My MIL is a narc. She lost FIL last year and is quite elderly but still able to drive. DH is pretty much NC and since having a stroke finds it even more difficult to be around her. He has always been the scapegoat and is treated very differently than her other 3 sons.
I saw her this week, through work, and she was super pleasant for a short while, then started to get annoyed with me because my DS hasn’t been to see her for months.
He’s 19 and drives but has
distanced himself over the last couple of years. I’ve no idea why since I have tried not to influence his relationship with MIL. But I guess she has been narc with him at some time.
As a grandmother she has been great when the grandchildren were young. She soaked up their love but as they are becoming adults they have seen the “other side” and DS is quite intuitive. He studied A level psychology and I suspect he has worked out the dynamic. He has always been overshadowed by his slightly younger cousin who is the same school year. Over the pandemic we were unaware of the mental health problems this cousin was developing so when we visited his GM to tell her how he’d got on with his GCSEs he naturally asked how his cousin had done. She had to admit he hadn’t taken them which was a surprise and although DS was sorry to hear about his cousin, on our way home he quietly said “ at least grandma won’t be comparing us anymore”. I thought this was quite telling.
Anyway, the other day she kept on pushing me re him visiting, I couldn’t give her a reason, but I did ask her when she was likely to be in. She reeled off days she was in but specifically ruled out one evening because she goes to a club, that club is held in the village hall we live next door to.
So it’s alright for her to drive past our front door every week but never once arrives a little earlier to pop in and see us. We’ve never had an issue with anyone dropping in and since DH had his stroke she has been round just twice to see him, she lives a mile away.
Narcs don’t change, they wax and wane. The anger is never far from the surface although they have tremendous control over it when around new people or people they need to impress.
We know that if we drop in unannounced we have about an hour before the narc comments start. We have a prearranged signal so we can leave before it gets too unpleasant.
I do feel really sorry for my MIL I don’t think she gets on well with any of the family now.
Unfortunately she caused a rift by selling her house to her golden child who now lives with her. It was done without the knowledge of the rest of the family, it has allowed us to offload all caring onto him. I don’t think that he thought it through, well only the financial gain, but we all make our own bed.
In my experience my MIL is the same as she has always been, a manipulative, gaslighting and sometimes cruel woman, but to the outside world she can be charming.