How to deal with the family narcissist?

[Eve90x]

Hi! We have a member of the family (DH's family) who is a narcissist, and we've all known about her condition for years. She' extremely entitled, wants attention constantly about every tiny thing and shouts the worst verbal abuse to family members that I've ever heard.

I've been quite scared of her since I met her, but I've learnt to cope with her over the years. However, she is pregnant now (!) and it's unbearable! The whole family receives sexy pregnancy pics - along with complaints about how awful she looks. We hear about all of her sufferings more or less daily, and she has every issue under the sun. It's like she's the first person ever to be pregnant and it takes over the whole family.

She feels entitled to MIL's constant attention, so the rest of us get nothing. She's told the rest of us to stay away from MIL due to Covid, but she's there all the time, even if she doesn't live there. If MIL meets us in the park, she has to lie about it to this person, since she would flip out.

She wants to know about my pregnancy experiences only if it highlights hers - like to make her feel she's got it worse. She says everybody has so easy pregnancies (meaning me), but hers is the worst ever. Thing is though.. there's nothing wrong about her pregnancy - every test and scan has been normal!

I'm so overwhelmed and scared off by her now and I just want to back off, but I can't back off from MIL and she's constantly with her. And christmas is coming up and looks like we'll all be together.

Does anyone have any advice on this? Or any experiences that could help? x

A relative had these tendencies and the only thing that helped was avoiding him.

Check out grey rock strategies online. You need to become the most boring, uninteresting person in the universe in relations with her which are unavoidable. Cut off her narcissistic supply.

Avoiding definitely sounds best. Occasionally it helps, in my experience, to breezily but with a sharp and direct gaze, if that makes sense, state the truth ('oh, you really do like to make things into a competition, don't you' and change topic) but you have to have strong nerves and be able to not get drawn into an argument. It will antagonise them further but since losing the upper hand is often the worst that can happen to people like that, it can help. Best, I suppose, if they feel they don't want to lose their relationship with you, even if it is because you falling out would make them look bad.

You can unfollow her on social media without unfriending her, so you just won't get her attention seeking news feeds.

I agree that avoiding her or grey rock are the only options. She sounds very manipulative. What is the worst she can do if you ignore her? she throws a strop?

Thanks for your replies! I just looked up the Grey Rock method, as I've never heard of it, and I think another family member may have tried a bit of that. In the family chat when she's posted sexy pics, this other family member has often changed topic.

Fortunately, being boring and uninteresting is how I've naturally been able to cope with her over the years. I have a boring job, I don't wear make-up and I often buy second hand clothes, or normally wear grandma clothes :) Before she became pregnant, she's been obsessed with her looks and buying expensive make-up and designer clothes. SO we've naturally had nothing in common.

But with her pregnancy this has changed. Since I have three kids, she's been drawn to me since being pregnant and I hate it. I give advice when she asks, but maybe I should stop doing that?

Stop enabling this!

Meet up with mil, let her worry about the consequences and say NO to mixing at Christmas

You DONT have to do this.

Stop giving advice

She’s not interested in what you have to say, just the fact that she can make you react whenever she has a need for attention

Just don’t reply, and if if you have to, never ever on the day, leave it a day, a couple of days, a week.

You already have your answer. Back off from MIL. You can either tell her why or just be a bit busier spending your time with people you actually like.

If it were up to me we wouldn't be with her at Christmas, but our children should be with their grandparents. It's not just me, it's DH and the kids too. MIL is supposed to look after our son a couple of days a week soon as well, and it keeps me up at night that this person will be around my son then too :(

You need to disentangle yourself from so much contact. Get DC into nursery instead of using MIL.

I think, deal with facts.

One fact is, your MIL is very enmeshed with the SIL. That is her choice. As a fact, it needs responding to.

but our children should be with their grandparents.

At any price? No. Parent them, protect them and take charge.

If you don’t want the mil/SIL dynamic when your ds needs looking after, make other arrangements

You’re being incredibly wet about this. These are your dc!

