Still. Again. Ditto. He’s Failing

After the blow out during MIL’s birthday dinner, things changed. Slightly. DH told the girls they did not have to go see their grandmother anymore, in fact, DH and I were on board that she wasn’t allowed to see them, never mind the girls didn’t want to at all anyway. DH started out strong, blazing with anger over her behavior over all of it. He refused to call her. Ignored her really which was fine by me. It took three weeks and then she tentatively sent him a text. I’m not sure of their exchanges, but DH kept them brief. After that she started calling him and leaving voice mail messages for him to call her back and they had short discussions then. He still was stiff with her, but they were talking more. DH did tell me that she said “I know I did something bad, but I don’t remember what.” She said this as if that was a reason to forgive her. As if she didn’t really mean all the horrible things she said and did that night. But, DH was on his game. He said, “Well, if you don’t even remember what happened, then you have a bigger problem than you think and need help.” He was expecting at a MINIMUM an apology to all of us. He indicated she needed therapy for several things as well. And she, playing the game and being all sad and meek, agreed with him. Note, however, at this point it’s been like a month, and not ONCE has she called frantic, knowing she did something bad, but not knowing what, had no real curiosity what “IT” was that she did. I find that strange. If she were a normal person, she would have been mortified, come over, and apologized to everyone immediately. That didn’t happen.

MIL wanted to come over to see the girls. I told DH if she came over it would be for more than just to see the girls. It would be a full on family sit down discussion of her fucked up behavior and what isn’t tolerated. Twice we set a time, a twice she blew us off. It made me so angry. It upset the family. We were thinking she was coming over and we’d all be on pins and needles, then at the last second she’d cancel for stupid shit, like … the weather is too bad. What?? To walk across the cul de sac?

As the six week mark approached I noticed that she was calling as she did before. Just to chat and say hello, and he’d talk to her as always as if nothing in the world had happened. She hadn’t apologized, hadn’t gotten therapy, she had done nothing to deserve his forgiveness, yet there he was treating her just like nothing happened. It hit me then like ton of bricks. He is NEVER, NOT EVER going to hold her accountable for anything she does. Not even when it’s the worse offense she could have done, even in front of our children, even screaming at me that I was a fucking bitch.

I decided I needed to write him a letter and get out what I felt, because at that moment, I felt a lot. In the weeks previous I had been reading my old blog, and was reminded of all of the horrible things I had to endure with that woman. All of the horrible things she did and said and how he never did ANYTHING to fix it. Even if I was sobbing and upset. It was easier for him to let her get away with it and deal with my sadness then hold her accountable or put up any boundaries. When I saw that he was doing it yet again was appalled. But this time was different, because it wasn’t just me, it was our children that were being abused. FULL STOP. This wasn’t going to continue.

This is what I wrote him.

DH:

We can discuss later, but you needed to hear this. Maybe I'll sleep tonight.

I’ve been looking through my online journal after cleaning it up. I was curious to go through it to see some of things your mother said or did in years past since I was sure I had forgotten things. It really gave me some clarity, although I didn’t like it.

Looking back over the years since Oldest was born (and even long before) it is obvious that your mother made me miserable, out loud -- often, ramming herself over boundaries like a freight train. She has been quite fond of attacking my character behind my back with some bald face lie she dreamed up that was aimed to make me look bad. In turn, you’d turn around and ask me if I did [*insert ridiculous accusation*] to offend her. You gave her bullshit story enough credence to question me again and again, which caused me to have to defend myself over and over. I never did any of those things she dreamed up. It was so unfair of both of you. One thing was pretty clear though after a lot of reading. You gave your mother reign to malign me and dream up any fantasy story she could whenever it suited her or when she wanted to emotionally bitch about me to make herself feel better. You allowed her to beat me up emotionally, whether passively or aggressively (in my face and not), and didn't hold her accountable. What type of respect can I believe that either of you had for me between the two of you? She disrespected me by every foul word out of her mouth and every boundary she crossed. She was mean and unfair to me from the very first. You disrespected me by letting her do it again and again regardless of what I said or how upset I was. This hindsight sucks. Now she’s tried to do it with our daughters, talking horribly about me and wanting them to think bad of me. Sorry, but that is seriously EVIL. Yet for some reason, you still think having your mom in the girls’ lives is a good idea?

