The Narcissist and Holidays
Is there any holiday that a narcissist won’t ruin? My husband ruined EVERY SINGLE ONE. Christmas? For sure! Birthdays? Without a doubt! Even a day that was about him, Father’s Day! I could never understand his need to always ruin the holiday. I grew up learning to suck up the little annoyances on a special occasion. It wasn’t about me. And, even when it was about me, like my birthday for example, I would still grin and bear any perceived slight or difficulty. It really isn’t that hard, right? We want everyone to have an enjoyable time on whatever the special occasion is. So, we bite our tongue, grit our teeth- if we even have to. It is after all a special time. It’s usually fun; at least it was until I married a narcissist.
When my kids were little, I taught them about Santa, and they were beyond excited about the presents he would bring. It made Christmas special for me once again. Many people say Christmas is for children and there is some truth to that. Their excitement makes the holiday much more fun. But my husband always managed to dampen their spirits. Every Christmas morning without fail, he would make one or all of them cry. Everyone was tired from lack of sleep on Christmas Eve. My husband and I had stayed up late to get everything ready. I grew up believing that Santa brought the tree, and I was crazy enough to do the same for my kids. It made for a late Christmas Eve with lots to do. The kids were tired from getting up too early because they were excited to see what Santa brought. I always assumed that was the reason my husband made the kids cry on Christmas. They were overtired. He was overtired. I was too, of course, but I often made excuses for his behavior. I never fathomed that the real reason was that the holiday didn’t center around him.
My husband went into a rage on my 50th birthday. My friends threw me a party. One of their daughters was close friends with my daughter and so she stayed later after the party had wound down. She somehow managed to break a piece to my son’s computer. My husband was so incensed that he went into a rage and smashed my daughter’s door in and broke the sign on her door that had her name on it. A very logical response, no? Something was accidentally broken so now other things must intentionally be destroyed. It’s hard to ever understand the mindset of narcissists. By this time, my husband’s behavior was all too typical. When my son approached us complaining about his computer, I knew immediately this wasn’t going to be good. I tried to minimize the situation, but it really didn’t matter. My husband already had his excuse to make the day about him. And so, he did.
On my mother’s eighty-fifth birthday, my husband smashed a hole in her wall the size of a basketball. We were having a great weekend with my extended family. Everyone was getting along fine. I was even thinking to myself how well the weekend was going. I should have known better. Everyone was playing cards and my son played incorrectly on purpose (i.e., he was cheating), and the rest of the family wanted to “fine” him (because they were suspicious that he was cheating). My husband didn’t take too kindly to that and exploded. He called my brother a f**king a**h*le, raced up the stairs and punched the hole in the wall. We never played cards with my family again.
One October when Halloween was approaching, my kids, who were around ages five and eight, got out all the scary decorations while my husband and I were out shopping. Their intention was to frighten us when we walked in the door. As we approached, I could hear them whispering and giggling. We walked in and my daughter, in her excitement, dropped our most expensive decoration, Grim the Reaper. The decoration was not damaged, but my husband wasn’t happy. He went into his all too familiar rage, kicked the decoration across the room and when the kids started to get upset, he told them to suck it up.
Why do they behave this way? I was bewildered by it for almost my entire marriage. It was only toward the end that my daughter found an article that offered some explanation. You can find it here:
Why narcissists love to ruin holidays
This article opened my eyes quite a bit to what I was dealing with. Unfortunately, it was a little too late as my discard was soon to come. I’ve since looked further into this, I guess in part to confirm for myself that I didn’t have any fault in causing him to ruin special occasions.
Psychology Today explains this phenomenon really well. Look here for the article:
The article states, that if “a family member suffers from Narcissist Personality Disorder or displays significant narcissistic tendencies, the holidays can mean great chaos and calamity.” That clearly was true for me. But why?
Apparently, narcissists feel that the holidays steal the spotlight from what should rightfully belong to them. According to the article, there are two types of narcissists: grandiose and vulnerable. I imagine there may be some who are a little of both as I think my husband fits under the vulnerable type more, but he would make grand gestures on occasion.
The grandiose narcissists like to do everything in a big way so they look better than everyone and others will envy them. They will give lavish gifts, so everyone thinks they are generous. This struck a chord with me as toward the end of my marriage my husband and I went on a cruise, and I experienced something like this. We met another couple there, and the other husband wanted to buy his wife a nice ring. Suddenly, my husband insisted that he buy me one. I didn’t want one and didn’t want to spend the money. I could see that this was just a competition for my husband. I wouldn’t let him buy it. He then became miserable towards me.
Vulnerable narcissists don’t seek as much public attention but demand to be the center of it with their families. At a special gathering, the vulnerable narcissist will try deflecting the attention from the host or honoree by criticizing everything to show he is superior. Once, my husband and I went to visit my friend who had just bought a house. Her house was much more expensive than ours, but the kitchen was older. My husband spent almost the entire visit explaining to my friend all that she needed to do to update her kitchen.
The article gives advice for how not to set off a narcissist into all a rage. I question how effective the advice is, however. Essentially, it says not to start an argument, not to tell them how to behave, not to humiliate them. I don’t think I ever did any of those things (although I’m sure I wanted to correct his behavior on many occasions), but it wouldn’t have mattered. He always found a reason to ruin the holiday no matter how softly I walked on eggshells. I wish I had advice to offer on this other than a grin and bear it approach with low expectations that the holiday will go smoothly. I really don’t think there is a way to prevent a narcissist from ruining a special occasion but if you do, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Read my book about my journey from abuse to empowerment, my 28-year odyssey, battling a narcissist, navigating a hostile divorce, and emerging triumphant. Discover your strength. Reclaim your peace. You can find it here if you want. Or if you’d like a sneak peak first, you can go here and click on the look inside link under the picture of the book cover to read chapter one for free.
-Maria