Possessive NHs spectacular hissy-fit....a stroll down memory lane!

[JennyWren]

I have smiled to myself reading various posts recently that describe Ns accusations of wives/gfs flirting with other men.

Smiling because it put me in mind of one Christmas and an incident while buying a turkey no less at a supermarket. I had been to the same supermarket the day before ALL BY MYSELF (How`s that for daring, eh? )....and had been chatting with the young lad working there as you do. He had a lovely sense of humour and we passed the time making silly jokes and thinking ourselves very witty. He was  about 17. I am 42!!!!!!  There was no flirting going on, believe me!!!!

However, horror of horrors......who should I meet while out with NH the very next day in the same store?....Oh yes, our 17year old lad....and of course he remembered me as normal humans do....started with the wise-cracking again....wondered why I am much much quieter and trying to hide. NH is becoming progressively more furious and ready to wallop the poor boy with the turkey!!

When I was safely imprisoned in the car....NH starts his rant. "He fancied you. He clearly knew you. HE REMEMBERED you. What have you been saying to him? He was smiling at you......Do you fancy him too?....You do, don`t you? And so on. It was unbelievable. Really horribly possessive. The more I protested, the more he was sure we had been at it like rabbits under the counter!!!

There were many occasions when I was accused of "being fancied" by poor innocent people. And of my fancying people myself. but this one stuck in my mind because it was so very ridiculous.

[confused]

Yikes, JW! I'm glad you're able to laugh about it!

My X NPD/BPD bf was also weirdly jealous. He routinely told me that various men were after me, and forbade me to do anything (go out of town, on a back-packing trip, or anything) without him (whether he was available to go or not) or "our relationship [would] be OVER!"
BLEACH!

[victimnomore]

I'm guessing the crazy hyper jealousy is caused by a projection of their own untrustworthiness. 

[Imogene]

Mine is too superior to act jealous.  But he had plenty to say about my so-called insane, outrageous jealousy.  I could never understand it.  I'm just not that jealous.  He gave me a final dressing down about my terrible jealousy and how my failure to trust him drove him away one week before I found out he was planning to cheat on me with two different women.  Was he cheating all along?  Were these accusations sheer projection?  You know, I'm finding that I just don't care. 

[CZBZ]

I was so dumb. He suggested I was jealous when he called women on the phone in front of me...saying that 'he' was being true to NewAge ideals and creating friendships with women that were platonic. Call me ridiculously trusting but when you do, call him an azzhole, please.

Once in a fair while, my cheeks blush with the memory. It's so sad how trusting I was (and kinda beautiful, too) and abominable how he took advantage of that. How does someone do that? I just can't figure it out....


Hugs,
CZ

[MoreMyself]

Mine is too superior to act jealous.  But he had plenty to say about my so-called insane, outrageous jealousy.  I could never understand it.  I'm just not that jealous.  He gave me a final dressing down about my terrible jealousy and how my failure to trust him drove him away one week before I found out he was planning to cheat on me with two different women.  Was he cheating all along?  Were these accusations sheer projection?  You know, I'm finding that I just don't care.

I was in the same situation.  Mine came home from a 4 week trip overseas and left his toiletry kit sitting out on the bathroom counter.  When I went to put it away out fell a new box of condoms.  With the price tag on from the country he'd been to.  But oddly, I wasn't jealous.  I was relieved, maybe because I saw my way out of the marriage through his actions.  He denied it of course, some rambling excuse about us having a romantic weekend away and he saw them and thought he'd buy them.  Funny thing is, I'm post menopausal.  No need for birth control.  When we finally split he admitted that (in his own words) "I wouldn't have said no if another woman wanted me".  So he too was planning to cheat.  Looks like he got everything ready except the woman.  He always was getting ahead of himself.  My theory is that a lot of men are cowards and instead of dealing with the situation, finishing off a current relationship properly, they just go out hunting the next woman, then drop enough clues so the wife is the one to initiate the split.  Then they can claim that they were kicked out and taken to the cleaners.  Which mine did.

And I don't care either.  Didn't then, don't now.  Strange, though, when people ask why we split up they really want to hear that he was unfaithful, as though that is all that matters.  Jealousy, sex, another woman... couldn't care less.  What really did it was enduring 30 years of emotional abuse including his NPD rages. 

