Is this narcissistic behaviour? My mum

[Countryescape]

Don’t get me wrong my mother can be lovely. She can be generous and kind and loves looking after her grand kids but just when you think everything is great she puts a sly boot in. It’s hard to explain but I’ll give examples and please let me know what you think:

Gives her colleagues the impression that her and I are ultra close. In reality we do absolutely nothing together but she does look after my children once a week.(not my choice but since I put my foot down once she never contacted me again and got the major pip).

She’ll give a compliment but it’s always back handed/followed up with a thinly veiled insult. eg “congratulations darling on your marriage but you’ll have to make sure you keep him interested.”

Any time I show vulnerability and she helps at the time, she’ll use it against me down the track.

Specific examples:
“You are so attractive it’s such a pity about your weight”. (I’m a size 12but she wishes I was a 8.)

You’ve put me through so much, much more than any of my friends children have.

Any time I have tried to talk to her about our relationship all I get is “it’s a pity you can’t choose your family”, “I did my best “ followed by crying, then vicious comments about how I am too sensitive, being ridiculous etc. etc.

We live 10 minutes from each other but do nothing together. We don’t do coffee, go to the movies, go for walks, go shopping, go to concerts together. Nothing.

What do you all think?

Yes, your kids are young enough not to challenge her.
It won't last long.
As long as they do something that embarrass her- we all know how important image is for narcs - they will see the real grandma

Please do not let your kids be with your mother. They will get hurt. It is not a matter of if, it is when.

My narc parents are also the "perfect" grandparents, cannot say no, etc.
I have seen my narc parents do things to my nephews and nieces that made up my mind not to expose my kids to them, including an episode of food poisoning they still say it wasn't their fault (oh it was!)

My own narc mother said to me in front of the kids- "I am surprised your sister is such a good mother"
Don't you think the kids can hear that?

Summary of food poisoning story

Sister asks my parents not to feed my niece (first born child, then 18 months old) more than 2 pieces of fruit as niece gets stomach ache and diarrhea and it is also time for dinner

Parents promise they won't

Sister and her dh leave for errands before dinner

Parents feed niece 6 pieces of fruit because niece keeps asking and they cannot say no, you see how cute she is devouring the banana!

By the 3rd piece, I remind them of the 2 piece rule and narc parents laugh at me. How do I dare spoil my parent's fun!

Niece cannot eat anything else at dinner, obviously - parents swear niece didn't eat more than 2 pieces of fruit

3 hours later, at 10.30 pm, niece is in agony screaming of stomach pain

Sister asks my narc parents about the fruit. They swear only 2.
Sister and dh worrying sick what else it can be, even thinking of going to ER
Parents still swear by the 2 pieces
I say it was 6 and they tell my sister I am lying
Narc parents are mad at me for ratting them out.
Narc parents go to bed at midnight because they are exhausted, leaving a huge mess behind them.

By 1.30 am, 3 bed sheet and pajama changes later, plus unlimited number of diaper changes, niece is finally resting

Sister and dh had to get up at 6 am to go to work.

The next morning, my narc parents complain they could not sleep well because my niece couldn't stop crying.

They do not ask how niece is doing, how my sister and her dh are doing. Of course, narc parents still mad at me for not covering for them.

No apology to sister and dh was ever released.

Yet, my narc parents love my niece to death and wouldn't do anything to hurt her, so my narc parents say

Actions speak so much louder than words

"My kids adore her and she is really lovely to them"

She is NOT lovely to them and they probably fear her on some level as well. She is not lovely to them because she treats you as their mother with the utmost contempt. She is indeed using your children as a form of narcissistic supply. Do not ever underestimate the damage people like your mother can do to kids. Look at how your own self has been harmed, similar will happen to your children.

The best thing you can do for yourself and for that matter your kids is to have no further contact with your mother. It is really not possible to have a relationship with someone like this and the grey rock technique is itself exhausting to maintain longer term.

We all know that the kind of person your mother is in public is not the same person she is in private.

It is like they flip a switch. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

You do not know what your mother does with kids or says to them behind closed doors.

Sounds like my Mum. I don't tell her anything about my life as it is critised and used against me later. I just do small talk eg did you watch such and such on TV? Or listen to her slag off her friends or relatives. My DC know not to tell her things (and say to me, don't tell Gran this).
Why do I keep in touch? She loves the DC and I adore my Dad. He panders to her and if I broke contact with her, I would lose my Dad. I've accepted that we will never have a good relationship, just a civil one. I know not to seek her approval but sometimes have to remind myself not to. It's hard. My sister is in therapy because of her.
Good luck op .

Bloody hell, @Hithere2!

My mother has behaved similarly (but less badly) with my niece and nephew. She gives them coke before bed and sweets for breakfast because she ‘can’t bear to hear them crying’. That’s why, when I’m looking after them at my parents’ house when my sister is away, I insist that she stays out of it. That makes me the bad guy in the kids’ eyes, but I don’t care. I’m the one dealing with kids who won’t sleep because they are wired on sugar and caffeine, or kids being sick because they haven’t eaten proper food. Both kids are overweight because she regularly looks after them but stuffs them full of junk because she thinks it will make them adore her. It’s a form of cruelty, I think.

