How did/does your Narcissist and abuser spoil Valentine’s day for you?  Notice that I’m asking not if but how he did it.  It is a foregone conclusion that narcissists and abusers will spoil Valentine’s Day for the one who loves them.  It just goes with the territory.

My toxic Valentine

My abiding memory of how the wasband would spoil Valentine’s Day for me is restaurant-based.  The wasband was nobody’s fool .  (Sadly, I can’t say as much for me!) He knew that there were times when it paid to preserve – and at the same time, subvert – appearances.  So, on this occasion, he went through the motions, taking me to a swanky London restaurant.

He had chosen the restaurant carefully – the man liked to eat well.  He had also set the scene carefully.  He had done so by staging a monstrous argument a day or two ahead of time and barely speaking to me since.  (Had I been in my right mind, I would have said, “Thanks but no thanks.  I think you will be much better with a table for one and I will get more joy out of a piece of dry toast on my own.”  Unfortunately, living with a Crazy-Maker gets in the way of clear thinking.)

They spoil while we bow to the intolerable

As partners of Narcissists and abusers ,  we try hard to bow gracefully to the intolerable.   We cannot even begin to comprehend that Narcissists and abusers spoil Valentine’s Day quite deliberately.  So I, in my naivete  tried my best not to work myself in a lather over the situation.  Instead, I had washed and styled my hair, done my make up with great care, chosen an outfit I reckoned I looked good in, poured my poor feet into killer heels and waited for him to get home from work.

Naturally, he was late.  In the car, he conveyed to me – in as few words as possible – the  favour he was doing me in getting away from work at all.  Once we reached the restaurant – a very plush place with great food – we sat, ordered and ate in stony silence.

Nobody could match that man for stony silences.

Now, sitting in stony silence in a restaurant – as I found out in those years – never does much for your self-esteem.  Sitting in stony silence in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, when the entire room is heaving with loved up (or would be loved up) couples  – constituted a spectacular humiliation.  For me.  He, of course, felt pretty okay about it.

With the benefit of glorious, 20/20 hindsight, I would say that that silence made his Valentine’s Day. Here’s why.

The importance of the Unspoken Contract

When you commit to a Narcissist or emotional abuser, you sign up to an Unspoken Contract.  Nobody ever tells you this – or, at least, tells you this enough.  However, the Unspoken Contract is hugely important..  In fact, it represents one key answer to the famous question, “Why Does He Do That?” which is, of course, the title of Lundy Bancroft’s eye-opening book.

Had “your” Narcissist or abuser ever shown you the contract in good time, you would never have agreed to it.  But, let’s face it, he didn’t.  You signed up to his promises.  But you never got a good look at his Unspoken Contract.  You only experienced it in action.  All too often.

How the Unspoken Contract affects you

Every time this Unspoken Contract  clashed with those (un)binding promises of  your early days together, it completely confused you.  So, you got to spend your time wondering,

• “Why does he do that?”
• “What’s going on?”
• “What am I missing?”
• “Is it my fault? It must beall my fault.”

And so on and so forth.  Maybe you had your own “pet” question that you kept asking yourself -without ever finding a worthwhile answer.

NOTE:  “It must all be my fault.” was NEVER a worthwhile or helpful answer.  Although from his point of view, it was the desired response.

And so to his Unspoken Contract.  Of course, it is the same Unspoken Contract that all Narcissists and emotional abusers use.  Whether they download it on the Internet from http:// jerksandnarcs.com , or whether it is downloaded into them on Planet Zog, their planet or origin, I cannot say and do not care.

All I care about is that you finally see the Unspoken Contract, and stop blaming yourself for what you did not know and could not know.

What the unspoken contract says

The Unspoken Contract reads approximately.

1. I am the only person who matters in this relationship.
2. In order to maintain my power and obtain the satisfaction I deserve, I am entitled to say and do whatever I please.
3. It is my inalienable right to hurt, humiliate, reject and belittle. Emotionally and/or physically.
4. You are there to serve me. Every day in every way.
5. Things will be done my way, to my complete satisfaction.
6. On the rare occasions when I feel I need to be seen to be making an effort, I reserve the right to spoil your pleasure for you.
7. It is my right to demand and withhold sex as I please.
8. It is my right to use you to feel better about myself – by making you feel worse about yourself.
9. It is my right to constantly make you feel less than other people.
10. It is my right to undermine you every which way. While you are meant to feel pathetically grateful to have me in your life.
11. This relationship is always capable of becoming worse.
12. I will always up the ante as necessary to keep you subservient to me.
13. I tolerate you purely for my own convenience.
14. It is my right to appropriate all of your assets – emotional, financial, and intellectual – for my sole benefit.
15. Nothing will ever be my fault.
16. It is my right to remind you of your many failings however often I please.

The wasband made every Valentine’s Day am emotional assault course especially on the grounds of Clause (Claws?) 6.

One great technique for spoiling Valentine’s Day

As well as playing No Talkies in a restaurant, he loved to pull The Valentine’s Card Number.  Before the pre-Valentine’s Day fight, he would go into a card shop and buy a Valentine’s card.  He would make sure I saw the bag it came it.  However, he would never actually give me the card because,

“He couldn’t.”  Given how bad the relationship was.  (Notice Clauses 15 and 16, especially, in play.)

If you ever “shared” a toxic Valentine’s Day with a Narcissist and/or abuser there was a reason for that.  Narcissists and abusers spoil Valentine’s Day because it is – for them –a very important day.  It is a day on which they celebrate the way that they do relationships.  They do “relationships” through anger, control, venom, aggression, humiliation, fault-finding and cruelty.  Poor St Valentine would be turning in his grave.

They are toxic.  You are not.  Despite all the rubbish they speak about you.  Don’t let them, and Valentine’s Day, ever put you off anything – except trying to love toxic people.