Re: how to help my brother whose wife has NPD?

I am in a similar situation to yours feeling like my brother is brainwashed. I truly believe his wife to have NPD from all I have read and from having a former exhusband that was NPD. My parents supported me to be home with my children and raise them as stay at home mom and give them the extra love and guidance they needed to counter their fathers lack there of. Anyways in the midst of this my brother married his NPD, immediately this woman was disliked as she was very trampy, and went after him while he was married to someone else of which he had two children with. This trampy homewrecker was also had 2 children from 2 diff dads and later had a 3rd child with my brother. We did our best to welcome her and her children, I did daycare for them for several years, we spent alot of time together doing family activities. In these family activities I found this womans parenting skills to be very lacking, she was very cold and unloving to her children, she would never take care of their needs, the children always came to me or my brother for their needs. This woman loved to insult me and make fun of me and laugh at her "jokes" at my expense. I initially was angry at this behavior and her lack of help with the children, but came in time to accept this is who she is and disregarded her "jokes" as her opinion meant so little to me. I am lucky as my mother as been equally involved with the kids and mistreated by this woman, we were able to cope with her I think because we had each other. My mother and I would often talk after a visit with them about her outlandish behavior and comments and made fun of her, this helped too. Things have now escalted however as my mother finally became fed up with my sister in laws behavior and started to come to my and the childrens defense when she was out of line and my mother would point out that this woman needed to start to help and pitch in with everyone else, that she was not the queen and needed to do her share. Well obviously my brothers NPD wife did not agree with this and became very outraged. My brothers wife has had several blow out agruments with my mother since. On top of that my niece, her step daughter began to speak up for herself and had suffered the wrath of her stepmother for that with punishment obviously for speaking up rather than for actually doing something wrong, but twisted in a way to sound logical, but really not logical and the rules convieniently changed and did not apply to other children that were not questioning her. My brother does not see it that way and defends his wife, and when his wifes behaviors are completely out of line, they lie that she didn't do that or say that. Until I found out about my nieces troubles I remained a neutral party as I feared if I did not that I would be removed from the childrens lives as I had witnessed my mother removed shortly after she spoke up a few times. Unfortunately I could be quiet no more and I had asked to have sit down with my brother, his wife, and my mother about my concerns and to try to all get along and make some changes for the best interest of the children. Well his wife did not like my suggestions as she saw them as criticism and she went crazy on me and crazy on my mom and we had to throw her out to stop the maddness and afterward my mom and I concluded that we could not have any futher to do with her. It has been tramatic on my mother and I as in cutting her out we are denied the relationship we previously had with the children. I think the only way to cope is to keep talking about it with others in the same situation. I do not think my brother will ever leave this woman. He sat quietly while she attacked my mother and me for the most rediculous things and after we threw her out and told him we were done with him he nodded and initially told family that his wife was out of line, but now he has switched gears and is defending her saying her intentions were good. It feels hopeless, he has lost so many friends and family over her and is going to lose his daughter as she can't stand her stepmother. His only hope is his wife leaving him, and believe me the thought of hiring someone to lure her away is tempting.. :) kidding Tweet