How to explain a very long positive idealization phase?

[Depression = 72% of members]

My ex had been abused significantly as a child.


I know what I experienced in the dark hostile period.   It lasted for a year.  There was a child involved, I didn't know about Cluster B yet and so, I tried to keep the family together.  

I never expected to be able to explain or understand a lot of what happened.   I thought most branches of knowledge that don't deal with science were still pretty much in the dark ages.

When I found out about Cluster B, it explained so much.   Everything fit, and everything made sense.   It even tied together explained stuff that I didn't realize.

People describing BPD or narcissistic rage describe exactly what I experienced for a year.


What I struggle with is how the good idealization phase could last almost a decade.  

There were things that were hints and clues.   But she distracted me from paying attention to them by claiming she has Asperger's.  

She was socially awkward and any social skills she did have had to be learned.  

Her emotions and reactions to certain things always seemed to be a little off.  

For example, a couple times I was working on a repair project and water went everywhere, and I had to call out to get me a towel.   I later had to explain that any alarm, anxiety or tension in my voice was not directed at her, it was a my voice being effected by my emotional reaction to an urgent slightly out of control situation with the potential do damage or make a huge mess.

At the time, Asperger's seemed a plausible explanation.   But now I think all of these could be explained by emotional damage from early childhood abuse.

Even before discovering the concept of separation, I described whole thing as nothing could go wrong until nothing could go right.

More recently I saw someone describing why some people are attracted to people with BPD.   He had made some comments about people with BPD having a their emotional development  frozen at an early age, and the emotional purity and intensity of a 4 year old's emotions and how that can be very appealing during the positive idealization phase.

That made me realize there was more in addition to the nothing could go wrong until nothing could go right part.  

During the positive years things burned really bright.   As bright as they eventually got dark.

At times it seemed too good to be true, but it went on year after year.  It was like the infatuation phase never ended.

So during the good phase there are some things that match and fit.   But, if she had emotional damage, how did she hold it together?

Before I had even found Custer B, I had sort of pieced together something.

My ex had quite a Facebook shrine to herself and us as a perfect couple.   It was only to be topped by the

Facebook shrine to our daughter and herself as the perfect mom.

I knew that these Face book shrines made her feel good.   I never thought much about it.

When things got dark, it was apparent that the Facebook shrine was disconnected from reality.   I started to think of it as a solipsistic world she retreated into to try and feel good.   Solipsism - a pathological egocentrism where reality is defined by an individual's mental perceptions and constructs.

I knew that anything that departed from what she wanted to be able to say on Facebook would cause the dark hostility.

Problem was, that world was becoming more and more detached from reality.   She worked from home while I cared for our daughter.  She wouldn't let me do that in another room.   So she had to sit there all day, every day and watch me pay attention to our daughter instead of her and watch me parent our daughter instead of her.

She couldn't stand that and always found some reason to get up and come interfere with the childcare.   At first she had some valid reasons.   But I learned, gained experience and got better.   As I did the darkness set in.  The better I did, the more hostile and critical she got.  

No matter what I did she could find something wrong with it.  I tried to explain why I had done what I had done and ask questions about how to do things right.   This quickly became regarded as arguing.   Then it got upgraded to yelling.   Sometimes she would even accuse me of yelling at the time it was happening.   When I pointed out that I was not in fact yelling, I was told that I looked angry and so it was the same thing as yelling.   By the time we were in court, she described it as abuse without explaining what the abuse was.

So, when I found NPD,  "perfect mom" and "prefect couple" sounded exactly like false narratives.   What I experienced in the dark period seems to match the narcissistic rage you would expect when a false narrative is broken.   Meaning when I became the one taking care of our daughter instead of her and I was paying attention to our daughter instead of to her, suddenly I was breaking both narratives and got painted black from two directions.

