Narc fathers

Thank you for your advice. At 7 she has already said, "He wants me to say 'Ciao'. I don't want to." (He thinks he's some great Italian.) "I told her she could just say goodnight if she wants. It's her choice. Any advice adult children of N's could give us non-disordered parents---please do!!!

The ex-Psych professor was 15 years my senior, so he definitely took advantage of the fact of being a teacher/father figure. It was a position of authority. He compared himself and I to Leo and Sofia Tolstoy... who also had that age difference (she was 18 and he was 34 when they married) Sofia idolized Leo before she married him;she had memorized his "Childhood." Of course, he took advantage of the fact she admired him as a genius. Father figures are a common motif in Tolstoy's writing. In "Family Happiness", Masha is told by her older husband (who's old enough to be her father) what will make her happy. HE defines her happiness. He doesn't try to empathize. As one commentator said, the husband acts as "spouse, mentor and father." In "Anna Karenina",both Anna and Kitty are married to men old enough to be their fathers. When Levin courts Kitty, he remembers how she was once a baby in a cradle. In "War and Peace", the Narc Andrei is older than Natasha, and her parents are concerned about their engagement. The engagement makes Natasha vulnerable to the psychopathic Anatole, who likes "young girls." Andrei treats his pregnant wife Lisa like a child. Andrei hates his wife... because his father does. Nikolenka, the offspring of Andrei&Lisa, is left an orphan because Andrei dies of his wounds and Lisa dies in childbirth. Narcissism literally makes Nikolenka an orphan. In the first epilogue, Nikolenka dreams of glory and hopes he will make his father proud of him. Nikolenka idolizes Pierre as a father figure. I found it ironic that the ex-P D&D'd me for a woman only 5 years his junior. They were basically of the same generation. The ex-P seemed to have father issues himself. He'd say how he was envious and admiring of his father (who IS famous and respected) A year after the D&D, he was palling around with his father... because his colleagues abandoned him. The ex-P wanted a woman who was like his father. I once remember joking to the ex-P that he must've sprung from his father's head, fully grown, as Athena sprung from the head of Zeus, since he barely mentioned his father. "My heart belongs to Daddy"-Great American songwriter Cole Porter

Good topic. I posted some stuff about my father, under the wrong topic I think. I was on a roll and felt so connected with the truth that day. I think it is under Betty's post about acceptance, cuz that is a difficult topic for me. Had my father not been so condescending, ragefull, and treated me like my feelings were invisible, I don't think my self esteem would have been so low. I was like a magnot for these freaks cuz I wanted to be loved and accepted so badly by my father. This is a beginning, acceptance and acklowledgement of the shame and horror that was my childhood. Thanks for the topic, it is totally on point for me. God bless, Goldie

Jen I just read your post, you are an amazing woman, all the times you replied to my whining posts and this is what you have been through, my God, I hope you know what a wonderful person you are, and youre father never deserved a daughter like you........I hope you are well and know that that world sees you as the woman you are, and as for your narc father, his loss, big time..........xoxo Jaycee

My narc totally hated my children but adores his foster child. I make about forty thousand dollars a year and live in Chicago, where more than half of that goes for rent and utilities, and most of what remains goes to the IRS to pay my ex husband's debts. I am a single mother in a tiny apartment raising my two little girls, and my narc knew that my ex husband was verbally and physically abusive, drunk and absent to my daughters and bipolar. He knew my husband committed arson and lost his job, went to prison, that I had to go and live with a friend hundreds of miles away because my family disowned me because they were ashamed of what my husband did and he gave all of the money we had to his lawyer. I was destitute, and so were my children. Do you think this multi multi millionaire could help me with my daughters? Buy them a pair of shoes or a toy? Buy me a bag of groceries? Take them to the park? No way. Their past and their situation meant nothing to him. He said, "You are fine." "They have plenty." But the foster child had to have not only his own room, but a playroom, a flat screen t.v., his own bathroom, and only the finest clothes, shoes, boots, and everything else. The first Christmas he was here, he got from the narc and his family a complete Wii system, a complete Nintendo system, a five hundred dollar bike, a snowboard, a two hundred dollar jacket, golf clubs, savings bonds, and so much other stuff there were toys even stuffed in the fireplace. The narc and his brother got together and gave my eight year old a microphone and my six year old a Magic 8 Ball. Their other brother and his girlfriend gave them each a pair of tights--three sizes too big. When I said, just out of sheer horror, "I think you may be spoiling him," the narc said, "Oh, honey, he's had a hard time." Never mind that my daughters' dad was on the front page of the Tribune after the arson, that I had no money to buy them food, or that all three of us were sleeping in a bed together. You think he would respect me because I pulled my kids through and reestablished myself as best I could? Oh, no. He wouldn't even take my calls, but he talked for an hour every day to the crack whore whose kid he was raising and made sure she had enough groceries and her medicine. Jesus Chr*st this freaking pisses me off! I supported everything he did, including taking in the child as our own, and now I'm all f*cked up, my kids are in the same spot, and the foster child is going to inherit not only the evil narc persona but about fifteen million dollars, which he will probably shoot up. Sorry. So mad.

