Hello everyone. I've considered posting this story for a while and I think that I've found the right sub. I'm sorry in advance for any rambli-ness...my wife and I have been dealing with this for a long time and I have a lot of pent-up feelings. I'm now understanding the power of just getting my feelings out and I know reddit has the capacity for good. So, here we go...
(Sorry if my terminology or abbreviations are wrong or out of place. Also I apologize if some details are fuzzy. Not only are a lot of these stories old, I experienced them second-hand through my wife's sister/brother who were actually in the house.)
The problems started a little over a year ago when my Mil died of breast cancer. During the last few days of her life, I noticed my Fil was having a particularly hard time with it. However, he kept taking pills (Zanax and Colonapin (sp?)) that the doctor at the hospital allegedly gave him. I didn't think much of it because I was busy enough trying to support my wife during this time. Shortly after she died, he began drinking. While everyone was still in town helping out, it was just fun and helped us all loosen up a bit. In a way, I was glad and hoped that it would help him relax a bit. I have no idea what it's like to lose a spouse so I tried to be supportive of him during this time. After a few weeks, once all the family had left, things began to change.
Arguments began happening between him and my wife's younger siblings (at the time her brother was 14). His primary talking point was "you don't understand what I'm going through". This frustrated me because his children had a pretty damn good idea and he continually acted like he was the only one experiencing any pain at all. Around this time, we would get phone calls late at night about how he was having some kind of breakdown and my Bil would need to come and stay with us. In one such instance, he had something of a breakdown and smashed up a bunch of his furniture. During these times it was clear that he was abusing the previously mentioned medication and combining it with liquor (my Sil was finding bottles hidden in his room). Each incident was punctuated with apologies and promises to do better. Once, my Bil came to stay with us because the water had been shut off for lack of payment. Several similar instances occurred as the weeks turned into months. Fill was making a lot of trips and "working" but somehow none of the bills were ever paid on time. People from outside continuously offered help but he claimed to have it under control. Rumors of emotional abuse flowed in but I was unsure what to do.
I'll now share the three instances that I had direct exposure to. Warning: they are intense.
My wife and I went to eat dinner with the family. Fill was doing fine at first, cooking and laughing. Right before dinner was ready, he went upstairs and was gone for about 15 minutes. We waited so that we could eat, and once he came downstairs it was clear that he had taken something. He began babbling about "wanting to spread his seed" to his three children whose mother had died mere months ago. While we ate, he kept missing his mouth and getting food on his arms and the table. At one point, my Bil asked him to please stop saying rude things and he responded "I'm going to punch you in the mouth. I'm serious, shut the fuck up." Sil says "we said we were leaving if you talked like that again" and takes Bil. Wife and I stay to talk him down because he gets angry and starts slamming silverware and plates around. I manage to get him to calm down and ask him what he took. I'll never forget how he looked me dead in the face and never admitted to taking a single thing. He swore he took no pills and drank no alcohol that day. Ten minutes later, he is asking where his son is. He was so fucked up that he had forgotten what happened. Before I got him to bed, he asked another couple of times even though I repeatedly told him what he had done. The next day, another round of apologies and promises to do better. I hoped that the intensity of that moment would be a wake-up call for him.
About a month later, we get another call in the middle of the night. Fil got fucked up again and passed out. He knocked a table over and smashed a glass centerpiece, slashing his arm. If his son hadn't heard the noise and came downstairs, he probably would have bled out that night. We rushed over and helped clean up the blood and sort out the situation with the cops. We tried to get a protective order filed with a magistrate so he could be held in the hospital for observation, but he talked his way out of the hospital later that day. He went around telling everyone that it was an accident and it "wasn't a big deal". I cleaned your fucking blood up off of the floor. Your daughter (my wife) should not have to deal with that shit.
A little more time passes (probably another month or so). Note: we did not witness this event. Bil wants to eat and Fil was on the phone with his new girlfriend. Apparently there was no food in the house and a meal out was promised. Bil kept asking about food, because he's a kid and needed to eat dinner. Fil grabs a pistol and puts it in his own mouth. Bil later testified that he ran downstairs and covered his ears, waiting for the gunshot. That part of the story still gives me chills to this day. This was the final straw, as Bil went to live with some family friends who were granted temporary (later permanent) protective custody. Fil did not even bother showing up to either hearing (he was worried about his pills and his phone, having just been released from the hospital). He told everyone that the incident was "blown out of proportion" and it "didn't happen that way". Again, he charmed his way out of the hospital quickly.
Shortly after the first hearing, he abruptly married the girlfriend (my wife found out on Facebook) and moved away. He left their family home in disrepair with a mortgage that is now almost a year unpaid and counting. I had to personally go over and clean out two refrigerators full of food that had been rotting for months. The house is not foreclosed because a family friend who is a realtor is trying to close a short sale on the home. He has basically left his real family and treats his new wife and stepdaughter like his new family. His parents and sisters all treat us like garbage because we "abandoned him".
I am a very patient person. For almost an entire year I stood by and tried to help and be there for a man who was in pain...but also only cared about himself. I am tired of watching my wife suffer and not be able to grieve for her mother because she is busy cleaning up her father's messes that he left behind because they weren't convenient. I'm tired of seeing him enjoying his happy new life on Facebook and acting spiritual and reasonable when he sends nasty texts and calls to all the family he left behind. I'm tired of him apologizing publicly and everyone supporting him for being so brave and noble while I shoveled rotten turkey out of his house and we struggled financially to take care of the son that he should have taken care of. I'm tired of him lying to everyone about everything that we have experienced and dealt with (he told people I had been taking him to therapy sessions, for instance).
I want to be strong for my wife. I'm trying to look out for our family by cutting his poison out of our life. Somedays I just don't know what to do...if I did the right thing of if I'm the selfish one. I know I haven't focused much on his N tendencies but the traits are there. He lied endlessly about almost everything and we have trouble keeping track of what is true and what isn't.
Thank you for reading. Again, I apologize if this lacked direction...I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Even if no one says anything, it felt good to get it out. The Internet is often a terrible place, but there is some good to it.
Submitted December 03, 2014 at 06:31AM by ness839 http://ift.tt/1yKNVQS raisedbynarcissists
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