Intro & Triage of edithkeeler

edithkeeler

Longtime lurker lady, first time poster. Let's do this thing!

Q1 - Basic Questions
We're both 39, married for 12 years, together for 15. We have 3 kids -- ages 8, 7, and 10mos (our baby was very much planned). H is an 8, and I'm a 5 (for now, ugh!). He's 6'1", 185lbs, and is fit, muscular, dresses well, is in tremendous shape, and looks younger than his age. I'm 5'7", 178lbs, and have great boobs, legs, and long hair, but have not lost the baby weight around my midsection yet-- once I do that I could probably be a 7 on a good makeup & short dress day, while realistically being a 6 or slightly under most days.

Q2 - Rule Out Medical
I need to lose the baby weight, stat! I have a Mirena IUD that has totally eliminated SW. Love it! Sexy times!

H struggles with some hidden mental health issues around narcissism (stemming from childhood trauma) and "dysthymia," as he calls it, from time to time. I have some "Caretaker" tendencies around H's narcissism that I am working on stopping-- MAPping is vitally important to this goal of mine.

Q3 - Rule Out Structural Attraction Issues
I'm overweight. I'm a SAHM. I don't have any local friends yet because we just moved across the country for H's career-- he is an excellent provider. We do well financially, our only debt is a mortgage, and we have our educations -- I can undoubtedly support myself and our children financially should we ever divorce.

Q4 - Rule Out CMNs
The lede is unburied-- here be elephants! Bottom line: We have CMNs up the frickin' wazoo. It's been a real downward spiral lately. Loads of stresses of the kind one would naturally predict with the addition of a new baby, a cross-country move, selling a home, moving into a rental... but beyond that, RC is pretty non-existent. H does not meet my emotional needs at all. I have asked. And asked. He is useless and inconsistent around the house, and whenever he does try to add value by doing something, he creates more work for me while expecting a pat on the back-- and passive aggressively criticizing the way I do it. He chooses other people over me, in small ways, constantly. I'm just not a priority for him, and I'm jealous of his male best friend-- it's triangulation, and is related to his narcissism and my Caretaking. I wish he were a lot more Beta!
... to be continued...

edithkeeler

Q5 - Rule Out Outside Sexual Sources
Um, I cannot rule anything out when his SR is so much higher than my own. But. We have regular, hot-to-me sex. I will not initiate, and I never turn him down. Since we moved to the new state a few weeks ago, he won't kiss me on the mouth though. He won't do a drive by. Sometimes it feels like hate sex-- but holy hell, it's some good Alphatastic stuff and to be totally honest, I thoroughly enjoy it. 

Q6 - When Did the Sex Go Bad?
It hasn't "gone bad" so much as it has changed in the last month (since we moved across the country) into something a lot less loving and tender but still quite exciting-- and yet, I am pretty satisfied with this part of our marriage.

Q7 - What Was Sex Like At The Start of The Relationship?
Extremely fulfilling and frequent. The best both of us had ever had-- and it was neither of our first rodeos and we didn't have any hang ups. Sexually we were, and are, very compatible.

Q8 - The Elephant in the Room
(See the answer to Q4 above). In short, I'm a fat woman with 3 kids who is rapidly approaching the age of 40, and who is married to a man with narcissistic tendencies with a higher SR than mine. If it were not for the kids, and the fear of some imagined future evil stepmother for my babies that he would choose, I would leave this marriage immediately. Or to put this another way, he has no love left for me. His ability to see me as a caring, capable partner is very challenged by his mental illness. He did not do anything for our wedding anniversary a few days ago, and when I asked if he has anything planned for my 40th next month, he told me I would be crazy to expect him to plan anything. Then he refused to talk about it further. The elephant is I need to get a life and pursue my interests and emotional needs outside of my H, and MAP like gangbusters for myself!!

Q9 - Who is the Leader?
My husband... but it is really shitty Captaining. Too much/ too inconsistent Alpha, not nearly enough Beta. I yearn for RC.

