AW, thank you Izz :) I'm trying, or at least I am proud to write
we are trying (my husband and I) these days.
It has been a matter for discussion though. I know that even other family members, adults, has fallen for the whole glitter show that the narc parent would somehow spare the grandchildren. No, that is not how it works. I would end up in a fight once with my luv after an incident where he had been so used to it, or been so focused on something else he had missed it. The truth is too ugly to realize. Everything is the opposite. that can be too much to take in, and one rather blame one self or think straight away "No, it can't be true", yes it can, and it is.
One thing i would do, I confess, is that I would tell my husband before us seeing them that this is what i want you to watch out for, this is what I see is one of your parent's tactics.
One is to favorite one grandchild and do it in such a way to scar the other one (emotionally).
Another is that as soon as the parents to a child leaves the room, during that short amount of time, the narc will do what it has set up to do al along, it is just waiting for that opportunity, and if given, grabs it.
That happened one time when I had to leave the table, the room, and I was back within some minutes. I did not need to be told. I saw the expression of a child. I knew then.
What had happened that time was that the narc begins something that sound nice and endearing, as if it is a protective grandparent. So it gets the rest of the adults on the train, right? Then you can tell that it then slides into something else, there is a sick twist. This has happened to me before.
The narc parent asks leading questions, I answer them. I know something is coming. Then I know I am in this tunnel, caught in the process, and the outline, the punch so to speak, comes right after you are out of the tunnel which is a pure insult, but if it was said at the beginning people would know it was an insult and react straight away.
But the narc is leading...so half way through I knew OK I am in this tunnel right now, but at least i know it.
There are those who don't know it, they can just feel that something is wrong, but they can't figure out what it is. And some think maybe 2-3 levels down, they don't go like me, I go like 10 levels deep down, I wrap things up and take a good look at them. (This has worked for my benefit work related btw). The "little things" are never the little things, they are the proof of what is really going on. The little breadcrumbs.
Same thing with couples. When one leave the room this is show time for the narc.
Anyways I began to prep my luv and said to him I want you to have your eyes and your ears ready and you can tell me then if I am wrong. What happened was that the narc would play right into my hands (yeah!) and the truth of its tactics was revealed even to my husband. About time. Before when he would tell me he was "shocked" I would tell him I don't know how he could be that considering he had always known this parent.
He agrees with me that no child of his will be watched unattended by the narc parent.
Already he has had to cut in and talk louder or remove a child with him. Now
finally he is awake.
It is very obvious to him these days what his narc parent is trying to do to his own child.
He can also tell what happens when the narc parent don't get immediate attention, it then acts out like a wild criminal. As soon as this narc don't get attention, don't get to sit on the throne, then it is show time. The narc parent has nearly completely destroyed children's birthdays celebrations, and I don't know how many others events, and always somehow try to make it look like as the narc is not guilty. That somehow this just happened. So even envious of it's own grandchild getting like 3 minutes attention (for celebration).
If my child says something nice or even "thank you" to the other grandparent the narc-grandparent will then try to make my child feel ashamed because the child did not thank the narc-grandparent first etc and it says these things in such a manipulative way. It has to of course say thank you to the narc grandparent first. The narc grandparent has to come first, middle, and last. It is trying to teach the grandchildren this superior order.
The grandchildren that are favorites are the ones that are manipulated and the ones who let the grandparent shine, the ones that are taught this is the good thing to do, that is putting someone else's feelings before your own, that the grandchildren that has some sort of status that the grandparent can use to make the light shine back on the grandparent because of that.
The others - that are individuals with a strong intact and parents that protect them well, who sees this, are less favored. Still of course the narc grandparent make it all look as if always treating every grandchild the same. No, no, no. Empty words. Good words. Words everyone likes to hear. Makes the narc grandparent come off as this good person, right?
My luv has been quilt-tripped and he has had (still has) one or two of those status the parent could use to make the light shine back on itself. This why all the talk about being "shocked", how come this parent can do it to me then? I guess my luv thought I would be treated the same way just because I was
his wife? No, not how it works.
I know that it is a common idea that parents don't think their child's partner will ever be good enough for it's child, but it has been pretty clear I have been one of them. I think the narc grandparent would for sure love to have for instance my husband's ex (she has a status) as my husband's current, instead of me, but this triangulation has worked to some extent, but not in another. It is also the same game the narc parent play with other in-laws to try to place them opposite each other, one favored, the other not.
I think it has made his parents hurt or rejecting or something in a way, as my luv had early on declared to me he lived his own life (before me even). He had set up some kind of wall. One can say he was half-asleep, half-awake.
I think the narc grandparent had wanted to continue to live through him, and would have wanted him to make other decisions, and had difficulty respecting the decisions my luv had been taken even before he met me, or how he was to handle some other situations in his life, regarding his work and love life.
One of the absolute best parts about this has been that the narc parent had actually made up a story (that it calls the truth) where I somehow had a role to play in my husband's life
before I even had met my husband!
Somehow something had gone wrong in my husband's life
before he met me for the
very first time and that was
my fault.
What it does is that it takes a little bit of truth and then juice it up with pure sick imagination for a completely different result than what was in the actual cook book. And then expect people to try to defend, explain themselves. Brilliant, I have to say. But also very cruel. I got upset. But what does the narc care about that? It's show time! A normal parent would be horrified, that one loves this, love drama, love to see someone cry, as long as it is about the narc grandparent, as long as it can come off with its manipulation tactic it feels just great.
One time someone was crying. Guess who had to fake-cry ever louder? Like loud-loud? The narc-grandparent of course. To me if not before the narc grandparent came off looking like a baby, and not a cute one. Nobody knew why the narc grandparent was "crying" in the first place. This was not suppose to be about the narc grandparent.
My husband has said that he has always thought that for some reason I have made his narc parent act somewhat nervous, that it never knows where it has me. Good. It shouldn't know.
I am trying to think that I will not ask leading questions to a child but let the child think for itself. i can also say things like if you don't want to say anything then don't its perfectly fine, and I try to also encourage a child to express its feelings, thoughts without me at all saying how I feel or think about a situation or what it now may be. That is in the opposite direction of how the narc grandparent works.
One other thing I noticed that this narc tried to do is that it would try to force down it's own opinion, feelings on to my child and not allow the child to have its own opinion and feelings about it even if that child had just as equal right to have that. When the narc tried to do that I cut in between and said what I wanted to say and I then after that removed the child from it's presence. It was just such a typical incident where I could tell this must have been done to my luv and to the others, so that only what the narc thought, felt was what was forced through manipulation to make the child ignore it's own thoughts and feelings. This why too I so many times have watched my husband in the same room as the narc and realize he is just like this ghost there, there is no him there, I can't feel him. In this fog. Numbed and I know what that is like as I used to get that way with an ex (psychopath).
Linear Mode
