The other side

[bloomie]

Square -  I am thankful to have read through the latest update to find a good conclusion and possible steps in the direction of your daughter showing she was listening and will need to ask going forward.

Something I tried to keep in mind with my own kids as they were transitioning into adulthood and independence is that by returning things to them to make decisions around that belong to them, I am showing I believe in their ability to accomplish tasks and organize themselves in areas I once was more involved in.

I hope you give yourself a huge pat on the back for how well you handled this even when hurt and unfairly accused. It is a really tricky time in your DD's life for you to know when to help and when not to. Waiting to be asked is SO wise and SO respectful of you both!

[square]

There was a blowup with MIL a couple of years ago, and H stopped talking to her for a while. He eventually got pulled back in again with obligation and guilt. So he recently went to visit his mom and begged DD to go with him so he didn't have to be alone there. DD agreed to go but was making all sorts of plans and contingencies, for example to ensure she wasn't cornered alone by MIL and interrogated. (Plans failed and she was cornered 2-3 times but she went hard core gray rock and "knew nothing").

It was crazytown. MIL was on the warpath with another family member, a diplomatic type with excellent skills but who nevertheless couldn't avoid the multiple hours-long yelling fights MIL picked. Another family member has "discarded" DD and is ignoring her and explicitly forbade yet another family member from talking to her. MIL made a few bizarre "power moves" including insisting on sitting in the living room late at night (midnight+) while DD was trying to sleep on the sofa. (This triggered a memory from H who recalled her doing that to him as a child while he tried to sleep in his room).

MIL was stewing in resentment aimed in 3 or 4 directions. Finally DD was expected to perform some weird act of fealty to MIL, she declined, there was a huge blowup. H decided to leave early and it nearly came to blows as another family member physically cornered him to prevent him from leaving.

H will probably get sucked back in yet again eventually, but DD is done and is never going back. She, like me, has some good memories of MIL and feels sad about it, but things have gotten worse.

None of it is new behavior but it's just worse somehow. Her ability to moderate herself has slipped a bit, and even just being 10% less controlled is just too much.

I had previously considered her to have NPD traits but the fact that she doesn't seem to require admiration or compliments kind of threw me. But she 100% requires a certain type of obedience and fealty, and entirely believes she is due this and massively resents any amount of falling short on this.

It's always eggshells with MIL. It's exhausting because even when things are "fine," there is an enormous cognitive load of reviewing anything you say in realtime to check for possible issues. Also, when she is anxious she gets screechy and people literally start running around trying to resolve her anxiety so THEY can calm down again.

She is absolutely certain that she is right and never reflects that she may have contributed to an issue. If someone apologizes to her for something, she doesn't thaw at all, just continues feeling slighted and angry and will push for the person to apologize for other things. And will snap "that sounds like an excuse" if you hedge your apology in any way whatsoever.

While I've had moments of enjoyment with MIL, those moments petered away to nothing. It's just dread and stress for any of us to interact with her at all, even over text.

I'm obviously discarded by the family now and that's fine. Now DD is too, and that's fine as she is done with them, but also a little weird. She's an adult but she's 19. She's not on drugs, she didn't vandalize anything. If you asked them what she did, the most they could come up with was that she was rude and entitled. She was neither, imho, but I can't see myself cutting contact (and insisting others follow suit) with my granddaughter, niece, etc., because she was a bit snotty or something. But even that is actually not DD being rude, it was that she declined to being controlled and spoke up for her needs (like wanting to sleep when it was after midnight which was taken as being massively entitled and controlling).

Ugh.

[winter storm]

Hi Square,
Sorry to hear that your DD had this experience, and it makes sense that there is a cascade of emotion for you around this situation. It's very difficult to see our children, even as young adults, in pain.
Take care of yourself. Warm wishes that things calm down even further.

[bloomie]

square - that sounds like an awful experience for your DD. I am thankful your H decided to get the heck out of there, but what a scene when he attempted to leave!

It just sounds like an oppressive atmosphere all the way around. And I am imagining there will be some painful processing through this experience for your DD. How is she doing with things?

[SeaBreeze]

I'm sorry to hear your DD had to experience this. Though it sounds like she put some boundaries in place so good for her! Boo at the family for reacting so bad to those boundaries, but that just shows their PD dysfunction in action.

