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Narcissistic fathers and their children

/ racheljaners / 3 Comments

Narcissists are extremely jealous of their children for numerous reasons.  First, because children take their mother’s time away from focusing solely on the narcissist.  Second, narcissists have the demented belief that their offspring purely are extensions of themselves. And as soon as the children begin to demonstrate their own minds that will happen to differ with what the narcissist believes, the narcissist acts out by demeaning them and telling them that they are wrong. He will tell them that they better not think that way, or better not pursue professions that he does not approve of, etc… Interestingly, anything that the narcissist sees the children doing or saying that he does not like, he blames the mother for it.  When I left my ex, I remembered he called me with anger and told me that he should be number one, and the kids number two. Well, I beg to differ.

My narcissist ex will take away my children’s accomplishments by one upping them. When my son says, “Hi dad, I played catch today.” My ex then replies with, “Oh that is great! Daddy played catch all the time when I was your age.” And when my son says, “I had a Cub Scouts meeting today,” my ex says “Yes, Daddy was in Cub Scouts too.” There is no other response or inquiry into whatever my son says he achieved, it could be concerning school activities, sports, etc. Which is funny because the entire time I was married to him, he never once mentioned Cub Scouts or playing baseball or soccer, he told me that he only played football. I strongly believe that he never actually did those things. He is just desperately trying to get his son to see him as accomplished, when in fact, he is not. And by stealing our son’s thunder and refocusing the attention on himself, he is killing any potential meaningful relationship with our son. No one likes being one upped all the time.

My children are 7 and 10 now, and he still does baby talk to them. It is disgusting. He just doesn’t know how to effectively communicate with them. He is what I call an “over-talker.” He does not take the time to listen to them, he just keeps talking as they are trying to tell him about their day.  He acts so out of touch with reality. Even though their father rarely sees them now because he moved across the country, he still calls most every night and says the same things to the kids and proceeds to give them the latest “countdown” until they “come to daddy’s house,” as if they were getting ready to blast off into space. However, as far as I am concerned, being shuttled headlong into the vast emptiness of outer space, without vital support and meaningful communication with others, I would imagine that is exactly what a trip to daddy’s house feels like to the children based on their reports to me when they come back home.

Having a narcissist for a father is constantly frustrating for children. They don’t feel heard, they certainly do not feel understood. Children do not feel safe or free to think for themselves and are constantly seeking the narcissist’s approval in all matters. Narcissists have an emotional void in the space where empathy should reside. This lack of empathy is what makes a narcissist. That is also what makes a psychopath and sociopath, truth be told.

Related:  My blog posts on How to Save your Children from a Narcissistic Parent.  and How to go No Contact with a Narcissist when you have Children with one.

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How to get Revenge on a Narcissist.

/ racheljaners / 1 Comment

The best revenge you could possibly get on a narcissist is by living well and loving yourself. If you focus inward on what makes you happy, you set the groundwork to find happiness everyday. There is nothing that irritates the narcissist more than to see you content because that is something the narcissist will never be… content. It is impossible to control the actions and thoughts of the narcissist, or anybody else for that matter. However, if you make yourself the center and try not to let them seep into your mind, you will be happier for it.

Narcissists have a massive fear of abandonment, and the fact that you get away from their clutches and control is the worst possible thing you could ever do to them! You have effectively stripped away their narcissistic supply which they require in order to sustain their feelings of superiority. You must realize that the goal of the narcissist is to tear you down so that you become totally dependent on them and less likely to leave them. They accomplish this by implementing multiple methods of abuse, including put-downs, threats, temper tantrums, paranoia, gas-lighting, etc.  You find yourself allowing the abuse because you become an expert at making excuses for their intolerable behavior. In the beginning, they had shown you a glimmer of greatness and you desperately want to believe that goodness will pour out of them again. But in all seriousness, the goodness you saw was the mask, it is not who the narcissist is.