[JennyWren]

Just to add the other complaint NH had about me.....as a balance to his suspicions that I was flirting with anything even vaguely male....he would also complain bitterly that I extended him complete trust and did not get jealous. This he believed meant that I did not love him?!?!!!!

I argued that it meant I did love him (which I did  )....and that with love comes trust. He argued the reverse.....that with love comes jeaslousy and insecurity. Why did I not see all these red flags waving about before my nose? I loved him and trusted him. Totally. I projected my trustworthiness onto him. He projected his scrum-bag qualities onto me. What a mess.

[tango3]

Oh boy does this bring back memories...... Let me see by stbx BIL - he's a nice guy but ADD and very hyper and very "in" to music.  Very early in our marriage we were at a family "event" and BIL monopolized me talking about music/bands etc.  The journey home consisted of me being screamed at for "coming" on to BIL and that there was something "wrong" with me.  Upshot was I started to avoid BIL like the plague.  When our youngest was 7 months stbxN and I went on vacation to San Diego (even then he didn't want the kids with us).  We were at a club, N wandered off somewhere, a young guy approached me, I was pleasant to him (assuring him that no, he'd never seen me on campus or anywhere else in San Diego), on N's return he erupted, screaming at me that he couldn't leave me alone for 5 minutes and I was casting my net for unsuspecting males.  The upshot to this was, anytime we went out, I would squish myself in a corner and pray that no-one would look at me - so even then - 23 years ago I was starting to shrink inside myself. 

So yes, any interaction with any male was seen as something "I" did.  My fault.  Before I married N I was a very social person, would talk to anyone, happy, smiling.  Twenty years of N and I became an anti-social, miserable, empty husk. 
Fortunately, I've found my joie de vivre again and yup I talk to anyone and whether they hit on me or not, doesn't matter, I don't have anyone screaming abuse at me any more.

[Imogene]

The narcissist and trust--one of my favorite paradoxes.  "You just don't trust me," was my husband's most frequently uttered sentence.  "You can't trust anyone--I have to accept that about you."  Well, I did trust him, and that was the problem.  He was untrustworthy.

Yes, MoreMyself, I felt the same way.  It's hard to explain to people that I don't care that my husband wanted to have an affair.  What bothers me is that he was trying to get with two women at once by pretending to be what each woman wanted in a man, which was no so much falling in love and leaving me (which would have been hurtful, but human) as trolling for new supply.  It was the revelation of his character that got to me in the end, which is similar to what you're saying.  It's nothing the narcissist does--it is the narcissism itself.

[NewWings4MeNow]

Jenny,

I'm picturing your grocery store encounter:  Buying a turkey and dealing with one at the same time.

I only had one overt experience with XNH being possessive, and it was when we'd just started dating, were working in the same org, were out with our team at an industry conference, it was evening, we were at a dinner/dance and one of the sales reps (a married guy who was always after me) came toward me and XNH got between us and gave the guy the look to let him know that I was HIS.

In all our years together I never flirted with any other men and never gave it thought until the end of our marriage as there was a guy in my neighborhood whom I really liked and could have gone for if he wasn't married.  He'd befriended XNH until, he told me several years later, they had an "awkward moment" and he decided to end their association.  (I asked him then if XNH had made a pass at him and he told me no.) 

Otherwise at the very end of our marriage, the night I told XNH he'd changed so much in the past year I didn't recognize him and asked what did I have to do to get his attention, have an affair?, I guess that was added to his iNjuries. 

If anything it was XNH who started flirting when he pulled away from me -- I saw it at a black tie New Years Eve party we went to at a local hotel with another couple and sat at a group dinner table.  I looked over at XNH and realized that he was flirting with the very attractive woman sitting next to him, and that I'd never seen him do that before.  We didn't have a good time that night, and the couple we went with D'd around the same time we did (only over a LOT of money).  Then after XNH left our house, and when I called d at night while she was with him, he had two-three different women answer the phone at his new apartment for those calls.  Rubbing it in my face.  Of course the musical chairs replacement made me upset but I've never discussed it with him and he's never asked if I was jealous.  He had no compunctions about moving in with NW before he was D'd, so of course he wouldn't have cared about the rest of it related to a marriage vow. 

