Reply to If you were/are diagnosed as a narcissist or married to one.....

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am married to the son of a woman with narcissistic personality disorder and it really affects our marriage.  I have read up on children of narcissists and the various "roles" they can play in their family of origin, and he is a passive and infantilized -- goes along with her wanting to remain in total control and accepting of all her attempts to baby him.  His sister plays a different role and his brother is the one who has seen the pattern and plays an outspoken objector -- he also has problem with alcoholism, which he developed in part to deal with the messed-up family structure.  FIL is completely passive to her and also infantilized, but also has developed enhanced powers of perception in response to her domineering, and he can view patterns and people's responses to her, which she never does of course.  I take the path that I limit my contact with her as much as possible (luckily, they live far away) and limit my children's contact with her to times when I can also be there to "run interference" b/w her and them and to act as a human shield for them.  Nevertheless, there is still the problem of my husband's passive acceptance of being a victim of, basically, emotional incest from her -- and he does not see it -- and always accuses me of trying to control his relationship with is family.  I compartmentalize it and ignore it when we are not with them, but it is extremely hard the few times we are with them, say, for a few days like a family vacation.  At those times, it particularly becomes startling clear that he is emotionally wrapped up in and being used by his mother and he's basically completely out of touch with me and with our children until we physically leave and then can get back to our regular lives.  It is VERY hard on all of us.  [/quote]

That gave me the chills, and a sense of "there but for the grace of $deity".

I was engaged for a while to a woman whose mother was diagnosed Bipolar, but had some major N traits (or rather, scored high on the scale on those traits).  She had the whole family terrorized.  Nobody played "outspoken objector"  Nobody dared contradict her or challenge her.  She detested me because I wouldn't play along and not being under her thumb drove her nuts.  I ended that relationship after I realized how messed up my SO was and how much she was under the spell; it was painfully clear that her family/mother came first.  I would have probably avoided the hell out of them - stayed faaar away, but it was clear my SO wouldn't and would've pulled any children into that orbit.

Sorry, you've got my complete empathy...that has to be awful.  Bad in-laws are a bad enough problem in and of themselves; when your SO defends them it's worse.  [/quote]

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