Children of Narcissistic Parents

[Just Me]

I struggle with it too. My kids have my parents but I hate that they have grandparents out there that they don't know. I have to constantly remind myself that it is would be stressful and detrimental for my kids to have a relationship with DH's parents. I feel so sad for them though that they don't have any family on DH's side to enjoy and get to know. I know what we are doing is the best for them and for us, but it is shattering an ideal that I have always had about grandparents I suppose. It is a hard and heartbreaking decision to cut them out of our lives completely but we were left with very few options in the end because there was no way that we could make it work. We tried and we have retried and now we are done.

My kids haven't yet realised that they don't know DH's parents. They are too little yet to understand all the family relationships. I don't know what I am going to tell them about it all. I want to be honest and open but I don't know what to tell them at the moment when they really don't understand. In some ways, it would be easier to explain if they had cut us off but we cut them off. I don't want to give my kids the impression that that is how we deal with other people when we have problems. It really was a long road and we tried so many different things before we stopped all communication. I don't really think they are old enough to deal with all that info yet. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

DD1 did find a photo in one of our albums of DH's family though and we explained that it was Daddy's mum and dad, brother and sister etc. We didn't give them titles like Grandparents or aunty and uncle because in many ways, to her, they aren't anything. They are really just DH's family and nothing more at the moment. When my kids grow up, they might like to have a relationship with PIL and I will leave that up to them and cross that hurdle when I come to it.

I never had any contact with my Dad's dad growing up, though he is still alive, and I don't wonder what he is like. I have never tried to meet him and neither have any of my cousins or brothers. I don't have a name for him like Grandad or Pa or anything like that. He has always just been my Dad's dad. Maybe it is something to do with not giving him a title that means that I have no interest in him. I don't know. He didn't want contact with any of us though so that was different.

Non-contact is such a grey area. Not many people have done it and it is a very lonely road with lots of issues in itself. Having said that, I feel the issues are far more managable and for the most part, cause far less stress.

[toomanyshoes]

For me I think the fact my grandparents (mum's mum and dad) took on the roll as my "care taker" for some years and that I continued to be so close to them is what makes me feel so guilty.

But I also realise the kids don't have the same relationship I had with them as they have with mum (their nan).

I've given up on wanting the "mother daughter" relationship but I do wish the kids had a grandparent to call on like I did. It's so hard, we've made the choice to distance ourselves from DH's parent's because of their negative impact and with my father committing suicide it's currently impossible to "fight" mum. I haven't done anything wrong yet the guilt is suffocating.

She wants the kids to go stay with her alone during the school holidays and I'm petrified.

[Just Me]

Guilt is such a strong emotion. It's horrible but it impacts lots of my decisions too. Stopping contact with PIL has just ramped the guilt up and hasn't fixed anything in that way.

Normally I would say to just say that you don't feel comfortable your kids staying there over the holiday because of the kids' ages, but I know that someone with NPD doesn't understand that and all they see is that they aren't getting their own way so then comes the flood of manipulative tactics designed to make you feel guilty and in the end they get exactly what they want. I was never successful negotiating things with MIL ... they always ended in us just putting our foot down and her 'punishing' us for the next few months because she didn't get her own way.

Do you think your mother causes any risk of harm to your kids emotionally, physically or developmentally?

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I'm fairly sure my mother has some Narc. traits - any of you who have read some of my posts about her will agree, I'm sure! They aren't too bad when DH is around because he takes offence at far less than I display offence for. Having said that, he's perfectly justified in not enjoying my mother's rudeness.

ATM, I'm on limited contact. My mother sadly knows I have a job, which I'm kicking myself about telling her. She's just using it as gossip, again. All my life is basically fuel for her gossip. Yes, I may have a higher privacy need than other people, but that doesn't mean it's OK to tell people something I ask you not to repeat just because, to you, that person is OK to know private stuff about me.

...

[toomanyshoes]

I just don't know to be honest. And its made even more complicated now by the fact I'm certain she's suffering from early onset dementia. She's showing the same sign's nan did but at a much earlier age.

She often refers to herself as "mum" when talking to the kids. She'll call herself or refer to herself as mum then correct herself with "oh I mean nan". I don't know if thats the dementia weighting in and she's forgetting or whether it's her attempt to undermine me and make my kids about her.

I guess I worry she'll feed them the same lies she did to me, that my father was evil, didn't love me and so on. She even goes as far as to hint there was some sort of sexual abuse but I don't at all believe her.

