Yes! I dated a narcissist and introduced him to my children

Yes! I dated a narcissist and introduced him to my children

Confession time: I broke the cardinal rule of single parenting. I introduced my children to a man I had only been dating for a very short time, and everything went as terribly wrong as you would expect.

I had been divorced for over four years when I met this man, and my children have never met anyone I was in a relationship with before. I was strict about not allowing men to meet my children. They knew I was dating, I talked about it in front of them, but I knew they weren’t interested in adding new people to their lives and I respected that. For context, their father may have started a relationship a little too soon after our divorce, when our kids were still healing (or should I say reeling), and it did no one any favors.

But then I met The Narcissist.

This man practically invaded my life at 100 miles per hour, and after meeting one emotionally unavailable person after another, I thought I had finally found someone I could see myself with. He came over with flowers and gifts, took me to nice restaurants, sent long text messages in flowery language describing his feelings for me. Not to mention he fixed so many things in my house! It was the single mother’s version of giving candy to a baby. And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

Psst… Could Your Teen Be in an Abusive Relationship?

At first, my daughter, 12, was as in love as I was, very receptive to the love bombing. He brought the children boba tea and sweets and showered them with whatever food or gifts they requested. It got to the point where I had to ask him to stop bringing so much candy because it was literally making my daughter sick.

My son, 16, wanted no part of this man from the start. He saw through the love bombing and the false acts of generosity. I only wish I could be half as intuitive as he is. He barely talked to him or even looked at him, deliberately staying in his room for long periods of time when he passed to avoid potential collisions in the hallway. And while he accepted the gifts (he is a teenager, after all), they certainly didn’t affect his negative feelings toward his mother’s overzealous new boyfriend.

I talked to him all day, hoping that my son would start to like him at least a little bit, and that it would give my daughter a deeper reason to like him than “because he buys me things.” . It didn’t work, and my son probably broke his eyeballs from all the eye rolling.

Looking back, I didn’t even ask them if it was okay to let him stay while they were home, something I feel pretty bad about. I knew they didn’t like it, but I was planning a whole future with this guy, so in my mind I thought I was just trying to get everyone used to being around each other. I know it seems completely insane to think that I would marry a man I just met (where’s Elsa when you need her?), but if you’ve ever dealt with a true narcissist, you know how convincing they can be. Before him, I had never heard of things like future forgery and vacuuming. And even though I knew what gaslighting was, I never felt it so intensely until he started doing it regularly.

Luckily, my “romance” with The Narcissist crashed and burned almost as quickly as it took off. Once he realized that I wasn’t as easy to manipulate as he had initially expected, he tucked his sad little tail between his legs and went back to the woman who I later learned had dumped him the day after he asked me to be his to become his girlfriend, the one he married. which most of our relationship speaks terribly about. I know, I know, I was dodging the red flags left and right. I’m not proud of this.

At this point, I just hope she’s no longer with him, because she has a daughter of her own, and I would hate for that little girl to grow up thinking that it’s acceptable to allow yourself to be treated that way. I also fear for the safety of anyone who comes so close to a potentially dangerous narcissist. I hope she finds the strength to leave him before he hurts her again.

Once, near the end of my relationship, I heard The Narcissist’s 9-year-old son say to my daughter, “My dad kisses a lot of girls.” My heart broke in half at that moment, not out of jealousy but out of sadness for this poor child who had clearly been exposed to so many things that his young eyes should not have witnessed and his young brain should not have had to understand. His son was so sweet, but clearly confused and in pain because he was raised by someone who I believe is truly evil to his core. It was devastating to see. The crash of my heart must have also brought me back to reality when that sweet little boy said that, because I realized not long after that this was not the man I wanted my children around at all. This was not the healthy relationship I wanted to model for them.

Then it dawned on me, FINALLY, how sick the entire relationship had been from the beginning, and how much damage I had already done and would only continue to do to my children and myself if I continued to see him. It wasn’t easy to break free – the feelings were intense, which is on par with a narcissist of this magnitude – but eventually I was able to completely free myself from this man’s insane grasp.

I immediately apologized to my children. They were as much a victim of his as I was, and that is entirely my fault. I felt terrible when I realized how much I had failed them as a parent by allowing this monster into their lives without question. I had:

• violated their safe space and caused them discomfort in their own home. They literally had to worry about running into a stranger on their way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. As a teenager I couldn’t even fathom it.
• showed them that my feelings were more important than theirs. I knew my son wasn’t happy when it was over, but I kept telling myself, “He’ll come back.”
• entrusted my children to a complete stranger. Shame on me. Serious.

I share this story not as a judgment on parents who remain in toxic situations, nor as a judgment on those in happy, healthy relationships that they were more willing to share with their own children and families than most would. It’s just a cautionary tale for my fellow single parents, a warning to fully investigate anyone you decide to allow near your child. Sometimes your heart and your head say two very different things, but ultimately the ONLY option is to do what is right for your children.

Psst… Read Breast cancer is on the rise in younger women: what you need to know