You must take a step back and try to look at your situation as if it was a friend going through it. What would you tell a friend if you saw them suffering like you are in your toxic relationship? Would you tell your best friend to “just live with it?” Of course not, so then why would you ever choose to bear every day being treated so brutally? You are worth it, you are a good person. No one on earth deserves to be demeaned, demoralized and dehumanized on a daily basis. You will never know how wonderful life and love can be if you do not get away.

That said, I do realize it is impossible to physically separate from your narcissist right now because of the circumstances surrounding the world as I write this. Many of us are trapped in a prison under quarantine with our abuser. But, all is not lost, as this too shall pass.  Now is a time where one can begin to plan and prepare for our next step when free. Use this time wisely.  I have a blog on how to survive living with a narcissist while planning your escape.

To those who are separated from the narcissist in your life, but he or she is still around due to shared children, etc. Don’t give them the satisfaction when they make snarky comments to you about this or that. Just say “I am sorry you feel that way” and walk away.  Or if it is a text, just don’t respond. It is that simple. The whole reason narcissists try to upset you with actions or words, is to get a reaction from you because they feed on both positive and negative responses. However, if you do not give them any reaction at all, (called going no contact) you have robbed them of their necessary narcissistic supply and that bothers them more than any comeback you could ever muster!

I bet a lot of you are thinking that my advice may be passive and you were looking for a more hands on approach to getting revenge, like turning the tables on them by giving them a dose of their own medicine. But trust me, I tried to do just that a few times on my narcissist by using some of his routines on him and it backfired.  Sure, for a moment it caught him off guard, but then he just ramped upped his abusive tactics and I realized it was futile, because it fed into his narcissistic supply regardless. Believe me when I urge you to cut ties and drain his supply, for a narcissist it is the biggest way to injure their ego.  I have thought long and hard about this for the past four years.  It is punishment in and of itself that a narcissist has to wake up being a miserable human being every day, incapable of love, joy and simple contentment. And the fact that you are finally seeking happiness without the narcissist stealing it, truly is revenge.

So in conclusion, the ways to achieve revenge upon the narcissist is first, by leaving them and taking away their narcissistic supply. Next, by believing in yourself and loving yourself and lastly, by living your best life by being free and unfettered by the narcissist’s control.

How to help a friend who is involved with a Narcissist…

/ racheljaners / 4 Comments

I was recently asked by a concerned reader how to help a friend that she was sure was married to a narcissist. Unfortunately, she probably will not like my answer because it is not a quick fix. It is a slow progression of help which I will get into further on, but first a little background into a typical victim’s mindset. These matters are extremely delicate, as the victim in a narcissistic relationship has been brainwashed into believing that they somehow deserve the bad treatment. They believe that everything the narcissist does or says is actually their fault.  As a result, the victim’s sense of self is obliterated, their strength has been sapped to the point that they willingly take the abuse and have normalized it.  They believe it is the best they can expect. Victims are actually fooled into believing that they are lucky to have the abuser! (Like Stockholm Syndrome)

Usually, the relationship between a narcissist and a victim is that of the “pedestal and the pit.” I discussed this tactic in another blog. This is the situation in a relationship where the narc will place his victim on a pedestal and treat her like gold, then the next moment, knock her down into the pit of mistreatment. It disorientates the victim to the point of confusion. This is a vicious cycle that never stops during a narcissist relationship.  After undergoing this dizzying cycle of ups and downs, the feeling of being in the narc’s good graces again and sitting on top of that pedestal feels so relieving to the victim after being in the “pit,” it is addicting.  As a result of this torment, the victim will do anything to please the narcissist.  She will find herself ignoring the bad in the relationship and only focusing on the good in order to pull through day by day.  So, she makes excuses for him, hoping and praying that things are going to be different. But things NEVER change. It is a sad truth. You cannot FIX a Narcissist!

So, back to the question of “How to help a friend who is involved with a narcissist?”

First, you can help your friend the most by sitting down with her and explaining your concerns and why you are worried about her.

