Financial Recovery - Not Enough Said About This

[SaltwareS]

The setbacks in career and financial footholds due to gaslighting and manipulation by NPDs is severe and takes a toll on mental health.

I wish there was a section in the forum for people who go through this. Like "don't let what you can't do (due to being financially wiped out by the NPD in your life) dissuade you from what you still can do." Or "alienation from your old peers who didn't experience financial setbacks is a common feeling. Here are communication strategies for staying in touch with them; many of them would like to maintain the friendship."

[Starboard Song]

Wow. You are so right.

We often focus on one or two types of scars. My wife feels perpetually unsafe in social situations. People who divorce a PD are left alone and hurt. But there are so many other types of injury: incomplete educations, lost homes, and yes, financial setbacks.

And I think you phrased that just right. Whatever injury or scar we all have, it is real and it really does impair us. But the impairment is neither total nor permanent. At least, it isn't both. So we must all go do and enjoy everything we can do and enjoy, rather than stew in our loss. I am glad you said it like that. It is sort of a version of keeping up with the Jones's, where we are truly behind and beneath even our own expectations.

Your point is so important not just for financial setbacks, but for all the many diverse ways people find their circumstances damaged by their interaction with a PD.

[GettingOOTF]

I'm decades behind my peers because of my marriage to a BPDxH and stuff I carried with me from my childhood. I don't think people realize what an impact these relationships have on finances. And I don't just mean "leaving with nothing".

Ive done really well financially since my divorce but i have so many years to make up for.

[SaltwareS]

It feels so good to be acknowledged on this point.

[nanotech]

Financial hardship  is a common occurrence in PD families, and it happened in my family. It even happened to the Golden Child. He struggled in the workplace because he'd been raised to have a sense of entitlement. He had to find out the hard way that no boss or even colleague would treat him as my parents had treated him. He has had difficulties getting on with colleagues and bosses and it's led to him being made redundant or passed over for promotion. He's also been accused of bullying staff. Nothing happened to him over that. The staff member was below him in rank, and lost her job. My mum was full of vitriol for this woman. Knowing my brother, I thought he probably had bullied her.

This has happened to me too. I struggled in the workplace, and was enmeshed with mum, who would advise me how to 'assert' myself. Mum hadn't been anywhere near a  workplace for over 40 years. 
She continually advised me that I had to 'put people in their place'!
I listened. I followed.
I have to accept responsibility for that of course. But the conditioning was just too strong to ignore.
I think at that time too, I had narcissistic fleas, and would employ these at work when my low self esteem showed itself.
I thought I was being strong.
Some of the people I had to work with were quite difficult, but once I came Out of the FOG I saw how I could have handled things differently, and then I would have extended my career.

Generally speaking too, I made many a stupid career move trying desperately to please my parents. One time I gave up a good career because after shunning me for a long time  (they hated my husband, mostly because he loved me unconditionally) they suddenly dangled the carrot of approval on condition that I move back into their house with them! I did it. I took hubby with me, and we instantly lost our independence.
We got it back, but it took us years.
They never liked any of us to live in other towns, or to make more money than them. I left a perfectly good, financially lucrative job, to please their whims.

Any time I've become better off financially, I've been shunned. Yet when poorer, I was given  some sort of attention, though it would feel very condescending.
It was so odd.
If my success couldn't be attributed to their parenting, then they would really get mean and quite ruthless.

Later in my life- Again, after a period of shunning, the path to redemption was laid out -
They wanted me to retrain for a certain career. I was in my thirties with three kids, youngest was only 2.
I did it! My whole family put their life on hold while I did it, and I can see now that it was ALL for parental approval. We had to borrow like idiots to keep going with my course, and be able to provide for the children. I did well academically, but then I struggled to find work locally.
We ended up having to relocate in London and it cost thousands. I still thought I'd get approval, because I'd done it. I'd got the job.  I was working in the job they had wanted me to train for. But of course, I HADN'T  done it. Not in their eyes.
I was shunned again because Yet Again I'd moved out of the hometown.  :roll
After shunning/ not visiting/ expecting us to visit lots they eventually enticed me to move  back closer to them.
Again, I gave up my permanent job to move to a temporary one, because it was near to them. 
Then after that, my career just spiralled down. We were in so much debt taken out while training, and the cost of moving twice in the space of three years had really taken its toll.
Sigh. I had to deal with it going pear -shaped! My biggest worry was how they would feel about my failing them. I felt a lot of shame at that time.  I wasn't Out of the FOG yet- but I did have the sense to sit myself down and tell myself that it was ' just a job' and I was not defined by it. I think I could do that because I had a very supportive husband.
There followed some very lean years!
Then, me and hubby had some good luck financially( hubby and his new career)  and we were able to get back onto the housing ladder. Then we got a better car.
My dad responded with passive aggressive jibes. Neither were very pleased for us.
None of my siblings are well off. My dad prides himself on still bring the richest one. This is the sort of thing they enjoy.

[SeaBreeze]

I was financially abused by my mother, my roommates, my first husband, 2nd husband...Definitely a pattern in my life! I'm now actively working to overcome it in my middle years as I plan for retirement. Just recognizing the financial abuse was a big first step. Reading books on budgeting and saving has been part of "working on myself" in recent years.

[wisingup]

This is a really important topic.  And craziness around money has been a huge part of the PD dynamic in my uBPDm's life and mine. 

