The trigger days of Christmas

[AskingWhy]

I can almost always tell when uNPD/uBPD H was ready to dysregulate.

It started early in our marriage and coincided with the visitation with his children.  H was divorced by his X W while the children were young and she took them in an uncontested divorce clear across the country.

H idealized the children (especially his daughters) in their absence, turning ordinary children into near-godlike beings.  This continues and the children are in their 30s.  There are some major Electra issues going on here.

With the approach of Christmas, H is now dyregulating and ordering me around to clean the house.  As I stated earlier, recent surgeries and depression (that comes from living with H) make it hard to clean and move about.  H will then become verbally abuse, threaten to divorce, etc.

In a matter of seconds, H's very shaky sense of self came to the fore and he split me black over some things I said.  He has a very frail ego in spite of his professional job where he has an enormous amount of responsibility.  He said, "There is no love in this marriage!"  (He was very much in the hate you/love you mode of splitting.)

I simply did not engage and treated him like a raging child threatening to throw his food on the floor and run away from home.  It was almost like he was raging, "I hate you, Mom!"  

His F was very much uNPD and his M was a codependent.   H may also be projecting the rage he feels toward his X W as she cheated on him, divorced him to marry her lover, and took the children.  Moreover, H may be projecting his rage over the way his F treated his M so poorly.  She was the pack mule in the marriage while FIL spent his free income on himself.

Can anyone else here "predict" when their spouse or partner will split?

[I_Am_The_Fire]

That is a very interesting question. In thinking back to my exBPD\NPDh, he seemed to live his life in a constant state of black and white, all or nothing thinking. It got worse towards the end of the marriage. He would dysregulate with pretty much anything that didn't match his view of reality. Any time he would start with "let me ask you something" was a sure guarantee that it was going to be bad. He seemed to have it all figured out and if whatever I said didn't match exactly what he thought, then I must be lying to him. It was like he couldn't see any other view points or any gray areas like "it depends". His reactions seemed pretty extreme and intense when these things happened. I could easily tell when it was about to happen from his body language and what felt like a drastic change in energy. When things didn't go his way, he would basically have a temper tantrum and take it out on me usually verbally. It got worse when I stopped managing his emotions. It got to a point where it seemed no matter what I said or did, he would dysregulate somehow. I'm pretty certain now that I triggered deep abandonment issues in him. I believe his mother is NPD and his father was codependent. They divorced many years ago and had a high conflict divorce like mine. The similarities in the relationships and divorces is eerie at times.

[AskingWhy]

IATF, thank you for the reply.

Yes, there is an "energy" change when my H starts to split. His FOA is a mess.  The addictions are no doubt a result of the dysfunction in the parents.

FIL is still the NPD mess he always was.  Now that it's Christmas, he is still demanded it be all about him--like a child who is greedy for the greatest number of toys.  A spoiled brat.

Knowing FIL and MIL, my H must have had a horrible infancy and this his NPD and BPD.  at least H is not addicted to drugs or alcohol as his siblings, and has a very stable job.

When I do not engage with my H, and treat him like the tantrum-throwing toddler he is, he calms down.  It know it's odd.  The next morning he kisses me goodbye going out the door for work. 

This is true splitting.  He simply does not recall the rage and hatred he had for me the previous night.

[I_Am_The_Fire]

You're welcome. I know it seems odd to me too but I understand and have gone through something similar. It's very bizarre. I can relate to the tantrum-throwing toddler bit all too well too. *hugs*