aversion and backing off

[river]

Heart,
First, Im sorry if I came accross snappy in that last response.  In many cases  you are exactly right to call into account all colluders and enablers of toxic people, and there sure are many of those about.  This wasnt one of those situations, but you couldnt of known, and its good to challenge beliefs when they seem to be squewed. 

  It's significant what we call female wolves, isn't it. (Wolf being a type of dog ...)
 

   You've noticed this.... I'd like to know what you call female wolves.....b...ch.?  I've been used to calling them 'she wolfe'.........?  but another thng like this, have you noticed that its called a stag party for guys and a hen party for girls ~  some inequality there huh?  Why not a doe party?!

It's sad if you and your dad had a wedge driven between you, and that you do not have the opportunity to repair it. However, I want to emphasize that YOU WERE A CHILD. Your family of origin was the only reality you knew.
 It's significant what we call female wolves, isn't it. (Wolf being a type of dog ...)

I was thinking about this.  Living with the knowledge of what I had colluded with, is still something to deal with, its like 'what was done through me', whereas some live with 'what was dont to me'.   It leaves its legacy, tho, perhaps a different legacy.   

[river]

River, did your parents stay married or did they separate?
I think indeed that for a father it can be very difficult to precisely know what is going on and what to do about it. When I think back my mother always seemed to treat my sister and I a bit better when our father was around. However our father also often enough got the brunt of my mother's moods. A few years ago my mother said that in the past it often was our father who stood up for me and my sister to people outside our family. Looking back I thank God on my bare knees that my parents never separated and that we had our father around. He is not the confrontational type and that may be why they are still married. Although he is always quite low profile life for my sister and I would have been worse without him around.
My husband is a father who separated from his N wife. I can see things from his side now and indeed often there is not much what a father can do. He was also abused by his devious ex wife, psychologically and physically. The woman is very smart and very manipulative. In a way my husband is no match for her deviousness, her scheming, her manipulations, her hostility and aggression. Their children are now 17, 25 and 30.

Yes, they stayed together.  What you said here opens up a whole lot for me.  Your father was able to help when it comes to the outside world.  I also think that tho my mother's influence drowned out any other influence, I sometimes have thought that his quiet infleunce was there inside us all somewhere, somewhere deeply subliminal.  I try to access that influence, and I hope recovery will bring me there.    Reading Masterson on child development in 'The Search for the Real Self' was profound for me, it validated what I had always felt.  Like my mum stiffled the reality world, and his father role of the bridge to reality.  My mothers need to feel special and exceptional made her contemptuous of pr.....

[river]

.......(cont)...........
practical reality.  And anyone who represented a down to earth, realistic picture was equally trampled over and disdained.   

Deep down tho, my mother was unhappy, and I felt it, and in later life the only one to admit  it, no-one else wanted that to be said, they bought into the myth, preferred the surface presentation.     

Still, im lucky enough to say there were good things in my childhood, (like my mothers encouragement to break rules enabled me to - do just that when it appeared necassary, ahh its all so contradictory....   But I coulnt access these thngs, without recovery, I had to get the toxicity out of me.  This is a long story, Im not sure how to start and where to stop.  But hopefully bit by bit I'll be able to share in this safe and understanding place.  thanks for being here.  ~ this  cyber world creation, but by real people nevertheless  : ) 

[HeartofPilgrimage]

River, No worries. Sometimes we just need to work out our pain and past in ways that most other people can't understand.

Actually, in a lesser way, I can see how I colluded with my own mother against my dad ... more like we teased him and put down his ideas, which I am not proud of ... but in my case, they ganged up and did the same thing to me too.  (The only one you were not allowed to openly gang up on was the Nmom ... but Dad and I did it anyway, just behind her back ...).

Anyway, everybody has to make sense of what happened to them (and through them) in their own way. Somebody wise once said that taking advice is like eating watermelon, you swallow what's good and you spit out the seeds.

[Lucky]

My mother was often putting my father down. He was never good in enough in her eyes, he never did enough in her eyes. I can hardly remember my father putting my mother down. My father did not anger easily but sometimes the nagging and criticizing became too much even for him and then he took his car and went to his parents house for a few hours.
His parents could also not do any good in my mother's eyes.
If I asked my father if he could bring me to school (normally I went by bicycle) because of slippery roads, my mother started to force my father that he should bring HER to work (she also went by bicycle). I don't think she ever encouraged my father to do something for me. But I can't really remember my mother driving a wedge between me and my father but I can also not say that she encouraged us having a good relationship.
The relationship with both my parents is rather superficial though.
My father was never mean to me, he was just a shadowy figure somewhere in the background. Still I think him being around made my life a bit easier especially now that I can see what happens when such couples divorce and the N mother gets a lot of power because of the father not living with her anymore.

