That’s Not Important Right Now
Our sense of entitlement, lack of consideration and our failure to recognise and respect boundaries means that we are important and you are not. Our need is an emergency. Your needs are secondary. Our requirements are fundamental. Your wants are irrelevant. If we want something it must be done and you must drop everything else, cancel your plans and ensure we are provided for and catered to otherwise all hell breaks loose. Fail to do something we want and when we want (even if we haven’t told you what it is) is regarded by us a criticism and our fury is ignited. We may impose a cold furious silent treatment or lambast you with our heated fury but either way we are important and you are not. We show no appreciation of your situation, no consideration of your position and scant regard for what you might need or have to contend with. It is predictable all about us. Any situation, any time and any moment we will trample all over what you are doing in order to get what we want done. Whatever you may have organised, planned or whatever you are doing is minutiae and utterly inconsequential to the massively important event, occurrence or happening that we have decreed. Expect interruptions, abrasive treatment and a complete lack of manners and consideration. This mind-set that what you are doing is not important appears often and repeated and is symptomatic of so many of our narcissistic traits. Here are twenty instances you may recognise where what you are doing is not important right now.
- Talking over you.
- Changing channel on the television when you are clearly watching something.
- Switching off music that you are listening to.
- Playing music loudly when you are relaxing.
- Thrusting a newspaper under your nose when you are reading a book and saying “look at this”
- Talking to you when you are on the telephone.
- Calling you at work and raising a trivial matter and demanding that you do something about it.
- Asking you to pass something that is in reach when you are doing some other task.
- Saying la la la when you are trying to explain something.
- Making you late because we needed you to straighten our tie several times first.
- Calling you indoors from an outdoors task just to point out something on the television which is irrelevant.
- Calling you and asking where something is when it is easy to find.
- Calling you when you are socialising and demanding that you return home to deal with an emergency – such as the blinds are stuck or we have run out of peanut butter
- Demanding you prepare our evening meal when you are trying to get ready to go out.
- Feigning a greater illness when you are unwell.
- Waking you up to tell you something pointless.
- Ringing the landline from our mobile (withholding the number) and insisting you answer when you are trying to eat and then hanging up.
- Demanding to be picked up or given a lift irrespective of what you might be doing.
- Using items you need to complete a task.
- Thrusting a tablet under your nose as you are trying to do something and telling you to “watch this” only to see a video of a man falling down some stairs.
It does not matter how trivial, ridiculous or childish the behaviour is as long as it disrupts you and thrusts your attention onto us, even if it is to react in a negative way, we will always behave in such a way.
24 thoughts on “That’s Not Important Right Now”
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“We may impose a cold furious silent treatment or lambast you with our heated fury”
I am curious to know what it’s like to experience cold anger. The heated type I know, but am pretty sure I’ve never experienced this.
Thank you for your work you have answered 15yrs of questions I have had that have never been answered. It been one yr ago TODAY I decided I had enough. Not that anything has changed other than we do not live together we have a daughter so still go thru same shit as you know I do have one remaining question you can answer maybe.
How does one be with someone they “love” for 15 yrs have a child with that person and know that that person has been the only loyal person to you in your life and they not have any love or reguard for that person after 15yrs? How is it possible not to have any feelings for anyone?
Hello TLD, by being what we are because we operate completely differently to you. It is evident you are (understandably) perplexed by the way that we operate. Keep reading my work and it will make sense, you will not like it, but you will understand.
NN did each and every thing on that list – EVERY ONE – plus myriad violations of boundaries not listed. Frankly, I never took him for an elite, or is this a more general list common to all cadres?
Looking at this behavior from non-judgemental angle, it seems to me that emotional development and frustration tolerance is arrested developmentally at about three years of age. Off the top of my head, I wonder if it is a reaction to trauma at that age or an appearing syndrome/disorder along the lines of Autism Spectrum Disorders, which appear at this age of development? Thoughts?
OT: I thought I had read all your books, but I found “Sex …” this weekend. I’m both devouring and combing; I have pages of notes. It’s going to be a long letter. 😃
Good for you and I am pleased you are finding it useful.
My N ex used to do almost everything on that list, even down to making me watch a stupid video of someone falling down some stairs (he always laughed at people injuring themselves). It was very childish and (among other things he did, like smearing and gaslighting me) eventually made me hate him, but boy, it sure got him the attention he demanded–to him it didn’t matter if it was negative or positive, it was fuel, and he had to have it right then no matter what I was doing.
Ugh…
Hopefully in #20, that man would be you. (just kidding)…
HG, Is it wrong that I thought some of these funny? I have a twisted sense of humor. I’d add poking your finger in my side to tickle me because i hate being touched at all and jumping behind me and yelling BOO. The latter would likely not perturb me as much.
Well indeed one could regard them as funny as certainly many of then would be regarded as infantile when judged from a certain perspective.
Yes quite a few ring a bell, talking over constantly, being woken up at 5am with an iPad blaring out crap in my ear, being woken up all hours was the favourite, some others are familiar, but the pièce de résistance was faking illness. I’ve mentioned before a short stay in hospital, no visit, and a sudden (fake) deadly, contagious condition, all lies, and so easily disproved, why bother? It just confirmed all the more what a pathetic, idiotic liar he was. Just added more nails to his coffin.
I suspect that coffin lid is very firmly nailed down Me.
Well and truly nailed, sealed and cremated!
Sometimes reading these types of bullet points, I get an uneasy feeling from head to toe, slowly realizing my first husband was way more narcissistic than I could have possibly realized. Which means my whole adult life since I left home when I got married at 21, has always been this dance.
Same here Clarence. Only 4 years difference. I was 25
But this list made me realize that some of my working colleagues gf might have N husbands. One told me several of the above and her hisband turning on the lights when she sleeps plus many of the above. But it would make sense .. She is the superpathic person.. Coicidentally british 😃
Thank you for your list! It helps me clarify what he does using concrete examples. They are spot on!
You are welcome.
Do I have a clone M.e.? 🙂
Very good list and explanation. The list links perfectly the text for a 100% undertamding, having lived some of them.
Its very clear. This gives lots of fuel doesnt it HG? ⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️
It certainly does.
Who in their right mind would put up with all of that ? That is not love .
I’ve never said it was. On the contrary I have always been candid that it is not.
It’s not love…it’s something else. Attention-seeking behavior of the darkest kind. How my father has put up with my mother for so long (they’ll celebrate 45 years of wedded whatever the hell it is they have in September) but he does. I realize no one would put up with me for 45 minutes when I unleash my inner narcissist & behave as my mother does.
My mother & her sciatica…it doesn’t prevent her from spending a day at the mall-it causes her to bitch about how her back & legs hurt and she can’t walk/clean/cook my father’s dinner. Of course I (at half her age) have the same sciatica & it prevents me from walking, cleaning, working out, but not from keeping my mani/pedi appointment or going out on Friday night.
The “emergency” she usually insists I come home for while I’m out is bullshit…either she can’t find her iPad or she can’t remember her password (and I have no idea where the iPad is or what her password is so going home doesn’t help).