I may never know the answer to this one, but it still keeps me up at night 40 years later.
When I was in high school and started to defy my NPDmother, she tried to blame my teenage resistance on substance abuse even though I was a total goody-two-shoes. My father always stood by her, refusing to believe me. One day Nmother went out for the afternoon and conveniently took my sibs with her. I was alone in my room doing homework when my father stormed in, said he knew I was smoking pot and that he could smell it "all over the house." There was no pot and there was no smell of any kind. I told him he could search my room but he declined. I was punished anyway, with no pot, no smell, no nothing.
To this day I wonder if he really believed her lies and managed to convince himself he was smelling something, or if he didn't smell a darned thing and was simply acting on orders. I'm now NC with him, but even if I had the chance to ask him I doubt he remembers that day. This stuff went on weekly (if not daily) until I finally ran away. I'll probably never know the answer, but it haunts me.
Is it really possible to convince yourself that you saw or smelled something that was NOT there, or will enablers just say and do anything to comply with their master? Or both?
Anyone else experience this?
Sorry - I consider myself a bit of a codependent/enabler with my updh, but this sounds bizarre/delusional on f's part.
I will, in an effort at self-preservation (and at preservation of my DS as well) sometimes not stand up to updh. But to outright participate in a delusional think like that - no. As soon as I started to come Out of the FOG and as soon as DS was 'old enough' (20?) I sat down with DS and explained to him what I feel is 'up' with his dad, and my feelings/approaches to dealing with it.
That being said, there were unfortunately times when I 'stood by' and did not stand up to updh out of fear when I felt he was being too hard on our DS. :( For that I feel very badly/guilty. But I have NEVER 'believed' his delusions!
QuoteI will, in an effort at self-preservation (and at preservation of my DS as well) sometimes not stand up to updh. But to outright participate in a delusional think like that - no.
Thank so much. That helps a lot.
My enfather usually stood there quietly while my mother attacked me and said nothing, so I always thought he was caught in the middle or just doing the self-preservation thing, but smelling something that wasn't there is just plain nuts. It might be something I need to talk to a psychiatrist about. He did do some pretty extreme things throughout his life in the interest of protecting/serving her, so he may have been faking it. Maybe it's a study in how far an enabler will really go. I just don't know.
Crazy. :stars:
My own enF, when I had my 'final blowout' with my uPDm, stood there in front of me and said to her 'you've done nothing wrong'. I knew then that I was done...with both of them.
Then flying monkey aunt called me asking me 'why are YOU doing this to US'?....
Wow.
I'm not saying this is right, or whatever, and I guess it depends on the kid and their maturity etc...I'm not trying to alienate DS from his F, but when I had the 'big talk' with him last summer I flat out told him that if it ever came to a choice between him and his F I would choose DS. That the only reason I placate/stay/etc is if I feel it is in ALL of our best interests.
That being said, I do know that my relationship with DS has suffered due to uPDh's maneuvers. uPDh becomes very jealous of any time I spend with DS, private conversations etc... It's very sad for me.
In my last conversation with my superstar-enabler of a FIL, it became clear that there is a spooky deep level of double think going on.
He understands his wife is, uh, special. But he also truly believes everyone should accomodate her, and that her emotions justify her beliefs. He signed onto her program long ago in an act of self-preservation, and became her mechanic. It is his job to get all the appliances in her life -- you know, her daughter, mother, sisters -- to work properly when they act up.
During our last meeting, he would list a few mean things we supposedly did. Four I would demonstrate to be flatly not true, with written evidence. Two others I'd provide exculpatory context for. When I then pointed out that his wife had actually done worse things, he'd just stare a moment, and then ask me again to please send her an apology.
He'd make up false quotes consistent with her beliefs of our guilt. When I'd demonstrate with actual emails that the words he was quoting were not correct, he'd call reality "silly" and deny that he was mistaken. But he'd then stare at me.
I suggested he and she needed to do some hard work with a counselor to get back to step 8, where you acknowledge you have a problem and apologize to the people you've hurt. He just stared at me in shocked silence. It was then that he -- for the first time in two years of crisis -- admitted I had been right all along. He knew she had emotional control issues. He knew they were chronic and poorly medicated. He knew he had adopted tactics to defuse her rage and to stay married to her in spite of it.
And then he blithely repeated the entreaty for me to issue a fresh apology and he has never communicated with me since.
