Babe, do you think I’m cheap?
Iremember my ex, Jamel, asking me this question one day after his brother had apparently called him “cheap” and his mother had called him “greedy” during an argument they’d had.
I didn’t know Jamel well enough yet to say that he was. I only knew what I knew so far, he was generous. But I started wondering if there was something about Jamel that I hadn’t sensed yet.
So I started paying attention.
Slowly, I started realizing Jamel‘s serious obsession with money. He was very materialistic and very greedy — I wasn’t. Money became a point of contention between us.
I started being devalued for not having (or making) enough:
I Was Forced to Grey Rock Him
My career was on the line and the narcissist was going to do everything he could to sabotage it.
medium.com
It was subtle at first.
So subtle you’d never even notice it because it was hidden in plain sight, and only displayed in two very specific habits that revealed what greed looks like on a malignant narcissist,
Financially.
…
1. He’d Leave the Bill Face-Up on the Table
Whenever we’d go to a restaurant things always got weird when the bill came. He would check it, before placing the money on (or in) it,
And then lay it between us.
But now the bill would be closer to me than it initially was — and it would also be face-up.
This mainly took place at restaurants because that’s usually the setting where bills are left on the table for both parties to see.
At first, I paid no attention because I wasn’t thinking anything of it. Until he started doing something very… calculating.
Sometimes he’d open his wallet to silently flash the bills he still had left, by making it look like he was counting them.
It gave me a weird feeling because not only was it awkward but he kept doing it as if he was trying to look like he was talking to himself.
He was trying too hard to appear genuine…
Because he was doing this on purpose.
What Jamel was trying to do was flex how much he was spending on me, while equally making it clear how much less he had after the fact.
Here’s why this was a very tricky devaluation tool
Although he was looking for credit based on how much he spent, this gesture was also supposed to make me feel inadequate and guilty for taking (or accepting) his money — despite the majority of our dates being his idea.
(Remember, I wasn’t working at this time.)
If I failed to notice the bill or acknowledge it (which I always did because I was raised not to touch a bill I’m not paying for because it was considered rude) he would then draw my attention to it using this pathetic method.
I always expressed my appreciation but my gratitude was never enough. No matter what, he always gave himself credit in this unnecessary, theatrical way. And it looked and felt like bad acting.
But it didn’t stop there.
…
2. He’d Calculate How Much He Spent on Me
Jamel usually utilized this method whenever we went out to:
- movie theatres
- clothing stores
Sometimes, when he’d take me out to buy clothes, as he did on the shopping trip I detailed in the following article,
This Is What the Devaluation Process Looks Like
Here are four things the narcissist did to sabotage my appearance
medium.com
He would stand off to the side, and start reading off the prices on the receipt, casually. Seemingly counting on his fingers the total,
Just to draw attention to himself.
- He would do this far enough away for it to seem like he wanted privacy but close enough to be noticed.
- He would count loud enough to be heard but low enough for it to seem like you naturally overheard it.
But I knew it wasn’t.
In fact, by now, I was beginning to understand that this was his covert way of showcasing how much money he was spending on me.
It was a not-so-humble brag.
This was his way of making himself seem like a big shot.
And it was inarguably unattractive.
It was also a very sneaky devaluation technique since his spending would be thrown back in my face at a later date because I couldn’t reciprocate his grandiose “acts of kindness”. This is how I learned they weren’t genuine,
From the start.
…
3. He’d Buy Me Gifts (and Resent Me for Them Later)
When we first started dating Jamel would travel a 30–45 minute drive, from Long Island to Queens to come to see me.
He did this nearly daily.
Once he began triangulating me it was suddenly a problem, especially since the new supply was another worker at his job. In fact, he was her manager.
I know what you’re thinking, you said gifts.
To Jamel, his coming to see me was a gift.
(This was also implied to me, as well.)
And I agree it was a sacrifice.
But it was weaponized once he had someone new in the picture and began devaluing me. Any time he did make time to see me he would complain about the gas he had to spend.
