3 Weddings And A Funeral

Are 3 weddings and a funeral too much for one family? Is it possible to have a healthy relationship with a narcissistic parent? Can the family be mended in time before Curtis makes Becca his wife? Guest Curtis Blackthorne makes an urgent and time-sensitive call to the show.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (00:04):
Neither of us were home, and the only reason we
know that they came by was theyleft a gift on the front porch
like it was my birthday.
And during therapy a coupletimes, it was like, well, that
won't happen.
It's like, but it did.
Well, it won't happen again.
How can you promise me that?
Well, it just won't, because I'mtelling you.

SPEAKER_05 (00:20):
There's a difference between forgiving someone and
tolerating ongoing bad behavior.

SPEAKER_03 (00:29):
Rebecca will be my wife in two days.
And she is now my family, andyou guys become extended family.

SPEAKER_05 (00:38):
Are they gonna be allowed to see my kids anymore?
Or am I ever going to be able toget in a room with them and talk
to them?
What's gonna happen when someonepasses away?
These are things that I had tothink about.

SPEAKER_03 (00:51):
To fill into like say, hey, I'd like to speak on
this.
She's like, you know, there's aform that you can sign up and
and go on the podcast.
And I was like, What?
Maybe I should do this.
Just because uh as you'll findout as we go through this, uh,
we're dealing with anarcissistic parent.
So she has been doing a lot ofresearch and going, Hey, you
should read this, you shouldlisten to this, you should go
there.

(01:11):
Yeah.
And then she saw about the hey,would you like to be on the
podcast?
And I was like, I wouldactually.
And hopefully I sound okay.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18):
Yes, you sound great.
Actually, I was gonna say yousound good.

SPEAKER_03 (01:21):
Oh, yeah.
I fully expect at some point,like while we're very serious
and like super focused, that mydogs are gonna come barking at
something, and then I'd be like,hey, get out of here.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30):
Because yeah, it's it's real and it's it's fun.

SPEAKER_05 (01:33):
We'll we'll keep them in the show.
We can change their names toprotect their privacy if you
want.

SPEAKER_03 (01:39):
Perfect.

SPEAKER_05 (01:40):
Well, first of all, I'm gonna say uh hello, and I'm
going to ask you, um, why areyou calling me?
I mean, you you're you'redealing with this estrangement
thing, and you chose to call atotal stranger, you know, on the
show when the bow breaks.
What made you think of reallywanting to do that?

SPEAKER_03 (02:00):
Honestly, it's one of those things as I was
listening to it, you know, youhad that the time there you had
two or three uh episodes out,and everybody kind of had has
been either estranged for awhile or had very kind of clear,
clear evidence of like, oh yeah,like that's abuse, and you

(02:22):
should get away from that.
And I kind of feel like I cansee it coming on the horizon,
and I'm hearing a lot of thesimilar stuff about kind of
where you're just kind of takenfor granted and you're treated
kind of terribly, and the secondyou treat someone else this the
way they've been treating you,all of a sudden you're vilified
by everybody.

(02:42):
And so it's one of those thingswhere like I I feel like we're
right on the cusp of getting tothe point where it's you know
what, that that's it.
I I can't do this anymore.
And one of the things that I'veeven tried to set a boundary
with my parents of was hey, youknow, I'm getting married soon,
kids are probably around thecorner.
Like, if you want to haveanything to do with

(03:05):
grandchildren, we need to havediscussions about your guys'
actions.
And even that threat, I and Idon't like using the word
threat, but like it's a firmerboundary.
Even that, they're kind of like,Yeah, you're not gonna do that.
And I'm just like, you Yeah,it's always a challenge.

SPEAKER_05 (03:22):
Um, I have I don't want to, you know, talk too much
about myself or my situation,but I had a narcissist
narcissistic parent also, and Iknow what it's like being it,
it's constantly frustrating.
They know how to like spinthings around where you can't
even stay in it, can't there theconversation doesn't even go
straight ever.

SPEAKER_03 (03:40):
Oh yeah.
Have you noticed it?
Oh yeah, so so I mean, dependingon where we want to go with the
story, I have lots of evidenceof of all of this happening.

SPEAKER_05 (03:48):
So you tell it the way you want, but yeah, I get
what you mean about beingfrustrated and hate, like, and
then turning it like, wait aminute, that's don't change the
subject.

SPEAKER_03 (03:55):
Right.
Uh so like currently I'm youknow uh I'm still have contact
with my family through textmessages, and I see my I see my
brothers every now and again.
I have two brothers, and I seemy mom in person only with a
therapist.
And even with the therapist,we've had to go through two.

(04:17):
I picked one, it was mytherapist that I've been seeing
for a few years now, and I and Iwas like, you can find someone
that neither of us know.
If there's somebody you trust,you can go that way.
But I have a guy I already I seeand trust.
We can go to him so that wayneither of us really have to
look if that's okay with you.
And so we would start, westarted going to therapy there.
And he even told me up front,he's like, I'm gonna be harder

(04:39):
on you in the beginning becauseI want to make sure she trusts
me.
And he's like, I might startchallenging her after a few kind
of sessions to see how shereacts and and hopefully she'll
trust me enough to change or atleast try to like listen to me.
But even then in those sessions,yeah, as soon as you kind of
it's a it's her tactic that likeas soon as you start talking

(05:02):
about something where she couldeven look in a bad light, it
will be a quick subject change.
Yeah, but what about this thing?

SPEAKER_02 (05:08):
Yeah, but what about this thing?

SPEAKER_03 (05:09):
And I'm just like, Yeah, we we can cover that
thing, but how about we juststick to one topic?
Like, can we get to the bottomof one topic?

SPEAKER_05 (05:19):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (05:20):
You keep piling this stuff up on top of it, we we
can't solve anything.

SPEAKER_05 (05:24):
So, really quick, before we go on a little bit
more, I haven't had a chance totalk a whole lot about
narcissistic uh parents becauseum just because we haven't yet,
you're like the first with thoselike, okay, we're gonna be able
to talk a lot about this.
Okay, good, because I've beenwaiting for this because I I
have a narcissistic parent aswell as a narcissistic sibling.

(05:45):
And um that is one of thereasons why I'm estranged.
It's not because I was judgingthem for the personality, but
because of the personality typeand you know, their way of doing
things, it was impossible tohave a long-lasting, healthy
relationship with them.
And um, so this is why I want totalk about it because it's very
difficult.
It's like it, you know, I'm sureyou love them and I'm sure they,

(06:07):
you know, it's that's not eventhe issue.
It's just the issue is that youcan't have a functional like
relationship, or it's verydifficult to have a functional
relationship with a narcissisticparent.

SPEAKER_03 (06:18):
Yeah, so I mean, a little bit of what I've kind of
learned about, and uh and myfiance is going to like choke me
because she tells me all thetime that there is basically a
term and I should have writtenit down.
Uh, but I that my mom, we'vekind of looked at other versions
of narcissism, and it's aboutsix words long, but it's kind of
funny.
It it was the same thing that umoh my goodness, why can I not

(06:42):
think of his name?
He was the the serial killerthat escaped from jail twice,
that he's got a bunch of moviesthat are coming out.
Ted Bundy?
Yeah, super attractive guy.
The serial killer?
Ted Bundy?
Yeah, the yeah, so like it washim or Charles Manson, one of
the two.
One of the two was Ted Bundy'sgone.

SPEAKER_05 (07:01):
I don't know which one's still wait, are we talking
about the serial?
Not alive.
Yeah, not alive.

SPEAKER_03 (07:06):
Not alive, not alive, no, but like they people
diagnose what they have, and youknow, I think it was Char yeah,
it was never mine, it wasn't TedBundy, it was Charles Manson.
So my mom, you kind of just getin the sphere of influence of
her where she comes off verynice, and I know that's a
terrible way to like try to talkabout why something is bad about

(07:28):
somebody, but on the surface,she's very nice.
But once you start kind ofgetting deeper than that, you
realize she's only nice to afront, and it's only nice when
it kind of benefits her.
Yeah.
So one of the things that reallykind of set all of this off was
years ago, we we had a westarted setting some boundaries

(07:53):
with my parents, wherespecifically my mom, where she
would invite people over tofamily gatherings that we would
just be like, you know, we don'twe don't want to be around them,
right?
If they're if they're there,tell us that they're there, so
at a minimum, we can get in theright headspace.
And she wouldn't do it.
Right.
And so we're like, okay, so wewould we would then kind of

(08:16):
escalate the boundary a littlebit, like, hey, if they're
there, let us know because wedon't want to come over.
And she wouldn't do it.
And it's just like, like, why isthis so hard that you can't tell
us?
And so finally it reached apoint where we had to set a
boundary where it was like,okay, mom, and we sat down, like
my fiance and I, we went to havedinner with my mom and dad.

(08:36):
No, this was probably three anda half, four years ago.
We sat down, went to go havedinner with them, came back to
their house, explained all thereasons why we didn't want to be
around this family member, ornot family member, but family
friend, like that they justcouldn't understand why someone
that I practically have knownsince I was since I was born,

(08:56):
that they were a neighbor thatwas always over there.
They're like, why don't you wantto be around them?
And you know, I exp we explainedall the reasons where, like, you
know, they don't parent theirkids, they don't care about
anybody's property.
You know, their kids wererunning around.
Literally, we bought a new car,the kids ran their bike into the
car, and the parents were like,eh, it happens.

SPEAKER_05 (09:15):
It's like, no, no, like it's like my hard work,
man.
It's like we gotta deal withthis.

SPEAKER_03 (09:20):
Right.
You need to like maybe talk toyour kids about like, don't just
ride your car, your bike intocars.
But we had a whole discussionwith them, and we've I felt like
we reached an understandingwhere they're like, okay, if
they're coming over, we'll letyou know.
And we're like, okay, then thenext time we come over is
Thanksgiving.
So we know they like to comeover for Thanksgiving.

(09:41):
So we know they come over fordinner or lunch, whichever one
they want to come over for.
You just tell us and we'll we'llcome over the opposite.
Uh-huh.
Well, we will be very happy toaccommodate.
And so I called them thatmorning.
My mom's like, Oh, they'rethey're gonna go to their
family's house.
We're not gonna see them today.
They're not coming here.
We're like, Oh, okay, cool.
So we show up to the house, andsure enough, the family's there.