Q10 - Talk About The Good Times
We had 11 good married years. On the outside, people thought we had the perfect marriage. Times were good because I was into Laid, Maid, & Trayed territory way too often, and I never really leaned on him for anything-- I am super capable and take care of everything at home and am a whiz financially. It's like he does not even "see" all of the work I do to make our family life awesome; it's totally invisible. Things were good when they were all about him. But once I started sharing with him how scared I was about having a precipitous labor during my last pregnancy in the summer of '15? He just could not handle it. He was afraid of my emotions, out of all proportion to the level of issue I was sharing with him. He got super passive aggressive about it. Started stonewalling me while throwing me under the bus to his male friends. I realized then that he doesn't not have my back and he has real mental health challlenges of his own that the outside world does not see. (Wait, this question asked me to "Talk About The Good Times" but note that all I just did here was complain? There ya go. I really really need to work on Staying Positive and MAPping.)

Thank you for reading!!

RedPillRon

Hello and welcome aboard. Which of the books have you read? Have you started to lay out what your MAP will look like? Glad you are here to work on it and I hope we can be a solid and marriage positive resource for you!

SignorePillolaRossa

welcome
sorry to read you are in a bad place
i am pretty sure that if any place can help, this place is it

you gotta get fit (diet/exercise) and build-in things to your life that give you positive emotional energy as an individual (not as a wife or mom) ... meet a new social circle in your new town, 'put it on the calendar' and send him email/calendar reminders of nights you will be out of the house for a weekly thing ... make your equitable needs be known and stand up for getting them met (i.e him doing his fair share after work/weekends, etc) ... achieve emotional escape velocity so that you are not in his orbit and dependent on him for positive energy .... inject positive energy in ways that you choose but not as a covert contract to make him do the same ... detach from any negativity associated with your marriage - if you dont need it, you wont miss it ... then you will be able to engage it on your terms

maybe schedule a call with one of the pros here?

good luck

nubby

Listen to this man ^^^^^^ he knows what he's talking about. 

HowlAtTheMoon

Hi!

From another former orbiter, laid-maid-trayed, married to a borderline narc.....I get it and it is not hopeless. It is a long road, but not impossible.  

Do you have a gym? Find one with childcare and start doing whatever exercise revs you up. Something you can improve upon not related to the scale. Sure, you want to drop 20 lbs,  but you will also need something that gives you confidence.

You need a way out of the LMT & orbiting  territory. Activities and friends will be your salvation, especially if they are away from the house.

Do you get emotional when voicing your feelings/plans/needs? You need to find your inner stoic during these statements.  Until then don't talk about it. 

You sound a little fixated on the weight, but it sounds like 99% of your needed work is internal.

Also, your narcissist sought you out for a reason. When you stop being that person, he might get really nasty. You will need to be very tough. The fact that he actually recognizes some of his issues is very promising. 

mrsthing

You sound like you have an awesome attitude!  And your husband, just from reading this actually sounds very insecure, perhaps stemming from his mental illness issues.  Is he in therapy? 

My H has Aspergers.  I came here before I knew that, he got diagnosed last year. My H was not big on relationship comfort and he was downright nasty to me at times before he sought therapy.  Just because a person has a different way their brain works is no excuse.  I have stopped taking it from my H - around here we say "There's Aspie, and then there's asshole."  The issues are no excuse for bad behavior.

I myself have PTSD and it causes me to be very angry at times.  My H should and does not put up with it.  It is a big part of my work not to let the anger get the best of me and I have really improved.  But it is no excuse for anything.

I moved from a big city I spent my whole life in to a rural area.  Sounds a lot like your situation.  I didn't think I'd have any friends and I did not even DRIVE when I came here, so totally dependent on H!  But I did make friends very quickly - I started going to classes by myself. A lot of people were shocked that I went to a dance class alone but why not? I like to dance and that is good exercise too!  I took two different dance classes, joined a discussion group, joined a gym.  I met two women in the group who literally introduced me to everyone they knew.  Voila - friends!  You'd be surprised how many people are interested in making new friends.

I joined a gym and started lifting weights 1 year ago.  Changed my life in many ways, and most of those are not physical.  It gives you confidence!  I highly recommend weights for women.

HowlAtTheMoon

Second the weightlifting. When you feel your physical strength going up, it helps your emotional strength too. When you start feeling like a badass, you will naturally be more confident and orbit less. It is a great activity for  women of all walks, but especially for those of us with codepedency issues.

