S1. Ep 7. Four months, nine countries, one toddler, and a narcissist. | by Veritas-Surviving a Narcissist | Sep, 2025

Not quite a baby in the backpack but we were about to travel as a family, four months with a barely toilet trained 3 yr old, living out of one suitcase!

Travel is my passion so I put my all into planning this trip, making sure it incorporated all the things DH and I wanted to do, with enough slow moments for our son, Nathan, to be curious.

The route: India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan (in time for Sakura), Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hong Kong and back to England.

On paper — and Instagram — it was a great trip! We had some real once-in-a-lifetime moments, from releasing baby turtles to the Great Barrier Reef to cooking with mountain tribes in Sapa, Vietnam.

However, beneath the surface there was a simmering undercurrent of tension.

India was fine, DH was treated like royalty there, the colonial hangover of revering tall white men was still going strong in the places we visited and DH was happy to lap up the attention and showcase the benevolent, jovial man he could be.

When we hit Thailand, the tide began to turn. He was irritable and it was wholly targeted at our son or specifically, me prioritising his needs. We’re talking basic needs too, like me wanting to feed Nathan first, making sure we had found plain rice for him to eat before we went to places that served more exotic food that may not have suited him.

I remember a searingly hot day in Bangkok with humidity in the high 90s, we were heading to see the Reclining Buddha, and Nathan was done with walking — honestly, so was I. He asked DH to carry him and was reprimanded for not walking! This continued for some time, with Nathan becoming more and more upset at being forced to walk and shouted at for not walking.

I suggested taking a tuktuk several times and DH refused, saying he wanted to take photos on the way. Anyone who has been there will know that it’s not a scenic walk from the city centre and tuktuks are cheap and fast. Eventually, I couldn’t handle the heat or DH’s treatment towards Nathan so I told him that we would go ahead in a tuktuk and he could meet us there.

It felt empowering in the moment but from the second we got into the tuktuk, I felt nervous. I was scared of what DH’s mood would be like when he reached the temple. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Yes, he had a red face — could have been the heat, yes, he was short with us — could have been the heat. But he had ended up taking a tuktuk too, which made me feel validated in my decision, and perhaps gave him less ammunition to use against me.

I didn’t know that he was keeping score.

By the time we reached Japan, DH had a list of grievances, mostly targeted at Nathan — “why don’t won’t you hold my hand?!”, “why won’t you sit next to me”, “Mummy wants a break from you!”

Our poor child had endured weeks of abuse — I said what I said — from his father and understandably wanted to be by me all the time. Instead of trying to see it from his perspective, take accountability and make amends, DH was deeply offended by it.

I’m ashamed to admit that one day I too reprimanded Nathan for rejecting his father, I told him that I wouldn’t sit next to him unless he held Daddy’s hand to the restaurant. I thought I was salvaging the situation, proving I wasn’t ‘taking sides’ again.

I understand now that this was all about control for DH, he was losing control, he was threatened by me prioritising Nathan and couldn’t make Nathan want him more than he wanted me.

When we got to Japan, I’d heard the sentence “I may as well not even be here, all I’m good for is carrying the bags, he doesn’t want me here and you only care about keeping him happy!” too many times.

I’d had enough! I told him to leave. I let him know that this was a trip of a lifetime that I had planned around his wish list and all he did was complain and make it obvious that he didn’t want to be there.

It took him by surprise, especially when I told him that I would continue the trip with Nathan and there were no hard feelings on my part, I did not want him to feel forced to stay when he was clearly unhappy.

He crumbled. Sobbed. Apologised. Of course he did. He shared that he had been secretly smoking over the past year and was too scared to tell me, knowing it had always been a deal-breaker for me.

He told me that going cold turkey whilst travelling was a struggle for him, he was finding it hard to manage his moods but he didn’t want to let it ruin our trip. He would try harder, he wanted to stop smoking and this trip would be an enabler for that.

There was so much he was looking forwards to doing as a family on the trip and he promised to show us both that he could do better.

Promises, promises, promises. This man used them like currency and I kept cashing them in.