mocachapeau
Dagobah Resident
Hi everyone,
I’ve been a member of the forum for well over a year now, but I’ve never really shared much about what I’m dealing with personally or just how The Work has affected my life. Well, now’s the time. I hope this isn’t too long, and I hope even more that it isn’t just noise.
When I was 23 (I’m 39 now) I started seeing a psychologist. I realized (admitted to myself) that there was something very wrong with me. I was a relatively smart guy, a very good athlete and had an uncanny amount of musical ability, but I was wasting all of it, and destroying myself, by abusing alcohol and pot. I was unable to sustain any kind of continued interest or effort in anything.
I spent three years in therapy examining my past, particularly my childhood. Although I didn’t feel like I had solved my problems, I did learn some things. Most importantly, whatever was wrong with me was directly related to my upbringing, mainly due to the fact that my parents’ relationship was not a very healthy one. I also developed some understanding of honest self-examination and communication. But I was never given any kind of diagnosis, clinical term or anything like that. I guess the idea behind keeping that from me was for me to discover it all in therapy, and maybe to protect me from my own defense mechanisms. It wasn’t until I found Laura’s work and the recommended reading list in early 2007 that I learned that I had been raised by two narcissists (The Narcissistic Family). They both had very different needs, but they were both very needy. So I had become aware of some of the symptoms but had never been aware of what they really meant.
During my time in therapy, I met my future wife. The most obvious narcissistic behaviour that I displayed during our early years together was in leaving virtually all the household work to her – cooking, cleaning, washing – everything. I helped out a little here and there but not enough to say it was worth anything. Eventually, that started to wear a little thin, and my wife started to complain about that, and the drinking – and rightly so. I started putting limits and schedules on the drinking, with mediocre results, but I still avoided the rest of the work.
Two and a half years into our relationship we had a son. Unfortunately, this brought out the real narcissist in me. With the growing up of my son came the unconscious, automatic repetition of the same treatment my dad had given our family. Basically I was getting way too angry at both my son and my wife. I was an a-hole. But one day, when my son was about four years old, I became aware of what I was doing. I was yelling at him saying, “Don’t you understand that doing that to someone is really mean – that it hurts their feelings?” In tears he answered simply, “No”. And that’s when it hit me. “Of course he doesn’t understand – he’s just a kid, and he needs to learn these things. I’m doing exactly what I hated the most that my dad did to me – making him feel like s**t for every little normal, kid thing he does.” I apologized and gave him a big hug.
So began a slow, gradual change, one that came about because of self-examination, and through observing similar behaviour to my own, in others. The latter included a certain itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow, polka-dot petty tyrant soccer coach my son had for a number of years. But that’s a story all by itself – I won’t get into it here. And the progress I was making moved forward in leaps and bounds once I read The Narcissistic Family and The Drama of the Gifted Child, last year. I have since learned that, based on numerology, the year I saw what I was doing to my son (2001), I had a personal year number of 1 in the nine year cycle.
By 2005, things had become much more balanced in our home, such that I was sharing the work, had learned to drink only occasionally and responsibly, and I was developing healthy relationships with my kids. Most importantly: no more angry tirades. But as I became what my wife referred to as “the type of husband and father she had always wanted to be with,” she had begun to lose interest in a lot of things, especially our relationship, and only ever wanted to watch TV. And then she got sick.
Over the next year and a half she underwent four operations, the last one being a total hysterectomy. Needless to say, this flattened her. Through all the pain, the recovery, the pills, she was kept from work and slept most of the time, and I took over the entire running of the household. It was actually a good experience for me because I learned how to take care of myself and the kids. The odd thing is that, once my wife got past all that, nothing really changed with her. All she did was either take naps or play Scrabble downstairs with her mom. And this situation was still unchanged by the beginning of this year. She just didn’t seem to have any desire to function. This REALLY didn’t make any sense to me. (As an aside, I would like to mention that during the summer of 2007, I stopped smoking pot almost entirely, and have never looked back.)
