Now he's trying to BE ME?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Things have been so much more visible these days. I had wondered why he was racing to do MY household chores (to the exclusion of his own) but things became quite clear recently. As we were discussing more of his latest lies (I know, discussions go nowhere), he begins to tell ME what I NEED, HOW I feel, and WHAT I'm thinking.

I stood up, said, "Stop trying to be me." and walked away. I can see perhaps being envious of someone but not trying to BE them. And not to the point of excluding the person completely. The kids and I have a routine that works very well for us in regard to doing their homework, getting things ready for the next day, etc. He just comes in, takes over, does a half witted job of it and doesn't even communicate where he put something when we ask because we can't find it. I put a firm stop to his interfering anymore because no one can FIND what they need, including me to cook! WTH?

I said, "Perhaps I should just get into your belongings and work area and do what I assume will be helpful without asking you. Then when you can't find anything, I'll do like you do and lash out angrily that it was ALL FOR YOU." He doesn't want that. He want's his stuff left alone. He's worried I will divorce him (and I will be) but he's so dishonest and secretive that I wouldn't dare openly discuss much. He'd do something impetuous and negative without evening considering the consequences. It's enough.

My opinion is that healthy competition is ok as long as both are aware and agree. In this case though, he's so focussed on eliminating me by racing to my stuff to the exclusion of his own agreed duties and he looks insane doing it. The kids are confused, I'm mad and can't find half my cooking tools. That or he's trying to justify staying unemployed.

Joan

[Joan]

Things have been so much more visible these days. I had wondered why he was racing to do MY household chores (to the exclusion of his own) but things became quite clear recently. As we were discussing more of his latest lies (I know, discussions go nowhere), he begins to tell ME what I NEED, HOW I feel, and WHAT I'm thinking.

I stood up, said, "Stop trying to be me." and walked away. I can see perhaps being envious of someone but not trying to BE them. And not to the point of excluding the person completely. The kids and I have a routine that works very well for us in regard to doing their homework, getting things ready for the next day, etc. He just comes in, takes over, does a half witted job of it and doesn't even communicate where he put something when we ask because we can't find it. I put a firm stop to his interfering anymore because no one can FIND what they need, including me to cook! WTH?

I said, "Perhaps I should just get into your belongings and work area and do what I assume will be helpful without asking you. Then when you can't find anything, I'll do like you do and lash out angrily that it was ALL FOR YOU." He doesn't want that. He want's his stuff left alone. He's worried I will divorce him (and I will be) but he's so dishonest and secretive that I wouldn't dare openly discuss much. He'd do something impetuous and negative without evening considering the consequences. It's enough.

My opinion is that healthy competition is ok as long as both are aware and agree. In this case though, he's so focussed on eliminating me by racing to my stuff to the exclusion of his own agreed duties and he looks insane doing it. The kids are confused, I'm mad and can't find half my cooking tools. That or he's trying to justify staying unemployed.

Joan

[stpmom]

My stpdaughter was emulating me, I thought of myself as her mentor, she told people she wanted to patern her life after me.  She refered to me as her mother.  About a year ago she started competing with me and now she will have nothing to do with me.  It felt like she took me over and threw me out. 

She became friends with my friends, people my age and got involved with groups that I was involved with but didn't have a lot of time for because I was caring for her dying grandmother.  She began wanting to see her father more and leave me out; she said she could choose who her family was and I was not in it.  She began calling my daughters, her stepsisters more often.  They were her sisters but I was not her stpmom.  She wanted my H to choose her over me.  She told him he needed to choose.  She moved into our little town even though she works in the next town and has to make the drive.

She says she dosn't know why she dosn't want to see me anymore and dosn't want to discuss it or think about it.

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[Cirque]

No boundaries, no boundaries...

They see no boundaries and when forced to look at a boundary obscess on demolishing it, don't they?

My BPD mom was less subtle about it.  She started pretending to be me on Facebook and MySpace and modeling sites where I had online portfolios.  My school has webpages for classes and projects and she began mining those for email addresses so she could get even weirder.  It scares me that she might still be doing that stuff, though I shut down everything I could (some of them she had to approve the shut down and wouldn't) and warned everybody I could think of that email and postings from me might not be from me at all.

When I was younger she had me on the kiddie pageant circuit.  One memory about that that swims up at the oddest times is being on stage again and again with other girls and seeing all the moms in the audience lip syncing and doing the motions -- maybe hoping to cue a girl but more like pretending to be the girl.  They would look like they were in trances or maybe (sorry to be so blunt) like they might look if they were masturbating.   People have asked me what the pageant thing is "about."  That memory is the only answer I have and I can't explain it so that somebody who hasn't seen it understands.

