Does this process work on an emotionally abusive WW who has narcissistic personality disorder?

My buddy recently discovered that his wife is having an affair. His WW of nearly twenty years has controlled him in their marriage by what we are certain is narcissistic abuse. She exhibits nearly all the symptoms of NPD as he exhibits nearly all the symptoms of said abuse.

Everywhere we look for guidance on dealing with a narcissistic wife, we find the same guidance; RUN. RUN FAR AND FAST. Get a divorce and thank your stars that she will be someone else’s problem. Narcissists don’t change.

The very few resources that I have found about staying with a narcissist and trying to make it work essential just tell you to learn to live with the abuse.

Is it really that definite? Can the MB process save a marriage to a narcissistic wayward?

Has she been diagnosed by a qualified person as having a personality disorder?

Unfortunately, no. She refuses any help or counseling. From what I understand, that is typical for those with NPD. They outwardly believe they are perfect and that everyone else is the problem.

For what it’s worth, I have been coaching him through the MB process. I gave him my copy of SAA, re-read everything on the website and forums that helped me, shared it all with him, begged him to make an account here (he hasn’t), got him to see his own doctor and to get some meds temporarily to help him through it....

I want this process to work for him. I do. But, for the sake of argument, if she truly has NPD, are his chances of saving his marriage as grim as the internets say they are?

Who is the OM? How long has it been going on? How did he find out?

It seems to have been going on for about 3.5 months, minimum. OM and WW are municipal employees who work for different departments in the same city. However, they have enough occasional contact at work that her continued employment there will be a problem.

He has not fully exposed. I had to stay on him to get him to start. He has exposed to their kids, her parents, most of their close friends, the OMs mother...but NOT their employers for fear of the professional consequences. They would absolutely both be fired. I repeatedly told him consequences be damned, do it anyway. He has not.

Even with his limited trickling exposure, he hid from her exactly who he told and what they know because he is afraid of her angry response. So, he made the ineffective way he exposed even less effective.

This weekend, he moved on to a modification of plan B. She won’t leave the house. So, he moved her stuff into a spare bedroom, changed the locks on the doors, and gave her the plan B letter. So, he’s going to try an “in house plan b” that won’t work because he can’t resist her manipulation. How do I know he can’t resist? He promptly let her back in.

Well, the in house plan b might have had some effect. While she didn’t apologize, she supposedly sent a text to the OM saying she wanted to end all contact. It wasn’t the formal agreed upon NC letter. She claims to want to work on their marriage...

.....but this “break through” has come after they both have seen lawyers that have told them separately that they are both likely to leave their marriage with nothing when all is said and done.

His hesitance to fully follow the MB process and her NPD, which I’m certain she would be diagnosed with if she would agree to honestly seek help, are handicapping his ability to save his marriage. In my humble opinion, that is.

I have been steadfast in recommending he join this forum for support. I have coached him on love busters, love bank, policy of joint agreement....all of it. I’ve shown him tough love, told him to man up, stop letting her control him with her anger, and to fight for his family and his marriage by fully and purely committing to the MB process. He has not yet.

He’s at the stage now where he has accepted divorce as a very likely outcome. So he’s going to present her with the nonnegotiable extraordinary precautions / boundaries he needs her to respect if they are going to work things out.

Again, I fear her narcissism (and his partial application of the MB process) will doom his efforts to failure. Everything I’ve read about NPD says they don’t respect boundaries. They see them as a challenge they must conquer. They only pretend to respect them when it is a means to their own manipulative ends.

My advice to him is to follow the process more purely. To establish boundaries and stick to them. And by boundaries I mean, honesty, respect, no opposite sex friends/confidants, no nights apart, joint agreement, no love busters...etc. I don’t want to get into all the details of the NPD, which I’m certain she has, but she has been emotionally abusive their entire relationship. For example, she never misses an opportunity to emasculate or embarrass him in front of others. She has outrageous angry outbursts behind closed doors. She blames him for everything. She makes things up to accuse him of. Her father has told us she has been that way her whole life. She was an overweight child...and has had self confidence issues her whole life because of it. She projects those insecurities on her children who she fat shames and bullies even though they are not overweight. I told him he has to demand that all that stops.