What I read in your post is that folks who are that overtly reactive to perceived jealousy slights have, themselves, had a roving eye (whether or not their partner knows about it) and their reactions are (1) typical midlife if they're 40+ and if the competition is a studly teen, (2) compensating for their own actions/intentions, (3) designed to be theatrical causing a reaction/defensiveness from the partner over something that shouldn't be addressed in public.

"Methinks he protesteth too much ...." in addition to treating you like property.

NewWings4MeNow 

[JennyWren]

I think maybe it`s time to register that this is another area where I have been ridiculously naive and quite the turkey myself!! It seems a wee bit inescapable that NHs frantic jealousy and suspicion was routed in his own wayward thoughts at the very least...if not wayward actions. And man, would I have to hear about how temptation had flung itself at his irresistably handsome (well he thought so) feet....and how he had oh-so-morally cast it aside. Frequently he would tell stories of how intelligent, beautiful, refined Godess-style women had begged him to take them to bed....but he had resisted. While I stared blankly at him wondering how on earth he had got himself in such an icky situation. Oh dear. Oh deary deary deary me. Let`s play spot the stupid person......Oh....it`s me isn`t it?!!!!

[tango3]

Not only are they projecting their own desires on you but I think in my N's case he was truly jealous of me.  I attracted people, people liked talking to me and he couldn't STAND it.

I remember in the midst of the brutal D&D when he was telling me that I was worse than slime, clinging to the thought that I had lots and lots of friends (some I'd had for forty years), they liked me and were good people so I couldn't be that bad,  and he had................none. 

[too_many]

I think also, any time people are talking to any of you ladies in a positive way, the narcissist knows it's a threat to his domination - because having all of your good qualities reflected back to you from healthy people might wake you to his games. He just can't have you knowing your true worth, because then you might leave, and he'd have to start all over.

[Imogene]

No, Jen, you weren't stupid.  When your husband tells you about all the beautiful women he could have had, who are essentially lining up for him--that's pretty abusive.  And it's the kind of abuse that makes a woman think all kinds of insane things, like, shouldn't I be grateful that he wants little old me? or am I ugly? or wow he really is charismatic, and I can't compete with that; I'd better tow the line.  When really, all he was probably trying to do is make you go, "God, you are so damned FABULOUS.  This talk makes me hot for you RIGHT NOW." 

Actually, he's the stupid one.  I mean, could there be a more idiotic way to fish for a compliment?  It only works for them it's a systematic pattern of abuse that builds slowly over time, and we get caught in it.     

[bellelang83]

You're not stupid Jenny. I remember several occasions where ExNbf would rave on and on about woman who had smiled at him or acknowledged him in some small capacity throughout the day and he'd talk about it with an added element of heightened sexual tension befitting a Mills and Boon novel - but instead of telling him he was a sicko, all I would do was look on in pity wondering how he interpreted such a small insignificant gesture to be the soul affirming totem he was now making it into. I thought he had really low self esteem at the time, but in reading similar posts, I realise its his perverse way of making me feel icky whilst making himself out to be some paragon of virtue because he said he would never sleep with them even if these women were falling at his feet. He was also highly suspicious of me and always implied so and so wanted to sleep with me, or if I smiled at men that I was interested in them. One time when we went travelling and I came back a few days earlier, he asked me "did you sleep with anyone while I was away?"

Even though I didn't, it makes me think he did sleep with someone - as I know preemptive strikes were important to him. I felt I had to justify all my interactions with males to him during the length of our 5 year relationship, he also made me dress like a tom-boy so other guys my age wouldn't be interested in me and called me a 's**t' if I had any normal expressions for sex/intimacy which was non-existent in our relationship (requests for oral sex did not count in my books).

This behaviour was also exhibited by my mum who had many affairs with men, openly in front of me and my father but if a woman even talked to him in a kind manner or smiled at him, she would accuse him of 'fancying her' and having 'fantasies about running off with her'. I remember those conversations vividly growing up because my father would always get highly uncomfortable and I felt sorry for him having to put up with her bullying because the truth of the matter was he was as far off from getting away from her as any of the other male victims she had ensnared in her web.

