Hello! Pleased to meet you. I'm from Colombia and it's nice to come here. I'm a 34 years old straight male, married to a woman from central Europe. My family background is complex! I grew up with total absence of my father, just with my mother and my grand parents. My maternal grand mother was alcoholic and diagnosed with NPD, she stayed with my grand father for more than 60 years (until his death) her behaviour caused lots of trouble, he was codependent I guess. My two aunts, and my mother are not the living picture of mental health.
For most of my life I grew up thinking it was my mom and I against the world. I trusted her completely and her words are still really important for me. She is a very smart woman but with a history of turbulent personal relationships, risky behavior in her youth, and not the best to take economy-wise decisions. For most of my life I was subject to a behavior that now my therapist explained to me is called "Double Binding".
As a kid I repeatedly received the feedback that I was a saint, a highly evolved being, and also a demon, and a
PLEASE READed up human being. This has remained until my adult hood. I developed kidney failure during my early 20's. My mother was there all the time as my closest emotional support, she was there too to blame me for my own disease, for saying that I deserved that my kidneys had got rotten. First time that I assisted to therapy a decade ago, I did because of anxiety. Back then the therapist simply told me to avoid her when she is in that mood, which helped to an extent. Overall I was on dialysis for 8 and a half years. Until I received a transplant in late 2019, just before the pandemic.
I met my wife online 2 years ago, from central Europe and living in Germany at the time. She was studying, as also working two jobs in order to keep herself alive/being able to pay her things. From the first moment she expressed having emotional issues. Where other people would see red flags, I saw mutual understanding. She agreed that she would get a therapist to work on her problems. She got one online (from my city and country) and paid it by herself for a bit more than a year, unfortunately that therapist wasn't good at all (the therapist lacked empathy as I would later find out by my own).
I flew to her in summer 2022, then she accompanied me by distance every single day, she accompanied me during the cancer progression of my 13 year old cat. Not only emotionally, but also decided to give as much money as she could so he could get medicine. A terminal pancreatic cancer that unfortunately has a terrible prognosis. My cat left the world in March of last year.
I like this woman because she speaks many languages, she is smart, and I'm not going to lie, that sort of arrested development part of hers, has for me a cute part. I feel free to play games with her while we walk through nature, be able to speak about so many different things. She had had a previous marriage to a man that was still exploiting her emotionally in Germany, and in one of the two jobs she was being exploited as well (at a hotel). We took the decission of getting married in Denmark, and so we did last year. We had to pass there an interview in which they had to check everything was in order and that there was no monkey business behind it.
During my whole communication with my then GF, I told my mother everything about her. They also spoke many times online, opportunities to meet each other, and at that point they liked each other. Because of the exploitation my wife was being subjected to, and the bad physical shape she was having at that time, my mother more than once offered her to come here, even if she didn't have money. That here she would be safe and everything would be all right. I also foretold my wife that since I have another elderly kitten, I'm not prepared yet to live in Europe again, that I would like to accompany my cat until the end of her life.
During the years prior to this, my mother had been taking care of my grand mother, managing the finances of the latter ad making sure she had the best medical attention. When my grand mother died in 2021, my mother's behavior became worse. With me having experienced different threats about "throwing herself to the next car in movement". Moreover my mother too decided to initiate online a relationship with an American student of hers, a man 20 years her junior, that had problems with alcohol and pot gummy bears.
I commited the atrocious mistake of living in the same household with my mother and my wife (I already had had lots of trouble with my mother)
My wife's behavior is what sometimes is described as mostly "Quiet BPD" while my mother's is much more explosive. The former can feel deeply hurt by words said for weeks, months, or even years. My mother says something really horrible, and two hours later acts like if nothing had happened. My wife's behavior is more about crying, my mother is more direct with her intense anger.
Since my wife had to practically escape Germany (she didn't want her ex to know that she had left) once the man knew, he started sending her emails threatening her with jail for not having paid the apartment. These sort of threats deeply affected my wife, all the time she would deeply interiorize the idea that she would end up in jail, and start crying. Her crying fits were nothing new for me, I had seen them while visiting her in Europe and we were able to sort them out. She was able to trust, relax, and we would find a rational solution. At some point my mother got triggered by her crying fits, one day that we were having lunch she told her:
"Can't you stop crying? you're bringing bad energy to this house. Keep your problems for yourself, they are yours, not ours".
Some days later: "Perhaps all the people in your life have been good to you, and it is actually you the one the problematic one. Maybe we should send you back to Europe as we don't have to tolerate this behavior."
And another: My wife often would say how she had to struggle in her life to be able to study at a good university and live in a good city, away from the problems of her family. My mother said something alone the lines of "instead of having suffered so much, you could have prostituted yourself, this way you could have had fun and money".
After such incidents, their relationship never recovered. What follow for the next four months was an uncomfortable living and me as the messenger between both parts. My mother would start criticising her when she was sleeping, telling me how
PLEASE READed of a human being she was, while at the same time being sweet in another instances, like giving her expensive clothes she no longer needed. My wife started distrusting my mother a lot, and sometimes even looking at her with a genuine face expression of hatred (sth that I hated). Meanwhile I felt deeply uncomfortable and anxious. We found the way to fix everything, and my wife returned to Europe a month ago (my relationship is not over). My first reaction when she left was of relief. Because in those last weeks my wife was completely disconnected from reality. Paranoic, extremely anxious, only thinking about the future in Europe, still afraid that she would not be able to return there, she had lost interest almost completely in helping with home stuff. Naturally, since I have been with my mother for most of my life, the first reaction was to protect her and choose her side. Once my wife left, I decided to restart therapy to know better what to do next, how should I proceed with my life, etc. During the few weeks following the departure of my wife, I started noticing the same horrible behavior from my mother that I had experienced after the death of my grand mother. The double binding thing again, the anger, the angst, the blameshifting... etc. This has made me question my future further. I have continued communicating daily with my wife and she's looking to restart therapy next month (once she receives her first income). My wife likes things to be concrete, stable, and predictable. Meanwhile my mother that is now in her 70's denies having any issue, believes she is a spiritual guru, one day she tells me she is moving to El Salvador, the next that she is moving to a random town here, and the next that she wants to go to Europe too. She also feels bad that the American guy went NC after their erratic relationship.
So far I have taken three sessions of therapy and I'm looking to continue. I have never had an open confrontation with my wife, and I still feel affinity towards her despite all that happened. Nevertheless, I also feel affected when my mother says things like "I know your wife's real face, she is like your grand mother, she's tricking you".
This is the current situation I am in, and the reason why I'm joining this message board. Curious to know if anyone has similar stories.
One part that I forgot to add: My wife brought with her 800 euros in November. At that moment, rent had to be payed and part of the money went for that. Once the conflicts started with my mother, she started asking for her money back. Which was given back in January. Later, and since she had just arrived, the money that she was making was what she was making online. My mom started asking her to contribute by giving what she was earning. This propelled everything into an even worse scenario.
Thank you for listening to my story
