Sorry...still going!..an ickle question about Narcissistic Decompensation

[JennyWren]

Absolutely true Tango. I guess I am at an angry stage right now...looking back and wishing BigBird had flown into a large glazed window at high speed 12 years ago...after d number two was born.

He really is such a pompous great waste of feathers. And I`m sick of thinking about him....yet everything reminds me of him.

[tango3]

Well if wishes were horses even beggars could ride

[Legs]

<<And I`m sick of thinking about him....yet everything reminds me of him.>>

And you look into the girl's faces everyday so no matter if you get rid of every speck of Big Bird's leftover poop, he still remains to soil your new life.


I can't say how it must be for people who have children with an n......can't even imagine how you can separate the two.


I have gotten to the point where lucifer is not endlessly spinning around in my head and I think a lot of it was in finally knowing that at least some of the truth had come out. He still does cross my mind in a hundred ways and I think a lot of that is my surroundings....things I see everyday remind me of my past. But I feel slightly more satisfied now. I know that I might have a chance to go on, if I take it, and he has no chance at all now other than for his whole world to be secretly laughing up their collective sleeves at him whenever they see his name. If nothing else, they are going to see him as a foolish old man...a stupid foolish old man who sank himself even further into the mire with his own stupid words.


Ok, revenge is sweet maybe.....but while I have never gotten to the point yet where I have gone an entire day without thinking abut him, I have stopped having those endless outloud conversations with myself about what I'd like to say to him or his wh*res or his family, etc......


You're gonna have to give yourself some time and I think when you are happier in your new life and can stand back and see him in the misery that it his, you'll feel better.


xoxo, Legs

[JennyWren]

I can't say how it must be for people who have children with an n......can't even imagine how you can separate the two.

The hardest thing in my circumstance is watching the girls try to separate themselves from their Ndad. They have both asked me if there is ANY chance he is not their real dad!!!!  They have asked if they can change their surname.

Elder d`s boyfriend was round yesterday...and d was remembering how BigBird used to slap her as a child because it was the only way he could control her. (I never knew he did this...I never saw, and she never told me...because she thought it was "what dad`s did") I could see the Boyfriend`s hand slowly form into a fist on his lap. Boyfriend is the most gentle creature on the planet...heaven knows where she found him.

It seems the girls have absolutely NO positive memories of their Ndad whatsoever. And I think their experiences of his "parenting" and mine contrast so vividly....because I adored doing all the mumsie things. While he did nothing.

I do try and think of things they could remember fondly of him. Maybe in the future they will cool off about him a bit. But right now...eldest d would like to ram his head in the shredder...and younger one has surgically removed him from existence.

I think, as you say Legs, Time is the answer. And...it is just over a year since BigBird got chucked out....two years since he went raving-"MLC"-mad. And we are not quite divorced yet. I guess it`s early days. And I guess there`s no easy way through this b*llocks.

I think I need to be a bit kinder to myself and stop pushing myself so hard to have my life and my house and my mind all fixed up already. I don`t make time to do anything nice any more...because I am so busy panicking that I`ve gotta sort everything at once.

[Snowbird]

It is with that chilling thought in mind that I have been thinking about this MLC/decompensation stuff. It makes me run ice cold to think how I would have become so utterly and desperately depressed at feeling a total failure...while using every shred of energy left to try to make things better.....


I think theoretically...an N...once their compensatory mechanisms have broken down..and they have gone through the wild and scary bit....the N could find new compensatory mechanisms to hide behind....and hold up a shiny new self to the world. But we...the witches that we now are...would not be allowed near enough to peek.

I did. I stayed long past the time I should have woken up and moved on.
In retrospect, I think Captain Bligh's decompensation was more of a slow burn; a gradual deterioration over a period of years....beginning in earnest after our last child was born and he came to the realization that there was no way for him to have total control of that many people....