DaddyOh

Count me in for tackling fitness. You can start small. 1.5lbs a month. Multiply it by 12 and after a year youre down roughly 20lbs. 

How's your diet? How is your husband able to stay fit? Pay attention to his routine and food intake. 

But personally all women post pregnancy should get a year pass (weight). I mean, you got a major activity in your life, it's called raising a kid.

HildaCorners

Welcome!

One of the things we sometimes say here is "The Stay Plan is the Go Plan." Any self-improvement you do will help you whether you stay married or not.

Think about what you'd do if you knew you'd be divorcing. Think about what you'd do if you could never divorce. Anything that falls into both groups is something you can and should take action on now.

You sound well-grounded and focused. That's excellent, and a good base for everything.

One caution, from my own experience after a long-distance move ... could your husband be cheating? I don't want to set off false alarm bells, but there is a possibility, and I think it would be wise to rule it out.

edithkeeler

RedPillRon said:

Hello and welcome aboard. Which of the books have you read? Have you started to lay out what your MAP will look like?

Thank you, @RedPillRon! I've read The MAP book multiple times, along with most of Athol's and Serenity's blog posts, and a fair amount of the similarly-situated folks' MMSL Forum posts here. I'm also a self-improvement book junkie in general, and right now my go-to's are The MAP book, and one that dovetails nicely with the MAP called "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On With Life" by Margalis Fjelstad, which perfectly describes my ongoing role in my dysfunctional marriage. As I think about what my MAP will look like, I know the finish line will look a lot like the list in @Sr.PR's sagacious comment:

SignorePillolaRossa said:
...you gotta get fit (diet/exercise) and build-in things to your life that give you positive emotional energy as an individual (not as a wife or mom) ... meet a new social circle in your new town, 'put it on the calendar' and send him email/calendar reminders of nights you will be out of the house for a weekly thing ... make your equitable needs be known and stand up for getting them met (i.e him doing his fair share after work/weekends, etc) ... achieve emotional escape velocity so that you are not in his orbit and dependent on him for positive energy .... inject positive energy in ways that you choose but not as a covert contract to make him do the same ... detach from any negativity associated with your marriage - if you dont need it, you wont miss it ... then you will be able to engage it on your terms...

Amen!!!

edithkeeler

HowlAtTheMoon said:
From another former orbiter, laid-maid-trayed, married to a borderline narc.....I get it and it is not hopeless. It is a long road, but not impossible.  

Do you have a gym? Find one with childcare and start doing whatever exercise revs you up. Something you can improve upon not related to the scale. Sure, you want to drop 20 lbs,  but you will also need something that gives you confidence.

You need a way out of the LMT & orbiting  territory. Activities and friends will be your salvation, especially if they are away from the house.

Do you get emotional when voicing your feelings/plans/needs? You need to find your inner stoic during these statements.  Until then don't talk about it. 

You sound a little fixated on the weight, but it sounds like 99% of your needed work is internal.

Also, your narcissist sought you out for a reason. When you stop being that person, he might get really nasty. You will need to be very tough. The fact that he actually recognizes some of his issues is very promising.

I seriously cannot thank you enough for sharing this @HowlAtTheMoon-- I know you completely get it and can totally relate! Finding a gym that's a good fit with childcare, as well as activities and local friends, are all near the top of my priority list right now, as I try to get my head above water after the move.

Typically, I do not get overly emotional at all when first voicing my concerns-- under normal circumstances I'm pretty decent at using I-statements, choosing the correct time and tone with which to bring things up, and the like, but I have definitely erred when I've gotten emotional at rare times when I felt just really overwhelmed with one-off sudden chores that I had to ask my man to step up and help me handle -- such as the embarrassing fit I threw at 8 days postpartum after I had to shovel snow while dealing with a torn up V, painfully engorged breasts, and a new infant. Yes, I had asked H clearly and calmly for what I had wanted, too, instead of him seeing what obviously needed doing after a huge snowfall. He told me he would do it and dropped the ball. Record snowfall there, and I had called around and nobody could come remove the snow before the sun would turn it into an ice slick. It sucked, it was not pretty and I am not proud of the things I said to H that day. We've since figured out that H's narcissism issues were at play, DARVO ensued, triangulation with 3rd parties he gossiped to me about months later ensued, and I have definitely learned the hard lesson that the price I have to pay for a little freak out like that is too high. As you say, "don't talk about it" and "you will have to be very tough" is 100% correct!