I think they know what they are doing. I think they believe it is right. Like a cat in its box, I think they cover up their smelly deeds, even from themselves. I have deep pity for them. They are suffering in their role, even as they do so much harm.
I used to think he did, but after the divorce he broke Out of the FOG for the most part and has since apologized for never standing up to her. We have a decent relationship now. So I would say it depends on the enF. Mine just didn't want to be targeted by her and the revolving crazy that was me being GC when he was away, and then scapegoat any time he was at home, so he kept his mouth shut and never countered anything my M said.
As 3 out of 4 of me and my sibs have directly confronted our uNBPDm about her pathological lying (not what we say to her face), enF has sat there without a word. It's unfathomable to me what he may be thinking or how he processes it, but the only thing he has ever said in regards to her behavior is "We need to be more tolerant." Despite repeated escalating confrontations (escalating, as in with my therapist, with multiple siblings and their spouses) enF remains totally clueless about how our adult relationships are at this point of disintegration.
I told T, who facilitated the meeting with my parents, that my take on it was that enF was highly motivated to "not see." T agreed. There's a very high price and vital choices to be made when "seeing."
JustKathy - I too experienced false accusations that were completely unfounded and out of character and outright ridiculous throughout my life into adulthood that were taken as truth and acted upon by my father - the only evidence of my misdeeds being my mentally unstable, historically unreliable uBPD mother. :blink:
For me, there is a difference between someone who is codependent and enabling and a narcissistic family system. In my own case, my family system was narcissistic and by definition from The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert M Pressman:
QuoteIn the narcissistic family, the needs of the parent system are paramount... the parent system's ability or, more accurately, the inability to focus on the needs of the children is the determining factor in defining a narcissistic family.
They go on to describe a narcissistic family system as one in which the parent system is overwhelmingly self involved and can mirror only itself and its own needs. As children, we exist only for the parent to the extent that we meet or refuse to meet the needs of the parent system. Period.
For me to understand my father's aligning himself and becoming the dominating and at times violent enforcer of my mother's clear chaos and willing participant of which he also was a target, I had to understand that all that truly mattered in their world was each other to a pathological degree that defied any reality but their own. Mirroring and echoing. Their survival. Their identity was one. Their debilitating shared narcissism. They were all that truly existed for each other until the day they died.
That is when there are other problems in the FOO and they need a scapegoat to put the blame on someone in order to avoid all the rest....the chosen one. :(
Bloomie reminds me of a phrase we hear in politics--echo chamber. In both our unhealthy family systems, that's the dynamic I see at work. If you only get your information from other unhealthy unreliable sources, then your conclusions will be consistently erroneous.
In Dh's family, the entire family system revolves around the dysfunction of the parents.
In my family system, it worked that way until recently, when all of us at different times and at different paces began coming Out of the FOG. I see my parents now having a very tight and closed information loop with each other that allows them to completely ignore what their children are calmly and clearly telling them, and instead cling to their own distorted beliefs. (ie: in their world, it's not that they've been abusive, neglectful and NM a pathological liar....it's that our generation has a problem with estrangement and that's why our relationships have crumbled).
If any person refuses to accept information that doesn't fit their existing view, their view isn't going to change. It's costly and takes courage to face what we don't want to face, and unfortunately it appears that many of our parents with PD characteristics never actually face their shadow sides.
Quote from: Starboard Song on March 04, 2019, 03:45:46 PM
In my last conversation with my superstar-enabler of a FIL, it became clear that there is a spooky deep level of double think going on.
He understands his wife is, uh, special. But he also truly believes everyone should accomodate her, and that her emotions justify her beliefs. He signed onto her program long ago in an act of self-preservation, and became her mechanic. It is his job to get all the appliances in her life -- you know, her daughter, mother, sisters -- to work properly when they act up.
This is so well put. I have experienced the same phenomenon with my in-laws. I'm not expert enough to know that it is universal, but I can confirm that more than one family has had this experience.
My FiL has deeply held ethical beliefs that govern his personal, political, religious, and professional realms. He might give a monologue on one of these ethical beliefs over dinner. However, my MiL will sometimes say something that runs right over those beliefs. When the rest of the family points out that something she has said is abhorrent, she is let off the hook by enFiL. He tells us that we misunderstood her or are over-reacting. If what MiL says is tactless enough to cause hurt, she will never offer apology. It is those of us who are hurt who must apologize if there is family conflict.
Wow, thank you all for your insight. These comments have been so validating.