So I talked to her about it. I told her I was worried that she might be in a state of depression, and I wondered if I might be the cause. I suggested she make an evaluation of her life – what she was happy with, what she was unhappy with – and to make sure she included a big part about me. But she said it had nothing to do with me, that she couldn’t be happier with the man I had become. She said she felt like she just didn’t want to DO anything unless she absolutely had to. Unfortunately, she never took my suggestion of making a life-evaluation.
With all the new-found knowledge I had acquired from reading Laura’s work and a part of the SOTT recommended reading list, I tried to apply it to the situation. What I realized was that my gradually changing in a positive way coincided with her gradual loss of energy. I wondered if it was possible that being with the type of narcissistic jerk that I used to be had somehow provided a source of energy for her. If so, my no longer being that type of person would have cut her off from that energy.
Looking at it this way I had to admit the possibility, but doing so brought out some rather frightening implications about my wife, and our relationship. But knowing what I had been like in the past, I didn’t want to be too hasty in reaching any conclusions, either. I mean, I’m a recovering narcissist, and always will be. How recovered am I, and how well do I know what my role is in all of this?
I immediately ordered the rest of the ‘Big Four’ psychology books, in order to learn more about myself. As I was reading Trapped in the Mirror I realized that all these descriptions of narcissistic parents not only resemble my own, but made me suddenly think of someone else – my father-in-law! And as I read on, I discovered descriptions of behavioral patterns that fit my wife to a tee – for example, her complete inability to say ‘no’ to the children. I also understood that she had cast me in the role that her father had once played in her life, not-so-coincidentally like my mother did with my father. This explained a lot of things about her behaviour in our interaction, beginning with why she stayed with me through my worst years.
I had been so sure that I was the cause of all our problems and was working so hard to change. I am a narcissist, I have a problem, I am so selfish, I, I, I. Just like a true narcissist, I thought – it’s all about me. I never even stopped to consider that someone ELSE might have a problem, too. Well, at least I got a good laugh out of that. I decided to call it “reverse narcissism.”
I realize that an immediate reaction to this discovery might be to get out. But I didn’t feel right about throwing away a 15 year relationship because I found out that my wife had a similar problem to my own. I thought that since I can face it and deal with it, so can she. Or at least I owe her the chance to try.
So I shared this discovery with her, and she said she would be interested in reading the books I had read on the subject. I found her a copy of The Drama of the Gifted Child in French (she doesn’t speak English). When she received it, she sat down and read three pages of the introduction and never picked it up again. I know how hard it is to face this kind of thing so I am not judging her for that, but that is what happened.
The only thing to do was to let it play out, and within a month or two we ended up having two discussions about separation/divorce. The first had to do with me refusing to let her recreate the dynamics of our relationship of ten years ago, in an attempt to resurrect the old me, the old us she was familiar with. I thought I had discovered time travel, as I found myself reliving an exact duplicate of a situation, and an ensuing argument, from years before. This was coupled with her trying to use sex to avoid communication. I had seen all this many times in the past but, oddly enough, none of it worked this time around because I was able to see it for what it was – a control game. The second discussion was about sex.
It has been a long time since physical intimacy with my wife has been satisfying for me – maybe two years. But I had never shared this with my wife for fear of hurting her feelings. Basically, I would enjoy everything up until that “golden moment”, but when that moment arrived it was rather anti-climactic. I began to wonder if this was due to our vibrating at incompatible frequencies, but I’m not sure enough of my understanding of that subject to make any decisions based on it.
I decided to tell her about the difficulty I was having, and she immediately started telling me that she felt this was a sign our relationship was not working, and that she was losing me. She also told me that all this reading of “spirituality stuff” was changing me in a way that she wasn’t comfortable with. Once again, we found ourselves discussing separation and/or divorce because of it all. I have to say that I found this very odd. All the crap I put her through during my worst years never brought on a discussion about divorce, but the fact that I wasn’t having good orgasms was an immediate relationship breaker – go figure. And the “stuff” I was reading that brought on these changes was psychology, not spirituality. But upon further reflection I see this as a reaction to a feeling of having lost another method of control over me. If I’m not enjoying the sex, how can she use it?
