Surviving Narcissism Jesse Blayne writes about thriving after marriage to a narcissist.

…  I reflect on the events that happened right before I decided to leave my marriage. Obviously, as in any marriage that is on the verge of crumbling, there were many issues. Everyone has their own last straw. Mine will not be yours. Your last straw will look completely different from another person’s last straw.

In fact, I’m convinced that we don’t know when that last straw is approaching. We get so busy putting up and shutting up, that we don’t see that the scale has been tipped.

The scale was off balance long ago and we are so busy keeping the peace, scrubbing the floors, making the apologies and hiding the toys, that we don’t notice that nothing more can be added to the scale.

That’s why the last straw is often infinitesimally small. The last straw could be a sideways glance, a pair of dirty socks left on the bedroom floor, or an off-handed comment about the way the chicken was prepared for last night’s dinner.

I didn’t see my last straw coming.

To this day, I marvel at the smallness of the infraction.

But, take many small infractions over years of disappointment and resentment and failed expectations and bars raised too high, and suddenly I met my last straw.

We were sitting at the dinner table with Will and Jenny and my husband’s older kids from his previous marriage. Over messy burgers, fruit salad, Domestic Beers and spilled Kool-Aid we had the disjointed kind of conversation that families have – the kind where you laugh and try to interject something and miss the beat and it just doesn’t matter because after dinner you’ll go outside and eat popsicles and play Bocce Ball.

Somewhere during that conversation, the patriarch – the man of the house, the provider, the role model, the man whose job it is to make us feel loved and welcomed and safe – got up from the table,  mid-bite, and walked upstairs.

(He later told me he was tired of the conversation. He was sick of the boring exchange. We simply no longer interested him.)

His oldest son glanced at me with a look that said, “What did I say that he didn’t like?”  Later, when we cleaned the kitchen together, the oldest told me his father often did that  – left the dinner table – when he and his brother lived with Mark.  I thought he only did that with his new family.

I came up with a feeble excuse about how dad is tired from work, or dad isn’t feeling well.

But that night, his getting up and leaving his family sitting at the table, still eating  their dinners, was my last straw.

After years of seeing the lack of spirit, the inability to make a decision, and the fear of disappointing their father – in these two older children – I realized that by staying in this marriage, I would be letting history repeat itself.

I couldn’t save his oldest kids.

I could try to save mine.

Seeing My Path is an ebook that tells the ongoing conversation I’ve been having with myself, and the questions I ask.  It’s a look at how I ended up marrying a narcissist, how I got out of the marriage, and what I’m doing to try to get back on my own path.

I’m planning to have the ebook completed the end of July.