Several years back I had a therapist who was quite knowledgable on the subject of NPD. When I told her about the things my father had done to hurt me she told me "he did the best he could under the circumstances." There were times when he could be a great dad and would take me to concerts and things that she didn't want to do with him, but when it came down to defending her lies, he was always on her side. That only added to my confusion, one minute being "Daddy's girl" and the next minute being falsely accused of something.
The only time I ever called him out on something he replied with, "Well, you know how your mother is." As Starboard Song said, he knew she was "special," but also bent over backward to accommodate her disorder. As a result, I have more anger toward him than I ever did toward her. She was, yes ... "special." What was his excuse?
I have come to believe that my enfather is too afraid to experience my mother's rage to ever rock the boat by standing up for the truth and defending me.
I was a dutiful daughter on steroids until my early 40's, when I started to develop a backbone. I set some long overdue boundaries which resulted in me being called selfish and controlling, which hurt me a lot at the time.
When I called my mother out on some of the major hurtful lies she had told about me, she denied she ever said anything. When my mother realized that her usual tactic of deny and deflect was not going to work this time, she started crying hysterically. My enfather immediately reprimanded me for upsetting my mother and making her cry. He then went on to say that I owed her an apology. When I told him that I had done nothing to apologize for, he told me that I needed to be "the bigger person" and asked "what difference does the truth make?" He then went on to tell me that the secret to getting along with my mother was never disagreeing with her. He told me that if she says it is pouring outside and I look out the window and see nothing but sun and blue skies, I am not to contradict her. That was a turning point for me.
Quote from: Cecilia13 on March 05, 2019, 02:35:34 PM
I have come to believe that my enfather is too afraid to experience my mother's rage to ever rock the boat by standing up for the truth and defending me.
He then went on to tell me that the secret to getting along with my mother was never disagreeing with her. He told me that if she says it is pouring outside and I look out the window and see nothing but sun and blue skies, I am not to contradict her. That was a turning point for me.
My dad does this too. He's so beaten down by my uPDm that it's just easier to agree so he can get through the crisis. I was doing the same thing because anytime I didn't agree 100% with my mom, she'd blow her top. I understand my dad's tactics to get through life but I sure wish he'd find his backbone. Sadly, she crushed it :-\
Quote from: SunnyMeadow on March 07, 2019, 10:53:46 AM
Quote from: Cecilia13 on March 05, 2019, 02:35:34 PM
I have come to believe that my enfather is too afraid to experience my mother's rage to ever rock the boat by standing up for the truth and defending me.
He then went on to tell me that the secret to getting along with my mother was never disagreeing with her. He told me that if she says it is pouring outside and I look out the window and see nothing but sun and blue skies, I am not to contradict her. That was a turning point for me.
My dad does this too. He's so beaten down by my uPDm that it's just easier to agree so he can get through the crisis. I was doing the same thing because anytime I didn't agree 100% with my mom, she'd blow her top. I understand my dad's tactics to get through life but I sure wish he'd find his backbone. Sadly, she crushed it :-\
That's a lot of us, then. We each have had the enabler directly acknowledge their tactics and motivation, and implore us to join them in self-abasement.
Quote from: 11JB68 on March 04, 2019, 02:27:31 PM
Sorry - I consider myself a bit of a codependent/enabler with my updh, but this sounds bizarre/delusional on f's part.
I will, in an effort at self-preservation (and at preservation of my DS as well) sometimes not stand up to updh. But to outright participate in a delusional think like that - no. As soon as I started to come Out of the FOG and as soon as DS was 'old enough' (20?) I sat down with DS and explained to him what I feel is 'up' with his dad, and my feelings/approaches to dealing with it.
That being said, there were unfortunately times when I 'stood by' and did not stand up to updh out of fear when I felt he was being too hard on our DS. :( For that I feel very badly/guilty. But I have NEVER 'believed' his delusions!
I want to say thank you for having the courage to share your experience, and the strength to maintain your humanity through such adversity.
I'm glad you are able to share your voice with us.
Quote from: JustKathy on March 04, 2019, 02:16:43 PM
Is it really possible to convince yourself that you saw or smelled something that was NOT there, or will enablers just say and do anything to comply with their master? Or both?
In the last 48 hours I am getting a lesson in how bizarre an enabler can get. I can't share details, but my enabling FIL is deeply out of touch with the human world. There are basic things people do to show they care, or don't do, because they respect others. And there is a minimum capacity to process and understand others we all just assume: if you are smiling you are likely to be happy, for instance; if you are frowning, that suggests displeasure.
