31 Jul 2008 04:00 AM

My, etc, posts +Replies from Beth re Dealing with a Narcissistic Family Member

CPDCOPPURR (5) 28 Jul 2008 09:27 AM

I was surfing the net and came across this forum. First of all, i want to thank you for putting this together and for all the sage advice. I have been in a living hell for 3 years now with my new husband and his grown adult children as well as his mother and his two sisters. Gee, i don't know where to begin to tell this tale of woe. (What i am typing here is a SMALL PART of my life living in hell with this very dysfunctional family.)

My husbands maternal grandmother died in a hospital from a lobotomy. She was a paranoid pschzhoprenic (sp). My husbands family came from poor humble beginnings in Kentucky. His mother has the (keeping up with the Jones's syndrome) as i call it. She raised her childrent to marry "rich". And to become the Jones's. All 3 of her children in my humble opinion exhibit the same behaviour, arrogance, intolerance, HUGE control issue's, backstabbing, caddiness, talking out of bothsides of their mouth's. And constantly trying to put people down at everyone's expense to up their stock. The arrogance and entitlement issue's are so ugly, i couldnt bare going to dinner with them, they would snap their fingers and order the waitresses around as if they were slaves on an old plantation. This is just the tip of the iceberg i am explaining here.

When i met my husband, he constantly spoke of his gifted children, how smart they were, how well they excelled in school, all the sholarships they were given. What schools they went too. How brilliant they are. blah blah blah. I had on simple question for him that he couldnt answer.... I asked, "what kind of human beings are they?" I know about their laundry list of good academics, but what do they do for fun, what kind of friends do they have, do they volunteer, do they pay it forward to humanity, since they were given so much in life. He hadn't an answer for me. He stared blankly at me.

When we became engaged, he FEARED telling his daughter. We kept everything a secret from her. I could see the fear in his eyes when she called, for fear she wanted to come over to our home. I had since moved from Chicago to Kentucky. I asked him about his fear and he dismissed my questions for "silliness". I noticed he bent over backwards for her. He idealized her and idolized her. And i found this behaviour very disturbing. His mother and sister behind my husbands back, said, that his daughter was a very troubled girl. She was hospitalized 3 times for suicide attempts, had outbursts constantly in the house, that she ruled the roost and that her own mother was "jealous" of the attention that was lauded on her from my soon to be new husband. The sun rose and set on this golden child... I approached my future husband and he reluctantly told me some things about the comings and goings but denied she was troubled. She is a cutter, 3 suicide attempts, tattooing her body all over, piercings all over, goth clothing etc... But she sure was the MODEL STUDENT!!!! His family puts a high price on educated people. Hence where i fit it. I am a PhD as well as a police officer and a former FBI profiler. Something was rotten in Denmark from the getgo here....

We finally told his daughter we were marrying, and she went completely ballistic. Temper tantrums, screaming and wailing on the phone, nasty emails etc... Mind you this is a 24 year old woman who is married and lives with her husband. But dear old Daddy, pays her rent, her car, her car insurance, her health insurance, her schooling, her book fee's, her tattoo removels and so on and so forth. I was sickened. And told him it was high time for her to live like a normal everyday child and stop putting her on a pedestal. He agreed. The backlash was even more fierce then the first time. At which time she recruited his family, she played the victim of "Daddy doesnt love me anymore"... The saga continued. He put up strong boundaries and simply stated these are what they are in an email. No sooner did she read the email did she break the boundaries. Screaming you cant do this to me I am YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR GOLDEN CHILD. I run your life... blah blah blah.....

He admits now, that she was praised and idealized her whole life, she was given things to shut her up, to endear themselves to her, and looked for her approval. The classic, the tail wagging the dog thing. It is frankly disgusting.

He has kept to his guns with this, and to the barriers we have set in our life. But his daughter keeps breaching the wall. Sending email after email. At first when you read the email, you would "almost" think it is genuine. Then you have to read between the lines, she tugs on dear old dads heartstrings and then in a subtle but not so subtle way wants MONEY. After 3 years i finally met her face to face. After we were married already. And throughout that lunch it was nothing more then subtle attacks on me and on him. It was nauseating, that she could sit there for 3 hours and tell you how wonderful she is, but no one wants to hire her because they havent seen her inner brilliance. They have not seen her full potential, and she is so misunderstood because she is so GREAT that they MUST and WILL see it.

My husband readily admits he spoiled her and to some extent her brother terribly. They never held a job until they were 23 and 24. Work was a dirty word to them, and they believed they would be living off of their father their whole life.

After our lunch with her, we decided to offer her a half a loaf, not to bring her totally into our life as she wanted but to, have casual lunches and dinners with her from time to time. Not 4 phonecalls a day. Not spending weekends with them etc... She became indignant and went nuts!!! Fast forward to last month when she sends a sweet as pie email to dear old dad about how she misses him. He sent her another email back stating his boundaries and how they would be respected. She completely ignored that email obviously and then sent another about her finishing up flight school that cost 100k... Well the real truth of her "gee i miss you daddy" email was money of course. Lets snow job dear old dad again into paying for my flight school. She has the big hat no cattle syndrome of, i want the title so i can show off, but i dont want to work. She is also bulimic, and anorexic. She weighs all of 110 lbs, at 6'1". She was diagnonsed with bi polar but will not go on her medication, and states she is FINE it is everyone else that is messed up. She has scars from cutting up and down her arms, and on her legs. Yet she waltz's in everywhere like she owns the place and orders around everyone like they are nothing but crumbs on the floor.

