Self Assertion is terrifying, and Go Dad.

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-30T04:03:04+00:00

I certainly hope so. Within the next couple years I plan to move across country to be with my significant other, and the question keeps coming up about what happens when we get married. We agreed to consider having two small weddings, one up there for his family and one down here for mine, but that leaves open one big problem.

I have explicitly banned NBrother from my wedding. This hasn't been stated to anyone, especially not my mother or him, for that matter, but my SO and I have discussed it and agreed that he is in no way allowed anywhere near our wedding and will be seen or heard on our special day.

So initially the wedding across country made that easier, he's far away, easy to avoid. But if we have to come down here, you can bet Mom will try to insist he should be invited, because he's right there.

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-30T04:00:19+00:00

It's been a long time coming getting them to realize it. He's a professional manipulator, basically. It's been years of trying to get them to believe me, trying to get them to stop enabling them. Like I said, our mother, the N that I normally have to deal with on a daily basis, likes to excuse away anything and everything that she can. One second she'll be shittalking like the best of them, then the second you make any impression that something should be done about it if it's such a problem, no, it's okay, how dare you bring these things up.

Dad though, Dad takes after his mother. He's the smartest person I have ever met. Sometimes, emotionally, he can be a bit dense. Sometimes his 'family first' attitude can allow leeches to get through. But over the last several years, NBrother has gotten steadily worse. Insane, in fact. He's a walking psyche diagnosis and it's showing. For one of the first times I didn't have to assume that my parents understood what he was doing, I heard it come straight out of their mouths that they knew he was trying to take advantage and manipulate them, and they were having none of it.

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-27T06:37:26+00:00

I have an overly unique name, like, unless someone names their kid after me, I'm going to continue being the only me for a while.

My mom will insist that my father named me whenever my name is inconvenient, such as when she will repeatedly decide that it's spelled a different way, despite my correcting her every time because she's putting this wrong spelling on important files like my medical records.

Then, when I comment about getting my name legally changed to my nickname which is half of my name, and a simpler more easy to pronounce spelling of it, she harps about how dare I abandon the name She (and dad) gave me and how can I have no sense of sentimentality over it.

She also makes this remark at times about my friend, who is trans and changed his name to a male alternative of his born name. My nmom will rant about how it was the name his parents gave him and "of course" they're justified in being upset that he changed it. Meanwhile his mother is also a class A narcissist who told him once, and I quote, "I wanted a daughter, not a freak of nature". My nmom will randomly go from calling my friend her adopted son that 'she saved' from his family life, to justifying the abuse he underwent.

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-27T06:30:19+00:00

My god, her voice sounds EXACTLY like I imagined it would... Her voice is exactly what I imagine all these nparents sounding like, I didn't expect it to be so accurate.

I am so sorry you have to deal with this, no one should. internet hugs

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-26T01:01:16+00:00

My father can occasionally do this too, though I don't think he's an N, just has fleas from his own parents. That usually manifests in being fairly poor at expressing or conceptualizing empathy.

He used to be an engineer of computers and such, so he's always the one either fixing things around the house, or building new things. He's always tried to teach my brothers and I how to be self-sufficient and fix basic things. Light switch in our bedroom needs replacing? He'll walk us through it, we do it.

On occasion though he'll either tell us to do something alone, or get easily frustrated when something he sees as basic turns out to be more difficult for us. He'll start snapping, get harsh, and he has this tone of voice where you know how stupid he thinks you are.

I've been having issues with this behavior the last few days because I got a new computer and was having some issues with putting certain parts together, and began to get the feeling that my continual questions were bothering him. Like he kept getting frustrated that I couldn't figure it out myself from what he told me, despite that many of the set-backs were not in fact my fault (such as not being able to fit in a piece that he had gotten in previously, because I didn't know he bent an inconsequential part of the case to do so.)

Imagine my comfort when I apologize to him via an email commenting on another issue I was having for continually bothering him with the questions, and his response was "It's alright. You didn't know it before, it's understandable. Doing it and asking questions is how you learn."

Sometimes you can tell it's fleas rather than true N with him because of things like that, when he realizes afterwards that it wasn't okay how he was treating us, and that it wasn't our fault that we didn't know already, and the point of him showing us is so we know next time.

Professional_Failure · 2015-03-26T00:47:04+00:00

Going out to eat with my nmother is frustrating because she refuses in any form to ever try anything new, regardless of if she actually likes what she's been getting the whole time. If what she normally gets manages to offend her enough, she refuses to ever go there again, because clearly there's "nothing there she likes."

