Opinion on Therapist suggestion

My therapist feels I should write my undiagnosed NPD husband's family a letter explaining my side of the what happened to our marriage. He has been twisting the truth for the past 6 months at least and has made it seem that he asked for a separation so I could find someone to support me and love me like I deserved. He is trying to play the good guy in this situation and say he couldn't be that person not that he wanted to be single, didn't do one thing to maintain our relationship from the moment he took this new job and has started drinking and experimenting with drugs. She feels that I need to at least get my feelings out to them on paper so they understand my position and for my own peace of mind.

At first I thought her suggestion was good because I was the main point of contact with his family for the past 10 years but now I am questioning if it would serve a purpose or I would just appear bitter.

Thoughts?

I think you need to go with your gut feeling. If you have any reservations, then don't do it.

What I did was write just such a letter, but I never sent it. I got all my feelings written down, which helped clarify a few things for me, then set it aside and re-read it a few weeks later. It did sound defensive and bitter. I ripped it up.

I'm glad I wrote it. I'm glad I didn't send it. From what I am hearing through my sons, my ex's family maintains silence about our divorce and doesn't say anything about me.

This is the best outcome as it allows my sons to have relationships with their aunts, uncles, cousins etc in the future, should they choose to do so. Had I sent the letter, I'm sure it would have been passed around and commented on and I would be the "crazy ex-sister-in-law".

But every situation is different. What about writing the letter then getting your therapist to read it and comment? Then you can decide whether it should be sent or not.

I think you should discuss your reservations directly with your therapist. She knows the situation a lot better than us. Coming here for advice on whether your therapist's suggestion is a good one is ... indirect and questionable -- we don't know you from Adam (or Eve), but your therapist does, and she's charged with helping you.

That said, you do have reservations. That should be a cueto talk with your therapist directly about them.

Having reservations or feeling uncomfortable about a suggestion is no reason not to proceed -- part of a therapist's job is to push you to do things that make you uncomfortable. After all, if what felt good or comfortable always worked out well, no one would need therapy or get anything out of it.

Btw, often these letters are just written as exercises, and not sent.

peanut2828 wrote: She feels that I need to at least get my feelings out to them on paper so they understand my position and for my own peace of mind.

hmmmmm, just because you write them a letter explaining your side, how do you know they'll then understand it and accept it? What are the ramifications to you if they don't agree with you? How would that make you feel, worse or better? Sometimes we can talk (or write) until we are blue in the face and it NEVER sinks in on the other side. This situation has that potential.

You see.....from all of my listening to other women speak of their spouses family and them having offered explanations and such has either had a NIL effect, or the opposite effect, the abuse is just repeated with them by having them discount your views, feelings and opinions, and at worst, outright attacking you for putting down their son/brother etc. My own family is a case in point. My SIL approached my mother about her son on numerous occasions, eventually my mother spat back, "Well, you knew what he was like when you met him, you should have changed him." And there's a zillion Freudian dynamics held in that one statement if you analyse it from the mother and daughter-in-law perspectives.

From my perspective, it's a bad idea. But you do know your own circumstances the best.

My opinon on this is: It's his dysfunctional family that contributed to the way he turned out in the first place. And understanding from them is unlikely.

The old saying blood is thicker than water has credence.

Shivers is right.

They already know there is a behaviour problem. They don't want to acknowledge it however because that is admitting their own part in it. In other words, his problem is their problem and criticizing him is criticising them.

Also, you are exiting the picture. How would you react if you were them? It's tribal behaviour - toss a few stones at the member who has decided to leave and embrace the one who is staying.

As far as always doing what the therapist says....mmmmm....not in my books. I've had my share of professionals from lawyers to doctors who gave some bad advice. You have to trust that little voice of caution that is coming from somewhere deep within yourself.

Nanday wrote:
What I did was write just such a letter, but I never sent it. I got all my feelings written down, which helped clarify a few things for me, then set it aside and re-read it a few weeks later. It did sound defensive and bitter. I ripped it up.

I'm glad I wrote it. I'm glad I didn't send it.

What about writing the letter then getting your therapist to read it and comment? Then you can decide whether it should be sent or not.

I have a computer full of unsent emails. It was truly therapeutic writing them, but I never really felt a need to send them. The only reason I haven't deleted them is they are interesting to go back and read...almost as if a stranger had written them.

It gives me pleasure to compare how I feel now with how I felt back then.

Nanday wrote:Shivers is right.

They already know there is a behaviour problem. They don't want to acknowledge it however because that is admitting their own part in it. In other words, his problem is their problem and criticizing him is criticising them.

Also, you are exiting the picture. How would you react if you were them? It's tribal behaviour - toss a few stones at the member who has decided to leave and embrace the one who is staying.

As far as always doing what the therapist says....mmmmm....not in my books. I've had my share of professionals from lawyers to doctors who gave some bad advice. You have to trust that little voice of caution that is coming from somewhere deep within yourself.