I don’t know what else to tell him. I don’t have a lot of faith that she’ll change because of the NPD. His half hearted following of this process doesn’t help, but I think the NPD is too big a hurdle to clear.

Is the OM married?

Has anyone that he exposed to (the kids, her parents, friends) told her she needs to stop this affair?

Has he told her she needs to end the affair? Has he told OM he needs to stay away from his WW?

Will he write Dr. Harley and maybe talk with Dr Harley?

The OM is thrice divorced. He’s a real catch. He has confronted him multiple times, on the phone and in person when he’s caught them together. Their adult son has also confronted the OM.

Her children have confronted her and told her to stop. I have as well...from a position of “what you are doing is wrong but you both can fix this and make your marriage stronger and more loving than it has ever been”.

He says I’m the only one whose opinion she seems to care about. When they talk about what’s going on, she cries when she mentions how she thinks I hate her now (I don’t).

I’ve encouraged him to reach out to Dr. Harley. He hasn’t yet. He’s doing zoom type sessions with another counselor who, surprisingly said some similar things that are listed here on MB. However, his counselor has recognized what a fragile state he is in and has shifted to trying to protect his sanity. He has encouraged no contact for the time being.

There is too much to deal with in a single reply, but first, Dr Harley does not accept any definitions of personality disorders unless they have been given by a qualified professional. He says that many people have a degree of disorder but they can rise above this. A disorder does not prevent someone from learning to treat other people well. He is not in favour of saying that someone has a disorder, and therefore there is no solution. On that basis, the MB programme could be used by someone with a disorder for them to learn to have a better marriage.

People having affairs act in very disordered ways, so it is misleading and pointless to label them as having a disorder because of what they are doing. If his marriage cannot be saved, it is not because she has a disorder, but because she refuses to give up her unfaithful life, as many spouses do.

You would have to track Dr Harley's advice on disorders across many different radio shows that have played over the years (as some of us on this forum have done). I am not aware of a single written source on disorders.

If this man is not exposing the affair properly then he hasn't begun Plan A. Neither is he doing Plan A by asking her to leave the house. He should never ask her to leave the house, and after exposure, if he wants to continue working on the marriage, he should stay in Plan A for much longer than he seems to have been. Once he moves to Plan B he needs to accept that his marriage is likely to end. If you have been advising him about Plan B, you need to do a lot more reading because this advice might harm him - if he still wants to recover the marriage.

The problem is much more that he has been following your advice - which seems to have some misunderstandings of its own - "half-heartedly", and with its own cafeteria-choice approach. There are clear targets to include in exposure, and their employers are the first people that should be told if she refuses to leave her job. He cannot ignore this step and expect to get anywhere. What is he afraid of? Is his desire for her to keep her career stronger than his desire to save his marriage? If so, he should just give up now. Nothing else he can do, without getting her to leave that job, will work. Also, there is no such thing as a "modified Plan B or an in-house separation and especially not one that ends after one or two days. The problem is not her supposed personality disorder, but that he does not seem to know what he wants to do, and has not read the MB plan for himself and decided wholeheartedly to try it. He seems to have allowed his own diagnosis of NPB (is that even in the Diagnostic Manual?) to paralyse him into doing very little to end the affair. That is the problem that Dr Harley identifies with saying that a person behaves a certain way because of a disorder; it causes everyone around them to say "oh well, nothing can be done".

You can't fix his marriage for him if he won't go all-in by himself, reading Dr Harley's work, writing directly to Dr Harley, and systematically following the steps laid out in Surviving an Affair.

No contact with whom? With the wife? How is that possible when they live in the same house?

