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Old 23-09-2022, 06:34 PM
asearcher
Posts: n/a
 
I'm sorry for your pain Lostsoul13. Thank you for writing to me. I think I will try to read what you wrote several times to get a clearer view as I can't quite follow you always, but I will try. So I can get back then to that stuff where I did not quite follow later on please?

From what I think I have understood is your description on the forever-felt cycle of rebirth and the separations and reconciliations with members of your soul-group, and that we are all on our own separate/lonely journey, and that that in itself is narcissistic? I know some read selfishness as narcissistic,but I don't. I am sure there is this spectrum there as well to what degree. The narcissist I think my husband has for a parent simply can not have any empathy.

Except that you can end up with trauma from the mental abuse from narcissist/s what it does is that through the pain you sort of have to find out what is wrong and from there you can rebuilt yourself from that.

If you had any sleeping values you were not even aware of you had, as well as any vulnerabilities, they sure come to life, that is the stage that either the narc does it, which it thinks it is gonna do as it also has this superior attitude, but you are the one to rebuilt yourself and this time stronger, that is how it can turn out instead.

I had not thought of it before as I had not before been in such a toxic family home environment as the narc offered but I cam to realize i had some sleeping values in me, but now they're out in the open and I'm not afraid to air them.

I think it is important the rest of us, not just narcissists to air things. I use to keep lots of t hings to myself, I still do, but there are things that should not be silenced. They speak as if theirs is the only truth out there and can't handle if others have other opinions, they are not even looking for others opinion or a little bit of self-realization. What has sicken me is the silence given before, may it be out of shock or what ever, the surprise element, that the narcissist use. It may then come across as either people think the way the narc thinks and agree and that the silence stands for that, or that the people are too coward to stand up and protest.

But here is the ugly truth: that there is autism on the spectrum in the family and they miss the signs of the manipulation, not always but they do miss it, more so than I think others do, and it is not easy to pick up anyways if you are not familiar with it, and they are not interested in the manipulation either. This is something I am sure the narc-parent has taken full advantage off. That is a vulnerability the other parent, partner has. I've never seen, noticed the other parent being manipulative. I've never seen, noticed any other family member being manipulative. I think the only narcissist in the family is that one narcissist and that is at least a good thing, that it isn't several of them.

One part of me knows that because the other parent has accepted it it will then be passed on to the children (today grown) to say this is not mental abuse, when it is. The boundaries has been weak.

A part of me dislikes that the other parent has done this, showing the next generation (my husband being one of them) that this is all OK. It is not OK. This parent should not take it either. Should have left that narcissist a long time ago. Now we're all paying for the fact that this parent is not leaving because now you gotta see them both at celebrations etc. Another part of me thinks this parent is paying the ultimate price, suffering enough as it is and still trying to keep it head up high. I know what it is like myself to not have enough air to get out of a toxic situation and I think the narc keeps it just so. I wonder if the parent truly knows it's partner is a narcissist and is lacking any kind of empathy, except for the empathy that makes it possible for the narcissist to be such a great manipulator. That however do not mean they have the true empathy. Before this I had no idea there were different types of empathy, categorized:
"Renowned psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three components of empathy: Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate.". I have noticed and I know that the other families are taken distance, as to some degree the true face of a narcissist and the problems it is causing in all families does not go unnoticed. I am only so happy that we never got to be in a situation where we had our finances mixed up with theirs, as using money is one of the favorite ways a narcissist will play you. I know of a situation where one family was tied up (the narc had borrowed them money) and in return the narc got to be insulting to the woman of the family and the man just had to sit there and take it. That does something to the family, to the couple. They use to be so in love and the way this woman use to look and talk to her man was so different. Today it is a harsh look and harsh words. And what about the man? he sacrificed her in order for them to have the money to have the splendid this and that, status. Superficial status. But to them what? Necessary? You do not get into any sort of financial business deal with a narc, that is for sure. My husband has wanted us too to go that way, there has been some pressure. I told him no way. This was before I got to witness what I did between the couple that were before happy. And now I can say I was right. I don't need to pretend I can afford a certain life style when I know I can't. I can understand it though if it is about the basics, but this was not about the basics. Then it is about survival. That was not. But you know in some heads it is. But the price this couple is paying - is way higher than what any loan is worth. I saw this. I saw it being planterad. I saw what this would lead to. And you can't undo it. You can't undo those moments.