(10:05):
And I'm like, I pull my mom tothe side.
I'm like, hey, um, I thought yousaid they weren't coming.
She's like, I didn't say that.
Uh-huh.

unknown (10:12):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (10:13):
What do you what do you mean?
Uh-huh.
Mean you didn't say that.

SPEAKER_04 (10:15):
Textbook.
Textbook narcissism.

SPEAKER_03 (10:18):
Oh, yeah.
It's like, no, I would havenever said that because I knew
they were coming over all day.
I'm like, mom, we just had aphone call.

SPEAKER_04 (10:24):
Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 (10:25):
Like, like 45 minutes ago before I drove over
here, like we had this phonecall.
And, you know, this kept goinguntil finally we got to the
point on that followingChristmas, we said, Look, if
they're here, we're just gonnaleave.
And so we did.
And we thought that us justleaving was gonna be kind of the
wake-up call.

(10:46):
Uh, we thought that it would bekind of the the moment that they
would understand right thatsomething, okay, this does
bother him.
That he set the boundary.
Maybe we should follow this andlike maybe listen to him.
Uh not even called all this timeas I'm bringing this stuff up
with my mom and my dad, theykeep kind of uh hinting and

(11:09):
saying things that they theythink someone's in my ear and
they think somebody isinfluencing me.
Yeah, but they won't say who,they won't say what, but they're
like, you know, you you seemlike you've changed.
You seem like something haschanged in your life, and you're
you're not who you used to be.
And I'm just you know, and it'sto me, it kind of hurt a little

(11:30):
bit that they would even tell methat because I had been trying
to explain to them, I've beengoing to therapy now for a year
or two, I'm learning how tovocalize my problems, and I'm
learning how to get confidenceto explain things are wrong.
And as soon as I start doingthat, this is when they're
telling me, you know, you'vechanged and we don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 (11:48):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (11:48):
And it's like, what do you not like about it?

SPEAKER_05 (11:51):
Yeah, that happened to me too.
It was, it was like, you know,they always said, you know, what
you know, growing up, they wouldnever listen to me when I would
try to explain my problems.
And then as an adult, you know,or as you get older, you start
acting out, and then they thenthey're like, what's wrong with
you?
And it's like, well, you're notreally listening to me, you're
not really wanting to talk tome.

(12:12):
And then like you get older, andlike as an adult, they still
like don't listen, they don'tget it, like they don't hear it,
and um, like they can't evenacknowledge any of the pain that
they cause because like yousaid, they they as soon as you
mention any like negativityabout them, they're usually like
they divert it, or they blameshift, or or it they're just

(12:35):
humble and I'm not like that,and or I didn't do that, or that
wasn't the way you rememberedit.
Like the whole gaslightingthing.
I don't know if you heard thatterm.

SPEAKER_03 (12:45):
Yes, gaslighting is a huge weapon of my mother's.
Um explain gaslighting forpeople.
So basically, gaslighting isjust the idea of making someone
feel crazy.
Uh, you will tell them things ordo things, or kind of the in her
for her example of doing thingsthat she would say or do things,

(13:06):
and then immediately turn aroundand do or say the opposite, and
then look at you like you werejust making something up.
Um that like one of the thingsthat so when we I eventually
like all of the these likeincidents of uh getting together
and putting firmer and firmerboundaries resulted in uh one a

(13:30):
Christmas two years ago that weshowed up to the house.
The the boundary that we said ofhey, if these people are here,
just let us know.
We show up, they're there, westart to leave, and it results
in a huge fight.

SPEAKER_05 (13:42):
Because you set a boundary and they didn't stick
to it, and then now you'resaying no, right?
And you're leaving, and nowthere's conflict.

SPEAKER_03 (13:51):
Right, and I was like, Mom, this is the exact
same thing that happened lastyear.
You didn't listen, so we'releaving, and I'll see you later.
Well, I walked in, andimmediately when I walked in, I
kind of read the room.
There was a lot of people there,including the people that were
kind of the that the we set theboundary with, but I could see

(14:12):
my my middle brother, we'll callhim C.
Um, my middle brother, he lookedangry right off the bat as soon
as we walked in.
And I and I knew he was in a badmood, didn't know what yet, but
I knew he was in a bad mood.
And I saw the the friends there,the the family friends there,
and I go out to the outside, Italk to my dad for a little bit,

(14:34):
come back inside, tell my mom,hey, I told you what I was gonna
do.
I have to follow through with itbecause if I don't, you're just
not gonna listen.
Right.
And as soon as I say that, shekind of looks up at my brother
and just goes, he's leaving.
At which point, my brotherexplodes and starts screaming
and yelling at me.

(14:54):
So I'm just like, we gotta getout of here.
Yeah, and so my brother is 6'2,about 265 pounds at the time,
and has been doing martial artsall his life.
So, like, when he makes a fistand he's getting ready to punch
me in the head, I'm kind oflike, Yeah, all right, this is
this is gonna hurt.
I need to get out of here.

(15:15):
And so we're trying to get away.
And about the time I'm trying toget away, my dad starts coming
out and he's yelling at us too.
And I'm trying to get in the carand he shuts the car door.
And I'll never forget whathappened.
Where all of a sudden we'retrying to leave, we're the ones
getting yelled at, we're tryingto put our dogs back in the car.
And my dad's like, if you guysare unhappy, you should just

(15:38):
break up.
What?
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (15:41):
Yeah, see.
Um, I that's one thing I have tostop you right there and say,
like, that is one thing that mynarcissistic parent was always
trying to do was break up myrelationships.
It didn't matter who, my spouseor my friends, or relationships
I had with cousins or anybody.
Like there was even my dad,like, you know, that was there

(16:02):
was separation there, also.
Like it just seemed like theywere always like sabotaging like
relationships and things likethat.

SPEAKER_03 (16:09):
Yeah, and so it yeah, and it's it's crazy
because like it was somethingthat I never I had not seen at
the time, but like that as soonas I saw them do it one time,
all of a sudden things startedcoming back a little bit that
you're like, wait a second.
Yeah, and and you're just like,Why did you tell me to break up?

(16:29):
Like, what where did that evencome from?

SPEAKER_05 (16:31):
What does that have to do with the boundary?

SPEAKER_03 (16:34):
Right.
I'm like, where yeah, exactly.
It's like, what where did thateven come from?
Like, who said anything aboutbreaking up?
Right.
And I'm just like, okay, that'sreally weird.
And we're sitting there talkingabout it, I'm like, we oh man, I
just realized I skipped overkind of a little bit of a big

(16:55):
detail from this Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 (16:57):
That's okay.
This is a hard topic.
Christmas is like a big dealbecause this is when stuff
happens, because this is whenfamilies get together, and not
everything is always good withfamily.

SPEAKER_03 (17:06):
Right.
So part of the reason everybodywas so upset and on edge was um
my my mom, since she has to bethe center of attention, loves
hosting parties, and she loveshaving family in town and loves
having everybody over at herhouse all the time.

(17:28):
So my grandfather had so hangon, I'm trying to remember.
It's fine, take your time.
Yeah, this the it's been a bluruh the last couple years.
Um take your time.
So part of the reason whyeverybody was really on edge was

(17:48):
my grandfather had been in townand I hadn't been over really to
the house to see him.
And in fairness, I hadn't beenover to the house to see him
because I had just started a newjob and I was working overtime.
And my fiance was finishing upschool, so she was writing a
thesis.
And so we weren't over at myparents' house because they live
almost an hour away.

(18:10):
And that is still a topic ofdebate that how far away they
live whenever it comes up, thatI will bring open up like Google
Maps or something and say, itsays you are 50 minutes from my
house.
Why are you arguing me withabout this?
Right.
Like these are facts, you can'tjust argue facts.
Anyway, we hadn't gone overreally to see them, so everybody

(18:31):
was kind of on edge about that.
But one of the big deals thatkind of happened around the same
time was my brother got engaged.
Uh-huh.
It kind of at that moment reallystarted pushing me towards
something's not right here,something's wrong.
We went to go have dinner withmy mom and dad, uh, I would say

(18:55):
November-ish.
And it was after Thanksgiving,but before Christmas.
And we went to go have dinnerwith him, and we said, Hey,
thank you for, you know, at thispoint, they had did they had
respected one of the boundaries,so we told them thank you.
You let us know that they werethere, so we didn't come over.
And so we go to dinner, and Iknow that my brother, who we'll

(19:16):
call B, had just was gettingready to probably propose to his
girlfriend at the time, nowfiance.
And while we were at dinner, Iasked my mom, I was like, So is
B starting to get ready topropose?
Like, I s I could see himproposing at at uh, you know,
his girlfriend's graduation, andthe conversation was very much

(19:39):
played down that they were gonnaget engaged.
As a matter of fact, one of thequotes was, you know, even his
girlfriend said that he couldsee them being together for 43
years and never getting married.
And I was like, Oh, okay.
And I was like, because I wasthinking about proposing to my
girlfriend at the time, nowfiance.
And I was like, you know, I wasthinking about proposing to her,
and I didn't want to like kindof Step on him if he was getting

(20:02):
ready to do it.

SPEAKER_02 (20:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (20:03):
And they said, Oh, yeah, no, no, no problem.
He's not he's not gonna do that.
As a matter of fact, you know,he just bought a house, so he
says he doesn't have money for aring.
But I told your dad we'd loanhim the money if he needed it.
Which kind of upset me a littlebit there because I I c I think
my face said I was kind of hurtby that a little bit because not

(20:24):
even a year earlier, I had aconversation with my parents and
they were like, Are you evergonna propose to your
girlfriend?
And I said, Well, we just had toreplace an air conditioner and I
lost my job, so I don't havemoney for a ring.
Well, that's too bad, you bettersave up.
But yeah, here we are a yearlater, and the golden child of B

(20:47):
is being told, We'll loan youthe money if you want it to go
get engaged.

SPEAKER_05 (20:51):
Okay, Golden Child.
Explain that really quick.
This is fun, right?
This is another one.

SPEAKER_03 (20:57):
Uh, golden child is something that I I didn't
realize so many people had todeal with this, but as I've been
kind of hearing it around andreading about it more and more,
the golden child is basicallythe child that can do no wrong.
Uh, in our family, it is thebaby, it's the youngest son, and
he gets whatever he wants, hecan do whatever he wants.