I had hoped that after her fantastic blow out at the beginning of January it would mean something. That things might change. Instead, she is manipulating you all over again. After realizing this last night, I knew things are never going to change. You were mad at her and I thought ready to face things. That lasted all of two weeks. Once she started with the text messages, it was easy for her to progress to brief phone calls, and now you are back to half hour phone conversations with her as if nothing happened.

For some reason I actually contemplated being gracious enough to let her salvage some sort of relationship with the girls by letting her into my house so she can have her “say.” I plead temporary insanity. Without even stepping foot in it, she’s already stirring up discomfort in our house. She has twice now manipulated our family time by not showing up to the family meeting SHE SAID SHE WANTED. She’s done this with lame, selfish excuses that weren’t excuses at all. It’s making the poor girls’ nerves sit on edge, not to mention mine. This is exactly how she manipulates you. She wants something, you bend, she maneuvers, you chase, and now the whole thing about holding HER accountable is somehow now all about her, on her terms, and on her time frame. She’s in control again! She’s not sorry, DH. She’s not sorry at all.

I just want to understand one thing. For all of your new found determination with her since early January what changed so that she now has your pity, attention and kindness? Did she improve something I am unaware of? Did she get counseling or therapy? Did she stop drinking? Did she even apologize? Did she admit she had a problem? Did she do ANYTHING AT ALL to deserve acceptance or forgiveness from you? From where I sit, it really just feels like you feeding your mom’s pity is more important to you than how anyone else in our family feels.

I did a lot of thinking last night between 2:30 and 6:00 a.m. I realize now that you will continue to let her manipulate all of us. If you wouldn’t stop her from emotionally beating me up for a decade, then why should I believe you are capable of keeping her from doing the same to the girls? I guess it’s up to me to protect them from her. A month in, and she’s already gotten a foothold on you and she’s done nothing to earn it. You will let her emotionally torture us all because you will not hold her accountable whether it’s a week from now, a month from now or a year from now.

You have big problem you refuse to see. You enable her. You have been conditioned since a child to react how you do. You have no gauge. You cannot see the damage she has done and is still doing. Since I cannot rely on you to protect the girls, I have to. I have decided since she can’t be controlled then there can be no contact with her and the girls whatsoever. She is a 71 year old self-gratifying, mentally ill, alcoholic with the emotional intelligence of a four year old. There’s no hope for her, but there is for us and she isn’t taking me and the girls down with her. There will be no discussions at our house with your mother. She is not capable of apologizing and meaning it, she isn’t capable of hearing constructive criticism or having an adult conversation without flipping out and causing a scene. A scene that would surely happen and that I will absolutely not subject the girls to. She isn’t capable of not drinking and not putting our kid’s lives on the line. She has had enough of my family and my sanity. I have been more than fair to her despite seeing me as the fucking bitch she thinks I am. I will not put our children into the path of that emotional wreck anymore until she gets some help and there is some real progression. Until then, I see no reason to subject our girls to her or that drama.

You do whatever you want with yourself and her. She doesn’t seem to disrespect you or treat you badly, just the rest of us. You aren’t the one suffering and certainly my anguish over the years hasn’t bothered you enough to want to make a difference. All I ask is that you respect my choice to protect our children and my sanity and self-respect, because you can’t or won’t.

After reading the letter, DH and I communicated and he told his mother she needed to get help before she could have anything to do with the girls. At least, that’s what he told me he told her. I don’ t know. We went another six or seven weeks when one day DH indicated that his mom wanted to see the girls and was allegedly very concerned about how the girls were feeling about her because of her bad behavior at the dinner. He said that she indicated she was seeing a counselor and that he hadn’t seen her drunk or alcohol in her refrigerator in a while. I was skeptical. Again, I indicated that if she planned on coming over it would be to have a real discussion and for her to apologize.

We set a date and time for this to happen. And happen it did.

We were all sitting in the living room when she entered the house. I would have thought (although frankly I should have known better) that she would have come over with a little bit of contrition or humility over the horrible behavior that night. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Why, even though I know better, and I always surprised when she disappoints? Because she does disappoint. Always.

