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?
You may have a point with this one. But as I’ve said multiple times, my thinking was that I needed to make it clear to her that she had a choice – change her behavior or get out. I was not kicking her out, but forcing her to make the decision.
No, in her mind she knows exactly how big a thing she did. She knows it was not tiny. She just denies the truth.
Bzzzzz. In her mind she did nothing wrong.
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?
No, no, no, no, no. You completely misunderstood what I was saying. I didn’t say that I thought I over-reacted; I said that in her mind I over-reacted. If anything, I think I under-reacted.
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.
Wrong again. There were no fears to avoid. How many times have I said that – the biggest thing that surprised me in this entire thing is that I wasn’t afraid of her leaving. D18 without having heard the convo/fight or consulting with me, told W almost exactly what I did. Are you trying to force your denial theory onto her too? I was not afraid, and I was/am not in denial. As I have related several times in this thread, W was saying to me and to others (in convos that I overheard or that were repeated to me) that I was kicking her out. I was not being anything less than completely honest. I was just trying to clarify that I was NOT kicking her out. I told her the rules and told her that if she found them unacceptable, she was free to leave. More correctly, I told her, “You know where the door is.”
Be truthful. She did nothing to “bring you into line.” You did that to yourself.
You misunderstand yet again. This was not my thoughts, but my relating of hers. W threatened to leave. I stood my ground. I told her that I didn’t want her to leave, but I did not back down on anything I said to her. But W told her friend that, “things are a lot better.” From that statement, I inferred that she thought I had done or was doing something different.
Her mother does not sound like a doormat to me at all, but a professional narcissist... Instead of confronting your wife as the narcissist, let her know you think her mother is one… See what your counselor says about this strategy.
That sounds amazingly like what I’ve been saying. W developed NPD in an extremely dysfunctional FOO. And last time I said that I was going to ask the C about telling W about the NPD diagnosis, you jumped on me for letting him run my life instead of standing up for myself, making my own decisions, and letting the chips fall where they may.
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.
How do you come up with this crap???? How do you come to this crazy idea that my head is in the sand or that I’m afraid to confront the C? What have I ever said to give you such a warped perception? I asked the C if W knew about this diagnosis. He said no. I asked if I should tell her and he said no, it wouldn’t do any good. So it didn’t occur to me at that particular moment to question him further about why he felt that way. How exactly does that make me in denial or afraid to confront the C? I don’t get it. You want my opinion? I think you came up with this denial thing and are bound and determined to make it stick no matter how much you have to stretch and distort the circumstances to make it fit.
Enjoy your SQL server class, bube. Sheesh. Lot of nerds populating these boards.
Wanted to add to Cobra's comments. Why are you placing a strange percentage on the chances she will leave? You don't know the outcome. Don't set yourself up with guessing.
if you want to think of it in these terms then just say it's 50-50 and you don't care either way as long as it's a step in a positive direction for the family.
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.
- Why are you thinking about what's going on in her mind? Won't help. Not even with an pocket MRI. Her thoughts are her issues. It's how she externalizes her thoughts that directly affect you and your children. And negative externalizations must have consequences for her.
And, yes, as cobra mentioned, the self-accountability part of her brain is telling her the magnitude of her actions but her defensive "I'm always right" narcissistic drive throws up illogical defenses to protect herself from an "negative" or "wrong" realization of herself. Can't smudge her rose-colored glasses. Won't let her. So, yes, your Bzzzt, comment is right. She is totally justified in her head consciously; just not subconsciously.
How can you tell? Her abuse/rage/anger. Inner conflict when this happens. Angry people are angry because they hate themselves for some reason or other; anger/hatred over others/others' behavior is just a symptom/effect. If 5 people are telling her she's crazy or wrong then her brain is not going to just overlook this and stay the course. The brain is going to be bothered by it and afraid maybe they are right.
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.
- The reality is actually you were again giving all of your family's power over to her again. You do not have power, though it may seem like it (ie, "giving her a choice). It's like a judge saying he has power over a criminal by saying "You have two choices. You can either go to jail. Or you can go free."
Your W has the choice thus has the power again. If it reaches this point again? No choices from family. Just this:
"Get out."
[edited out the "in line" comment from you. Her POV. Misunderstood from cobra's post.]
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.
- Why do you care what your MIL thinks? This is your reality. Not your MIL's/in-laws. They have their reality. What other people think of us is none of our business. It is not for us to guess, explore, or project as to our own self-worth.