(21:18):
Whoever he's dating at the timecannot can can be do no wrong.
Yeah, for the most part, therewas one girl, but that's neither
here nor there.
But for the most part, thefamily will bend over backwards
for him, and they're likeliterally the difference between
myself and him, uh, becausethere's usually if there's a
golden child, there's usually ascapegoat.

SPEAKER_04 (21:40):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 (21:40):
And the scapegoat's whoever's gonna take the
punishment for everybody else.
So while the golden child B gotarrested multiple times in high
school and outside and afterhigh school for like breaking
and entering and getting infights and things like that, he
was fine and never can get introuble.
I got a B one time and I gotgrounded.
Like it it's kind of like whatwhere how are these boundaries

(22:04):
being set?
Right.
And even my brothers will saythat they're like, you know, B's
the golden child.
Curtis, you're you're the youknow, you're the one that has
that has the impossibly high barset that you can never really
top.
And then uh in, you know, myother brother C, well, you're
the middle child, so no onereally pays attention to you.

SPEAKER_05 (22:25):
Yeah, right, or you're the black sheep, or
you're different from us, or youdon't quite mesh with us, or
whatever.
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (22:31):
And and and that's one of the things too, like with
my family, it it very much likemy entire family is from
Louisiana, and they're all forthe most part, blue-collar or
nursing, blue collar or nursing.
And I'm that was the first oneto kind of be a white-collar
worker.
So I got that a lot of like,hey, you know, you sit inside an

(22:53):
air conditioning all day, likeif you were you're not a real
man because you don't want to goout and work, you know, and
this, that, and the other.
And I'm just like, that's veryyeah.
Like, why is this the thing thatyou guys want to bring up?
Like, why is this a point ofattack?
But like, you know, my middlebrother C, he gets a white
collar job.
No one cares.
He's a middle child, no onecares.

(23:14):
But Curtis, how how dare you?
Like, how dare you decide youdon't want to go work in an oil
field or go offshore somewhere?
Like, how dare you?

SPEAKER_05 (23:22):
My mother was the narcissistic parent, and uh she
uh she had a very um humblebeginning, humble life.
So did my dad.
And so, you know, me and mysiblings, we had way more than
than they did.
And we weren't like superspoiled kids at all by any

(23:43):
means, but uh, but we diddefinitely have more
opportunities and we did havemore possessions than our
parents did when they weregrowing up.
But it seemed to me like anytime I'd had more than what my
mother had had growing up, whichwas next to nothing, she always
made me feel bad about that.

(24:04):
And yeah, the the white collarthing.
Like I wanted to do, I wanted toget involved in like online
design and stuff back whenbefore it was even a huge thing.
And um, you know, and she waslike downplaying that, and it
was all like, you know, youshould just get married and have
kids.
You know, you don't need allthat.
So, or that there's no money inthat, or you can't do that, or

(24:26):
you know, it was there wasalways like a form of
suppressing me, like in anythingthat I wanted to like accomplish
or do better than them, or youknow, like it seemed to hurt the
ego like a lot.

SPEAKER_03 (24:39):
Yeah, it it very much was like it it seems like
that sometimes where it's youknow, I work in IT, so it very
much is oh, all if there's evera computer problem, we're gonna
go to Curtis.
But the second like I starttalking about that, well, that's
over my head.
You you you're too smart for us,why don't you go away and talk
somewhere else?

SPEAKER_05 (24:59):
Right.
And then when I was an adult andstarted doing that kind of stuff
myself, you know, doing thatstuff on my own, figuring it
out, who were they calling?
Me.
Right.
Yeah.
But of course, you know, therewas never any pay involved, and
there was never any.
I was always expected to just doit.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (25:14):
Yeah.
Side note, uh, the the F word isa terrible word for everybody to
know that.
And that's that's friends andfamily.
Do don't do work for friends andfamily because they don't pay,
and the work will growexponentially.

SPEAKER_04 (25:25):
Unless they have the money right in front of your
face.
Here, do this for me, please.

SPEAKER_03 (25:30):
Exactly.
That's how business works.

SPEAKER_05 (25:32):
That's how business works, even with family.

SPEAKER_03 (25:35):
Yeah, even with friends and family, get it in
writing because it will grow,and then it will just make a
sore point at family gatheringsbecause you didn't do the thing
exactly how they wanted.

SPEAKER_04 (25:44):
Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 (25:44):
So, yeah, so had that conversation with them
about like the him himproposing, and they swore up and
down he wasn't gonna propose.
And I was like, Oh, okay, cool.
Well, I was like, told him, Iwas like, Well, we're we're
planning on proposing, I'vesaved up some money getting
ready to buy a ring.
Cool.
So that was Friday, seven dayslater.
I see on Facebook my brother'sproposed.

(26:06):
And it was exactly as I said, heproposed at his girlfriend's
graduation ceremony.
So I I texted my other brotherand I said, Hey, did you know
anything about this?
Like, I I just talked with and Iwas like, Do you know anything
about this?
And he texted me, and he's like,Yeah, we've known all we've
known for like a month or two.

SPEAKER_05 (26:26):
Yep, the whole family knows, and you knew
nothing.
Yep, that was mine, that was thestory of my life.
Yep.
And I'm like people would dieand nobody would tell me.
Yeah, and then they would telleveryone else that I didn't care
to show up to the funeral.
Yeah.
When I didn't even know.

SPEAKER_03 (26:40):
Right, yeah, and that's and that's that was
exactly it.
That it was sitting there andlike, well, why didn't no one
tell me?

SPEAKER_02 (26:46):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:46):
And they're like, well, it's not our fault that
you don't come around the houseanymore.
Because that's a big thing in myfamily.
They have Sunday dinners everySunday.

SPEAKER_05 (26:53):
Right.
And it's like, well, everyoneknows why we don't come around.

SPEAKER_03 (26:57):
I was like, that's fine that I didn't know on
Sunday.
I was like, because I don't showup on Sundays, I was like, I
literally had a conversationwith mom and dad last week, and
I asked them, like, what's goingon here?
And they told me that theyweren't gonna get engaged.
Now you're telling me everybodyknew for a month?
Like, wh why was this kept asecret from me?

(27:18):
So I still have never I stillnever got told by my brother
until I went to his house likethree months later that he had
gotten engaged.
Like the only way I knew wasthrough Facebook.

SPEAKER_05 (27:32):
Oh, I hate it when that happens.

SPEAKER_03 (27:34):
Yeah.
And so all of this happened, andthen that led up to kind of I
wasn't going over to the house.
That incident happened.
Also, just perfect timing.
I had a broken phone, and myphone I was working trying to
get my phone replaced, and ittook three weeks to get a
replacement phone, which oh,that was terrible.

(27:54):
And so everybody everybody knewI don't have a working cell
phone right now, I'm trying toget it replaced.
Right.
If you need a hold of me, if youneed to get a hold of me, text
Becca and I'll call back.
Becca's my fiance.
I was like, Text Becca, I'llcall back.
Well, apparently every day mymom was calling and texting my
phone, leaving voicemails andtext messages that I can't

(28:15):
receive because she thought Iwas lying.
Right.
And I found that out when Ifinally got a working phone, I
could listen to the voicemails.
But while my phone was broken,that entire time, one person
called Rebecca and said, Hey,can I talk to Curtis?
And immediately she handed thephone to me.
And I was like, if you guysreally needed me that badly, the

(28:37):
one time you did it, she gave methe phone.
Like, what do you think's gonnahappen?
Right, yep.
So already when I walk into thehouse on Christmas, tempers are
flaring.
My brother bl blows up at me.
I thought he was gonna punch me.
My dad's telling us to break up,and as the fight starts
escalating, Becca comes over andshe's like, Hey, let's calm down
a little bit.

(28:57):
And my brother looks at her andsays, Piss off.
And I was like, All right, we'regoing.
Like, that's it.
We gotta like we're done here.
Like, we gotta go.
And I and I and I wish uh Iwould tell you that we left, but
at the time, like I still didn'tknow how to just walk around.

SPEAKER_05 (29:16):
You were still processing like what was even
happening being said, and you'relike, What, what?
And he's in your face, like thathad to have been scary in the
moment.

SPEAKER_03 (29:23):
It was it was terrifying in the moment, and
there have been so manydifferent versions of the truth
and lies from everybodyinvolved, right?
That it's just like it's toughto really at this point separate
what happened and what didn'thappen, but you know, ultimately
we ended up kind of standingaround talking, and then I was

(29:44):
like, We're not going backinside, but like I'm not gonna
leave with this having happened.
We need to discuss this.
And so we went into the garage,and this is where like I should
have stayed closer to the door,but we walked in the garage and
then they shut the garage door,and then they claim it was just
um that it they were just beingnice, but then they grabbed our
dogs and took them inside.

(30:06):
And so, and all for all intentsand purposes, we were kind of
trapped in there, right?
And every time we would likeBecca and I would sit there and
talk, they would send somebodyout to just watch us.
We could never be alone, likesomeone had to be there
overseeing what we were talkingabout, right?
Yeah, and so you know, not awhole lot happened there.

(30:26):
The family came in and talked.
I was bawling like crazy becauseI had just gone through a whole
traumatic thing, and finally,like after probably 35-40
minutes, we got back in the carand we left.
And that was two years ago, andthat was the last time I went to
my parents' house.

SPEAKER_05 (30:42):
Man, it still sounds like it's so fresh in your mind
still.

SPEAKER_03 (30:46):
Like, I I've had to relive it a couple times just
because it took a couple months,but I finally convinced my mom I
was like, no, you're gonna go totherapy with me.
Like, there's no way I'm gonnajust keep talking with you.
You have to go to therapy withme.
We have to have someone that's aprofessional moderator because I
can't have conversations withyou or with the family, because

(31:08):
as soon as I tell you something,you'll turn around and say
something else.
Right.
Or pretend like the conversationnever happened.
And I thought having a thirdparty would help that.
You know, I thought havingsomebody taking notes would help
that, but only thing it made herdo was when she got caught in a
lie, storm out.
And which kind of made me laugha little bit when it happened,

(31:32):
but at the same time, I'm justlike, Well, I saw this coming
from a mile away.
Cause in and as we were going totherapy, this is where truth
started coming out, and this iswhere kind of some information
started coming to light.
So when I started going totherapy, one of the first
questions was they were doing,you know, family of origin was

(31:55):
like, Hey, do you have anybodyin your family with depression
or anxiety or anything likethat?
And I was like, I don't know,but I'll find out.
So I asked my mom and she'slike, nope, no one.
Okay, cool.
But now when she's coming totherapy and the question comes
up, all of a sudden, oh, youruncle, your grandfather, your
aunt, right?