OP: as others have said, don’t assume that your mum is always lovely to your children. Leopards, spots, etc.

@iamwombat
So sorry you relate to my story.

I commend you for stepping up and protecting your nephews and nieces.
That is my regret, a decade later, not physically removing my niece from their reach and start WWIII. I should have done more.

@iamthewombat,
Sadly, I think your sister should step up and protect her kids from your mother.

I know my sister does 😣

I meant to say my sister does need to do that- step up

She's move to your kids because of the scapegoat-golden child dynamic.. You are the scapegoat (person treated badly 'who can never do anything right').

For example: my gran was a narcissist and my mother was her golden child (does not mean she was safe, just that she was 'played' differently) and her sisters, the scapegoats. When my mum had me, we would spend half the year or so with gran in one way or another..and I became a scapegoat.

In time, she will start to play your kids off against you. Sounds like yours might do it by letting them away with anything and telling them you are too strict. But one way or another... ...

Wise to get your kids away from her, fast.

*she's nice to your kids
(Or, appears to be)

Plastictattoo

re your comment:-
"Why do I keep in touch? She loves the DC and I adore my Dad. He panders to her and if I broke contact with her, I would lose my Dad"

You need to break contact with the two of them. She uses your children as narcissistic supply and your dad is really her enabler and secondary abuser. In a straight fight would choose her over you as his daughter and would throw you under the bus to protect his own neck. Your children do not realise they are being manipulated and as they get older she will not tolerate anything she sees as dissent i.e. opinions of their own.

Thanks for all your responses. Looks like I’ve got some tough choices ahead.

@Hithere2 is your sister like your mum, or is she too scared to stand up to her?

My mother has successfully produced another narc in my sister. When the children come to stay with me I notice things like, they cry hysterically when they drop a plate or whatever and say, eg, “It was an accident, auntie Wombat! I’m sorry! It was an accident!”, like they are expecting to be roared at over trivial stuff. I say, “you don’t need to worry here”, but I worry about them.

@iamthewombat
Bingo! My sister is a milder version of my mother but with strong narc tendencies

Hello
I’m so sorry you Going through this. Reading this it could be my mother! I am
41 and most days I have come to terms with the fact she is just not a very nice person but even now she still confuses me with the odd nice comment and then I’m drawn in again only for it to end up turning into her telling me how awful and sensitive I am. I don’t know how she does it. I still feel stupidly grateful for that nice comment and that really annoys me but I’ve learnt that of course that’s what you’d want a mother to be like! However for every nice comment my mother makes that draws me in, there’s weeks of nasty ones to follow and I will end up apologising for being such a dreadful daughter (?!?!). Things will go quiet again and then the whole cycle starts again. I have very limited contact with her now. My dad enables all of it. Like yours, she is lovely to my kids but now they are teens they are horrified by the way she speaks to me. Lots of love x

In reality I should’ve stopped all contact the minute she called me a bitch and slammed the phone down the day before I got married (at 25). But they were paying for the wedding and I felt I couldn’t.

Helpmyhair2019

It is really not too late for you to reduce all contact levels with her because if you do not this same old cycle will continue. Many adult children of narcissists fall into the same traps as you have done in that they have also allowed their parents to have a relationship with the grandchildren despite their own experiences.

If they are too toxic/difficult/batshit for you to deal with, its the SAME deal for your children as well. These people are and were never really lovely to your children. They were manipulated, perhaps also treated similarly as to how you were and still are and used as narcissistic supply. Not surprisingly your now teenage children are horrified with the ways in which they speak to you. You would not tolerate that language from a friend (or would you because your boundaries are so poor), your parents are no different. And as you rightly surmise your dad does enable it all. He has also failed you abjectly as a parent here by throwing you, his daughter, under the bus.

It is really not possible to have a relationship with a narcissist. Its not your fault they are like this and you did not make them that way.

Read the website entitled "Out of the FOG" (fear, obligation and guilt) and do also look at and or post on the "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread on these Relationships pages.

Not much more to add except I understand. Many years NC now. Only re- enforced when I had a daughter because I couldn’t stand the idea that she will treat her like she did me.

My guess is two possible things will happen with your children.

They will start to challenge and question her and she will turn on them. Between 9-11 would be my guess. This happened to my brothers children.

Or

She will start to turn them against you. ‘Oh isn’t mummy mean not allowing you that toy. Here granny will buy it for you.’ ‘Oh mummy doesn’t understand, come over to granny’s and I will help you skip school .’ ‘Did mummy yell at you again? She is always yelling at you isn’t she. Never mind, come and visit me.’

By the time they reach late teens, you would have lost them.

I agree, sounds like your mum is a narcissist.
I have one too.
I'd go very low contact, get educated about it and think seriously about your kids having less contact with her. Even if she is lovely to them they shouldn't witness her being less than lovely to you.