The perfect couple vibe had an element of grandiosity to it.   At times, particularly if we were giving someone advice as a couple it felt like we were placing ourselves on a pedestal.  That's not a feeling I normally get when I gave advice to someone.

Every one of her past relationships had been a disaster, involving abuse of some kind or other.   So, at the time I just figured she did have something to be proud of in that we were doing so well.

From when we met, she always had plans to eventually quit her day job and become a world famous scientist.   She gave that instead to be a mom.   So, I never expected her approach to being a parent to NOT be grandiose.

I never saw a sense of entitlement or a need to control and optimize every little thing to her advantage, except when it came to our daughter.  In regard to our daughter, the sense of entitlement was total, the need for control was total, and the need for every little thing to be to her advantage was total.   It's almost like some of the NPD traits didn't emerge till the false narrative was broken and even then were only directed at the narrative.

A lot of stuff fits really well, but is it plausible that something as simple as viewing us as the "perfect couple" could be enough to let her feel good for almost a decade?    Again, up to this point, all her relationships had ended horribly and included abuse.  (Of course, that's according to her.)   Could it be that at this point in her life, being able to tell herself that a relationship finally, not only worked, but was a perfect is exactly what she needed in order to feel good about herself, and that it worked for almost a decade?

There is one more thing to throw in here.  Before I met her, she supposedly had a couple years of intense therapy to deal with her child hood abuse.   But it was self directed.   So she had control.   Is it possible that rather than being a naturally occurring NPD, that she's really BPD, but learned some techniques to cope, one of which possibly looks like NPD?   For example, like finding the thing she likes most about her life and focusing on it to feel good about herself.   In other words, could a BPD learn to borrow from the NPD playbook, but focus on something that is true about themselves to form a true narrative to feel good about themselves and stabilize themselves?   Then, possibly along with other skills to cope helping, only become disregulated if that narrative turns false and breaks?  

[iron pigeon]

My ex had been abused significantly as a child.


I know what I experienced in the dark hostile period.   It lasted for a year.  There was a child involved, I didn't know about Cluster B yet and so, I tried to keep the family together.  

I never expected to be able to explain or understand a lot of what happened.   I thought most branches of knowledge that don't deal with science were still pretty much in the dark ages.

When I found out about Cluster B, it explained so much.   Everything fit, and everything made sense.   It even tied together explained stuff that I didn't realize.

People describing BPD or narcissistic rage describe exactly what I experienced for a year.


What I struggle with is how the good idealization phase could last almost a decade.  

There were things that were hints and clues.   But she distracted me from paying attention to them by claiming she has Asperger's.  

She was socially awkward and any social skills she did have had to be learned.  

Her emotions and reactions to certain things always seemed to be a little off.  

For example, a couple times I was working on a repair project and water went everywhere, and I had to call out to get me a towel.   I later had to explain that any alarm, anxiety or tension in my voice was not directed at her, it was a my voice being effected by my emotional reaction to an urgent slightly out of control situation with the potential do damage or make a huge mess.

At the time, Asperger's seemed a plausible explanation.   But now I think all of these could be explained by emotional damage from early childhood abuse.

Even before discovering the concept of separation, I described whole thing as nothing could go wrong until nothing could go right.

More recently I saw someone describing why some people are attracted to people with BPD.   He had made some comments about people with BPD having a their emotional development  frozen at an early age, and the emotional purity and intensity of a 4 year old's emotions and how that can be very appealing during the positive idealization phase.

That made me realize there was more in addition to the nothing could go wrong until nothing could go right part.  

During the positive years things burned really bright.   As bright as they eventually got dark.

At times it seemed too good to be true, but it went on year after year.  It was like the infatuation phase never ended.

So during the good phase there are some things that match and fit.   But, if she had emotional damage, how did she hold it together?

Before I had even found Custer B, I had sort of pieced together something.

My ex had quite a Facebook shrine to herself and us as a perfect couple.   It was only to be topped by the

Facebook shrine to our daughter and herself as the perfect mom.

