Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE Bube's back

V-Bube,

I thought about something else concerning whether your or your counselor should tell W that she is NPD. Reasons given here to not bother telling her make sense. But there is another reason why you should. NPDs are all about intimidating others, building up a false image of themselves to support who they would like to be. They are dependent on others to help them do this. For this reason, you are guilty of partially supporting and sustaining her venom.

If you challenge this façade, an NPD will either go ballistic in an attempt to intimidate and control the other person back into their supporting role for the NPD, or if they think the jig is up, they will simply walk away and find another victim. I have the feeling that your W may not be the hard-core, full fledged NPD that I seem to be hearing from you. She left the house, trying to set an ultimatum. You did not fall for it, so she came back, acting like it never happened. To further this illusion in her mind, she showed a little affection. I think this may have been a tactic to pull you back into her sphere, since she felt you had slipped from her grasp.

Now you decide there is no point in confronting her with her diagnosis, that nothing will come from it. But something very important can be had. You can let her know that YOU know she is NPD. She won’t like the accusation one bit and will probably pitch a fit. Of course she will deny this, but she will hear you and it will sink into her soul like a canon shot. She WILL NOT show it. But she will feel it. Slowly, it will make a difference.

This is the time I think you need to keep up the pressure. You have her off balance and need to keep it this way for a while. I think you should also tell her that her ultimatum stunt did not work, you knew exactly what she was up to and she is not intimidating or fooling anyone any more. This is no different from standing up to the playground bully and calling him out on all his stuff in front of the other kids. I even think you should do this in front of your girls, possibly with them standing at your side in support of you. That will send a very strong message to your W. It will like be her own ultimatum coming back to her. Then she can understand what she does to others. But you need to get used to repeating this every time she pulls such a stunt. This is a REAL boundary.

Remember, she is not empathic. She does not have any idea how she affects others. The ONLY way to get this message across to her is to MAKE her (not LET her) feel how others feel. Do not let your esteem, lack of confidence, fear, and sense of guilt override this. Confronting her has every bit as much to do with you as with her. NPDs operate in a shroud of secrecy. They harm others, then hush it over, to make everyone part of the conspiracy of pretending it never happened. This makes you guilty of perpetuating your own hurt (and your daughter’s). To break this cycle, you need to bring EVERYTHING into the light.

Admit and confess to all your shortcomings, all your faults, every bad thing you did either directly or by inaction. This will take away all her ammunition to divert and deflect. Then challenge her to do the same and tell her things are now different. Do this in front of your girls. This will take the air out of her power.

Your wife is on a level you will never achieve when it comes to playing manipulation games. There is no way my dad could ever keep up with my mom, the NPD. She can outwit him in her sleep. Don’t try to play your wife’s game. Pull her onto your playing field instead. You set the rules. You tell her what you will tolerate and what you won’t. Don’t even bother to defend your values. As soon as you start justifying your position, she will rip it to shreds. You can not win. She has you totally outclassed.

This is why I tell YOU to decide what needs to be done in your family. Stop checking with the counselor, your daughters, this board, for confirmation of what your next move should be. Your wife can sense the indecisiveness in you and has taken advantage of it. If you make strong, forceful, determined decisions and actions, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, she will feel her influence challenged. If your decision is wrong, admit it, correct it, move on, and don’t let her hold it over you. Don’t bother to discuss it. This empowers you.

In fact, I actually see no harm in being VAGUE about what you want. Let her do the guessing for once. That makes her try to figure out what you mean, how you feel. Is this the first step in developing empathy?

On a scale of 1-10 for severity of NPD, say she is a 7. Is it be possible that with a healthier partner who enforces strong and consistent boundaries, who does not let any narcissistic games play out in secret but exposes everything, an NPD can be reigned in to such an extent that any damaging behavior is limited and that NPD person could manifest at a level 6? In other words, can your healthier behavior influence her to act less NPD? I think it can. That might be something to run past your counselor.

So in summary, I say confront her on her NPD.

That’s some good stuff, Cobra. I especially like the idea of using the NPD diagnosis as a tool. When I discussed telling W about the diagnosis, the C just said that it wouldn’t do any good. She would deny it and the C would lose all credibility in her eyes. I still believe that to be true, but I hadn’t considered that telling her about the diagnosis would put her on notice that I view things differently now. She won’t believe it, but she’ll have to know that I believe it. She’ll be royally POed. I’m just guessing here, but I would estimate about a 30% chance that she’ll choose to leave rather than live within the new structure. But I can live with that. That’s one thing I’ve gained throughout this whole episode: I’m not scared of that any more. Bottom line: I haven’t come to any conclusion, but I am giving this idea some very serious thought.

