How to help a victim of F.O.G.y parents, relatives or others.

cmagnum, I'm glad you posted this and hope people respond with some of their experiences. Since I'm in a quest to help a dear friend get out of F.O.G. I need some input as to what has worked for others.

Regarding "6. Which of the following seven are the most important and helpful to you in seeking to help others?" : 1. Yes, 2. Yes, 3. not doing so good on this, 4.My zeal impends me on this one. 5. Yes, 6. difficult for me, 7. A great Big Yes on this one.- I have a "Don Quixote" personality, so some of these thing are difficult for me.

5. - respecting how hard it is for her to take the smallest step, such as not telephoning her mother to check that everything is all right even when there is absolutely no need to, and her only reason for calling is that she feels guilt about having a nice time without her mother.

That's the impossible bit for me. It's as though SIL is superglued to her mother - if you try to detach her, it's SIL who loses the skin.

I can see myself still here in ten years' time trying to find a way round this.

I hope you don't feel like your efforts to help your SIL to unglue not working is a reflection on you, but the reality of how hard it is for a person to take even the smallest step and their choice to stay stuck. All you can do is remain her friend and be available in case she decides to make a step one day. The really sad thing about this is that the more years this has gone on and the more intense the F.O.G. has been the more unlikely it becomes that the person will make a small step. I am very sorry to hear how superglued your SIL is to her mother out of guilt the SIL feels for having a nice time without her mother.

How do you see yourself dealing with your mother around this in the future?

brinoz,

Thanks for reading this, going over the questions in light of trying to help someone in the face to face world. Keep your answers in mind. I wish you good luck.

Sorry to ask, but does SIL mean.

I meant to say "what does SIL mean"

It is shorthand for Sister in law

BIL is brother in law

MIL is mother in law

FIL is father in law

Thanks cmagnum. I'll get the lingo in time.

My SIL is 54. Her mother is 79, and physically as fit as a fiddle. I don't want the terrible karma of wishing ill on my MIL, but I honestly don't see any freedom for my SIL until she's gone.

I do, as you suggest, just stick around and offer moral support: SIL is wilfully blind to her mother's nature - funny, given that she's a psychiatrist - and won't hear anything that sounds like criticism of her. Apparently she's a wonderful mother (who I personally saw slap her adult daughter in the face, but that's all forgotten now). My big dread is that MIL will succeed in driving away SIL's husband, or causing her to leave him. MIL is already making headway in getting her to take early retirement. My heart sinks.

And there was one of those terrible, awful, ought-to-be-a-law-against-them, deathbed promises made to her late father, that she would "always look after Mum." Where were the other two siblings while this was going on, eh? Nodding vigorously in the background, that's where - and not to be seen for dust since.

Wow! Talk about having the training to see as a psychiatrist but being in major denial and at risk of loosing her marriage!!!!! That is horrible.

Dam, if I knew that my MIL had physically slapped my wife in the face, someting would have to change real fast.

What a narrow interpretation and application of a deathbed promise of looking after mom directly at home. How could a parent do something like that to an adult child? Her father sounds like a real piece of work.

Sad to say, but she might as well kiss her marriage and life goodbye as sucked in as she sounds like she is.

Probably after her mom dies, her mom will still be very much alive in her head which will mean she want be free.

I'm more afraid of SIL dying first. Once her mother is no longer around, the fantasy that she was perfect can't hurt her any more.

She's chosen to specialise in learning disability in adults, and she's extremely good at her job (when she's allowed to get on with it). She's a ferocious advocate for her vulnerable patients - a changed person. I wonder if she's in denial about "projection" too?!?

I just told my wife about her. My wife has a PhD in social psychology from Duke University. Her only comment was "She is in major denial." I guess the power of the F.O.G. has overpowered her and the darkside of emotional blackmail/abuse has fallen upon her. Thus, this is a very dark time in her life which I guess you could say is almost like a family version of the Star Wars' movie, "The Empire Strikes Back."

I'm glad that she has you as her friend. I'm sure it is heartbreaking to have to watch from the sidelines and see this gone down like it sounds like it is.

She sounds like a very talented person with plenty of education, but blinded emotionally by her F.O.G.y mother!

