't want anything to do with me, and my ex I don't want anything to do with. And they want, my sisters, one of my sisters too, who has no relationship with me, and I'm like. This is not a good time. No. Sounds like hell. This is not a Christmas, this is a Christmas to remember. But for all the bad reasons and fortunately I've got plans with family during those times, but you have to understand that those people who continue to challenge your boundaries and continue to challenge your piece, just really don't have a place in your life. And as much as it hurts you to even have to put up the boundary like I've had to go do with my parents, it's absolutely 100% necessary. absolutely, I believed also that God will bring people to your life who can fill those roles, who are helpful in the days ahead. So those kinds of things have been my strength. Thank you so much, John. There's so many nuggets inside of this conversation And I'd love to have thanks for having me on again. Likewise. And, it is so good talking with you. I really appreciate you and your work and, I love it when people reach out and say, we're in the same thing. We are trying to help people heal from. What is the most tragic and can be the most ridiculous. So traumatic. And because nobody sees, nobody understands, nobody can fathom that a parent or a person would do this Yeah. Unfortunately, it's typically only people who've actually experienced it themselves who understand. And I think part of your mission, is just to reach as many people as humanly possible and let them know they're not alone. They're not crazy. Absolutely. And there is help. And let me help you however we can. I don't know, a single influencer in this space, who would turn away somebody who needed help. Absolutely. Thank you so much, John, for being here. My pleasure. Thank you for listening to The Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, and more educated, please share it with somebody else who may also need it. And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or grab free tools on my website. All links are in my show notes. your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy, you are not alone, and you are not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you.