If you cut a guy off in traffic by accident and he thinks you are probably a criminal, wife beater, and self-absorbed ba$tard from your actions...who cares? F him and what he thinks. It was an accident. You are a good person.
And remember this too. About what the in-laws and all of the rest of people in Indiana think about you. See what you're doing again? You're even giving your power away to people who don't really matter in your life. F them. Some people will like us, some will hate us no matter what we do. Just a fact of life and we accept it.
And if you still have problems thinking about being bad-mouthed. Your own children are on your side during this. They agree with you. What does that say about a person/people who would, through your kids' association to you, also bad-mouth children and blame them for your W's behavior? Are your children wrong? I think not.
personally I wouldn't want to be around OP like that. let them all live together in their cess pit in Indiana and suck off each other's negativity. Keep your stench fumes away from my world please.
Finally, only guessing here. Why your C is not telling you to divulge NPD. If your W has these defensived walls built up so high as to minimize her damage to the family during every negative interaction then the same will likely happen with being told of her NPD.
From what I've read about this trait, they will think you're crazy and grasping at straws because you're a flawed person and clouded with your own insecurity. As in perhaps no one can tell them what they are/are not; only they can do this.
Only they can organically come/not come to this realization/understanding, without input from the rest of the "obviously wrong/stupid" world.
You've been on a long, hard dusty road, friend. If you want status quo then continue to do damage control and placation of your W's bad behaviors...more containment than prevention essentially.
But if you want it to either stop or start to improve then you need to confront her with her bahavior, back up your observations with your own childrens observations, set an iron-walled "no wiggle room" boundary/condition, and be prepared for the consequences.
It might end your R but IMO she will eventually have great respect for you; for standing up for yourself and your children. IMO she does not respect you currently. And from what I've learned, Fs are not attracted to Ms they don't respect or Ms who let Fs walk all over them.
Sure they "like" them like a harmless girlfriend. But they don't "love/lust" for them and, as the song goes, R-E-S-P-E-C-T them as a man of strength.
And you have a great assurance otherwise as well. Your own children are on your side in all of this. That's huge. Children usually don't have selfish agendas. They just want to grow up in a fun and happy home. Teens have enough to deal with at school, with friends, etc. and trying to deal with their own maturation, hormones, and understanding of human interaction. Home should be a refuge for them. To have a room to retreat into. To daydream about boys/girls, to listen to music...and to rest up to prepare for more interactions on the outside world the next day.
Allowing them to also have to deal with chaos and abuse at home is irreparably stunting/damaging the one shot they have at growing up into a fully realized man/woman without all of the later FOO issues.
Hang in there, Bube. Get your power back. Be da man and the head of your household and refuse to tolerate anything that will turn your home into an torture chamber.
-Stigmata-
Last edited by Stigmata; 03/24/0606:39 PM.
The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is the warrior views everything as a challenge; the ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-Yaqui shaman Don Juan-
...and that holds 2x true for nice guy wussies, DJ
This is said with much love......you are still trying to use reason where reason doesn't exist...STOP IT ALREADY! This statement shows to me that you are still trying to reason with her....("my thinking was that I needed to make it clear to her that she had a choice – change her behavior or get out.") You can make it as clear as you feel reasonably possible Bube.....she will continue to hear the same thing. I guess what I'm saying is this.....you've got to remember, she will not receive "reason" the same way you would......EVER. Perhaps you were just recounting what you were thinking, and having to re-hash it. If so, just beware of this type of thinking and remember....reason won't work.
I don't have issue with anything else in your post you wrote. I felt Cobra was misinterperting some things as well....but then hey, I do that too. I only bring up my statement above because this is something I do see you continuing to do. As someone with NPD, I agree....she thinks YOU and the girls are in the wrong, no matter what you say. Although, I do think....if her mother will nurture her NPD, she could be likely to run to her. I think she'll make a show of it a few times though before she does that....to reinforce in her mind that she's being bullied and thrown out.
I do see that you are gettin to that stage though where you are going to be able to take true action where she's concerned. It's a stage I find that most people have to get to in their own time, especially where abuse, fear, doubt and conditioning play a large role.....just as it has with you. Bube, I see you as an abused husband....I truly do....I say that with love. There are many husbands out there who put up with emotional abuse from their W's for years and never do anything about it. It's just as damaging as the abuse you hear discussed where women are concerned but with men...it's not discussed much. My 1st H was severely mentally abusive...so I know first hand it's a tough hurdle to overcome to get to that place where you are finally prepared to take action, rather than fearing the possible consequences. It's just another form of "my give a damn's busted". I see you are right on the threshhold of taking the action to make things better....you are finally to the point of......"how can it make it worse?" I found that's where I had to get before I could "DO" what I needed to in order to finally change my situation.