I hope your SIL will outlive her mother as I hope my SIL will outlive her mother. After all of these years of having to deal with her mom as a cancer survivor, she deserves to have some years on earth without her worshipfullness the queen mommy dearest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is going to sound mean, but I will rejoice when she's 6 feet underground, but I think your going to have to medicate me and give me several weeks to recover when my SIL dies. She's been my ally in the midst of her family's dysfunctional dynamics even before my wife came around to setting some boundaries with her mother and getting some help for her own mental illness problems that came from her narcissistic/borderline enmeshed, codependent mom!

Ok enough on that theme! Night!

Refresh this helpful topic! Isn't that how we move it to the top, just by posting here?

It has helped me to remember the 'f.o.g.' and it's definition: fear, obligation, guilt.
Today, for my own survival, and just for myself, I am re-naming the f.o.g. to read:
FEAR, OBLIGATION, AND GIFTS.
Boundaries up, don't allow them (those who do this) to give you gifts, the means by which they become empowered to use fear and obligation against you.
No thanks. No gifts, please.

Cmag---In my experience the biggest impediment to helping others become more self aware and hence more able to recognize family dysfunction is, in a word, denial. I believe this to be especially true in the narcissistic family where there is an unwritten rule about keeping up appearances to the world outside. Family matters are not to be spoken of outside the tight family circle.

In my own family my N father passed away suddenly when I was new mother at the age of 30. Shortly after, my mother became ill and my husband and have I stepped in to help ever since. I believe that this series of traumatic events was the catalyst to breaking down my family's outer "shell". Denial was no longer an option, at least for me.

In my husband's case the family's veneer began to yield when his father, a very successful businessman, began to decline physically and financially.

So, does it take a traumatic experience to overcome the denial? Or is the subsequent disintegration of the nuclear family following the death of the N patriarch/matriarch that exposes the FOG, at least to some?

While my husband can now see and acknowledges the FOG, the rest of his FO continues to be in denial. The other N's within hub's nuclear FO continue to cling to last vestiges of the facade. When MIL passes and there is nothing left to cling to, will the cycle repeat with the SIL's and their own families? I think I already know that answer...

Sorry, I posed only more questions...Perhaps someone else can shed more light?

"If you keep rephrasing the question, it gradually becomes the answer." ---Robert Brault

You're right. Many, like my SIL, are deeply lost in the river of De-Nile! This leads people like her who have a sliver of insight to intelllectualize their insight rather than deal with the emotions connected to those insights.

Narcissistic and other F.O.G.y dominating parent types demand that no one break the rule of talking to others about family issues. My mom and my wife's mom were like that. It's put us both in therapy for years.

From what I've seen, a narc is always a narc. I think traumatic experiences may help adult children to see what they have been in denial of. Others, like my SIL and your husband's siblings, she's still in denial despite it killing her in many ways as a cancer survivor and damaging her marriage which only he seems to be aware of.

My wife, unlike her identical twin sister, went through hell to be where she is now. We've heard her sister say many times that she wants change and will do what her therapist who she no longer sees told her to do. However, each time she caves in to the past. We have chosen to distance ourselves from her and yet be here to love and support her. My wife realizes that she can't rescue her sister. Debra must fight her own war herself. I am aware that my SIL wants to use me as an emotional substitute for her weak husband and the strong dad she never had. However, I refuse to be such an objectified emotional substitute for anyone. I went through enough of that with my narcissistic mom when I was younger.

It sounds that unlike your husband, his sisters are apples that have not fallen short of the tree.

No need to apologize about more questions. Today, I asked my ENT why we have sinuses anyway. She did not mind my inquisitive question. FYI, our sinuses and nose serves to moisten the air we breathe which is dryer than I lungs would like.

Keep asking any and all questions. That is the only way we can learn and the only way others get motivated to think more deeply. My ETN thanked me for asking her a question that got her mind on something entirely different today than she had thought about in a long time. I did make sure that we got back to talking about my ear and hearing problems.

Cmag---Thank you and I will no doubt have many more questions. I have spent many hours reading and researching the topic of eldercare, family dysfunction and narcissism. That is how I found this site. It has become abundantly clear with regard to my husband's FO that we are dealing with narcissistic rage and narcissistic smearing.

It has been devastating and heart wrenching but knowledge is power and we are growing stronger.

I do hope your sil too will one day emerge from the FOG.---Take care

Tessitura,

Thanks for your reply and hopes for my SIL.

Narsissistic rage and smearing is so typical. The FOG is strong with my MIL in these ways! (Sorry, but I have to keep some sense of humor with some star wars language although this is very serious, damaging and painful.)