I do have another issue I want to bring up though. There are certainly many reasons why I’ve let things get into the sorry state they’re in, but one of the biggest reasons I’ve let W become such a tyrant is that I don’t want to be one. Lets use money as an example – a very real-world example. W drove us into bankruptcy not long after my A. We were still in MC at the time. (That’s one of the reasons the C did so much pro bono with us.) He told me to take away all the credit cards, take away the checkbook, remove W’s name from the accounts, and put her on a strict allowance with specific bills for which she was to be responsible. I eventually did that, but I had real problems with doing it. There’s a lot more I could say, but to cut to the chase, I didn’t want to be a dictator. I wanted to be her H, not her father. I didn’t want to control her, I wanted her to learn to be responsible.

That’s still a big issue with me and the NPD. I can see that the only possibility for changing the current sitch is for me to become something I don’t want to be. I see the necessity of telling W that she’s no longer allowed to discipline D14, but that whole idea just rubs me wrong. I don’t object to being the disciplinarian, that’s not it at all. It’s just that what I really want is for W to learn to control her own behavior to the point that I don’t have to be the sole disciplinarian. I don’t want to tell W that I will dispose of any animal she brings into the house without express permission from me. I want her to behave reasonably and limit the number of animals to something that doesn’t completely overwhelm the entire family without my having to become the dog-dictator. There are many more examples I could cite, but I think you can see where I’m going with this.

So I can see that these are things I need to do in order to have any hope of changing things, but I fear turning into another W. That, and I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life having to keep my wife under control. I want to be a partner, not a parent. It’s kind of like HP saying that she didn’t want to have to be the R cop. She wanted it to be a two-way street, not something that she had to constantly stay on top of to keep things on track. I wouldn’t mind if I thought it would be a temporary thing, but I don’t. And I have both experience and book-learnin’ telling me that it won’t be temporary. I can use the money example again here. I don’t remember what the issue was at the time, but about a year and a half ago I let W get her hands on our finances again. And once again, we’re on the very ragged edge of being able to pay our bills. IOW, she didn’t learn a thing. There has been no improvement in her money management skills. Everything, I have seen, heard, or read about NPD tells me that they never change, they never recover. She’ll never be able to govern her own behavior, which means I’ll have to do it right up until the day I die. And that’s not a pleasant prospect.

V-Bube

V-Bube,

My first impression is that you sound like you want to avoid responsibility (or possibly blame if things don’t go right). I hear you say you don’t want to be a dictator. That makes total sense to me from the standpoint of wanting a healthy partner who you can rely on. But this is all a delusion. She is not healthy. She never will be and you will never have the wife or the marriage you dream of. If your counselor’s diagnosis is correct, that’s the hard truth of it.

Knowing this, why would you ever let her have access to the finances again? She seems to be very consistent in her behavior, so knowing what is coming should be nothing new to you. Why do you let her have access? It seems to me there is another consistent pattern – your behavior. Your level of denial seems to be very high. What is it that keeps you from seeing the truth?

You mentioned that you had a good childhood, no major issues. I am beginning to wonder if that is true. It would fit your pattern of denial. Perhaps you should take a hard look at your FOO with your counselor and come to terms with what you are running from. Once you do that, I think you will be able to better accept your situation and how to best deal with it.

Cobra,

Nope. You’re flat out wrong on this one. You’ve hit a lot closer to the mark than I care to admit with some of the things you’ve said, but this time you’re wrong. This is another one like the A. As I said before, there was some very specific reason why I let her get access to our finances again. I can’t remember what it was though, and that’s really frustrating. I do remember that there was some reason that I was unable to be there to physically write checks and pay bills, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

The consistent pattern you see in me is not denial, it’s the same old reluctance to take the actions that need to be taken. I needed her to take the finances for a little while and I hoped that she would have learned something in the interim. It didn’t take long to see that nothing had changed, but for some reason, I was still reluctant to bar her access again. I honestly can’t tell you why I was/am so reluctant, but it’s NOT any kind of denial. I know what’s happening and I know what needs to be done. I’m not denying anything and I’m not deluding myself. The only thing that remotely resembles denial is that I keep hoping that W will see the light. She should remember the bankruptcy. She should remember its effects. I keep thinking/hoping that she’ll see that we’re heading there again and will reign in her spending. Realistically, I know that’s not going to happen, but I keep giving her that one last chance.

