Giving DH ultimatum - NC with alcoholic NPD MIL or our marriage is over.

[mulranna]

Sick of the drama. I have been NC with her for a year. I have not felt the right to ask him to do the same until now. But he is there every single night sorting out her manufactured alcoholic dramas and crises, micro managing her life and leaving me with 4 kids to manage. AIBU?

Whilst I can understand your enormous sense of frustration and powerlessness in this awful situation, I don't think giving your DH an ultimatum you don't mean is going to help anyone. Least of all him, who is being pulled apart (albeit I accept through his own choices). He is presumably convinced that his mother is going to die alone, and soon, if he stops bailing her out. There may be some truth in this - women in general are unable to abuse alcohol for as long as men before death occurs. But he can't know this and he can't live his whole life under this shadow (okay he can if he chooses but you can't live under it with him).

If he's refusing to read up about co-dependence, refusing to go to Al-Anon, he's refusing to help himself, just as she is. In which case ultimately you may need to be prepared to make some very hard choices, not because of her behaviour but because of his. It doesn't feel like you're on the same team at the moment, and he could wake up and find himself in a few years with his mother finally dead but his wife and children have drifted away from him forever.

What a shame your poor husband and you too thing is with manipulative parents is their kids feel a sense of guilt and duty mil when alive was the same although not a drinker but dh would be the 1 to sort her out.
You and your husband need to have a conversation to sort out a system where he only sees her on x y z days and stick to it even if she phones and wails your husband needs to be strong maybe going to al anon will give you tools and him strength and permission to do this,
an ultimatumn isnt fair on your dh i know you are pissed off and feeling abandoned but if you want to stay together you need to support but not enable this carry on of him going every night

I am sorry you're going through this OP but I do think an ultimatum would be cruel. For all of her manipulation and drama, she is his mother. Alcoholism is a disease, not a choice. My sympathy with you both, genuinely. Try to imagine how it would feel if you banned him from seeing her and she dies alone, knowing that her son won't come to her. The strain on your marriage would be far greater than it currently is. A pp had it right, get him and the sister together, divide up care equally and make sure your DH has time to take care of himself. It is indescribably painful watching a loved one slowly kill themselves with seemingly no regard for your desperate need for them to be well. Please believe me that she is not choosing to do this. Strength to you all, it's a terrible time.

Yes that is a good idea. We can predict that if he goes NC for 24-48 hrs there will be "a fall" and a call from the hospital to him.

He would then need to decide whether to pass that directly to the sister or take it all on board again .....with the next week consumed with nightly hospital visits (2hr round trip), arranging clean clothes, waiting for tests/decisions/calls from medical/social care, managing her home and pets whilst she is not there, arranging carers/rehab to be in place for when she comes out, waiting for discharge and arranging her transport home, settling her back home by staying overnight.

He has done this 8 times since July.

MIL then cancels the evening carers telling them that her DS will be around to cook her dinner and put her to bed...

He hates her, is at the end of his tether - but still REACTS to it all and is back in the cycle.

That sounds bloody awful it must be a strain can you get in touch with SS yourself ask for advice on her care

Your DH Mulranna is truly the adult child of a narcissist.

Children of narcissists don't make their own decisions, even when they think they are. The thinking process has been cajoled, pushed, manipulated and sometimes even beaten into a process that the narcissist wants.

Adult children of narcissists may find it easier for others to make decisions for them. After all, survival in childhood often depended on this. Unless they take steps to remedy the situation it may seem from outside that they are weak or 'don't have a mind of their own

You have not stated what sort of relationship his sister has with his mother but I would not be surprised if there was not one. The adult children of narcissists who realize that their parent(s) is a narcissist often make a decision not to have contact with that parent. This seems very harsh to those who do not understand narcissism, but makes perfect sense when you consider that those with malignant narcissism do not change, and further contact with them simply gives them an opportunity to continue manipulating and abusing their children.

His own inertia when it comes to his mother is simply hurting him as well as his own family unit.

My DH is in contact directly with SS - I am almost a year NC with MIL now so keeping out of all of it - I was also enmeshed in her nonsense - rescuing her for decades from dramas/crises. Things have obviously intensified for him as I am now not picking up the slack.

I think that I have let him run around after her hoping that he would find an appropriate balance and put in boundaries himself - this hasnt happened and I suppose I have just festered and am now over reacting - by considering this ultimatum - it needs to be a compromise as you all say 2/3 nights a week.

I appreciate that alcoholism is an illness but if the "patient" doesnt see that it is an illness and wont take the medicine, but choses instead to wreak havoc on everyone elses lives then that definition is not really relevant... it becomes relevant when the person accepts the need for change.

Attila - his sister has a v distant relationship - visits her mother twice a year for an hour or two. His brother cut her out about 10 years ago. Are you suggesting then that I take the tough decisions that he is unable to make? Can he ever be reconditioned to stand up to her and how does this dysfunctional NPD/alcoholic/mother - son experience impact his approach to other relationships?

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, part of the illness is the inability to see it. It is a devastating, cruel disease and it tears through families indiscriminately.

