When a N parent uses your non parent to control you

[newbiehere]

Hi all,
I am going to register very soon I promise. A little background. My mother is Narcissistic with Borderline tendencies and I believe histrionic as well.
She constantly degrades my dad when all he ever does every day like the rest of us is take care of HER!
Recently I have been trying to show her how bad it is to do this to him.
I don't think it's working though. Now here's what happens as well:
To CONTROL me SHE uses him, me and my dad have always had a great relationship but I can tell in the past 4 years or so that he acts as if "If mama ain't happy, aint nobody happy".
I don't like being controlled by anyone and she has always been all about control. Yet she makes the most stupid decisions, etc. This woman will find something to complain about if there is nothing. I have already written on another thread that she is a fanatical hypochondriac as well.
I was just wondering if any of the rest of you had experienced or felt like the N parent uses their spouse, *Your NON N parent* to control your life or actions.
Thanks

 

[P]

Hiya newbie. I hate being controlled by anyone too, join this club! I'm trying to control myself instead. Real hard work.

You said about your 'Non-N' parent. Okay, maybe he's non-N, but what is he instead? Being non-N doesn't = okay, not responsible for what goes on, does it?

"If mama ain't happy, aint nobody happy".

Sounds like a statement of fact to me. Sounds like he's accepting that. It dosn't have to be fact. You can be happy whether she is or not. That's your right! So why does he say that? And why does he want you to accept it too, to be complicit?

It takes two to tango and if she's using him, he's allowing himself to be used, for some reason. You don't necessarily have to join in the dance, but leaving the dance floor isn't easy. Please do register and post some more! Portia not signed in

[promqueencasualty]

...To CONTROL me SHE uses him, me and my dad have always had a great relationship but I can tell in the past 4 years or so that he acts as if "If mama ain't happy, aint nobody happy".

Hi, newbie---
Maybe someday I'll post the entire sordid mess that is my family's story, but I just wanted to tell you that this is EXACTLY what has happened to me(and my non-Nbrother), too. Most recent example: my Nmother has hated my brother's wife ever since they were dating("competition"--I know, that's sick, but that's how my mother views my SIL). Once they married, the behavior escalated to the point that my brother and I each had words with our mother over this. It was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back." We cut ourselves off from her, but still kept in touch with my dad(who supported our decision, and told us that he agreed with us unequivocally).

Well, something shifted in my parents' relationship(I think my mother has been making my dad's life miserable because he took a stand against her behavior), because the last time my brother and I saw our dad, he pulled us aside and told us that we were either to "find a way to make peace" with our mother, or he wanted us to "go away"(exact words). I'm sure you know the "ending" to this story---there is no such thing as "peace" with an Nmother(sometimes I wonder if she is borderline, too, based on what folks here have posted, but I don't know enough about borderline personality symptoms to make my own classification). That was three years ago, and we haven't spoken to them since(unless you count them having crashed my MIL's funeral last month, making a big, ugly scene).

I don't like being controlled by anyone and she has always been all about control...

As someone once told me, "It's not about love, it's about control, and worse yet, ownership." Oh, and my dad isn't the only one enmeshed in this---I have three other siblings(two enmeshed, one a screaming N) who are more than happy to act as my Nmother's minions---especially the Nsibling, who makes my mother look like a piker...

I am so sorry for your situation, newbie--I know that you must be feeling torn, because you don't want your relationship with your dad to be another one of your mother's casualties, but you want to continue keeping her at arm's length so that you can limit her capacity to inflict damage upon you. I wish that I had some helpful words to offer to you. Just keep posting here, because these N's(especially parents!) have a gift for making their victims feel like the perpetrators, and folks here can help to bolster your resolve when you're feeling down, or susceptible to your mother's attempts to control you.

(((newbie)))

PQC

[newbiehere]

portia and promqueen,
oh that's exactly the reason why he is going along with whatever she wants, so he won't catch he@@!
She is extremely jealous of our relationship as well. Always was since I was little. Back then he didn't allow it to bother him but since he's older, he just wants peace at any cost. At least that's the way I take it. I told him the last time he was complaining to me about what she does and says to him to grow him some backbone where she's concerned. See, I stand up to her and do not take her crap anymore, but I used to.... Now something very interesting I've noticed from doing this, she will retreat back and behave herself if I do stand up to her. But if I give her ONE SMALL INCH in her bad behavior, she will run all over me and bulldoze anyone else around her!
Reminds me of a 6 year old that wants everyone's toys!
It is making me more distant from dad lately as well. Bad situation but like you said, I shouldn't have to put up with it. They are grown ups and they are the ones acting like kids. Thought our parents were supposed to be role models, it didn't happen in my case.

[Anonymous]

Your father has decided to do this masochistic "dance" with his wife. This relationship is what they have chosen, and what perversely works for them. It's rotten for everyone else, but that doesn't concern them. They have no interest in changing the dance. That goes for your father as well. You can tell him until your face turns blue that he is too passive but it will unlikely change anything. This is how he wants it. Sure he also hates it, but his discomfort is trumped by the part of him that needs it.

bunny

[Anonymous]

I also have an Nmom and a co-pendent father. I tried over 20 years to tell him and to make him see. Worthless. It was a completely worthless effort. I wish, I had worked in that time, read a book or have done something more valuable with my time then to make my father SEE. Or better said to try my father see.


Because he will like bunny said dance this life until his dies and I am not willing to take a part in that whole scene anymore.

I needed to discover about Ns to MAKE me see. To me see how useless that all is. To make me see how useless it is to discuss things with my Nmom and so on. It is so very very useless and just ahuge waste of time. All that phone calls with my mother. All that explaining.

Now I sitting here, being 38 years old and thinking why oh hell did I did not see that earlier?

I was lacking the unterstanding that some people are really plain stupid, I was lacking the understanding that some people do not want to hav peace that some people just like it the way it is.


I have an interesting story, I had some girls criminals tfor interview and some of them beat up other girls. I asked them, why they did it and they answerde because we were bored. Interesting, hm?

I will open a seperate thread for that because that is what I think an interesting discussion.

Sam

[Samantha!]

I have a questionm for that thread, why the father is doing that? dancing that dance with the Nmother?

Because he is too lazy to get a divorce, because of money issues, maybe he was to much to pay in a divorce, maybe hewould feel otherwise lonely, maybe he masocistic?

Because he is so used by it and sees it as COMMON behaviour? Like step by step the Nmother got worse and he is so used to it now?

WHICH reasons have dads to behave that way and dance the dance with such a Nwoman?

Samantha

[2cents]

Samantha!

Maybe the father does the dance because he loves the mother? Because he grieves for her? Maybe he is also masochistic, tired, baffled, but he loves her? A lot of men do strange things for love. A lot of men don't know how to deal with emotional issues, and assume that the fault lies with themselves.

[cat]

Same situation with my parents.  The nMom controlled the nonNDad - until the nonNDad wound up in a nursing home.

Part of the dance with my parents is because I believe my Dad loved my Mom much more than she loved him.  He would do anything to prove his love, and she abused that love.  

But Dad chose her over the rest of his family.  He chose her over his relationship with his daughters.  He chose to try to prove his love to someone who he could never prove it to.  In the process, he lost himself.  

Oh, occasionally Dad would shield the rest of the family from her tantrums.  But after he went into a nursing home, there was no more shielding.

Quickly family and friends discovered the monster my sister and I had been dealing with for years.

I think what was so helpful about it the discovery is the validation that this behavior wasn't normal.  It greatly relieved my sister and my mind.