V-Bube

V-Bube,

I can really sympathize with you, but isn't all that a form of denial? Though you have good reasons to do what you do, the fact that you have held you and your daughters in a kind of limbo for so long says something. Isn’t reluctance to take necessary actions ultimately a form of denial? Maybe the terminology is in the way.

The bottom line I guess is that you are holding yourself back. Again, I can understand the fear of abandonment in such drastic actions, but what you don’t know is if such action could actually make things better. Drawing such hard lines is counter to everything else on these boards. But an NPD does not fit the mold that allows all the other advice to work. So taking such a hard stand against your wife would seem scary.

I mentioned before that the two of you seem to be very enmeshed. I still believe that (your girls are also enmeshed). The bond between you seems to be very strong. Cutting this linkage feels like a threat to you, which may be why you prefer to hope she will instead “get it” and save you the agony of cutting off your own support system.

But you are about as low as you can get in your marriage. How much worse would a complete split be, as the true bottom point (I know you are not considering this, but speaking hypothetically)? How do you and your counselor see the risk/reward trade off?

From where I stand, I think a split or divorce would actually be a load off your shoulders. So what you fear as another drop in your happiness could actually be a step up. I think you may be in the worst possible state right now.

But V-Bube, there is more here that keeps nagging at me and I’m having a little trouble putting my finger on it. I keep thinking back to my dad. He is a very easy going person, non-confrontational, non-assertive, but very subconsciously passive-aggressive. If I speak to him about some of the things he does, he seems willing to own up to them, yet down under all this is a very quite, but stubborn streak. He holds very tightly to his beliefs and has some trouble opening his blinders to other points of view. I feel you holding on tightly to something to.

BTW, what did I hit close on? Care to discuss it any further?

bube wrote

Quote:

---

I’m just guessing here, but I would estimate about a 30% chance that she’ll choose to leave

---

I predict that she will NEVER leave, but she will threaten to leave often. I predict that she will say these words over and over again: "Do YOU want me to leave?" And no matter how you answer that question, she will not leave. AND if she does leave for a short time, she wiill not stay away.

Look at it from her POV? From her POV, how would the quality of her life improve one little bit if she moved into some little apartment? What would she use for money? How could she afford to keep the dogs? What would she have to gain by leaving? Also, as you pointed out, she has nowhere to go.

Lil,
You're hit the nail on the head!!!! Not just for the reasons you've stated, but also because she would have no power over anyone else if she were to leave. Most others would tell her to "buzz off" if she behaved in her usual fashion with them.

Sorry Bube, but if you want her to leave, you'll have to force her out and probably get a restraining order to keep her out!!!! This...I know you won't do.

V Bube.

My heart goes out to you as you try and figure all of this out. I see your reasoning for not wanting to turn into an chaperone or watchdog over your W. It will build resentment within you both and kill your own desperate wish to be equal happy, loving partners in life...the dreaded Parent-Child R.

And that is not what joining together within an M is all about.

There is a huge power imbalance and she is running roughshod.

Have to agree with Lil and qoe100 VB.

This sounds like a dance the 2 of you have been doing for a very long time now. Gotta stop what hasn't, isn't working. Soon. It will feel terrifying but you have to do a serious 180 to abruptly cut off her power mongering.

Have to face any fear of abandonment. Were you your own M before you met her? Could you be your own M if she were to vanish into the ether? Of course you were. Of course you could. Does your W or your family define you as an man? Of course not. Are you your own person in charge of your own life if you found yourself the sole survivor of a plane crash? Yes.

When push comes to shove and all hell breaks loose we are ultimately responsible for ourselves first and foremost. Survival. The drive to survive. And we do not need permission nor direction from ANYONE.

Like being instructed to put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others. Self needs to protect self first.

Your self has given all of your power in this manner over to her. IMO she is not worthy of keeping it. She is being a tyrant. And what is the rule of tyrants? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Take back your power. She is corrupt from it.