I think I had to work on my boundaries as well but mine was not that I was trespassing and hurting other people, mine was that I did not react fast enough and strong enough if someone was intruding into my space. I had to re-learn and I am still working on it.

For one thing because of my empathy I had difficulty separating what was not my problem and what was others and where their responsibility was and mine was not, and I am still struggling with that. As you can see, me about to not just tell the kids they are in the wrong but very, very close to telling the parents. But now I know I have to take one step back and leave it to my husband.

Something on my shame-list where this got me wrong earlier in life is that I was after all, even if I was still so young back then, guilt tripped into dating the guy the psychiatrist later thought was a psychopath. I also was not secured enough in myself to go by my own instinct at some part of the process, me thinking maybe I was wrong about him then and soften up to him as he back then for a year or two, I can't even remember that, held on, spread the word that he was really into me and would love to take me out, it was as if everyone else liked him and were encouraging. That the wrong was with me for not even giving him a chance. Thing is too back then I enjoyed my single life. I did not yet have the need to be in a relationship or anything else for that matter. I think it was because I had been in a relationship before, years of it, and I had not focused on myself, finding out more about myself and how I wanted my life to be. While I had been in the relationship before I had not been unhappy even if there had been one growing problem but it still must have effected me somehow. It was not personal why I didn't go out with him all that time before, I just wasn't there. I didn't feel like dating. I didn't feel like being in a relationship either. I liked to go out and have fun, innocent fun-stuff, but other than that I was fully occupied with my own life and where my focus needed to be at the time.

Now I know I have to go by me. I did not leave either when I was suppose to, when it was too damaging for me, thinking part of the fault at least was with me. He had then guilt tripped me to think I had to stay and ride this one out. He would use guilt and fear. Proberbly see what worked best on me. There was something he must have been very much afraid of, to try to control me like that. Anyhow, like you pointed out earlier, I was not aware of my own faults, and how they were taken advantaged off before. In that way I was like my husband was before with his narc.parent. You get numbed to it. I know I was numbed, I did not feel any emotions, I certainly did not feel my own emotions, so if this ex would say things that today would make me furious or hurtful to make me cry back then I would be like OK what ever. I suppose it could have been my indifference that triggered him to get worse as he was looking for an emotional reaction. I did not do it willingly but I think it was a way for my brain to protect itself. I have noticed with the narc-parent-in-law that when I have ignored, willingly, an insult in the past it keeps repeating it as it wants that emotional reaction to it, while I ignore that too and talk to someone else or do something else. So it is that one tactic is used on me and I'm using another tactic. But this is exhausting to do in the end. I just want to be authentic and say you know what? You are out of line and get the hell away from me. But I too knew I had to bite my tongue, and suppress any anger and hurt as this was after all my husband's parent and he did not say or do anything, then again a lot of it went on without him being present. I knew then it would be a situation where my husband would not know who to trust and I would not say anything about it as I was too good to my husband. I should have just challenged him then and there - yes who do you trust is telling you the truth of what happened behind your back? Who? Make a pick. And if he did not pick me - here's the divorce papers, there you go, have a nice life. Today - that is what I would have done. But back then I was vulnerable in the way I loved him and my self esteem had been taken a lot of punches. Also a bully trust that - they trust that you don't tell anyone. They're testing you. It only makes them stronger and make you think that all of this is going on inside your head, not in the real world while it is very real and should be taken serious. I did not tell my own family, my own friends what was going on with the narcissist parent in law. First people I told - was on this forum. This is where I finally wrote.At the time I did not know what narcissism was.But before I did not tell other family members. I kept everything to myself. Out of loyalty.Even if what the narcissist did to me was very much out of disloyalty. I think I thought if I just don't make a big deal out of this (and it was a big deal! a big toxic deal!) this will not exist. But it did exist. And it got bigger and bigger of a problem and I stood alone in that. I was withdrawing from my husband meanwhile.

