vix55
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Dealing With a N SIL
Hi,
This is my first post here and before I tell my story I want to say that I have spent the last few days reading stories and links that I found here and it has helped me immensely to understand what my DH and I are going through. I want to thank everyone here for all the links, stories and information we read because it has answered so many of our questions and gave DH and I the knowledge of knowing exactly what is going on.
You see, we believe that my SIL, DH's sister, has NPD. The articles we have been reading made us feel as if they were written specifically about her.
Both DH and I have been through the mill and back because of her, the lies, the deceit, the rage, the verbal abuse, the smear campaigns and the list goes on.
We would love to detach from her but we can not because of her son. We have a very close loving bond with him and can't desert him. He is 15 yrs old now and spends alot of time with us. He lives an hour and a half away from us but he comes here for holidays, christmas and spring break, summer vacation and whatever weekend that we can pick him up and bring him to our house.
What troubles us so is that he has to live with his NM and it's hard for him. His father, who lives in another state, has no contact with him nor has ever seen him.
Our nephew(I'll refer to him as "Q")is the "scapegoat" and has suffered his mothers rage, lies, manipulations, verbal and emotional abuse and neglect for many years. She lives with her bf who is a drug user and had a baby boy with this man 3 yrs ago. This boy is her "golden child" and she is abnormally obsessed with this child.
Now that "Q" is getting older we have been talking to him
about his mother's
behavior and told him that she has a disorder.
"Q" somewhat understands now what she is the way she is and doesn't do anything to "make waves" so to speak. We will be seeing him again possibly this weekend so we will be talking to him more about NPD.
"Q" has already told us that when he is 18, he will be leaving NM and moving in with us. His mother is hearing impaired so she gets a disability check for herself and an income check for "Q".
The income check for "Q" will stop when he is 18 and from what I've found out, he will be considered an adult and can leave without her being able to stop him. At 18 he will still have one more year of school left so he will be enrolling himself in the high school here and be living with us permanently and we will all be detaching from her.
DH and I are pretty sure that when this happens, that all hell will break loose between us and her.
We have tried before to pursuade her to let "Q" live with us and it turned into an ugly situation. At one point she went to social services and convinced them that we refused to bring her son back and almost had us arrested. She even had the social worker convinced that "Q" was a liar and had a behavior problem and needed therapy, which of course was set up and she never took him to the therapist.
Anyways, We(DH, "Q" and I) know that when he turns 18 and leaves his NM we will have to be sure to have "all our ducks in a row" so that there will be nothing she can do, legally, to stop him. We are pretty sure that this is going to turn very ugly with a god possibility of a confrontation at our home(she's done this before).
So with "Q" being 18 and of legal age we will, at that time, begin having no contact with her whatsoever.
Our main concern now is that we keep "Q" educated on NPD and continue to provide him with a loving and caring environment when he is with us. We have a very good relationship with him, we praise him, show him love and understanding and talk with him openly about whatever feelings or emotions he has. He's confided in us many times and knows that we believe him and we will never tell his mother what he said.
He seems to be doing good and now that he is older he is understanding why his mother is the way she is. Leaving her and moving in with us when he's 18 was his decision..and we told him that no matter what he decides to do, leave or stay, that we would be there for him, stand by him and support him.
So, I guess the reason I'm posting this is because we want to make sure that we are approaching this in the right way. We are hoping that by being honest with "Q" about his mother's NPD and educating him on it will help him understand and be able to cope with it till he is able to leave.
He's a great kid and we tell him this often. We know now that there isn't anything we can do to change her...but at least we can save him.
Again, thanks for providing all the info on this site. It was like a
light turned on and both DH and I saw everything clearly concerning her behavior and we now can prepare for what's to come.
sincerely,
Vix
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Jan/27/2009, 12:33 am
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femfree
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
Hi. It's so awful when we see the abusive effects on children. I'm sorry for the boy and his situation.
One problem I see is that if you state his mother has NPD that the boy will tell his mother this. Now, the sh*t really hits the fan. She will tell the boy and everybody else that you are going around trying to get custody of him and saying she has NPD. You, like myself are not qualified to diagnose anybody. That's libel/slander. You could find yourself in a really bad position here. And, the boy as well.
