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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I need advice because I hate being witness to this dysfunction.

DH and his father aren’t currently speaking. They’ve done this dance on and off for the entire 20 years I’ve been with DH. I honestly think FIL is a narcissist, and all of these estrangements are initiated by him. It looks something like this:

DH and FIL irritate each other and DH complains about how annoying his father is (no mom, btw, she passed in his 20s), how much of a burden it is, etc. But then when FIL initiates this no-contact, instead of enjoying the peace, he spends the entire time thinking about it, asking me things like, “Should I text him and ask him how long he thinks it’ll last this time?” or “I don’t want to hear him complaining if a whole summer goes by and we haven’t golfed together. I think I’m going to tell him that.”

I know it bothers him immensely, and I know his dad likely knows this too and probably derives pleasure from knowing the effect it’s having on him, like he “won”. Yes, DH has been is in therapy before over the whole thing, and it’s helped in the past to an extent, but I think he has some serious wounds from the whole thing and will forever be chasing a Real Dad.

I’m sure there is nothing I can do, but do you have any advice at all for me?[/quote]
Been there. I just repeated the following in different ways: “I’m so sorry, you deserve better from your Dad.”  He may have a lightbulb moment at some point (my DH did with his narc mother) but he prob won’t. What your DH needs more than anything is validation. Do you have kids? It really helped my DH when I observed that neither one of us ever cut off our kids, etc. I never demonized his mother, btw. But, I validated and I observed. 
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