Reply to Secrets to remaining married to narcissist and keeping inner happiness?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The secret is to manage/lower your expectations, same as you would do for a toddler, an elderly person with memory issues, or someone who has a mental health issue or other special need etc.

That applies to pretty much any difficult husband, whatever the real issue is. I don’t know what is the matter with mine- narcissist, alcoholic, just a jerk? Who knows. It really does not matter.

For example, with Christmas in the next few days: 
-I expect my DH to throw pretty much a daily fit over something or other. 
-I expect he will be disappointed with his gifts (no matter how much effort I put in) and will likely openly pout about this 
-I expect he will sit and drink beer much of the time, and likely pass out on the couch at random times

For the fits- I ignore. And have my strategies: gather the kids to go & take the dog for a walk, decide it is a good time to FaceTime relatives holiday greetings (that shuts him up- he doesn’t want anyone else to overhear- he only acts this way in private of course). And so on.

For the passing out etc: I have alternative plans ready, and will just leave him here. The kids and I will drive around and look at Christmas lights, head to the park if it’s nice,  or go and see a movie.

The problem is expecting behavior that he is clearly not capable of. Mine is simply not capable of reliably acting like a normal/typical  person for any length of time.

And to the haters: no, he wasn’t like this when we married. Changed on a dime about 12yrs into the marriage. Whether you believe me or not. He pretty obviously has untreated mental health issues (refuses to seek help) and self medicates with alcohol, making the problem worse. He won’t change until he decides to do so, himself. He is selfish and doesn’t care how he makes his family feel. The only power I have is to either stay, or leave. 
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Thank you for this!

(To be honest, I don’t know why people are even replying to the haters.) 
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