By accusing their victims of disloyalty and a lack of fidelity, they're effectively bonding them through guilt and shame. As the victims may have justifiable fantasies of getting away from the horrid life they are sharing with the N, the accusation therefore brings this painful fantasy to the surface and they feel bonded through 'guilt' when they're fantasies are revealed. Ns know how horrible they are to be around and are always paranoid at being 'disposed' or 'betrayed' by their supporters so they accuse the victim of doing it before they do it to them. They see this as an effective method of keeping us in line. They will also use tears if they want to test your loyalty (I have seen my mother use this on a few occasions when she wasn't certain about my father's loyalty to her). And by committing the very treacheries they're accusing their victims of, they are creating a convenient 'distraction' for their own misdemeanors.

[Imogene]

Geez, Belle.  I have to say, another knock-out post. 

[bellelang83]

Imogene, I was just thinking about the thread you started about your husband's inappropriate behaviour with your daughter. I think you were right to call it parental alienation. I thought back over my life with my parents and even though they never got a divorce, my NM started to do the parental alienation (pathological alignment) thing from a young age. She would ask me who I preferred, and of course the answer had to be her. I felt really uncomfortable answering these questions because they were always posed in front of my father. It was merely a sick game she played in order to hurt him. She would ask this question repeatedly. If I said, I preferred "both of them" she would respond, you can only choose one. You will always like one more than the other. I would insist I didn't have favourites, that I liked them both in equal ways and she would go on to poke fun at the fact that I merely didn't want to hurt my dad's feelings. I knew she was being deliberately cruel but still couldn't put a stop to her behaviour. I have no doubt if I was a boy she would have 'sexualised' me from a young age. But as I was a girl, she just sought to alienate me from my father in all possible ways. I found this concept amazing given that they weren't even divorced. She was a real sicko making sure we didn't band together against her so she could destroy us individually. I didn't help him out when his business started to fail when I was 21 but by then I also felt it was inappropriate to shoulder that responsibility  and consciously distanced myself from their problems. She made me pay for it emotionally later on when the business went bust and said it was all my fault cause I was so enmeshed in my relationship (with ExNbf) to pay attention to what was going on at home/meaning my father's business. As a result of her pathological alignments, I could not get him to open up to this new information when I found out about Ns and tried to help him get away from her. She then appealed to him through the earlier pathological alignment she had formed against me with him and got him to kick us out of the home. It's all very grotesque and something you think only happens through a divorce process, but in my home and I'm sure it is a case in yours too Imogene, this is what is happening.

[CZBZ]

"By accusing their victims of disloyalty and a lack of fidelity, they're effectively bonding them through guilt and shame. As the victims may have justifiable fantasies of getting away from the horrid life they are sharing with the N, the accusation therefore brings this painful fantasy to the surface and they feel bonded through 'guilt' when they're fantasies are revealed." ~Bellelang83

Very insightful, thank you!

"She would ask me who I preferred, and of course the answer had to be her. I felt really uncomfortable answering these questions because they were always posed in front of my father. It was merely a sick game she played in order to hurt him. She would ask this question repeatedly."

These are the kinds of stories that separate narcissists from other people. It's unfathomable that ANY mother would propose a question like this to her child. It is so appalling, the lack of empathy for her child---and the sadism towards your father.


Hugs,
CZ

[NewWings4MeNow]

bellelang,

In the last year of our marriage, when XNH was unemployed/trying to consult and hung around the house all the time, he was spending time with d that had been my time with her and, as he distanced himself from me, I felt/sensed a competition growing between us over her based on his conversational attitude change toward me.

The day he left, and as d was getting ready to go to school, he said to her in front of me, "Don't you want to come live with daddy?"

These years have been very hard for me to leave d's R with XNH alone when I've seen him abuse her, lie to her and threaten to harm me.  It's been very difficult to stay away from creating an alignment with me for her protection, when what she told me were her thoughts/feelings has varied from week to week and quarter to quarter and each has been stated as her "truth".  D's personality is very "fairness", even-handed oriented, or at least, it was until she became hormonal and I became seriously unpopular.  I've often wondered how far XNH would have to go with her, given her "I don't want to know about it" and "He just does that with YOU" mindset, for her to "see the light".  I may never know ....

To the comment about men saying things about other women in front of their wives, XNH didn't discuss or point out other women in front of me -- but he SURE has done it with d, pointing out women/celebrities whom he finds very attractive and who are more athletic and skinny as a rail in comparison to me.  (This also certainly doesn't help her view of me.)  I think that if he does this in front of NW, if I were her I would hate it/wouldn't stand for it as it creates an endless competition against some perfection out there. 