She starts on a tirade? "Stop IT! Right now! Sit Down!" Followed by walking over to her as she's sitting, staring very seriously into her eyes and saying basically,

"This is our home. A home is a place for calm, retreat, and love. I will not allow your anger and constant self-obsessive tirades to tear this family apart. Do you understand me? If you don't, I want you to get your stuff right now, pack up your bags, and take your negativity someplace else. This whole family is sick of your sht and it's going to stop right now. I've had it. This whole family has had it. It has gone on for far too long and it's coming to an end once and for all."

And the fear of religious belief systems...of a broken family...of keeping the nuclear family together at all costs because "it's the right thing to do" as shown by some "example." Gotta lose or shelve it. You don't fit the normal Biblical model anymore.

When it reaches a point where it is actually permanently damanging to everyone involved it is not healthy. It is akin to euthanising your family. It is akin to willingly engaging in a pyrrhic victory, where you eventually win (keep the family together) but the death toll to the soldiers on all sides is practically 99 percent. A hollow victory to say the least.

Gotta hit the reset button. Gotta stop the madness.

Solution? Fear dropping. Cage rattling. See how you became wise to her threats to leave? She came back. She reneged on her threat/action and came back. As a result, you don't respect her insofarr as she tries to do it again.

Do you see that is how she views you as well? She does not respect you just as you are not respecting her right now because she left and came back like nothing happened. Except in your case, you probably threatened or made not so strong boundaries and caved (ie her coming back) every single time over the years. Big long deep pattern.

She is essentially laughing at your boundaries...and that IMO is not respectful. And when OP (don't care if it's your W or the mailman) disrespect us, we each have to stand up for ourselves and demand respect be shown--to hell with the consequences.

The willingness to risk losing everything in order to stand up for ourselves is the very thing that generates the most respect in ourselves and OP who are disrespecting us in turn.

And why I'm agreeing your W won't permanently leave? The dance. She's used to you placating, smoothing over her path of destruction.

It's called narcissistic supply and you provide that for her. No one else will. And it's what sustains her and will keep her coming back for it.

So what do you want to do?

Tell her to leav (she will not leave for long IMO as she has already caved on this boundary)

Destroy your entire family through strife and misery--while keeping it together to force it into your perceived framework of "normalcy." (way beyond that)

Or take the Ds and leave. (again, she will probably pursue)

Trust me. IMO somewhere deep down inside your W she knows that not very many people, if any at all, would be willing to put up with her PITA behavior.

I know you're gaining strenght, VB. Don't lose your self-respect in the process of trying to force the square peg of your dysfunctional family into the round hole of the model of a normal nuclear family. It's endless head-against-wall beating and tunnels and tunnels of no cheese.

If you're religious, your Lord will help you to lose the worry. Turn it over to him. Don't ask. Just thank him for guiding you to make the right decisions. It's why it's the number one concept in terms of Biblical messages:

Faith.

And it goes hand in hand with faith in yourself.

-Stigmata-

There’s a lot of truth in all of your words, but I’m still sticking with the 30% chance that she’ll leave. There’s something all of you are leaving out of the NPD equation: narcissists demand absolute, unquestioning loyalty. While she did back down from leaving, please remember that I told her repeatedly that I did not want her to leave. The girls told her the same thing.

We still haven’t talked about it, but I have no doubt that in W’s mind something completely different happened. In her mind, she did something maybe a tiny bit over the line. I way over-reacted and told her to get out. We know that’s not true, but as many times as I heard her say that I told her to get out, I have no doubt at all that that’s how she sees it. She began making moves toward leaving, and all of us told her that we didn’t want her to go. Reality is that we were trying to make it clear that she was not being kicked out, but simply given the choice of changing her behavior or leaving. And she was choosing to leave. But in her mind, something completely different happened. In her mind, she started making plans to leave and we all backed down from our hard line and told her that we didn’t want her to go. Her willingness to leave brought us all back into line. That’s why I still believe that there’s a significant chance that she’ll leave. Granted, she may come back when she sees that we don’t come chasing after her with our collective tails between our legs, but I still think there’s a good chance that she’ll leave.