There is hope though! I know you are right. Thank you!!

edithkeeler

mrsthing said:

You sound like you have an awesome attitude!  And your husband, just from reading this actually sounds very insecure, perhaps stemming from his mental illness issues.  Is he in therapy? 

Why, thank you @mrsthing! I try really, really hard to keep a positive attitude. Sometimes I really believe my own positive frame, too! 'Fake it til you make it' and all. Lol.

My H is deeply insecure; let's just say he has had to overcome a truly horrific childhood that has left him deeply scarred. Yes, the good news is he goes to therapy and has been working so diligently on himself. He is so brave to tackle that challenge-- huge DHV there! I have my own therapist, too, who I talk to from time to time to help shore up my own self-esteem which I've learned always takes a hit over the years together in subtle ways that are not always obvious when one is married to a narcissist.

Speaking of therapy, we've also done some very effective couples therapy a few years ago with a seasoned, very experienced (and now-retired) older male therapist in our former state who embraced the Gottman approach, which I know has been mentioned here on the Forum a lot and is excellent. He totally got the dynamic in our marriage right away and H responded well to him after an incredibly painful session in which H got abusive and bizarrely defensive towards me in the session and the therapist put a stop to it. (Hello, narcissism!) We recently tried sitting down with a local couples therapist here in our new state, but found that our issues were well above her experience level and she is way too green and frankly not discerning enough to be of any real help to us-- oh well, huge bonus points to H for being willing to go with me in the first place. I know how incredibly hard being at all vulnerable is for him, and I definitely see the meaning behind him showing up to do that kind of work for us. We concluded that we need to be a lot more careful about engaging with just any old, garden variety counselor who hangs a shingle-- in the near term we're just going to have to muddle through and help ourselves.

edithkeeler

DaddyOh said:

Count me in for tackling fitness. You can start small. 1.5lbs a month. Multiply it by 12 and after a year youre down roughly 20lbs. 

How's your diet? How is your husband able to stay fit? Pay attention to his routine and food intake. 

But personally all women post pregnancy should get a year pass (weight). I mean, you got a major activity in your life, it's called raising a kid.

Thanks, @DaddyOh! My diet is sugar and carb-laden and terrible, and on top of that my baby still wakes up at night sometimes so I definitely could use more restful deep sleep. Huge REDs there. I'll see results if I start eating cleaner. (The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak! Lol.) My H is able to stay fit because he does not eat crap, he straight up enjoys hard exercise 5 or 6 days a week and feels off if he does not get enough of it, and he can work out pretty much whenever he wants to and he even has a gym at the new office, where he is the boss.

HildaCorners said:

...One of the things we sometimes say here is "The Stay Plan is the Go Plan." Any self-improvement you do will help you whether you stay married or not.

Think about what you'd do if you knew you'd be divorcing. Think about what you'd do if you could never divorce. Anything that falls into both groups is something you can and should take action on now.

You sound well-grounded and focused. That's excellent, and a good base for everything.

One caution, from my own experience after a long-distance move ... could your husband be cheating? I don't want to set off false alarm bells, but there is a possibility, and I think it would be wise to rule it out.

Thank you, @HildaCorners! I've been reading your spot-on comments here on the Forum as I've lurked for the longest time, and I totally appreciate your perspective. "The stay plan is the same as the go plan" is also one of my favorite Athol quotes. Yes, harsh truth but yes, my H could absolutely be cheating on me. He is attractive as hell! "Trust, but verify" is how I like to frame these thoughts so they do not spiral into needless catastrophizing. I've recently wondered if H could be having an EA (to the point I've googled around to define & clarify what exactly an EA is and can it be with a person of the same sex if you're straight? but I've stopped short of ordering "Not Just Friends" by Glass). Nevertheless, I have taken a step back personally from socializing with a particular male friend of H's who my own inner ape tells me is not a positive influence on H's sense of monogamy at all. Like this would be the guy he'd go out Sarging with If we were on the outs. Can't quite put my finger on why other than some Spidey Sense, and this person complains loudly about their own crappy old ball & chain type of long marriage far too often = DLV. That PA whiny, sad sack crap is often contagious, too. I'm as red pill as they come and I certainly mate guard and look at phone messages and other evidence. Trying to be proactive but not crazy. Have not turned up anything actionable yet.