My fear is that she will use this as an excuse to prevent you from having any contact with the child at all.
Ns will use anything they can to their advantage.
My advice, is to stop using the N word altogether. It has such high potential to backfire on you.
Keep us contact with the boy, learn the ropes of how to deal with Ns, and keep things as smooth as possible until he turns 18.
Show the boy a better, healthier way to live. The courts take the position that it is unfair to keep a child away from a parent - even a parent with a mental disorder.
Just my thoughts for you to keep you in touch with the boy and be there for him as his mother rages against him. Be that shoulder for him to learn on.
It's a terribly dysfunctional home for the boy I know. This must cause you so much sleepless nights.
Your SIL will be a couple of steps ahead of you already - that's the way Ns do thngs, and if you try to state she has NPD, there will in all likelihood be nasty consequences.
If that happens and she cuts off contact between you, your husband and the boy, who will be there for him then?
Hugz
femfree
---
Children? They don't want presents, they just want to see your face light up when they come in the room.
A member's quote
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Jan/27/2009, 10:46 am
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femfree
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
I wanted to add this from Nina Brown's excellent book.
From: Loving the Self Absorbed, Nina W. Brown
If you are convinced, or feel reasonably certain that you are in a relationship with a destructive narcissist, you may be tempted to do all or any of the following
Tell your partner that he or she is a destructive narcissist.
Confront your partner about their behavior and attitudes.
Leave this book where you partner can see it with the hope that they will read it and see what they are doing.
Give your partner the book and tell them to read it, since it’s about them.
Do not do any of the above, or anything similar.
Here is why these acts are not helpful.
Persons with a destructive narcissist pattern cannot see the behaviors and attitudes they exhibit as you and others perceive them. They are unaware of the impact on you, and are well defended against knowing. Further, your attempts to make them aware or get through to them will fail, and will be perceived as threats to their core essential self. This will bring out their defenses for protection. The defenses are likely to be hostile, aggressive, strong and immediately available to them, so that they are able to attack and mount a strong counteroffensive in a nanosecond. You generally do not win or make any headway, and can find yourself in a worse position than before.
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Children? They don't want presents, they just want to see your face light up when they come in the room.
A member's quote
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Jan/27/2009, 10:48 am
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Daffodil66
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
Hi Vix
So sorry to hear of all the anxiety you are all going through. It's so hard when you are desperately worried about this young boy.
I agree with Femfree that it might be best to stop using the N word altogether. My own experience of an N in the family was that I could see that this person had dreadful issues and trying to help as well as being fed up with the victimhood, I mistakenly advised the N to seek guidance and talk to a therapist, before I knew anything about NPD boy was I sorry! I now know that this was the worst course of action with an NPD person. The initial rage led to an orchestrated smear campaign against me and suddenly I was hearing from close friends and relatives that I was the one with problems and needed to talk to someone, I was so hurt and they should have known better, but I went NC and now things are happening which the others can see. The N had been so convincing, they can be the best actors and victims when they need to be!
The best thing I did was get myself some strategies and coping mechanisms for dealing with the issues and above all showing no emotion or annoyance when the N is around. I found it so difficult at first and I slipped a few times, but now I have pretty much mastered it. You need to be there for this young man, so it might be best to help him cope and support him with what you've already been doing but keeping the N information to a minimum. With younger members of my family, who have expressed difficulties with the N, I have just supported them to find effective ways to deal with the difficulties by talking to them about what they thought they could do and then making some suggestions where necessary in a light way, that way I can be sure they won't make themselves targets or set the N rage on me.
Sending you lots and lots of hugs, look after yourselves. I hope things get better soon, knowing is a good thing at least you can now find good ways to deal with the N without setting yourself up for a fall.
Daffodil
For me the best thing was
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Jan/27/2009, 3:21 pm
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vix55
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
Hi femfree and thanks for your response.
Don't worry, we have not mentioned the "N" word to anyone. DH and I keep that to ourselves because we know better then to try to tell anyone about it. SIL is excellent at portraying to be the "perfect" mother and person to other family members, social workers, etc.