Then when it was time for college planning, my mom decided I wanted to go to an unaccredited institute she likes and study what she started to study but never finished (reiki), and she would attend with me.  We'd take the same classes.  And she was willing to do that for me because that's what I wanted. 

I'd thought I'd been pretty clear what I wanted -- and it was nothing to do with any of that -- but ok, I'll make it clearer, mom. 

OMG. 

I know nothing about life and what will make me happy or let me earn a living.  Why do I always attack her for trying to help me?  Why don't I want to be happy?  Why don't I love my mother like normal girls always do?  It's ALL FOR ME, Joan, yeah, she does it all for me, though I don't deserve it and need to be screamed at and slapped so I'll learn.

(Hmmm... and my mom's deliberately unemployed -- I swear, they all come out of the same factory.)

There's this other track, stpmom, yeah, about choosing her over all else -- every other person in the world, every other part of life. 

They have so much energy for all this crap.  I guess it's the only stuff that matters to them.

Good luck, both of you.

[Joan]

Stepmom and Cirque, thank you SO much for answering, I'm sorry you've experienced this too. Lack of boundries seems so alien to me! The times I have overstepped made me feel terrible enough to not want to do it again.

Cirque, my mother is the same. We haven't spoken for a couple of years now but your experience reminded me. She listened to the same music I did, tried to get me into the music she liked (no way, it wasn't my taste), tried to dress me like she felt I should dress (I'm conservative, she's not) and eventually, when I set and kept boundries with her, tried to discredit me in our family. Granted it worked with some family members and I knew it would and who would be likely to believe her. She couldn't spread her poison to everyone though but I hear she's still trying.

Since I have set and kept some really firm boundries with my husband about trying to take over my household chores (which I prefer to do myself), he's got no choice but to do his own. He's told me that he's jealous at how quickly and how well I can do those chores and yet would race to do them and then do it halfway anyway. What is the point?

I swear though, they seem to try to erase the real person and rather than work on their own issues, define what we "want, feel, need, etc.". It's crazy.

I am often on the go with the kids, things we enjoy a lot and things we need to do and yet he is doing me a favor telling me it will be "good" for me to get out of the house a bit. To me that seems like project seeing as he's unemployed, doesn't leave the house much and not for long when he does and rarely with the kids. I ignored it and kept doing what I enjoyed.

Joan

[stpmom]

My H and I went to tharapy for awiel to help us overcome the problems my stpdaughter had caused in our marraige.  She was really getting her father marching to her tune.  The T told us to stay away from her for awiel and to only see her at our house when we were both there or together as a couple.  She actually called the T.  When he wouldn't return her calls she told my H that she thought that it was best for her to just stay away from us completly because the T must know what was best for her. 

So our T was thinking of her all along and it wasn't about us afterall. Who knew?

[Cirque]

Ohgawd.  Look-alike mom-daut outfits.  Did you ever have to do those?  I think when I was 6 it was just dress-up to me, but...  Yes, my mom's the fashion expert, too. 

At some point she gave up the look-alikes but we still had to coordinate if we were out together, which we often were since she doesn't like going places alone and never wanted me out of her control for long.  "Coordinate" meant I wore what she wanted me to wear the way she wanted me to wear it or the battle would not end.  Any little thing that wasn't authorized was reason to shriek. 

It's funny getting dressed now.  I'll blank.  Or get dressed and suddenly get all crawly skinned and nervous.  Is this right?  Should I wear this?  If I'm going somewhere with my dad, I'll leave my room feeling like I should slink under the sofa or something.  I'll ask him if I look all right and get, "Yeah.  Great!  Ready to go?"  And I'll feel like I'm falling off the roof of the building.  Go?  I don't have change anything?  I don't have to hear about what a gonk I am?  We're just... going?  Wait!  This isn't the right outfit... and he's out the door and at the elevator already.

Very interesting thing about your husband's "advice" routine.  My mom liked to tell me stuff like that, too.  I mean, I'd have a day with classes, dance, study group, dinner on the run, school project, three more hours of homework, bed on the calendar and she'd say -- very Voice From On High -- "You need to fill up your time.  You can't goof off your whole life."  Or I'd shovel snow and clean off the car, go off with a friends' family to ski, come home and shovel more snow and clean off the car again, go in and she'd say -- from her chair between the kitchen and the tv, "You've got to exercise more so you don't become a couch potato."