But there were some prominent markers along the way, any one of which could have counted as MLC, or at least the beginning of it. For the record, his decompensation did not involve another woman---which is why the urgency wasn't there. For him it was about career, financial security, and attempt at total control of wife and kids.

As I mentioned, when the number of children reached critical mass, he went through a panic of power, ca. 1998. As the older ones reached teenage years and young adulthood, this deepened and he tried to tighten the clamps.

2001-02: The bank he works for is in trouble so he takes it out on us, especially oldest son who moves out in disgust at age 20. Everyone hates dad but just tries to get through life. Looking back, this is probably when I should have thought about getting out---but life throws a curveball. In December '02 our second son and third child was killed in a tragic accident.

So....life screeches to a standstill for a time; priorities get reassessed; and things seem to calm down in the wake of this event; everyone starts to appreciate people more, including NH. For a time.

We had a couple of pretty good years, from '03 to '07. Captain Bligh has a new job in a more stable institution; values family more; even allows me to visit my FOO more often than ever before, which made me very happy. Even some discussion of moving back there (where we both grew up---but his Nmom is retired here so I knew he would never leave).

Now to 2008, the game changer. As he is in the financial industry, you can probably imagine what October of '08 was like. Yep. The banking crisis--and his institution was heavily vested in real estate.

So, again in retrospect, I would point to that period and the pinnacle of the decompensation. Not another woman, but his career--his identity and worth--25 years of reputation building--about to go up in global flames.
A very real possibility of losing his job. So....did he confide in me, work together on how this might affect our family? NO!
He started to niggle and complain about every tiny little thing he could exert control over, especially spending money. Control is somehow comforting to him.

Our second child, oldest daughter, had recently graduated college but was unemployed at the moment. So, on the brink of impending global financial collapse....he declares to d that she owes him money! We had been covering her car insurance and cell phone until she could find a job. She tried to calmly explain that a) she wasn't working yet but indeed had been hired as a substitute teacher and b) she would pay him back when she started getting a paycheck.

So he got out the ledger to get the exact figures and there, at the bottom, was an entry for $100 that I had loaned her so she could get her background check for the county job. He lost it!! Called me a liar and a thief for giving her more money when she already owes us!! (I tried to calmly explain that no, I might be a liar and a thief if I didn't write down the amount I loaned her, but that fell on deaf ears).

He then declared that he wanted payment in full !! Right NOW!! or he would take possession of her car, her laptop, her clothes...(This was on a Sunday night and she was to start work the following day)
It looked, sounded, and felt like utter madness. My daughter called her boyfriend who came over and helped her pack up essentials in both their cars, and she moved out that night.

She was smarter than I was, because I held on for another two years....

I tried to be supportive to my daughter, who now viewed her father as a mortal enemy. She was planning her wedding, and her father refused to help pay for any of it because--get this--"she moved out without our blessing".

Those next two years I was in survival mode. He tried to do nice things, like vacations. We went on a trip in April '09 which was planned before the above meltdown. I was dreading it but it turned out to be nice because he was in relaxed vacation mode. He switched instantly upon arriving home and turned back into Captain Bligh.

In June '10 I went to visit family. He seemed to be supportive of it, and boy did I need it! But for six months I never heard the end of how much money I spent and who did I think I was, getting an upgrade on the rental car??

The MLC was ongoing, in other words, but when it manifested in control of our teenage sons which turned physical---above mentioned daughter reported both incidents to the authorities and they decided he shouldn't live here any more.

So no, to answer More's query: it might seem to get better but it's a downward spiral.

[pearlsb4swine]

Not really depressing Jenny   Because we, (and I mean us collectively on WoN) are much better human beings than our N's could EVER hope to be.  We aren't trampled into the mud (except in the N's disordered minds), like phoenixes we rise from the ashes of our dead marriage/relationships - for us it is a re-birth - wiser, more compassionate and better people than we were before

Amen to that!  Well said, Tango!!

That's my plan anyway.....Hope I live that long!

