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.