The kids are different around her, and when we haven't seen her in a while everything does seem so much more settled. DS worries me, his behaviour towards me when she is around is shocking and it's getting worse. It's more than the standard "but nanny lets me do it" it's getting to the extreme as if I'm evil and he hates me but once again if we haven't been around her for a while it all settles down again.

Even her partner comments on it, the fact I clearly say no more or something and she totally ignores and doesn't even try to hide that she's ignoring it.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

My mother does that too, toomanyshoes. It takes a good week or two to break him of the habits she encourages - not eating dinner? Have icecream then! Eugh. "But I was just..." all innocent when I say "I said no. I said no. No, you can't do that. I told Liebs no. He's my son and I say no. NOOOOOOOO!"

[toomanyshoes]

She feeds them soooooooo much junk.

She always has a dig at me if I eat cake or something junky "don't you think you've had enough" or something along that line but then will happily sit there and eat her way through 2 or 3 packets of lollies.....

I tell the kids no more lollies, she just gives them more and more and more, I say nothing to eat before we leave because DS gets car sick and of course we're left cleaning up the spew on the way home because she's fed him something. We say no computer for DS and of course DS then spends hours on the computer.

The thing that really p's me off is that she only shows them "love n attention" when she knows it somehow comes back to me not showing them love and attention in that moment, IYKWIM? If she has nothing to gain from it they are pushed aside and ignored. Which is another reason why I worry about them being in her care.

[Jennifer13]

Please don't feel guilty!

I have an explicit example of no contact in my family because my father abused me and spent some time in jail as a result. Making the decision to cut him out of my life (and my future children at that point) had an obvious reason. I did try for a while before that to give him a chance to turnaround and prove himself. But once I was satisfied that was never going to happen, I cut him out. I grieved the relationship I never would have, it was almost like a death without any public recognition, so quite lonely. But I have never regretted it, not once. It was the right thing to do.

I would readily do the same thing with MIL, but it's not my decision to make, it's DP's. IMO, risking the kind of emotional abuse that has damaged DP just as much as the sexual abuse in my family did me, to my children is not an option. Hence the limited and controlled access. If it escalates again or she tries to involve our children to any unacceptable level, we will walk away without a backward look. At least DP has me to understand if that happens. Thankfully I think she's getting old and desperate enough to toe our line a lot more than she ever used to. For the moment...

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Ah, my mother wants to be loved by Liebs more than me, so she's "super-gran" constantly. She wants him to want her over me. That's sick, IMO. It's not "being loving" it's trying to oust your daughter. My sister disagrees and points out that she only sees Liebs rarely so wants him to enjoy himself.

Which is why I'm confused - am I reading the situation incorrectly? And I do remember her getting cross when I wanted ketchup, not saying "it's good for you" and giving me more ketchup than food. So why do it with Liebs then lie and say she did it with me?

[NaeNae]

As much as I hate to say it I actually feel somewhat comforted by reading some your posts.......

I wonder if there is an element of competition in these people. I didn't go into it in depth in my other thread but I will in here. After Nikita died when we were done organising funerals etc, I mentioned to mum that we were having a plaque made up to put under a tree in our backyard. SO mum had to get one too. at the time I didn't really think anything of it until she rang up one day and was askng all about the plaque and the wording we had on it. It seemed odd but I told her anyway. A few days later she rang up and asked if we were going to have a photo of Nikita on the plaque, I said no and explained we were having 2 made up one for the garden and one for the cemetery where the first generation of Hubbies Family were buried. The she said "WELL (emphasis on the well) I am having a photo put on the plaque I am having made. AND (emphasis on the and) I have planted a "the childrens rose" JUST for her" ... um ok sure.

Everytime she comes here she makes a point (and very obviously) of going and sitting in the memorial garden we built for Niki, She often tries to encourage me to go and sit with her in the garden, which I refuse to do. She also always manages to tell me how badly it needs weeding ... yeah ok its not weed free some of the weeds actually need to be sprayed to kill the roots and shoots they send out. But I have either been pregnant or BF so not in a position to use poisons. I hand pull out what I can when I go out there but really its my friggin garden who the fruitcake are you?!

One time she came here and exclaimed really loudly in front of guests, "wow your lino is really shiney, did you clean it? I have NEVER (emphasis) seen it shiney before" ....... even when its grubby, its shiney.

My Babyshower - holy moly - we had not really spoken following an outburst by yours truly and my having to physically remove her from my house when she refused to leave. I reluctantly sent her an invite, bestie was the rsvp person. Instead of saying to bestie "I am sorry I cannot make it" She said " I am sorry but Naomi has made it clear that I am not welcome in her house any more" Bestie forwarded it to me and said "it speaks volumes about her."

