My dad is a classic narcissist. Everyone was put on this earth to serve him. If you don’t do what he wants, you’re a worthless terrible person. It was not uncommon for him to get physically abusive, but not enough to leave suspicious marks. I went low contact with him three years ago when he yelled at my autistic, non-verbal daughter because she was being “too loud.”
My Grandma (his mom) died a week and a half ago. He demanded we all help go through her stuff on the Fourth of July. He figured we weren’t working, and couldn’t possibly have anything else to do. My older brother, myself and my younger sister said sorry we all have plans, but we’re happy to do it this weekend. He stormed off, and later told my sister that getting married to our mom and having kids was the worst decision of his life. She called me crying.
My wife and I talked things through and decided we are going no contact with him after the funeral, which was yesterday. I don’t need to have that kind of stress in my life, and I don’t want my kids to experience anything like I had to growing up.
My mom’s not a narcissist, but she grew up with an abusive father and an enabling mother, and she continues a lot of the toxic practices she learned growing up. She turns the smallest disagreements into full-on fights, and she constantly bickers and complains about everything the rest of the family does or doesn’t do.
The rest of the family still struggles a lot with her behaviour, but I’ve found a few things that help me deal with her:
- If mom comes at me with her complaining then I don’t let the discussion grow into a fight gradually, I go nuclear straight away, calling her a fucking hell-bitch so loud that the neighbors and anyone walking past the house can definitely hear it - and then I walk away. Somehow this gets the point through to her that I’m not playing her game, possibly because I don’t give her the time to work up her anger to the point where she finally goes nuclear herself and forgets everything around her.
- I never visit mom and dad’s house, but I sometimes allow them to visit my house. That way I can always just throw the both of them out if she starts to go toxic.
- I try to remind dad and my sister that we’ve already tried to get through to mom a thousand times before, and if she still doesn’t want to change her behaviour then we can’t force her. The only thing we can really control is our presence.
It’s probably for the best. Have you or your family ever consider referring your father to a therapist? It doesn’t excuse anything he did, especially being physically abusive but it might be an idea.