My enDad made really good money in a banking job.  My mom spent freely.  She is what I would call a "recreational shopper" of clothing & home decor - this is really the only hobby you could say she has & it's an expensive one.  I, being the only daughter, had expensive clothing purchased for me from a young age, sometimes items I said I did not like and did not want to wear.  We took lavish vacations.  So the money flowed freely.  But once in a while (I now suspect these were times where my dad asked my mom to dial it back) she would erupt with rage at me when I needed something for school.  Once it was plants for a garden project (this was probably a max $20-30 expense?) and another time when I had joined the drill team & needed to purchase the uniform items.  Another time we went to lunch & I started to feel sick & got a bout of rage over the waste of money that we'd spent on lunch.

They ended up declaring bankruptcy during my freshman year of college & I had to leave my college & was told that I was on my own if I wanted to finish college.  Which I did, but developed a huge anxiety disorder & my own weirdness around money, in the opposite direction.  But the dynamic continues.  I believe that Mom now thinks my brother and I have infinite piles of money that we should be happy to share with her.  I believe this is what she planned all along - she didn't have to worry about her future because she had kids & they would take care of her.  When she and my dad separated, she quickly ran through her half of the divided assets.  My dad died several years later with most of his half intact; she got his half & now that is gone as well & she has moved in with her sister.  Earlier this year, she raised the topic of us co-signing a loan for her to buy a condo.  My brother was willing.  I felt that familiar icy hand pulling me into her crazy world & was most definitely NOT willing.  She has dropped the topic since I told her I thought it was too much of a risk for us.

Apologies, don't mean to hijack your thread, but I feel like you've raised an issue that probably affected a lot of us.  Forgot to mention - mom has frequently made fun of me for being "cheap" throughout my life.

[SaltwareS]

Wiseup thank you for chiming in. That captures so much about the NPD/BPD mindset around money and the lack of proportionality in how they perceive how much money you have. I also had a few friends who were whacked with money who I had to get rid of. One I made the mistake of telling I'd finally paid off all debt and actually had a savings, and her immediate response was "you could spend it on x, or you could spend it on y." NO. I am not going to spend it. But my comment would never "land". This was a well-educated professional woman who confessed to me she had tens of thousands in debt and nothing saved for retirement.

nano "My dad prides himself on still bring the richest one. This is the sort of thing they enjoy." Boy, if only I had known at the time that being surpassed is what gets them in a tizzy I would not have taken so many wrong turns trying to figure out what was going on. I remember going through so many wrong turns (why are they acting so crazy? Do they have dementia? Am I just fundamentally unlikeable?)

I hope more people chime in. If only I had known earlier in life that people get crazy around money, and NPD/BPDs especially get crazy, I could have saved myself so much trouble.

[Fiasco]

Me too, I let BPDm instill a feeling of desperate poverty into me as a kid. Combined with her perpetual victimhood this has led to me taking any minimum wage job I could get (which was of course any I applied for) rather than having the courage to do internships, etc, to break into my field. I'm mid forties with a masters degree and only now working my first full time career position with real benefits and a retirement account.

[Maxtrem]

Thank you for your testimonials, I had always believed that it was only from my PD family that there was an obsession around money. I remember that when I started working, my uBPDM took money from my wallet as if nothing had happened, as if it was a right (she usually gave it to me when she had alimony). There was also an obsession with my grandmother's inheritance while she was still alive, which was pathetic. 

[freedom77]

I went into severe debt over my BPD/N mother...much regret, and still recovering.

[BeanerJane]

This is a really important topic.  And craziness around money has been a huge part of the PD dynamic in my uBPDm's life and mine. 

My enDad made really good money in a banking job.  My mom spent freely.  She is what I would call a "recreational shopper" of clothing & home decor - this is really the only hobby you could say she has & it's an expensive one.  I, being the only daughter, had expensive clothing purchased for me from a young age, sometimes items I said I did not like and did not want to wear.  We took lavish vacations.  So the money flowed freely.  But once in a while (I now suspect these were times where my dad asked my mom to dial it back) she would erupt with rage at me when I needed something for school.  Once it was plants for a garden project (this was probably a max $20-30 expense?) and another time when I had joined the drill team & needed to purchase the uniform items.  Another time we went to lunch & I started to feel sick & got a bout of rage over the waste of money that we'd spent on lunch.

They ended up declaring bankruptcy during my freshman year of college & I had to leave my college & was told that I was on my own if I wanted to finish college.  Which I did, but developed a huge anxiety disorder & my own weirdness around money, in the opposite direction.  But the dynamic continues.  I believe that Mom now thinks my brother and I have infinite piles of money that we should be happy to share with her.  I believe this is what she planned all along - she didn't have to worry about her future because she had kids & they would take care of her.  When she and my dad separated, she quickly ran through her half of the divided assets.  My dad died several years later with most of his half intact; she got his half & now that is gone as well & she has moved in with her sister.  Earlier this year, she raised the topic of us co-signing a loan for her to buy a condo.  My brother was willing.  I felt that familiar icy hand pulling me into her crazy world & was most definitely NOT willing.  She has dropped the topic since I told her I thought it was too much of a risk for us.

Apologies, don't mean to hijack your thread, but I feel like you've raised an issue that probably affected a lot of us.  Forgot to mention - mom has frequently made fun of me for being "cheap" throughout my life.

It's chilling how familiar that story is. I could've written it myself.