Dear Awkward: What Is Love?

Dear Awkward,

I just got divorced and am really struggling with how to handle my new reality. My ex has many of the symptoms of a covert narcissist. During our marriage, I always felt something was “off” but didn’t know what, and I made many mistakes trying to figure it out.

During our 10-year separation, I discovered that he’d written many texts and emails to friends and family and even drove across two states to hand-deliver a letter to my coworkers, all of which were full of untruths and slander. I wasn’t meant to see any of these communications. When I confronted my ex, he said as much, and added that he loved me and that all of this was done to get people to encourage me to “get help.” Supposedly I was suicidal and mentally ill! He is a physician, so his diagnoses carried a lot of weight with people, even if incorrect.

This whole time, my adult children have been influenced against me and want nothing to do with me. Even still, my ex is saying he loves me and appears loving and completely normal, like the man I remember from before I found out about the texts and emails.

Am I really crazy because one part of me wishes that things were like they appeared before I found out what he did? Or am I crazy for thinking that maybe he really does love me?? What is love, anyways? I don’t think I know.

Sincerely,

What Is Love

Dear What Is Love,

This is going to seem like a non-sequitur, but it is not.

I have two daughters. When I ask these beloved daughters to go to bed, they often ignore me, because they are children for whom bedtime is a dread punishment. I become annoyed and repeat the request with more heat.

On less-ideal nights, we begin to argue, and sometimes their tone is less than respectful.

I ask for respect, sometimes patiently, sometimes not.

Then they turn to me and say, “You’re the one making such a big deal about this. You’re the one fighting.”

This is maddening, right? It is also an impressive ninja move. In short order, they change the topic, deflect responsibility and make me seem like the bad guy.

I have become convinced that narcissists are basically people who have never emotionally matured past childhood. I have no proof for this, just a lot of experience being triggered by the routine, totally age-appropriate pushback of kids.

Narcissists and passive-aggressive people are “maddening” because their defensiveness and passive aggression work like jujitsu. They manipulate your forward motion and weight to quite literally keep you off-balance.

These conversations feel impossible to win.

You ask if you’re crazy. I’d say yes, and no. You have been affected by the emotional abuse you’ve lived through: period, end of sentence. It is understandable that you want to go back to a time before the bottom fell out from your world. Being with your ex, who appears even-keeled and even loving, and has been family to you for decades, is confusing and heart-breaking.

You would not be human if you had not been negatively affected by what happened. Of course you are a little “crazy”. That is what your ex was doing: he was breaking down your mental state. Is it any surprise that, on some level, it worked?

I’m no expert, but I’d say your ex has been gaslighting you—telling people you’re crazy. He might be doing this to avoid bearing responsibility for his own behavior, or to control the narrative of your divorce. If I’m right, what he’s doing is a toxic form of emotional abuse.

Gaslighting is insidious—the person being gas-lit gets progressively more disoriented and off-kilter, while the abuser stays even-keeled and distant from the vortex they’ve created (similar to the passive-aggressive jujitsu I was talking about before). Outside observers often judge the victim as “crazy” and the abuser as sane because the abuser seems so calm. Even therapists are often fooled by passive-aggressive gas-lighters. It is a particularly poisonous kind of manipulation.

Your ex may not be aware that he’s abusing you. He may be doing it instinctually, or because he genuinely believes he’s “helping” you. That does not make it okay. But it does make it confusing. When he says he loves you and wants to help you, he may actually believe this.

That puts you in a terrible position. Do you run screaming from someone who professes love and have your kids and your community decide you’re the bad guy? Or you stay within the orbit of this one-man wrecking crew and further undermine your own judgement?

I am so, so sorry, Love. One of the terrible things about abuse is how its poison spreads throughout your life.

The truth is, Love, you need more than my advice. If you haven’t already gotten it, you need deep, consistent therapy to repair the harm done to you. Narcissistic abuse literally causes brain damage. It often causes PTSD. We often focus on physical violence in domestic abuse cases, but in a lot of ways, the verbal and emotional abuse is more damaging. It makes you stop trusting your own judgement. Even if your ex never hit you, he has been causing deep and lasting injury.

You might try calling the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) to get information on a counselor that deals with this kind of abuse.

I am spitting mad at what has happened, and spitting mad that our society takes this kind of emotional abuse so lightly. It is not okay, it is not fair, and you have every reason to be enraged about it happening to you.

You talked about making “mistakes” in your marriage, and it breaks my heart. I’m sure it’s true—I have made some terrible ones, myself. Your ex, as angry as I am at him, is not a monster. You are not a “crazy” person. You are both worthy of God’s love, and God’s restoration, and I think, given the aching cry of your letter, that you are desperate for both.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. We are all allowed to make mistakes. But you are also allowed to get yourself as far away as possible from people who continue to make toxic mistakes and call it “love”.

I’m not qualified to tell you what next steps you need to take; I really mean it when I say you need the guidance of a good therapist. My prayer for you is that you’re able to choose love and dignity. I pray you can get guidance for limiting your ex’s influence and power over you and your community. I would pray you face your kids with loving dignity that respects their choices and mistakes while honoring your own story. I pray that you learn to trust yourself again after your barometer has been messed with. I pray that you would be able to feel your rage, anger and grief, but also, eventually, move through those dark emotions towards hope again.

You end your letter by asking what love is. It’s a great question—especially in a world where people confuse abuse with love.

To me, real love to me is a force that advocates for flourishing. Loving your ex well means longing for him to be the kind of person who does not abuse, and thus preventing him from harming you. Loving your children well means forgiving them for being marked by the emotional abuse they witnessed, and desiring that they, like you, will be able to discern truth from fiction. Loving yourself well means consistently choosing those actions that help you live with dignity, and with a whole heart.

That doesn’t mean being perfect—it means integrating your whole being, body, mind, soul and spirit. It means feeling the bad emotions and the good ones. It means saying no to things that don’t allow you to flourish.

Other people’s love should help you flourish. It’s not enough for your ex to say he intends to love you. If his actions don’t help you flourish, to be more whole in your mind, have authentic, safe connection to your kids, friends, and co-workers, and to be control over your health information, then what he is doing is not love.

I hope you can find help that is actually helpful, and love that is actually loving. I’m so grieved that you’ve been through a mind-bending experience. Don’t blame yourself for feeling confused.

Sincerely,

Awkward

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