After each discussion we both agreed that we should separate. But both times, after a day or two, I chickened out. I would sit at work juggling all the ramifications of separation, particularly how it would break the kids’ hearts. My entire body would tremble and my stomach hurt, a lot. I was literally terrified. And I eventually reached the conclusion that we were making a mistake and that we should try harder to make things work. She agreed, and then we returned quickly to our same old daily routine, neither of us making any real outward attempts to change it.
Recently I tried talking to her about where we were at, and she admitted that she just hadn’t been thinking about it, at all. I get the impression that she thinks it will all just happen by itself, or that I will fix it all through my studying and research. In contrast, I have been searching for a solution to our problems by trying to piece together the evolution of our relationship. And what I have discovered is that, from the beginning, our relationship was based on the idea that each of us supplied the other with what we felt we needed – you’re basic, feeding frenzy.
Psychologically speaking, I originally chose her as someone who would take care of me, love me the way I was and give me all the space I wanted – a mother. And for the first year or two, that is exactly what I got from her. She originally chose me as someone that would simply be there at all times, to share all aspects of HER life – a child. And for the first year or two, that is exactly what she got from me.
As soon as we stopped satisfying each others needs, my extremely overt behavioural problems made it easy for her to make me out to be the cause of all our problems, avoid facing any of her OWN problems, and leave me open to manipulation. Eventually I decided she was right, accepted the blame and embarked on the road to change. Now that I have traveled some distance down that road, I have become aware of the role she has been playing all along.
This realization, coupled with the fact that she doesn’t seem to feel any need or desire to help save our relationship, has led us to our third and final discussion about separation/divorce. We agreed that a separation would be best. Of course, back at work again, I felt the same overwhelming terror that I had before.
Trying to figure out exactly what I was so afraid of, I tried observing the dialogue that was running through my head. It dawned on me that I was blaming myself for the whole situation. I was telling myself that we had arrived at this point because I had neglected our relationship, I had not put in enough effort, I had allowed it all to happen.
So I tried to remind myself of all the efforts I HAVE made over the years, and realized that they were many. It also became pretty clear that I was the only one who was actually putting time and effort into our kids’ lives today, aside from cooking meals and doing laundry. It would appear that since my wife isn’t getting what she wants from me, she is reacting by giving next to nothing, to anyone. Slowly, the sick feeling in my stomach receded and the crazy trembling nearly stopped. What remained was simply a strong feeling of nervousness, somewhat akin to “butterflies” but much more intense – something I could cope with more easily. It had been all about GUILT.
Because we still have feelings for one another, and we would both prefer to be together in a healthy relationship, we have decided to change one thing only: we will no longer live under the same roof. This way, we will both have to deal with our own, separate needs without having the possibility of expecting each other to supply them for us. The idea is that all we will be sharing is our personal relationship, giving us the chance to discover what that really is, and if it’s what we really want. It will also give us the chance to learn who we really are as individuals, and hopefully learn to love ourselves for who we are. We’re trying to look at this step as a way to fix and save our relationship, not necessarily end it. Although we both know that anything can happen.
What I’m really afraid of is the possibility that I’ve made a big mistake. I keep wondering if there is a simple solution to this “problem” that I have overlooked, or that there is a narcissistic program working in me that has convinced me I’m doing the right thing, when really I’m not. And that we ripped out my kids’ hearts a few days ago, unnecessarily.
GOD, did that hurt! In all his twelve years, I have never, ever seen my son cry like that. It was like pure despair from the bottom of his heart. My nine-year-old daughter’s reaction was more subdued, but you can see how upset she is. I don’t EVER want to go through that again. I hope they’ll be alright.
Does this sound like it may be the wrong choice? And can anyone here detect, from what I’ve written, some kind of ugly program running in the background that I may not be aware of? Any feedback is welcome, of course.
