Boarding school syndrome

Your poor child. He deserves not to have to live like this.

I’ve sent him a text and demanded him to read up on narcissistic parenting, the family scapegoat and the golden child, and that his behaviour needs to stop right away otherwise I am leaving him.

Good for you. Good luck.

You’ve had a lot of replies already and well done for plucking up the courage to step up to your husband.

just our experience:

My DH didn’t go to boarding school but he was a child actor and was in academies/programmes that did tours/worked away. His parents were definitely pushy, he spent everyday apart from one school night either working/at classes and his favourite night was the one at home. He’d get picked up from school, eat his dinner in the car, and be ferried around to his classes. He talks fondly of his chaperones like they were some kind of second aunts but he was bullied badly. He was in an ALW show and kept being made to perform on a sprained ankle and when he was 11 on tour the other boys in his dorm (including current household names) bullied him as he was the only one not in full time acting school/posh but he just wanted to be at home watching his cartoons. He had to do that tour for a couple of years until he stood up in his audition and refused to part take.

Now he refuses to stay away from home. For his best mate’s stag do he drank coke all night so he could drive home. If he has to travel for work (left acting at 17 much to his parent’s horror..) we travel with him. He collects vintage toys and I’ll quite often find him sitting in his pj’s in the living room watching cartoons. It’s like he never got to be a kid so now he’s making up for it. Home is his happy place and his family is his safe space. He’s a wonderful husband and father but sometimes I wish he went to therapy for his sake.

My Mum went to boarding school and tended to shut down anything too personal.

I was really bullied in my first term of secondary school and, when I bucked up the courage to talk to her about it, just replied “You’ve had a wonderful life” and went back to reading The Telegraph.

I still adored her and miss her terribly.

Gosh, I really recognise this pattern of at table issues and communication issues.

Your husband seems to be taking your son's "Nothing really" at face value. He is interpreting it literally. This is an autistic trait. Your husband might also be struggling massively with sensory triggers during mealtimes. I have this issue with my son - we are a total sensory clash, but are learning to navigate it with patience (well, we try...) and compassion (when we've got a grip and are able to better regulate). I do find his need to touch his food (sensory seeking) and the constant swinging/wiggling/slouching very hard to put up with while I eat, I get a negative physical reaction to it. He's just started secondary school, so this is quite different to the standard behaviour at this age, but his nervous system needs this. As the adult I have to try and make sure that I am well regulated to cope with mealtimes, since he depends on me for co-regulation - it is not always easy, and very occasionally I need to eat seperately for the greater good. Funnily enough, until recently, my son also told me he'd done nothing at school when asked what he'd been up to. This would happen every day! Eventually I realised that he needed to decompress from school first before answering. Also it is much better to start with a low stakes question such as "What did you have for lunch?". Then I might ask how his day went before I asked about how he'd got on in his lessons. Asking specific questions works much better than asking open ended questions. This seems to be working much better. Only this evening he asked me if I was OK because I had not asked how his day was (routine!). I was distracted by a bad migrane and they had come home late from after school activities, so it was nice in a way that he noticed and missed my asking.

@boardingschoolwife , I replied earlier to a comment made by @clinellwipe , and I think some of that info might apply to your family too from your description.

However, autism/ND differences are not an excuse for being a horrible person. So, if your DH won't do anything to improve the situation (even with help and understanding from you), then that's his failing. First I think you need to identify what the root cause of the behaviour is, then proceed accordingly. Our day to day family life has improved massively since we identified that we are dealing with a complex combination of neuro developmental differences - even when things are going totally pear shaped we can now understand why and try to do better next time.

My ex was a boarding school kid and after being with them I can spot adults who have been educated that way a mile off. They had very different perspectives on parental relationships, always seemed to have this scarcity fear over resources. Very very possessive around personal items being touched or moved or thrown away (even if legitimate rubbish).
I don't think it made them the best person they could be by any stretch and certainly gave them some tough experiences that they had to navigate with absolutely no parental support.

Your DC might well love him. Children often love their abusive parents. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for them to continue to be damaged by him. It’s not. You need to face up to this, however difficult it is.

If your DH has an epiphany, if he suddenly seeks help that’s excellent. Regardless your job is to protect your children which means accepting you, and they are living in an entirely dysfunctional and abusive situation ( albeit he’s nice sometimes ), and get out of it. Otherwise the consequences will be heartbreaking.

In this case it might be difficult to seperate out what might be caused by Boarding School Syndrome and what might be caused by the autism.

Since persistent deficits in reciprocal social communication and social interaction is the primary criterion for an autism diagnosis, your husband's behaviour/"emotional unavailability" might be due to autism. Have you looked into this as a family? Understanding each other's sensory needs and triggers and working on sensory processing (e.g. interoception influences being able to recognise one's emotions) can really help improve quality of life. Understanding differences in communication is also very helpful. This does all require effort and patience and compassion (including self-compassion) though.

OP I would suggest you get some good quality counselling yourself. A space to talk through how you relate to your marriage, and how you parent with this man.

This is not just about how he is and what he does. Ultimately you have no control over that. Whereas where you can really make a difference to to your own life, and those of your children, is by looking at what is within your power to change. Therapy can be really good for that. Focus on your own experience, your own sense of self and figure out how to do best for yourself and your children.

If you just drift along and wait for him to change, every month he pulls the same old shit is another month your children are being impacted.

Can you tell I was a boarder?! Self reliance above all things! But when you see children interviewed about difficult upbringing they can hold a huge amount of anger towards the parent who sits by and lets it happen. I know you are here posting for ideas and insight so you are not being passive here, but I think therapy might help you find a more productive way forward than just sending him links accusing him of being a narcissist.