My husband was recently diagnosed with BPD........ And i believe a bit of the NPD mixed in....... He is a control freak and one that is very arrogant and condescending.......... Which i cant believe i missed when i met him..... I am a COP.................. A profiler........ I missed all this???????? I was going through a rough spot when i met him, and his "helpfulness" was welcome in my life. But his helpfullness once i gathered my brain power together i saw was nothing but control, and once i got back in control of my life the fighting started.......His sisters and mother obviously have a form of one or the other or both. They went and befriended me. And seemed very nice. But then in th end when i began to see how they were trying to harm our marriage and relationship, and i said something, they turned into vicious jackals and hyena's.

I guess i am writing this to see, first how to handle his narcisstic bi polar daughter and son for that matter, how to handle the family issues surrounding his mother and sisters (he feels guilt around this alot)...... how to protect myself in this situation........ And how to keep the barbarians from our gates. They wont go away!!!! And i know we cant fix them. And lastly, any advice in how to deal with a husband who has BPD mixed with NPD? Thank for all and any of your advice.

rosem1111 (15) 29 Jul 2008 07:20 PM

I also am dealing with serious issues, as is CPDCOPPURR . As I am dealing with different close and extended family members, the diagnoses that could be applied vary. NPD certainly figures highly. BPD and bi-polar issues are there on my side, from a daughter to my mother and further and I am struggling to categorise correctly.

I think my husband is narcissistic also, with a sadistic streak that also seems to be shared by my narcissistic + ? daughter, and a number of members of his narcissistic family (but not all). My family does not have the sadistic streak. My son and husband also seem rather like Asperger sufferers. My son needed a lot of support from me for years.

I still struggle to see what is true about what is going on though it is there as I am so easy to put down, confuse and plunge into despair and self blame, doubt and upset. The strange thing is that I am actually reasonably bright and educated. So why do I feel so inadequate and can be taken as being quite dumb? Actually I seriously wonder if I am really dumb and incapable and that anything that suggests otherwise is just an error.

I need to find ways to be more self confident and to take better care of myself and do what I want to and feasibly could do. But I have never totally given up. Now, though, decisions I am not making and actions I am not doing could end up in serious consequences for me, such as not doing health checks for symptoms or preventatively, or securing my share of the marital money when I know my husband may terminate the marriage and take all the money. I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness though I have suspected I have had all of them at one time. Somehow I get seen by outsiders as normal. My husband says I am "crazy". I wonder if he is right.

Beth McHugh (11285) Yesterday at 03:40 PM

Hi CPDCOPPURR, you certainly have a handful to deal with here but I am interested in your husband's diagnoses of both NPD and BPD. You also question your own sanity, yet if you are a part of any dysfunctional family it is easy to be swayed by them that you are the one who has the problem since they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and will turn on anyone who challenges them. As your husband is beginning to establish more healthy boundaries with his daughter and is open to the idea that she is "difficult" I guess as a therapist I would question just how much of his behavior is real NPD and how much has been learned from his mother. At least you are both doing the right thing in setting these healthy boundaries and they are certainly taking effect---hence the rages. Your DIL certainly shows some indicators of possible BPD herself, yet so far, I don't see any from your husband, but obviously you can't tell me everything in one hit.

You are correct in saying you can't change these people, or any people for that matter, but you can change yourself and look at the situation from a more factual and practical viewpoint. If you would like further assistance in resolving the situation from your own perspective and maintaining healthy boundaries of your own, you can contact me at http://youronlinecounselor.com. I'm sure you are not "crazy" or "dumb", but any self-doubts can be detected by manipulative people and used against you. Therefore I would encourage you to look at the core beliefs you hold about yourself and your in-law family to establish for yourself a clearer view of the dynamics that are occurring which are so upsetting to you. Best wishes, Beth

Beth McHugh (11285) Yesterday at 03:51 PM

Hi Rosem, firstly I can reassure you that your husband won't have Asperger's and narcissistic personality disorder together, although sometimes the symptoms of emotional detachment common to both can look similar but the two conditions are quite separate. I'm sorry you're having such a difficult time and it sounds like your self-esteem has taken a blow in trying to deal with the situation. Yet you do recognize that you are neglecting areas of your life that need attention, such as your health checks and staying on top of the family finances. Being unclear about exactly what you are dealing with would also be generating stress for you, and you sound like you need to first be more in the picture about the family dynamics and also to have some encouragement to take back the reins, at least in terms of looking out for yourself. If your husband has NPD then high levels of manipulation will be present and over a period of years , this can erode self-esteem. If you would like additional assistance please contact me at http://youronlinecounselor.com

Best wishes, Beth

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