I’ve been a member of the forum for well over a year now, but I’ve never really shared much about what I’m dealing with personally or just how The Work has affected my life. Well, now’s the time. I hope this isn’t too long, and I hope even more that it isn’t just noise.
When I was 23 (I’m 39 now) I started seeing a psychologist. I realized (admitted to myself) that there was something very wrong with me. I was a relatively smart guy, a very good athlete and had an uncanny amount of musical ability, but I was wasting all of it, and destroying myself, by abusing alcohol and pot. I was unable to sustain any kind of continued interest or effort in anything.
I spent three years in therapy examining my past, particularly my childhood. Although I didn’t feel like I had solved my problems, I did learn some things. Most importantly, whatever was wrong with me was directly related to my upbringing, mainly due to the fact that my parents’ relationship was not a very healthy one. I also developed some understanding of honest self-examination and communication. But I was never given any kind of diagnosis, clinical term or anything like that. I guess the idea behind keeping that from me was for me to discover it all in therapy, and maybe to protect me from my own defense mechanisms. It wasn’t until I found Laura’s work and the recommended reading list in early 2007 that I learned that I had been raised by two narcissists (The Narcissistic Family). They both had very different needs, but they were both very needy. So I had become aware of some of the symptoms but had never been aware of what they really meant.
During my time in therapy, I met my future wife. The most obvious narcissistic behaviour that I displayed during our early years together was in leaving virtually all the household work to her – cooking, cleaning, washing – everything. I helped out a little here and there but not enough to say it was worth anything. Eventually, that started to wear a little thin, and my wife started to complain about that, and the drinking – and rightly so. I started putting limits and schedules on the drinking, with mediocre results, but I still avoided the rest of the work.
Two and a half years into our relationship we had a son. Unfortunately, this brought out the real narcissist in me. With the growing up of my son came the unconscious, automatic repetition of the same treatment my dad had given our family. Basically I was getting way too angry at both my son and my wife. I was an a-hole. But one day, when my son was about four years old, I became aware of what I was doing. I was yelling at him saying, “Don’t you understand that doing that to someone is really mean – that it hurts their feelings?” In tears he answered simply, “No”. And that’s when it hit me. “Of course he doesn’t understand – he’s just a kid, and he needs to learn these things. I’m doing exactly what I hated the most that my dad did to me – making him feel like s**t for every little normal, kid thing he does.” I apologized and gave him a big hug.
So began a slow, gradual change, one that came about because of self-examination, and through observing similar behaviour to my own, in others. The latter included a certain itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow, polka-dot petty tyrant soccer coach my son had for a number of years. But that’s a story all by itself – I won’t get into it here. And the progress I was making moved forward in leaps and bounds once I read The Narcissistic Family and The Drama of the Gifted Child, last year. I have since learned that, based on numerology, the year I saw what I was doing to my son (2001), I had a personal year number of 1 in the nine year cycle.
By 2005, things had become much more balanced in our home, such that I was sharing the work, had learned to drink only occasionally and responsibly, and I was developing healthy relationships with my kids. Most importantly: no more angry tirades. But as I became what my wife referred to as “the type of husband and father she had always wanted to be with,” she had begun to lose interest in a lot of things, especially our relationship, and only ever wanted to watch TV. And then she got sick.
Over the next year and a half she underwent four operations, the last one being a total hysterectomy. Needless to say, this flattened her. Through all the pain, the recovery, the pills, she was kept from work and slept most of the time, and I took over the entire running of the household. It was actually a good experience for me because I learned how to take care of myself and the kids. The odd thing is that, once my wife got past all that, nothing really changed with her. All she did was either take naps or play Scrabble downstairs with her mom. And this situation was still unchanged by the beginning of this year. She just didn’t seem to have any desire to function. This REALLY didn’t make any sense to me. (As an aside, I would like to mention that during the summer of 2007, I stopped smoking pot almost entirely, and have never looked back.)