I knew that these Face book shrines made her feel good.   I never thought much about it.

When things got dark, it was apparent that the Facebook shrine was disconnected from reality.   I started to think of it as a solipsistic world she retreated into to try and feel good.   Solipsism - a pathological egocentrism where reality is defined by an individual's mental perceptions and constructs.

I knew that anything that departed from what she wanted to be able to say on Facebook would cause the dark hostility.

Problem was, that world was becoming more and more detached from reality.   She worked from home while I cared for our daughter.  She wouldn't let me do that in another room.   So she had to sit there all day, every day and watch me pay attention to our daughter instead of her and watch me parent our daughter instead of her.

She couldn't stand that and always found some reason to get up and come interfere with the childcare.   At first she had some valid reasons.   But I learned, gained experience and got better.   As I did the darkness set in.  The better I did, the more hostile and critical she got.  

No matter what I did she could find something wrong with it.  I tried to explain why I had done what I had done and ask questions about how to do things right.   This quickly became regarded as arguing.   Then it got upgraded to yelling.   Sometimes she would even accuse me of yelling at the time it was happening.   When I pointed out that I was not in fact yelling, I was told that I looked angry and so it was the same thing as yelling.   By the time we were in court, she described it as abuse without explaining what the abuse was.

So, when I found NPD,  "perfect mom" and "prefect couple" sounded exactly like false narratives.   What I experienced in the dark period seems to match the narcissistic rage you would expect when a false narrative is broken.   Meaning when I became the one taking care of our daughter instead of her and I was paying attention to our daughter instead of to her, suddenly I was breaking both narratives and got painted black from two directions.

The perfect couple vibe had an element of grandiosity to it.   At times, particularly if we were giving someone advice as a couple it felt like we were placing ourselves on a pedestal.  That's not a feeling I normally get when I gave advice to someone.

Every one of her past relationships had been a disaster, involving abuse of some kind or other.   So, at the time I just figured she did have something to be proud of in that we were doing so well.

From when we met, she always had plans to eventually quit her day job and become a world famous scientist.   She gave that instead to be a mom.   So, I never expected her approach to being a parent to NOT be grandiose.

I never saw a sense of entitlement or a need to control and optimize every little thing to her advantage, except when it came to our daughter.  In regard to our daughter, the sense of entitlement was total, the need for control was total, and the need for every little thing to be to her advantage was total.   It's almost like some of the NPD traits didn't emerge till the false narrative was broken and even then were only directed at the narrative.

A lot of stuff fits really well, but is it plausible that something as simple as viewing us as the "perfect couple" could be enough to let her feel good for almost a decade?    Again, up to this point, all her relationships had ended horribly and included abuse.  (Of course, that's according to her.)   Could it be that at this point in her life, being able to tell herself that a relationship finally, not only worked, but was a perfect is exactly what she needed in order to feel good about herself, and that it worked for almost a decade?

There is one more thing to throw in here.  Before I met her, she supposedly had a couple years of intense therapy to deal with her child hood abuse.   But it was self directed.   So she had control.   Is it possible that rather than being a naturally occurring NPD, that she's really BPD, but learned some techniques to cope, one of which possibly looks like NPD?   For example, like finding the thing she likes most about her life and focusing on it to feel good about herself.   In other words, could a BPD learn to borrow from the NPD playbook, but focus on something that is true about themselves to form a true narrative to feel good about themselves and stabilize themselves?   Then, possibly along with other skills to cope helping, only become disregulated if that narrative turns false and breaks?  

[Mutt]

Hi Iron Pidgeon,

I understand. I tried to keep my family together and didn't know about personality disorders either. I'm not a Dr. It sounds like your ex was enmeshed with your daughter. Maybe it's not a Cluster B personality disorder. It could be a Cluster C personality disorder. I suggest using the search function and look for a member called 2010 and search for DPD.