SPEAKER_05 (32:12):
Yeah, they're all crazy, and you might be too.

SPEAKER_03 (32:15):
That is exactly what she said.
She goes, Do you think all ofyou might have anxiety too?
Maybe we can medicate you andeverything will go back to
normal.
Yeah, yep.
And and so all of this stuffstarts coming out, and as we're
going through therapy, I bringup, I'm like, so where did this
whole thing about dad telling meto break up with Becca come

(32:36):
from?
Like, that seemed out ofnowhere.

SPEAKER_02 (32:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (32:39):
Where did that come from?
It took a while to start pryingit out, and my mom finally
admitted, she goes, Well, I justdon't like Becca.
And I'm like, why not?
She's taking you away from me.
Why do you think exactly?
And I'm like, what are youtalking about?
She goes, Well, you're notcoming around the house anymore.
And I'm like, Okay, because I'man adult, I'm 30, I work, you

(33:03):
know, 40, 50 hours a week.
I don't have I'm like, sorry,you guys live an hour away, and
I can't come there every week.
Like, we started going to dinnerthat fit my schedule because we
couldn't show up every week.
Well, I think because, and thisis something that, like, still
my mom has not apologized for,and I don't think she realizes

(33:25):
when she said this that sheruined just about any
relationship she could have withRebecca after this.
And she goes, You know, I thinkthe reason why it's so easy for
Rebecca to pull you away fromyour family is because she has
no relationship with her father.
And I was like, Mom, you meanher abusive father that you know

(33:46):
the entire story of?
And she's like, Yeah, if she hada relationship with her dad or
tried to make it work, I thinkshe'd be more willing to like
work and make this work with us.
And it's like the even thetherapist was like, Yeah, yeah,
that's out of line.
Yes, that is not okay.
Like, you cannot do that.

SPEAKER_05 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah.
And see, this is this is whathappens usually when you bring
your narcissistic, you know,relative or you know, close
family member to therapy.
Like, there will be a lot oflike back and forth, oh no, you
did it, and like, what are youdoing?
Like, or you're not admitting tothis, or it's word salad, or you
know, you're gaslighting, likethat's not the way it happened,

(34:27):
or you know, and stuff likethat.
Yeah, and my therapist, like Inever brought my mom to therapy.
I thought about it, I knew Icould have, and I was like, you
know what, it probably wouldn'teven do any good because I've I
I've tried to I've tried to haveother people mediate between me
and my parents before, and myparents still cannot even
acknowledge even my hurts.

(34:48):
Yeah, like it's not even there,they don't even see it at all.

SPEAKER_03 (34:51):
Yeah, no, they they don't get it, and it's it's it's
crazy.
Yeah, and this would happen whenwe go back and forth and we
rehash Christmas a couple timesand other family holidays, and
and finally, I think it we'donly gone maybe four or five
sessions, and my mom was gettingfrustrated because it we were
coming up on holiday seasonagain, we were getting close to
July 4th, we were getting closeto my birthday, we were getting

(35:13):
close to my brother's birthday,and we hadn't fixed this yet.
Curtis, you just need to getover this.
Like, I don't know what it is,but we forgive and forget in
this family.
And I'm like, Yeah, it's reallyeasy for you to say you're the
one doing this.
Right.
Like, I don't have to forgive,it's you.

SPEAKER_05 (35:28):
There's a difference between forgiving someone and
tolerating ongoing bad behavior.

SPEAKER_03 (35:34):
Right.
Right.
And and and so we were in kindof our last session, and my
therapist he looked at her andhe goes, All right, I just gotta
know a question.
What do you think of Rebecca?
And my mom looks and goes, Oh, Ilove Rebecca, I think she's the
best.
Why?
Why, apparently, is the questionthat broke my mom.

(35:56):
Because immediately her responsewas, Well, I mean, I think she's
taking away from the family andbrainwashing Curtis, but I love
her.

SPEAKER_04 (36:06):
Right.
She can't answer the question.

SPEAKER_03 (36:08):
Right.
And my therapist goes, Yourealize what you're saying,
that's crazy making.
Like that's that's gaslighting.
And all my mom heard from thatwas she immediately like stood
up and was like, Are you callingme crazy?
And he's like, No, no, I neversaid that.
Like, I said what you weresaying is crazy making because
that doesn't make any sense.

(36:29):
Like those two ideas don't gotogether.

SPEAKER_05 (36:31):
Yeah, it's hard for you to say all those horrible
things about this person andthen try to make your son think
that he that you love her, thatyou love his his spouse, or you
know, yeah.
That always bothered me.
My, you know, yeah, people wouldsay that, oh, I love you, I love
you.
It's like, I haven't seen any ofthat from you.

(36:52):
Like, you tell me, but I don'tsee it at all, and I'm really,
really unsure.
And I was really, really scared.
Like as a kid, like I wentthrough a lot of that.
It's like, yeah, that that is atype of gaslighting where they
they try and assure you thateverything is okay, but you can
totally see that it's not.

SPEAKER_03 (37:12):
Right.
Yeah.
And the entire time this ishappening, like he's using very
basic kind of psychologicalterms because he's been working
with me, so we've gotten somevocabulary down.
Right.
And so my mom's like, I don'tunderstand all these big words.
And I'm like, mom, you said Ilove her.
Then you listed two terriblethings as why.
Like, are you saying so?

(37:33):
I'm like, one of two things ishappening here.
Either you're lying about thatyou love her, or you love her
because she's a bad she's badfor me.
Which is it?

SPEAKER_04 (37:42):
Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 (37:44):
And then she threw the best temper tantrum I've
ever seen a three-year-oldthrow, like threw herself back
on the couch and startedflailing her arms.
And I just kind of looked at mytherapist, like, what do we even
do with this?
Like, I thought this was thepoint that like it was that it
was over.
Like, I was like, we've reacheda point that like I think now

(38:06):
she realizes something hashappened and maybe she's going
to change.
And we finished up that sessionafter he finally got her to calm
down, and when we were in thehallway together, just her and
I, waterworks off, emotion gone.
You'll be at the house onSunday.
This is enough is enough.
I'm tired of this.
Come to the house, we'll resolvethis without a third party.

(38:27):
And I'm just like, no.

SPEAKER_00 (38:32):
You are listening to When the Bell Breaks.
If you'd like to support theshow, leave us a five-star
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For regular updates andinformation about the show,
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SPEAKER_05 (38:49):
When I first got contact, I was like, I can't do
this.
This is inappropriate.
This is not good for my kids.
And they were like, Well, youcan't just leave the family.
Yeah.
And I was like, Oh, yes, I can.

SPEAKER_03 (39:03):
Right, exactly.
I'm like, watch me.
Like I'm doing it.
Like, you can't do it.
And I mean, and honestly, I I'mnot gonna lie, at the beginning,
after the I I guess it's alittle bit of PTSD.
Like, whenever cars would driveby, I I would look and make sure
it wasn't my family.
Because I'm just like, they knowwhere I live.
Yeah.
And I saw what they would do attheir house.
Like, what are they gonna do ifthey come over to my house if I

(39:25):
start stop coming over?
Like, if they are they gonnadrop by unannounced?
Like, what are they gonna do?
And they've only done it onetime, but luckily, like, I
wasn't home when they did it.
So, like, you know, they cameby, neither of us were home, and
the only reason we know thatthey came by was they left a
gift on the front porch.
It like it was my birthday, sothey left me a birthday gift on
the front porch.
And I'm just like, that's not areason to come over unannounced,

(39:47):
especially with how things areright.

SPEAKER_05 (39:49):
That now, the gift giving thing, like, was that the
only like have you received anyother like unexpected gifts from
them like that or unwanted orunwanted contact?

SPEAKER_03 (40:00):
No, so for the most part, no.
Um I still have not opened thoseChristmas gifts from that
Christmas a couple years ago.
And as far as I know, they'restill over there.
I finally told my mom to goreturn one of them because I was
like, we told we didn't knowwhat you wanted.
You kept pestering us for agift, so we told you to get us
something that we actuallyneeded, and so we went and

(40:20):
bought it ourselves.
Like, go return it because wehave it.

SPEAKER_04 (40:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (40:25):
Um, but like as far as I know, those presents are
still like sitting in a closetsomewhere.
And as far as I know, they'regonna stay there because I
don't, I'm not going back overto that house.
It's just not gonna happen.
And during therapy, a couple oftimes it was like, well, that
won't happen.
It's like, but it did.
Well, it won't happen again.
How can you promise me that?
Well, it just won't, I'm becauseI'm telling you it won't.

(40:46):
It's like, yeah, but everythingyou've you've done and
everything you've said says theexact opposite, right?
And I'm just like, what's goingon here?
And so then another thing, whileyou're going through all of
this, you're like, so who allknows about this?
Like, now that you've told methat you think Becca is bad for
me and is brainwashing me, whoall have you told this to?

(41:07):
Oh, nobody.
Okay.

SPEAKER_05 (41:09):
No, no, everybody probably already knows, right?

SPEAKER_03 (41:12):
Right.
And I'm like, okay, exactly.
I'm like, I know what do youmean?
I'm like, what do you meannobody knows?
Well, I mean, we talk about itwith your brothers and your dad
at dinner.
I'm like, okay, so likeeverybody, well, no, just them.
They're not gonna tell anybody.
Well, then also, like, my bestfriends know because they came
over and we had a big discussionabout how that they think that
Beck is bad for you.

(41:32):
And I'm like, oh, so likeeverybody that's at the house
all the time, this is who you'retelling this to.
Yeah, we're never coming backover.

SPEAKER_05 (41:37):
Nobody, but everybody knows, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (41:40):
Right.
Yeah, I don't tell anybody, butI but I also like go to my
co-workers before I send textmessages and tell them, like, is
this okay to send to my sonbecause we're going through
therapy and I don't want toupset him?
Why are you going throughtherapy?
So I have to tell them, but I'mnot telling people.