I am learning indirectly that he gets it all backwards: doing the don'ts and not doing the do's. And he truly has no comprehension of basic emotions. I went to bed stunned last night, unable to believe what I was hearing through a trusted family friend who had observed him.
I never had a chance with my FIL. Through years of debasement and increasing isolation he has become a shadow. I feel great pity for him, but no longer believe he is capable of plain dealing in complex emotional matters.
I never had a chance.
Quote from: Bloomie on March 05, 2019, 10:26:57 AM
QuoteIn the narcissistic family, the needs of the parent system are paramount... the parent system's ability or, more accurately, the inability to focus on the needs of the children is the determining factor in defining a narcissistic family.
They go on to describe a narcissistic family system as one in which the parent system is overwhelmingly self involved and can mirror only itself and its own needs. As children, we exist only for the parent to the extent that we meet or refuse to meet the needs of the parent system. Period.
For me to understand my father's aligning himself and becoming the dominating and at times violent enforcer of my mother's clear chaos and willing participant of which he also was a target, I had to understand that all that truly mattered in their world was each other to a pathological degree that defied any reality but their own. Mirroring and echoing. Their survival. Their identity was one. Their debilitating shared narcissism. They were all that truly existed for each other until the day they died.
THIS IS SO TRUE!!! I remember having an argument with my mother at the time of my engagement about family hierarchy. She was pontificating absolutely, the needs of one's spouse are greater than the needs of the children. One hundred percent. The needs of the children come not even close to the spouses. Period exclamation point. My dad was nodding in angry agreement. That is definitely the value they lived in their marriage. I said that was not how we planned to order our family. Well then I'm going against the church. :sadno:
My father the classic narc, my mother the inverted narc who can't feel whole unless she is serving a narc. Yup. We daughters didn't exist for them either.
On the original question, I do believe my mother believed my father implicitly. Her personality was one that never questioned authority. And my father was the ultimate authority on everything in her life. No matter how off the wall it was. She completely bought into the absurdity that all of my father's problems were other people's fault, his "discipline" was deserved, she had to work three jobs and still there wasn't enough money for their basic bills. Like the others have said, somehow taking the abuse was less painful than reality.
Thanks starboard :)
Fantastic shares in here, thanks everyone. So many triggers. Pain coming up and out of me. Thanks.
False accusations were common in my "family" resulting in extreme violence by my "mother". In reality it was excuses for her to unleash her inner rage and take it out on us kids.
QuoteAnd he truly has no comprehension of basic emotions.
Yes, this! My enFather also seemed unable to comprehend basic human emotions.
When he disinherited me on NPDmother's orders, I cried hysterically. My father asked me why I was so upset because he didn't really have any money anyway. I told him I didn't want his money, I wanted his LOVE. He was genuinely confused about how to react to that statement. A normal parent would have said something to affirm that they loved their child, but mine just went into his Forrest Gump mumble mode and blabbered, "Oh well, whatever, um, you know how things are." The normal reaction of, "Oh no, I love you very much" was not something he understood or knew how to process. It was like a computer malfunction. I swear there was smoke coming out of his ears because he couldn't process that his own daughter wanted to be loved, or felt unloved by what he had done.
In my early days at these boards there was a fascinating discussion about how our PD relatives would 'test' new people in their lives to see if they'd set boundaries for bad behaviour (which led to them being booted out the nearest garbage chute) or if they'd tolerate, enable or fuel the PD's bad behaviour - in which case they'd be moved to the inner circle & rewarded accordingly.
The mental health worker who explained my sister's PD to me asked me if she had a large group of friends & a partner who lovingly accepted all her bad behaviour. when I said yes, he nodded & said that they choose people who will reinforce their behaviour and they'll push away anyone who will demand or expect healthy behaviour from them.
I have spent the last decade since then, casually observing the partners of narcissists - and this is just consistent across the board for age, culture & gender.
Added to this, when the opportunity arises I try to study the parents of the enabler.
I think quite often that an enabler quite often grows up in an unbalanced system within their own family which is why, when they meet the PD, they find them attractive, and they don't run screaming into the night determined to be far more cautious next time round.
Dysfunctional behaviour gets 'normalised' within family systems.
I have a cousin who had a really vile emotionally abusive mother. He married a narcissist, and so the cycle continues.
