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Hi Richard,
Long story but the gist is that shortly after starting a relationship with my boyfriend I became pregnant. My boyfriend has an ex wife that lives in another country with their son and when she found out about me and subsequently my pregnancy tried very hard to win him back while at the same time she was starting a new relationship with a new man. My boyfriend was able to speak with his son regularly until her new relationship was discovered and now is not allowed more than 20 or so minutes a week speaking with him. She has many npd traits and in my opinion this is punishment as well as a need to control him through his son because she knows how much this will hurt him. And it is.
My boyfriend is increasingly depressed, hopeless and gets flashbacks of anger and annoyance while at work which he experiences as actual physical pain. I feel like he would benefit from grieving and emotional processing- both for what's happening with his son but also process the effects his marriage had on him. He is a people pleaser and cannot admit that he has the right to be angry at what is happening. He says he has to swallow his feelings/ he cannot express them.
So, two questions...
Is there anything I can do to guide him in the right direction, whatever that maybe? I try not to push him to watch your videos- I have in the past and he doesn't seem open to them- my experience with npd was my own and I know his is as well... but with our baby being born early next year I hope he can deal with some of this beforehand... Is that possible given how reluctant he is to deal with it?
Secondly i didn't get through this unscathed- I am a freeze responder and had a number of flashbacks throughout the last 3 months trying to deal with this. How can I set appropriate boundaries so this doesn't get under my skin so much? Ideally I would love the situation to be resolved but don't see much hope in that. My goal is to provide a safe and peaceful environment for when my daughter is born and be able to maintain it.
Long story but the gist is that shortly after starting a relationship with my boyfriend I became pregnant. My boyfriend has an ex wife that lives in another country with their son and when she found out about me and subsequently my pregnancy tried very hard to win him back while at the same time she was starting a new relationship with a new man. My boyfriend was able to speak with his son regularly until her new relationship was discovered and now is not allowed more than 20 or so minutes a week speaking with him. She has many npd traits and in my opinion this is punishment as well as a need to control him through his son because she knows how much this will hurt him. And it is.
My boyfriend is increasingly depressed, hopeless and gets flashbacks of anger and annoyance while at work which he experiences as actual physical pain. I feel like he would benefit from grieving and emotional processing- both for what's happening with his son but also process the effects his marriage had on him. He is a people pleaser and cannot admit that he has the right to be angry at what is happening. He says he has to swallow his feelings/ he cannot express them.
So, two questions...
Is there anything I can do to guide him in the right direction, whatever that maybe? I try not to push him to watch your videos- I have in the past and he doesn't seem open to them- my experience with npd was my own and I know his is as well... but with our baby being born early next year I hope he can deal with some of this beforehand... Is that possible given how reluctant he is to deal with it?
Secondly i didn't get through this unscathed- I am a freeze responder and had a number of flashbacks throughout the last 3 months trying to deal with this. How can I set appropriate boundaries so this doesn't get under my skin so much? Ideally I would love the situation to be resolved but don't see much hope in that. My goal is to provide a safe and peaceful environment for when my daughter is born and be able to maintain it.
