This morning, I was watching Les Carter’s most recent video, and I had a flash of insight. Les Carter, for those who don’t know, is a psychologist in Texas who makes excellent videos about narcissists. And in the video I posted below, he describes narcissists as “creators of misery”. He says upfront that narcissists are not healthy people, and they don’t function on a rational plane. And unfortunately, narcissists “create misery” with maddening efficiency. They don’t seem to care at all about how awful they are. I think the worst thing about narcissists is that their behavior can be contagious. They infect people with their miserable behavior, and that makes people want to react in kind. Pretty soon, non-narcissistic people find themselves being dragged down to the narcissist’s level.

Dr. Carter rationally explains why it’s best not to try to get “revenge” on the narcissist. They don’t care about your misery, and if you treat them the way they treat you, they’ll just ratchet up their usual tactics and continue to smear you. The best thing to do is to go “no contact”, or if that’s not possible, “grey rock” them– that is, be totally bland and boring, like a rock. It doesn’t seem fair to have to do that, though. I know that I, for one, don’t have the personality of a “grey rock”. It’s really hard for me to act like one.

Fortunately, the narcissist in my life doesn’t affect me personally. Instead, Ex visits her misery on people Bill and I care about. We are legitimately worried about people in Bill’s family who may fall prey to Ex and her usual grifting tactics. She’s grifting for money, sure, but she’s also looking for supply. It would be bad enough if she was just after money, but she also spreads misery and toxicity when she comes around. She causes pain. So this time, something does need to be done, rather than just ignoring her. But how can we effectively handle the “creator of misery” that is Ex?

I’ve mentioned more than once that my husband is a bit of a “white knight”. He tends to take responsibility for things that aren’t his responsibility. He tries to save people who don’t appreciate or deserve his efforts to save them. When he was married to Ex, he got dragged down to her level, not in terms of behaving like her, but in terms of enabling her toxicity. When she decided she wanted to conduct “ye olde surprise visit”, he went along with it. When she demanded that he allow her to handle the bills and manage the money, he let her do it, even though she created a huge financial hole that took him years to recover from. When she alienated the children and tried to sever his ties with his family of origin, he protested only slightly more. He didn’t avail himself of the law, or document her abuse. He simply sucked it up and drove on, which left her free to continue her misery creating fuckery with other innocent people.

While I can see that stooping to the narcissist’s level is ineffective and pointless, I do think there’s a difference between getting even with someone and holding them accountable when they do harm. Ex has done a LOT of harm over the years, not just to Bill, but to people connected to him. In fact, I have mentioned before that some of the things she does have “ripple effects”. I even wrote a blog post about that– calling it “Ripple eff-Ex” (see what I did there?). I don’t think I reposted the original blog post, but I did write a sequel. Since today is a light chore day, I think I’ll repost the original incarnation of that post. I think it was a pretty juicy one.

Les Carter’s video is the second one I’ve seen this week about how it’s important not to try to “get revenge” on a narcissist. The video directly below was done about a month ago by Jess Stanley, who has a great channel that is based on her experiences dating a narcissist. Jess reminded her viewers that narcissists don’t care about your feelings, and they don’t “learn lessons” when you try to “show them”. Really, all trying to get revenge does is bring you down to their level and give them narcissistic supply/attention. Always remember that attention– good or bad– is what the narcissist needs for survival.

Basically, Jess says that in order to hurt a narcissist, you have to just go on with your life. And even that isn’t going to hurt them much, because they can always find someone to replace whatever you brought to them. And she’s right about that… however, I don’t think that should mean not holding them accountable when they do things that are illegal or egregiously outside the boundaries of morality.

I think there’s a big difference between holding someone accountable and exacting revenge. There’s a difference between aggressively fighting against someone or something, trying to “smear” them the way they smeared you, and being assertive and setting boundaries. We think it’s time Ex left Bill’s family alone. She has her own family, as well as her own in-laws. She should focus on them. And while Bill’s older daughter does have a legitimate claim to Bill’s family, she’s only a family member because of Bill.

Of course, just because we have these feelings, that doesn’t mean other people agree with us. And as they are supposedly competent adults, there’s nothing we can do to force Ex to leave them alone, or stop them from talking. The only thing we can control about this situation is how we react to it. So what do we do?

I’m not going to be specific about what our plans are, because I’m not stupid. I know Ex has stalked me online, and she probably still looks in. That’s kind of why I’m unabashedly writing about her now. I hope she reads this and gets super upset and …miserable. But we do have a plan, and what I’ll say about it is that the plan involves making Bill feel better about himself. He does have an action planned, but it’s not meant to hurt Ex or even protect anyone against Ex’s shenanigans. Ultimately, we accept that whatever happens will depend on what the other adults decide to do. We will simply do what we can to avoid the fallout and the guilt associated with her continual attacks.

Like I said… she’s like a bad case of herpes. Just like herpes, she pops up whenever she senses weakness in the immune system. In this case, it’s Bill’s dad’s death, the COVID nightmare, and perhaps feeling isolated and lonely for reasons other than the pandemic. Ex obviously smelled blood and came running.

Elton John has a really good song about this… Given Ex’s love of movies, I think the lyrics are especially appropriate.

Lyrics

I can see by your eyes you must be lying
When you think I don’t have a clue
Baby, you’re crazy
If you think that you can fool me
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

It’s a habit I have, I don’t get pushed around
Stop twinkling your star like you do
I’m not the blueprint
For all of your B films
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too