She came into the house wearing the same smug “I’m-better-than-everyone” attitude that she always does. Our daughters had several concerns that they wanted to share with her and had actually taken the time to write a list on their own of the things that Grandma was doing that was hurting their relationship. They wrote this list so that they could discuss them with her and that they would not forget anything in their nervousness. Again, I was assuming that MIL would have a human/rational reaction to this list and possibly even cry when our girls broached them. Oh no. No. No. No.

While our girls gathered their courage to tell her their feelings, she completely minimized everything that she could not deny outright (the drinking and smoking) and then denied everything else they mentioned. Anything that my daughters told her that she did or said to them that hurt them, she basically called them liars (without using those words) because she said those things never happened. I’ve read so much information that says that Narcissists are consummate liars, but I am still shocked to see it in my own family in front of my very own eyes. MIL lied, lied, lied, and lied on top of lied. She sat there and denied my children their reality by saying that everything they witnessed wasn’t true. My daughters looked at me perplexed because she was lying and they had no idea how to handle an ADULT lying to them. There can be no healing or improvement when someone won't acknowledge their problems.

Previously, I had told DH and she was not allowed any continued relationship with the girls until she got therapy. The first thing MIL did before we talked about anything else after we all sat down is start throwing out stipulations like she had some control She said to me “I know that you had want me to get therapy, but I am not the sole cause of the downfall of this relationship and I am going to require you to get counseling as well.” WOW! That she actually had the impudence to assume the right to stipulate what I do is really telling. She’s pretty full of herself. She doesn’t have anything I want. I could care less if she dropped dead tomorrow. There is not one single thing she can do to me to make me do anything she wanted me to do. What is she going to do? Get mad at me? Stop talking to me? Move? Cut me out of her will? There is nothing MIL can do to hold any leverage over me whatsoever. I actually bubbled up laughing when she said that and I responded with “Oh, MIL, I am so not getting counseling because you think I’m the problem. This is all yours.” She truly believes that I am half the reason we have issues and wants me to take the blame as well. Not happening sister.

After more discussions that went very badly, I realized MIL didn’t have any intention of apologizing, taking responsibility for her actions or behaving in any way that she felt sorry for what she did to our daughters or me or DH. She never apologized. Not once. She never showed any true remorse or desire to change or fix things so that she could have a relationship with us.

I began to slowly lose my cool and we began to argue. Jon left the room with the girls and his mother showed every sign of wanting to go toe to toe with me. After a few minutes of heated discussion, I knew how pointless it was. There is no point in trying to reason with someone that will never take responsibility for themselves or even remotely tell the truth. I knew this, but my husband had to witness it too. Yeah, I’d say he witnessed it. I actually got up and asked her to leave my house.

There was one time when I said something that got me a strange look. All the hostility came off her face and she appeared to lose all the blood in her face. While she was getting her coat on after I asked her to leave, she was still blabbering on about me calling her liar. MIL said to me “You only wish I was a liar.” I laughed again at the absurdity of her statement and said with bored resignation: “MIL, I truly don’t wish you were a liar at all. In fact I wish you would just act like a normal human being.”

THAT was the statement that caused the strange look on her face. I have no idea what it was but all pretense was wiped off her face for a second. Very strange. And then she stormed out.

DH was totally on board with everything I said and was completely shell shocked that she sat there and lied and lied and we knew she was lying. It was like DH has taken the red pill and now he saw the truth. I hope she packs back up and moves back to the West Coast like she is threatening to do.
She still had antics for us though. Oldest told me about an incident she had the next day when she got home from school. MIL basically gave my oldest daughter a big “fuck you.” This was one day after our meeting-gone-bad. My daughter was walking the neighbor dog after she got home from school. As she walked by MIL’s house she heard MIL’s front door open. When my daughter looked up at the front door, my MIL glared at her for a second and then slammed the door. MIL saw her walking by and took the opportunity to send her a message in a shitty, passive aggressive way.

Message received.

But apparently not for DH. Still. Again. Ditto. He’s failing.

More on that in the next entry.

Look at Me, Me, Me!