I slowly start to see, thanks to this forum and my therapist, that my father isn't so bad. He was abroad most of the time, and somehow, I got the idea that he did that because he didn't want to be with us. And he struggles to show his feelings, that's for sure. My grandfather (his father) definately is a N. when my father was abroad, he often visited my mother, to control her. To control my brother and I. Nothing we ever did was good enough. I think I projected my feelings towards my grandfather to my father. And of course I would have liked it that my father would have been home more. To keep my grandfather out of the house. To have a real family. This cannot be undone. But I give him more credit. My father helped me the last few months. He knows that I'm going through a rough patch and is trying to show that he supports me, albeit in his own way. He won't ever say that he loves me, but he will come pick me up when it's snowing, and paid for my car battery, that broke last week :-). I think my father has some N traits (he was raised by a N, and two of his brothers definately are Ns), and he definately has his flaws, but he isn't that bad. Just wish he had kept my grandfather out of the house more. Jen, and all the others here, I know it's hard. It's pretty fucked up. Most of the people here are survivors of some kind of domestic violence or bad parenting. But I truly admire how you ladies cope with it. This forum is such a great source of inspiration.

He's out of my life now (about ten years). Thank God. What a pathetic, sick man. Just the thought of him gives me a sick feeling. I'd gone into therapy practically BECAUSE of him at the age of 23, and long before that, I was ten or eleven years old reading self help books (what versions there were in the 1970s). I always knew there was something very wrong with him, but nobody could talk about it. After I ended the last Narc relationship (I mean the LAST, not most recent LOL) I re-visited my relationship with my father. I'd been NC with him for years but I finally understood what he WAS. I had a lot of guilt for shutting him out, and I realized I was doing the only thing I could do. He gets ANYwhere near you and you are in trouble. Seems like healing from the current exNarc means you'll get to put a lot of other relationships to rest too. Ha ha. Thrillsville :) Except that these early relationships with Narcs have too much to do with how we get targeted by the current and god help us, future PDIs. We grew up conditioned by them to accept horrid, unacceptable behavior, to question ourselves and not trust our instincts. I didn't spend a TON of time on my father this time 'round. It just made a lot of sense out of old confusions and pain. I didn't have to relive my childhood or anything. I could look back on it with an adult's understanding though :) Sad, but very healing.

If the ex-Psych professor had been ANYTHING like my father, I would be married to him. He'd be humane, compassionate, capable of physical affection. My mother was raised by Narc parents. She still deals with it. I've always tended to get along BETTER with my father than my mother. If the ex-P were like my father, he wouldn't be a psychopath. He'd be HUMAN.

I'm not ready to address HIM yet, but my father is CLASSIC! God bless my mother who is "mother teresa". :( My dad is the mild (not raging) type. Suttle type. Funny, good looking and loves my mother for putting up with him. Respects her (a lil). My Dad! Aint going there in the forefront of my brain, but I ALWAYS knew he was. I'm the youngest of 5, and I remember him saying to me "you always know with your eyes. You are the only child that looks at me and just knows. A penny for your thoughts?" I was 8 yrs old and I said "if I had a penny, I wouldn't give it to you!" He looked angry but he smiled and patted me on the head and said "see, your ALL me, I love your fight". Uhm, no asswipe, I was NOTHING like him. Ugh, not ready for that can of worms :)