However, after being married to a Narcissist for 7 years myself, I am aware of how proficient your friend will be at making excuses for her husband’s bad behavior.  I was, I go into that topic more in this blog post.  I covered for his bad behavior for numerous reasons. One of those was because I began to believe I didn’t deserve better (as I mentioned above). Also, I wanted to live in the fantasy that our marriage was grand, I didn’t want others to know what he was really like.  I was afraid of casting a light on his horrible behavior and that would mean that I needed to finally do something about it. (Which I knew would be the most challenging task of my life.)  Additionally, I made excuses because I shared children with him, and in my mind, I used to believe that divorce was the worst thing you could do to a child.  However, now I realize that staying in a terrible, abusive marriage only teaches your children to become apathetic and perfect victims, or it teaches them to become narcissistic abusers themselves.

Second, after showing your friend some material on narcissist behavior, you must tell your friend that because you care about her, no matter what, you will be there to support and encourage her whenever she is ready to seek help.
What helped me was when my narc had a earth shattering tantrum in front of my parents that I couldn’t cover up, and I had no possible excuses for.  That moment, my concerned parents offered to take me and my children 3 hours home with them that day. I declined out of fear.  But it got the wheels turning in my mind, and when my mother told me that she thought my husband was a Narcissist.  I began to google everything I could on the disorder because I had no idea what that really was.  In my research, I discovered that my husband had all the markers of it and it changed my mindset.  Learning about narcissism opened my eyes to seeing how I was living day to day and forced me to take a good look at how I permitted him to control my life.  In another blog, I discuss these 13 big signs that proved I was in a relationship with a narcissist.  It was like a blanket of darkness finally lifted and I began to see him for what he really was. I had started figuring out what had been nagging me our whole marriage.  But, the point is, I had to figure it out myself.  My Mother planted the seed, she tried to pull me out of this relationship, but I was not ready to go. I needed it to be MY choice, on MY time. Then one day after endless research online and in books, I finally hit a point, where my fear of staying outweighed my fear of leaving.

Third, you must be patient with your friend.

It will take time, but you cannot just rip her away from a bad relationship. It will backfire and she will end up going back to him and cutting all ties with you.  If you plant the seed, it will begin to grow in her mind and she needs to learn the truth herself.  Looking back, what mattered the most to me during my revelation was knowing that my Mom and Dad were there to support me and to help when I was ready to leave.  I am very thankful for that.

In summary, there is no magic bullet to getting a friend away from a narcissistic relationship.  It is a process that they alone have to be ready to undergo.  The victim must be armored with knowledge about the narcissist’s tactics before they begin to walk through that door.  That is where you come in, be there for them, and they will never forget it, even if they seem to ignore your concerns at this point.  I discuss how I made my escape in this blog post.  To an outsider, it can be hard to understand why someone would stay in a toxic relationship, but unless you go through it, it is impossible to understand it.    Just try to be sympathetic with your friend because it is such a drastic undertaking to break away from an abusive relationship that the victim must be in a fully committed state of mind to make it happen.  If they are only “sort of” ready to leave, that wont be enough to succeed in escaping.

If they understand that they have people in their life who love them and will be there to support them, that can make all the difference.

The Show Must Go On…

/ racheljaners / 2 Comments

We have all heard the phrase, “the show must go on.” But the ones who really understand it are those people who lived it by being stuck in a toxic relationship with a Narcissist. When you find that you need to put on a show whenever your partner is around, that is big sign that you are being controlled by a narcissist.

I am now three years removed from being submerged in a suffocating marriage with a narcissist, however, when I think back to what I went through and how I felt, I had an epiphany. I distinctly remember whenever my ex walked through the door, I had to prepare my 3 year old and 6 year old to treat their father a certain way in order to stall their father’s bad moods, suspicious antics or lecturing behavior.

I found myself telling my children that “Daddy’s going to be coming home soon and they better smile, and give him a big hug” and I would plead with them to be on their best behavior. I quickly learned that we had to go through this role playing because in the past, if my narcissist were to come home and we were all doing something other than waiting there to greet him with smiles on our faces and our full attention, he would be offended and feel that we “did not appreciate him.” He would then go on a pity trip and lecture us, scold us and say that we did not love him, etc. It was ridiculous, but true. It would put a dampener on the rest of the evening and we all walked on eggshells.

