Two people's garbage pails

[Ami]

.Last night,on the last time out for MImi,she started nipping at me when I tried to put the leash on. I started yelling (in frustration)
  My H started screaming insults and criticisms  at me. At that moment, I realized that I was his garbage pail -too.   .I got an instant stomach ache and  still have it. How much pain can a person absorb and still go on?I tried my whole life (too much) to be "good" to raging, angry lunatics. When does there come a time when I can rest?. .
  He is good as a provider and good at taking care of bills , cars etc..He thinks that this makes him a good husband. Last night, a 'voice' came to me and said,"Forgive them, they know not what they do."His F was an N-- worse than my mother.This is what my H knows. He provides .
 However, the emotional climate is like with my mother. I am scorned. If I don't have a "boot on his head" then he starts rising up to abuse me.He thinks that he is "good" if he is not actively "raging" or "hitting" However, down deep, he is waiting to get you. He will never understand this. It is futile to try to explain it to him. .                                                                                                                                My H is a genius at "getting you" when you are weak.My H will leave you alone when you are strong,but if you show a weakness , he is at your jugular. He thinks he is "good" now . I "love" when he says  that he is "good now". That means not being and "active'  ass..
    However,, this is not about him. It is about me and how I handle anger and how I get back my integrity.
  I am everyone's garbage pail b/c I was trained to be. I feel terrified of anger b/c I was trained to be.These are the issues. My H is very secondary to me. he just helps me to see what I need to see.. He is just bringing the pain and issues to the surface. He did not plant them,but he sure helps to water them.In reality, he is a victim of an N father, too.This does not take away that I have to be strong with my H. He is like an untrained wolf waiting to rip the throat of his owner. It is horrible. It is pitiful BUT--it is true. I  guess that this is what I don't want to face. This is how it IS. My H will not change. he does not see that he has a problem. He is "good". I have the problem.  This is an N trait that Vaknin talks about. The N sees situations as "slices" in time. He can be"good" now and yesterday when he was 'bad' is over. It is gone for him so it must be gone for you. I just realized that.
  Anyway, my problem is not my H. It is my FEAR of anger.. It is my place as a garbage pail. these are my issues. I need to face them  b/c they are at the core of  lies that I accepted from my mother                                                                   Love  Ami

[Certain Hope]

((((((Ami)))))) Hugs to you. You're recognizing so much, at such a rapid pace... I know that's exhausting.

Speaking to the anger issue - I've struggled with a debilitating fear of anger, as well. It doesn't even have to brim over into loud words and curses... a quiet seething in someone with whom I'm close can paralyze me.

I'm trying with each of these issues, as I face them myself, to go to the Scriptures for answers.
Your mention of "being good" to those who are full of rage made me wonder what that would look like - to be good to someone who's out of control? Does being good to someone in that conditionmean appeasing them? Is that even possible?
Sometimes a gentle word does not turn away wrath.
At least it didn't with NPD ex.

As I tried to recall passages which speak to dealing with anger of this sort, I found these and hope they may shed some light:

An angry man stirs up strife, And a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression.   Proverbs 29:22

Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools.  Ecclesiastes 7:9

For anger slays the foolish man, And jealousy kills the simple.  Job 5:2

Do not associate with a man {given} to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man, Or you will learn his ways And find a snare for yourself.
  Proverbs 22:24-25

And this one especially:   A man of great anger will bear the penalty, For if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again.  Proverbs 19:19

Maybe it would help to consider what it means to rescue a man of great anger. Sounds to me like this speaks of preventing him from facing the consequences... maybe?  So how could the anger of those around you be left in their hands to deal with, rather than absorbed by you?

With love,
Hope

[Ami]

WOW Hope      THANK YOU  SO MUCH                                 Love Ami

[pennyplant]

Ami, I like how you are letting yourself see the truth and letting yourself accept it as what needs to be worked on.  It shows me that it must have been traumatic and stifling indeed when at fourteen you learned you had to accept as truth things that were the opposite of true.  Your reasoning here makes so much sense.  It is a vivid description of how projection (from them onto us) actually works.  I think I have been a garbage pail all my life too.

Pennyplant

[Ami]

Besee
   You mean send it to U-Tube?

[Overcomer]

I have done this with my H.  He is Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde personality when he drinks so I just get out my phone and video him when he is raging.  Every single time he is stopped in his tracks because he knows I will have ammo against him.....

[dandylife]

Ami,
I know that the metaphor of a garbage pail is one that describes how you FEEL very well.

However, I think if do a bit of a paradigm shift, it may help you to see that you don't have to be anyone's garbage pail.

How about mirror? (The photograph thing is great - they see themselves and are ashamed immediately of their behavior)

Or bouncy ball - bounce it back to them.

Or a wall. Concrete. Strong. Nothing penetrates.

Just because someone around you is behaving badly, it doesn't reflect on YOU or WHAT YOU ARE.

Dandylife

[Tweety]

Dear Ami,
Hugs to you!! What awareness's, that is great, you should be so proud of yourself for seeing the dynamics of it all and how it is repeating, That is truly the first step in making changes. Awareness-Acceptance-Action.  I too have so much trouble with anger, mine and other peoples. Raging, etc. the one that leaves me even more shattered is the cold shoulder, ignoring. That to me does so much damage. In my experience "Ragaholics" just are projecting all there crap on you. Took me many years not to take it personally, still very painful for me if I am intimately involved. I absorbed so much crap from them projecting i couldn't tell whose stuff was who's. Everyone gave some great advice. knowing you can't change it  or them is a big step. Just figure out how to take care of you and what's good for you, take the focus off of them and put it on yourself. I just finished reading "Loving the self Absorbed" & "Children of the Self Absorbed" By Nina Brown......she gives great advice on how to deal with this. I hope you find a way that works for you.... Always remember you deserve the best, so give it to yourself..
Tweety

[Gaining Strength]

However, down deep, he is waiting to get you.   My H is a genius at "getting you" when you are weak.My H will leave you alone when you are strong,but if you show a weakness , he is at your jugular.

This struck me because it is the very thing that I still live as a legacy from my childhood.  My parents, my brothers, my family was great at "getting you."  If anyone showed a weakness then someone went for the jugular.  Contrast this with what those who love you are supposed to do - they are supposed to have your back.  Can you imagine our soldiers overseas - how much more wretched their lives would be if they feared their fellow soldiers, if the people they were fighting side by side with did not have their backs. 

For those of us with N parents or N spouses, life has been like living with the enemy.  That is not living.  That is war.

[Iphi]

You sure said it, Gaining Strength.  That is what enemies do, and certainly my family does.  They seek your weakness and strike their hardest and fastest when they find it.  And if you cry, they show you contempt, irritation and disgust.  And the crowning touch is how the whole thing it is all your fault because you are bad in so many and sundry ways.   

I'm pretty much shattered by either the raging or the cold shoulder approach.  Both work just like a charm.  Also the fake offense approach, which is where my N is terribly offended by something horrible I did or said, or the way I supposedly did or said it, which is really something totally innocuous. That one gets me too.

When my husband and I were first getting serious, I told him I had his back and said I felt he had my back - was that true?  At first he was baffled by this expression and what I meant by it.  To me, it is one of the most valuable things of all, that assurance of support and good faith.

So I guess N families can really have the unintended consequence of developing moral clarity on various issues.

Ami, while I feel some distress reading about your current situation with your H, it seems to me that things are greatly in flux there whether, on the surface and in the usual pattern, they seem the same or not.