I just found this message board. I hope someone can help me sort out a difficult situation...
I have been married for three years. I knew something was wrong but always thought he just needed to grow up, or find a more satisfying job, or move to a new place, etc. He is so charming and "fun" that people thought I was the luckiest girl they knew. My in-laws have always been distant - I thought, I could have it worse, have an instrusive mother in law. Family holidays with them consist of getting drunk and listening to my husband and his two brothers compete with their father in very loud voices.
Last September, my father in law had a heart attack and had quad-bypass. That night, my mother in law and the boys sat on the patio drinking. My sister in law and I were shocked. The next day my mother in law cornered me, saying her boys' reaction was completely appropriate and that I shouldn't be upset. My father in law spent two weeks unconcious, instead of the one day as planned, because his body had to go through alcohol and nicotine withdrawal. He's better but we are not. During the month or so of trips during the recovery, my mother in law waited on the boys hand and foot, just as they were growing up. They don't respect her at all, just take it as their due.
I think my mother in law picked that time to encourage her son to leave me. (She says critical and gossipy about my sister in law that make me think she is jealous of us. ) He went to a lawyer shortly after. A few weeks later his younger brother broke up with his live-in girlfriend of 7 years. The girlfriend and I used to joke that the boys are emotional twins - that's not so funny anymore, knowing they might have a serious problem. Since September, my husband has not touched me, except for a peck at New Years' when his friends were watching. We own a house, so we can't split up simply, but we are just living here not being married. Niether of us is cheating or being particulary argumentative to the other. We're just stuck. So I have to bring the situation to a head because I can't live like this anymore. Either we learn how to be happily married, or we stop being married.
That's a little background - sorry if this is too long. My problem right now is, I need to get out of this for me. But now that I'm learning about narcissism and also afraid my husband is depressed, I don't want to leave him when I should be helping him. I want to be a good wife, I want a happy relationship with him if he is capable. But he doesn't want help because he strongly believes nothing is wrong with him and that if I was a better person, our relationship would have worked. How can I convince him to take a true look at himself?
These are some of the things I've said/felt about him over the years that make me think he's either a narcissist or the product of one:
You have no feelings, no conscience, no empathy for others
You have no close friendships, only drinking buddies
Your mom wanted to be your friend, not your parent
You take a lot more from this relationship than you give
It's got to be about you or you aren't interested
You don't have relationship skills
I feel like he can't love or respect me, even if he wanted to. He told me recently that his parents never fought while he was growing up, that he had a "perfect" childhood. When I said his mother never stands up for herself, his dad just tells her how it's going to be and she says okay, he told me his mother never HAD to stand up for herself (as if they had a perfect marraige). I think with the alcoholism and maybe narcissism, his mother is an enabler.
