How to not get physical symptoms?

Thank you for the advice, Izz. We have a history where he would tell me he would not be able to handle it if I talked to him about an ex because he said he would get too jealous and angry then. The only thing about the psychopath he knows about is because he himself asked me one time if something had happened to me and he was to find out then the absolute minimum. He was OK with his own past, but not OK with mine. He would hold a grudge against me (and I am guessing he still does that to some extent) that somewhere in my history I and my first ex made the decision to be friends, just casual friends and more so to do with that it was more or less impossible for us to always avoid each other as we were then living in the same area, shopping grocery in the same store, and us knowing few of the same people. Because he was part of my life even as he was out of my life for so long I did not view him as an ex, I more viewed him as just a casual friend, even if we could joke about it and if, when I bumped into him it was just that, I just would bump into him, either because we were moving around in the same area or he was with one of the people I knew or just came by one of them while I was there and we would just do a casual "How are you", "Take care". It was not even a casual friendship. I don't know what to call that. I always assumed life would take us in different directions and it did. Our situation did not stay the same. Regardless I have not been on my luvs good side because of this. He has said if it was him he would have cut those people out of his life if they did not cut out that ex. That he would have better understanding for it had we been co parenting but now that was not the decision. I have always accepted his past but he has had trouble accepting mine. I said he can judge me after he had walked a mile in my shoes but he has no right to judge me now.

He has told me before that he think something very bad has happened to me about the psychopath and that he thinks this is something out of his area and that he wanted me to possible book an appointment with a psychiatrist, but that he himself is not the right person to talk to both from a professional point of view but also because he says he knows how he gets and that's not what I need. That he knows himself how he will react if I do. So it is sort of like a warning, no? "Don't come to me".

He has told me too when I said to him I thought we should go and see someone to help us as the way we fought was too difficult for me at least to go through each and every time that he thought i thought this way because I was "so very sensitive", and in a way that pushed me away even more from him because I then did not want him to see how sensitive I was then, he made me think it was a weakness instead of a strength but where ever else I went, in the other relationships I had with friends or at work people would not dismiss me but instead want to hear what I had to say and they did not treat me as if I was this fragile human being with too much sensitivity or having somehow the wrong perception of things. I have learned that in his frist family as soon as anyone gets real or show a tear they are "so sensitive". If a child is tired and for that reason cries it is not because it is so tired, it is because it is "so sensitive". So the word sensitive is a word to say we don't take anything you have to say seriously, you are weak, get real. That sort of thing.

Behind my back the narc parent of his would tell people I was so very sensitive and not as strong as the narc parent and this other person or people the narc parent was talking to about me (behind my back, of course). The narc parent would of course compliment itself for being so strong and superior and would also compliment other person or people for being strong while seeing me of course as so sensitive (=weak). It was a way to discredit me. Had I still been a homewife and not established myself at work and known other people I think with both this conception of me from my own luv and then from his parent and how the word then presumambly got around that I was so sensitive, that I would have believed it to be true. Instead all the other people, all the bosses, co workers, people from my own life - treated me completely different and saw me as someone most stable and someone strong and someone who knows what she's doing and if anything they wanted more of where my socalled sensitivity came from. So it began to be 2 different worlds for me, 2 different identities. Finally later my luv would say that he thought our problems were down to me being very sensitive and that he was too insensitive and that was why we kept colliding the way we did when fighting. But he would add, and it was the first time he ever said it "She is very sensitive. But she is also very strong.". I always thought he presumed that because I was sensitive it meant what his parent used it for, that I was seen as weak. But he would say it again and again, like he thought it was odd but he was most asure that "She is very, very strong". Like he could not understand himself how that could be. He said he had never thought of me as weak, but that I was sensitive and that "She sees things I don't see until after she has to point it out to me and then I can see oh hell she's right. But I've missed that."