We've been dealing with this for about 8 yrs now and know that as long as we appear to agree with her and keep on her "good" side we will continue to have contact with Q. Even now we know that she is talking with other family members about what horrible ppl DH and I are because we've been told this just a few days ago.
It took Q a long time to open up to us. At the age of 13 he finally broke the silence and confided to us what had been going on. He was so afraid that we would not believe him and also scared that we would tell his mother what he was saying. We reassured him that what he was telling us was our "little secret" and that we would never betray him like that. It's been a couple of years now since hie first opened up to us and he continues to tell us about the verbal abuse, neglect, lies and anger outbursts she has. He himself said to us that he thinks there's something wrong with his mother...and now that he's older he recognizes that her behavior is not the way it should be in a family environment.
We are just going to lay low
till he is 18 and considered an adult by the state. And when that time comes and he leaves we are not going to do any fighting with her. We are just going to detach and have no contact with her whatsoever. I think that is our best bet as fighting will only be like putting fuel on the fire.
5 yrs ago when SIL met the man she is living with now she "dumped" Q on us and left him here to live with us for a little over a year so she could run around with the bf and be free. Then one day she just showed up and demanded that he come back with her. It was a horrible scene, Q was in tears cause he didn't want to go and she was threatening him and bribing him into going with her. We did step in and asked her to come back a few days later to get him so she agreed but after he was back with her the first week he called me and was sobbing on the phone telling me that he wanted to come back and he didn't want to live there with her and the bf. I could hear her in the back ground screaming at him and the more she screamed the more he sobbed. I did the best I could to calm him down and tell him that he had to stay there but that we would call him and have him come for visits often. I can't tell you how that ripped my heart out.
It wasn't long after that, that she began emailing me and telling me how much she hates me and how verbally abusive I was to Q on the phone. I must have gotten 10 emails from her telling us that she would not allow us to have anymore contact with Q..no visits, no phone calls, no letters. When we'd try to call she'd pick up the phone and hang it up. When I wrote letters she threw them out.
She'd email me saying that Q hated us and didn't want to talk or be with us anymore.
She told him that we weren't calling or writing him because we hated him.
Back then is when we learned our lesson because it was 2 yrs before we were able to get back on her good side.
All we can do now is just hang in there till Q is 18 and do what we can to not have any arguments with her.
Trying to tell her that we think something is wrong with her would be a grave
mistake. ...we know that now!
hugs,
vix
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Jan/27/2009, 4:58 pm
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vix55
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
Oh my gosh Daffodil..my heart goes out to you. We made the mistake of doing the same thing with SIL years ago, when we knew something was wrong but couldn't put our finger on what it was and boy all hell broke loose so I can understand exactly what you went through.
Over the years we too, have sort of learned how to avoid problems with SIL. There are times we'll get a email where she is ranting an raving and we ignore it and wait a few days and then send her an email talking about a bunch of totally different things not mentioning anything about the rant email. She will reply as if nothing ever happened..as if the rant email never exsisted!
The one thing that baffles me though is that SIL seems to have a bit of a memory problem. For example I can email her and tell her that I'll pick up Q from school on friday at 3:30pm. She will email me back and tell me that she has to write it on her calendar so she'll remember. Then, she'll email me again telling me she can't remember if I'm picking him up or she's picking him up.
The day that I pick him up she'll email me AGAIN telling ME not to forget to pick him up. I just don't get this..and don't know if she is really forgetting or it's just another one of her "games".
This in itself drives me bananas...LOL!
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Jan/28/2009, 4:10 pm
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Daffodil66
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Re: Dealing With a N SIL
Hi Vix
I know, it's so difficult and they always respond as if they haven't done anything at all, no emotion whatsoever apart from the rages which they enjoy. It's so difficult, I know what you are going through and believe me, it's so hard not to tell them and others what you know they are, but as I found to my cost, they really go for you when they know you can see through them.
I just hope things get better for you, be there for Q, it will all work out in the end, but you will have to have lots and lots of patience. Good days and bad days, but you can get through them, no doubt Q knows you are being such a wonderful support. I wish you lots of luck and strength. Take care and look after yourselves. ((((((((((((((hugs to you))))))))))))
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Jan/30/2009, 6:04 pm
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