I think everyone knows deep down when they are behaving like a selfish shit, no matter how deep they bury it, until the point comes that they are an utter wreck of a human being and can no longer really realise that other people have lives too.

Do think that you have to start putting him in the position that he has to make tough decisions, yes. If you don't do that, then he will just carry on.

MIL then cancels the evening carers telling them that her DS will be around to cook her dinner and put her to bed... this is very hard, but if she does this then do not go to her. As long as you've told her that you (or rather, he) will not be around.

When you are dealing with a drunken woman with the attitude, temper and selfishness of a rather difficult toddler, the only thing that works is conditioning them. They have to take the results of their own decisions. If this happens once or twice, they sharp learn.

The downside is that there is a very small chance that something really will happen. However, it's small and ... very sadly, i think that you have to look at what happens if your husband does not stop running after her. What will the future be?

She has the carers and is sending them away. Your husband has done everything that lies within his responsibility.

This is a journey for him and he has to start making the hard decisions somewhere - or he will have lost your trust and in the end your respect. Much as he has a very difficult choice to make, not standing up to her is a destructive decision all of its own.

It is possible, DH took a similar stand with his DM and SDF. They were an horrendous combination. When she took her own life I went into coping mode and shoved DH from pillar to post to get things sorted, he was her executor etc.

As he had already distanced himself he was the only one of the three siblings who coped and have since managed to move on without the extraordinary canonisation she seems to have undergone. He knows she was a flawed individual and a terrible mother (something she had admitted on numerous occasions).

It took a lot of us talking, arguing. allowing etc. But, to be honest, I think DH was more like your DHs brother, ready to quit at a very early stage. You may need to look again at some form of counselling.

In the shorter term, could you and your DH talk to SS and ask for their help? They may have some miracle up their sleeves, some respite, etc.

OurBlanche - the last straw for me when I decided to go NC - was when she threatened suicide in a mad screaming rant in front of my 7 year old daughter who ended up sobbing and squealing - I calmly took her in my arms and walked out and have never looked back.

She has had carers over the past few months - but she doesnt comply (refuses to eat, get dressed, get out of bed, get into bed etc) and sends them away.

I am loosing respect and trust because his actions are showing where his priorities lie - ie not with us and maybe not even with her - he says he hates her - but maybe meeting his own destructive emotional needs - where he is compelled to run to her.

mulranna you are NOT overreacting! You feel how you feel and after all that's happened of course you're struggling. He's struggling too, the key thing here is in taking that struggle on together and working through it. The talking through like a military campaign (or game of chess) and preducting her next move and having your counter moves planned is a way of seeing her behaviour more clearly and taking back a bit of control.

It'll be a long process and there will be relapses. If you both can try to look at it dispassionately and trust that you both have each other's best interests at heart then it won't be on a part with how horrible things are at present.

Never underestimate the power of a big hug, expressing love and saying you can see how hard it is for him but it's affecting your little family and needs to start changing.

He will find it hard but knowing you're on his side it will make it easier. I guess trying to switch off your feeling about her and only trying to emotionally support him is a start until he has reset his levels of tolerance. Not easy but it is possible.

Sadly that is not impossible. BIL was/is much the same. Utterly infantilised by his DM and now by his wife. He used to just vascillate between DM, DMIL and DW, whoever told him what to do last... now he just does as he is told, gets drunk (as in utterly, utterly wrecked) is put to bed and cossetted and starts all over again.

He was always the golden child, sadly this seems to have wrecked his ability to be a self sufficient, independent adult.

You will have some hard decisions to make, you have already recognised that, it won't be easy for you. Maybe Al Anon will help you work out what you can do for yourself and the DCS. I hope so, you sound as though the tether's end has been reached and is fraying under the strain.

I think he is prioritising in the sense of triage. You are yellow flagged as your injuries are less serious, she is red flagged as he's expecting her to die any second. The trouble is that doesn't work quite so effectively when most of the damage is emotional. And she may not die.

I completely agree, the illness label is not at all helpful here. We aren't talking about whether she should stop drinking (obviously she should but that appears to be out of the question) but rather how your DH should manage the fact that she is. She is highly manipulative, as most addicts are, and can certainly figure out ways of getting what she wants - how is she even drinking after all these falls? Is your DH buying her booze? What's the worst that can happen if she sends the carers away after DH has said he is not going round to see her one evening? She's not going to starve in an evening (I'm surprised she's eating all that much anyway) - if he's afraid she'll try and cook whilst drunk, well that's her choice and he can't police every moment of her life.

You deserve a metal. I'd tell him it's over and he needs to leave. Or I'd leave with the kids myself.

Another one voting for Al-Anon. Could you sell it to him as learning how to not enable her addiction.

The only problem and a serious problem with Al Anon is that would be even less time spent with the family

As tribpot says, if he won't even read anything or seek advice from people like al anon, or counselling (with you or alone) it doesn't seem likely he's willing at present to prioritise himself and his relationship with you and the DC over his FOG with his mother. Which is sad but also very unfair on you and the DC.

The question is whether you want to remain in a relationship with him if nothing changes.

In your shoes I would book couples' counselling and find out where al anon meets and issue the ultimatum that he at least seeks proper help and works towards change, or you're out.