As you have likely read somewhere on this site, there is a dark side to the big O which the FOGY parent uses F and G to keep in place. Like my SIL, they might complain and complain a lot, but the F and G keeps the big O in place.

The dark side of the big O is enmeshment. It's dark because it is an unhealthy relationship and closeness in contrast to a healthy relationship which does not have FOGyness. This dark side contributes to many marriages dissolving in caregiving as we read so often on this site.

There are at least 4 types of this dark side which may stand alone or even overlap one or two.

1. The eternal child.

They have been groomed by a parent to always respond like they are still the little girl or little boy, plus that is how the parent continues to see them and treat them despite all of the adult things they do in life.

Psychologically this is called infantalism. This is also a form of emotional abuse.

My SIL is still in bondage by this in her early 60's and somehow her marriage has lasted, but not well. (Sorry to say this, but like her dad, he is a weak man.) She's been to therapy, but quit. She at times wants someone else to fight her war for her, but she will not fight.

2. The hurting child.

They seek to compensate for something that was absent from their childhood. They very often will endure abuse that not one else would in order to possibly see the parent become the loving, non-abusive parent that the never were. Sad to say, but they never will despite all presumptive hope that they will be the exception. We read plenty of this here.

3. The parent/child.

The overly responsible parent/child who is groomed emotionally to feel responsible for the parent almost as if there were their parent. That's called parentification.


4. The partner child.

This is called covert incest. In my opinion this is the absolute deepest and by far the hardest to get out of. This language is a hard pill to swallow, because we normally think of incest only sexually, but the partner child/parent is not sexual and thus is called emotional (covert) incest by some professional authors.

The partner child is when a parent makes a child their emotional partner either because the spouse is gone because of divorce or death.

Some do this with a child because they are not getting such emotional support from their spouse and it is easier to do this than deal with the marriage problems.

Very often in this relationship the parent will share things with the child that should never be said.

I have a very close relative that this happened to. Their same sex parent told them all about their sex like with their other parent. I'm surprised they got their own life and got married, but I'm glad they did.

Those married to the partner child often feel like their is a third person in their marriage and it can get so bad as to also feel like being a single parent though married or basically single though married.

There is a book about the partner child. Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners by Adams who also wrote When He's Married to Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love and Commitment.

A more general book on this subject was written by Patricia Love, The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life.

Susan Forward has written another good book, Toxic In-Laws: Loving Strategies for Protecting Your Marriage which followed her other book, Emotional Blackmail
When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt To Manipulate You.

Although covert, emotional incest is not sexual the very sad and sick side of its impact very often parallels the damage of overt incest which is sexual. That is nauseating!.

All can be gotten out of with effort and the help of a therapist. But like those above they have to hit a point of desperation that something needs to change and they are not sure what or how or even what change means. Both my wife and I have been there and done that in relationship to our mom's.

We can hope and pray much for others to see the light, but we can't badger them for not or for not moving forward. We love them where they are and let them know while we don't agree that we are not abandoning them. Yet, our love must detach from their drama lest they hoover us in or back in.

My SIL does not see this, but my wife does that her sister is trying to hoover into what she spent years in therapy along with hard work to get out of. Those deep in the river of De-Nile like the real Nile river will drown us with them if we wade out too far and deep ourselves.

I appreciate this conversation for it's led me to think and write more clearly about this and discover a more recent book related to this topic. I may buy Susan Forward's newer book.

Tessitura,

Have you read my other thread that goes deeper into the dynamics of the FOG, why it is so powerful that some never get out and how some have found their way out?

I realize that it is very likely that you have, but just in case here is the link to it on this site.

https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/power-of-emotional-blackmailers-176430.htm

cmag---I have not read that thread but will do so. This has been a very good topic to review some of the things I have read and found through my research. Thank you for letting me know about Susan Forward's books. I too may want to order the book on emotional blackmail. My MIL is a master of the art.

While my husband realizes the dysfunction, his family continues to pull out all the stops in an attempt to hoover hubs back into the fold. One of hub's sisters was brazen enough to write hubs a letter to tell him that he should leave our marriage and support his mother and sisters. Rest assured, "The Queen" aka MIL is behind the curtain pulling the strings with her daughters. Her daughters have been busy recruiting as many flying monkeys as possible in an effort to "set us straight", i.e. the smear campaign. The harassment has been exhausting. It is the number one reason why we are readying to move away from "Dysfunction Junction" as soon as we can.