SPEAKER_05 (41:52):
Yeah, right.
Was it a common thing where youfelt like your privacy or your
private life was being exposedby the family?
Oh, all the time.
Yeah, me too.
I just wanted to ask you that.

SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Yeah, no, I always like I I think one of the things
that that upsets my parents themost um is that Rebecca and I do
not use Facebook for the mostpart.
We have Facebook accounts, wemight comment every now and
again, but me personally, like Ilog in maybe once every three
months just to check and cleanup notifications and look at

(42:27):
friend requests.

SPEAKER_04 (42:28):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 (42:29):
But like it bothers them to no end that we don't
post pictures of our life onFacebook, that we don't have
status updates all the time,that they can go and look and
like and and show off to peopleand say, look at our kid on
Facebook.
We we just don't.
And and it frustrates them toknow in.
So like uh so during all ofthis, I did end up proposing to

(42:51):
my girlfriend Rebecca and now myfiance, oh, and fun fact, we're
getting married in two days ofme recording this.
So yay!

SPEAKER_05 (42:58):
Oh my gosh, congratulations.
So two days, that's oh, I don'twant to say a date, don't want
to give out your date.
But it's fine, you know, yeah,it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 (43:05):
We're getting married on May 4th.
Uh so lots of people have beenmaking the May the 4th Star Wars
jokes with us.

unknown (43:11):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (43:12):
We just were like, we want a date in May, what's
available?
And they were like, the 11th,and then we realized that the
12th was Mother's Day, and withall of this going on, we're
like, you know what?
Bad idea.
Let's go back a week.
Right.
But it ends up working outbecause it'll be like May 4th is
actually our first date'sanniversary.
So we will have been togetherfor seven years on the day of

(43:33):
our wedding.
See, that's perfect.
Exactly.
So I did propose to to her, andwe updated our relationship
status on Facebook as youCongratulations, thank you.
And then we had therapy.
I had therapy with my mom like aweek or two later, and she
brought up with a therapist haand like brought out her phone

(43:53):
and showed things about howBecca was a bad person because
Becca didn't go through and likeall of the comments from our
family.
And I I I think he kind of likelooked at her like she was like
dumb at that point, and I know Iwas like, Are you really this is
the hill you're gonna pick todie on today?
And she's like, Yeah, that'srude.
And I'm like, Are you kiddingme?

(44:15):
Like, I thought my brother wasgonna punch me in the head, and
dad told us to break up, andthat's why we're here, and
you're upset because of wedidn't like something on
Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 (44:24):
Yeah.
Running out of excuses, I think.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (44:29):
So she walked out of that therapy for after asking,
you know, why do you loveRebecca and then being
confronted and challenged on it.
She walked out.
And after that happened, I gotlunch with my dad a couple
times, I got dinner with mybrothers, and they just they
just kind of seemed apathetic toit all.

(44:51):
They were just like, Yeah, okay.
When are you gonna come back todinner?

SPEAKER_05 (44:55):
Just come Yeah, they didn't really care like what was
going on in your life, they justwanted you there for their show
or whatever.

unknown (45:01):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (45:02):
They they just want me there to be shown off, they
just want us there.
And like we've recently met withsome friends.
Uh it's funny, we recently metwith the people we set the
boundary with because they'relike, no one's they're like, we
want to know what's going on.
Like, what did we do?
Can we work this out?
We just want to apologizebecause we're talking about So
they came to you, okay.

SPEAKER_05 (45:19):
So they came to you wanting to resolve the issue.
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (45:23):
Let's let's talk, let's figure this out.
And I'm like, okay.
And their first thing was like,we're sorry for whatever we did.
And I'm like, do you know thatduring this entire time that my
brother has yet to apologize?
My dad has yet to apologize, mymom has yet to apologize.
I was like, but you guys don'teven know what we were upset
about, and you apologized.

SPEAKER_05 (45:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (45:44):
Like, even when we were in therapy with my mom, one
of the things that was verytelling was we so in in our
therapy sessions, our mytherapist does a thing that's
called leap, and it's listen,empathize, like memorize, and
then kind of put a person behindit or something like that.
And it's an acronym that Icannot remember all the letters,

(46:06):
but with it, you're somebody'ssupposed to tell you like you're
supposed to make eye contact,tell someone what your problem
is, listen, attempt toempathize, and then repeat that
back to them, and then put apersonal twist on it so that way
they know that you heard it andunderstand and can say how it
feels.
And you know, I like it whilewe're while we're doing it, my

(46:28):
mom hears my problem, and he'slike, Okay, now it's your turn
to like empathize.
I don't know how to do this.
What's empathy?
And it's like it means thatyou're gonna try to feel what
the other person feels, like orunderstand how they're feeling.

SPEAKER_05 (46:43):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (46:44):
She threw a fit, she's like, Well, I I I don't
know how he's feeling, I don'tknow how to do this.
And I'm like, Do you not haveempathy?
Like, they have a word forpeople that don't have empathy,
like I'm pretty sure it'ssociopath, but like undoubtedly
you have to have some sort ofempathy.

SPEAKER_05 (47:02):
But even narcissists, like, they don't
have they have a lack ofempathy.
Like my my narcissistic familymembers, like they never cared
about like my actual feelings.
Like, like if they didn'tunderstand why I got upset
sometimes, they didn'tunderstand why I cried
sometimes, like they did notunderstand that.
Yeah, so when somebody doesn'thave empathy, and then when you

(47:24):
grow up with someone like that,it's like you can't even solve
anything because they don't evenunderstand, you don't understand
each other.

SPEAKER_03 (47:33):
Yeah, like and that was part of the reason why I
started going.
Like I told her I wanted to goto therapy with her.
Was like, I thought me, I waslike, you know, and it's still
at this point, I'm still blamingmyself for all of this.
I'm like, maybe I'm not able toarticulate what I need to say.
Like, maybe it's me, like maybeI need someone there to help me
be strong through this.
And you know, after all of thiswas done, my therapist was like,

(47:55):
You did everything you could.
He's like, You he goes,everything you said was like on
was was like appropriate and youdidn't go out of line, like you
were beyond nice.
She just doesn't want to listento you.

SPEAKER_05 (48:10):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you wanted a therapywith you.
I mean, that shows that you'retrying that you're making
effort.
I mean, in a big, big personalway.

SPEAKER_03 (48:17):
Yeah, and she never could connect the dots.
Like in her therapy session,she's like, I don't think Curtis
is trying, he's just not eventrying.
And he and my therapist, like,three or four times had to tell
her every session, he invitedyou here.
He's he's paying, you know,close to a hundred dollars a
session here, and he's broughtyou in for five or six of these.
Like, how can you look at thatand say that he doesn't want you

(48:38):
here?

SPEAKER_05 (48:38):
Like, right, right, right.
And I always put it on thetable.
I always, you know, said, okay,you know, when I told my parents
I was cutting contact, I waslike, if you want to talk to me
again, you need to go, like,there's a few things that need
to happen.
One of them was going tocounseling.

SPEAKER_02 (48:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (48:54):
And it's been almost four years now, and the excuse
is they still don't know whathappened.

SPEAKER_03 (49:00):
Yeah, no, that that if I if I had a dollar, I could
pay for all the therapy.

SPEAKER_05 (49:04):
Yeah, they still don't even know that, like, they
still it's like they haveapnesia selectively, they don't
remember anything that happened,or they remember it however they
think that it happened.
And you know, my kids were evenwitnesses to some of these
things, and they're like, What?
Grandma said what?
Yeah, you know, like no, yeah,you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (49:25):
It's crazy because like so, while we were still
going to see my therapist, likemy my mom, my dad's mom passed,
and they had a funeral inLouisiana, and everybody was
kind of like, All right, what'sgonna happen?
And especially Rebecca and I,because we're like, all right,
well, we're gonna go down there.
And I was like, Do you want togo with me?

(49:46):
Because at this point, ever allwe had heard from anybody in my
family had just been through mymom, and all we were hearing
was, you know, Becca's thedevil, Becca's terrible, Becca's
brainwashing Curtis, Becca isis, you know, she needs to go.
And it's like, I was like, Idon't feel safe bringing you to
the funeral.
I was like, but I don'tnecessarily want to drive 11

(50:09):
hours one way by myself.

SPEAKER_05 (50:11):
Yeah, right.
No, that's an important thing.
You want her there with you.

SPEAKER_03 (50:15):
Yeah, and so she came with me, and immediately it
was it was apparent thatsomething was said.
So we we get there, and I'mlooking around to see if I can
find like my family and my dadand my mom, and we walk up,
start walking up to the body,and my mom comes up, and she
like she starts rubbing my backto like comfort me, but like at

(50:38):
the same time, she's likepushing Becca's hand off of my
back.
And it's like what are what areyou doing here?
And so we we're like, so we dothat, and we go and we sit with
the family, and we start I starttalking with my brother and his
fiance, and then my middlebrother and his girlfriend at
the time, who's also hisfiancee, because you know, the

(51:01):
middle child, he's got to goahead and get some attention
there too.
Um, so yeah, there's threeweddings this year, by the way.
Um, but we're sitting therehaving a conversation with the
girlfriend at the time who Ilike we don't get along, but
she's trying, she's like, it's afuneral, so we're gonna just,
you know, talk.
And my brother C literally comesand sits between us and like

(51:25):
turns his back to Rebecca to cuther out of the conversation.

SPEAKER_05 (51:29):
Yeah, I hate that sort of childish stuff.
That's just so like that's evengonna do anything, but just make
you both angry and right not ateach other.
You're just gonna like it's morelike drama bonding then.
You're like, we're gonna sticktogether because they're being
mean to us.
Oh, yeah.
It's like you're just making itworth it.
If you don't want us to betogether, he's like, you're not

(51:49):
really trying very hard, you'rejust making us stick together
because you guys are being awfulto each other, you know, to us.

SPEAKER_03 (51:54):
Exactly.
Like, and one of the things too,I was like, I told like I told
my mom in therapy, I was like,it seemed like you went ahead
and you told like all the familyyou talked to what's going on.
And she goes, We didn't tellanybody, it's embarrassing.
I'm like, how come all of thecousins that we hang out with in
Louisiana like wanted nothing todo with me and literally walk
the other direction as westarted walking over there with

(52:14):
Rebecca?
But all of the other family thatis estranged too from all of
you, they loved me and theywanted to come talk to me and
they wanted to meet us and andknow what was going on and felt
bad that we literally drove downfrom drove down to Louisiana for
the funeral, and then we'regoing to turn around and go
right back.
Like they were super sympatheticabout that.

