Pangloss wrote:bitty, since you can't control your reactions, how do you think you could have acted differently as an aware, should your mom not have passed away?
It isn't only chosing to behave differently; my basic mindset has changed gradually over time, and my sibling told me quite recently that I'm completely different to how I used to be. I think that the underlying need to win and diminish the other has gone now, (well, as much as it can), though I still have to make a conscious effort to be less selfish and controlling. I 'see' my sibling, and their underying feelings, in a way that I never used to.
During the last ten years or so of my father's life, after my mother died, I became slowly less nasty, (irritable and selfish), and I know that antidepressants helped a lot. We became close, as has happened with my sibling.
So I think that it could have been good with my mother. I treated her very badly - purely as a source of comfort, or a target for my anger if things weren't exactly right. I didn't see her as a person, or think about her feeings. I can't do it propery in retrospect, (I mean, really develop a sense of closeness), now that she's not here, although I got a slight sense of her just now as I typed the last couple of sentences.
Pangloss wrote:As for assertiveness, I was wondering about that myself, as I always thought I was strong and clearheaded, but in fact assertiveness has little to do with strength but force of character.
If it is defined as "having one's way", then no, I have not been assertive as I cannot get the decisions I believe to be correct made. The more forceful, raging partner "wins" every time, yet we lost overall.
Yes, I get what you say about the forceful, raging partner having their own way.
When I asked if you were assertive, it was partly because you wrote about your daughter not standing for any nonsense, didn't you, and almost feeling a bit scared of her? I'm sure that that was said lightheartedly, though.
As I grew older, my mother found it very difficult to show me basic cooking skills, for instance, as I was impatient and dismissive. She was the sort of person who would defend anyone else, not at all a pushover, yet she couldn't defend herself against my narcissistic behaviour. I don't know how I'd have reacted if she'd said, during my teens and twenties, "I won't be spoken to like that.", or, "Show some gratitude.", or, "Do you realise how tired I am, and how much I've done?" (I'm certainly not blaming her for my narcissism though; in fact I don't blame anyone.) I suspect that I wouldn't have reacted well, and I think that my mother knew this.
Pangloss wrote:This impotence to direct my life towards the goals I care about contributed a lot to my depression - I felt like a prisoner without freedom to control and make decisions about my life, my children's lives and my future. No matter how sound my arguments, they do not matter.
So you felt subdued and defeated, and not listened to? Hopefully that can start to change, now that you're no longer with your ex.
Pangloss wrote:I love my children a lot but often, I can't seem to get them to listen to me and do their part, study, behave, etc. I need to work on myself, to learn to assert in a way that does not lead to conflicts.
Give yourself a chance, you didn't have any control in your relationship with your ex, so you may have lost confidence in yourself. I'm sure that you've heard of the differences between being submissive, assertive or authoritative. Why not go to assertiveness classes? (Strangely enough, I find it difficult to be assertive; I bounce between extremes, which is possibly not surprising for a narcissist.)