If he is in a fragile state he needs to see his medical doctor for anti-depressant medication. If he wants to stay in this marriage beyond the affair, he will have to be a lot stronger in order to cope with his wife's (permanent, non-affair) behaviour. But why does he want to stay with her? For how long have they been married? Do they have children in common? What ages?

They have been married almost 20 years. They have two children. One they share in common and one that was hers from a pre/existing relationship who he adopted and raised as his own.

His counselor told him to stop pursuing her. He was in a very bad mental state. He has lost an extreme amount of weight. He wasn’t sleeping or eating. He was working out (without fuel or sleep) running 5-8 miles daily to try and destress. He has since started taking anti depression and anti anxiety meds and is starting to normalize a bit.

I’ve repeatedly told him he has to be stronger and smarter, to be in control of his emotions, if he has any chance of saving his family. That’s my main message every time we talk now: “Be strong. Man up. You have to lead right now because she can’t”.

He wants to stay with her for all the reasons you would hear from someone who thinks they love their spouse...also for all the reasons that a battered or abused spouse would stay: for the kids, for all they’ve been through, for all they’ve built financially that they will lose...and for his pseudo personality that she has gaslighted him into believing he has. He’s also a “fixer” and thinks he can fix her.

He is afraid of her. He has always tried to please and appease her to avoid her emotional battery. He just texted me that I should come over tomorrow and pretend like everything is fine because she really needs my approval. I told him that the opposite needs to happen right now. That everyone who knows should let her know that they DISAPPROVE of her actions and that she needs to stop.

He said she’s crazy and can’t handle that. I told him she needs to here it because she is “crazy” and it’s the only thing that might make her come to her senses.

I will bump a thread in Other Topics entitled "emotional personality disorders". Please read it carefully from beginning to end. I'm not sure if the radio show links will still work, but please try them.

The thread was started by someone who wanted to collect in one place the written statements and radio clips that Dr Harley had made on...I'll just have to call it "disorders", because the poster conflated the concepts of "emotional disorders", which Dr Harley feels that most of us have at one time or another, and "personality disorders", many of which Dr Harley has little time for. The thread's title of "emotional personality disorders" made no sense, because there is no such thing - this is two things shoved together.

Anyway, what I'd like you to see is how, at first, the original poster was selective in finding statements, such as in an email from Dr Harley to the poster himself, that he thought supported the view that people with "emotional personality disorders" could not have an MB marriage. However, almost everyone who joined the thread had heard Dr Harley dismiss many personality disorders (not emotional disorders - as I said, most of us have these at one time. Depression is an example of an emotional disorder, and depression is common). He says that personality disorders are often the subject of armchair diagnosis (as in your friend's case) and that they are vastly over-diagnosed in general. The posters to that thread provided much evidence to show that Dr Harley advises that we should not use those labels unless the person has been professionally evaluated, and even then, the diagnosis is not an excuse to explain their bad behaviour. The person can want to be, and thus learn to be, caring spouses who use the Policy of Joint Agreement to avoid hurting the other spouse. If they want to be married, then they need to learn that they can change their behaviour, and that POJA is the key to successful marriage.

In your friend's case, as well as his use of the disorder label throughout his marriage to let his wife get away with appalling behaviour, she doesn't seem to know that she cannot behave exactly as she pleases if she wants to stay married.

Why does HE want to stay married to her, given her long period of ill-treatment of him?

The problem is not with her non-diagnosed personality disorder, but with him. He has let this armchair diagnosis rule his actions, for years. Now he seems to be having a breakdown because of her affair, which he (with your encouragement) is putting down to her disorder. She is a wayward. From what you've told us, she isn't yet leaving him for this other man. He needs to pack up his kids and their belongings and move away (they can rent somewhere). He needs to show his wife that it will take drastic measures to cut contact with OM, because while she can see him at work or in the neighbourhood she will go back time and again for a fix of him. He needs to show her that she must cut contact if she wants to stay married.

He can't protect his kids if he is in a puddle on the floor.

