(March 2016)
There was a day a couple of weeks ago where I was so terribly bogged down by all the BS going on with my in laws. For sake of this particular post subject, I’ll be brief. For an extended period of time, there’s been a standoff of epic proportions. Our NMIL claimed everything was a “misunderstanding” (her usual excuse to avoid responsibility and apologizing for absolutely anything) but my argument was – and still is – that there is a continuous pattern of triangulation, manipulation, lies and no observation or respect for personal boundaries.
Anyway, my husband and I had just gotten through yet another heated discussion about how his mother kept bugging him about not seeing our child and how she’s purposely tried to lie to him, saying I called her names (I never did) and used the excuse “well you weren’t there!” (Talking about the one and only time my twin and I decided to try and directly confront her ourselves to resolve the conflict unfolding between us, mentioned in the post about respect). He made the insinuation that I was “dragging things out” and “making things worse”. Since he said that, I’ve started to wonder if that’s really true or if it’s just a manipulation planted by his mom. I often question whether or not I did the right thing refusing NMIL access to my baby the first several months of his life. The conclusion I kept coming back to is that she has a chronic inability to respect others’ wishes, often disregarding boundaries many times despite being told to stop more than once. Once, she continued to break a rule set for one of the other grandchildren that was instituted for his privacy and safety! Of course, given how she’s treated her children as kids and as adults she’s the perfect example of the statement, “once an abuser, always an abuser”. I don’t want to give her an opportunity to emotionally abuse my child or use my child as her shiny toy to be paraded about at her convenience, like how she behaves with the others. I also knew that no matter what, I did not want any children I have to be witnesses to subtle, abusive mistreatment towards their parents, other adults or cousins. I have the distinct impression that she has no respect for my authority as the wife of her son or as the mother to my child and merely considers me an obstacle.
Another incident on my mind that day was this one: If you haven’t come across it already, look up the Narcissistic Mother in Law blog here on WordPress. The author goes into very explicit detail, which has been helpful in my own research. One of her posts details things you shouldn’t do to manage a NMIL, and as it happens, I had broken one of the rules! That rule was to not directly show anger at your NMIL. I made this mistake some time after our attempt to talk to her ourselves. She was in the midst of some high and mighty defense of herself, claiming my twin sister was being “uncivil” and that was the moment I’d finally had enough of her posturing. I blew open the reservoir of anger and called her out. I defended my twin like a champ, saying she was not uncivil, letting her know exactly what my twin was trying to say while also pointing out she just wasn’t willing to listen. I know now part of my anger came from the fact that she was insipid enough to think she could get away with lying about my friend in front of me, considering I was a witness. Did I have to get angry and actually raise my voice about it? No. Do I feel I was justified? Hell yes. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have been more calm about it though. That didn’t mean I had to point out the holes in her argument. Unfortunately though, that’s just a personality flaw I’ve been trying to change for years. Still a work in progress, folks…
Thinking over those incidents on this particular day the disagreement took place left me even more despondent than I already was. In a quiet moment, I went over various thoughts in my head:
- Is anything about this my fault?
- Is her end goal really to get in between us and undermine my authority?
- What manner should I behave next time I have to endure her presence? Cold but polite? I can’t fake sickly sweet “niceness” like she can!
- Is she truly incapable of recognizing her wrongs and apologizing as she should? Does she even have a clue how her behavior negatively affects her husband, children, their spouses or grandchildren?
- Was I truly wrong to stick up for my friend in a heated moment? To call NMIL out on her lie?
- Is there anything I could have done differently?
- Would it have not mattered what I said or did, she wouldn’t listen regardless?
- Am I sure my motives are to protect my family from all the toxic bull crap that continues to happen or is it out of spite? Or both?
