To hope that a narcissistIc mother can change?

[LittleRed53]

So I'll try to keep this concise, sorry it's a saga!

Ever since I got married, years ago, my relationship with my parents, especially my mum, has degraded. We went from being very close, to her just never being interested in spending time with me, or ever reaching out to know how I'm doing. I tried to persist to keep things going, but the continual rejection and indifference really wore me down. Even when I had kids, she wasn't interested in being particularly involved. My dad has always been fairly ambivalent towards me, but me and my mum were very close before, which made the change really hurtful to me.

Over the last year, I've come to see that my mum has mental health issues, and shows serious signs of being a narcissist. There have been serious issues amongst family members, and mum has always tried to paint herself as the victim, tried to get me 'on her side'... Her determination not to take any responsibility has even gone as far as her accusing my sister and BIL of lying about her and sabotaging her, and even accusing my DH of stabbing her in the back and lying.

After a year of emotional manipulation and frustration, I decided to go NC with her and my dad, as he is completely blind to her behaviour and constantly enables her, and joins her in blaming everyone else. Her response to a sincere and heartfelt email from me explaining my decision and reasons, was a bullet point list of why none of it is her fault, why she has it worse than anyone and why I have no right to criticise anything she has said or done, or any right to be upset.

A third party has just told me that for certain reasons, she may soon try to get in touch with me to make peace. Now, if she does so, she stands to gain something personally important to her. So I know it could be she just says the right words out of pure self-interest. And I really don't like the idea of how much she'll resent me if I stand in the way of her getting the thing she wants. Plus there is always a part of me that hopes she will see the light and actually try to make amends. But I really don't want to get dragged back in after everything I went through to get away from them both and all the pain and drama she caused, and my dad enabled.

Added to it all is that they haven't even met my newborn, and don't know where I live, as I got pregnant and we moved house just after everything really kicked off about a year ago. It's made me feel like a terrible person, but bear in mind that if they'd ever actually contacted me in that year and asked how I was, I would have told them about the pregnancy. That is literally how little they care. And them not knowing where I live has actually made me feel safer. I feel really anxious about letting them into my kids' lives again, and them knowing where they can track me down, if things go very sour again...

So assuming she does reach out to me, would I be unreasonable to give her the benefit of the doubt?

YABU- don't trust her/narcissists don't change

YANBU- give her a chance

To be honest, IMO you're giving her too much head space.

From what you said she wasn't interested in you or your children and you were the one trying to reach out.
Even the email explaining why you were going NC was an attempt at reaching out.
You could simply have let the relationship cool off, with much less drama.

You're already trying to figure out what you'll do in a situation that may well never happen.

My advice to you is to concentrate on your own life and in the people that bring happiness to it. And let go of the others.
Deal with whatever happens if it happens.

Narcissists don't change. They can't, because the core of their disease is their belief that nothing is ever their fault and that they are never wrong.

Please continue to maintain your distance from your toxic mother and your enabling father and build your own happy unit of family and friends away from them.

My aunt was a narcissist, as was her father (my step-grandfather) and my cousin is still not recovered from the fallout of her behaviour. She's been dead 3 years and my cousin is still enmeshed in guilt. Don't let that be you.

Your post radiates hurt and sadness and I wish I could give you an answer, it's a heart vs head decision. Personally narcs don't change and I've seen the unnecessary destruction they cause, the endless hoops they present for you to jump through, the carrot dangling, it's never enough. Her timing of only reaching out at a time when she wants something from you that benefits her is suspicious.

Interesting your mother's response to your heartfelt email reads exactly like A Narcissistic's Prayer:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did...
You deserved it.

Don't give her any details of where you live if you do contact her if you feel strong enough to do so.

I’m so sorry, I know you won’t want to hear this, but I had to choose YABU.

She won’t change, you know this

The contact is for her benefit

The third party is what’s called a flying monkey... time to distance yourself from them too.

Protect your family from this mother of yours, stay NC.

Put it this way:

If you received an email From one of your kids like the one you sent her, would you have turned it into blaming them back or refusing to listen to anything they had to say?

No. You wouldn’t. She doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong, and if she did, it’s justifiable for her to have done whatever she has done because she’s the only one who is important in her world.

Lweji You're right, I do give her too much headspace. I need to work harder on that. Sorry if this is drip feeding, but the few bits of contact we've had this past year have been mostly due to my dad reaching out wanting to talk to me to make sure I understand why mum isn't to blame in various key events... And then me futilely trying to make him understand the problem. The last contact was because of me, though, as I felt it my duty to tell them they had a new grandchild (didn't want them hearing it from someone else). Of course mum wanted to use that as an opportunity to sweep everything under the rug and start over, which was why I finally drew the line of NC.

Thank you for your thoughts and kind posts. I know I need to be tough for my own sake. It's so twisted that I'm yearning to hear from her, even when I know she'll just hurt and anger me again!

That narcissist's prayer was really interesting, it's definitely familiar, unfortunately.

MzHz, you're so right. I'd be round their house in a flash if one of my kids wrote to me what I wrote to her. A good friend made that point to me once, too. I have to stop making excuses for her

It's not twisted, it's normal to want your mother to be loving I suggest having a look/posting on the current Stately Homes thread on the Relationship board on here, it's for posters like yourselves navigating toxic relationships with patents to discuss and support each other, I think you'd get a lot out of it

I’ve said this before: As a child I desperately wanted my Mother to love me, was aware she didn’t. As a teen I wanted her to like me. In my twenties I wanted her to be proud of me, in my thirties; at least respect me. I never had any of those things and in my forties she tried to play my twins against one another. I went NC and it’s been the best twenty years!

Thank you, thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter, I'll go and have a look at that. Thanks for your kind words.

Gilead, you've obviously been dealing with these kinds of problems for much longer than I have, as I only realised there was a problem in the last 8 years or so. I just accepted everything as normal before then. I'm glad NC brought you peace