I don’t think you can fix this. You’re a reasonable person willing to take a look at himself and make adjustments as needed, but she isn’t capable of that if she’s a narcissist. They don’t have the ego strength to do that. They’ll blame others, lie, project onto others, anything but take an honest look at themselves. And what can you do at that point. If she doesn’t take any responsibility for her actions she won’t ever change, and it doesn’t matter how perfect you make yourself. She has a very profound personality disorder. It’s not the same as when you have two normal people who annoy each other at times or have some misunderstandings, or deep seated fears, or something of that nature.

Imagine if you had two people going to marriage counseling. Person A doesn’t manage his time well and is often late, which causes problems at times. Person B is a paranoid schizophrenic with homicidal tendencies. It doesn’t matter how hard Person A tries to work on his time management skills.

Mike, I was married to a person like this for years. Google Narcissistic Personality Disorder. People think narcissists are just people who like to look in the mirror all the time, but there’s so much more to it than that. They are toxic people who do a great deal of damage to those around them. Read about it. I’ll try to find an article to post.

Best wishes to you!

Dear Tannhauser,

I get what you’re saying. These are valid questions many of us have had. It’s hard to reconcile a good God with the adversity and disappointment we see in the world and in our own lives. Did you ever pour out your heart to God and just have it out with Him? He’s not afraid of our anger and doubts and questions.

I remember feeling the same way some years ago when one of my sons was diagnosed with cancer at age 4.  After weeks and months of sitting in a pediatric oncology ward and seeing all the kids with cancer, some recovering, some dying, all of them suffering, I could have written a letter much like you wrote above. But I just seethed inside. I never said anything to anyone. Then one night I had it out with him. I just let Him have it and left it there. To cut a long story short I felt He gave me a different perspective, and comfort, and renewed courage to go on, and we got through that time.

I think our problem is that we want heaven here on earth, and this sin-cursed world will never be heaven. No matter what your religion we all experience pain, difficulties and suffering. Jesus said, “I tell you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world”. He knows there will be trouble and problems and suffering. Yet we long for more, for a better place, for justice, love, peace, goodness.

Jonathan Cahn in The Book of Mysteries writes, “When we came into this world, we entered it with a longing. We longed for milk. We had no idea what milk was. We had never tasted it. We had never seen it. Nobody ever told us that it existed. And yet the longing for milk was there inside our being before we ever had any assurance that it existed. And it turned out it did exist. What we longed for we only knew from the hunger deep inside our being. Our longing for milk passes away, but we find another longing within our hearts, another emptiness, but deeper, a longing for that which the world never answers. We long for the perfect, for a perfect love, a perfect happiness, a perfect peace. We long for that which doesn’t fail, never disappoints us, or grows old. But the world can never answer those longings and they stay with us all our lives. We long for them even though we’ve never tasted them. And our very longings bear witness that what we have never seen or tasted is real. We long for a perfect love because there is a Perfect Love. We long for the Eternal because the Eternal exists and put that longing into our hearts so we would seek Him..and find Him.”  But if we look for the heavenly on earth, we’ll surely be disappointed.

Best wishes to you!

Dear Selena,

I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all this. You deserve to be treated with love and respect. Definitely you should do everything you can to move away from your sister. Do you have a job, or can you get one? If you can save up money to fix your car and get a place for yourself, that would be a step in the right direction, and you’d be around more normal people for a large part of the day.

It can’t hurt to pray about the situation if you believe in God. “For the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves such as are crushed in spirit.”

Things will get better. You’ll get through this and come out all the stronger for it.

Karen

Lis, google “narcissistic personality disorder”. This guy sounds like a textbook case. People with this problem hurt everyone around them. You can’t stay with this guy, look what he’s done to you already, and it only gets worse. You deserve so much better. There’s a better future waiting for you!

I used to be Catholic too, but when I actually read the Bible, I found that many of the things they teach aren’t in the Bible or taught by Jesus. It basically says that “the spirit returns to God who gave it” and then at the end of the world there will be a Judgement Day. Since we are all sinners and no one can really stand before a holy God, we would be in some deep doodoo were it not for Jesus, who paid for our sins for us by his death on the cross. He is our “get out of hell free” card, if we believe. It’s like coming before a judge and having him examine us, pronounce a death penalty for our sins, but then send his son to the electric chair in our place.  We are free to enter heaven not because we were good, or did whatever special things, but because it’s been paid for already. This is what I believe the Bible teaches.