So I talked to her about it. I told her I was worried that she might be in a state of depression, and I wondered if I might be the cause. I suggested she make an evaluation of her life – what she was happy with, what she was unhappy with – and to make sure she included a big part about me. But she said it had nothing to do with me, that she couldn’t be happier with the man I had become. She said she felt like she just didn’t want to DO anything unless she absolutely had to. Unfortunately, she never took my suggestion of making a life-evaluation.
With all the new-found knowledge I had acquired from reading Laura’s work and a part of the SOTT recommended reading list, I tried to apply it to the situation. What I realized was that my gradually changing in a positive way coincided with her gradual loss of energy. I wondered if it was possible that being with the type of narcissistic jerk that I used to be had somehow provided a source of energy for her. If so, my no longer being that type of person would have cut her off from that energy.
Looking at it this way I had to admit the possibility, but doing so brought out some rather frightening implications about my wife, and our relationship. But knowing what I had been like in the past, I didn’t want to be too hasty in reaching any conclusions, either. I mean, I’m a recovering narcissist, and always will be. How recovered am I, and how well do I know what my role is in all of this?
I immediately ordered the rest of the ‘Big Four’ psychology books, in order to learn more about myself. As I was reading Trapped in the Mirror I realized that all these descriptions of narcissistic parents not only resemble my own, but made me suddenly think of someone else – my father-in-law! And as I read on, I discovered descriptions of behavioral patterns that fit my wife to a tee – for example, her complete inability to say ‘no’ to the children. I also understood that she had cast me in the role that her father had once played in her life, not-so-coincidentally like my mother did with my father. This explained a lot of things about her behaviour in our interaction, beginning with why she stayed with me through my worst years.
I had been so sure that I was the cause of all our problems and was working so hard to change. I am a narcissist, I have a problem, I am so selfish, I, I, I. Just like a true narcissist, I thought – it’s all about me. I never even stopped to consider that someone ELSE might have a problem, too. Well, at least I got a good laugh out of that. I decided to call it “reverse narcissism.”
I realize that an immediate reaction to this discovery might be to get out. But I didn’t feel right about throwing away a 15 year relationship because I found out that my wife had a similar problem to my own. I thought that since I can face it and deal with it, so can she. Or at least I owe her the chance to try.
So I shared this discovery with her, and she said she would be interested in reading the books I had read on the subject. I found her a copy of The Drama of the Gifted Child in French (she doesn’t speak English). When she received it, she sat down and read three pages of the introduction and never picked it up again. I know how hard it is to face this kind of thing so I am not judging her for that, but that is what happened.
The only thing to do was to let it play out, and within a month or two we ended up having two discussions about separation/divorce. The first had to do with me refusing to let her recreate the dynamics of our relationship of ten years ago, in an attempt to resurrect the old me, the old us she was familiar with. I thought I had discovered time travel, as I found myself reliving an exact duplicate of a situation, and an ensuing argument, from years before. This was coupled with her trying to use sex to avoid communication. I had seen all this many times in the past but, oddly enough, none of it worked this time around because I was able to see it for what it was – a control game. The second discussion was about sex.
It has been a long time since physical intimacy with my wife has been satisfying for me – maybe two years. But I had never shared this with my wife for fear of hurting her feelings. Basically, I would enjoy everything up until that “golden moment”, but when that moment arrived it was rather anti-climactic. I began to wonder if this was due to our vibrating at incompatible frequencies, but I’m not sure enough of my understanding of that subject to make any decisions based on it.
I decided to tell her about the difficulty I was having, and she immediately started telling me that she felt this was a sign our relationship was not working, and that she was losing me. She also told me that all this reading of “spirituality stuff” was changing me in a way that she wasn’t comfortable with. Once again, we found ourselves discussing separation and/or divorce because of it all. I have to say that I found this very odd. All the crap I put her through during my worst years never brought on a discussion about divorce, but the fact that I wasn’t having good orgasms was an immediate relationship breaker – go figure. And the “stuff” I was reading that brought on these changes was psychology, not spirituality. But upon further reflection I see this as a reaction to a feeling of having lost another method of control over me. If I’m not enjoying the sex, how can she use it?