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Oh, yes, river, I was referring to the "b" word when talking about "female wolves" 

[Lucky]

Sometimes I feel as if I could strangle my husband. When we get to talk about his N ex wife he tends to say that his daughter (17) still seems to be talking back to her mother so things can't be too bad.
However my experience and intuition tell me that there is something terribly wrong between the ex wife and the daughter. Also the things my stepdaughter have told me and my husband has told me about the woman. And other things that have been going on. Everything I have been reading about narcissism (I have been reading anything and everything I could lay my hands on these last three years). It drives me nuts to know what is going on and my husband being so relaxed about it all. when I try to talk about things he feels attacked and gets angry. And that can make me so angry.
He says that he was hit during childhood and that it was not that bad. This sticking his head in the sand drives me nuts!!
Sometimes I ask him to read a book or article about narcissism because I have a N mother and he has a N ex wife with whom he had three children and he just does not read the book or article.
He was in a trauma bond with his ex for many years and I am still in one with my mother and still he acts as if there can't be anything going on  .

[river]

  He was in a trauma bond with his ex for many years and I am still in one with my mother and still he acts as if there can't be anything going on   .   

  ... but then, Lucky, at the risk of p...ing you off  ~ hope not ~ this would be the great chance surely, you disentangle your trauma bond with M, and that way you get to be a path finder...for the others who are suffering...? 

[river]

CB123: 
So, you followed your intuitive, did what needed to be done as  real mum, you ducked pressure to leave or to stay, and you found your way thro, and did the right thing.  I imagine you feel deeply rewarded.  Its a great example of trusting inner guidance,..... wonderful  : ) 

[river]

Lucky,

  If I asked my father if he could bring me to school (normally I went by bicycle) because of slippery roads, my mother started to force my father that he should bring HER to work (she also went by bicycle).   

........ so your moment with your father was appropriated....? 

I think appropriataion was a key thing with my NM. 

And when I hear peoples stories here about fathers in exile, in some degree or other, even when less so than mine, I know by the quick welling of emotional response  that its  important for me, what deeply affected my foundations.    So,  Thanks

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Just wondering, since we're talking about fathers ... my son's wife (and especially her mother, but the young wife is rapidly becoming a little clone of her witch mother) left him and took their one month old baby (I know, most of you have read my story before, but just giving a tiny bit of background). I have been comforting myself that the estranged DIL's parents stayed together (the father is, as we say in my part of the country, "whupped"), and the DIL doesn't know that an Nmom and a whupped father isn't normal ... the part that's comforting to me is at least this little baby will grow up with at least part of her time spent in a non-N household.

The DIL didn't really give my son a choice ... he dared stand up to her (after months of trying very hard to just go along to get along), and she immediately left and went home to mama, and filed for divorce. He stood up to her because he wanted me and his dad to be a part of his life, and she said absolutely not. She never seemed to even consider going back to him, so once he dared to stand up to her, it seems like what she really wanted was a sperm donor and a ring, not a real marriage.

Anyway, I hear different things from different people. Some people think they were better off with their dad staying in the marriage (not that my son really had a choice). Others seem to think (as I have been comforting myself) that at least when the parents divorce, they get to experience a non-N household at least part of the time. I have to add that although my son is only 21 and usually 21 year old "men" aren't so swift at seeing their kids a lot ... my son has never in the 3 months of separation EVER missed a visitation session (he gets the baby 4 times a week for 2 hours, when he's off on Sundays he gets her for 4 hours), he is working to get "right of first refusal" where when he's off work and his ex is working he will get to keep the baby even between visitation, and he is going to go for 50/50 time with his daughter by the time she is 3 (courts generally won't grant 50/50 while the mother is nursing, and might not grant overnight visits with him under the age of 30 months, due to their concern with continuity).

So, he wants to be a really active dad, and so I'm wondering if you think that this will help mitigate the damage done by the mother's N personality and the horrible N mother that she is currently living with (we hope she moves out soon but are not holding our breath).

[Lucky]

  He was in a trauma bond with his ex for many years and I am still in one with my mother and still he acts as if there can't be anything going on   .   

  ... but then, Lucky, at the risk of p...ing you off  ~ hope not ~ this would be the great chance surely, you disentangle your trauma bond with M, and that way you get to be a path finder...for the others who are suffering...? 

At the moment my mother is "on good behavior" but when she starts misbehaving again I might do just that. I have already been thinking this over many times and I have decided that I will not take any more cr*p. I think in a way she would not even mind so much if the whole thing would finally blow up.

[river]

Heart,
I definately think theres no general rules about this, CB123s situation was specific to her situation.    I imagine this has lots of pain and anxiety for you?   Somehow, I've often imagined that a key factor is the deep attitude of intent in a parent.  This child's dad having a steadfast attitude of intent to be there and to love and be good with his child,  I think that has power.  And  your attitude of steadfast support for you son, and all that he has to go thro. 
My  hope would be that - like with me, tho I went thro a lot and a lot of madness as a result of NMs misguided actions, I think I also inherited some sanity, and perhaps, even tho my dad never knew it, its there in me somewhere.   
Its about survival of the Real Self, tho sometimes the Real Self goes out of sight for a while.