My older kids from my first marriage have chosen, as adults, to disengage from ex-in-laws for a few reasons. My DD actually filed a restraining order against one of her cousins, to give you an idea of how crazy that family can be! In turn my kids seem to have been "partially" discarded by certain family members. Oldest DS went NC, DD is VLC.

It's sad to see our kids getting triangulated, snubbed, abused, etc by the same people that caused us so much grief. But thankfully our kids are more educated on how to handle it. My advice is continue being the light of sanity and port of safety in your DD's life.

[square]

Thank you all.

It seems like one sign that you might be dealing with PD is when you keep wondering, is this crazy? Is this normal? Are they right?

You can have conflicts with normal people, but there's something destabilizing about conflict with PDs that just isn't the same with normal people, even with bad conflicts. Conflicts with PDs are more than disagreements but a challenge to reality, somehow.

Another sign that occured to me is if there is a big mismatch between how the PD sees you and how everybody else sees you - of course this is difficult if you are immersed in a PD system.

But people generally see DD as fun, spunky, a bit quirky, gets super excited about stuff all the time. MIL sees her as a rude, spoiled brat.

MIL sees me as childish and ungrateful. I don't think literally anyone else would list "childish" as an attribute of mine, possibly even when I was a literal child. She did characterize me as "stoic" once, but I'm not sure where the overlap between stoic and childish is.

People see us in all sorts of ways, and there is a lot of room for differences in perspective. But with MIL, her view is heavily distorted by her total entitlement.

DD is rude and spoiled in MIL's view, because DD challenge's MIL's ability to have everything her own way all the time. She told DD is a rude tone of voice that she was being "inflexible" - because MIL didn't want to be flexible. And of course MIL feels a perfect right to say judgy things or even name-call, and that's not rude for some reason. Not providing your guests a quiet and unlit place to sleep after midnight is not rude, her hosting is perfect, it's the guests who are out of line.

For me being childish, I believe that she is referring to times I didn't bend to her will as well. DD is more likely to speak up than I am, I tend to go along to get along but when I draw the line I'm more indirect. So she sees me not like a spoiled brat princess daring to push back on her but a sulky child refusing to do as I'm told. Not everybody loves or likes me but I've never gotten the sense anyone else sees me like that at all.

And of course me being ungrateful just reveals the fuel her resentment runs on; I should obey her because I should feel grateful. But she never worries one second about whether she's been grateful to me. Not one second. I do in fact have some things I appreciate from her, but it certainly hasn't been this one way street of her giving and giving and me taking and taking. I've given her help and support as well. And what she gives has been her choice, not demanded or requested from me. Apparently they were not gifts but silent contracts with blanks only she could fill in to determine the price. But if there's a price, I don't need to be grateful, any more than I need to be grateful to the grocery store where I purchase food.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Apparently they were not gifts but silent contracts with blanks only she could fill in to determine the price. But if there's a price, I don't need to be grateful, any more than I need to be grateful to the grocery store where I purchase food.

We have a winner! Wow this struck a chord with me. My own MIL hit me with the "ungrateful" attack over and over, despite the fact that I felt that I rolled out the red carpet for them when they made their state visits... Yep, that invisible price tag was too high, so I don't shop there anymore either.

[SeaBreeze]

Yep their gifts are never truly given and come with strings attached. uNPD ex-MIL from first marriage "gave" ex-UNPDh #1 and me an old Formica dining table. Cute functional table but not an heirloom family keepsake by any means. She also lived next door to us for awhile (a whole other horror story post in itself!) and allowed me to come over to use her washer and dryer. Now, I was grateful for these things! But anytime ex or I would rightfully challenge ex-MILs behavior, she would snap back with "Maybe I should take my table back" or "Maybe I shouldn't let you do laundry at my house anymore!" Like we were children being grounded from playing with toys because we sassed Mama. Trying to control us with a table and laundry!?!  At one point Golden Boy ex finally told her she could take the damned table back and we would just go to the Laundromat!

[MaxedOut]

"You can have conflicts with normal people, but there's something destabilizing about conflict with PDs that just isn't the same with normal people, even with bad conflicts. Conflicts with PDs are more than disagreements but a challenge to reality, somehow."