Pain during the pandemic, lost father, losing husband

[rey]

Any help, advice or support is desperately needed and appreciated.

I thought that I wouldn't feel worse pain for a while after my dad died following a 5 year battle with terminal cancer in October 2019. I was wrong.

I have been with my now-husband for 6 years, 3 dating, 3 married. It was 6 years of joy, laughter, love, romance, being best friends, going on many adventures, learning from and discovering each other, him moving with me to each new city I needed to relocate to for my career as a scientist, and him helping me to visit and care for my dad. It was also 6 years of verbal/psychological abuse, all the signs but no definitive evidence of an affair, extreme sexual flirting in front of me in a humiliating manner (eg flirting and locking eyes with another woman for 40 min and nothing I do or say will snap him out of it), and fighting against his narcissistic, physically and sexually abusive parents.

For a long time I thought that I was the problem. I thought that I was the one with a personality disorder. I went to every mental and physical doctor I could find. As my illnesses worsened they could find no underlying cause. These developed into PTSD, panic attacks, asthma, and many other unexplainable symptoms.

His parents have lived separately since he was ~10, yet remain married and keep up the illusion of a happy marriage on the outside. On the inside, their interactions comprise nonstop psychological abuse and manipulation. My husband became his mother's partner emotionally and sexually (not intercours but other enmeshment physical acts) when his father left, and part of him has refused to look at this trauma and overcome it to get out of this mental space.

The pandemic stay at home orders magnified everything for me. I somehow had the strength to leave and live with my mom for two weeks. He said after two weeks I can see that he will have taken radical change and that we can be together again, but in a healthy marriage this time. I do not see how that will happen because it has already been 2.5 days since I left, and I have seen very little that even gives me a shred of hope. The more desperate I am, the more he shuts down. He seems to be emotionally dying because he refuses to emotionally leave his parents. I have bought whiteboards and pasted lists around the house before I left. I have given him treatment solutions, action steps, tried every type of tactic; we have spent thousands of dollars on couples therapy, marriage retreats, individual therapy, wellness and exercise apps,  psychiatrists. All while fighting through his verbal abuse and extreme gaslighting and dismissiveness for 6 years. There have been some breakthroughs on his part but at an incredible cost to me and our marriage.

I am in pain because I see the good in him. He has true empathy and has had breakthroughs--eg he recognizes a lot of the enmeshment and was even in therapy for it/listened to books on tape about it with me. I know he has so much pure love for me. I think he picked up a lot of the communication styles and NPD traits from his family but I think he is not actually that. My screen name is Rey because he is my Kylo Ren. I know he could change if he just chose to.

Even this morning he refuses to block his parents' phone numbers. We live on the west coast and he has to go to an in-person job. His career is everything to him yet he suddenly suggested living with his parents on the east coast "if our marriage doesn't work out." That is how strong the pull to them is. He has breakthroughs when I really push him but in general, he keeps gaslighting and tries to blame the marriage break up on me because "I do not trust him enough, because I think that he had an affair when he did not." I have tried every tactic, shown him that regardless I want him to change for his own self even if we are not together. The more I push the more he shuts down. He tried to tell me that he is the exception to the rule but I have not seen any concrete actions, just words.

Is there anything I can do? Is he even capable of change? Why is he choosing this path?

[Starboard Song]

Any help, advice or support is desperately needed and appreciated.

It was 6 years of joy, laughter, love, romance, being best friends.
It was also 6 years of verbal/psychological abuse, all the signs but no definitive evidence of an affair.

I am in pain because I see the good in him.
He has true empathy and has had breakthroughs.
I know he could change if he just chose to.

Even this morning he refuses to block his parents' phone numbers.

Is there anything I can do? Is he even capable of change? Why is he choosing this path?

I am so sorry for this. You shouldn't have to face this battle, and it is so hard to do it during these globally troubled times of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. I boiled your post down to the lines that struck me as the meat of your story. You are confronted with the damned reality that there are people whom we can readily love as is, and in whom we can see the good. People who have the capacity to improve and whom we are willing to assist. But sometimes such people are just as plainly bad for us in other dimensions. Plainly unwilling or unable to improve.

Check out our Toolbox for tactics common in dealing with PD people, which apply really to the symptoms, so a diagnosis doesn't matter.

I also encourage you to begin developing someone in your FOC as a confidant: find someone to trust and then trust them.

Welcome to Out of the FOG. I am sorry you needed to find us.

[PeanutButter]

"Is there anything I can do?"
Yes. You have control over one thing. That is yourself. You are the only person YOU can control. You can choose to protect yourself from further abuse.
"Is he even capable of change?"
There is no way to know this. But whether he is capable of change is not indicative of whether he will WANT to change. If he does not want to change YOU have no control over him. As you shouldn't.
"Why is he choosing this path?"
IDK. But it is his choice.
May I gently ask a question for you to just think about?
At what point did your focus become changing him?
If this has always been your focus then that is/was problematic to the relationship.
Thats not me saying that you should continue to allow yourself to be abused.
I dont. I want you to be safe.

[heron]

I wonder if it's the hardest with uPD partners who show potential to change. Because it gives you hope and something to work on and to imagine.

The reality is, whether or not there is potential to change, no human being can force or even lead another into changing. It's his journey. It sounds like he has a lot to heal from, has all the tools available if he chooses to use them, but is not truly ready or committed to doing it, which is understandable, it's not an easy thing to do.

You have some decisions to make. If you are willing to accept him as-is, even if he never changes, then stay. Stop actively trying to get him to change or considering it something that you own. Instead, model good behaviors for him, and occasionally remind him with love of the path he could take to heal, but otherwise accept him and live your life.

If you aren't, then it seems like a good scenario for some kind of trial separation. Tell him once, simply, clearly, what kinds of changes you are looking for (ie 30 days of NC with parents), that you love him and hope that he does make huge changes as he says he will, give a timeline, and then go enjoy a vacation from what sounds like a very difficult person to interact with. And see what happens. Until he can make breakthroughs on his own, without your "pushing", then he's not really on the path to healing, unfortunately. I consider myself a mild uNPD due to my family upbringing, so I say this with great compassion for him.

Read up on JADE and learn not to do those things (easier said than done, I'm a terrible JADE-er). Good luck & let us know how it goes.

[NumbLotus]

Hi Rey, you could say I'm Padme. My H identifies with Anakin. He says he feels a darkness inside him and he tries to fight it. He has empathy when he is okay but it disappears when he feels threatened. His empathy is what attracted me to him - he wants to help others and sometimes goes out of his way to do it, and not for any grandiose reasons but just because he wants to be a good person.

And yet.

[guitarman]

Welcome. You are not alone.

Sorry to hear the sad news about your father.

I think that you need to judge your husband by his actions rather than what he says he is going to do. Actions speak louder than words.

Trust your gut. You know what he is like.

You've tried everything you can. Unfortunately it seems he is not going to change and not wanting to. You need to ask yourself how long are you going to wait for him to change. You can't change him.

You've done the work. You've done all that you can. Now is the time to look after yourself and calmly plan your future life of peace and prosperity. You matter. You are worth it.

What do you want? What are you afraid of?