I have spent the last few months in a kind of a cocoon, learning about narcissism, thanks to you fine people.    I am hopefull that, once I heal more completely, this knowledge will be of great use to me in life and particularly my career.  I realize now how narcissism has caused so much suffering and dysfunction in my workplace.  This has also been an opportunity for me to "makeover" certain aspects of my life to be more in keeping with my personal values.

None of this would have happened without narcissistic decompensation.   Like so many of you, I would have stayed with xnh till death did us part.   Even if there were times I thought death could not come soon enough.  I was never actively suicidal, but I remember during one dark period thinking, how can I stand this if I live to be 90?  That is a horrible way to live.  Life is precious to me again.

Here's to narcissistic decompensation, the key to my cage door! 

At least that's how it feels right this minute.  Feelings subject to change without notice

Pearls

[pearlsb4swine]

The hardest thing in my circumstance is watching the girls try to separate themselves from their Ndad. They have both asked me if there is ANY chance he is not their real dad!!!!  They have asked if they can change their surname.

Elder d`s boyfriend was round yesterday...and d was remembering how BigBird used to slap her as a child because it was the only way he could control her. (I never knew he did this...I never saw, and she never told me...because she thought it was "what dad`s did") I could see the Boyfriend`s hand slowly form into a fist on his lap. Boyfriend is the most gentle creature on the planet...heaven knows where she found him.

It seems the girls have absolutely NO positive memories of their Ndad whatsoever. And I think their experiences of his "parenting" and mine contrast so vividly....because I adored doing all the mumsie things. While he did nothing.

I do try and think of things they could remember fondly of him. Maybe in the future they will cool off about him a bit. But right now...eldest d would like to ram his head in the shredder...and younger one has surgically removed him from existence.

I think, as you say Legs, Time is the answer. And...it is just over a year since BigBird got chucked out....two years since he went raving-"MLC"-mad. And we are not quite divorced yet. I guess it`s early days. And I guess there`s no easy way through this b*llocks.

I think I need to be a bit kinder to myself and stop pushing myself so hard to have my life and my house and my mind all fixed up already. I don`t make time to do anything nice any more...because I am so busy panicking that I`ve gotta sort everything at once.

Jenny.....we are leading parallel lives!!!   I did not elect to change my surname with my divorce, for a lot of reasons.  My son has said he is ashamed of his name.  I told him that name is just as much mine and his as it is his N father's and N grandparents'.  And that we, along with his cousins, do more credit to the name than they do discredit.  What a conversation to have to have!  My kids refuse to speak to their father.  Not a word, zip, nada.  They seem to have no positive memories of them.  It's shocking to me.  And I think time may soften that......and I do worry sometimes that they are trying to express their support of me, rather than their true feelings about their dad.  But, like Big Bird was slapping your d when you were not there to stop him.....my xnh was secretly saying terrible things to my kids.  Abusive things. 

And like you, I want everything fixed up already!  My life, my house, my finances, my career!  And to lose 50 pounds would be nice too.  I have to remember......the day my divorce was finalized I lost 200 useless pounds of fat.    The rest will come.  It feels like, I was frozen in place for so long.  Now that I am actually moving, I can't move fast enough to suit myself.

Pearls

[Rosemary]

Jenny my N has been seperated for a year ,and im going through divorce too.

the kids wont speak to NDad ,and its not to support me ,as they know i dont push them oneway or another .


They say they hate him and thats a strong word !!  i cant see it changing at all  after D said shes hated him since she was11 when he was horrible to me .

Even when she was about 6 yrs old and i told you she said she had  "Father Envy " as she put itof her friendsDads ,she could see and feel the lack of parenting of the N .

she once told me she hopes when she gets married he wont be there ,this was when N and i were still together .
so they think well ahead  about situations  they maybe in when hes Not WELCOME  .
Our youngest son says the same, he doesnt want him at his Graduation ,and hated him going to see himat University as he was   sooo embarrassing to him.
kids know Jenny who has looked out for them and helped them throughout life   and its certainly not the NDAd .