DD's 1st Birthday - Mum wanted to give DD Fairy bread and went on and on about it being a party so she should have fairy bread. Bestie was in the room when I fed DD her sausage with mum carrying on about fairy bread and I cracked it and said "No, DD is eating her sausage, then she is having some cheese and bread, she is NOT having fairy bread or other sweets as she has NOT been introduced to them" .... Mum rolled her eyes and made a face behind my back but I caught it well enough to see it, Bestie just winked at me LOL.

Gah there is more I could go into but dinner is ready LOL.

I am so pleased that everyone else in here has mental issues, I was beginging to think I was the only one in the whole world who'd rather little to no contact with their mother or father or MIL etc.

Nae x

[~Lashes~]

that is how i feel aswell, like she is trying to prove she is better than me, that i need her and can not do anything right unless she is there.
this weekend was a new slap of reality.
i never had any issues with my boys untill she came back into my life and started undermining ever. little. thing. but there just kids and so am i.

[black_rose]

My mum bought a new house not long after us and when I got my first brand new car she had to get a new one too even though hers was only a few years old, the silly woman had to use her super to do it.

As a child she thrived on me being sick, sometimes i wonder if it was munchausen (sp) by proxy as I was always at the dr's having scans, tests for who knows what. Turns out it was most likely lactose intolerance that I worked out pretty quickly after I moved out.

I see that she is latching onto my SIL now as I have little contact. She takes SIL to the dr pays her medical bills and try's to talk to me about her problems. My brother still let's her control his life and he can see he has the same traits, very little guilt and can lie so easily.

[StrawberryFields]

I've been thinking a lot about how its going to be when the girls are born. I've seen her around her step-grandchildren, and all she does is patronise them (which of course they don't really get yet) and feed them junk food whilst criticising me constantly for eating ANYTHING - I got in trouble when I went home to visit the other week for eating an apple because I'm just so fat and apples are so awful for you... She encourages them to eat as many lollies as they like, drink as much soft drink as they like, watch whatever they like on the TV - if you ask me, MTV isn't appropriate for anyone under 18! I always ask my half-sister if its okay to give them things - even though my niece is nearly 13, I still ask if its okay if she can have a glass of Coke

At least for now I know I wont have to worry about her seeing them regularly since we live so far away, but I'm pretty sure that if we get posted back to Brisbane that they will not be spending any time with her unless I'm present, at least until I feel they are sure enough of themselves to be able to handle her nonsense. My biggest fear is that because they're twins, she will make one a scapegoat and the other golden, and how damaging that could be if she pits them against each other.

This is going to sound narcissistic in itself but I've always been leaps and bounds ahead of my half-sisters from day one, I've always been smarter, thinner, more athletic (which is pretty pathetic given how crap I am at most sports) and more culturally bent. So, she was always comparing me to my friends - "Why can't you be neat and tidy like Cassie?", "Why can't you be more studious like Carly?", "Why can't we have a normal mother-daughter relationship like Helen and Hannah?". I had to point out to her that Cassie has a rather crippling case of OCD, and that she's not tidy, she's got a mental disorder, that Carly studies hard because she needs to or she'll fail, and that we can't have a normal relationship because she's not a normal mother. That went down about as well as a pill made of razor wire.

I would hate if she says to one twin "Why can't you be more like your sister?" Its going to be hard enough for them to be able to forge their own identities as identical twins without her throwing spanners like that in the works.

Sarah - I get that feeling too! Like last year for my birthday (which was smack in the middle of my final lot of uni exams) she wanted me to fly down to Brisbane to see her, even though I had to go down there the week after for an exam anyway. Yes, I get it, it was my 21st, and DH was out field, but he got back 2 days after my birthday, and my friend was coming to visit me the day after my birthday anyway (her DP was on the same exercise and our birthdays are only a week apart). She wanted to pay for it and everything, and I was honestly trying to save her the money of flying me down and back (at least $300) when I was coming there in a few days! I would have to fly there, back, and then there and back again it was just pointless. So when I tell her this what does she do? She cries at me over the phone for being such an ungrateful little so and so and how all I ever do is try and get away from her or make her look bad. FFS woman, I was going to see you the week after anyway! Never mind that it was MY birthday and she was the one being disrespectful of MY wishes...on MY BIRTHDAY! I even asked her not to get me a present because her and dad were helping out so much with the wedding (a month later).