After each discussion we both agreed that we should separate. But both times, after a day or two, I chickened out. I would sit at work juggling all the ramifications of separation, particularly how it would break the kids’ hearts. My entire body would tremble and my stomach hurt, a lot. I was literally terrified. And I eventually reached the conclusion that we were making a mistake and that we should try harder to make things work. She agreed, and then we returned quickly to our same old daily routine, neither of us making any real outward attempts to change it.
Recently I tried talking to her about where we were at, and she admitted that she just hadn’t been thinking about it, at all. I get the impression that she thinks it will all just happen by itself, or that I will fix it all through my studying and research. In contrast, I have been searching for a solution to our problems by trying to piece together the evolution of our relationship. And what I have discovered is that, from the beginning, our relationship was based on the idea that each of us supplied the other with what we felt we needed – you’re basic, feeding frenzy.
Psychologically speaking, I originally chose her as someone who would take care of me, love me the way I was and give me all the space I wanted – a mother. And for the first year or two, that is exactly what I got from her. She originally chose me as someone that would simply be there at all times, to share all aspects of HER life – a child. And for the first year or two, that is exactly what she got from me.
As soon as we stopped satisfying each others needs, my extremely overt behavioural problems made it easy for her to make me out to be the cause of all our problems, avoid facing any of her OWN problems, and leave me open to manipulation. Eventually I decided she was right, accepted the blame and embarked on the road to change. Now that I have traveled some distance down that road, I have become aware of the role she has been playing all along.
This realization, coupled with the fact that she doesn’t seem to feel any need or desire to help save our relationship, has led us to our third and final discussion about separation/divorce. We agreed that a separation would be best. Of course, back at work again, I felt the same overwhelming terror that I had before.
Trying to figure out exactly what I was so afraid of, I tried observing the dialogue that was running through my head. It dawned on me that I was blaming myself for the whole situation. I was telling myself that we had arrived at this point because I had neglected our relationship, I had not put in enough effort, I had allowed it all to happen.
So I tried to remind myself of all the efforts I HAVE made over the years, and realized that they were many. It also became pretty clear that I was the only one who was actually putting time and effort into our kids’ lives today, aside from cooking meals and doing laundry. It would appear that since my wife isn’t getting what she wants from me, she is reacting by giving next to nothing, to anyone. Slowly, the sick feeling in my stomach receded and the crazy trembling nearly stopped. What remained was simply a strong feeling of nervousness, somewhat akin to “butterflies” but much more intense – something I could cope with more easily. It had been all about GUILT.
Because we still have feelings for one another, and we would both prefer to be together in a healthy relationship, we have decided to change one thing only: we will no longer live under the same roof. This way, we will both have to deal with our own, separate needs without having the possibility of expecting each other to supply them for us. The idea is that all we will be sharing is our personal relationship, giving us the chance to discover what that really is, and if it’s what we really want. It will also give us the chance to learn who we really are as individuals, and hopefully learn to love ourselves for who we are. We’re trying to look at this step as a way to fix and save our relationship, not necessarily end it. Although we both know that anything can happen.
What I’m really afraid of is the possibility that I’ve made a big mistake. I keep wondering if there is a simple solution to this “problem” that I have overlooked, or that there is a narcissistic program working in me that has convinced me I’m doing the right thing, when really I’m not. And that we ripped out my kids’ hearts a few days ago, unnecessarily.
GOD, did that hurt! In all his twelve years, I have never, ever seen my son cry like that. It was like pure despair from the bottom of his heart. My nine-year-old daughter’s reaction was more subdued, but you can see how upset she is. I don’t EVER want to go through that again. I hope they’ll be alright.
Does this sound like it may be the wrong choice? And can anyone here detect, from what I’ve written, some kind of ugly program running in the background that I may not be aware of? Any feedback is welcome, of course.
