I remember early in our marriage when things got ugly, I would think to myself, “Every marriage has issues though. It would be the same with anyone else.”
He snapped at me because I told him that he had toothpaste on his mouth.
He got angry because I hung pictures in the house without asking him, even though he had told me that he didn’t care.
These seemed so minor and just like any other marriage. I knew my parents had times they got mad at each other, and they have been happily married over 50 years. My friends had conflicts in their marriages. Isn’t this normal? Wouldn’t it be like this no matter who I married?
What I didn’t realize at the time was that we never reconciled. He blew up over something trivial, I made apologies, but we never made amends. He never offered any apologies. He never carried ANY of the blame with me. I did all the apologizing, and then I swept everything under the rug as fast as I could.
There was no mutual forgiveness and no reconciliation with each other. Instead, as everything just got swept under the rug, it was never talked about again. I remember laying in bed at night, thinking to myself, “I will NEVER bring that up again!” I always paid a high price anytime I tried to clear things from under the rug, so that pile under the rug just got bigger and bigger.
When I had a disagreement with a friend or a family member, it didn’t seem to be as big of a deal. We would apologize and forgive, and no hard feelings lingered. I used to think that maybe this is just because of the complications of being married. It’s harder when it is on an intimate level. I guess all marriages are like this. I just have to keep working at it. Maybe someday we will get it.
I sure was wrong!! Not all marriages are like this. It isn’t because of the intimacy of the relationship. It is because we could never find a place of reconciliation. When you are in a truly loving relationship, reconciliation is something you experience often. The issue wasn’t about all the little disagreements and trivial problems. Yes, we sound trivial when trying to explain what is going on in our marriage. This is because the real issue is the lack of reconciliation, not the trivial little disagreements.
When your friend explains a similar trivial problem in their marriage and is able to laugh about it now, it is because they found reconciliation afterwards. They carried mutual blame and understanding. They found middle ground and resolved it. The problem is gone, never to be thought of again. It doesn’t linger, it doesn’t add up, because it was resolved.
When you are with a covert narcissist, that resolution and reconciliation never comes. Can you picture your spouse in the heat of the moment actually saying, “Oh, that makes sense. I can see why you would have thought that? I’m sorry for misunderstanding.”??? Or can you see them saying, “Hey, it’s okay that you misunderstood me. It happens. I’m sorry for not being more clear.”??? These are words that lead to resolution and reconciliation, and they are words that you will never hear from a covert narcissist.