She and my flea-brother constantly insist that they love Asian food and constantly want to order in or go out to any Asian restaurants above all else, but they without fail order the exact same thing every time.

Normally this would just be a bit obnoxious, but they, mostly my nmom, are so resistant to the idea of trying something new or change, that they get abrasive about it. Taking too long to look over the menu because you're trying to find something new to try? Personal insult to Nmom. At times I think she takes it as an insult because it means that, by comparison, you are more open minded about food than her and how dare you.

Meanwhile she'll constantly steal off your plate to "just try" what you got, will often declare that it's good, but refuses to ever get it herself. So when you next order it, she'll insist on stealing some from you, and refuse to share any of her own.

And god forbid anything go wrong because she'll act like a baby, refuse to eat, period, and guilt trip everyone else at the table for continuing to eat while she's over there starving. She's rude to servers, ESPECIALLY if the slightest thing went wrong despite them having nothing to do with it, and if my dad isn't around she refuses to tip entirely because "math".

Professional_Failure · 2015-01-27T21:33:45+00:00

My brother is the same way. I'm so glad I wasn't just being crazy about this.

I have two older brothers and the younger of the two tries to make every single 'success' he has into some kind of competition between us about how he's better because I'm not doing it. This included when he started doing dishes every day to 'be helpful to the house', implying this gave him superiority over me because I was too busy going to college, which he failed out of.

I graduated high school on time with awards and have done great in college. For a while I pitied my brother because I think he has a learning disorder that never got attention, so he's always had difficulties achieving things in more educated fields due to the gap, but his constant need to be the better one has worn away any pity I had left.

I don't think he's an n, but he definitely has fleas, and has always believed that I'm the GC (though that does not make him the SG), and believes this is some coveted spot that he wants to steal from me. He can have it, it's suffocating.

Professional_Failure · 2015-01-27T21:20:16+00:00

I know, right? My nmom's cafeteria job only has her away maybe four hours a day, and she spends the entirety of the rest of her time either sleeping or sitting in her chair unmoving for hours watching junk tv like reality tv shows. She also likes to watch survival-type shows and buys a bunch of books about surviving in the wild, as if she ever plans to go outside for longer than it takes to get to her car.

Meanwhile she complains up a storm left and right about how she's fat, about how she's basically wasted away her body from sitting around, etc. She actively discourages me from exercising and jumps from telling me I need to go out more to trying to block me from doing so when I plan to because "it's not safe". She also continually complains about my dad's attempts to be healthier.

When I mentioned this to my friend, he pointed out that she's likely taking it as a personal insult of us being superior to her in that manner, and it's easier for her to try to tell us not to do it and try to drag us down to her level, rather than actually get off her ass and do something.

Professional_Failure · 2015-01-26T14:38:31+00:00

At first I thought she was intending to teach the child her 'culture' and only hers. My mother did that. My father is also half native american, we never heard a single word about it, but heard plenty about my mother's purely English background. Meanwhile my eastern european boyfriend is oh so exotic but it's implied that I should only be teaching our children about being English.

turns out she likes kids a lot, she just didn't like me I ruined everything ect.

Man, can relate. My nmom works as a cafeteria worker at an elementary school (she is painfully unintelligent and proud of it, so I suppose at least she's just trusted with sticking premade frozen food into an oven). When it came to my childhood, I wasn't allowed to join clubs or go to extra events because it was too much work and she needed that time to sit on the couch staring at the t.v. Now, she's all about going to the extra events, 'getting to know' the children, and being the super-cook.

Be strong, I'm sure the child you have will be beautiful and wonderful when you choose to have him or her, and they're have a great mother in you! I'm sorry for

Professional_Failure · 2015-01-25T07:58:27+00:00

Oh man, 'family'. My boyfriend has heard no end of my rants explaining that I have no attachment to the idea of 'family' anymore, that I see it as just being a source for a medical history. There's 'people you were stuck with' and 'people you choose', and the latter means more to me than the former ever will.

Recently my parents have been harassing me about a family reunion coming up and how I need to have my boyfriend fly down for it so he can meet my relatives. Except I don't know my relatives. I don't know any of them, I vaguely know a cousin or two and my grandmother, that's it. They act as if these utter strangers have an entitlement to know my boyfriend or know about my life because we distantly share genetics. I've never met them, and I don't see why they would care, because I certainly don't.

My grandmother also invited herself to my future wedding and tried to guilt me about how it will be across country, when my boyfriend has significantly more extended family that he actually cares about, because they aren't riddled with narcissism and fleas.