So, I would find myself trying to prepare my little actors to put on a show for Daddy. A show that would hopefully, delay the narcissist’s antics for a later time. But it was never for long. The children and I were always in survival mode, just waiting for the next little thing to set him off.

During the marriage, I didn’t actually see what I was doing, or how his behavior truly affected us because when you are living it, it can be difficult to see through it. However, now that I am safely away from my narcissist and in a healthy relationship full of mutual respect and adoration, I can easily see what lengths I went to in order to try to protect my children from their narcissistic father.

If you find that you need to be anyone other than your true self when your partner is around, that is not a good sign. Be aware that all of life is not a stage, or at least it shouldn’t have to be. My advice as someone who has lived through it, lower the curtain and walk away and it is best to ignore the curtain call, let the narcissist get the bows he craves from someone other than you or your children.

Rollercoaster Relationship with a Narcissist.

/ racheljaners / 1 Comment

A few months ago, I woke up from a dream that seemed so real it made me dizzy.  I always have taken my dreams with a grain of salt.  In the past, I have met people with skepticism when they discussed their dreams somehow giving insight to what was going on in their lives.  Well, I have learned many lessons these past two years and feel that a deeper understanding of what is going on in your life can absolutely manifest in your dreams from time to time.

In my dream, I was stuck in the back car of a roller coaster and my Narcissist ex husband was in the front car with the kids and no matter what I did, I could not get to them.  That dream so completely summed up my relationship over the past 7 years with him.

In a relationship with a narcissist, there are extreme highs and extreme lows. They put you on the pedistal and toss you down into the pit, as I have described in a previous blog. When things were good, they were great, and when he was displeased over one thing or another, (no matter how trivial) things were horrible.

Now that I have broken away from my narcissist, life is inconcieveably better. The best thing I have ever done was to leave him.  I have a job I love, my kids enjoy their school and I finally finished building my dream house!  And just then, wouldn’t you know it…when I was happy to be on my way, on my own… I stumbled upon meeting a good, honest, and intelligent man who loves and respects me and my family.  And I met him only 2.3 miles from my new home as matter of fact!  It is funny because I swore off internet dating, as that was how I met my ex narcissist 8 years ago.  Since I entered the dating scene, I vowed that if I was ever to date anyone in the future, I would have to meet him face to face purely by introduction or by accident.

Eventhough I have been guarded since leaving my rollercoaster of a relationship, I have had two years to reflect on who I am and what it is that I want.  I now have the confidence in myself to trust my gut again. I am determined not to make the same mistakes in future relationships.

That is something that toxic relationships with narcissists do, they rob you of your joy, your confidence and your ability to trust and love others by shattering who you are. Whereas, a healthy relationship is meant to build you up, not break you down.

I am enjoying where this relationship is taking us.  It feels incredibally rewarding to trust and love again. He gives me space, but makes room in his life for me and treats me like I had always hoped for.  It is funny how something as simple as being listened to when you talk can make you feel so loved. He always makes time to talk to me about my day, and he actually seems genuinely interested in what I have to say. I no longer feel like my thoughts and opinions don’t matter.  I am loving every day of our journey together and haven’t seen one red flag yet and it has been 6 months.

I see what my narcissist is doing in his relationship since I left him. He is up to the same old tricks.  My ex narc had only been alone one month before he snagged his next victim. Irena is a 26 year old Ukrainian”au pair.” He got her pregnant after three months and they are aleady pregnant with baby #2, and it has not even been a full two years since she landed on US soil. I see how he drives at least 300 miles every other weekend and has moved another 3 times since I left and plans road trips and plane flights on a whim, dragging her and the baby along. I vividly remember how exhausting it was trying to keep up with him when he was on one of his roaming tangents.

I am so greatful that I jumped off of that rollercoaster, that is one ride that I will never board again.