HowlAtTheMoon

Not having a freakout when pushed to the brink is hard work.
When he is acting emotionally abusive, it is best to just state "your behavior is unacceptable" , and then simply remove yourself from the room. Your absence is the consequence.  Narcs need that attention, so removing yourself will cause a fit at first, but will be effective. There will be major gaslighting at first though.
Badmouthing you to others in order to make you seem crazy is textbook. 
If he does it in front of you, say "I will not tolerate this disrespect" and remove yourself. He might say "see? She's crazy" or something, but people are not all that stupid. You remove yourself from his presence enough and it will sink in. While narcs can charm most people, they can't fool everyone.
He might rage over this initially and say you are embarrassing him, but eventually it will train his behavior.  You can't change the way he thinks, but you can change his behaviour towards you by drawing boundaries on what you will tolerate. Narcs generally have no boundaries so this will be uncomfortable. I'm guessing you have some substantial Nice Guy/Girl syndrome, so it is going to be uncomfortable anyway.

He chose you. It wasn't random. Narcs love a weak frame. I'm betting once you come out of the codependent low self-esteem fog, you will no longer see him as an 8.

If he had NPD to point of being at the psychopath end of the spectrum, I would say cut your losses. But since he is willingly in therapy and even admits to a problem, that is the strong narcissistic tendencies end of things. You can work with that. The same advice around here will apply, but you are going to need a frame of steel.

*************************
Are you still breastfeeding?  You might find yourself unable to shift extra fat until you have weaned. Prolactin is a fat storage hormone and can throw a wrench into weightloss. A lot of women find that weight falls off without any effort after weaning, so be patient. 

edithkeeler

HowlAtTheMoon said:

Not having a freakout when pushed to the brink is hard work.
When he is acting emotionally abusive, it is best to just state "your behavior is unacceptable" , and then simply remove yourself from the room. Your absence is the consequence.  Narcs need that attention, so removing yourself will cause a fit at first, but will be effective. There will be major gaslighting at first though.
Badmouthing you to others in order to make you seem crazy is textbook. 
If he does it in front of you, say "I will not tolerate this disrespect" and remove yourself. He might say "see? She's crazy" or something, but people are not all that stupid. You remove yourself from his presence enough and it will sink in. While narcs can charm most people, they can't fool everyone.

It is so hard to simply remain calm and leave the room when he sometimes acts emotionally abusive; the only way to go is to let my actions do the talking. That's the key! These N-types really are quite predictable in their pathology in some respects, aren't they? Gaslighting - check. (H has tried to convince a bunch of people that I had a few different mental illnesses.) Badmouthing and Triangulation? - check, check. Set a boundary, then let my actions do the talking. You nailed it.

HowlAtTheMoon said:

... I'm guessing you have some substantial Nice Guy/Girl syndrome, so it is going to be uncomfortable anyway.

He chose you. It wasn't random. Narcs love a weak frame. I'm betting once you come out of the codependent low self-esteem fog, you will no longer see him as an 8.

I definitely grapple with the Nice Girl disease to please in my marriage. It will be so great to be on the other side of the fog for a change!

I'm no longer nursing, so unfortunately I can't pin my non-budging weight on that-- it's my crappy diet. Gotta clean it up. And get more cardio. I signed up for a 5k race this month, and I just booked a weekend away with old friends next month. I'll post my MAP here within the next 2 weeks or so. Really grateful to all of you for listening and sharing.

DaddyOh

"H has tried to convince a bunch of people that I had a few different mental illnesses."

Umm, that is unacceptable. You guys are partners. 

The following example is different dyanamic but still applies. My buddies son (16yo) was talking back to his mother. My buddy had enough. He went up to his son, looked him in the eye and said "Do not ever taken to my wife like that again". 

Notice the the word he used, Wife, not mom. Huge difference. 

