Okay, I hear you. The only thing that works is distance, and more is better.
You know, I don't think contempt is really where I am at this point. It's more like pity. If I put myself into that place, where every bit of factual information that disagrees with what I have in my head must be warded off, at all costs, I know that I would be pathetic. Contempt? No. Disappointment? Yes. Sadness? Definitely. But mainly pity. His sense of himself is so weak and tenuous. It must be scary to feel that every differing fact is an attack, and to accumulate the those blows until he feels the need to counterattack. It's like being possessed by demons, tilting at windmills. It is a form of madness. How could I not feel sorry for such a person?
Hermes, like you I could not figure out what this was. Our second T was the one who laid it on me, finally, when H refused to see him anymore (all we did was go in there and fight). I asked him, "What IS this? This inability to admit that he's wrong, when it's obvious that he is?" The T said, "H has NARCISSISTIC TENDENCIES." I said, "What's that?" Like so many others, I thought of narcissism as something along the lines of a conceited sociopath. Not. The T explained a little about what N's experience, the fragile ego, especially stressing the fact that the N rage can be very dangerous, and that N's NEVER change. (OMG!)
The T went on to tell me that his own father had N tendencies, and to comment that he couldn't imagine why H's first wife stayed with H, unless she needed a meal ticket. I took all of that as a pretty strong indication that the T himself had big personal issues involving his N'ish father and his mother. I asked him if he was telling me that I should leave H, and he told me that only I could make that decision. But his opinion was clear, as were his issues. THEN he told me that our therapy sessions were finished. When I said that I was going to need some help getting through this, he told me, "No. You can call me if you need me." With that, having dumped this gigantic thing in my lap, he terminated my therapy. He seemed to be trying to destabilize the situation, which read as trying to break us up because of his hatred for his father. This was clearly malpractice, driven by his own issues. I didn't file a complaint because I had bigger fish to fry. I set about finding a real pro, whom we saw for a while. He had a super-positive attitude and he seemed to "get" me. I found it helpful. But my vulnerability to being affected by H's N rage remained.
I have only recently deployed the strategy of diminished communication. For a supposed genius, I can be pretty slow to come around. H's mother, my mother, and probably all three of the T's that we saw told me that walking away from an argument with H was my best strategy. I felt that walking away would be a) too weak a ploy for a modern woman, and b) insulting to H's intellect (if I gave up on discussions with him, that would be saying that he couldn't work his way through a logical argument). Now, I can see that insulting or not, he CAN'T remain logical. He is invested in maintaining the illusion that he can't be wrong, even if nobody (and I guess this may include him) actually believes it. It is not an insult to acknowledge the Truth.
I think that the factor that is making all of this even more difficult for me to deal with, and for you to differentiate, is that this isn't a full NPD diagnosis. It's some watered-down form of this syndrome. I was feeling rather unfortunate, since my first H (also MBA, plus JD) was revealed as being a philandering pathological liar, with ADD and sociopathic tendencies. (Why me? Am I a magnet for weird people, or are most of them weird?) I asked the T what percentage of the population has some kind of serious diagnosis. He said, "Fifty percent." Did I have one? "No. Maybe a touch of N, and a touch of OCD. But nothing unusual." Okay, back to the bad news. Fifty percent of the population has something going on that's weird enough to warrant a diagnosis. That means that Grandmother was right. She always said, "If you get rid of one man, and get another man, you just trade one set of problems for another set of problems." I am not up for an endless string of flawed relationships. I think that I have to believe in my own ability to manage, especially now that I have finally wrapped my mind around the concept of diminished communcation. H has been telling me for years to shut the h*ll up. Guess what? He was right. When he's in one of his moods, his mind is closed anyway. I am not here on this Earth to waste my time trying to force it open.
As for the next generation, I hope that their view of all of this will enable them to start younger and try harder to "read" people better than I have, manage their relationships more deliberately than I have, and be more aware of the high probability that any given person is probably very strange once you get past the facade of normalcy.
