I had the “Finals Week Dream” last night. I used to have that one a lot. In the dream, it’s finals week and I’m looking at the printout that shows the schedule for my finals. I’m going over the schedule, thinking about how much time I’ll be able to cram for each test, and I see a final on there that makes me absolutely panic. I keep staring at the class number. My brain starts spiraling.
Crap.
I forgot to go to that class last quarter! How can I pass a final for a class I forgot to attend?
I guess it has something to do with failing to be prepared? I’ve heard of people having the “Forgot The Baby On Top of the Car Dream”. Mine is always about having to take a final for a class I never attended.
After waking to that sense of relief that comes with realizing that it’s just a dream, my mind had all these accounting acronyms swimming around in it. Things like ROI (Return On Investment), LIFO (Last In First Out), and FIFO (First In First Out), that I haven’t thought about since college.
There is a comical association between those acronyms and relationships.
I’ve read about how you should make “deposits” in a relationship, just as you would a bank account. You create a kind of reserve of love, caring and support for the whole of the partnership, and it’s there if either of you need to make a withdrawal. It is a joint account. I guess the assumption is that your partner is also making deposits. That didn’t work so well in my relationship. We had separate bank accounts. He was darn good at making the emotional withdrawals from our “joint” emotional bank account, though.
No matter how many deposits I made, there was never a balance. Whatever deposits I made in the emotional account had to be enough for both of us because I was the only one making the deposits.
This arrangement couldn’t last forever.
In our case, there wasn’t a person who was the last to put in or the first to put in. I always did the putting in, so first versus last wasn’t an issue. However, Mark was always the first to take out. I can almost see him standing there, tapping his foot, after having depleted the account. It was as if he was saying, “Hey, the account is empty. You need to put more in there.” I’d lavish more praise on him, put enough in the account to keep him happy, and wait to see if he made any deposits.
Nothing.
In the financial world, they are always telling us to be wise about where we make our investments. What sane person keeps throwing money at a bad stock, or a low-interest bearing account, only to complain about not getting much back for their investment? Why wouldn’t the same apply to relationships? At what point should I take stock and notice that I’ve been making all the deposits, and I’m getting zilch for a return?
In fact, I don’t have any thing left for making additional deposits. My piggy bank is empty. Hell, it was smashed with a hammer a long time ago.
I admit that I was the first one “in” this relationship. It’s fair to say that I did most of the pursuing. After years of being the only one making deposits, it was time to be the first one out.
Tags: child of narcissist, divorce, humor, narcissism, narcissist behavior, narcissistic behavior, NPD, proactive, survive
My this hits home… this morning I read in the paper my horoscope, it said, “investigate support groups. Not because you need anything in particular, but because you deserve to be cared for and listened to in the manner you so generously provide for others”… I always thought that a marriage was to be a soft landing, somewhere I, my soul could relax. Nope, always fixing it up for him to enjoy, the compliments, everything and never a thing in return. I had read the horoscope to him and he said I should look into it…
Annie,
I hope you find the support you seek. Don’t we all deserve to be cared for and listened to? It doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Jesse