It applies to your situation. "I am your wife, please do not speak ill of me. It's a bad reflection on me and our marriage" 

edithkeeler

@DaddyOh, yeah it is completely unacceptable. And unattractive. And disloyal. And not to mention awkward for the person hearing it. It is basically textbook narcissistic triangulation and projection, and while it hurts me deeply and feels like hell I can totally predict it, which is oddly comforting in a weird way-- like there is a measure of power in knowing to just expect stuff like this from time to time, and learn to route around it!  When he does this what he's really saying is he is grappling with the complexity of his own mental illness and temporarily cannot cope. The work around that my therapist taught me is to choose my potential inner circle friends carefully and really feel them out on the front end to make sure they're going to be able to be supportive given the unusual context. I can say to potential girlfriends when the time is right and we are getting closer as friends: "Can I give you a little pointer about me & H? Sometimes H does this triangulation thing where he complains about me and it puts people we're closer to in an awkward position. What has worked really well when folks have heard that kind of talk is to say "You should talk to edithkeeler."

It would be so lovely to be married to a man who is baseline normal and doesn't go around trying to publicly diagnose his wife everytime he feels stressed. Lol (Not funny at all really but if I don't laugh I'll cry. The ugly one. Mascara everywheres. Nooooo!.)

edithkeeler

Tonight I really had a hard time holding frame. I failed a shit test (... or something?) which appeared in the form of a petty and logically inconsistent criticism via text that I should have ignored but did not. (I should have seen it coming, too. Gah!) So basically I am taking the kids on an overnight trip to a nearby city one night this week before a day they don't have school. Weeks ago I told H about this. (He'll have a night all to himself with no kid or wife responsibilities at all to hang with, say, his male friend I can't stand-- should be good news for him!) Then I put it on our shared iCal, which for years he has said he will check iCal but neglects to and then often tries to blame me after the fact for any mishaps his failure to check iCal causes. Today he texts me that he "just saw the trip on iCal???" and "this is the first I am hearing about an overnight trip to City" even though he also said he recalls I "vaugely mentioned" something about it to him a few weeks ago. See the logical inconsistency there? Predictable. He scheduled a private sport lesson for our oldest kid at the same time as I had indicated we'd be leaving town, and did not tell me about the lesson nor ever put it on iCal. I texted back "great! no problem, we'll just be delayed in leaving town by one hour, so no big deal. Please put all of the kids' lessons onto iCal going forward. Thank you!"

His response: "Sure if you can agree that any trips involving our children can be communicated in person rather than just posting them on iCal." Um, what? That's what I did. So I texted back "could you please give me a call?" He called. I asked him to explain what he meant. His answer made no sense. Then I messed up and totally DLV'd myself by asking him to re-read the damn texts he sent in which he admits I told him in person weeks ago. I felt myself starting to lose my cool so I quickly got off the phone.

He came home late and picked a fight with me and as I laid down in bed trying to go to sleep he stood over me and kept berating me, saying I have a lot of issues and am a bad mom. I asked him to leave the room and he went to sleep in the big kids' room. Ugh. This was after a week of near perfection from me, which is so galling, including sex that many of ya'll would categorize as high energy, awesome home cooked meals at home, I ran a 5k race with our oldest child in attendance and posted a damn decent time for as postpartum as I still am, I put together a flawless birthday celebration for one of our big kids, where H even got to network with some work people. I brought peace in the valley. Then narcissism rears its ugly head again because his therapist who he sees once a week was out of town. It's so unfair. (End pity party.)

edithkeeler

Upon further reflection... the above post of mine shows the Nice Girl tendencies I am trying to overcome. I need to stop paying heed to what H says when he picks odd fights.

I figured out that H's strange fighty reactions were because he did not want me to take our oldest child on the trip-- he only wants me to take the middle child. Told him our oldest could decide for himself and he chose to stay with H after witnessing H reduce me to tears before school thus morning. ugh. My frame is weak. Gotta MAP like there's no tomorrow on having a frickin frame to end all framey mc frame frames!

HowlAtTheMoon

I don't think pointing out what he admitted moments before was a dlv. It was likely a catalyst to the later berating because he knew he was wrong. If he is standing over you and yelling about all the ways you suck, you state his behaviour is unacceptable and you leave the room. (Although I think telling him to leave was fine since you were going to sleep and you leaving the bedroom is handing him control.)