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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Love & Relationships -Friends and Family

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  #1  
Old 03-10-2022, 10:38 PM
asearcher
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Family's effect on partner

I have had a recurring issue in my life that would surprise me as I was use to getting along with people and feeling welcomed not only with my own family but friend's families.

With my first love he was to undergo, develop a drinking issue and when I thought it was dead serious and every attempt before had failed I wanted him to go to Rehab. His family did not. They had another culture of drinking. From stories I heard I began to suspect there was someone else in the family generation/s back with a drinking issue. The family went from being loving, supportive and me getting the feeling they got to be suspicious of me. When the break up came they made no attempt to get us back together or have any good words, as their way to say goodbye. Not everyone was like that though, fortunately but this was more of a relative. I got the impression with him that he had gone from wanting, trying and making it for some time to quit, to him then returning to drink but wanted to turn my love for him against ,myself, by me then accepting his drinking, which I didn't. He acted at times as if I had done him something, as if I was a disobedient child, to him then shift to bringing flowers etc, but not accepting it was over. It was as if I was only let back into the warmth would I be in denial and be inferior and I wouldn't.

The other relationship I was to face issues with my partner's family had to do with narcissism, need for control, to appear superior, appearance very important, all sorts of superficial status important.

I thought with my first love that he wanted to mold me into the kind of woman his family would want, and he too, being influenced.

I have felt the same way with my husband with him for instance mimicking parent with diets and work outs, and wanting perhaps in secret or not so secret a woman like that, which I have never been nor intend to become.

Thus I have felt "I don't belong" and that someone else was preferable.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing? What's your thought on this?

I got to feel let down because I wanted to feel and be welcomed into the families and not have their attitude, behavior change towards me, reason or no reason for it.

I would feel with my first love and later on my husband it was as if they stood with one foot with the family and the rest with me.
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Old 04-10-2022, 09:20 AM
FairyCrystal FairyCrystal is offline
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There is some pattern, but not like that. I don't think I'd enter a relationship when there was such a split. But it's likely a reflection of what's going on inside you since like attracts like, so something inside must resonate with that dynamic.

For me a pattern is not having in-laws present in a relationship. My 1st partner had fallen out with his parents so they weren't really part of our life.
With my next partner it was similar as he was British and his parents -and siblings- still lived in the UK. I never met his parents, so again no in-laws present in my life. Nor his siblings for that matter although I did meet his sister a few times later on.
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Old 05-10-2022, 05:36 AM
asearcher
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Thank you. Well that is unusual, at least in my circles to not have to do with your partner's family that way. It is a process. If one knew from the start what it was gonna be like then one would have reacted. Thing is getting to know people take time and life too (being busy with other things etc) can get in the way. Then when it hits you what you're dealing with then it can feel as if you are stuck with it, all tangled up.

I am very family-oriented. Comes from where family is important and most utmost that nobody feel as if they are not part of the group.

Had me and my first love when we got together for the second time had stayed together I think I would had to learn to keep some family members out of the equation which is something that is not part of my nature, how I've been taught. But he would have to be on the same page and I don't know if he would have been. He was close with his family, relatives. When I did ask him about his family he would tell me that he did not have so much contact, saw so and so anymore but they were still in the picture. After our initial break up there were these differences on how I was seen as. One family member would not say hi back or smile but look at me with hate in its eyes or ignore me willingly. I could not believe it. I kept saying hi and smile several times when passing by. Then I would not do it no more. To me that family member really showed it's true colors. My ex would say this person acted that way because it was so protective of him. What ever. What had caused our break up was between myself and my ex, not me and my ex's family member. Another family member would always insist to say through other/s "Send her (me) my love", for years, after the break up. Too the Don't forget to send her my love". It warmed my heart.

As far as my husband's family is concerned it is very special and deteriorating to be part of a narcissist's family.

I learned it makes no difference what so ever if a family member is overweight or normal weight or underweight, the abuse is still the same.

One family member who I feared was to get an eating or body view disorder would work out and afterwards be told by the narcissistic parent that a specific part of the body was then not right. There was nothing wrong with that specific part of the body. Just so that the person who had worked out was not to feel good after having done that. Nobody is allowed except for the narcissist to feel good about itself. It gets jealous, envious. It shifts between praise and bullying. It's been quite the freak show.