Great start, I hope its the wake up call he needs.

My DF went to boarding school and we always had this - What did you achieve today?
Ugh. And only certain conversations allowed at the table.
I also used to say, nothing really, despite knowing it would cause a scene, because it was better than having whatever else I had to say picked over.

This is so sad.

I feel very very sorry for those sent away so young. I don't think children should be allowed to board (outside exceptional medical/health circumstances where it's the only way to receive an education) until they are at least 13. I would not send my child away from his home and family even at that age tbh.

Yeah, absolutely NPD is difficult to work with for this reason, but there are other personality disorders which can be treated much more successfully. oPs husband sounds like a lost cause to me, very like my father who we spent years making excuses for and thinking counselling would fix. He had no intention of changing, he was quite happy making everyone miserable

I’ve just left a job that I loved due to the new supervisor being exactly like this. She is also a product of boarding school. It all makes sense now. Most of her traits are listed here. Nothing I can do about it now but it’s interesting.

Dh went to boarding school. He has told me before that until he met me he had never felt loved.

He is nothing like you describe. He never, ever puts me or the dc down. On the contrary, he acts like I'm God's gift or something (I'm really not).

Loves us all completely unconditionally, would be willing to die for us (and it's not just saying that, he did in fact put himself seriously in harm's way for ds and me and has never once complained about the lifelong consequences of doing so).

Doesn't think he's the best at anything despite the fact that he usually is. And it's taken me 35 years to persuade him that we are happy for his existence, and don't actually secretly wish he wasn't there (we're getting there).

He is incredibly supportive (and grateful) of my relationship with dc. He once told me 'when I see you being so loving with our boys, the little boy inside who never felt loved heals a little'. It was and remains the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Hi OP. This is interesting to me as my DH also went to boarding school and shares some similar traits. He isn’t great at empathy with me or his mates, and has pretty much zero emotional connection to his (rather dreadful) parents.

With the kids, he can be a bit impatient and slightly critical about certain things (table manners seem to be a particularly big thing) - but he’s generally very warm and loving. He certainly wouldn’t be asking ‘what have you achieved today?’ …and seeing the healthy dynamics within our own family has made him think about certain things, namely the decision his parents made and what it says about them as people. He is more honest now about how fucked up the whole BS experience was than he was when we first met.

You can’t rewrite his history and I’ve learned to accept that giving me amazing emotional support won’t always be my DH’s forte (though he is great in a crisis). I will, however, call him out on it if he is being hard on the kids etc. He always tells them that he loves them and is very proud of their achievements, whatever they are - and I think that’s what matters as long as they know that. The odd bit of emotional repression or being uptight over manners is annoying to me, but none of us are perfect and as long as he is able to communicate the really important stuff, that’s what matters.

Like your DH, OP - my husband would be enormously reticent towards therapy…but if I felt things were really negative as a result of his background, it would be ultimatum time from me. As it is, we seem to manage ok…

My mum went to boarding school at 8 and I feel like it scarred her for life.

The trouble is that even if it can be cured, they would need to recognise the issue and be commited to change which I'd say is very unlikely for someone with narcissistic personality disorder.

My ex and his sister were both sent to boarding school and they are both fucked emotionally. I think it’s a combination of feeling of abandonment from a young age but also the parenting of that age/social circle where nothing ever gets discussed and problems are swept under the carpet. He even has enough self awareness to recognise all this and has had several rounds of therapy but his issues are so deep seated and his system so hard wired to always react with anger, look for threat where there is none, not understand what love (or home life - don’t even get me started on the lack of basics of running a household) and at the same time the feeling of superiority over everyone else. I left in the end because I couldn’t take it any longer, I thought I’d get seriously ill from grief and stress. My life immediately became happier and more peaceful.
Thankfully my ex doesn’t seem to be repeating the patterns with our kids and is a committed and loving father. OP this sort of wiring is hard to change even for someone who wants to. I don’t post often and I never told anyone to leave their relationship but I urge you to protect yourself and your kids because this is no way to spend your life. I really feel for you.

With respect - the thinking and evidence has really changed on this and whilst I understand this has been perceived wisdom for a very long time, luckily there is now hope for people with diagnoses of personality disorders who can be helped by skillful therapeutic intervention

Bear Gryll’s kids go to boarding school

@boardingschoolwife a few people are running with this theme but before everyone decides to pathologise your husband, when you have been to an all male BS, the expectations that he was raised by will understandably be passed onto his son…people don’t understand the competitiveness of the environment and need to repress emotions and vulnerability that boys historically had to do to survive BS. having a daughter is far less triggering and many men can allow their parenting to be softer and more loving for daughters.

I think when children don't feel loved and accepted by a parent they work extra hard to get it. This can look like they adore the parent, but they're actually just desperately trying to get their love, and being rejected over and over again. So they want it more, try harder.

Children have the instinct to try over and over again to get that parent to love them. They think it's all their fault that they aren't loved. They love the parent and it never dawns on them it might be the parent's fault, they just assume it's their own fault and there's something wrong with them. They're not good enough.

It just leads to lifelong low self esteem.

If your son adores his father, then he must believe the problem is himself.

I'm sorry. Everyone probably thinks other things as well. The three men I am thinking of (and like very much, but a little goes a long way) have other boarding school characteristics. They are basically very good at posh scrounging. A bed for the night. A small loan. A long lift. An introduction to someone useful. They are the sort who ended up stranded 20 miles away and need to be picked up. They don't bring presents at Christmas.
But they make you laugh. They love, love, love dogs, theirs and other people's. They always have an anecdote. They eat anything, with enjoyment and say how good it is. They are as comfortable to be with as a good fire on a cold night.