The NPD/ BPD inferno magnet- A tale of hellish marriage

[Tangled mangled]

This is a tale of a long toxic marriage- Four decades and counting!

‘Couple goals’ on the outside, pure, organic hell on the inside.

Well celebrated at church with grandiose titles, younger gullible couples look up them for advice. As they think they must be doing something right to survive each other for almost 5 decades of marriage.

My parents both had extreme childhood trauma.
I’ve written about my BPD mum and like most on here who have BPD mothers, very little is said about the fathers.

For those who have commented on their dad’s, it seemed they fell into one or two categories or similar:
Category one: the enabler, who watched passively as their bpd wives wrecked havoc in the household, doing either nothing or little in the way of protecting their children.
Category two: The dad that left the BPD mother, making her a single parent.

There are other categories including:

Category three: the NPD dad, who stayed in a long hellish marriage with their BPD wives, leaving her to everything, aka adorning her with the married single parent victim hood crown while demanding total adoration, submission and respect from the household. Even though his behaviour negates any of the above


My dad was a category three dad: a mixture of many BPD traits and profoundly covert NPD symptoms.

I have listened to videos about the narc/ bpd combo parents. It appears they make a solid team, their attraction to each other is stronger than that between opposite poles of a magnet.
When they had a common foe ( aka anyone that disagrees with them) , they were in fact one person, a united force against reason and reality.
When they had a conflict between them , hell had no other post code:

A torrent of shameful insults, physical violence against bpd mother, intimidation and physical and emotional abuse of myself and siblings by bpd mother.
As a child, it was the feeling of being unprotected and the fear of leaving because you had no where to go.
Like clockwork, at one point, (and this lasted about 2 to 3years) they argued every Sunday at around 9.30am . And it was about the same issues: money and mum doing all the chores while dad sat in the living room all day watching TV and not even encouraging my brothers to help out with chores.

He preferred to congregate with my brothers insulting the government or openly belittling my bpd mother’s efforts. I remember being so hungry that I had shakes because I was too scared to ask for breakfast while my parents were having on of their scheduled fights.

My parents shared the same bad habits- drinking alcohol, but they were not alcoholics, gossiping and bad mouthing anyone even their ‘friends’. But they were usually happy while sharing a cheap brew.


Happiness or something that looks like it was a brief  occurrence  usual around payday.  Growing up dad was an aspiring university professor and mum a teacher.

Their combined incomes could have been managed well enough even though our family was large. But of course family planning and financial planning was for people who had no faith in God. After all God provides for the birds of the air, he will surely provide for us even though dad had no qualms about spending a huge proportion of his income on entertainment.

Mum was more savvy with spending her money but loved wasting other people’s money ( eg her children’s). Dad maintained tight control over his money even though he was wasteful.

To be continued…

[Turkish]

When they had a conflict between them , hell had no other post code:

Poetic and sad.

[Notwendy]

I have read that the BPD-NPD combination isn't as stable- but your parents' arrangement seemed to be. My BPD mother also has NPD traits. Seems there could be a combination in your parents and they shared their NPD- a sort of NPD disordered "power couple"? Your mother being the covert narcisist "sacrificing" wife and father the NPD head of household figure?

You have pointed out something interesting and that is the parental bond. As disfunctional as it seems- your parents also seemed bonded by a shared dysfunction. My parents as well. When two people are aligned "against" a common dislike- they are not focused on the issues between them. With my parents, they seemed to be more stable when they shared a common something or someone that was not to their liking, or that was dissapointing. My parents also seemed like one person at times.

Appearance and hiding the dysfunction is a part of it too. Nobody outside the family would have a clue. Your parents seemed to be pillars in your church.

I wonder though if it was as well hidden as we thought. There seems to be a couple like your parents in our community. The husband is NPD and has alienated many people. The wife seems to be compliant and say little. He appears to be very successful but he has an inflated sense of that. But people can see his NPD behavior.

I agree with you that children would feel more like accessories in this arrangement than to feel cared for. I think that whatever the combination of traits- BPD with enabling spouse, or a combined traits like your parents- there is something in the bond between them.

[Tangled mangled]

My parents as well. When two people are aligned "against" a common dislike- they are not focused on the issues between them. With my parents, they seemed to be more stable when they shared a common something or someone that was not to their liking, or that was dissapointing. My parents also seemed like one person at times.

Notwendy,
Seems like the bond they shared was stronger because of their NPD, their brains worked identically.It’s the share fantasy space - from outside people thought we were a strong, united family. 

You make a point about my mum’s personality , it’s possible that her predominant disorder is covert NPD, with 30% BPD. Sometimes I doubt she even had BPD, after reading about other bpd mums on this site.
My parents marriage seemed stable from the outside but I believe the only reason they’ve lasted so long is due to their cultural background and my mum’s family- they ride till death do them part. Divorce is a taboo in her family and she doesn’t want to be the first to get divorced. But I remember her Lea the family home so many times after arguments, she would be gone for weeks, leaving running the family to her teenage children, and dad would get involved with running the household when she was away.
Her plan was to use me living in a different continent to get away from my dad by coming to ‘help’ me out, while mainly helping herself.
The fact that she was a teacher and maintained a stable sense of self and the history of developing her personality disorder ( being special and more beautiful than her peers) all fit with the covert narc picture. Her borderline traits showed up mainly at home. She also used veiled threats of ending her life when things got heated at home.

[Notwendy]

Notwendy,
Seems like the bond they shared was stronger because of their NPD, their brains worked identically.It’s the share fantasy space - from outside people thought we were a strong, united family. 

My BPD mother is predominantly BPD but also has most of the NPD traits. It's that she has more of the BPD traits that puts her to the side of BPD, but the NPD traits are strong too. Dad wasn't classically NPD. I think where they each provided some image to each other is that Dad was accomplished. My parents married in the era where women were not expected to be in the workforce and being my father's wife was a positive identity for BPD mother. I don't think having a trophy wife was something my father was interested in, but BPD mother was one- and he was smitten with her. His accomplishments + her attractiveness?


A family member commented that she felt hurt that they didn't invite them over. I know why they didn't. One could not predict what kind of mood BPD mother would be in if they did. The family member didn't know that and assumed my parents were snubbing her- like she just wasn't good enough to be in their circle. So maybe they did appear to be important to others but I didn't consider that as there was disorder at home that others didn't see.