The solution to existing on a healthy level in a narcissist family is to - at least to me it is - to have distance or at the very best no contact with the narcissist and built your own relationships with the others without involving the narcissist in that. The narcissist is dominant and wants to butt in on everything and usually people without a second thought invite that in, while I don't. I can afford not to.

Before because of the hold the narcissist had on the family I felt it could dominate the others opinions of me, and thought so, but it couldn't. Other family members began to protest. My husband is too family-oriented and was the one to tell me to please not throw everyone over
board, as they could tell I had distanced myself from everyone. It was too when I had distanced myself from my husband, contemplating divorce before finally telling him.

I think what I saw in my first love's family was a defect. A defect as far as addiction is concerned and this was to be kept secret and me exposing that would then make me the enemy, not part of the group unless I conformed. It was not just about him standing there with the shame, it was them too. It was parents that had to become part of "investigation", background story, to why and how he had began to drink the way he had. I know he told me that one of the hardest thing he had to do in life was when he was going against one of his parent, drunk, as it was too aggressive. There were some stories circulating of the past, and always then when this parent was drunk. He never said to me, nobody did, that that parent had problem with the drinking.

I think it is very powerful this mental group effect, comes from nature in itself, if you're part, accepted by the group or not.

Even if I could be too kind and have my own boundary issues, when ever someone or a group of people would try to confine me by for instance like they did when you were young and you had to be part of some game (drinking game) nobody could make me do anything. I was always resilient to that. Already when very young and few adults would try to shame me into something I would not be ashamed even if I knew they were in this position of authority because I thought they were wrong.

My first love did not want me to drink much at all and I never did. And once it was obvious to me what we were dealing with I did not care if I ever drank, what ever it took to get him through it, to support him to stay sober for the rest of his life, I would have done it. He would most cases stay sober and be the driver when we were out partying. Much of his drinking happened in the privacy of our home so other people did not get to see how bad it got over time. I tried to help him but I couldn't. He tried to quit on his own when he agreed it had gotten to be too much but it would not stay that way. He always returned to it. And his family then who did not want him to go to Rehab. He listened to that. He did not listen to me. He chose who to listen to. I was his present and wanted to be his future, but not on those terms.

Looking back even if my family knew finally what his problem was, once I got to a stage where I felt I,we could no longer keep this to ourselves, they still stood by our side. They wanted him to go to Rehab. It was never you have to leave him now. I think it was because they had over time too thought he was such a good guy and they believed, could see he loved me so, and we were good together. My parent had this idea that first of all he had to do Rehab and only marry after that, not before, only when seeing he could walk the line. This parent tried to sell off the idea as a sort of celebration, a new start, something to look forward to, to him. He had been the one who thought it was important for us to be engaged, and later married. I did not really care if I had it on paper or not, as long as the love was true.

I think too it was my parent's fear that if he did not go, he would be going back and forth with the drinking and I would be stuck there right with him. I always felt the support in that. My family had too seen a thing or two and although genuinely liking his family could suspect where this (the drinking) was a problem. There was too much of it and we were surrounded by it. Naturally I drew myself, and he came with me, to my side of the family because there I felt understood, and there was no drinking buddy there, not how it was on his side. My family would later say that it was tragic that of all the people in the family he was the one to get caught in the webb like that.

I still do not like the idea that not everyone is part of your family. I've been the same way during my career. I always go out in my way, but it is natural to me, to me a newcomer feel welcomed and part of the group, and I check in now and then. If they're under my wing when they get there they're always under my wing, LOL. When I see that someone is being pushed out, or I am not part of the family group it hurts me.

Today when I have been talking to others I've learned that so many family have their issues and are divided, having contact with that one but not the other because of this or that. You have to chose your own people.

What becomes problematic is if your partner still wants someone in and you want them out. The solution for that is I guess to create more distance, I don't know. I was not as close to my first love as he had people in his life, butting into my life, our life, had I been if they were out, and the same went with my husband. Mentally there will always be this sort of wall between myself and a partner who still decides to have contact with someone who I under no circumstances want in my life, that I shouldn't have to put up with in the first place just because I back then loved my husband.

It is OK though to not maybe be so close to a partner that I originally thought I would be, as that too is my nature, to be very close to the people I love.

