A narcissist is greedy in all facets of life. He or she must have complete access to all of your love, your time, your money and your attention. He or she feels immediately threatened if you were to try to maintain control over any of these aspects of your own life. In my case, he had all of the money tied up in investment properties, I didn’t work because we agreed I would stay home with the kids. He never added me to the checking account and I had no ability to use a debit card to even get cash back at a grocery store. All purchases I made were by a credit card that he permitted me to use. Then each and every night, he perused the credit card purchases online, he justified doing so “to make sure there were no fraudulent purchases.” However, now I can see that he was just keeping track of every move I made. This is a clear example of financial abuse, he figured that since he made all the money, he could determine how it was spent. I knew better than to argue, because of his irritated answers in the past when I would question his reasons for keeping me off the checking account.

A narcissist is greedy with your time. They must have all of it. If you go somewhere, they want to go. If they have to go to a work function, they want you to go along too. They are afraid you might get away if they leave you to yourself for any length of time. I hardly ever was permitted to go anywhere alone. If I left the house, he made me take the kids, a 3 and 5 year old, how much fun is that? It was so hard to take little ones anywhere, that it was easier for me to just stay home. He did most of the grocery shopping. He knew that it would frustrate me to the point of just hunkering down and not even trying to go anywhere. Then he would proclaim, “I am not a babysitter, I don’t want to stay home and watch the kids while you go out with your friends or visit your family.” The narcissist must have you all to himself. He or she cannot stand the thought of you having a life that doesn’t involve them somehow.

One of the many instances showing how limiting my narcissist was happened when we moved to a new town and I had a 2 ½ year old and a 6 month old baby girl. I had barely seen the light of day because I had been breast feeding my daughter for those first 6 months and hadn’t slept much, not to mention getting to socialize with anybody but my narcissist. One day, when we were at the park together, I ran into a woman who had a little boy the sane age as my son and I hit it off with her, despite the fact that my narcissist was there with me. It was so refreshing to talk to another human being and I would catch glimpses of how life should be, lighthearted and understood. She knew what I was going through with motherhood and we bonded. Then she asked me if I wanted to get away from the house and go for a walk around the neighborhood one evening and she would bring along another mommy friend of hers. It was going to be a nice stress relieving “girls walk.” Immediately, asked my hubby if it was “OK with him” and he hesitated and said “yes, but don’t be too long, I am on call tonight.” I was overjoyed that my leash was lengthened for a moment. I thought for an instance that maybe my husband was “lightening up” and that maybe I would be aloud to have friends that he wouldn’t be jealous of.

Well, I would soon be disappointed again. The evening my friends met to walk, we roamed a bit further than I felt comfortable with because I remember the warning my narcissist gave me, but I was outnumbered. The girls wanted to keep walking a bit farther and I was having a great time just getting a bit of time away for myself, which I felt that I deserved after never getting any help with the kids. I was back maybe 15 minutes later that I had hoped, and all hell broke loose when I walked through the door.

When I entered the house, I saw my narcissist sitting in the armchair with a sleeping baby in his arms. He had a scornful look on his face. Next, I witnessed my two year old little boy sitting on the couch, with a book in his lap sleeping in the upright position.  Suddenly, a chill went through me, I knew in that instant that I was in trouble. In our house, the narcissist always read to the two year old before bed, he could have easily done so here, instead of letting our son sit on the couch to fall asleep. It did not matter so much at that point that I was not there for the bedtime routine (for the first time ever), however, the narcissist wanted to set the stage and create a show for me to make it seem like I “shirked my duties as a wife and mother.” I asked him why he did not just read to our boy and put him to bed, but he said that it wasn’t his job and that I “should have been here and not out with my friends.” He went on to say that I “disappointed our son and him as well.” He made me feel like a terrible mother when in fact, I had not done one thing for myself in those first 2 ½ years!  The tension in the house was unbearable for the rest of the evening, he wanted to teach me a lesson.  The narcissist could have put the sleeping baby in her crib, and have read to our little boy and put him to bed, but no, he laid in wait, like a malicious spider just waiting to entangle me in his sick web of madness.

From that moment on, I turned down future invites for evening walks and any event that would “infringe” upon my narcissist’s time because after all, my world had to revolve around him to avoid run-ins like this one. Looking back, his emotional abuse of me is so apparent, but at the time, I felt that I didn’t deserve to do things for myself. He always turned it around on me to make me look like I was selfish or ungrateful when in fact, that couldn’t be any further from the truth. It was awful to live with the narcissist, a living nightmare in fact. I am so very thankful that it is in my past now, and I must never forget the torment and abuses I suffered at his hand so that I will never fall prey to an unobtrusive spider ever again.