You're reaching the place where your blinders are coming off towards her behavior. Things are becoming clearer to you now.....along with that comes the resolve to finally do what you need to do.
You are getting there Bube, just stop trying to reason with her. I still do think it's a good idea to inform her of her diagnosed "condition"....so that she's aware you do view her differently now....but don't expect it to go over well
Believe it or not, I am actually happy to hear your reaction. It is a sign of backbone, but note what it took to bring it out (I was not trying to bait you, so don’t get the wrong idea). I may have misunderstood your comments too, but that is because I hear you saying one thing but doing another. Your comment about “There’s something all of you are leaving out of the NPD equation: ….” I what really got me on that line of thought.
Bzzzzz. In her mind she did nothing wrong.
I disagree. When you confront her on this, she will surely get angry for you challenging her actions. She is really responding in anger to your audacity of making her confront her hurtful actions, instead of staying quiet and justifying those actions with her. So she DOES know that she did something wrong. As evidence of this, try confronting her on something she really did not do or knows anything about. What is her reaction then? I bet she does not blow up or get angry because she has no guilt to react to. You give her too many excuses. She is more cunning and calculating than you give her credit.
I said that in her mind I over-reacted. If anything, I think I under-reacted.
Glad to hear you think you under-reacted
As I have related several times in this thread, W was saying to me and to others (in convos that I overheard or that were repeated to me) that I was kicking her out. I was not being anything less than completely honest. I was just trying to clarify that I was NOT kicking her out. I told her the rules and told her that if she found them unacceptable, she was free to leave. More correctly, I told her, “You know where the door is.”
I understood that you are not afraid of her leaving. I was not clear in my statement, since I see it sounds like your fear of leaving. The fear I was referring to is that of confronting her and standing up to her. Saying “You know where the door is” is a lot different from “GET OUT NOW!” In the first phrase, you do not take responsibility. You leave it up to her to decide, then you have to figure out how to react. This continually keeps you off balance. Telling her in no uncertain terms to get out plants your position firmly in the ground. It makes YOU take a stand. When you do this, you are accountable and now something to be reckoned with. Your avoiding this accountability is the fear I should have been clearer in explaining.
W threatened to leave. I stood my ground. I told her that I didn’t want her to leave, but I did not back down on anything I said to her.
I know you feel you stood your ground because you did not beg her to stay. For you, that is a major shift. But to her, you only moved into neutral ground, as I just explained. NPDs distort the truth. She still hears in your statement that you backed down, because you did not directly confront her. To her, anything less than “GET OUT NOW!” is not a confrontation.
But W told her friend that, “things are a lot better.” From that statement, I inferred that she thought I had done or was doing something different.
Or she could have thought that she got you to fall back in line…
And last time I said that I was going to ask the C about telling W about the NPD diagnosis, you jumped on me for letting him run my life instead of standing up for myself, making my own decisions, and letting the chips fall where they may.
I still believe you need to confront her, based on the diagnosis of your counselor. But I also know counselors are not God. If you want an alternate method of confronting your wife, I was suggesting that you use a splitting tactic, like kids use with their parents. Split off her sources of power. This is assuming she is not a hopeless NPD case, but someone who could be rehabilitated, or at least to some extent. But either way, you need to confront her.
To do that, your need to assume as much power, responsibility and accountability for yourself as you can, if your actions are to carry any weight. She needs to know that YOU want her out and that you are not following the direction of someone else. If she suspects the later, the first thought in her mind will be that she only needs to work a little harder to brainwash and manipulate you back into her camp. After all, someone else did just that, right? If she knows your decision is from within you, she may realize her attempts will be useless. Do you understand my point? This is very subtle, and almost irrelevant for most of us. But it is central to how an NPD thinks. They are extremely sensitive to any openings in your armor through which they can manipulate. You need to close all holes.
Lastly, take a good look at your last paragraph. I’m not going to debate the content, as I stand by my comments. I am glad to see you get angry, but it seems to me like you finally blew up because you felt like I got you into a corner and was falsely accusing you. That would make anyone mad. I react that way too. But it is wrong. Strong boundaries keep others in their place before they get too much in your face and you feel compelled to react so strongly. It’s a hard lesson for me.
