What does your counselor advise as a way to deal with this? There are books out there on how to deal with a narcissistic spouse. Everything you’re saying here seems consistent with how I understand they behave. We all have some of this behavior. My wife and even I both do some of this. The problem you have is the degree. It seems your wife is off the scale, making her narcissistic, rather than just having some of those tendencies.
Nevertheless, since you have decided to stay with her, what can you do to set up stronger boundaries? I know this will cause her to explode, but once you call out a narcissist’s bluff, they won’t test you on that particular thing any more. They may move on to something else, but you can put that particular item out of the way. Over time, you can reign them in somewhat.
It is a hard, tough road, and I’ve had to deal with it myself. In some ways, the behavior of a narcissist is nothing more than a lack of boundaries, which I see as similar to many other people. The only thing is that the narcissist cannot or will not accept responsibility for what s/he does. Getting them to recognize that they are even doing this is the task. Reading books, hearing the consistent opinion of others and the counselor, may slowly break through this realization. It’s not easy, but if you’re going to stay with her, I sure wouldn’t hesitate starting to lay down some strong boundaries.
A lot of what Mrs NOP is saying is exactly what my counselor told me. It resulted in more fights, a lot of anger on both our parts and me becoming more verbally abusive in order to counteract her. Perhaps you can do it better than I. I did know have the support and advice of this board at that time. But things have gotten better. My W knows to hold her tongue a little more. Knowing that others are judging her has an affect.
You keeping the outward appearance the all is perfect perpetuates her control. I think you should let her know that you have no intention of hiding what is going on. If she doesn’t like it, then she needs to change, not you. Narcissists live on the adoration of others. Right now you are enabling.
And I don’t care what everyone else says about this, it is a power struggle, plain and simple. You need to get some of that power back to level the playing field. With narcissistic/abusive people, the more you give they more that take. So stop giving ground. That’s my take.
