I told D I would be out of commission for a few days. He will hopefully be understanding about that. He has expectations of me which is understandable (and fair). We’re on two different energy wavelengths, though. I am very low key and quiet (believe it or not), very much a homebody, and he needs to be on the go-go-go. I have ADD, and sometimes he talks really, really fast. I can’t even nod or shake my head quickly enough to agree or disagree in between his sentences. If I’m focusing on something, I hear sound (muffled sound), but I don’t absorb what’s being said and he gets frustrated. So he’ll be running around in circles and being a motormouth all at the same time and I become inwardly very edgy. I told him he needs one of these things:
A Spinarooni. . . .
. . . .and just get it out of his system.
I love him so much, but I just don’t require the amount of external stimuli that he does. I used to let him drag me to ihop (wearing earplugs), but I just couldn’t hack it anymore. Once in a while we’ll go to a quiet place, and I’m not averse to car trips to quiet outdoor places.
So the original reason for this post was regarding my Dad’s email. I really just want to let him have it. I’m pissed that he thinks he can just mosey back into my life without an apology. That just makes me want to methodically break his psyche down into bite-sized pieces and slam the door forever. BOOM.
The narcissist says that’s just the fuel he wants (I’m onto the narcissist’s next book in the “No Contact” series, by the way;
Departure Imminent: Preparing for No Contact to Beat the Narcissist. The narcissist also says that his brethren will do everything he or she can to lure the “victim” back into his/her grasp and that his/her reaction will be the same regardless of the No Contact approach chosen, so what damn difference does it make which one I use? I’m sick of avoiding raising his ire. He deserves it.
BUT – he does have a lot of stressors in his life, and so do I. At least his email will buy me a little time to stretch out weather discussion and get through this book before I can tell him as tactfully as possible that at this point I feel that anything meaningful I have contributed to our ongoing relationship is the maximum allowed
by law and that in the event that my stepmom passes I will leave the light on for him. In the meantime, he should go and spend the remainder of my stepmom’s life with her.
I don’t see why that should change now (that line
not to be included).
I’m not sure if that is exactly what I will say, but something along those lines.
I decided on this approach because aside from his not apologizing to me (which wouldn’t be genuine anyway), there has been too much other manipulation on his behalf that I have become aware of, particularly triangulation. I will not subject myself to that again. I have also begun to understand that my stepmom has been very heavily manipulated by him; however, this is the life that she has chosen for the past 35 years, and his manipulation of her does not exempt her of her behaviors toward me either as a child or as recently as the past 16 months. She is who she is. Nothing would change by furthering shallow communications with him; he would still be pushing me out of his life by excluding me from meaningful communications either with him or with her. I would still be an outsider.