Wading through v. 2.0

[Coconut]

So I'd love him back healthy and having dealt with his struggles with women (which came from his dysfunction mother, who seems to be a narcissist and made him into her emotional partner)

cadence, I would love to get your thoughts on this as one of my biggest issues in my M was that my W did this with my son, or at least I believed it to be so, and would love to understand it further. But to not take over your thread, discuss it on my thread. i'll put some information on my particular scenario in my sitch soon.

I started noticing it from little things, like when I wanted to go out to eat, I would ask her if she wanted to go to X restaurant, she would she doesn’t care, then ask S if he wanted to go and he would say no, she’d ask him where he wanted to go then say let’s go there. It wasn’t long before I started to realize that it wasn’t just every now and then, it was almost every time I would suggest going out, unless son did want to go there.

Then there were times we would be out doing things with family, and for whatever reason split up into different groups, and W would go wherever S went. There were times that I would tell her that I would like her to come with me and sometimes she would, but there would be attitude that came along too.

If out at a movie with W and S, she would generally sit in the middle and she would consistently lean towards him and make comments about the movie, and when I would make one to her she would just lean to son and say it to him.

I know these are little things, but I’m having a hard time explaining how/why I began to feel that my wife was more emotionally connected to my S than to me. There were several times that I sat her down and explained to her that I felt she was putting love for son ahead of me and that it was very frustrating to me… That I loved son too, but I didn’t think she should focus on him to the point it was to my detriment. And these conversations were during good times of our M, I didn’t feel neglected in our M as a whole, but I felt it when doing things with son (like his desires were more important than mine, or even hers).

Towards the end of our M (when things got complacent in M), I actually said to her that I guess I just have to wait until son goes away to college to get my W back, because by that time I just couldn’t compete with him for her attention… Nothing against my son, he wasn't competing with me, most of the time he wouldn’t even like all the attention she would give him, but I feel like she had used him as her emotional partner.

Is turning children into emotional partners a thing? Is there a name for it, or any resources that you would know of that I could read into it? I realize my examples are weak and not so unnormal, but I DO know that I felt like my W was emotionally attached to my S and not me.. and not sure if it's pertinent, but I strongly believe she's Narcissistic, she turns everything about her, even my sons diabetes.