Back in Sept. of 1999 I posted a question trying to find out the name of whatever disorder my ex-wife and her mother may have.
HFHS Md-SW suggested that the problem may be a rare disorder called shared psychotic disorder.
Even though I am no Doctor, I lived with this enough to know (and it was the major contributor to our divorce 6 months ago]that this diagnosis is 99% correct from my perspective.
My ex wife lives on the same property [next door], as her dominating mother [Who is a recently retired mental health counselor] who I have no doubt is psychotic {grandiose delusions},as she has set me up on several ocasions, is very clever and devious, extremely controling, and very manipulative. I once saw her through a temper tantrom that was bizare. Both myself {as the son in law] and my ex's brothers wife do not speak to this woman. Her brother is lucky he doesnt live in the same area or their marriage could have ended also. With the birth of my 1st child her mother interfered by coming to the hospital and basically taking over as my wifes couch [which I trained for at La maz]. As my wife was in labor I could do nothing because I did not want to upset my wife. Any Mental Health counselor knows you never interfere with a husband and wife like that. What hurt me the most was the fact that my wife cared nothing about feelings about this when we discussed this afterward. Her mother twisted this around to try and make it look like it was of all things my fault.
I remember when we first got married and we bought her mothers house I would not agree with the sale price initially but we ended up compromising, well she told my wife {passed on to me}
that because I didnt buy the house for the original price she wanted ,that she was going to pay for the entire Wedding ,but now only the food,as was originally talked about. In other words, if I would have done as she wanted I would have been rewarded. I thought that was a very vendictive thing to say and later I saw it for what it was "a Control Technique".
Anyway, I had to get away from this and I had known that something was wrong with the wife because she was unrational and it became impossible to communicate [so frustrating]. She lives in what I see as a delusional world where her mother is like a god and can do no wrong, and where she is not responsible for anything negitive in her life, as an example: she blamed me for her smoking habit and also for words that she thought up and that came out of her mouth were my fault. When friends don't want to be around them anymore their thinking is that something must be wrong with those friends,its never them. They support each other very strongly in their delusions and have a very unnatural (extremely close) mother/daughter relationship.
Of course I was the one blamed for our problems and the divorce and lying to make it so and ingoring the truth seems perfectly normal to the Ex wife.
Please give me any additional comments you may have on the above and very importantly, our two young daughters {ages 5 and 3] live in this enviroment. So far she has been a very good mother but are my children in any danger?
Also, I meant to mention that the mothers husband {wifes stepfather] is nothing more then a puppet of the mother. So this bunch is completly dysfunctional.
Are my children in danger? What can I do? Should I give this information to her relatives so they might intervein. Their is no way I would be listened to, I tried previously (before I had a diagnoses]. Please help.
Thank you very much for this free forum, it is appreciated.