@MzHz Thank you for being so direct, I really needed to hear that. I tend to do all I can to avoid conflict, and I'd hate to be the one actually causing a conflict, which is why I go along with everything. But you're right, they're my children and I have to stand up for them

I know lovely, I know how hard it is, confronting these people IS hard, but that’s how they get away with it.

My position with my own family is you have treated me like crap, but the minute my dc is involved is the day I rise up.

You know what she is, and you know she’s not going to change, you know Mil won’t stand up for you, and you know that she wouldn’t protect your dc in these circumstances either

We do have the power to say “no, that’s not what I’m prepared to accept”

Our kids rely on us to protect them, I didn’t have anyone to offset my parents belittlement of me, but the second my ds was exposed to it, I pulled the plug on the lot of them.

Yeah he has no grandparents, but he’s not going to have people telling him he’s not good at this, or not good at that.

My oh had an awful childhood and the narrative now is that his poor mother was naive, scarred from the wartime experiences blah blah, but her parents stepped in to protect my oh, from the decisions she and his dad were making.

The way I see it, we got one job as parents, to do the best for them, to protect them from people who may harm them, teach them that this behaviour isn’t on, and to prize themselves and their self worth and not let narcissistic people use them for their own perverse feeds.

You totally got this!

@MzHz Well done you, for standing up to your parents! That must be way harder than standing up to in-laws. And you're definitely right. I don't want my children to ever be second best when with grandparents. I definitely have some thinking to do x

I knew someone like this. Everything in her pregnancy was the worst heartburn, morning sickness,fatigue etc. Eventually I snapped and pointed out that I found morning sickness was far worse in my second and third pregnancies as while I had my head in the toilet I would be trying to stop the other two from emptying out the kitchen cupboards and destroying the house.

I have a narc father and have cut him off for the sake of my mental health and the sake of my kids. Sadly this does mean that I don't get to see DM but she doesn't see any issues with DF, so that's not something I can help. Do what you need to do to keep yourself sane.

A hardest thing ever, so painful- but life is better without them.

I do speak to my dad, but haven’t seen him since my ds birthday a few years ago when he started making comments about ds appearance within 15mins of me arriving at restaurant

Poor ds. He said he’d have far rather just spent the evening with just me. It wa any fault because from my 16th birthday onwards I never got to see my dad on my or his birthday and somehow that’s what I thought would be nice for ds to see his dgf.

I felt like crap.

Mother moved hundreds of miles away, told everyone all about it, except me. Oh I knew she was moving, and to which county, but that’s when the information stopped. Only found out cos I overheard her telling someone She’d found a place and out in an offer.

No forwarding address given, not details whatsoever.

When I asked her why she’d done that, that I was hurt and bewildered at what she’d done her reply was “well we were never that close”

These are the words I’m saving especially for when and if the call comes to help her.

Revenge is a dish best served deep frozen.

If you’re not used to dealing with people like these it’s v hard to believe

But you can’t win, so don’t even play with them.

@arinah I am in the exact same position as you. My mother hasn’t left and I don’t think she ever will and it’s only when they fight that she can she how bad his behaviour is. I used to feel sorry for her but I don’t anymore. My goal in life is to be nothing like my parents!😁

@Princessbanana exactly. I remember my parents fighting when I was younger than 10, but after that I think DM just gave in to a life of nothing. I sincerely hope you get to live the opposite life with your own family :)

I absolutely do @arinah and I wish the same for you and your family!💕

@MzHz omg, that’s awful! How can your own parents treat you like that? You’ve done so well to cut them out, and poor your ds too :( hope he’s ok.

Yeah I’m not used to people like that at all. My family are so scared of hurting people and that’s what I’m used to, so it’s really hard to deal with someone who is actually a narcissist. Never met any before x

It’s hurtful yes. I’d never really seen it that blatantly before, but there was no doubt

I should have saved the email, but erased all history of them

Like I said, there is no healthy relationship to be had with a narc. Don’t play the game at all.

Mil chooses to do what suits her, just keep up the narrative of “why would you do that? And really? Mm-Kay...