Aw, Ken, it literally makes me cry to see you go. I could not have gotten through this without you. Without all of you. This is still a journey, but I feel like I'm finally on the other side of the hill.
These past two weeks have been rough for H. I noted in my post on the other board that his parents have been crappy again. Now it's ramped up from crappy to full out batsh!t crazy. It's been hard to watch.
I've never really gone into his family's dysfunctional history full out, and it's really too long to explain, but long story short, for years his parents used H as their personal piggy bank. They basically manipulated him into giving them ridiculous amounts of money, and then after 3 years of it, H put his foot down and cut off contact. That's all you really have to know for this story.
We went to MC and talked about it. The therapist agreed with my diagnosis of a major personality disorder, most likely narcissistic personality disorder. I had a prof in grad school say a NPD patient he had once was by far the scariest person he's ever worked with. I would believe it. I felt like it was good for the T to be extremely straight forward with H about what to expect from his family, which in this case, is nothing. Expect them to be continually disappointing, continually selfish, continually frustrating. I did as much research on the topic as possible and the general consensus seems to be: Run. Run away. As fast and as far as we can.
We went to their Christmas for the first time in 4 years. It seemed pleasant enough on the surface, and then I noticed H and FIL had disappeared. Eventually BIL also went into the room where they had disappeared to. 2 hours later, they all emerge, looking red eyed. During a brief moment during that stint, BIL's wife checks in and assures me everything is fine. I chose to keep my distance. After we got in the car, I asked H how everything was.
H: Fine. M: Yeah? H: Yeah. Did you have a good time? M: Yeah, I suppose. I guess it went pretty well. So um, why are your eyes all red? :::this is where I think that maybe they've had some emotional break through, thinking I'm going to hear "we really talked about some good stuff" or something to that effect:::: H: I.... um.... (starts to sob)... I've been duped again. M: What? H: I'm so stupid! I've been duped again! M: What?! What are you talking about? Why are you so upset? What happened?! H: My dad confronted me about stopping payment with them all those years ago, locked me in the room and shoved me against the wall and got in my face. M: WHAT?! H: They don't care about me. They just want money. M: But why was your brother there? H: He came in trying to poke his nose into it like he always does, and then I found out he told dad everything we talked about this morning.
Oh yes, he and brother had a long heart to heart this morning where the objective was to put it "all in the past" and "move forward". Which apparently he just used the information to go to the parents.
I just watched him fall apart. He said he's seriously considering a restraining order. He said that he brought up the fact that we've done just fine the past 4 years without them, it won't be hard to do it again.
Of course then they got even more angry because they want our D to be in their lives.
Um, if they're going to be like this, I don't want them around my D. I don't give a damn what their relation is to her. If they're going to be dishonest, narcissistic, violent a-holes, she won't miss them. I didn't want them around her to begin with because of this same pattern of behavior. What 60 year old man shoves his own son in an attempt to bully him? An idiot, that's who.
Why, why did H open this can of worms. I mean, in my mind, I know why. He hoped they would get their sh!t together. But I knew/know better. That's why I'm glad the T laid it all out for him. They will most likely never change. They lost a son and a DIL, had a scare with cancer, and watched another neglected son die, and they still are the same.