A lot of the behaviour is often very covert and a lot of PDs can be quite high-functioning. They don't tend to age well as it becomes obvious over time that they've missed major developmental mile-stones when it comes to maturing.
I think some partners just get trapped and sadly sometimes they stick their heads in the sand. They've fallen for a facade and they protect themselves emotionally by clinging to the idea of what they thought they had found.
If you read about abusive personalities you'll see that they 'test' potential partners and once the partner is trapped and it is difficult to leave - kids, mortgage, heavy investment of time/love/experience - that's when the abuser will show their true colours.
That understanding helped me to make it feel a whole lot less personal, once I saw us all as part of a dysfunctional system.
It is staggering to watch the power that a narcissist has over their partner & how they won't stand up to them.
I think you have to bear in mind that while some people will tolerate & enable this, there have probably been plenty of people who have quietly walked away, having taken the narcissist's measure and been quietly horrified by what they've seen.
Did he believe her lies? That's the No. 1 question I have always had about en F. Being part of my FOO was like being in a cult (in my case it was centered around uNM). Once you have managed to extricate yourself, you can't believe the ridiculous and empirically untrue things you and the members you have left behind were led to believe. I was also a "goody two shoes" but I'm sure that, had my mother "smelled pot," there would have been an immediate joint hallucination placing the blame on me. Your story reminds me of the time uNM accused me of re-arranging the decorative items on her dresser. (en F was in charge of dusting the furniture so I'm sure that, if anything was actually moved, that was how it happened). Of course he didn't remind her of that. He just stood right there when uNM said that she would be benevolent and assume from then on that I was crazy and incapable of remembering what I had just done, because it would be just too horrible to think *I* might be consciously lying.
QuoteOnce you have managed to extricate yourself, you can't believe the ridiculous and empirically untrue things you and the members you have left behind were led to believe.
I also lost my siblings to her lies after going NC. My enFather believed her from day one, but my sister and brother didn't appear to be buying into it until after I walked away. Suddenly, the sister I had always been close to refused to speak to me, refused to reply to any letters, both email and snail mail. Neither of my siblings ever witnessed me doing anything cruel to Nmother, but whatever they were told, they believe it. She died five years ago and they still choose to stand behind her in death.
When it comes to my enFather, during my teenage years NM often framed me by doing things like planting cigarettes in my purse or tampering with liquor bottles to make it look like I was underage drinking. Maybe my father saw enough "proof" of other incidents that he allowed himself to believe other things without proof. Still, I KNOW he was aware she had issues as he admitted to that fact many times, saying things like "well, you know how your mother is." Knowing a wife has issues, how does a father not step back for even a minute and question things, especially when there's a good reason to question what they're seeing. The crazy wife says the teenage daughter is in her room smoking pot, the daughter begs to be believed and offers to let the father search her room. Father walks away, standing firmly behind his wife. Maybe he refused to search my room because of the possibility it would have proven his wife wrong. Then what would he have done?
This is why I'll never forgive my father and actually have more resentment toward him than Nmother. One of us was going to suffer her wrath and it wasn't going to be him. He threw me in front of himself like a human shield to take the bullet for him. Now he expects me to have a relationship with him like none of that stuff ever happened.
One of my biggest questions now is, does he even remember it? I'm guessing he doesn't. This stuff went on daily in my house and he was just going through the motions to get through his day. My world was being destroyed, but for him, just another day in the life.
QuoteIf you read about abusive personalities you'll see that they 'test' potential partners and once the partner is trapped and it is difficult to leave - kids, mortgage, heavy investment of time/love/experience - that's when the abuser will show their true colours.
Thanks for that very informative post, Sandpiper. When I was around ten or so I really started to notice how mean Nmother was to my dad. I convinced myself that he was miserable and only staying in the marriage for the sake of the kids. She got noticeably abusive toward him when we fell into the pattern you describe: cross-country move, bought a house, had a mortgage, three kids in school. I was certain he would divorce her when we were grown. Wrong! He Stayed with her for 55 years, until she died.
Glad to contribute, JK.
Both my sisters followed my mother's pattern of being adoring and admiring during the courtship period. Once they had what they wanted they dropped the mask and showed their partners who they really were.
FWIW I think there was a bit of that on both sides of each partnership.
It's part of an unhealthy mindset in a romance, though, which starts off idealising the partner and wearing a 'mask' to attract them.
Then once the honeymoon is over & both people drop the facade, things get ugly.