After much screaming and hanging up and ignoring, I get this email saying that her and Dad are coming up for my birthday, just for the day and night and leaving the next morning (so I now have to make 2 trips to the airport because they couldn't possibly have booked a flight time close to Tash's) AND that she's having a cake she made for me iced by a lady at work and what theme would I like it to be. Its a fruitcake. My birthday is in November. I don't like fruitcake that much - it was clearly a test run Christmas cake that went wrong and she needed to get rid of, so she figured she'd kill two birds with one stone. It tasted terrible! So my memories of my 21st, instead of spending it at home in the bath with a good vodka, candles, and True Blood after a feast of Indian takeaway, are mostly of her getting in my way in my own house, constantly sweeping up the dog hair and complaining about it, and whinging every time our dog (who was about 5 months old at the time) went anywhere near her. I nearly abducted DH's mate who came over to ask something about the car and the random he had in tow just so I could have some kind of buffer around. Did I mention I then got interrogated about why there were random army boys dropping in to my house and was I being an unfaithful GF? No Mum, it was a completely random occurrence - funnily enough I don't really like strangers popping over to my house when they think I'm home alone!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I had constantly to be more like my sister. I was also super-bright as a child. I really was a fantastic child - I would love to have a child just like I was! I would never bag her out for wanting to learn rather than play with my friends' children. They are my friends, not yours - if you don't get on then well, you don't. I'd also keep the piano. I hated not having a piano as a child! I learnt to play on my parents friends' pianos (I should have been playing with their children, not their pianos, but tough!) I don't think it's narc. to say so, so long as you're not deluding yourself, only talking about that or saying "I was gifted so am the best person on this forum."

Ooooh, I really do dislike my mother whenever I think about her!

[minniemouse]

I grieved the relationship I never would have, it was almost like a death without any public recognition, so quite lonely

this so hits home for me, like many others mine is a complicated story with my mother and it all came to a head last year when i was suffering my 3rd miscarriage in 6 months and she was so horrible and so mean to me about it, she stormed out of my house saying she "wasn't welcome here" because i was so upset i couldn't even talk to her. she then ran to my brother and cried hysterically to him and from that day i have lost my mum, dad and brother as they all took her side and have been awful to me

it really did feel like they had died that day and every "family" moment since has been terrible for me, birthdays, mothers day etc but Jennifer you are so right it is such a lonely grief because i can't write on fb today is the anniversary of my families death because they are still alive but not to me. i have no family, no grandparents, aunts uncles etc its hard

i am so sad to see you all needing to post in here but at the same time it comforts me that others have felt the way i do

[NaeNae]

was just reminded of my birthday present last year. Mum has this thing about "Fat" people. I am a 14-16 post baby and have really only started dropping weight since I became pregnant ...... anyhoo, she asks me what I wanted for last years birthday, so I tell her, I need some button open pj's so I can BF, new pants new tops etc. She asks my size so I say to get a 14. She comes with some pants, a singlet top (my birthday is in July) and some PJ ... they were a size 18 and even against her "fat" daughter they were huge for me. I said to her "Mum these are an 18, and I cannot open the front to BF DD" ... "well I thought they were funny, look it says "do not disturb"" I asked her to take them back and she said I'd grow into them ...... they went in the bin the very next day.

My brother was always the golden child. Mum suspected me of doing drugs because I came home from clubbing smelling like stale ciggies and kicked me out of home. She finds a bong and stash in my brothers room, rings me and asks if I knew he was taking drugs and when informed that he had been doing acid and dope for well over a year she said "why didn't you tell me" my response was "come on mum, B and his mate D would be sitting in the lounge off their faces laughing at nothing with blood shot eyes and you didn't notice?" Then I had the ordacity to say "so, are you going to kick him out of home like you did to me when I smelt like dope and it was only stale ciggies?" "oh no, your brother needs help I couldn't throw him out on the streets when he really needs my help"

double standards much!

but it was because I was so outspoken and arguementative that I was always kicked out of home.

man talk about dragging up the past LOL

[NaeNae]

Double postL

[~Lashes~]

Strawberryfilds- yup, all to familiar with the crying "what did i ever do to deserve this?" comes close seccond to the bringing things up then trying to change the subject or crack it if i mention something other than her point of view.

my bigest fear is treating my kids the same way. having them fall into the same sort of relationship.
i keep comparing my mum to DF's, theye had bad drug habbits when he was growing up, so he had to watch the younger siblings and even now they try pull crap on him, whole nother story, but some of the things done on behalf of the il's i use as a "i can get threw this" motivator! if that makes any sence at all..?