I still hate all those books I have to say and all those experts who keep on saying you have to leave your partner out of it and just focus on the toxic parent in law issue as your partner will never understand what you're talking about. If you got a partner who don't understand what you're talking about it is high time to let that partner go. Bye by, go home to mama or papa or where ever you wanna go and please change your own diapers from now on. Seriously. It is ALWAYS about the grown CHILD not having had the healthy rebellion period and become a WOMAN or a MAN who has HEALTHY BOUNDARIES. I went for it, you know. I listened to those so called lunatic-experts and they could not have been more wrong. They are still out there you know, giving the same **** of advice. I would finally say you know what? I did not chose to have a relationship with that someone and you brought this lunatic into my life. I am not going to sit down and negotiate anything as I am declaring from now on I do not have a relationship with that someone. It is not something that should be on my shoulders, it is not my responsibility. You deal with your own sick individual from your own sick family. You forced this person on me. If i have to say goodbye to you in order to get that person out of my life I am thinking it is worth it. Grow the... up and be the man and the father you are suppose to be, or get out. I never gave my husband a family member that would do to him what was done to me. I would not have put him through that.

I think too that my way of protecting him from all this was that I took one look at him and thought Is he gonna make it? You know? Is he strong enough to pull through? I did not dare to take a chance. I just thought : If this is so bad on me, what is it gonna do to him? And me knowing his parent wanted him torn in the middle, while my empathy for him did not want that for my husband.

Then when I could not take it anymore: He got in the middle. At the time I could not care anymore if he was gonna make it or break a part. I was ready to throw in the towel. I did not love him as I use to before either. In another way I know I fought to get through to him. And I said some terrible things but they needed to be said. I would tell him he was still a little boy and I needed him to step up and be a real man .That had he never rebelled like any other normal teenager? He would tell me later on he could see the resentment, the disgust I had for him in my eyes and my words, and it was about the past, and he could not change the past. He told me that yes he did not see this as such a big problem before but then again he did not know about all this other stuff that was done behind his back. I know I at one time said to him I have a witness, and I did, and it was a family member of his that had walked in on when the narcissist was having a go at me, having surprised me before in a room alone, one of it's tactics. My husband would later say that you did not have to have a witness to tell me this, I would have believed you. But then again he would often tell me You are so sensitive!!!! as in me making things up or exaggerating so how would I know? I would perhaps expect an answer that would be It can't be like that, or You have to toughen up. Something of the sort. Too I was getting weak and knew I had to care for the little energy I had left in my system so I could no longer waste it on my husband. I had to put my focus on being a mom and other roles I had and the obligation I had to myself.

I know that even though it was bad during our split up I still felt way better than I had while in the relationship with him. I felt free. It had been such a weight on me. Such a feeling of going around and around in this circle as if I was some hamster in a wheel, just wasting my energy, getting nowhere, just sinking. To just know I was to be signed out of his family, the narcissist, that I was no longer gonna be the wife who was not heard or had her emotional needs met, who did not have to worry about how he would take it was such a joy. To be out of there! To not having to be a perfectionist's wife no more. God! To feel beautiful in my own skin again, my own body. I did not care what weight it had at the time. I knew what little weight it did have it would not make no difference to many other men in the world and it made no difference to me. I was so sick of him always looking to find something to complain about instead of looking at everything that was good.

My husband would say I would turn up, this during the split, and it was business and I know this one time he would sort of shoot himself up the chair he sat on before when he should have just sat down still, as I got there, and the way he looked at me was somehow as if he was falling right back in love with me again (but claim he had never fallen out).