My husband felt it when I divided our lives, did to him what he had done to me, or allowed his narcissist to do to me, when it was mirrored back at him. Then he understood the toxic rules he had brought in between us. Some people do not get it with words. I emptied myself on words. You have to use no words and just do what they do to you. In a way that gets the relationship to balance, nobody is inferior or superior. When the pain got to be his own - that was when he got it. It was a painful process for him as well.

A narcissist can only do its damage so and so period of time before people start to take distance or cut off contact completely and I've seen that happen. There is this long history of cutting off contacts with other families, that would normally still be in the picture. I've felt the support of other family members who like I could see, feel the dysfunction. Usually it is so normal to the origin part of the family members they don't see it or they adapt to it, and it breaths on, so to get someone born into this to truly see, is not easy.

I've learned now to built up walls too, that we had to in an active way decide what our family is. Who gets to be visitors, part of it that way, no more, no less, and who gets to be out. That I am in no way to get pressured to have contact with someone from his family I don't want to. He supports that now, and so the old vulnerability that I see the narcissist use on the other family members, can not be used on me, us anymore.

I think with both my first love and my husband they have had similar family-oriented thinking like I have so yes we were, are the same there, and so they have let the door be wide open "because you're, they're family" but you have to watch out who you're letting in, family or not. Live and learn, as they say. Live and learn.

Last edited by asearcher : 05-10-2022 at 07:07 AM.
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  #4  
Old 05-10-2022, 05:36 AM
asearcher
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............. double post
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  #5  
Old 05-10-2022, 05:36 AM
asearcher
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...and on it goes...
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  #6  
Old 05-10-2022, 05:36 AM
asearcher
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.............................. sigh.............
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  #7  
Old 05-10-2022, 05:37 AM
asearcher
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................the end, LOL...............
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  #8  
Old 05-10-2022, 10:03 AM
FairyCrystal FairyCrystal is offline
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What I realised quite early on when entering a relationship with a man that had his 2 kids live with us, and I mine... the natural parent has to mediate and sort out any serious **** that comes up between their child and the step-parent.
I always did this with my kids, which allowed my then partner to build a healthy relationship with my children.
He, however, did not do the same so my relationship with his kids was skewed and very very difficult.

I feel it's the same with parents and other family of a partner. The partner has to mediate and sort out any **** that's thrown at their spouse/partner by his family. He plays a crucial role in this, making clear that they're talking about the one he loves and chooses to spend his life with.
If he doesn't do that he's failing his partner.
It's the same the other way round if my family would treat my partner bad or are negative towards him in any way. Then it'd MY task to sort the situation so my loved one wouldn't get any flak.
You can't leave it up to a partner who has no relationship with the negative family to solve this, certainly not if there's any tension there.
Totally unfair to abandon you as a loved one and let you navigate stormy waters with his family. Shouldn't be your job, it's his responsibility that his family treats you right.
If he does nothing he rejects you as much as his family, even if he doesn't say a thing.
He's really failing you as a partner.

So... I'd have a good talk with my partner.

And again, as I said in earlier post, like attracts like, so there has to be something inside you that resonates with being rejected, not made to feel welcome, not feeling good enough etc. etc. etc.
That is your thing to sort so this dynamic can change in the external after you fixed it inside yourself.
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Old 06-10-2022, 05:28 PM
asearcher
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Thank you :) God that does not sound easy to handle at all, especially when it concerns children and so on. Fortunately I've never had that particularly issue, but others. One has to be on the same page.

Yes I think so too. Sorry to say so called experts in the field still make books and articles about how you have to alone get to find common ground with the for instance parent-in-law as the experts don't think the partner will ever fully understand. I think they do more harm than good.

Now after me having gone through that sort of nightmare I can say it is 100% about the partner not being adult enough and having healthy boundaries, a healthy relationship with it's parent or parents, allowing the parent to step on the child (who is suppose to be an adult) and one way of showing that is to step on the woman or man the child has chosen to love. In the end it does not step so much on the partner but on it's own child but there is stupidity involved in this and it can be that neither the parent nor the child gets that, so then the partner gets to pay for them both being stupid, which isn't fair.

In my case it is not about a normal parent in law with what ever flaws there may be, but a full blown narcissist. I did not even have a single clue what a narcissist was. First time I heard the term was on this forum when I described this parent in law, and one reply was with the term "narcissist". That was an eye opener. Then another family member would tell me, us that too (been educated in this) and said flat out that this parent is something called "narcissist". Then the third time I heard it was from another family member who had not spoken about it with the other one, naming the parent-in-law "narcissist".

