Thank you so much.


I had a talk with my therapist about his actions and she encouraged me to ask him what he meant by "putting my need to be on time ahead of his needs" and essentially, much like everything else, when confronted about it he was unable to really explain what happened. And, I do think you are 100% right that special events are spoiled by him. His MO is always to first say he is not going to something, then to make us late or make a fuss about something before hand and ruin it for me (at least this hasn't affected by children directly yet).


This morning I was thinking back to something else you said about how poorly narcissists react to boundaries. It is so interesting to me. Something as simple as me saying to my husband during a conversation that he raised his voice to me and I am not comfortable continuing the conversation until he acknowledges it and more importantly can commit to not yelling/screaming for the duration of the conversation results in me being told, time after time, that I am (1) playing games; (2) gaslighting him; (3) the one to blame. And then usually he'll just start (for lack of a better word) verbal abuse and obscenities. Your boundary conversation is definitely pertinent to my life right now. I am going to look up this Melody Beattie. I told my H there is nothing wrong with me setting a boundary with you that I don't want to be screamed at. Since he HATES being told what to do, I often say to him, "you are welcome to do whatever you want" but if you scream at me, I won't continue with the conversation. I am traumatized by his screaming and I've told him as much. He is so involved in himself he can't or won't change his behavior so I have to decide, like you said, do I want to stick to this boundary now or not.

I find I have a lot of patience for him making mistakes, but his wholesale failure to own up to them or take any responsibility is what I get stuck on. I could move on from a lot if anything was ever acknowledged and the complete lack of acknowledgement is the hardest thing for me to deal with. And I know my therapist would say go back to the 3 Cs. I was with a group of girlfriends right after mother's day and all three of us are in different life stages, our husbands are in different careers and roles, but all three of our husbands were giving us the silent treatment on mother's day. This made me wish I could see an example of "healthy communication" within a long term marriage and made me wonder does it even exist? I could look at my parents' relationship but as a child I merely observed and didn't pay attention to how they worked things out. I do know they still enjoy spending time together with all the kids gone and have fun together so I think that's an admirable goal and something I am not sure I will ever have within this marriage.


I hope the events and situations you have coming up yield less drama than expected and that you are able to handle them as best you can. And, that you keep smiling too!!