NewWings4MeNow

[bellelang83]

The day he left, and as d was getting ready to go to school, he said to her in front of me, "Don't you want to come live with daddy?"

That's bringing back memories for me NewWings...my mother used to ask me in front of my father, "if dad and I got a divorce, who would you choose to live with?" even though their marriage weren't on the rocks by any stretch of the imagination, I knew it was merely another tactic she was using to drive a wedge between us and would not play along. I suspect she was also letting him know if he chose to leave her, he would have a lot to lose. It was an upgrade from "who do you love more?" I found her questions vile and meaningless but since it was some compulsion she had - I played along when in private to appease her. Since she only needed the words, she never seemed to care that I said it with a monotone and lacked emotion in my voice. To her, just to hear it was enough. I always thought of her as the wicked queen in Snow White, who didn't care if the mirror was lying to her as long as it told her she was "the fairest in the land". As for my father, I felt sorry for him. I didn't see why I needed to make his life more difficult than it already was. I therefore did not play along when she asked these questions in front of him. We were both in the same boat I felt. And even though there were two against one, we both still felt completely subjugated by her. If your daughter is fair in that way, I'd say she is just playing along to appease the beast but can see through to his act quite easily.

I can well understand your frustration and desire to play the same game as him. That's what they force you into, to defend your own turf. It's war with them all the time. They love 'games' especially ones that involve hurting those who love them, that seems to give them a real kick. They love putting us in a double bind. It causes cognitive dissonance and that's when they can gain the upper hand when we're sitting on the fence wondering what's the right thing to do. Even if it is against your ethos, I think you are right to intervene. You need to do what you can to protect her from him. And if forming as strong an opinion against him as he has done against you, that might have to be the way. You are merely doing what is needed to protect your daughter from someone who is hurting her and will do more damage if you don't intervene. I know with my father, because he did not protect me from her, I was never able to get very close to him and as a result, I have lost him to her now as well. Through her constant 'divide and conquer', we have lost ourselves and our connection to each other. I am sad he did not do more to protect me from her, which may have included leaving their marriage. I think you need to explain that dynamic to her because by not doing so, she might be inclined to think his behaviour is benign or even worse innocent.
 

[NewWings4MeNow]

This is to answer Bellelang's last post (and Jenny, sorry, this is not to hijack your thread):

I'm reading carefully your words and meaning, as one having lived some version of it. 

When you live in a house with someone who intended, months prior, to D, and you're the one left not knowing, invisible battle lines have been drawn, strategies and tactics created and alignments pursued already.  When all parties' attitudes aren't to the "we" then there are multiple rule books being used -- in XNH's case it was he and d as "us" and I became "them", while I was focusing on the "we" of "we three" as our own separate family.  I was in the dark.

As to my own FOO dynamics, I can only explain it this way:

Though my parents' marriage was rancorous and, largely, dysfunctional, when my mom asked me at 13 to move my father's things to a separate bedroom, and she once talked with me about divorcing him, I didn't hear of it ongoing and don't have a memory of her trying to involve me to gang up on him when they fought with each other in front of me, of family, of friends.  I also don't recall my mother actively intervening to protect me from my father, as he never came at me personally.  I do recall a Thanksgiving during university when I went home for the break, they fought in the first hour and by the second day I left and walked to the train to travel back to school.  It was my mother who came to the station to plead with me to stay, and she who apologized for my father.  I didn't stay and didn't regret it.  School was quiet and I spent time with friends.  I don't recall my mother telling me my father was a liar, deceptive, a thief, not to be trusted, a criminal, a substance abuser.  She said he couldn't manage his temper (and she told me she'd discussed with him going to anger management classes). 

My objective with d has not been for "us" to gang up against XNH.  My objective has been to teach her about different types of people, how to spot behavior issues that could/would not change or be influenced by learning.  For her benefit in choosing friendships, boyfriends, mates, work colleagues, social buddies.  My objective has been to steer d into selecting a life lived in the light, with truth and fact, and character, of utmost value and importance.  To call a spade a spade and not shy from the hard or unpopular truths.  And as she's reached this very tender and vulnerable age, it's greatly concerned me to see her revoking her past statements of fact, denying conversations and opinions, not acknowledging poor or downright bad behavior in herself or in XNH and actively taking his positions against me in demeaning ways that have never occurred before.  All in the name of asserting her own Voice everywhere as she's said I was the one who encouraged her to do so.  She's referred to my comments about XNH as "injustice" and altruistic justice in the world is her current mantle and flag.  Thus I share your concern that she'll protect XNH, classically Oedipal-style, declaring his behavior to be innocent and benign when overwhelming proof shows it is not so.