For 2 years, I'm not kidding, for 2 years each morning on my way to work was when my tears began to drop. I was hiding that from him. He would tell me when I said I thought we had problems that we did not have any problems or we did not have any serious problems and that he would think that he had gotten "the best girl". He somehow would even compliment us in secret as in thinking we had it so good, he had it so good with me. And if I was feeling all the stuff I was feeling it was then my fault and it was down to me being "too sensitive" and that he thought I should "go alone" to talk to someone. That it takes 2 to go into family counseling was not something he said he would ever do. That he did not believe in the concept. I tried to hold on as long as I could, and then I couldn't. But for 2 years. It is crazy when I think back of it. We were so estranged and he just blamed me for that, and my sensitivity, as if I was making things bigger problems than they were.

[Izz]

To put it bluntly;

People are multi dimensional. You are a multi dimensional person, you are strong, fierce, empathetic and at the same time you are sensitive, fragile too

What do dysfunctional energy vampire families do? They break apart those dimensional factors, they want to put humans into boxes. Like how his parent tried to subtly recruit others against you. It doesn't work that way, sadly for her. You continue to be multi dimensional, human, with your own concerns and shine in your way - whether that dysfunctional in law can accept it or not

Your luv needs to mentally break away from that practice of categorization, as you said that the narc-problem has been covered. Again comes back to mental detachment

He needs to overcome that methodological categorization of things that were formed from dysfunctional family units to be the person he can be for his own family - not his dysfunctional family of origin

Hi Izz, yes, thank you, agree.

Thought today that it is sort of as if I have become his other parent, the one that is not the narc.

I mean, I avoid communicating with my husband because of "fear" of his temper and it being so emotionally difficult, the aftermath of it. At the same time I know he has done great progress about his temper compared.

I don't do direct communication which is the very thing I have before complained about being a problem in his first family, and frustrated at him why he don't do that with his parents or at least one parent. Now I'm the same way. Go figure.

I suppose it all goes down to how close is close, the kind of closeness one wants in a relationship.

(deleted the rest I wrote)

[Izz]

Hello asearcher

I replied your PM

I understand based on both intuition and experience. I know you share a great love and structure with your luv despite certain challenges

It's just there are certain silent shackles may be still in place because of that narc in law and yes it takes some work and effort to identify those; so that in long run you and your luv will continue to be less effected by those things

Breaking away from such a dysfunction takes a radical shift mentally even more so than just physically, including some change in worldview or at least a balanced compromise

yes I agree.

i did not know it then when i met him and got involved but it would later become clear to me that he had distanced himself physically with no intention of getting closer. so you are spot on there! :)

- duplicate

[Izz]

I understand, asearcher

Sorry sent you PM again

Hi Izz! I think I saw it before and replied because there is nothing new there now.

Just recently so far I snapped, said a sentence once (few hours between I think it was) and instead of even replying me, which to be honest I at the time did not care if he would or would not, I just stated my opinion, my luv said "I'm just gonna be outside" and he left. One time he came back in again and the other I came out to him. Both times he was stable, steady, approachable, not unfriendly, keeping it just there. Somehow that worked.

I know the advice before that one should give each other breathing room but I think that was meant some part into the arguing or fighting, but he does it right away.

Too earlier he brought up something for discussion and we had children around and I at once said I think this is something for us to discuss later (when no children around) , but he said "We're just talking". Before, because our fighting was so bad I would hold him back til any child was asleep so that was then hours of tension, and that was no good either. But on the other hand given how his temper was then I would not want that around any child. He would not want to frighten a child.

I have been told that I have been afraid of fighting in front of a child/children. I come from a split family and seen/heard too much of that. I have been insecure on how to handle it. It is not something I would want to be carried on into my own family, but I get that I could have been too cautious about it.

So new patterns is working. In the past if I would have snapped the way I did I know he would get very different than he has been now. Not saying it is a good thing that I snap at him but it was new irritation that I think was brought up after I have had said nothing about what I was suppose to bring up with him before.

[Izz]

Hello asearcher

It sounds like you're self-aware, and you're both working through certain things together despite some challenges

Talking to you reminded me myself of how it's good to mentally detach - esp from certain dysfunction and energy vampire games. Because energy vampires' triangulation tactics can extend very far (indescribable) - to the point that even once the person effected has physically distanced, some mental shackles be in place

As for your narc in law, it's good that you are there as the influence to break your luv away from it all - mentally, physically and going forward

sent u PM again :)

Thank you Izz, you're helping me just as much just want you to know that, if not more.