It's that shifting pendulum between idealisation and devaluation.
I think they find each other, there's a huge attraction, and then they both feel angry and betrayed when things get real and they have to deal with a real, flawed, vulnerable, imperfect, damaged human being - instead of Prince Charming or Mr/Mrs Right.
Society doesn't help things with all those ridiculous movies about falling in love & finding a soul mate. The media would do far better to teach us good communication skills than to spin the hollywood/disney romance stuff.
QuoteI think they find each other, there's a huge attraction, and then they both feel angry and betrayed when things get real and they have to deal with a real, flawed, vulnerable, imperfect, damaged human being
Good insight here. I've always wondered how NPD women manage to attract their enablers. What you're saying makes sense, that maybe their PDs aren't on full display at the start.
In talking to other children of Ns, I find the mothers fall into one of two categories: 1) Divorced very early in the marriage because the husband couldn't handle it and bailed out or, 2) Lifelong commitment with a husband who willingly enables them. The latter seems to be more of the norm. Perhaps at some point most enFathers just decide to live with the circumstance, though they might also choose it.
My enFather's background is a complete mystery to me. I never knew anyone on his side of the family. They lived overseas and Nmother kept them away. I've often wondered if his own mother was herself an N and he was just used to it. It does seem to pass itself down through the generations. My GC brother ended up marrying someone EXACTLY like our own mother and is now her enabler. In his case, it was a learned behavior.
wow.
I find this post so, so moving. I'm relatively new here, but have been spending a lot of time just soaking up truth after truth. I'm married to uPPDw and have two young kids. My eyes have been opening more each day here. I've mostly, until today, been in the various chosen relationship sites, and a few posters have suggested checking out the Dealing with PD Parents section. This is the first post I found and wow. It's still pretty raw, but I'm determined to be a good dad to my kids. Your sharing here has helped. thanks.
My dad was very well aware of my mom's "issues." At times, he was her target. To people outside our family, he probably appeared as the most patient, admirable, forgiving, loyal man on earth. Heck, I believed it most of my life!
Naively, as an adult, I assumed his complacency about how my mom was treating me was because he just didn't realize, specifically, what she was doing at the time. She was utterly raging and out of control, but it was all in letters, voicemails, and email sent by her. She was unable to drive, so she couldn't visit me in person without his help.
Later, I played some of her voicemails for my T. She thought my mom was, at the very least, drunk (her speech was so slurred it was hard to make out some of what she was saying, but what we could make out was horrible; T described it as "evil.") but possibly on drugs as well. For her to get alcohol or drugs, my dad would have to be involved. That realization was shocking in and of itself.
Still, I believed him to be a reasonable adult, who, once knowing the truth, would be appalled and would actually care about the well-being of his daughter. I thought if I told him what was going on, it would somehow help. I thought at least he and I could still have a relationship.
But, even before I could tell him about the things she'd done to bring harm to me, in essence, he ordered me to "be the adult!", because she "couldn't." It didn't matter how mean or how destructive she was to me, it was clear it was all on me. He held me 100% responsible, because as far as he was concerned, she was 100% NOT.
My mom's behavior didn't surprise me. At times, it shocked me how far she was willing to go to cause me harm. It was certainly horrible. But overall, it wasn't unexpected.
Admittedly, I'm more upset over my dad's behavior than hers, because I honestly thought he cared about me. Finding out I wasn't even worth listening to, was hard.
QuoteThis is the first post I found and wow. It's still pretty raw, but I'm determined to be a good dad to my kids. Your sharing here has helped. thanks.
Hi jumpy, and welcome to this forum. So glad to hear that reading these posts have helped, and even better to hear that you're so determined to be a good father. Wishing you all the best.
QuoteStill, I believed him to be a reasonable adult, who, once knowing the truth, would be appalled and would actually care about the well-being of his daughter. I thought if I told him what was going on, it would somehow help. I thought at least he and I could still have a relationship.
Sophie48, this sounds so much like me. I REALLY believed my dad was a normal, reasonable adult who would eventually believe me and protect me. I was so certain that once he learned the truth of what Nmother had been doing to me he'd defend me. When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer I was hopeful about having a normal, healthy relationship with him once she died. Instead, she insisted that he disinherit me, which he happily did on her orders and did not change things back after she died. That was the final gut-punch that opened my eyes to the unhealthy amount of loyalty he had to her, even after she was gone. I spent 55 years believing that my father really did love me. I made excuses for him, telling myself that he was brainwashed. It's been so hard to accept the truth about him.
like you, I'm also more upset over my father's behavior than hers. I knew she was a lost cause but really did believe he loved me and cared for me. Learning that I was wrong about him was far more painful than anything she ever did to me. It HURT. It will never stop hurting.