As of today we've come to a truce, a working place, an environment where I don't discuss XNH in any fashion offering an opinion.  When issues come up I tell her I'm not discussing them with her and will address them with XNH directly.  Through time there will be decisions about which I'll exert my power of position again, but for now we're addressing things one conversation at a time. 

I do believe that part of the explosion d and I went through was her panic that I didn't love her enough to stay here for her AND provide a buffer, protection, safe place.  (This past Thursday, after her poor behavior toward me at her school's awards/talent show day, d admitted she was menstrual, tired, short tempered and that YES, she was dumping on me because, as she said, she felt safe with me to take off the mask she has to use with her friends to show a peppy and sociable front.  I had to explain to her that, even in public, parents/family/all parties deserve/have the right to demand best behavior, and one has no obligation to be the doormat for the rest.  D said that if I require it of her, she can give it -- that she just didn't know.  Just didn't know.  Imagine.  She has so little experience out in public with groups of people related to her that she doesn't know how to act.  Here in this are all she has is me, so I can't manufacture group dynamics for her.  When she visits XNH's family in the Bay Area they aren't about "good manners" so the topic would never come up as a teachable moment.)

Through these couple of months I certainly was worried about losing d's heart.  I worried about to whom she'd feel connected/grounded at all. and how alone she'd feel. 

D does not tell me what she and XNH discuss.  Almost ever.  There were years when she said he barely spoke to her over days in his house, when he and NW would talk over her at dinner like she wasn't even there.  Then she's told me, differently, that he's told her he didn't love me any more, that she'd asked him why he D'd me and he refused to give her an answer, that he's told her he's known he's hurting me.  But today she'd say she has no memory of any of that.   So your suggestion about teaching d the negative impact/danger of "divide and conquer" would be great if I felt that communication with her was open and complete.  But she withholds, very selectively, and I believe would have zero interest in such a conversation topic for its substance and because it deals with XNH.  She's just not open to this right now.  Moreover, I'd say d would say she's been playing along to appease ME as the beast (because I wanted a different life for me/for her and wanted to leave this area, and was sharing my truths which she clearly doesn't want to hear or know about).  What she experiences with XNH, or feels about it, has changed radically through time these past two years and right now I think she's just happy things are generally quiet.  Clearly d is now focusing on her own individual life and looking outward beyond her FOO, which she should and I encourage that.  Whatever entangled mess she leaves behind that is the interaction of me and XNH (when we must), is our own problem and not hers.  Oh how I wish she'd learn lessons from it, however, and still choose the "light" side of character and integrity.  It's to this that I'm charging her now and I don't care how unpopular I am with her for the doing of it.

Just a month ago, in the midst of custody change/psych eval meeting conversations, d told me that XNH told her he "has a secret about me which he knows I would NOT want to have come out in a hearing."  Since I have no such secrets he said this to d to get her to shut up about a custody change and to be afraid of exposing me by wanting to come live with me elsewhere and create a court meeting -- in effect, to scare d into submission.  I told her it was a bunch of bollux and what I thought of him doing such a thing to her mind.  I believe that d is exposed to that kind of rubbish all the time.  E.g. Just yesterday she said that "people" told her that High Tech High, the school XNH separately registered her for without my knowledge, is "the same teaching style as" the private school I wanted to put her into two years ago but XNH refused to pay for it or even apply.  What students would d know who would tell her those two schools happen to be "the same" since she knows almost no one now who goes to the private school?  And in fact, if the schools are that different, why would the new private school have been founded if one like it already exists?  (The two are quite different.)  The odds that XNH told her all this are extremely high, in an effort to get her to want to the school he chose for her and nowhere else.  The fact that d seems completely incapable of saying to me, "Dad told me ...." and dealing with my reaction to his opposite style with her, is really difficult for me in the trust and openness department.  I deal with this every day, every week, and can't wait till d is off to college and on her own.

I very much appreciate your insights on this topic as there are a lot of moving parts and consequences to each day's words and actions.

