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.