Ditto on the shivers and Nanday statements. It probably is not going to be a surprise to them. Families with N's KNOW there is a problem, even if they "play dumb" to the ouside world.

I know this because it was my sister-in-law who (during my initial confused reaction to the emergence of my husband's NPD behaviors) clued me in to a lot of his past devious deeds and pointed out how sick he was.

When I discovered the diagnosis for his condition during therapy, she suddenly denied it and wanted to defend his behaviors. She even began to criticize me for "not putting my foot down and making him stop." And now, in retrospect, I understand why (although it angered me at the time). First of all, her family name is important to her and if he were "outed" it would be quite a scandal. Also, they are all the family each other has....sad as that might be.

So she complains constantly about his sick behaviors but continues to supply him with NS from time to time. And she continues to protect him from being exposed to the rest of the world. Living in a small town...I guess I don't really blame her.

Nanday is also correct in his assessment of your therapist's advice. You should discuss your misgivings/doubts with her. You should also consider that just because one is a therapist doesn't mean they are experts on this particular PD. If you don't feel confident with her advice, you're probably better off finding someone who instills more trust in you.

I consider myself VERY lucky because although I live in a very tiny medically underserved area, my therapist was an absolute EXPERT on NPD. (He had been married to one before he became a therapist).

He never once steered me wrong. Everything he said would happen...DID happen. I trusted him implicitly and he led me to recovery.

You know, in hindsight, I can hear my SIL's exasperated sigh when I first rung her and told her about how her brother was acting. With what I know now, coupled with her disclosure of his past behaviour whenever he got in a relationship with someone, this sigh should have been accompanied with, "Oh God he's doing it again, he's never going to change or get fixed, get out now."

Instead she said, "Oh, dear, you know the poor love has done that before but he was with a very highly strung woman then, it should settle or fix itself with your mature and stabilising manner." Or words to that effect.

Of course, at the end of 5 years with this guy, I had become a replica of his previously highly-strung woman, and this time the rhetoric changed, it became, "Wow, he's always been bad at choosing good women."

I have determined the opposite of what your therapist has suggested.

I don't care what my in-laws think. Caring what my in-laws thought was part of the problem. They are enablers of my ex's N, know there is a problem but back their daughter anyway. I can't blame for their sticking with their daughter. But I used to run around trying to keep them happy as well. After I left, I realised they didn;t give fat rat's clacker about me. they were all about their daughter. Anyway, I digress ... in short I want to stop the defensive behaviours.

My rationale in not correcting stories is that I have to stop caring about my ex's side of the story and start living my own truth. Trying to correct my ex's stories would be to keep playing the same old games. That's me being the same person rather than learning from the whole experience.

Am I doing a good job of this? Not really but it is coming together more over time. I have to be so conscious of not defending myself to people. However, the glimpses of the other side, when I have been there, is an incredible freedom I have not experienced since being a kid.

peanut2828 wrote:My therapist feels I should write my undiagnosed NPD husband's family a letter explaining my side of the what happened to our marriage.

Thoughts?

I agree with Senseatlast. You need to live your own life and choose the path you want to follow, not trying to fix things which are already broken.

I have been doing the same for years: living somebody else's life convincing myself that "WE" are doing what we wanted to do.

Apart from the genetic traits, his behavioral problems have also come from somewhere! i.e his parents! I would say that you have a very small chance of getting the support and understanding you deserve from his parents.

Looking back, my xN's parents were actually complete wackos who battled with neighbours, business partners, just about everybody in a 30 mile radius. They felt always vindicated and always blamed others. I myself believed that they were right for a long time, until I met some of their antagonist, who turned out to be the nicest person, honest, fair with real morals. Only then I understood that her parents scapegoated everybody for their own failures. Yes, it was impossible to believe that there were a hundred crazy people around who had nothing else to do but cause them trouble on a daily basis!

After several futile attempts to talk to my xNP's father I finally managed to tell him my concerns regarding his own daughter. The sort of things your therapist recommended you to put in writing.

His answer was: "You know, she is very special"!!

Forget the parents! On the other hand, if you introduced him to the right group of people and created a conducive environment it might increase the chances of seeing a different viewpoint. Different from his and his parents.

Sadly, the moment of realisation is also the end of the morbid NS-N relationship. When the mouse says to the cat: I want to play my own game, the cat moves on and finds another mouse.

Believe me, your rewards of meeting sane people will be so refreshing that will soon give up trying to convince your other half of what's right or wrong.

One consolation though; if he ever realises what he had done wrong, he will admit it himself without you putting pressure on him.

My husband's mother wrote me an email today--she just found out about our separation. The kicker is she had no idea we were separated and is at a family event expecting to see me with my husband. He didn't tell them we were separated before this event that she expected to see me at. She wrote a very sweet email telling me how sorry she was and how much they loved me.

I am trying to decide whether to respond with my take on things or to just let it go. Thoughts/opinions?