Victory in Staying In A Relationship with them

[InTheDragonsDen]

Stumbled across Dr. Ramani's video on VICTORY in staying in a relationship with them. I was pretty upset / dis-regulated but this video helped me feel a bit better.
1) My boundary held even though she tried several times to get me to break it. Yup, I am paying the price but, I did it.
2) For the most part I did not take the bait, I did not look like the crazy one
3) My expectations are realistic. She is not changing, she breadcrumbs me, no empathy, no affection. I expect nothing positive unless there is something that directly benefits her.
4) I have a plan B if I leave but I also am getting good at knowing what she wants and I can avoid problems by making plan B's for day to day things.

[SonofThunder]

Stumbled across Dr. Ramani's video on VICTORY in staying in a relationship with them. I was pretty upset / dis-regulated but this video helped me feel a bit better.
1) My boundary held even though she tried several times to get me to break it. Yup, I am paying the price but, I did it.
2) For the most part I did not take the bait, I did not look like the crazy one
3) My expectations are realistic. She is not changing, she breadcrumbs me, no empathy, no affection. I expect nothing positive unless there is something that directly benefits her.
4) I have a plan B if I leave but I also am getting good at knowing what she wants and I can avoid problems by making plan B's for day to day things.

Congratulations on your victories DragonsDen!  That is HUGE!  Keep up the great work! 

The victories she describes in that video are SO very difficult, so again congrats!  I agree with Dr. Ramani that they get a little easier with practice but imo, they also come with some side-effects, especially if the narcissist is a spouse.

Imo, my victories also signal a loss of objective for the narcissist, and the narcissist does not sit well with failed motives.  Therefore, on so many of my victories, I would bask a bit in the warmth of my victories, while unbeknownst to me, the anger of the failed objective for the PD was bubbling up in my spouse.  She would then very cleverly and covertly manipulate something totally unrelated, in order to deliver hurt, frustration or loss, in an area that I could not well self-control, or in a situation that was extreme in my need for self protection, therefore a 'turning-up' of the narcissistic volume because of my preceding victory/her loss.  Imo narcissists must find a way to win. 

Therefore, my smaller victories (her loss of objective) turned into larger/deeper future hurt-motives for my PDw, therefore I needed larger, stronger victories the next time. Ugg..!!! Im still enjoying the beautiful sun of my previous victory, and now I have to backbone even stronger for the next one. 

As my boundary and toolbox skills improved with practice over time, my PDw's high-radar was very keen to my continuing new victory repetition and therefore her continuing attempts ending with failure.  At the same time, she also was very perceptive that I was getting more distant (Dr Ramani's point on not sharing positive or negative news with a narcissist), as my victories persisted. 

My spouse was continuing to use those double-binds of my victories, to manipulate me even stronger over time, so she could possibly experience her own victories at my expense. This is imo, the huge chasm of motive difference that has always existed in my unbalanced role as her spouse and it became very visible when I successfully improved my toolbox skills. The two opposing objectives just could not continue to exist together peacefully. 

Imo, our victories are not hurtful to a PD, but are only self-protective for ourselves.  But...a PD's victories must come at the expense of the other person because they cannot host their own emotions; others are their emotional host. This is the predator nature of a PD.  Once the prey starts to self-protect, the PD begins to starve.  The non doesn't need to feed off the PD for survival, but the PD needs to feed from the non. Incompatibility and starvation for the PD when the food source now keeps getting away.

In my experiences, the victories were the successful beginning of taking my own life back, but at the cost of further demise of my unbalanced relationship role (caretaker to a needy PD) and marriage. 

DragonsDen, congratulations again on your victories. Enjoy the warmth of those successes, and at the same time, I encourage you to use them to bolster your courage and further develop your playbook. Use them in your constant training; taking notes of your successes but also the after-effects of your victories on your PD, and you may begin to see a pattern of response to perceived loss from the PD. 

These notes are your growing plans, where you may hopefully practice in private, and then continue in your victory procession during game-on, yet with continued and necessary thicker skin and a stronger backbone, as the opposition turns up the heat.  More power to you DragonsDen!

SoT

[InTheDragonsDen]

Thank you for a warm warming reply SoT.
My wife also has the overwhelming need to win. If I win, she loses and the manipulation does increase.
The two years of covid with me being home with her were wonderful years. She was always with me. She was not trying to find time alone and would always ask me to go with her when she was going out. Once things started returning to normal and the drinking and partying started, everything changed. She was fueled on attention and in truth she is getting more and more dramatic and wild than any time in our 9 years together.
It does seem to be a constant battle. Trying to look ahead to what may come down the road and no matter how well you think you are prepared she always has a twist that ends up dis-regulating myself but I have not engaged, just placing boundaries to protect myself.
She is now in the phase, at least I think, of talking to her relatives and close friends, setting a narrative. Then placing me in situations where if I act out or step in, I get looked at as the one with the problem.