She's big on projection (of course), but there's some kind of reverse projection going on there  in what she and your husband are doing.  They tell us stuff we obviously know or tell us to do things we've just been doing as though it occurs only to them. 

[ravenstar]

OMG!

I thought it was just wierd when I was having an arguement with my H and he would use THE EXACT SAME WORDS back to me..at first I thought it was an attempt to be empathetic (silly me) but it was usually a little out of context, it just didn't seem genuine or relevant. It was like this bizarre funhouse mirror thing, but disjointed from the actual point of the subject. Then I thought, maybe he just has really poor communication skills and he admires mine so is using that as a way to feel better. But then I started hearing him say things about how "I" was feeling, and what "I" really meant. He thinks he KNOWS what I am really thinking and what my real intentions are..no matter what I said or stated to the contrary. It's like I am not really there and he is having a completely different conversation with someone else. I've come right out and said, "you do not KNOW what I am thinking or feeling, and when you say you do you are frequently WRONG" The look in his eyes at that moment was very strange..they went FLAT. I don't think I have ever seen that before..almost like there was no one there. It frightened me.

He mirrors my behavior, and maybe he thinks it will draw me in, but really it creeps me out.

My problem now is that I am starting to think I have this thing. I'm scared. I've become insane. He can push my buttons so easily I am the one who is raging (after trying to talk sensibly for half an hour) I am the one who has gone to the Psychiatrist for depression (he doesn't mirror these things though) It's almost like I am mirroring his illness...is that possible? Could that be a survival technique? I am seeing my Psychiatrist next week..I'm going to ask him to do a whatever test they have just so I can be sure that I am still sane. My anxiety level is through the roof..just hearing him drive up to the house and my stomach sinks and my back tightens up.

I've begun to set boundaries...it's bizarre, it's like he really doesn't know what they are. Any reaction to them is immediatley that I don't care about him. He doesn't seem to have any conception that I might do something just for me, that it has nothing to do with him. He thinks he is this wonderful guy...and why don't I appreciate all the things he does? (maybe if he did what I ASKED instead of random things) I'm very disrepectful and unappreciative, in his eyes. ALL THE TIME. The projection is scary.

Here's the kicker...I've noticed a pattern. He can be really kind and sweet if I'm ill/depressed..for a short time, and as long as it doesn't infringe on what he wants. But as soon as I start making moves to do something for myself he picks a fight.  And it comes out of NOWHERE, just when I believe we are getting along really well. BWAM! It's like being sucker-punched. What the hell is that all about?

I could go on. I'm new here and really am looking for a reality check, some validation/feedback that it's not me. (oh, I have issues...don't we all? but this is nuts)

Thanks!

[Joan]

Hi ravenstar and welcome. I had not checked in lately, glad you posted.

My husband's eyes also go flat or seem to spark strangely, depends on his anger level I think. The pattern I've noticed is that when I'm happy, involved, cheerful even if things are challenging, he pops out with abusive behavior and strange accusations.

Like yours, he also projects like crazy, it's exhausting when I do engage. I don't know if it's wise but it seems to work here for me is when he acts like he IS me I say, "Stop it. You are NOT me, be yourself if anything and stop it." if he breaks an agreement I say, "The agreement was... do you recall that? If so, either stay with it or communicate as agreed. For now it's in your hands, you broke the agreement."

I've noticed that if I have to address a problem anymore I literally shake. It is very frustrating to speak with him about anything at all because he blames me, projects or simply "checks out" mentally.

He once claimed I should know he respects me because he "allows" me to be involved locally. I had to laugh because seeking permission to have an outside activity is NOT something I'm going to do with anyone. What I did do was give he and the kids the opportunity to ring in on any objections they might have or concerns but seek permission? Nope.

The other serious trait/issue he has is lying. Constantly, even about the most innocent of subjects.

Joan

[ravenstar]

Ah yes...the lying.

But I'm supposed to trust him anyway..no remorse, no guilt

well, I don't

and he wonders why I don't want to have sex with him...

I don't trust him, I don't feel safe with him...not emotionally.

Isn't that enough?


That flat thing in the eyes freaks me out too.

[Joan]

But I'm supposed to trust him anyway..no remorse, no guilt

Same here. Interestingly, earlier this week he told me something and I just put my hands up. I stated that telling me after the fact that he's breaking an agreement is not the communication I'm looking for. I then told him is on his own with that issue, I don't want to hear anymore about it considering his agreements are just lip service.

Enough is enough.

Joan