I don't believe the narcissist would have gotten away with what it has had not autism on the spectrum existed in the family as well. They are kind, bright people but the autism makes it more difficult for their brains to pick up some social cues and manipulation. The manipulation is difficult for anyone. Also they are sensitive in one way but not sensitive in another and so in the not sensitive way they are resilient to it, they don't care for it. But too allow it to happen, again and again instead of putting an end to it. Of course this has worked very well for the narcissist over the years. That they were gonna chose partners, bring in neuro typicals, in to the family made it more difficult as we were starting to question what was going on. I have however been the one to quickly end up on the narcissist's black book for various reasons. My husband half way in the book as well as he had chosen me and in his own way stood by my side. Today I am rather proud that I have, actually. At least I stood up for something. I think the narcissist could not understand I had a soft side to me and a strong side. Thought it could wreck me to then have me under it's command, control, but it couldn't. It could not outcast me either because the other family members were starting to show support as well once they realized what was happening. Other family members with their authoric members would also react on how I was being treated. I think once you get to see this other side of the narcissist people withdraw and cut off contact, and then the circle begins again with new people. I know when I met my husband and understood that I told him that it was strange to me how isolated his family was. Now I know why. Because they had a narcissist ruling the show and that was the result of that. We have contact with family members the narcissist don't as there has been a cut.

I use to be too kind and have this ability to endure much before I began to crack up, despite me being highly sensitive. I use to be patient with people. I use to have this shift in me, become strong when it came to protecting others, but my own boundaries were screwed up with and I took a lot of (mental) beating nobody should take. I can get angry with myself (LOL) when I look back and think how much was I suppose to endure, accept, before I said enough is enough? It was as if I was waiting for my husband, for instance, to get when it was enough for me - and then it was enough? This was painful for him as well. He knew he was loosing me. he did not want that. He's said he never once thought about leaving me even when he knew I wanted and did leave him. He's been ashamed of not protecting me the way he has understood I needed, and to answer to any other family member of mine and friends of how this could have gone so far. He's been very angry. He's said he could not believe this would happen to me as he was use to, and thinking, I was someone nice and polite and that he himself always wanted to be around me, to then have me being targeted like that. In my own way I did not want the narcissist to have something on me so I would not raise my voice but keep myself very much controlled and say what I felt needed to be said, both to protect others, and myself. So that my husband could never be confused as to who was the villain here. I understood the narcissist wanted to place him in the middle, and eventually that happened, but I did not want to place my husband there before, I did not do it til it was the last way out, as I knew now my husband was going to suffer in a way that I hadn't. His loyalties would be ripped apart, he would be ripped apart. But in the end I think it had to happen, and he did come out of it, he did hold, but there has been a lot of suffering, confusion, insecurities in him too about this. He had the role of a golden child. They all had their roles. It was time to outgrow them.

I was treated well by my ex's families and my current's for a long time before it got wrong. It was not as if I accepted, or wanted to be rejected and would be OK with that. I would not have willingly walked into that sort of situation. Especially not as I am used to being treated with kindness.

With my current I was much more close, use to other family members, than the narcissist. It was only when I got pregnant and it was to be a life change when I got to be in the narcissist's way.

My husband has taken full responsibility for where he went wrong before. He would try to stand up for me but it was too little too late, til he then finally realized how bad this was, and that he needed to change, work on himself. Had he not changed we would not have continued, we would have been divorced, and it would have been worth it, considering. Now he knows about the narcissism, he knows about where his need for perfection comes from, what could be too much, when it is only a feeling he is hunting and should hunt no more. It's been anxiety triggers from upbringing and a vulnerability for it because of the autism. He knows everything he needs to know about what it means to be on the autism spectrum, and what, in my case it means to be highly sensitive, so these days he has changed with this knowledge, treatment, and is the man I needed him to be 100% before. He woke up, but it was almost too late and he has had to prove to me he has changed.

If we don't do nothing about the dysfunctional traits that exists in our first families and we accept them as normal, even healthy, and we make them our own, and we then subconsciously or willingly place this on our partner - then that is the disease that gets to be carried on if the partner is too itself like that or become like that.

