Little Acons – No. 18
14 thoughts on “Little Acons – No. 18”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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My ex MRN said this exact sentence to me right after he discarded me. I lost my mom 4 years ago, is not as warm as mom was (none of them are narcissists). Why on Earth would my ex say that he loved me more than my dad? He was leaving me because he admitted he couldn’t love me, Did he want to give me the feeling that no one loves me in this world? That’s the only explanation I could find! HG, I would appreciate understanding this from.the point of view of the narc..
1. To control the situation.
2. His manifestation of grandiosity.
3. To provoke you to gain fuel.
This is a very corrosive and damaging thing to say to a child about the other parent. Even if the child doesn’t believe the actual words in a literal sense, the connotations and implied dynamic of competition, black & white thinking, and mean-spiritedness still seeps into the child’s mind and has a lasting sub-conscious effect.
My mother never said this in such a direct way and she didn’t claim to love anyone more than anyone else.
Instead, she would constantly criticise or put down my father and his side of the family in an all-knowing and conclusive way. She would look down on them for one thing or another, like whether they had done something or said something, or looked a certain way or who they married, or what their personality was like, etc. When she did this, my father would hardly ever object or say anything in defence of himself or his family. He just listened to her opinions silently.
As a child, both my mother’s brazen and ‘convincing’ criticisms AND my father’s silent acceptance of them made me ‘believe’ (like a kind of conditioning) that there really was something ‘wrong’ or ‘not good enough’ with my father’s side of the family. This in turn made me think that, overall, my mother was ‘better’ than my father.
This background, subconscious thought process stayed in my mind for a very long time. Now, I can see that my father’s side of the family is actually the more empathic side. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with them at all and they are more generous and more understanding and friendlier than my mother’s side of the family.
It takes two to tango, as they say. It was unfair and damaging of my mother to deliberately disparage my father’s side of the family to make herself ‘superior’ and to brainwash her children against their father. However, my father should have objected at those times to set the record straight and defend both himself and his side of the family. He would generally try to avoid any arguments though, and probably knew it would come to no good anyway.
WiserNow,
Often when I read of your situation I feel as though my experience was very similar. My father definitely responded similarly to my mother’s criticisms (she never said the above though, either)…I just thought he was a bit distant and not overly emotional and so I never ‘connected’ with him as such…I never knew what an empath was until finding HG’s work…that that is what I am…and what my father was as well; he just repressed and internalized everything…never fought back – but I can definitely see now that he was the sensitive and empathetic one.
WhoCares,
It sounds like your father and mine both responded in that way because they knew it was pointless to argue and that it would only inflame things. I can understand that, especially since men tend to repress their emotions. I can only imagine that they must have internalised a lot of pain and resentment in having their wives criticise them so much. Men generally (especially empathic ones) don’t show their emotional pain as much.
Looking back at photos of my father in his younger days, he looked more spontaneous and naturally happier than in later years, so I think he did fight back and argue with her in the earlier years of their marriage, but she probably wore him down until he realised it wasn’t worth it. Like your father, he became distant and not very expressive too, although he has never lost his sense of humour or his infinite patience.
I used to be annoyed and angry with him for not answering back and for taking all the criticism, but now I just feel a deep sadness. He deserved much better. He is a good man and a great father.
I’m sorry you lived through this kind of experience too WhoCares. When we are children, it’s fairly easy to be conditioned to see things the way a manipulator wants us to see things. Now I can see that it must have caused a lot of pain and difficulty for the empathetic and sensitive parent.
👊
I confess : I think it a lot. I haven’t said it though. But because I eventually faced this truth I found the strength to leave him.
HG, I am curious if your mother said this to you, and if so, as a child, did you believe her?
No Bibi, I did not get this one.
I know you’ve mentioned your mom is an UMR Elitist. I can imagine that being very hard. I have a number of friends with manipulative/narc moms and some handle better than others.
My mom is a standard empath and my dad was the Lesser narc/sociopath. She could have benefited from your words back then, but this would have been the 1970s and Little HG would have still been milking goats.
1980s
Hahaha! 🙃
Haha, HG.
Or in patrinarcs case “your mother has hated you since you lay in her womb.” That is the one comment I truly, deeply loathe him for. Telling our oldest son and in his mind own personale prodigy.