He would later say during our split that I was shining, I had this old glow to me right back, and he thought I was so pretty, and he would get envious when I would smile at others, shake their hands, and him knowing I was indifferent if he was in the room or not. It felt so good not to care, not to give a dam what he thought about my appearance: not how I had my hair, not my clothes, not anything. To be free. I would never be on him or anyone but he sure would not leave me alone in the past and it wasn't as if I did not know how to dress myself, but you know, he was so guarding in a way. It was too much. I would have understood it if I dressed a certain way but I did not even do that.

I had no problem talking with him about the areas that worked between us: We did have the same understanding about a lot of things, parenting was one of them and focusing on what was best, how to move on with other things, the home, for instance. Ah and just the thought that I would be out of that ghostly.home, and to decorate my own new place. I was so looking forward to it. Nobody to tell me it wasn't put away enough or that shouldn't go there and that table isn't good enough for his taste.

I know I had to stop myself from saying too much as I knew he was not at the same page as I was as I had been given this a lot of thought before. he would say that too that to him it felt weird because I was considerate, he would say I was kind but distant, but showing consideration, and I suppose that sort of break up had not been in his history.

I knew what it was like to be dumped, I had been there, and I did not want to be like that. He would say that too that he knew he had been like the biggest ******* and I was still kind to him and it just threw him off. I still looked at us all as family, just not that we were going to be a couple anymore, but that in time we would all be fine. And I would think to myself that he needed to be where he was. He needed to be with someone who was more like him, not sensitive, and someone who was a perfectionist, which I wasn't and did not want to become, someone who would be working out like he did. I was hoping however she would not go on those crazy-diets he did because I still did not believe in those. In my head I would think that his ex, before me, was probably more right for him than I had ever been, and perhaps if he had not seen me when he did, he would have gone back. That he was maybe not aware of it but that it was his ex he wanted me to be and would get frustrated that I wasn't her; I did not shower the same attention to my looks or my weight. I thought I was already good to go. Perhaps that is what irritated him. That I felt I was actually more than good enough and if he could not see that, and if he could not even think that of himself then he was missing out of life and the joys of life. That I was no longer gonna try to change to meet his unrealistic expectations of me. I was going off the god dam treadmill. And it felt good to give myself an embrace and say there you are! Where you've been all this time? I've missed you! It is important you feel loved by your partner for who you are. He did not deliver that message. But he was very much in the same or more demand of himself, his own body, and so he had so very little to give to me. He did not give it to himself, you know? I've learned that. That people who are no givers, they don't give to themselves either: They're not really kind to themselves either. So how could I expect him to be kind to me? Doesn't work that way.

I one time really told him off that the 2 things he had said before irritated him about his ex that my ex had had the same habits and they never irritated me, and that he must have looked ridiculous to be with a beautiful woman like his ex was/is, and let those 2 little habits irritate him!

I now know it was his stern upbringing about this, a way to handle his anxiety, and the autism-aspect where he would not stop til it felt right, which is an impossible way for anyone else to know and it is not something that he should go after. This is why things that are already cleaned gets cleaned, because they are looking for that feeling, it isn't something real on the outside, in our reality, it is just in their heads, and he needed to know that.

Today he is not on any crazy diets, thank God, I've told him if he ever gets on one again we are done as I remember how irritated he got and would want me in on it as well. Or times when he did not want me on one but he still wanted to be in charge what was in the home or not to eat. I had to hide the goodies, LOL. Later I would tell him they would stay as we were a family and this was a family home that he did not get to have the only vote. His crazy diet was easily out-voted, LOL.

These days he is never on me on anything, and he's not looking to blame the outside if this feeling still comes over him. I know I would tell him that if and when that happened that it has to be because of something else, you can't tell me that something so small can cause such irritation. That what is this really about.

Perhaps it is a wake up call for the grown ups when listening, hearing the younger generation speak the way the narcissist speak of looks and weight and the bully part of it. Some are just fine with allowing the kids to be babysit and be there. We can only do so much. Others know better.

We'll see how this one goes, but I am butting out of it.

Last edited by asearcher : 24-09-2022 at 07:32 AM.
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