Some stuff can be good stuff but they become bad. One is the working out, diet stuff. It is that you never feel good enough. This was the result of how my husband grew up. He was good, but he could always do better, he was praised one moment, trashed the next, one of the narcissist's tactics. He could never just relax and be feeling he was good enough. And he gave me the message as I was once in this idiotic circle with him before I got out of it that I too was not good enough. These were his two dysfunctional rules he had made his own from his own home. One was the working out, diet, the other was the perfectionist-home. It all came down to that, once you strip off the layers. The feeling of not good enough and the feeling of anxiety and to recognize them.

Other dysfunctional trades with my first love was the drinking part. This was accepted in a way that I was not use to and I did not want to accept it and have that kind of life. I know there was this period where my first love tried to be in denial and tried to make me accept it as he wanted to keep on drinking. I would resent that. That he was trying to use the love I had for him to place me inferior. The same with my husband. That he would try to use my love for him to be inferior by me having to work out, go on useless diets and have the always 100% perfection of a home, and that he was hurting me. He was telling me that although he was good enough for me, I was not good enough for him.

The third example I have is that another relationship I was in the man was use to himself to be in the shadow but also to take the benefits of having a very prominent, successful, influential parent who had to be out and about for reasons of business. This parent lived by certain moral, principles. I was treated very well by his family, this parent, had no problems at all. He had wonderful people in his family. He had wonderful friends. What I could tell he was doing was to think he was just the man his parent was, and that he too should be out and about only he worked in an entirely different profession and it was not called for at all. It was just stupid. And he too wanted me to adapt to that. The very reasons he had before said his other parent had suffered going through, and still he was trying to do the very same thing to me. Dysfunctional.

I don't think I began the relationships thinking I was not good enough but I think they gave me the message I wasn't over period of time with their own dysfunctional traits to them and that once it had passed a specific period it was starting to show. Had I known then from the start this was going to happen I was not going to get involved. I think the danger in it is that the transformation, the change, happens gradually and is mixed up with everything else so it is not always so easy to spot it right on what the real problem is. You only know you are hurting and you are feeling not good enough. I think because they themselves wanted to be part of their families and live on the tradition, aware of it or not, they had most likely all 3 of them felt at childhood or when ever that they were not good enough. And now they were attempting to give me the message I was not good enough as I was not conforming, I was not being happy in that, and the strains it cost.

I do think I on a subconscious level still carried quilt and the feeling of not being good enough when it came to my first love, as well as me knowing that I don't think it is about love really. I mean addicts start out normal and they love like everyone else. I know he loved me. What has been tragic for me to find out afterwards was how he was still in shock and still wanted me back and what this did to him, while it was in a way more easy for me to move on. The addiction will take first, middle and last seat. I know I was blamed for his crazy period after the break up, that why he began to drink as much as he did and at the same time stalking me, was because he had heartbreak, but I also knew he had in secret while we were a couple been drinking only his family did not take it seriously, thought it was as bad as it was. But yes I do think I carried the not-good-enough feeling from that relationship in one way, but not the other. Often you hear the expression that he chose the bottle over me, but I don't think it is about that. It is not about love not being strong enough. It is about understanding what an addiction really is and to deal with the other issues, the issues is not love, I think. There are addicts who love their children like crazy and yet they have ended up on some park bench alongside other drinken buddies, with all their loved ones gone. I think too because a part of me had felt not good enough because of his choice it was more easy for me to move on, as I too had not caused the break up, only I was insisting he should buy my version of it and take accountability for it. He did not want to do that, said he would never have said that to me, that he couldn't remember. It was only years later when he was in rehab that he finally did give me credit and him thinking the break up had to do with him having had this drinking issue and he asked for forgiveness and it was closure. He would say he knew I was someone fighting for him way back then, and that I had been the first one he thought of contacting. I think he wanted to restore the lost dignity I had felt, with his family too. It wasn't nice what they did to me. I was good enough, I was more than good enough, but he was trapped in his own situation back then in order to see straight. I think for sure he tried to get over me, after the break up, only to find out he couldn't, while it was more easy for me to move on, and that was on him. Maybe it was the life lesson he needed to learn from this life. Maybe it was meant to go that way. In order for him to not repeat it in his future, next life or what ever.

/edited above some stuff/

Last edited by asearcher : 07-10-2022 at 05:54 AM.
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