The other thing I get out of your reaction is a certain sense of loyalty and dependency on your counselor. When I challenge this, you get angry. Why? This is a good example of enmeshment. You are too closely tied to him for affirmation, just as you are tied to your wife. Your move to “neutral ground” is a means of protecting her and maintaining the comfort of dependency you grew up with. This is not your fault. It is all you have known. But it is your problem. This is not a conspiracy theory on denial I am trying to force fit. But it is there in soooo many ways, just under the surface. You need to lift the veil.
I give up. I also stand by my last post. You have your mind set on your interpretation of what’s going on and you refuse to budge regardless of the facts.
Regardless of what you may think, W does not feel in her heart of hearts that she did anything wrong. I have confronted her on things she did not do. She DID blow up. In fact, probably more than she did this time when she was guilty. So your theory simply doesn’t hold up.
Telling her that I’m not kicking her out is NOT backing down. Neither is it neutral ground. I gave W firm boundaries. There were only two, but they weren’t negotiable. I told her that she could abide by those boundaries or leave. That is NOT backing down. She tried to twist it to me kicking her out and again, I did NOT back down. I told her, no I’m not kicking you out, I’m giving you the option of following the rules or getting out – your choice. I do agree that such a statement is milder than saying, “get out” but try as I might, I can’t see how it is backing down.
How do come up with this idea that W thinks I “fell back in line”? As I’ve said many times, I gave her an ultimatum and I have not ever even hinted that I am backing off from that position. As Stig so eloquently said, I don’t really know what’s going on in her head. All I can tell you is that the line was drawn in the sand and she hasn’t crossed it. If W thinks that means I’ve fallen back into line, so be it. (see Stig, I was listening.)
The C is yet another issue where you’ve been contradicting yourself and have conveniently ignored my questions. You badmouthed me for depending too much on the C and told me to make my own decisions without him. Then you told me I should discuss your strategy for disclosing the diagnosis with him. And now you’re back to telling me that I’m too enmeshed with the C. You can’t have it both ways. YOU give me conflicting advice and tell me I’m a coward for not following it. D@mned if I do and d@mned if I don’t.
And let me address the whole enmeshment thing. Again, wrong. Yes, I am loyal to the C. I’ve told you before that every time I’ve tested him, he’s been right. Why do I get angry when you question that loyalty? I don’t. I get angry when I get frustrated about repeatedly answering the same things over and over and over. Enmeshment??? You’re nuts. How can I be so enmeshed with a guy I’ve seen maybe a dozen times in the past 10 years? I’ve only seen him once and traded emails three times since the one-time visit where he told me about the NPD. That hardly sounds enmeshed to me. Once again, you’re coming up with some off the wall theory without adequate facts and just insisting that you’re correct. Sorry. You’re not.
Stig,
The only real correction I have to what you said is that I don’t care what my in-laws think. I wrote them off years ago. I was just telling about them and how the think in order to clarify that W does have somewhere else to go for her narcissistic supply.
And GEL, you’re right of course. I’ll try to remember to stop trying to use logic. It’s hard though – it’s just the way I am.
Just wanted to throw in you're being a real mensch for standing up to the bright interrogation light that this forum often projects. Way to hang.
Staggering back to our corner after a few head and body shots is why I'm here too. No one has to be friends. I don't pull punches in the ring and I expect the same from others. Blunt candor from virtual people in cyberspace. I find people in RL try and sugar coat things a little too much IMO.
And I support your assertion that you aren't backing down. Yes, you have set a boundary; an intermediate boundary, but a boundary all the same. This thing has been fermenting for years so it's understandably tough to work up to the hard boundary level where you really need to be.
You gave her 2 choices. Follow the rules or voluntarily leave. No, you're not kicking her out.
This is stage One. The drawn line. And a boundary.
Stage 2 breakdown?
A. She follows the rules and maintains household sanity and respect. She respected your boundary. Good.
B. She continues her behavior. She chose the second path. By agreeing to your terms she is essentially saying, "okay, since I did not follow the rules then I agree to voluntarily leave." She has made her decision. And I would not long after that look at her and say:
"Well? Are you leaving? I don't see you packing."
If she argues or tries to twist your words?
"I did not want to throw you out on your a$$ so I gave you 2 choices. Stay and act like a normal human being or don't act like a normal human being and leave of your own volition. You agreed to these terms. You chose not to act like a normal human being so leaving is your decision and I expect you to start packing.