(52:36):
And you you're telling me thesepeople that you don't talk to
are being nice to us becausewe're at a funeral, but the ones
you do talk to are ignoring us,but you didn't say anything.
And so we we're coming up withwe're talking about the stuff in
therapy, and this was anotherpoint of contention I had for my
mom was every time I would bringup an example, if she wanted to

(52:58):
stay on the subject, she wouldhave a million and one excuses
for everybody else.
Right.
But like the second I would likeif if I had an excuse or did
something for me, I wouldempathize with her and be like,
I can see how that would happen,and I'm sorry for that.
And I'm like, but that wasn't myintention.
No, you that's what you did.

(53:19):
But when I say my brother sat infront of us and like turned his
back to Rebecca, oh no, that'snot what he did.
Like he he was just sittingthere because his back hurt.

SPEAKER_05 (53:28):
And I'm like, how like how you how what happened
isn't the way you remembered it,and what they did wasn't really
what happened to you.

SPEAKER_03 (53:36):
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (53:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (53:38):
Yeah, and finally I got her to at least say, Well, I
didn't see it, so I don't know.
And I'm just like, okay.
And like another, but fairenough.
Whatever.
But one of the things that likewe brought up to in therapy one
time was I was like, you know,that dad like glared at Rebecca,
like didn't say a word to her.
In fairness, I was like, Rebeccadidn't walk up to him because

(53:58):
when she started to, he lookedangrily at her.
So we what was that about?
And my dad owned up to it andsaid, Yeah, I was upset.
And I'm like, why?
And he's like, Because of allthese things.
I'm like, you know, none ofthat's true.

SPEAKER_05 (54:09):
Like they would maybe get to know her, and if
maybe they wouldn't do things toentice you guys to leave, maybe
they could spend time with herand talk to her.

SPEAKER_03 (54:18):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (54:19):
But that doesn't really happen.

SPEAKER_03 (54:20):
No, that doesn't really and so we drive back and
we have a conversation, but oneof the things that I I I kind of
had to look at as like kind of agrowth point was as we were
getting ready to leave thefuneral, everybody kept saying,
just come inside, just come withus, just come back to the house,
just just come to dinner realquick, just come over here.

(54:41):
And I'm just like, no, no, thisis Christmas all over again.
Like, yeah, it's just come tothe house, just come to the
house.
And I'm like, I'm not, I'm notgonna do it.

SPEAKER_05 (54:49):
That hasn't worked, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (54:51):
Like, I'm leaving.
This doesn't work anymore.
And we left.
And at that therapy session, wefound out something that really
cemented why all the problemsare happening.
So at that time, Becca and I hadbeen together for about six
years, and I asked my mom, I'mlike, why do you think that like
she's brainwashing me?
Like, why do you think thatshe's bad for me?

(55:13):
Like, why is dad telling me tobreak up with her?
Like, where is all of thiscoming from?
And she's like, Well, when youlived with your brother, he saw
you and Becca fight.
I'm like, What?
What do you mean he saw usfight?
And he's like, Yeah, he saw youfight one time, and he said that
you were crying and said youwanted to break up.
And I'm like, What?
When did that even happen?

(55:35):
Like, I I don't remember this atall.
And so I and I was like, I waslike, when would that have even
happened?
And she's like, Oh, it wouldhave been like, I don't know,
like five years ago.
And I was like, So when Rebeccaand I had been dating for six
months, we had a fight, and Kobesaw it, and then his first

(55:57):
reaction was, go to you, and andyou guys have held on to that
ever since.

SPEAKER_05 (56:03):
For six years about the fight that supposedly
happened when you guys werefirst dating that they assumed
you hadn't resolved.
I yeah.
Yeah, see, I hate that stuff.
Oh, see how confusing it is?
It's like it's exhaustingthinking about because there's
so much, there's so muchfreaking details in all the
stuff they do.
Yeah, there were there were alot of like um quote unquote

(56:23):
false accusations or whatever,like made against like uh like
my spouse or me.
Um and and and we were likelooking at each other like that
never even happened, like theycould never even like get even
close to even we could totallyprove that didn't happen, like
you know, like and it's like whydo they say this?
Why do they do this?

(56:43):
But like they cannot like everacknowledge the the wrong, or
they've gotta if if there's nowrong in you, they have to
create something.

SPEAKER_03 (56:52):
Right.
And and and I was sitting thereand I was like, and when I
talked to them about it, I waslike, I I asked my brother about
it, and then I was sittingthere, and when we started
talking about it, he's like,Yeah, this was like what you
told the one friend that you setthe boundary with, like you said
you were gonna break up.
And I I remembered and I waslike, Oh, that fight?

(57:12):
I was like, Yeah, we had a fightbecause we had been dating for
six months, and she asked, How'sthe relationship going?
And I said, I don't know.
We had a fight, I think shemight break up with me, but we
worked it out because we'readults, yeah, and we moved on,
like it's been some time since.
Right, it's been about sixyears, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (57:34):
Right, yeah, that's another thing.
Like, they don't handle changevery well.
I've come to find out, like, mymy narcissistic relatives, they
don't handle change very well.
And you know, I it sounds like alot of cutting them down and and
stuff like that, but it's like alot of it really they can't help
because narcissism isn'tsomething they choose to be.
Really?
It's some it's something thatoften happens in early

(57:55):
childhood.
So it's like there's a lot ofyou know, getting out our
feelings and kind of hashing itout about narcissism, but really
this is why we try and get themin the therapy because they need
it.
Right.
Because they can't empathize andit causes problems in
relationships and it and it'spotentially dangerous because
there's rage and there's lots ofcontrol issues going on.
They have they I mean, Iremember when when my older

(58:17):
siblings got married and moved,and like like my mother did not
handle those changes very well.
She tried to hide that, but shedid not like that because she
was losing control, and that'swhy they get angry when you set
boundaries and when you say no,and when you say no, I'm not
going over to dinner becausethey don't have you in a
position of control anymore.
It's very, very upsetting tohave a relationship or to have

(58:41):
relatives with this personalitydisorder because you can't have
a good functioning relationship.
It's very, very difficult.
And um, it there's a lot ofgrief that comes with that.
And I'm so glad you calledbecause um I've been wanting to
talk about this for like a longtime.
I was like, but I'm gonna waituntil like my guests do because
I don't want to bring it upbecause it's like you know, I
don't want to make it all aboutme or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 (59:03):
And and grief's a good word because like that was
something that after my momwalked out of the the therapy
with the first time, like whenshe left my therapist, he's
like, You're he goes, I I'm hegoes, I never advocate for no
contact, and I'm not gonna tellyou that you need to estrange
yourself.
He's like, I'm always of themindset that you can probably
fix it.
But he goes, after what I justsaw, he goes, It's going to be

(59:26):
really hard.
He's like, You're going tobecause he goes, looking at how
your mom was, he goes, You'reyou're going to be the one that
if you want this to work, you'regoing to be the one that has to
put in all the effort, and itmight never be reciprocated.
And he and he's like, So, what Iwill tell you, he's like, While
I'm not telling you that to tohave no contact ever, I am

(59:47):
telling you you're going to begoing through a similar grieving
process of somebody dyingbecause for all intents and
purposes, your family's startingto die to you.
And he's like, You're gonna gothrough a lot of the same.
Emotions of that.
You're going to be, you know,you're losing a mother, you're
losing a father, you're losingyour two brothers because they

(01:00:10):
can't stand to be around yourfiance or they can't they can't
deal with what you've changedinto.
So you just have to learn todeal with the grief.
And you're gonna have to gothrough all the stages just like
you know a family member died.

SPEAKER_05 (01:00:24):
Yeah, and it's not like we go there ourselves, or
they're dead to me.
We don't even go there.
We're trying to, we're workinghard trying to fix the
relationship.
But it when you have to ceasecontact like that, it is like
they've died.
You you've had to detach andyou're they're not there
anymore.
You can't go to them anymore,and you know why you can't go to
them anymore, and that's why youdon't, because you know it's
gonna be um ineffective and it'sgonna hurt you more in the long

(01:00:46):
run.
And then you have to learn howto parent yourself when you're
an adult, and you know, at keymoments in your life, and it's
it's it's very, very tough andit's confusing, and then you
start thinking you have time tothink now that you've detached
yourself from you know from therelationship, then you'll have
time to think about a lot ofthose things, um, you know,

(01:01:07):
without being gaslit or any ofthat, you know, that stuff too.
Right.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:12):
Yeah.
I mean, even now I had thisconversation with Rebecca last
night that it's like due to alot of this stuff, I still find
myself second guessing things.
I still find myself just going,Am I doing the right thing about
this?
Because, you know, as all ofthese weddings are coming up,
you know, my brother a year orso ago, like after all this
happened, was like, I want youto be a groomsman.

(01:01:33):
And I told him then, I said,Well, the family has a lot that
we need to go through and workout before I'll feel comfortable
enough to be up on the stagewhile Rebecca's alone in the
audience with the family.
And we just had like kind of a awe had a little text message off
at the beginning of the monthwhere as I'm starting to talk

(01:01:53):
about these things, and I'mlike, you know, my wedding's in
a month and your wedding's intwo months, you still have not
done anything like to show methat we're gonna be okay, and
the rest of the family has donenothing to really make this
better.
And we start going through someof the things that have happened
over the last year, andimmediately my brother, it's

(01:02:15):
funny, starts setting boundariesabout what we can talk about.
And it's like I start bringingup the funeral and how that we
were what happened at thefuneral can be a good indication
of what's gonna happen at thewedding.
And he's like, Well, we can'ttalk about that.
That was a rough time foreverybody.
Don't talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:28):
Yeah, don't talk about that, don't fix that
problem, right?

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:32):
And I'm like, but if we can't talk about like you're
sitting here going, don't talkabout this evidence, show me
evidence of why you'd thinkshe'd be unsafe by herself.
And so finally I told him, I waslike, Yeah, I mean, if this
isn't gonna work out, then likeI'm just gonna be in the
audience with her and I willsupport, and you'll have to find
another groomsman.
I'm like, that's all there is toit.
Like, I still sit there and likewonder if, like, you know, did I

(01:02:55):
do the right thing?
It's like, yeah, of course I didthe right thing.
Like, Rebecca's my family, like,and that's what I keep telling
all of them that they're havingtrouble understanding.
It's I'm like, when I I'm like,even at this point now, but
Rebecca will be my wife in twodays, and my she is now my
family, and you guys becomeextended family.