I’ve decided the best way to move forward with this blog is to find quotes, statements or comments that I like regarding NPD and use those as a starting point for whatever memory or topic I want to talk about. So this quote is what I’m using now:

Attention seeking. This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration. Narcissistic mothers love to be waited on and often pepper their children with little requests. “While you’re up…” or its equivalent. You can’t just be assigned a chore at the beginning of the week or of the day, instead, you have to do it on demand, preferably at a time that was inconvenient for you or you were not planning on being available.

I know that every individual who has NDP is different regarding not only their characteristics, but the level of dysfunction applied to each of those characteristics. The attention seeking trait is the basis of MIL’s dysfunction when it comes to DH. The “request a favor” tactic is something she absolutely loves to do. It matters not one whit to her if DH is busy or tired. She will contact DH any time of day regardless of what DH might have planned for that day to perform a myriad of tasks that she either feels is beneath her, even though she is capable of doing said task or a task that she claims ignorance on how to perform, even if said task is something DH has shown her how to do numerous times. 9 times out of 10, DH is on it within minutes, if not immediately, or otherwise he has told her that he’ll be over at “X” time that same day. But God forbid DH do said task when it’s convenient for him, because sometimes, when DH arrives at “X” time, MIL’s left the house with no forewarning. Just “poof.” Nobody home. And there’s DH uselessly knocking on her door wasting his time. This means that DH will have to go back to the drawing board and find another time to do said task. Many times I think MIL becomes unavailable on purpose because she’s pissed he didn’t come over THAT INSTANT when she asked. She’ll show him!! Instead, she’ll leave and make it inconvenient for him so that he damn well will come over next time when she says so. DH would scoff at this suggestion, but she’s done it enough times that I can’t believe she doesn’t realize she’s being extremely rude or she’s actually doing this on purpose to make it so that she controls when he comes over. Not DH. DH never sees behind his mother’s reality. NEVER.

What really upsets me is that DH is so very good to her. He caters to her almost every need that is within his power to do for her. To her, this is nothing short than his due to her, so she sees nothing remarkable in what he’s doing for her. In her mind, since she’s his mother, he owes it to her. She doesn’t love him. His mother isn’t capable of showing real love. She has no idea what it even means. She doesn’t love him, she’s obsessed with him. I can tell with an absolute certainty that if DH suddenly stopped doing these little meaningless tasks for her, she’d drop him like a dirty, wet rag. She would shriek that he must not love her if he won’t do those things for her. She’d be furious and shun him, and unless he shaped up and did whatever she demanded, she’d be done with him. Her “love” is totally conditional. She doesn’t give a s.h.i.t. about him. It sounds harsh, but it's true and it's horrible. She “loves” her son only so far as he continues to do things for her. She doesn’t care about him as her child or as person in his own right. I’m a parent. I know what loving your child means and is like. I don’t love my child or have interest in my child only so far as what they can do for me. I love them anyway. I love their personality, who they are, who they are becoming, I love their little quirks, and the smell of their skin. I enjoy being with them. I may not like some of the things they do, but I love them regardless. It’s ME (the parent) that would be DOING for my children, not the other way around. I expect nothing from them that I claim as my due as a parent. They are individuals, even though sometimes it is hard to remember that I don’t OWN them. I have them for a short time, and I hope that I am raising well mannered, thoughtful children that I can set loose on the world. MIL’s definition of love is what people DO for you. That isn’t love. I don’t know what that is, but love has nothing to do with it!! DH doesn’t understand that. When he hears his mother tell him “I love you” he doesn’t understand that she really doesn’t. It’s lip service and nothing more. She thinks she loves him, and he thinks she thinks she loves him, but her behavior isn’t love and never was.

A narcissistic mother may create odd occasions at which she can be the center of attention. She may love to entertain so she can be the life of her own party. She will try to steal the spotlight or will try to spoil any occasion where someone else is the center of attention.

Another twist to the “request” factor that supports MIL’s whole attention seeking need, is something I noticed her doing and thought it was nuts. I began to notice that every time MIL had a guest at her house for dinner or drinks, it became common practice for her to call DH on the phone and request his presence RIGHT THEN to take care of some task. At first when she did this I was thinking “Why is she doing that? She has guests over?” After she did that a number of times and I noticed a pattern, I realized she was doing that to show off to whoever was there at her house how wonderful her son is that he jumps on command. “See how my son treats me like a queen?” “See how he’s such a slave to my royal self?” “See how I deserve deference?” “This is how I am to be treated!” Once I figured that out, which was unfortunately very recently, I will practically have to hiss at DH that he is not to go over and do menial tasks for her when she has guests.