I ended up spending a little bit of time beating myself up. Except then I remember what other bloggers have made very clear: Narcissists and abusers like to project their own behaviors and thoughts on their targets to absolve themselves of responsibility and at the same time working to prove the real victim is crazy and unstable, not to mention wrong. But as I’ve said, the conclusion I keep coming to is that I need to be on my guard as much as possible now and protect the interests of my husband and children as much as I can given the restrictions I’m under (as he’s insistent we maintain visits with them). I’m sure I will make some missteps in this journey but ultimately want to ensure I’m doing what I feel is best for my marriage and kids. I ask myself whether or not I can change my own behavior so that at the very least I maintain civil relations. As much as I wish I didn’t have to, I can. I do take comfort knowing that civil to me means still keeping her at arm’s length and emotionally detaching myself from her as much as I can, though. Even with these conclusions however, I still end up doubting myself about half the time…
In such a state of mind after the disagreement, I again turned to Google to go looking for information I’d already read: bloggers’ personal stories and articles about underhanded abusive tactics. I happened across a post from the blog After Narcissistic Abuse (I highly suggest looking it up as well) that detailed symptoms someone suffers when subjected to narcissistic abuse. Until reading this particular post, I’d never considered the psychological effects I would potentially develop; I’d only been thinking about the detrimental effects on my marriage and relationship with my husband. To be honest, I wanted to cry when I read it. I fit every description the author described, including the PTSD bit. (I am not diagnosed and I refuse to use the internet to do so, but I’m still highly suspicious). I was surprised! I’d have recollections of various incidents and my blood pressure would rise, I’d get hot, my heart would race and I’d be filled with the worst fear and anxiety I’d ever felt in my life. I never equated it to PTSD until I really pondered the aforementioned post.
Whilst reading, I had an epiphany. I really felt like the next step for me – and hopefully my husband as well – is to go get some counseling. I’m still organizing how and when to go do that and will be checking my insurance too. I really hope I can achieve some clarity, ease some of the burden of NMIL and her bull and improve some of the rough edges of myself as necessary. I hope too that my husband can better recognize some of the harmful behaviors he’s inherited that need to be tempered and improved lest he perpetuates the cycle of abuse in our family. I’m also hoping my husband and I can mend our relationship and not succumb to allowing the stress (HER) drive a wedge in between us. We are a unit and our children deserve a loving, united and emotionally supportive household. I will not allow this woman’s influence tear my family apart. Maybe once I have a session or two under my belt, I can better articulate this behavior and how it’s affecting us.
UPDATE – ALMOST TWO YEARS LATER
First of all, we apologize greatly for falling off the wagon of this blog. Twin A and I have been caught up in a bunch of life-related sorts of things. I am almost done with my schooling, she has had another child and moved house, among other things that have happened.
As far as where I am at now compared to when I first composed this post back in 2016, my husband and I did participate in some couples therapy sessions, where the therapist did quickly determine the major roadblock in our communication issues lies with my husband’s issues with his mother, the things she has done – not just to him or his other siblings, but to significant others of her children – and gave us lots of wonderful advice and tips for communicating. To my surprise, he happened to repeat some of the things I had found in my research on the subject, but perhaps because it had been me saying it, my husband was not necessarily in a state of mind to see my perspective. And that is okay. I have since learned that forcing my perspective when he is not ready to come to his own conclusion and accept the situation for what it is only hurts our ability to communicate. That has been a very hard lesson to learn and has been very hard for me to be patient. But I noticed that once I chose to calm down and not lash out so much, that he would start expressing his many irritations with her to me. I am happy to report our communication has gotten a lot better and our discussions about the dysfunctional family dynamic have been much more productive, open, and calm since. He was expressing things that I had been thinking for a while, and we managed to have an easier time sharing perspectives and feelings with one another to the point that we began to understand each other better. As a result, we have come to realize that we do share a lot of the same thoughts and are on the same page more than we thought the other was. To be honest, it felt like a “light at the end of the tunnel” thing. My husband was opening up, slowly becoming more willing to educate himself, to stand up for himself more fully, and becoming more confident about doing so.
Let me make myself clear, and I have said this to him very recently: I think it is terrible that he feels this way about someone who is supposed to love him unconditionally. I think it is awful that this is his MOTHER he is talking about. As a mother myself, I cannot imagine being so awful, abusive, or selfish that my children would not want to associate with me. I am not out to tear him away from his family of origin for selfish reasons or because I “want him to myself”. What I want for my husband is to be confident in himself, respect himself, and find happiness. As long as I have known him, I have noticed that a large source of his unhappiness stems from the way his mother has treated him (both in childhood and adulthood), his father, his other siblings, and the significant others.
Twin B
The Twin Sisters: Tales of Narcissism and Abuse 