Do you feel the same way? You’re actually looking forward to Easter – you love Easter brunches with the family, enjoying the first warm spring sunshine, and hoping for the opportunity to hide Easter nests in the garden or go for a nice walk with your child later.

Four days off in one piece, unwinding, laughing, inviting friends and family over, feasting, enjoying.

Ugh.

If only it weren’t for that fellow!

You know who I mean, don’t you? The man who has absolutely no interest in your well-being. And who absolutely has to pour out his inner discontent on everyone else, come what may, so that they feel bad.

He will remember whether Easter was important to you.

Your child has probably already told him what you have planned – to invite grandma and grandpa and all the other lovely guests, including cousins who are the same age as the child.

You haven’t seen each other in ages, and you’ve been planning the food and decor for weeks, scrolling through online recipe sites and Pinterest for inspiration.

Back in the day, when you lived together, he could stress intensely and spoil the anticipation right away with bad moods and “Meh – do you have to do THAT?”. Every decorative trinket you bought for the beautiful Easter table was criticized and ridiculed.

Whoever was invited at the time, got to know a very special side of your partner: If it was his family and friends, he was at his best: he was charming and funny, and everyone had a great time at the table. As soon as they were out the door, they started to criticize you – for everything you had done or said wrong again.

If it was your family and friends, he sat silently, producing an aura of insecurity and an intangible, uneasy feeling among all present. Needless to say, there was bickering and strife afterwards, and you were not at all well. Especially since in both cases you had to do all the work before and after alone (“YOU want such a thing, then see how you manage it!”).

But these times are over, thank God, you have moved out, and the relief to be able to do your thing, the way you want to do it and the way that is best for you, without being constantly controlled and criticized, is clearly noticeable.

You’re really looking forward to the informal, casual get-together with your favorite people at the Easter table.

Provided this is your first Easter after separating from your toxic partner, I’d like to pull you aside at this point.

And if you’ve been separated for several years, you’ll most likely have already had the experience I’m about to write about:

Your presumed narcissistic Ex is pretty likely to do everything in his power to ruin this holiday season for you.

Especially if he knows they mean a lot to you!

After all, he doesn’t have many options left to control you and shake you up

If you’ve already learned to set up and assert your boundaries, he’ll have already noticed that you’re draining him more and more.

Because you’ve already become pretty indifferent to him.

But there is still a possibility for him to continue bullying you for several years: through the contact with the child.

So you can expect that he will

He will not bring the child back at the agreed time, which was worked out in countless mediation sessions months before and in which the mediators were brought to the edge of their own nerves, and thus everyone will be waiting for the child at the Easter table and the unreliability of the Ex will become the dominant topic, followed by stories on your part about how the guy has behaved since the separation or in the relationship.

In the best case, he “only” brings the child two hours later. In the worst case, he keeps it right away and you sit at the table with your friends, nodding and being like a robot, in whose head one thought carousel after another goes off and you are already thinking about informing the police, while your ex is at home calmly hiding the Easter nest and the child has no idea about anything.

It is also very likely that you have not yet agreed on the Easter visit and you still do not know how this weekend will go.

It is also possible that he is suddenly standing in front of the door, because the innocent child invited him and is so happy that all his loved ones are here.

You have two options in such a surprising moment, between which you have to decide in a flash:

Option A) You know, if you want to keep your boundaries, that you have to deny him access – and afterwards you have a child, who is accordingly upset against you, who yells at the whole company, angrily screams “I hate you!”, runs into his room, slams the door with a loud bang and then never shows his face again.

The child is deadly sad, the Easter brunch party is embarrassed, and you are also upset and only think about whether this was a mistake and whether you should have jumped over your shadow – just this once, to save Easter.

Option B) Actually you wanted to give your child a wonderful Easter, so option A is anathema to you and you let him in. Now your Ex is sitting at your coffee table with a self-satisfied grin, eating your lovingly decorated Easter plait, and no other adult understands what’s going on between you anymore.

You yourself, on the other hand, are miserable as hell because that person who emotionally abused you for years is so close again – in your protective refuge – and you have betrayed yourself and your own boundaries for fear of what your child might think of you.

In all these cases, the party is crashed, the mood gone, the anger, despair and incomprehension great.

The beautifully planned day in the bucket.

Not nice.

Thoughts that do not help you

Maybe you still think that he will finally give up and stop harassing you in court or by email, because you want peace and harmony between you, and you let him do way too much to you on this day.

You put your own protective boundaries below the wishes of your child, who has very likely already been perfectly manipulated.

You want to realize your idea of a nice day under all circumstances, and therefore play along with his game, because you realize that he has set it up. The main thing is that the poor child, which already has to suffer extremely from this childhood, has a nice Easter.

Spoiler Alert: No matter how you decide to act – he will always continue to do his own thing.

Especially if you leave your boundaries so permeable that he can always boot over them!

“Why does he do this?” we ask ourselves, exasperated and incensed.

Of course he can’t just accept an invitation from your child if you haven’t agreed on it beforehand! He as an adult must know that!

Of course he must abide by the court order, which stipulated that the child must be returned at 10 a.m. on Easter Sunday.

Of course he should adhere to the agreement from the mediation regarding the Easter holiday distribution, because you put back the winter vacations beforehand for this.

And of course, as a father oriented to the child welfare, he should have an interest in the child seeing as little of your discord as possible, and not risk the child getting into a major loyalty conflict on Easter Sunday because he doesn’t yet understand why the mother had to establish boundaries with the father.

Guess what?

He doesn’t give a damn about all that.

Such behavior is just part of the mental setting of a person with narcissistic personality disorder.

What you can do when your toxic ex turns up on Easter

First of all, prepare yourself mentally for this possibility and decide ahead of time how you will behave yourself – especially as it relates to your boundaries.

Distinguish what is in your own control: Your own options for action and thinking, or what he does?

Let go everywhere of what is out of your control: whether he will now get in the car on time and bring the child, or what all he will tell the child in advance.

Also let go of your excessive expectations for Easter. It is ultimately just one or two specific days on the calendar – much like Christmas.

If there’s going to be an unpredictable change in your plans on those days, so be it. You can always invite your family and friends back and spend quality time with them. With your child and without.

Above all, Sweetheart, you always have a choice: you always have a choice about how much you let his antics dominate your well-being and your thinking.

Such holidays are perfect training opportunities to react calmly and focus on what you can control yourself.

Because nothing annoys a pathological narcissist more than a disinterested “Aha.” in response to a mean thing.

What’s your take on this, sweetheart? Looking forward to your comment below. Thank you.