Another occasion that she created for herself to be loved and adored was when she requested of DH and his sister (Crunchy) that they throw her a 70th birthday party. If you have to ask for a party, is that any fun? I would never ask for such a thing. I guess MIL wanted to show whatever friends or acquaintances that she had at the time how wonderful her children were because they are so gracious and love her so much that they would throw her a 70th birthday party. Never mind that they weren’t throwing it FOR HER because they love her, or because they wanted to do something nice for her. They simply threw the party to keep her from having an expected, whiny “nobody loves me” pity party. But, as long as MIL could pretend and convince herself that her children were throwing this party out of the love in their hearts and nobody else really knew the truth, she could wallow in her little fantasy land.

The party was held in our home, which I managed to allow. Crunchy flew in from across the country to help plan and attend. I, however, other than getting my carpets cleaned, didn’t lift a finger to do fuck all. It wasn’t a large party, but it was large enough to fill my house with guests even as they came and went. What really made me seethe was that MIL is one of those individuals who thinks arriving late is “fashionable.” So here it was, long after the party began and my house is filled with guests and even neighbors from the neighborhood who have no idea the level of “dysfunctional bitch” she really is and yet -- the annoying dishrag is nowhere to be found. I could see other guests were looking around curiously like “where’s the birthday girl?” but had the tact not to ask. It was actually getting uncomfortable to try and pretend that all was normal when it obviously was not. Remember -- this hag lives across the street. No excuse for that.

Approximately 40 minutes after the start of her birthday party, MIL sails in the front door all dressed up and stuffed into a floor length mink coat and a big smile on her face without a care in the world. It really wasn’t amusing. Despite this, I was determine to put my big girl face on and be nice. I tried hard for DH to make this pleasant. A few minutes after she got there I forced myself to converse with her and to wish her a happy birthday. I came to regret it the moment I spoke to her. Her response instantly reminded me why I should NEVER EVER EVER be nice to her because she WILL slam me down and try to put me in my place. I walked up to her and said “Happy Birthday MIL, nice party. Are you having a good time?” And out of her filthy mouth came her reply: “Of course I’m having a good time, why wouldn’t I?” How is anyone supposed to respond to something so uncouth? After she said it, I was DONE. And I had just started!! I simply turned from her and walked away because if I didn’t I was tempted to grab her by her ear and drag her out the front door. Why do we have to put up with such horrible people like this on this planet? Why? Why? Why?

One more bizarre request of MILs happened a year or two into my and DH’s relationship. MIL called him on the phone and told DH that she knew what she wanted from him for Christmas. When DH inquired what that was, she told him that she wanted him to write her a love letter, hand written, explaining in the letter how important she is to him and how thankful he is for such a wonderful mother. I wanted to vomit. What the hell is THAT? What is she going to do with it? Frame it? Show it to everyone to show how much her son worships her (which he doesn’t)? Bury herself with it when she dies? Masturbate with it? Needless to say, she didn’t get the love letter and she never will.

Entertaining herself is unthinkable. She has always pouted, manipulated or raged if you tried to do anything without her, didn’t want to entertain her, refused to wait on her, stymied her plans for a drama or otherwise deprived her of attention.

MIL believes she is entitled to be involved in everything we do, simply because of the fact that she is DH’s mother. Like being a mother gives her a pass to involve herself in every event we have. It’s infuriating. If we have other family over for dinner, like DH’s dad (when he was alive) or even my family, she’d stroll over on a pretense to say hi or drop something off just to see what was going on. If she wasn’t impromptu invited to join us (which she often wasn’t), she’d have a hissy fit in private later, spewing her disappointment all over DH that he didn’t think to invite his poor mother. What a horrible son he is, how so very ill-mannered of him!!

I hate, loathe, detest and abhor that bitch. There is NOTHING likeable about her. Not one thing.