Not to mention I have a meddlesome, narc sister to deal with back in my home state where our elderly mother resides. Thankfully, I have a brother and sil who get it and who are very supportive.

Thank you for all your efforts and support on this site. You have helped many here, including me.

Tessitura,

"The Queen" aka MIL sounds very much like her worshipfulness, wicked witch of the west who wants to keep all family members in the land of Oz. Sounds like your husband and you are more in Kansas so to speak and will be more so once you leave dysfunction junction.

In doing some research on amazon dot com for books, I came across one with a very powerful title that might be meant more for clinicians. For some time, I have known about the book, When he is married to mom, which is about mom enmeshed men who have been emotionally partnerfied by their moms. Well, get the title of this book, When the Other Woman is His Mother. Dang! Wow! What a powerful title! The flip side is just as true, but who is writing about that? "When the other man is her dad" or dad enmeshed daughters which is only a chapter in one book that I've read. Sometimes, I think that I read too much, but I've had to in order for me and my family to survive. I'm up late and that is not good. I will hopefully feel like going back to sleep soon.

Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad that my posts help people. :)

I wish you the very best in your journey. Keep on digging, asking questions, partnering with your husband against dysfunction junction with the insights you gain.

Finding out too much on this topic, I have started to feel ill, somewhere deep inside. Before, no contact has helped me put toxic people in the past.
Is it not possible to just lovingly CONFRONT the person with bad behaviors, and allow them time? Or will that person really set out to destroy you, your reputation, your relationships, etc.?
Can't a person wanting to have a good life just cut to the chase, confront or run?
Is going No Contact a viable, but sad alternative?
Being enmeshed is too confusing, too scary, too complicated. There must be something better. Am I missing something in being for the NO CONTACT solution?

Sorry, but emotionally blackmailers are not normal people who can just be lovingly confronted and given time to think about it. Such folks have one or two personality disorders. They are either narcissistic or borderline.


Thus, the boundaries need to have consequences and the extreme consequence that is sometimes called for is no contact with no exceptions period.

What is complicated, confusing and scary about enmeshment is finding one's way out of the emotional dance with the F.O.G.y parent. They are not going to change, but their dance partner can change by stopping being their dance partner.

Even after going no contact geographically plus the phone, e-mail and snail mail, there is often their voice that remains in our head which if not dealt with in therapy may very well mean them holding some power over the person from beyond the grave.

You're not missing anything in being for the no contact solution.


If new knowledge or deeper knowledge is troublesome, then it is a good idea to ask yourself why? No need to answer that here, but ask yourself why is yourself feeling ill over this. It may be as simple as too much of this diet or it is heart breaking to read and it is.

There are some topics that I feel a bit ill in dealing with and particularly if I read too many of them. That's normal! On the other hand there are topics that make me feel ill because they hit too close to home. Some topics of problems that take place in families make me feel ill because the topic itself is sickening that any human being would treat another human being that way, but some do and it's not right, but so often they don't get caught.

All in all, any parent who is strong in the F.O.G. is F.O.G.y and can't just be lovingly confronted and reasoned with. Thus, it is best to let you yes be yes and your no be no when setting boundaries which neither need defending or explaining for it's a waste of breath and accomplishes nothing but more heartache and drama.Tangible, concrete, enforced consequences are needed to keep boundaries in place. Sometimes, that does mean no contact.

Take care.

Excellent answer - cmag. Totally agree

Cmag---I too agree with you about setting boundaries. I wish my husband and I had known in the beginning of this eldercare/family mess what we know now.

I have learned too late that if you try to reason with or confront those people who are of a disordered personality, all you will get for your efforts is an endless s**t storm of blame, gaslighting, bullying and rage. It is best to set the boundaries and stay away from them.

Ok, thanks for that helpful answer, Cmagnum, Golden, and Tess! Guess it is time to contact the three credit reporting agencies and put a freeze on my accounts. Some people cannot accept NO, and will go ahead with their plans for your life anyway. The hard work of therapy never ends.

Who is not accepting No; going ahead with their plans for your life anyway; and evidently getting into your money which has led you to put a freeze on your accounts?

Private messaging now...no need for this to go viral. Predatory family members have always plagued me = much stronger now. The confusion only lasts as long as the panic, and I have recovered from panic attacks. No money is missing, yet.
The Same Power, song, Jeremy Camp on youtube.

How to help fog victims? Give them a cookie or two, or three.

Send---I guess it would depend on what is in the cookie.