We cant change that can we He is getting what he sowed  as they say .Its sad they have no Father,  i feel that about it and wish id never married him .  Alli can do is be the best mum for them as im sure you are too.    

[alatariel]

Absolutely true Tango. I guess I am at an angry stage right now...looking back and wishing BigBird had flown into a large glazed window at high speed 12 years ago...after d number two was born.

He really is such a pompous great waste of feathers. And I`m sick of thinking about him....yet everything reminds me of him.

*giggle*  Have you ever seen the show "Mythbusters"?   At one point, they built a "chicken cannon" to test a myth:

There is a longstanding urban legend about the gun being loaned to some other agency, who fired frozen chickens instead of thawed chickens.[2]
On MythBusters, a chicken gun was used in various experiments. The experiments conducted used both frozen and thawed chickens to test the cockpit window of a private aircraft.
The 1970s test of the British High Speed Train windscreens used the Farnborough chicken gun and expertise, not NASA based expertise, busting the Mythbusters myth relating to NASA telling the British "defrost the chickens first".

This makes me think of BigBird crashing into a window. 

<<And I`m sick of thinking about him....yet everything reminds me of him.>>
And you look into the girl's faces everyday so no matter if you get rid of every speck of Big Bird's leftover poop, he still remains to soil your new life.
I can't say how it must be for people who have children with an n......can't even imagine how you can separate the two.

When I was actually attending therapy, the counselor asked me if I ever hated my kids b/c I saw him in them.  I just kind of looked at him in a puzzled way and said that they are MY kids, how could I hate them?  I carried them inside my body, nursed them, cared for them, love them more than life itself.  They're mine.  Just b/c dickhead contributed some sperm doesn't change that.

[JennyWren]

Farnborough chicken gun eh? Would you believe it....my brother works at the old Ministry of Defence airfield at Farnborough.

I am OUTRAGED that he has been denying me knowledge of this chicken gun. I shall call him right away and demand that he stuff it up his jumper and sneak it past the Big Men with Guns.

That is the answer to everything. One BigBird....one chicken gun....one large Airbus engine....BOOSH!...suddenly one large vat of rather rancid Bird Pate. Still talking incessantly. 

[MoreMyself]

My oldest son did change his surname - from his father's to my maiden name.  I didn't change my name but only because I had so many things in my finances that were in my married name.  I just couldn't face the nightmare of changing my name on every single document.  Plus I've had relatives and friends who did go back to their maiden name and it caused problems.  One cousin nearly wasn't allowed on a flight to visit me because her travel agent had put her married name on one document and her maiden name on another.

When my son changed his name he said it was because his father's name was too long and as a lawyer he'd have to sign his name so many times that my maiden name (3 letters) was easier.  Yeah, right.  He was the son that was rejected by his father.  The Hobbit used to taunt him and call him a geek when he was a teenager and tell him he couldn't get a date.  So cruel.  The Hobbit was a master of verbal abuse.  I knew that there were deeper emotional reasons for the name change but all I said was that he should think it over carefully and make sure it was what he wanted because it was a lifelong decision.  He always respected my father and can't tolerate his paternal grandfather so I think he chose the male in the family that he had the most respect for and took his name.

My youngest, who was and is the Hobbit's GC, has kept the surname, so my sons have different last names.  Like Jenny, I don't have trouble loving them just because I see their father in them.  Yes, there are traits of theirs that I dislike and that they learned or inherited from the Hobbit.  But my nMother cured me of judging my children by doing it to me and my brothers.  When we did something she didn't like she'd say "Just like your father!".  When we did something of which she approved she said we took after her side.  The truth is that DNA is 50/50, but in the Hobbit's 50% (and mine) there is a vast mixture of DNA passed down.  My oldest has an analytical legal mind, my youngest is fuzzy as a peach on details but a talented musician.  They didn't get either of these traits from the Hobbit or me, so there you have it.  Unique individuals.

