A Family Affair: The Narcissist’s Family and How it Works

At the beginning of my relationship with my husband (then boyfriend), there were a few MASSIVE red flags from his family that I missed. Looking back they are incredibly obvious, but in the state I was in then – still reeling from having been devalued and discarded by my mother and father – it is not so surprising that they went unclocked.

One of my boyfriend’s younger sisters back at his family home (abroad, in a different culture) had learned that we were in a relationship, that things were getting serious, and that marriage had been mentioned between us. I heard that she’d said to him about me, “Well, as long as she loves us the way you do, I don’t mind what she’s like.”

Might look fairly innocent at first glance. I mean, she’s talking about sharing love, which is something positive, right?

Wrong.

Why? Well, when a member of a narcissistic family talks about ‘love’ they don’t always mean it in the same way as the rest of us might. They often mean ‘service’ or ‘unquestioned obedience’ instead of ‘love’.

Firstly, my husband’s sister, who is 5 years younger than him, thought it was fine for her to butt into his life and start judging which of his girlfriends were and were not OK by her. I did actually ask him about what I thought was her strange behaviour later, and discovered that both of his sisters had interfered in his romantic life before the younger of the two made this statement about me. A previous girlfriend had actually been dumped by him on their say so, and for apparently no other reason than their having said they “just didn’t like her”. Not only that, but my boyfriend openly defended their behaviour, and said that, as his family, it would have been weird for them NOT to exercise their right to such interference! (he made it absolutely clear, too, that he considered it their right as much as they did).

All this should have set deafening alarm bells ringing for me. However, in my fragile state, all it did was make me think that I should try even harder to stay on the right side of the family so as not to lose my boyfriend. And so began my downward slide into their creepy world…

Secondly, in her comment about ‘love’, what my would-be SIL really meant was, “Well, as long as she is prepared to be a doormat and always come second to us, “The Worshipful Family of Origin”, I don’t give a damn about anything else.”

The general attitude when we got engaged and married seemed to be that I should consider myself lucky to have been chosen to be his wife and a part of their family.

The trouble with that apparent luck was that it was strictly one-sided and came with iron chains. He was the family prince/servant, and I was his whipping boy. He had a love/hate relationship with his family. His father was also a demanding narcissist. When the family pushed my husband too far with their demands, he would rather take his frustration out on me than insist they lower their expectations or change their behaviour. At the same time, he was obsessed with the adoration they would pour on when he did things for them. I was expected to go to frankly ridiculous lengths to collude with him in keeping them happy, while all the time knowing I was never really ‘one of them’.

And it worked in exactly the same way in reverse. Whenever my husband’s reputation was threatened or it seemed like his time or attention was being ‘stolen’ by someone or something else, the family would rush to his defence, closing in on itself to the exclusion of outsiders – including me – like Roman soldiers in a protective testudo or tortoise formation (see below).

 

Testudo or ‘tortoise’ Roman battle formation

 

This behaviour is typical of the narcissistic family, no matter which family member(s) are in the narcissistic roles. It could be one parent or both, one child or more, or even a revered grandparent, aunt, or uncle. The narcissist keeps family members possessively close at all times, and teaches them that it is not appropriate to share or discuss family matters with outsiders. This was the behaviour that my father-in-law excelled in, as did my husband. There is rarely a good reason given for this rule when it is stated, and here’s why: the clannish attitude only exists to preserve the narcissist’s domain and ensure that they always have a cover for the abuse they inflict within the family. They are safe because everyone has been indoctrinated never to talk, always to defend the narcissist and the family, and they are simply too brainwashed, and often frightened, to do anything else.

As a non-narcissistic member or in-law of a narcissistic family, you may be told not to “air the family’s dirty laundry in public”, or shunned or punished for talking about the family to other people. The narcissists, along with the other family members they have roped into enabling their abuse and supporting their image, are terrified of the truth getting out. If you speak the truth without fear or shame, you threaten them.

If you find yourself in a narcissistic family either by birth or by marriage, you have a choice to make. You can only change yourself and your behaviour, because the family you are part of will likely NEVER change one bit. As well as leaving a marriage to a narcissistic man, I left a narcissistic family of origin. I’m not going to lie – it wasn’t easy. There were times when I questioned if I was doing the right thing, missed my family members despite what had gone on while we were still in contact, and had several occasions of thinking I would give them ‘just one more chance…’.

But I soon realised that, if I wanted to be my ‘real’ self, I had to leave them behind. The life I had had with them was no life at all, really. Trying to be something I was not just to please them, lying about our family and about my true feelings all the time just so they wouldn’t get upset, having to conform and pretend and worry and cover up… it was exhausting!! And above all, it was totally unnecessary. Nobody should have to live like that.

A narcissistic family may well accuse you of ‘abandoning’ or ‘betraying’ them if you decide to limit or cease contact with some or all of them. Let them. They are only feeling threatened and angry because you are no longer conforming to type and holding your place in the dysfunctional family scheme of things. They thought they had you well-educated to serve them, but now you have seen the light and had enough.

You have the right to be and behave as your authentic self, and to tell the truth about anything at any time. That is especially true of any abuse you have suffered. What narcissistic families engage in to protect themselves is abuse. The forced deceit, shaming, and fakery are all emotionally abusive behaviours that you have the right to live without being subjected to.

One last thing: perhaps other people think that your family is the best family in the world, and you are worried that nobody will believe you if you have to tell them why you cut off contact? They may not believe you… but that doesn’t mean the abuse didn’t happen.

The only thing that matters is that YOU know what really happened, and you are taking steps to protect and distance yourself from the cause of it. Let other people think what they may – they didn’t have to be part of your family. Do what you need to do for yourself, and let the rest go. This is YOUR time. There is nothing wrong with looking out for yourself. Do not confuse ‘self-care’ with ‘selfishness’. Self-care is an important thing for us all. Get plenty of it!

I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for reading.

(Photo credit: imgur.com)