(01:03:16):
I was like, You guys are nolonger on a level playing field,
Becca comes first, her needscome first.
And I said, I would fully expectthat you would say the same
thing about your fiance, thatyou would put her needs over
mine.
At least I hope you would.
Right.
And that killed theconversation.
He stopped texting.
So I'm just like, I guess umMaybe he gets it, maybe.

(01:03:40):
Right, and and I did that whenwe first started talking at the
beginning of the month.
I sent him a text message and Istarted talking with him.
I said, Look, I realize I'vepresented you all of the
evidence of like here's thefuneral, and here was Christmas,
and here's all the things thatmom had been has been saying
about Rebecca in our therapysessions.
And I ended with, What if I saidthis stuff about your fiance?

(01:04:01):
What if I said all of these badthings about her?
And I didn't hear anything forlike three days.
And so I texted him back.
I said, I get that this is areally difficult conversation,
and I'm putting you in a weirdplace because you have to either
agree with me or agree with mom,and you don't know what to do.
And he came back and just waslike, uh no, I know what to do.

(01:04:22):
And he's like, You're justblaming everybody for all your
problems.
You need to just figure thisout.
And I'm like, wait a minute.

unknown (01:04:30):
What?

SPEAKER_05 (01:04:30):
Where did that even problem?
Yeah, so it's like I leavebecause you're my problem and
you tell me to fix my problem sothat you can come back.
It's like, but I'm trying totell you that you're the
problem.
Y'all are the yeah, they can'twrap their head around that
either.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:44):
No, it isn't that.
That's hard.
It's a it's a uh it's a it's atough place to be in.
Um they're invited to thewedding.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:53):
Um I was gonna ask, I was like, that's gonna be the
clincher.
That's gonna be whatever we'regonna be wondering if they're
invited.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:59):
If I see a part two of this episode, spoilers, it
didn't go well.
Um uh but we invited them andthey know that they're they're
gonna be just guests likeanybody else.
Like we're like, there's athere's a family section that
you guys can sit in, but likeyou're they're you're not we're

(01:05:20):
not doing the you know, the themother of the groom isn't going
to have a walk down the aisle.
My brothers aren't users, mydad, like my dad was like asking
what uh what you know what kindof suit do I need to wear?
Do you are you do I need to goget one?
Like, where's it?
And I'm like, what are youtalking about?
Like, why why would you needanything?
He's like, Well, I I'm I'm a andI found out later he's a
groomsman at my brother'swedding.

(01:05:42):
So, like, he I think thought hewas gonna be one too in mine.
And I'm just like, no.

SPEAKER_05 (01:05:49):
I'm like, you guys, not all weddings are created
equal.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:54):
I'm just like, that's not that's not how this
works.
Like, none of you guys, and soof course, like they're all
wanting to try to fix thingsnow.
And I'm like, guys, we'll haveplenty of time after the
wedding.
You've had a year and a half,two years to like have these
conversations with me and try tofix things, and none of you have
done it, and inactions haveconsequences, like you haven't

(01:06:14):
done anything.
And so one of the things thatkind of made me laugh was so
last Saturday was my bachelorparty, and I invited my
brothers, but I had a bunch offriends, and I also had
Rebecca's brothers there withme.
So I knew if they tried to getout of line, her brothers at
least knew kind of what wasgoing on, and they were gonna,

(01:06:34):
she wasn't gonna let theywouldn't let them speak ill of
her with them there.
So go out, you know, we go to acouple bars, play some pool,
play some board games, lots ofdrinking.
I wake up Sunday and nursing ahangover, and I get a text
message from my brother, andit's a group text with both of
my brothers on it saying, Are westill good for dinner on
Tuesday?

(01:06:56):
And I'm just like, What are wetalking about?
Dinner on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:01):
This again.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:02):
Yeah, oh my god.
When you talk about dinner onTuesday, they're like, Oh, at
your bachelor party, we talkedand we we said we should go get
dinner.
I was like, When when was this?
Like, when would that havehappened?
Like, was it when I was drunk?
Because that's not a good timeto like bring this stuff up.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:19):
Did you drink?
And I was like, Did you put itin writing?

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:22):
No, and apparently no.
The and I I never heard anythingback from them because that
killed the text thread when Iwas like, guys, this is the week
of my wedding.
I am busy every night this week.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:31):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:32):
Like, I am not about to go and go to dinner to try to
solve all of this problems rightnow.

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:38):
I feel I have to say, I really feel important
right now that you made time tocall this show.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:44):
Oh, you're oh my god, anyway.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:46):
But yeah, you're definitely like busy and yeah,
see, they just want everythingto go back the same, like the
way that it was, like tocontinue, like right?

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:56):
They they just like seriously, even like when we
went and had the conversationwith the friends that we set the
boundary with, even they saidthey're like they were like,
You, you know, everything aroundthe house now is you're not
here, so that's one of the firstthings everybody has to talk
about.
And I think it it both I thinkprobably brings joy to my mom
that then she can make everybodyfeel bad for her, but then

(01:08:18):
realizes I'm the attention fromit because I'm not showing up
there now.
But they said, like, just cometo dinner, just come to dinner,
and I'm like, no, like thatwon't solve the problem.

SPEAKER_05 (01:08:27):
Right, it's not, it's not solving the problem of
therapy either.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:31):
Right, exactly.
So it'll be very interesting tosee what happens the Saturday at
the wedding.
Uh, you know, it's one of thosethings where uh the the event
coordinator knows, and I waslike, Yeah, if we if we say,
hey, you know, they gotta go,it's not a joke, so take it
seriously.
So we'll see what happens.
But yeah, no, it's um it's it'sbeen a f like a uh an

(01:08:54):
interesting couple of years, andjust trying to wrap my head
around all of this andunderstand what's going on.

SPEAKER_05 (01:09:01):
And yeah, it is a lot.
Like when I first like reallyunderstood what narcissistic
personality disorder was, ithorrified me.
Like, I was just like how awful,like even they like have to go
through this, like like I feelbad like for them like in a lot
of ways, and like there's not alot of things they're gonna be

(01:09:22):
able to do to correct thesethings, and so it was a shock to
me, like learning all of this,and like I had not just grief
that I couldn't be around them,but knowing why, and knowing
there wasn't really anything Icould do about it, and that I
had exhausted myself for so manyyears trying to solve the
problems that couldn't besolved, and you know, so yeah,

(01:09:42):
it was like it was a lot to wrapmy head around, and then it was
like the future.
What's gonna happen in thefuture?
Are they gonna be allowed to seemy kids anymore?
Or am I ever going to be able toget in a room with them and talk
to them?
What's gonna happen when someonepasses away?
These are things that I had tothink about, and um they're not
fun, they're not fun, and youknow, yeah, and I'm sure you're

(01:10:04):
that's a I'm sure you you andBecca are having those
conversations all the time.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:09):
Yeah, it's definitely um uh, you know, we
had the funeral, and you know,we we know that kids are you
know in the foreseeable future.
And you know, one of the thingsthat I've told Becca that
worries me more than anything isthat you know, we're cutting,
you know, we're gonna probablybe cutting contact after, you
know, here I'm guessing hereshortly that something's gonna

(01:10:32):
happen.
I can just feel it, that we'reprobably gonna have to cut kind
of cut contact, which means thatthey're not gonna be able to see
the grandkids.
Well, one of the things thatreally concerns me that I told
Becca there's gotta be a way forus to kind of solve this or know
how to get reporting on it, isthat my mom and a lot of my
family are in healthcare.
And I'm like, I don't want mymom to be able to access our

(01:10:52):
kids' health records.
And so I'm like immediately I'mjust gonna like whatever doctor
we go to, I'm gonna be like, Areyou part of this network?
If you are, is there any way Ican lock certain people out of
our files or get reporting ofwhen certain people see our
files because they should not beseeing it?

SPEAKER_05 (01:11:12):
Yeah, yeah.
So now you're probably, I mean,I don't want to assume, but like
like then you start thinkingabout like, well, what if what
if it does get worse?
And then you're like thinking,like, gosh, legal consultation?
Like, then you're then you'restarting, do I need to call a
lawyer and ask?
Like, really, what do I what doI do?
Right.
And it varies state to state.

(01:11:33):
It's like, yeah, when when youand and you just you hit the
nail on the head.
Now you switch things up nowbecause this is what happens.
Then when you have kids, thenit's like everything becomes
very logistical and very formaland very um scary, even
sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:48):
Right.
And that's like, you know, oneof the things that like I said,
when this first happened, like,yeah, I I every time a car would
drive by, I was looking out thewindow, like, is it my dad?
Is it my mom?
Because even right even beforethe Christmas blow up, one of
the things that made me thinkthat was like while we were
having the conversation outsideat the Christmas blowup, I had

(01:12:09):
talked with my mom on the or mydad was telling me when I called
my mom, my mom started crying.
And my mom started cryingbecause I pressured her and I
was like, Why are you calling mea liar?
Like, what did I do to deservebeing called a liar?
What did I lie about?

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:22):
And she started crying on the phone, and I was
just like, Mom, why are youcrying?
Like, I asked, What did I lieabout?
She couldn't answer thequestion.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:28):
She couldn't answer the question.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:30):
Right.
And so my dad, my dad said, WhenI got home, your mom was bawling
and said you yelled at her, andI was getting ready to come find
you.
And I was like, Did she tell youwhy she was crying?
No, but I was gonna come findyou.
And so, yeah, after that, I waslike, I'm looking out the window
when the cars drive by.
Like, I'd probably do that for agood six months of like, is that
them?
Is that one of them?

SPEAKER_05 (01:12:50):
I did that too.
Yeah, I did that too.
I was very, very anxious.
Like, yeah, I was very, veryanxious about that.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:58):
Yeah, it it and like I said, I'm still like I still
will talk with my family.
It's it's kind of funny thatlike while I haven't really
talked with my dad much or mybrothers as much as I used to,
and I see my mom at therapy.
Like, my mom's mom, who lives inthe same town as all of us,
actually lives like two blocksfrom my brother, but like nobody

(01:13:21):
talks to really, except onholidays, and nobody really goes
to see her.
Like, I've seen her more sinceall of this has happened and
talked to her more since all ofthis has happened because she
doesn't get involved with thefamily because she doesn't
really ever see them.

