The narcissist hated me going to the gym.
He moaned and complained about it non stop.
He insulted me, verbally abused me and tried to get the children on his side by making them think I was ‘always’ at the gym.
The ‘always’ exaggeration by the narcissist was a common theme. For example if I did x,y,z, I ALWAYS did w,y,z! If I bought a dress – ALL I did was buy dresses, if I was working on my laptop, ALL I did was work on my laptop.
This video explains the Always Exaggeration that narcissists use.
In reality we started to go to the gym when we lived and there were lots of kids classes for the children to attend.
In fact the children started to play badminton as a result of me taking then in 2000 when A was a baby in a baby carrier. I would sit her beside the badminton court and play badminton with D and B.
The narcissist I now know would have hated this as it meant I had friends, and activities which he could not control.
This is a letter I wrote about it.
“The gym
I would like to explain the gym situation and offer my perspective.
Let’s start at the beginning. I first joined David Lloyd when we moved into C Park in November 2002. You may recall that I did not want to move to W from B and you ‘sold’ it to me using the fact that we could join David Lloyd as one of the positives.
When I joined the gym I had had ten years of being a full time mother/ home educator. I had moved house with the children six times in five years. I had been under huge financial pressure for years. I supported you through ‘the grievance’ whilst pregnant with A during which time my needs were irrelevant to you. In short I had not spent one minute thinking about myself in over ten years. I had no friends apart from the annual teacher’s meal. We never went out as a couple. NOT ONCE in ten years. I had no decent clothes and was sixteen stone. Food was an emotional comfort which filled our empty relationship. I had become a non-person with no confidence and hideous in my own eyes.
I first attended classes while the children were attending theirs. All I asked of you was to bring them home twice a week as my.classes finished later. Remember, I had been with the children 24/7 for ten years while you worked out of the home, serving only their needs, running the house and our lives.
Incredibly, you seem to equate being with three children ALL DAY, home educating them and running the home and our lives as being the same as you going out to work all day and now, working for yourself when you have the freedom to organise your time to do what you want when you want without three children. In ten years, you never thought about what that must have been like for me and offered to give me some time and space for myself, to think and recharge.
Interestingly, EVERY woman I have ever told that I home educate three children thinks I’m a saint! Don’t they drive you mad being with them ALL day? They say. All day and all night for ten years I say! (By the way they don’t. They are the most important thing in my life and always will be. I love and cherish them and want to spend time with them.
(It’s you who drives me mad.)
Have you ever considered-why I might get stressed and instead of calling me mad and ridiculing me in front of the children offered to give me some space? And you have the cheek to tell me that your friends think you spend too much time with the children and need more time for yourself. What do they know! Anyway tell them I said you can have all the time to yourself you want.
I have found a way of making my own space and fulfilling my own needs. I owe it to the children and myself I didn’t want them to have a fat, frumpy, depressed mother. They would have been ashamed of me as I was ashamed of myself. I took/take them with me to the gym and while they take classes I do. You obviously give the impression that I abandon the children every night expecting you to look after them while I to go to the gym. ALL there needs are met by me day and night. . They need to have interaction with other children which happens at DL. As I explained on the phone, I don’t need you to look after them for me.’
Are you so deluded that you think the gym has anything to do with the demise of our relationship? You pay me so little attention that you didn’t notice I detached from our relationship years ago. I left three times before I joined the gym remember. Once in 1989 once in 1991 and once when A was a baby. Did you think I was having a laugh or what? You will never understand me G.
What do you want G? My friends say you are so insecure that you want me to be as I was, with no life outside the kids and home, fat, frumpy, depressed and doing everything again.
As for your counsellor saying how can you have a relationship when I am at the gym so much. I find that hilarious. Didn’t you tell her we hadn’t had a relationship for fifteen years and that I didn’t want one! Did you tell her what the alternative to the gym was for ten years. i.e. you whinging about M C College and the TV. I also find it infuriating as it is yet another excuse. And an opportunity for you to blame me therefore avoiding responsibility for your own behaviour.
I resent with all my heart, the fact that you continually whine about me going to the gym. It makes me so angry I could hurt you. It makes me more angry than anything else you have ever done to me.
I see you as a selfish, uncaring, bastard without a due about my needs or any of the above issues. You see it entirely from the view point of how it affects you. You have to look after the children FOR ME when I am not at home and you clearly resent this. Also I refuse to take the children to DL with me anymore as you see this as ME being at the gym. If YOU want them to go YOU can collect and take them during your access time.
Finally, I am so sick of your moaning that if you mention the gym again, I will petition for a divorce immediately on ground of unreasonable behaviour showing the judge this letter as I am sure anyone would consider your behaviour controlling and bullying.”
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