Another thing that hasn’t come up yet is the possibility that W could move back home to Indiana. Her mother just thrives on this kind of thing. She’s a professional doormat and just loves to be needed. She also seems to take great delight in bashing the spouses and ex-spouses of her kids. BIL is a complete loser. Lazy, worthless, druggie, chronically unemployed, ex-con, you name it. His W left him years ago, but MIL never misses an opportunity to tell anybody and everybody how bad his W was. BIL has never taken a wrong step in his life – it’s all his ex. She even worked out some fantasy where his XW was at fault when BIL got caught with the crystal meth and sent to prison. She would welcome W with open arms and do nothing but heap reinforcement on the idea that everything was my fault. And let’s not forget that they live on a farm with plenty of room for all of W’s animals

Just the same, I’m not afraid of that any more. If she leaves, she leaves. We’ll manage just fine. In fact, I’m kind of looking forward to the next confrontation. I just can’t decide if I want to start it myself or just wait for her. That shouldn’t take very long anyway, so I may not need to decide.

That last statement sounds like I’ve fallen into the old pattern again doesn’t it? The real issue that’s kept me from pressing things while I have the advantage is the NPD diagnosis. I keep waffling on whether to tell her about it or not. The C said no, and I have to assume that he had reasons for saying that. I, OTOH, see a lot of potential benefits to telling her. I’m just wondering if I’ve missed something. I guess I just need to ask him if he’s really against telling her or if he just figured I wouldn’t have the huevos to tell her anyway and was just making it easy for me. I suppose I should just ask him.

Well, I’m off to Microsoft for another SQL Server 2005 class. Talk to all of you next week.

V-Bube

V-Bube,

There’s something all of you are leaving out of the NPD equation: narcissists demand absolute, unquestioning loyalty. While she did back down from leaving, please remember that I told her repeatedly that I did not want her to leave. The girls told her the same thing.

I don’t understand what you are saying here. You acknowledge the source of her power. Then you sabotage exactly what you need to do to cut off that power. WTH?

We still haven’t talked about it, but I have no doubt that in W’s mind something completely different happened. In her mind, she did something maybe a tiny bit over the line.

No, in her mind she knows exactly how big a thing she did. She knows it was not tiny. She just denies the truth.

I way over-reacted and told her to get out.

Why do you think this is an over-reaction? Do you think you and your daughters are deserving of her treatment, but this one time was a little too much? If she can just work on the intensity of her abuse to a level you can tolerate the rest of your life… Again, WTH?

Reality is that we were trying to make it clear that she was not being kicked out, but simply given the choice of changing her behavior or leaving. And she was choosing to leave.

No, the reality is you were doing this to avoid your fears. To divert the argument onto her is your denial. You MUST be truthful in all matters to cut off her power source. You are still doing the dance with this statement.

Her willingness to leave brought us all back into line.

Again, another example of how you let others control your life. Be truthful. She did nothing to “bring you into line.” You did that to yourself. You have made some passing comments to your anger and how you react when your wife reacts. Your anger and frustration comes from this example here. You are mad at your own weakness, but you project your actions as being control by your wife. Own your stuff. Stop blaming her for your actions. This is your weakness that creates a void into which she can step. If it were not your wife, it would be someone else. This part is about you, not her.


Her mother just thrives on this kind of thing. She’s a professional doormat and just loves to be needed. She also seems to take great delight in bashing the spouses and ex-spouses of her kids.

The real issue that’s kept me from pressing things while I have the advantage is the NPD diagnosis. I keep waffling on whether to tell her about it or not.

Her mother does not sound like a doormat to me at all, but a professional narcissist who is the source of your mother’s problems. If this is true, there actually may be a chance for you. Children of narcissists become so intoxicated by their parent that they pick up the same toxic behavior. But while a true narcissist may have there problems rooted in genetic, biological problems, the children may only be a victim of poor modeling (unless they have the same genetic, biological issues).

Let her go home to her mother. Chances are there will be nothing but fights there. What you need to do is change your tactics. Instead of confronting your wife as the narcissist, let her know you think her mother is one. Your wife will see the intrusion her mother makes into her world, but won’t connect her own behavior to it. As she confronts her mother, she will cut off one of her bases of power. The contradictions in how she sees her mother and how she falsely sees herself will start to bubble to the surface. See what your counselor says about this strategy.

The C said no, and I have to assume that he had reasons for saying that.

You say you are paying this man. He works for you. If he makes a statement like this, of course you should ask him why. Anything and everything he tells you is for your benefit and education. Don’t bury your head in the sand with your counselor too. If you cannot confront him, no wonder you can confront your wife.

Come on V-Bube, you CAN do it.