I, too, wanted to believe that my en F was reasonable and would want to protect me once he "saw the truth." I was aware that, before they had children, NM had received some kind of mental health care with en F's support for what she termed "a nervous breakdown". I hoped he would be able to see that she needed it again. When I was newly married, NM sent me an email accusing me of sending her "back down the black hole" of her "nervous breakdown" and not playing my assigned role of keeping her out of said "hole." My crime: saying we would have to discuss how she treated myself and H during her next visit (her previous visit, for our wedding, had been full of allusions to divorce.) I forwarded the email to en F for help, but he just said that it was a perfectly normal email from the "best mother in the world" and that I had basically better get back in line. When I did not, I got the silent treatment for the better part of the year. NM was also diagnosed with stage IV cancer around the same time (she lived with it for 4 years), and it was always used as an excuse to attack me whenever I tried to set up a boundary for her behavior. It is a terrible diagnosis, and I know first-hand what cancer can do, but it was "outrageous" on my part to have any boundaries or any standards whatsoever when NM was ill. After she passed away, HPD sis simply took over her role (and things got much worse) so and I ended up going NC with her, en bro and en F.
Based on my own personal family, I think that it is part of the family sickness, an enF and/or enM naturally attracts a PDm and/or PDf (like a puzzle piece, they just gravitate towards each other) I think that it would take a lot to get the unit to disagree and/or break up; they are dysfunctionally functional.
I think enablers believe because they are conditioned to believe. They (enablers and PDs) function as a unit; a sick unit, but a unit nonetheless. If they dare not to believe, the unit would not work. Neither person is an individual. If one believes, the other has to. It is craziness, but I think that is how it functions.
Like others have said, fear plays a part in these pairings. There is a fear of rage, fear of abandonment, fear of individuality.
My enStepfather once said to me, "If I don't go along with what she says then she won't have a relationship with me."
...and that's what my mother liked about my enStepfather...that he went along with whatever she said and did whatever she wanted. "That's how a relationship should be," My Nmother once said to me early on in her marriage to him.
I don't know if he necessarily believes them, but I think he knows he has to do x, y and z if he wants to maintain a relationship with my Nmother. My enStepfather also comes from a narcissistic family system where he is the SG, is estranged from a number of family members and has a long history of horrible relationships similar to my Nmother's. My mother is his 3rd wife. His 1st wife is the real deal psycho ruin your life type of person and she's still around 20 years later ruining it. I think he's accustomed to this dynamic. I had heard him say the same thing in regards to his brother and son who he had rocky relationships with (When I was in contact with him. I have not been for almost a decade). It's very sad.
QuoteMy enStepfather also comes from a narcissistic family system where he is the SG
Yeah, I'm convinced my enFather must have grown up in a narcissistic family environment where he just learned to expect that behavior. I can't come up with any other explanation for why he was even attracted to my Nmother in the first place. She was unattractive, never worked, had no education, was miserable all the time and complained about everything. I've seen photos of her when she was in her 20s and even then she looked old and mean with a permanent scowl on her face. I don't know what may have drawn him to her in the first place, but maybe he was used to being scapegoated.
More so, perhaps he needed to be controlled. His entire life he was never really able to function without her telling him what to do. He had no independence and seemed to like it that way. Even though he was highly skilled and had a great career, at home he acted like an adolescent who needed to be cared for. I never once saw him speak his mind or render an opinion about anything. He was never an individual, but an extension of his wife.
One and JustKathy, look up the inverted narcissist. While an N in their own right, the invert needs to be subordinate and devoted to another N to feel like they have any self-worth. Usually they groomed for this role by a narcissistic parent, and then the spouse becomes their primary N.
My mother fits this description very well. I believed her to be merely under my father's power, but as I came more Out of the FOG she became a much darker figure in my memory and understanding.
Quote from: Cecilia13 on March 05, 2019, 02:35:34 PM
I have come to believe that my enfather is too afraid to experience my mother's rage to ever rock the boat by standing up for the truth and defending me.
I was a dutiful daughter on steroids until my early 40's, when I started to develop a backbone. I set some long overdue boundaries which resulted in me being called selfish and controlling, which hurt me a lot at the time.