Eventually, it progressed to him devaluing me for not having a car and going to see him and saying I should start using my bus pass to go see him.
The reason I hadn’t was that at one point he didn’t want me traveling that far by bus, alone. Where it took him 30–45 minutes to drive to my house, it would take me an hour and a half to two hours to get to his.
What made this interesting was…
Jamel was initially very codependent.
(We both were.)
He was at my house 6 days out of the week for the majority of our first ear together. He asked me if this was okay because he “wanted to spend all day” with me.
He even went as far as to say I’m the only girlfriend he had who doesn’t mind the time he wants to spend with me. Citing his exes telling him that he requires “too much time” to the point they “need some space”.
He was also in an abusive home environment so he often left his house and came to mine to escape. It wasn’t me requiring him to spend his time with me (although my central love language is quality time),
It was actually me opening my home (and my family) to him.
None of these sacrifices were required or enforced on my end.
So it became audacious to watch him sacrifice his money to come to see me just so he could use it as fuel in his smear campaign to his family against me, to paint me as a mooch and a golddigger…
While also expressing the entitlement he felt about me being the one to go see him instead of him sacrificing his money to keep coming to see me just because there was someone closer he was finding more valuable than me,
For the moment.
…
Greed Was Part of Jamel’s Pathology
Every dollar Jamel was spending on me had absolutely nothing to do with me. These were grandiose displays of his own perceived self-importance.
It should’ve come as no surprise to me because his entire family was materialistic. Not only were they money-minded, but they also constantly used each other,
In two very specific ways:
- They would ask to borrow money as a means to use someone else for theirs.
- The person being asked for the money would give it as a means to have leverage and superiority over the family member who needed it. (Especially his mom.)
His entire family determined each other’s values based on how much money they had and the material gain they accumulated because of it.
This was a neverending competition among them all that showed me
Narcissists have a notoriously codependent relationship with money and their attachment to it causes them to use money as a tool to achieve,
- power
- respect, and
- a higher social status
Because money is power.
Greed commonly plays out in the narcissist family dynamic
(Especially among Jamel’s family)
As I just mentioned, the main person in his family who was like this was his mother, Pat. She was a very greedy narcissist who bragged about being a golddigger.
She also used both of her sons for what she could get from, and out of, them. She felt entitled to the riches of others and superior to those she lent money.
Jamel, naturally, became a product of this environment. He was also extremely greedy and also equally entitled.
I highlight some of these bold behaviors when they started appearing in our relationship — specifically during the holidays,
In the following article:
Exposing This Humiliating Holiday Devaluation Technique
Many narcissists will do this around the holidays — because it’s the only time they can.
medium.com
These habits and behaviors being displayed were simply different ways his conditioning played into his narcissism. This is when I made peace with the fact that every dollar he spent on me was to manipulate me.
…
None of These Were Financial Acts of Love
This was about maximizing his self-importance while devaluing me by treating me as a charity case.
Doing nice things for me was Jamel’s shortcut to gaining bragging rights, while physically (and financially) supporting the smear campaign that I couldn’t do the same and therefore wasn’t worthy of him.
My financial devaluation showed me how money enables narcissists to:
- devalue their victims
- maximize their inflated sense of self, and
- minimize their supply
The role of money also plays a role in their tendency to do these things publically, the way he did at the restaurant and the clothing stores.
He was putting on a show for bragging rights.
But, despite him doing these things for me, I wasn’t the one he was putting on a show for.
This was about impressing the outside world
He wasn’t concerned with impressing me because he had already deemed me financially inferior to him because of my inability to contribute as his partner since I didn’t have a job yet.
He also talked shit about me to his family and had them “talk” to me about getting my life together. This is when it finally sank in,
I was his charity case.
Every kind thing he did for me financially was strategically designed to do two very specific things —
- show how much of a savior he made himself out to be in my life (especially because I never asked him for his money or his “favors”)
- prove to others how little I could do for myself.
He was maximizing himself while minimizing me. I was being gaslit through financial abuse. He was actually devaluing me by doing “nice things” for me.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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