Thanks.

Back to Jenny's regularly-scheduled ridiculous jealousy thread ....

NewWings4MeNow

[bellelang83]

NewWings, I can well understand your frustration through all this. I would be extremely sad if this happened to my child as a result of being married to a N. Leaving the relationship is already hard enough without feeling devastated by the loss of your child as well. A friend of mine was in the same situation and she just couldn't let go of her son who was hurting her/using her/abusing her in just about the same ways as her ex husband and it was very difficult for her to move through her healing because he was a constant reminder of how she had failed/not protected him. He started to distance himself from his father the less contact they had and I think his relationship with her improved as a result of it. I think its crucial that their link is severed. I therefore agree with you that her living away, going off to college would be a good thing - perhaps by being around non-NPD guys her own age, she will get a healthier perspective on how men can be and see her father's behaviour as inappropriate.

Have you ever asked her to look at this forum? I think if I had learned about NPD in my teenage years and had a therapist point out that my mother was suffering from this pathology it would have helped me leave my FOO behind. I only found out after going out with a series of Ns and found out things the hard way when my last bf turned out to be a Psycho. The experience was so debilitating it forced me to look at my choice of men, my parents and that's when I realised the NPD soil I had been grown in. Now I am very wary of people who exhibit these traits and have been quite successful in dealing with inappropriate boundary violations from Ns. I attribute a lot of my healing to reading people's stories, making connections from things I read to my upbringing and then confronting my NM and watching that relationship fizzle out in front of me. I think without confronting her and seeing her for the monster she was, it still wouldn't sink in far enough to make a difference in my psyche. I remember it was incredibly bewildering encountering this information, but if your daughter has a safe, supportive environment, free of the influence of the very people she feels has put her in this bind, she might be able to look at these issues without blinkers on. Perhaps then she will see she is not the only one suffering from the pain of having a NPD dad, you are too and she would have more compassion for your healing. I hope that hopes. I know how hard it can be. My heart goes out to you. - Belle

[NewWings4MeNow]

Bellelang,

I don't think d believes her dad is an N.  I think she believes she's figured out ways to deal with/manage him which she's equated to "fixing" the situation and has said so.  I think d believes that if I don't mention it, it doesn't really exist. 

One of the aspects of my life that she's attacked these past months has been WoN.  She has demanded that I stop writing about her on it, asserting that she doesn't know you people, that I don't, and that I'm sharing private things "in public".  And this was after me being a member all this time since right after it launched -- when she'd assumed I was only writing about XNH.  (During the thick of our Dark Days she asked me if I thought she was mentally ill, then in another conversation attacked me as being so.) 

To your question, of course I think d would benefit from seeing this place, but she's a teen and most of the voices here are mature women at different life stages whom she'd likely say now are bitter, living in the past and can't get over their exes, which were some of the tasty comments she made about me, completely discounting the work I've done, progress made, giving back, applying tools going forward etc.  Though I first educated d about PDs and she's researched N/Ps on the Web totally on her own, over the past year whenever I've mentioned noticing any Nness anywhere, she's almost cringed, really not open to it at this time.  So I have to use a different approach and exclude d specifically, letting her know that I learn new things for myself only and that she can go do whatever she wants, or not, talk with me about things or not.  Then see if d comes around on her own, for her own education and good.

During this time d has also said that *I* "ruined eight years of [her] life", that her childhood was "stolen" from her etc. and she chose to dump all her anger solely on me doing, effectively, what XNH did which was to negate and destroy happy memories of our history together.  And she's told me she said these things on purpose to be mean ....  (When I was 13 it wouldn't have occurred to me to behave this way or be this conscious about it.)  More N-like than an N survivor which, in my situation, is my biggest concern. 

Some days I think d doesn't believe XNH wronged me in any fashion; she recently referred to it with her T and me as me having "been dealt a bad hand" (a matter of luck for eight years?) -- and I now realize that she was trying to objectify my experience instead of making it personal to her father, and attribute to him the responsibilities for it that belong to to him.  Removing culpability.  I don't know if she will learn this lesson until she's the victim of N treatment herself.   

