Surviving Narcissism Exploring life after marriage to a narcissist. Learning and thriving by sharing our story. – Jesse Blayne

“So it’s pretty obvious that you didn’t try to coach your kids before you came in today.”  That’s what the counselor first said, when I walked into her office after she’d met first, with Will, and then with Jenny.  I explained that I thought it was better/healthier to not over-talk this appointment.  (You probably didn’t know I could not over-talk something.)  I had explained to them that they would be very comfortable talking to her.  They didn’t need to worry about me or their dad hearing what they said.  They could complain about me, too, if they so felt.  There were no right or wrong answers.  And this was a great way for them to get some stuff off their chests.

Interestingly, the counselor pointed out that a lot of kids, upon entering her office, frantically unload their brains in an effort to spew everything they’ve been coached to say, in hopes of not getting in trouble for forgetting to say everything.

Yikes.

I believe we have to trust, that if we are headed down the right path, then we better not impede the process by trying to force our desired outcome.

Then she showed me their drawings.  It was absolutely fascinating to see how she interpreted the sketches.  She’s been employing the House/Tree/Person technique for 16 years.  I knew my kids would be comfortable with sketching since they draw every day.

Will and Jen were instructed to draw a tree, a house, a person, a picture of me with them, and a picture of their dad with them.  Both houses included chimneys without smoke.  The chimney symbolizes their dad, the lack of smoke means they aren’t dealing with any anger issues.  Both of their person drawings had shoes, which exemplifies their independence.  (And boy howdy, those two can be independent.  But isn’t it whacky that shoes represent independence?)  Their trees didn’t have any knot holes or strange details, so that assured her that there weren’t any abuse issues.

The drawings including myself and Mark were particularly interesting.  In Jen’s sketch of the two of us, we are sitting at a table drawing.  Jen is facing me and you can see the back of Jen’s head.  The counselor said it was rather unusual for a child to draw the back of a head.  In her sketch with her dad, she is facing away from him.

In Will’s sketch with me, he drew a simple, side view, line drawing of the two of us sitting at a table, facing each other, playing Monopoly.   He didn’t erase anything on the sketch about me.  (She suggested that he appeared to be relaxed when sketching the picture of me.)  She said it was bizarre how many times he erased and corrected his sketch of himself with his dad.  The sketch of his dad shows that he has just thrown a football that was still in mid air, and his dad’s arms are outstretched waiting to catch the ball.  Will had erased and changed the position of his own arms several times.  And when he completed the drawing, he’d told her that he still wasn’t happy with it.

She pointed out that both kids’ accounts of their relationships with their dad were generally the same.  (They saw her individually.)  One kid wasn’t happier with their dad than the other.  They don’t appear to be particularly angry, so much as they are uncomfortable around their dad.  They both expressed that they felt their dad didn’t know them or knew how to relate to them.  And they  both talked of feeling like they can’t do anything right around Mark.  That’s precisely why Will kept redrawing the picture of himself with his dad.  Weird, huh?

At one point, Jenny told her she wished her dad was more like her mom.  The counselor asked her to elaborate and Jenny said, “He eats all my fries when we go to the ski hill; he never helps me get on the chair lift; he doesn’t help me up when I fall on my skis.”  The counselor pointed out that this basically means that she wants her dad to parent.  I speculated that when Jen said she wanted dad to be more like mom, she didn’t want him to be an eclectic, coffee-guzzling, dream-analyzing, whacko that wears his heart on his sleeve.  Kinda like her mom.

Her overview was right in line with what I’ve seen.  Mark doesn’t know how to relate to them.  Mark doesn’t parent them.  The kids simply aren’t comfortable around Mark.  Even if sometimes I’ve heard them say they hate him, really it appears that they are more frustrated than angered by the situation.

She told me that she was quite confident that she would be able to tell Mark just what Jen and Will’s issues are.  She felt she was very clear on where the break downs in the relationship are.  She also told me that she wasn’t convinced that Mark would be able to internalize this information, even when she presents it to him in a concise, clear-cut manner.

So, essentially, we are right back where we started.  However, I do have the confidence that the kids and I are on the right path.  We will not see a change in Mark.  He will not magically become the father they need.  At this point, we will continue to work on how the kids deal with him while maintaining their identities.

__________

When we were discussing the drawings, she pointed out that the kids spent a lot of time drawing ears on the people.  In some cases, the ears were quite large.  She said this is kind of unusual that both kids made the ears a predominant part of the people drawings.  She said that indicates to her that the kids feel they aren’t being heard.

I asked her if Mark had told her that he was hard of hearing.  She said, “Well, no.  He left that part out.”