The best thing any person in a marriage can do is to put their spouse first, then their kids (if any) and THEN, their families of origin. The only healthy families I know are the ones that have managed to do this. I include my husband and myself in this category. His mother is a narcissist who also has borderline personality disorder. She has no respect for boundaries, but it doesn’t matter, because my husband does, and puts my needs and wishes above hers. I do the same for him. We honor our parents (and even provide some financial support to them), but we put each other first.
This is what I have raised my children to do as well and I hope they take this to heart when it comes time for them to choose their spouses.
Narcissism and BPD-what a horrific combination, @Massmomm!
If you don’t mind, can you give an example of how your husband manages his mother’s lack of respect for boundaries? That could be a valuable tool for people any young people reading this who may need help dealing with a difficult relative.
@bookworm: When I bought his airplane ticket to college for freshman year he insisted that he only needed a one-way ticket. I told him there was no way I was doing a $600 last-minute ticket at Christmas, so he’d better find a way into NYC to sleep on the floor of relatives who love him, but who he hardly knows. He was good with that, and took the bus down.
There are international students on campus for whom the university will still make the evening meal, so I guess he figures he won’t be totally alone.
@rosered55: “He considers himself the aggrieved party because I called him out on his behavior.”
Since I have become a parent, I have found that this is the code many other adults live by. For some reason, people honestly think that the expression, “But he’s your (whatever), you gotta love him,” is a universal, unconditional dictate.
@Massmomm - yes as @Nrdsb4 suggested. Tips for boundary drawing would be fantastic - even for those of us who are not “young people.” The challenge for me has always been that my dh will not stand up to his father. Actually, I don’t think he knows how to do that without feeling like he is being disrespectful. Additionally, f-i-l is pretty good at making sure his worst jabs are when dh is NOT around.
Honestly, avoidance is the best solution I have found. I wouldn’t avoid my in-laws completely (as I said, I LIKE m-i-l). And clearly, my situation could be much worse than it is as evidenced by some of the comments on this thread!!
ETA: Interesting that you mention kids. The very few times I have stood up to f-i-l have been over issues with ds. Where the mama bear steps in a draws a line. The result from him has been pouting and placing blame.
My main point was that both spouses have to put each other first. If one backs down because of a narcissistic parent, then that isn’t putting the spouse first. You both have to be on the same page.
During the years when my ILs lived near us, we would decide in advance how we’d handle it if MIL went into a rage. Rule number one was: Don’t engage. Just walk away, get up from the table, or just completely ignore her. We had to treat her as a tantrumming child.
On one occasion, we were at the ILs’ house for a family dinner. She started to go off the rails toward the end of the meal, so I said, “I think it’s time to go.” And my husband just gathered the kids and coats and we said “Thank you do the dinner” and left.
This never stopped her or changed her behavior (she now lives on the opposite coast and still rages on the phone from time to time). What it did was make it clear that we decide the terms on which we will spend time with her.
@Hoggirl, avoidance is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with this. It’s not wrong. But if you’re in a situation when your FIL starts in on you, you can just get up and leave. You don’t have to argue back. You can just walk away, either out the door if possible, or to another part of the room. It’s best if your husband understands and agrees with you beforehand what you will do.
He doesn’t have to defend you. He just has to respect it when you decide you’ve had enough.
I get along with my mil just fine most of the time. I have noticed that as she is getting older that she a) doesn’t listen and then gets mad when things don’t go the way she wants. And b) she seems to have lost that filter that you have not to say exactly what pops into your head. Some things are crazy, like racist. (And of course my H doesn’t believe me when I tell him the stuff that his mother says).
Yesterday, I told her that I was going to New Orleans in December. She told me she hoped I put on a few pounds. I am not overweight but I’m not super skinny either. And she knows I work at staying the weight I am. So why did she gleefully tell me that she hoped I gained weight. Sigh.
When it’s challenging dealing with my mil, I try to remember that my H has to deal with my mom and she’s no walk in the park.
Boundary drawing is a reversal of parental roles. And it takes some back bone. On the part of the son or daughter.
When we first got our first home (eons ago now) MIL wanted to smoke inside (we’re both allergic and like fresh air) and she also thought her unruly dog should be permitted inside. It was an obvious no go for us. She basically threw a tantrum by standing at the sliding glass door and egging the dog on to bark, scratch at door and beg to be let inside (I know…who does that?). I’ll add that pooch was on covered back porch in good weather and perfectly happy.
What to do? I wanted to crawl in a hole. But H had a different approach.