She did leave for about a month. She came back determined to bully him away so she could try and keep the house. During their talk of divorce, she told him that he should keep their daughter because her work schedule is not conducive to raising a child....but that she still wanted the house.

For the last three months, I’ve been beating the MB drum to him. Saying all the things you all are saying to me in this thread to him, I have confidently reassured him “your marriage can survive this”. I’ve told him to get on these forums, seek support here, contact Dr. Harley. He has not.

Last weekend, we all went out together in one of his efforts to fix things and one of her efforts to publicly save face. The toxicity between them that I witnessed shell shocked me. He caught her with the OM again that day and apparently they were arguing right up until we pulled into the driveway. He didn’t want to go but she insisted they go because she is worried about what the rest of us think.

I’ve told him that this is exactly why he should engage in full blown exposure and let everyone who she respects tell her to get her head out of her rear end. I’ve told him not to trust that contact has ended. I’ve told him to investigate. I’ve told him to demand the extraordinary precautions. I’ve told him to pack her stuff and change the locks and tell her to leave with a true plan B. He has not heeded any of that advice. He is that puddle you speak of.

This week is when he hit me with the NPD suspicions.
I keep telling him that all of her actions are the typical actions of a wayward...affair fog. However, if she truly has NPD like he suspects, those reactions are also typical of someone with NPD.

I wanted the MB opinion on whether a WW with NPD would respond positively to MB marriage. I’m gathering that the MB position (from the post you bumped) is that NPD, unless diagnosed by a clinician, is an excuse for bad behavior and not the real problem.

The problem with not getting a diagnosis is that she refuses the seek therapy or counseling. He’s the problem not her, as far as she is concerned. This is a hallmark of NPD....but it is also a sign of affair fog.

Interestingly, her mother left her father and abandoned them when they were teenagers. They tracked her down in another state with her OM. She eventually came back..the marriage ended in divorce....but her parents still have a relationship where her mother dominates her father. They live separately but She still makes him do everything a dutiful husband would, while she fulfills her romantic EN with a boyfriend.

The WW tried to implement the same dynamic with my buddy. When she first came back talking about divorce, she then suggested they don’t divorce but they just live together. She wants her cake and to eat it too.

I have absolutely told him that he has enabled her to behave the way she does their entire marriage. I told him he needs to man up now and to fix the toxic dynamic of their marriage that has let her think she can get away with this behavior. I’m so concerned about my buddy, by the way, because he is my brother.

I think your brother's view that his wife has a disorder, and his letting this dictate the way he has treated her for years, is so important for us to get a clear steer on. I wrote to Dr Harley at the radio station address last night for better advice than I can give. I'll let you know as soon as I have a reply.

I've had an email from Dr Harley saying that they will discuss the general principles of dealing with spouses that have - or that we think have - personality disorders, on today's show. Please try and listen - it will be available from the link at the top of this page for 24 hours from 2PM CT.

I listened to the show. That’s exactly what I wanted to know when I asked “is it that definite?” I found it unsettling that “the internets” roundly condemned an entire segment of society as being unredeemable in any relationship.

So, my brother needs to hear that his permissive attitude likely allowed her to steamroll him, cross boundaries that should not be crossed, led to his resentment of her for not fulfilling his EN, which led to him neglecting fulfilling some of her EN....and ultimately created the conditions in their relationship for an affair to thrive.

He also needs to hear that it’s not too late to man up and fix things.....but that HE needs to be the one to take charge and guide her through this process.

Believe it or not, that is what I’ve been telling him this whole time. I was just a little shell shocked by their toxic behavior. It seemed like neither of them had what it takes to fix this.

I have forwarded him the link to yesterday’s show and strongly encouraged him to reach out to Dr. Harley.

Do you know if he has listened to it? Because it only repeats for 24 hours.

He missed it but I gave him a direct link to the show in the archive.

Good. What did he think? Will he follow Dr. Harley’s plan?

How can he reach out directly to Dr. Harley if I can convince him? In today’s environment, I’m certain he has a telemedicine option.