When I called my mother out on some of the major hurtful lies she had told about me, she denied she ever said anything. When my mother realized that her usual tactic of deny and deflect was not going to work this time, she started crying hysterically. My enfather immediately reprimanded me for upsetting my mother and making her cry. He then went on to say that I owed her an apology. When I told him that I had done nothing to apologize for, he told me that I needed to be "the bigger person" and asked "what difference does the truth make?" He then went on to tell me that the secret to getting along with my mother was never disagreeing with her. He told me that if she says it is pouring outside and I look out the window and see nothing but sun and blue skies, I am not to contradict her. That was a turning point for me.
:yeahthat:
Yep. Just a few years ago when I was in my 40s and the situation with my PDm finally hit the fan so to speak, my father realized that I wasn't going to give into her demands. Initially he insisted reprimanded me for upsetting her and then insisted that I apologize. It didn't work for him. He knew the only way for peace was to try to get her to bend and be less demanding toward me if he wanted to see me or his grandchildren. She ended up on anxiety meds and she was somewhat better. For the past several years, he secretly told me that he just had to put up with her the way she was. He seemed somewhat scared of crossing her. He said much of the same, that the only way to get along with her was to do what she said or to agree with her. For about a year he stood up to her when it came to how she treated me. Here in the past year or so he seems to be back in the fog. It was too difficult to keep up disagreeing with her. He's back to believing everything she says and letting her make all of his decisions for him. It's sad, honestly, but it's his life. What can I do?
One -
That's the same opinion my mother has. That's how relationships should be. The wife should be in complete control and make all of the decisions. She insists that my husband is a chauvinist because he has opinions and doesn't let me bully him. I asked his opinion on a household purchase once when she was visiting and she was furious that I had married a "chauvinist" who had any opinion on anything house or child rearing related. I should make all decisions and just tell him that's how it is going to be. The idea that he has opinions in her view is abusive! :stars:
QuoteOne and JustKathy, look up the inverted narcissist. While an N in their own right, the invert needs to be subordinate and devoted to another N to feel like they have any self-worth.
Thanks, Cordelia. This sounds dead on. While I never thought of my enFather as being a narcissist himself, I'm starting to realize the signs were there. Just the other day I found a hoovering letter he sent when my mother was dying. It was filled with drama about how sick she was, but he ended the letter by injecting his own personal drama into it about how he was getting so old and had all kinds of health issues himself (all that were really non-issues). My mother's actions were so over-the-top that they probably eclipsed any N-ism that he may have displayed over the years, but I'm slowly waking up to it now.
Here's one definition of inverted narcissist I found online. It's spot on:
An inverted narcissist is a covert narcissist co-dependent who gets off on the highs in a "relationship" with a narcissist. An inverted narcissist tries to control and manipulate the narcissist in their own way, enables the narcissist, acts submissive, accepts their position as a subordinate without question. They get off on the sick power dynamic, while secretly pulling their own strings on the dominant narcissist. The inverted narcissist has little to no desire to break free from co-dependency, because they are too far gone to change, to know right from wrong, and to understand reality.
Quote from: JustKathy on April 09, 2019, 01:34:48 PM
QuoteMy enStepfather also comes from a narcissistic family system where he is the SG
I can't come up with any other explanation for why he was even attracted to my Nmother in the first place. She was unattractive, never worked, had no education, was miserable all the time and complained about everything. I've seen photos of her when she was in her 20s and even then she looked old and mean with a permanent scowl on her face. I don't know what may have drawn him to her in the first place, but maybe he was used to being scapegoated.
That's how I felt about my Nmother. It was shocking to me that not one, but two men married her! :barfy:
My Nmother and enStepfather's courtship was really short too...like 1 1/2 months before she moved him in and this was after she was divorced for maybe 4 months.
Quote from: Call Me Cordelia on April 09, 2019, 02:46:50 PM
One and JustKathy, look up the inverted narcissist. While an N in their own right, the invert needs to be subordinate and devoted to another N to feel like they have any self-worth. Usually they groomed for this role by a narcissistic parent, and then the spouse becomes their primary N.
My mother fits this description very well. I believed her to be merely under my father's power, but as I came more Out of the FOG she became a much darker figure in my memory and understanding.
Idk if my enStepfather has that. He doesn't have narcissistic features of his own...
I do believe that if he weren't with my mother he would most likely pair up with another abusive woman or unhealthy in some way.