H closed drapes to block out dog, Calmly told his mom she could behave like an adult and respect our wishes or LEAVE immediately, And we wouldn’t be missing her. Nor inviting her back. Period. (All hard to say to your mom under any circumstances). Our house was our domain with our rules (heard that one?) BUT she was welcome to stay if her behavior changed immediately and we’d continue on to the dinner we had planned. Her court.
H was my hero from that moment forever. And MIL was shocked into silence but immediately changed attitude and behavior. We even had a nice dinner.
That one scenario set the stage for another 30 plus years. Just KNOWING that H wouldn’t put up with stuff that affects us negatively as a couple and family made it EASIER to try and get along over all those years.
Good for your DH, gouf78! I wonder sometimes with all these marriages mentioned on this thread where one partner repeatedly belittles the other whether actions like your husband’s could change the dynamic. Or maybe both partners just like it the way it is.
Thanks to partyof5 for starting this thread. It has opened my eyes to a whole new level of human behavior. I have lots to be thankful for.
Mom–My own parents were married 71 years. They were always a team even when they didn’t agree with each other.
My H’s actions so long ago sealed the idea that our goal was to preserve what we had together. It gave me strength to confront my own parents at difficult times. And to my surprise, my parents gave me much more respect afterwards and were actually happier knowing that our marriage was strong enough to confront them.
THAT is incredible. It was incredibly brave of your husband, because he risked his mom stomping out and never coming back. But he did the right thing, and apparently on some level, she recognized and respected it.
@mom2coIIegekids - thank you. It’s particularly challenging as it happened twelve days before Christmas. Holidays are rough. I appreciate the kind words and support.
It can be very hard to push back against parents and family, there is a lot of conditioning about that, both religious and cultural, that somehow that is wrong. I needed to do something like that around 20 years ago, both my wife and I were dominated by our families. It was a horrible year (other than my son being born), my mom died, we had (stupidly) been kind of bullied into an arrangement with my dad, where we would take over his house (which needed a lot of work and renovation) in return he would spend summers with us. His behavior sadly was over the top, he resented what we were doing to the house, and he took it out on both of us, he was abusive towards my wife, as he had been towards my mom, calling her names that other than my family would think totally inappropriate, and when he came the following summer it was aweful, his behavior was unacceptable. I was in therapy by that time, and it gave me the strength to stand up and protect my wife and little family (it didn’t help the rest of my dad’s family were much the same way, and there were other battles going on). My brother and sister’s attitude was “you made your own bed, now you have to live with it” ie I should put up with my dad’s behavior, but that was bs, if they were really looking out for me and for my dad, they would have called him in his behavior and backed me up…the upshot was I really don’t have much of a relationship with my birth family or extended family, for a lot of reasons, and while it hurt, it would have been much worse to see my family destroyed or worse, that the chains of the past were repeated and my son brought up to be obligated to ‘the family’ and so forth. I agree totally when you have your own family, it is your rules and your life and you need to protect that.
I think with younger people that they will eventually get married, but it likely will be in their 30’s. One of the interesting things is among younger people attitudes towards divorce are a lot different, apparently it has become something of a stigma once again, if for different reasons. Perhaps because many of them were children of divorce, they don’t want to go into a marriage unless they think it could last. I think marriage will still happen, especially among the better off economically, primarily because of benefits tied to marriage, but also because there is still the idea that marriage is the way to go when having a long term relationship. In Europe one of the reasons that people are more willing not to marry is that benefits are not tied to marriage, things like health insurance, taxes and so forth work with people cohabitating, which is not likely to happen in the US. Among less economically advantaged people in the US, on the other hand, they are basically mirroring what has happened in the inner city and so forth, where basically the people don’t see any reason to get married, so things like kids born outside marriage and so forth is increasing.
On one hand, these people who offend us have often had years to intimidate us, as well. They can be fierce. And nothing says they’re looking for some honest self-improvement tips. They wouldn’t be the problems they are, if they were trying to make peace or had a few ounces of introspection.
I don’t see this clearly as being weak vs strong. Sometimes, drawing our own line in the sand isn’t as winning as it sounds. In some cases, it’s its own version of the same thing. So, that only complicates matters.
I thought my family was tough, sorry so many others go through this.
In the future, LF, I will simply “like” what I like of your comments, but I must say this last one is so instructive and appreciated. Sometimes I just feel like I am just…
“The best thing any person in a marriage can do is to put their spouse first, then their kids (if any) and THEN, their families of origin.”
This is complicated when the spouse is narcissistic/borderline/abusive/etc., and is lashing out at the family of origin. It’s not healthy to sit by while your spouse mistreats others in the family.