Retribution

I think retribution is a big part of the reason we find NC as a lifelong commitment to our own sanity hard to tolerate - retribution not necessarily in the sense of vengeance, but in the sense of righting a wrong.

Let`s assume we buy a new computer, a better one than we ever had. We pay for it, we take it home, we unpack it, we connect it, we re-install all our other hardware - a lot of investment. But it doesn`t work. So we try this and that, google, ask friends around to look at it, pay an expert for advice ... and gradually it dawns on us that it just doesn`t work. It was broken when we bought it.

So we are angry. We want to take it back to the shop, file a complaint and get our money back. But the shop no longer exists, no-one answers the phone, our letters and mails go unanswered. We have no-one to complain to. We are left alone with our anger and hurt at having been cheated.

I adored my narc. I thought the sun shone out of his ass. I left the home I loved to move in with him. I poured myself body and soul into "our relationship", neglecting my children, my work, my friends and my own health to cook him nice meals and "be there" for him. I worked like a laborer for ten months on his damned house. And when things started to go wrong, I bought E-books and signed up for newsletters on How to Improve Your Relationship and How to Make Your Man Happy and How to Win Him Back blah blah blah. I made a BIG investment.

And when I realized the f**cker had been defect from day one, I felt - quite rightly - that I had been cheated. He led me to believe that I was making an investment in something that was going to work, and not just work, but work for ever. I would NEVER have entered into a relationship with him or left my home if I had known how he was going to be "malfunctioning" the minute I signed the contract and handed over the dough. And the dough was significant - parts of myself, my trust, my love, my sexuality - I had never given to or shown anyone else. So I made a very big investment, and what I got back was a defective machine that never worked ONCE the way the salesman had promised me it would.

I think the hardest thing about NC is recognizing that you can neither complain, nor reclaim your investment, because the firm that sold you that piece of junk just doesn`t exist, and never did. You are not going to get your money back, you are not going to get a new one that functions properly and they will not fix the old one for you either. You trusted the salesman, paid his price and got duped. Sometimes you feel angry, sometimes you feel depressed but ALWAYS you feel alone with your feelings of having been duped, because he who duped you is over the seven hills by now, merrily duping others.

The urge to string him up by the balls is, under the circumstances, perfectly normal. Relapses into self-dislike at having been so "dupe-able", blaming oneself, depression and the feeling one can never trust again are also normal. Having been so severely wronged, with no hope of retribution, makes us feel powerless, and feelings of powerlessness work in all of the above-mentioned ways at different times on different people.

Life is not fair. We are not going to get retribution. All we can do is learn from the experience, let go and move on.

Love to all fellow-sufferers

Tigerlily