SPEAKER_05 (01:13:34):
Even your even your own, even her own daughter, like
really like your mom doesn't seeher.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:40):
No, like my mom will see her and go like might go
pick her up for like theholidays, but they and my they
might go get lunch once everyfew months, but she's lived she
lived within like five or tenminutes of my of my house
growing up, and we rarely sawher.
Like, my mom wouldn't go overthere and talk with her, and so
it's one of those things like Ikind of wonder if something

(01:14:01):
happened there and that likekind of similar issue, or maybe
my grandma called her out on it.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:08):
But it's funny that like it goes back, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:11):
Yeah, I've seen her so much more now that all of
this has happened than I everdid before all of this happened.
Wow.
Yeah, it's weird the places thatyou will find that as you start
kind of shining light on otherthings, you will start seeing
more of like other people andother things that you'll start
looking at other other actionsand being like, yeah, that

(01:14:34):
wasn't okay.

SPEAKER_05 (01:14:34):
Like yeah, there's like a detox process.
Like one, like when you're inthe relationship, everything is
seems so confusing and so likewhat is going on?
Who is actually saying what?
Because no, that didn't happen.
And it's just like it's pureconfusion, it's like Tower of
Babel.
It's like, what is thisnonsense?
And then when you when you takea step away and then you have
time to when you turn the noisedown, then you can hear yourself

(01:14:57):
thank and then be like, well,like organize my own thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:02):
And here's what's fun when you do that too.
At least this is what happenswith my family.
We'll go through all of thatstuff, we'll go through all the
details, and when I come backlater and can kind of decompress
and write up all my thoughtsinto an email to my mom or a
text message to my mom, or writeit up because I know I have
therapy in a couple days andI'll bring it up.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:23):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:24):
Magically, she can't grasp that like I could go back
and reprocess this stuff.
This just helped reaffirm herthat I would go home, talk with
Becca, who would then brainwashme to change the scenario.
And I'm like, What?

SPEAKER_05 (01:15:39):
Yeah, no, no, my my mother did that.
She would always make theseassumptions that like my husband
was brainwashing me.
She didn't realize like wecommunicated with each other,
and so they were always tryingto lie to get us to fight when
they didn't realize wecommunicated so well that like
we saw their lies like rightaway, and we're like, Right,
what the fuck are they saying?
Like, did you get that text?
Like, that's not what happened.

(01:16:00):
Like, no, that we talked aboutthis, like they're that's
bullshit.
Like, they're trying to make usarcu.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:05):
Right.
You just sit there and you justkind of you're just like, Where
is all this coming from?
Because like, and since I hadthere, I always say that there's
like six different truths.
Cause even like the wholeproposal thing with my brother
that like my mom, you know, thefamily knew for a month.
And when I finally did talk withmy brother, his story was

(01:16:25):
completely different.
And then I was like, Oh, okay,like what happened?
He's like, Well, I wasn'tplanning on proposing, and then
I got pressured come Mondayafter the dinner from but he
said from her dad.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16:38):
Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:40):
But but but yeah, very much at that thought
crossed my mind where I thinkyou were going, that he all of a
sudden felt pressured that heneeded to propose right then and
there.
Yeah, then then mom and dad werelike, Oh, you need to go and
we're gonna go and get you aring, we'll go get you a ring,
let's go get you a ring, let'sgo get you a ring.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16:56):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:57):
And he he said he felt overwhelmed with that.
Oh, geez.
But then so I brought that up tomy mom, and she's like, Oh no,
that didn't happen.
That didn't happen, that didn'thappen.
And then when I brought it upagain to my brother, no, that
didn't happen.
Where'd you hear that from?

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:12):
Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:13):
And so I'm like, so who's getting brainwashed here?
Who's going back and like Yeah,it looks like, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:17:21):
Yeah, I know, right?
It's confusing.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:23):
Yeah, and trying to keep track of it all.
It's like I'm out, I'm out ofbreadcrumbs.

SPEAKER_05 (01:17:26):
Yeah, even that is exhausting.
Even that, even just like, evenif there's no real trauma
happening in your family, justthe normal, um, everyday chaos
of of narcissism, yeah, it'sit's so hard to organize because
you don't they don't communicatenormally or like the like in an
effective way, like they'redistorting information or
they're exaggerating or they'releaving things out or they're

(01:17:48):
twisting things or they'regetting people upset.
It's always it's just always agame like that.
And the only way to win is tonot play.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:55):
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
Like you just you have to justtell them no, you're not gonna
put up with it anymore.
Because you yeah, you willexhaust yourself just trying to
get story straight, and probablynever will.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:08):
Okay, well, I want to leave a little room for part
two.
I really want to hear back fromyou when everything's settled
and you guys are all, you know,just oh yeah, honeymoon's over,
you know, like when things calmdown.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:21):
I'll tell you all about the wedding and all about
Egypt and then Egypt.
Yes, that's where we're goingfor our honeymoon.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:27):
That is so cool.
How exciting.
Oh my gosh, I've always wantedto go there.
I love like ancient Egyptianhistory and stuff like that.
I'm a huge history nerd.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:36):
Yeah, it we're that that's part of the reason why,
because Rebecca's the the bighistory buff in our between the
two of us.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:43):
And so does she watch documentaries in her spare
time too?

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:46):
All the time.

unknown (01:18:47):
All the time.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18:48):
Girl, we should watch, we should hook up and
like watch documentaries.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:52):
Oh, yeah.
Like, you know, all the thedocumentaries, and I and you
know, all she's a murderino, andshe got me to be a murderino.
So we're we're all into thatnow.

SPEAKER_05 (01:19:01):
That sounds like fun.
Well, if there's anything elseyou want to say to listeners, or
if there's anything else thatyou're contemplating that you
want to hold for next time, oranything else you want to say
real quick before we sign offand you continue with your
wedding plans.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:17):
Yeah, no, I just I know that a lot of people
probably like I said at thebeginning, I know a lot of
people hear these stories ofestrangement, or they'll go on
like Reddit and go to like ournarcissistic parents or
something like that, or nottoday, mother-in-law, and they
see all that stuff and they'relike, Well, at least it's not
that bad for me.
You you don't realize still thatwhat you're going through

(01:19:40):
probably isn't normal, and it'svery draining on you and
relationships.
Like, all of the stuff that,like, all of probably the worst
trials and tribulations of stuffin our relationship with Rebecca
and I that we have gone through,this has been the hardest
because it's for a while thereit it very much is.
your your mother is pittingyourself against the woman you

(01:20:04):
marry and you have to make thatdecision and it really does feel
like you know there I use likekind of the analogy of if
someone was like putting a gunto one of their heads who do you
pick and that's kind of what itfeels like even though you know
both are going to be alive atthe end of the day it still
feels like you you've reached apoint where you're like I either
have to kill the relationship Ihave with my mother or I have to

(01:20:25):
kill the relationship I havewith my significant other.
And no one should put you inthat position.
Like it should not get to whereyou feel like you're pressured
into having to make thatdecision.
Right.
And you know as all of this ishappening and you research it
there are lots of people thatare going through this.
And I will say as the oldest sonit seems to be the most common

(01:20:48):
that the oldest son was alwaysthe child in your mother's eyes
and probably still sees you asyou were in like high school or
middle school wherever whereveryou were in life where she
peaked that's how she sees youand doesn't want you to grow
past that.
So when you finally meet thatperson that's going to help you

(01:21:08):
grow that now you confide intonow you tell your secrets to
this person and not your motherlike that it turns her world
upside down.
Yeah it does and that's been oneof the things of like well I
didn't when I tell my mom likeyeah sorry I lost my job and
like we were kind of brokethat's why we didn't do that.
Well I didn't know why didn'tyou tell me I'm like because why

(01:21:29):
would I like it's not like Idon't need you worrying about
this but exactly or using it.

SPEAKER_05 (01:21:37):
Right.
Because that happens too likesometimes they they when they
know your weaknesses likeoftentimes they'll hit you where
it hurts and um that is anotherreason why you don't go you go
no contact because they know youknow like that I had low
self-esteem or whatever.
You know they pick at that youknow they know exactly like how

(01:21:57):
to break you down and um youhave to protect yourself from
that and now you have like yousaid earlier you have a family
now.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:04):
You know yeah you you're responsible to that right
Rebecca comes first and that'sthat's that's how it is like you
gotta you have to make thatdecision of you know hopefully
it's easy for it's easier foreverybody else than it was you
know for me at the beginningbecause at the beginning I very
much felt like I was you knowkilling my family off to protect
Becca and I've told them manytimes and because I realized it

(01:22:27):
wasn't me doing this.
I told my mom and I've told mybrothers and I told my dad I was
like through all of this all youguys are doing is you're trying
to tear down Becca but I don'tthink you realize I'm standing
in front of her and you'reripping me to shreds to do this.

SPEAKER_05 (01:22:43):
I hope everything goes well I really do and I hope
things turn out really nice foryou and Becca and that you guys
have some peace and quiet for alittle while and that nobody's
gonna be bugging you guys for alittle while and um I hope that
you know we all hope that thingswill go right but I know that

(01:23:03):
not everything will but I hopethat you know you'll be able to
cope with those things thatdon't and you know just I don't
know good wishes for both ofyou.

SPEAKER_03 (01:23:11):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah we're we're we'recontemplating just like turning
phones off when we get on aplane on Sunday and just like
it's like taking two weeks ofjust pure vacation and just
being like I'm out and lettingthis decompress and then come
back in two weeks and see what'stranspired and what's exploded
and be ready for my brother'sbirthday if we're wedding if

(01:23:32):
we're going.
If you're going right a lotcould change between now and
then right exactly a lot couldchange in the next 72 hours for
sure.

unknown (01:23:41):
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (01:23:41):
Well thank you very much Curtis for calling on the
show I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:23:45):
Oh thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05 (01:23:46):
All right we'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:48):
Awesome sounds great all right thanks for calling bye
bye if you'd like to be a guestor just say hello email us wtvb
podcast at gmail.com thank youfor listening to when the vow
breaks