Liberating the 'Golden Child' from NPD Parent

[dangler321]

Long time since Ive posted to this forum but could use some advice if anyone can help.

My wife is 28 y.o. uBPD, we were together 4 years (split up, got back together twice) and  married 9 months before she separated from me a month ago and returned ‘overnight’ to her uNPD stepmother and enabler  fathers house again. My wife is the younger of one of two sisters. Her sister is coming up 30 y.o.

From the way my wife has dealt with issues and things she has said surrounding our separation it is clear she has little or no empathy , child like B&W thinking, no sense of self and turns and projects all blame for the break up on me. She is also diagnosed with dyslexia & dyspraxia. However when times were good besides the constant up and down emotions that were controlled somewhat by her being prescribed sertraline/lustral she was a sweet, helpful, caring and loving women.

Though I tried to encourage my wife to get talk therapy for her issues, she always refused and seemed quite fearful of it.

My wife is clearly thought of as the ‘golden child’ to her uNPD step mother who I know treats her as the daughter she never had, emotionally controlling her and manipulating her to do more or less everything around the house and at the farm where they keep their horses. Now she is back home with them its only a matter of time before the NPD claws will be sunk back in.

The elder sister who I am in contact with was kicked out the family home at 16 is the scapegoat sibling and now as she puts it the black sheep of the family.

I always knew there were odd things goings on behind closed doors in the family but my wife could never open up enough to tell me what was happening. However my suspicions were fully confirmed to me the other day when my sister-in-law who now has minimal contact with her parents finally managed to open up and share with me what has been going on through their childhoods and now into adult life. She herself was stuck with the same type of thinking for many years but now feels like she has broken free from the disordered and dysfunctional way of life.

My sister-in-law has also tried to convince my wife to go to counselling on several occasions but always ends up being pushed away. However my SIL does seem to have a way of getting through to my wife and convincing her to do things if she talks to her in the right way. She is meeting with my wife within the next week.

We are trying to come up with a plan to ‘liberate’ my wife from this cycle of family emotional abuse if it is at all possible, try to encourage her to therapy or if not at least cut her away enough from the parents to enable her to see the dysfunction for herself and try to begin establishing her own sense of self. If I can get my wife back at the same time it will be a bonus for me but the main aim is primarily to help & support my wife to help herself. Both my SIL and I know she will have to want to help herself if we are to succeed in this.

My question is has anybody else had experience of this situation and had any success in liberating the ‘golden child’ from a possible NPD parent/s. Any help/advice/strategies would be most appreciated. Thanks. 

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[GeekyGirl]

Hi dangler321,

I can see why you'd want to help your wife become more independent. It sounds like you both have been through a lot, and she is very easily influenced by her family.

How to go forward from here really depends on a few things. Does your wife see how strongly her family influence is? How interested is she in working on herself? In order to change your wife's behavior, she needs to understand what needs to change and be motivated to change.

Though I tried to encourage my wife to get talk therapy for her issues, she always refused and seemed quite fearful of it.

Have you tried couples therapy? What will you do if your sister-in-law is unable to talk your wife into going to therapy?

[dangler321]

Thanks for replying geekygirl. She is indeed very influenced by her family and also one or two toxic friends of the NP step-mother who just so happened to be visiting on each the occasions we split up, considering they visit perhaps only two or three times a year and live several hundred miles away I don't think that was coinincidence.

I’m not so certain she does see how strongly her family influence her and I think the influence is often done in a way that makes it sound like they are looking out for her best interests. Both me and my SIL know this and if I’m not wrong, influencing people in that way is a typical NP trait. I have tried to help my wife understand this in the past and she has agreed with me but typically seems to forget and is easily sucked back in by what they say especially when we go through a tough patch.

I have noticed how the r/s between my wife and her stepmother is quite unstable,  they argue quite a lot and for a few months they get on fine and then her step mother does something to annoy my wife and she cant stand to be around her for the next few months. I think this is likely to happen now she has gone back to their house to live with them. Also my wife commented when we separated she only wanted to move back to her parents for a few months before finding somewhere else to live as that is about as much she can take of her step mother.  I don’t think this will be easy for her as we live in the UK and its pretty hard to afford to rent an apartment on your own with the money she earns, plus she has bad credit which would make it even harder. There also isn’t really anyone else I can think of she could house share with at the moment as my wife has few friends who are in a similar position.

How interested is she on working on herself, this is a tough question... . My wife knows and admits she suffers from chronic depression, anxiety and mood swings. She has polycystic ovaries and believes that is what causes the problems with her up and down moods and says the PCOS messes with her hormone levels. She admits she's diagnosed dyslexia and believes she's dyspraxic, Iv just discovered she's not diagnosed dyspraxic, this is something her parents made up and labelled her with to account and possibly cover up problems they have caused. She did at one stage say she might be bi-polar but I doubt this as well. Also she was raped two years before I met her so may be suffering some effects of PTSD. But I know the possible BP traits existed before that event took place.

When we reconciled last time we split up, I said she had to get at least some medication to help deal with her depression & anxiety and I suggested as did the doctor she would also need talk therapy to actually cure her problems which at the time, though a little reluctantly she said she eventually would. The meds helped the situation but she was hopeless at taking the them regular, often missing doses or running out for weeks at a time before getting more. Though she is like this with any meds she takes be that anti-biotics, IBS meds etc... due to her poor organisational skills and lack of self-care. The meds did help take the edge off the anxiety and moods but certainly haven't dealt with the issues about the way she thinks.

I did keep mentioning seeing a T but as said previously,  it’s a straight up ‘No’ and she changes the subject as if it brings up deep fears in her. And its basically the same answer I get when I mention seeing a marriage counsellor. I believe she may have started seeing a T before but she told me that her parents stopped her going as it was making her worse.

I believe my wife thinks the meds are all she needs after she sent her sister a message the other day telling her to get some as they have helped ‘balance her out’. My SIL messaged her to try and empathise with her in an attempt to get her to start seeing the underlying problems for herself.

If my SIL cant influence her, we are going to be at a bit of a loss.   Though I do wonder if my wife came back to me and we could cut the contact somewhat between her and the parents whether this would help to get her out of the way of thinking about things as she does at the moment. Her parents don’t deal with problems at all and are very negative, they don’t offer help and support. Whereas I have been brought up to deal positively with problems, offer advice and support and I do notice when she spends enough time away from her parents her thinking does change and I have managed to help her start dealing with her debts and work issues which she never would have if she was living with them.

I’m thinking if we can achieve that, have her sister try and explain and get her to understand the reasons why she thinks in the way she does such as B&W thinking, abandonment, insecurities, low self esteem, no sense of self etc. Which stem from the way she was brought up we may be on to something and eventually encourage her enough to see a T.

I don’t know for certain she has BPD and may just have certain traits. Are there any other known ways to change these behavioural patterns and ways of thinking without talk therapy from a professional?

Sorry for the long re ply... .