Unfortunately they did learn how to treat me from the Hobbit and its an ongoing process to re-educate them.  The Hobbit treated me like his mother and expected that I would drop everything to do what he asked of me.  My sons have this same expectation and now that they are adults I am continually having to set boundaries and enforce them.  But at least they have shown they are capable of learning and their respect for me has improved greatly since the Hobbit left. 

As to my question about whether what would have happened had I stayed the course through his Narcissistic Decompensation, I think you've all answered it for me.  The ebb and flow would have continued and confused the life out of me.  We would have had nice vacations followed by accusations that I was wasting money and he didn't want to travel with me.  He would be on a high when there were business opportunities then I'd be the kicking boy when they evaporated, and this would have happened more and more as he aged.  Retirement would have been a nightmare of walking on eggshells and trying to cater to his demands for food and housekeeping that suited him on a daily basis.  I'm getting anxious just thinking about it.  Thank the powers that be for Decompensation, because it was the new pair of eyeglasses that allowed me to see what he was really like.

[JennyWren]

Snowbird... Captain Bligh`s long drawn out descent into ever more abusive behaviour sounds perfectly horrid. The nasty habit children have of developing minds of their own never goes down well in N world....and the horrible crass way he tried to regain control of your daughter must have broken your heart

There was a tangible change in the BigBird grumpy-factor after our second daughter came along. I had always wanted herds of children....but he announced that two was enough. And that was that. Even when they were little...they were a nuisance to him....but when they stopped going to bed at 7pm....and wanted to hang out as a family...well...it ate into what he called his "Adult one-to-one time". Idiot.

I think with this kind of N...it is inevitable that things will get physical in the end....because control is everything...and when "kids" become free thinkers...how else will they establish their authority?

BigBird got physically abusive with his daughters aged 10 and 13 at the time. Because he had lost his power....and he HAD to get back in charge again whatever it took.

It really took that for me to see him as the complete plonker he is. Seeing kids treated badly is much more of an eye-opener than all the rot I put up with.

[alatariel]

Farnborough chicken gun eh? Would you believe it....my brother works at the old Ministry of Defence airfield at Farnborough.

I am OUTRAGED that he has been denying me knowledge of this chicken gun. I shall call him right away and demand that he stuff it up his jumper and sneak it past the Big Men with Guns.

That is the answer to everything. One BigBird....one chicken gun....one large Airbus engine....BOOSH!...suddenly one large vat of rather rancid Bird Pate. Still talking incessantly. 

   You're kidding!  Synchronicity, eh?

[Snowbird]

I think with this kind of N...it is inevitable that things will get physical in the end....because control is everything...and when "kids" become free thinkers...how else will they establish their authority?

BigBird got physically abusive with his daughters aged 10 and 13 at the time. Because he had lost his power....and he HAD to get back in charge again whatever it took.

That's it in a nutshell. Power and control...and everything at his whim and for his convenience.
My marriage described in a sentence.

[pearlsb4swine]

Snowbird, you have described my marriage as well.  And Jenny makes a great point about kids getting older and thinking for themselves.

I sometimes think that the need to regain lost power may have been key to my xnh's N decompensation.  That maybe his cheating and stealing were about obtaining NS supply for himself, but also to get the upper hand with me.  To show me who was the boss.  Because one of the things he did was to secretly borrow money from his Nparents.  His parents were angry with me (that's another story) and I think they were delighted to collude with him against me.  He later told me he borrowed the money to  cover his tracks, but that made no sense.  In fact, what tipped me off was discovering that he was sending money to his dad, to repay a loan I knew nothing about. 

Xnh knew I loved him.  I had put up with so much.  I sometimes think that he thought the whole thing would play out differently.....that I would stay with him, but having been "put in my place," I would be more malleable.  I know when I said I wanted a divorce, he was very, very surprised.  He recovered quickly, and acted like the whole thing was fine with him. 

Who knows.  The whole thing may have been a bid to regain power and control that went horribly awry.  But either way, it's over for me.

Pearls