What's sad is that d has chosen to not believe in a spiritual path, like XNH, and so she's not grounded in any of the positive, or at least useful, aspects of religious dictums that are connected to baseline daily treatment of others or one's society.  Because of this, the notions of infidelity, breaking up a marriage, not respecting the sacrament and its importance, don't have firm roots with d as more absolutes or as violations with serious implication; net is that she's growing up in more of XNH's morally relativistic culture than how I was raised and I'm rather powerless to stop its juggernaut.

Right now d's compassion is for herself, her life, her Voice, her wants/needs.  And as long as I've been willing to leave and leave her behind (which has been her own wish), d's been all out of compassion for my healing. 

What's as funny now, to me, is that d's told me for years that she doesn't care if I'm poor (just that we're together), yet she's demanded things/stuff, she's played XNH to get her things/stuff and now she tells me that I have no right to an opinion since I'm not the one paying for her things/stuff.  Teen changes.  So I've stayed (for now) but get dinged for living in the circumstances I have available to me now FOR staying and I have to almost prove myself to her.  It's quite a no-win and, with her moods, often thankless. 

Yes, I hope d continues to have adventures elsewhere so she can experience non-N guys her own age and older.  My concern for her, socially, is that for years she's been confrontational with most of the men I've known, endlessly debating/posturing; she's even about to lose her French horn teacher because she just doesn't stop talking more than she plays her instrument, and he's noticed it.  I really wish, some days, that I could be a fly on the wall at XNH's house to see how verbal they all are -- there's a cultural talkative aspect mixed with marketer + N intellectual + D.C. lobbyist all in the mix which is a recipe for non-stop argumentation and "last word" which has created, per d, monthly fights over years, and which would drive me out of my mind. 

Again, I appreciate your insights.  Perhaps this discussion -- perpetuating next-gen N dynamics -- should live in another topic so folks can return to Jenny's thread?

NewWings4MeNow

[JennyWren]

Hi, just to say I have no problem with everyone taking this thread wherever is most productive. And this is productive, insightful and interesting stuff. Post away, and don`t give it another thought. 

[Julia]

Jenny..... you are very patient. I want to respond to wings too. Sorry, but I don't have any experience with N sexual jealousy.... and that seems weird considering how many Ns I have known. I really do not flirt though, so it would take a total idiot to think that I was.... and your XN sounds like a total idiot.

Wings,          my girl's former T told me that their sense of fairness was a developmental stage (and a version of black and white thinking) that ran from about 8-13, that during those years they would believe that XN should have 50/50 custody and cut him lots of slack, even almost experience a disconnect between what they actually felt about being with him vs what they considered "fair". After that, as teens, she predicted, they would be "all about what was convenient for them". That this was a developmental stage lasting from 13 - 21.

She said that most teens want to live with one of their divorced parents, are tired of moving back and forth, tired of their friends' not knowing where they are each week, because it limits their activities (friends may not call thinking --- "oh she is probably at her ___'s so it wont work anyway"). Teens like their things more, (an i-pod base, electronic games, whatever), so much so that they don't want to leave them at one house, yet can't bear to move them back and forth (or end up choosing the house with the best stuff). They no longer focus on the family as their base unit and just want to avoid having to deal with family, let alone with two families. I.e even teens with married parents just want to go into their rooms and close the door, talk to friends on the phone, borrow the car, and then go out.

This freaked me out, and I felt torn between parenting them the way I felt was right with unpopular mandates limiting excess TV, sweets, and with boundaries, homework and chores, etc. I worried that they would choose to live with XN eventually, since they could literally do anything while with him. This is not what happened, but that is probably due more to my XN falling apart and not wanting to parent than with my limits being appreciated. But maybe I sell myself short. Doubt it. The kids are complaining bitterly about 15 mins of chores/day.

 I say this so that you can hopefully understand that some of the awful way d is treating you is just d being a teen. I do realize that it is so much worse than average for your d as a result of all the triangulation and XNs psychology, as well as the differences in status between you and he. I think some things are much worse than average for my ds too (middle ds anxiety). I try to only get upset about the part that is worse than average for their ages, the extra part. Because if I don't, I just feel too upset, and it is not helpful or even fair to my ds.

I think you are wise to have a policy with d to not talk about XNH and refuse to get drawn back into any discussions about him. I also have a much quieter r/s with my teen now, and it feels weird and different, but I do believe it is more about her development than my parenting, or her father, or her personality, and that helps me stay positive about her and our r/s.

Julia