So you can either voluntarily leave as you agreed you would or I can make you leave. These are your 2 choices now. Either way you're leaving."
Sounds harsh but it's stage 2 of your Stage 1 intermediate boundary (which was, again, follow the rules or 'voluntarily' leave).
Stage 2 is the rock solid boundary and the one that cannot be undermined or retracted. It's all that's left between her respecting your strength and power or disrespecting you as just another door mat she can push around with his flimsy paper boundaries. (not a slam on you VB; your stronger than that lately; let's say your boundaries are now wooden at this point )
...but that big black iron wall is on the horizon and you are about to make her well aware of its existence if she chooses to not follow stage 1 or, now, stage 2.
-Stigmata-
The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is the warrior views everything as a challenge; the ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-Yaqui shaman Don Juan-
...and that holds 2x true for nice guy wussies, DJ
OK, I will back off the enmeshment with the counselor thing. I had no idea you had seen him so infrequently. I was under the impression you were doing regular counseling sessions on the order of once every other week or so. A dozen times in 10 years is not much. Did she see him more frequently in the beginning?
I gave W firm boundaries. There were only two, but they weren’t negotiable. I told her that she could abide by those boundaries or leave.
On your opening post you said
I finally told her that if she didn’t like it, she knew where the door was. and She asked me if this weekend would be soon enough. All I said was, “I don’t want you to leave.”
To me, that is moving onto neutral ground. If you were to do as you say in your last post and offer two boundary choices, then I would agree with you. You would not have backed down. But I don’t think that is what she heard in this situation. She heard you clearly say that you don’t want her to leave. That took a lot of the wind out of your sails. It still had some sting to it since it was a far stronger position than you had taken before. But if she is truly NPD, she’ll just need to make a mental adjustment to double her efforts on controlling you.
I agree with you and Stig that you cannot know what is going on in her head, or that it truly matters. But I do think it important to understand how she thinks. She will twist everything in her mind until it comes out the way she needs. So unless you can pin her to the wall with irrefutable, documented evidence, it is only a matter of time until she truly believes events happened the way she wants. That is why I suggested she may think she got you to fall back in line.
To me, her comment to her friend that “things had been better lately” means two things – 1) she believes you are not really that mad at her (she did give you a hug and I assumed you didn’t reject her, so that equals a positive reaction in her eyes, and she did not move out that weekend, nor did you through her out, again equaling a positive reaction) 2) the argument over her hitting your daughter was not that big a deal, because of 1).
In some ways, maybe she is getting mixed signals, just as you and I are having a lot of miscommunication. I guess it comes back to one of your original questions, and that is what to do, or more directly, what do you want? If you want to stay with her, then drag her into counseling by every means you can and be willing to put up with the fight as you try to exorcise the NPD out of her. But if you’ve had enough, make it so clear that even she cannot twist it around. I think this means taking direct action, and not giving her the luxury of a choice. Once she gets a choice, she has a chance to keep you in the dance. She must come to respect and fear your power and your consequences before she can learn to respect boundaries.
I agree with much of what Stig is saying too. But I am a little doubtful that she even knows what a boundary is, much less has any respect for it. In my family, when my mom got mad, she said the same evil, hurtful things your wife said, even worse. After things cooled down the next day, life went back to normal. Not continuing the arguing and name calling was taken as an implicit apology, but one in which nobody had to lose face or admit their errors, especially my mom. It also set the condition that my mom does not have to be accountable to anyone, and the normal rules of respect and humility do not apply, at least not to her. So boundaries are for other people, but there’s no way anyone is going to limit her by some set of rules. If you want her to be civil, then do not make her mad, do as she says.
The only thing she understood was raw power. As we got older, she knew she could not control us any longer. She could occasionally hold us hostage with money (in fact she still does this with my brothers occasionally), but since I did not need her help, I refused to tow the line. And I stood up to her and spoke back. It resulted in many fights, but she knows where I stand and knows not to push me any more. It has resulted in her sitting on her pity pot, but that’s her problem, not mine.
The pain she feels from losing control and contact with me has forced her to talk to others, (and even me) about what it is that makes my brothers and I angry. Slowly she has come to understand the need not to control others, and some understanding of what a boundary is. But she first had to learn the lesson that she does not have absolute power and that others can back up their boundaries with power if necessary. So unless your wife understands this concept (which I doubt she does), I have my doubts whether boundaries will work.
Sorry for making you mad. I’m really trying to help.