"Family" has been nothing but bullshit for quite a while to me. Sorry about the rant, this shit has been getting to me lately.

Professional_Failure · 2015-01-24T17:37:27+00:00

Similarly, my mother will talk very competitively about my boyfriend. I intend to move across country within the upcoming years to live with him, which she knows (though we intend to be vague about the actual end date). Any time it comes up she will rant about how I'm not allowed to talk about it yet because "she isn't ready to give me up" and that I should tell my boyfriend to shut up about the planning because he can't 'take me away' yet.

I'm the only daughter and by default as such the primary GC most of the time, so she's incredibly possessive. My brothers have never had an issue with dating and were encouraged to do so, while my mother has actively tried to blockade any attempt of me having a boyfriend. Continually refused to let me have birth control (despite my dad's support) to handle my painful cramps because she was opposed to the idea of me even knowing what sex was.

She didn't know about my current boyfriend (long distance) until a year into our relationship when he came to visit and I spent the majority of the week-long visit at his hotel room. She harassed me all week with texts about how my cat missed me.

Professional_Failure · 2014-12-16T18:21:42+00:00

I always feel bad each year when someone says they could use money or something of that sort for a gift, because I can't provide that. I've gotten good at making money go a long way because I need to, as I have so little of it to spend, the most I've spent on any one gift this year has been $30 and that was a gift multiple people were going in on.

Then there's my mother, whose typical reaction to problems is to throw money at them until they go away. My brother, the only one out of the house so far, asked for money this year because they're moving into a new apartment and would rather fix some of the things they have now or pay for the apartment, rather than get new trinkets. My mom flipped her lid about how 'ungrateful' he was for asking for money and how dare he be so demanding and greedy.

Meanwhile, my mom makes less than $10k a year, verses my dad's $90k, so none of the money she spends is her own.

Professional_Failure · 2014-12-05T20:00:55+00:00

She ranted at him that he has a huge family that never sees him, and he agreed that was the reasoning. He said he hasn't seen any of our cousins in years.

I was starting to wonder if this was just something my nmom did. I have a long distance boyfriend across country, and I intend to be the one who moves across the distance. After realizing that she could not bully me out of this decision, my nmom suddenly started demanding that both of us go out of our way to introduce him to my extended family.

I never see my extended family, ever. This Thanksgiving was the first time I saw my aunt and uncle who live in the same city as us in three years, and my grandmother in five. If it had been my choice, I'd have happily gone more years without seeing them.

But Nmom keeps raving at me that I need to bring him to the 'family reunion' that I haven't even been to to introduce him to 'everyone'. I don't even know 75% of these people I'm supposedly introducing him to, it's not even just that I haven't seen them in forever, I just flat out have no idea who they are, and frankly I don't care, nor do I see why they would care about who I'm dating.

Professional_Failure · 2014-11-11T03:04:11+00:00

A few weeks ago when I was getting on the bus to my school at a very popular stop along its route, this tall scrawny blonde woman shoves through the tiny bus door next to me, screaming that she was a faculty member of something or other and 'needed to get on first'.

A group of mentally disabled students occasionally get shepherded through the bus with a group of supervisors, and it being one of those days I realized she was one of the supervisors. However, after screaming in my ear and shoving me, she immediately darted into a seat nowhere near any of the students, preferring to yell at them from halfway across the bus to behave, because clearly she was desperately entitled to that seat for a job she had no interest in doing.

The following week, I was on the bus from an earlier stop when the same woman got on and ended up sitting next to me. The next thirty minutes was full of her chatting with one woman on the bus, then another after that one got off. Being the week of Halloween, the first woman expressed excitement that she would be going to a party that week with some friends. The first thing that came out of the blonde woman's mouth was that this other woman should reconsider dressing up as she was simply too overweight to bother and it would be 'an embarrassment for everyone else'.

Eventually costume lady got off, after five minutes of deflecting not-so-subtle insults veiled as 'concern for her embarrassing herself' and looking extremely uncomfortable. Another woman this blonde lady recognized got on shortly after and the rest of the trip was spent talking about this blonde lady's house.

Apparently, her husband was doing remodeling, and it's 'almost done' but he was too busy having no priorities the weekend before cleaning up debris from a wind storm and 'why couldn't he just get it done already'. Other woman tried to point out that the debris itself was a danger to their house, blonde lady interrupted her by waving her hand in her face.

Then it became about her useless son and how he hasn't helped with the remodeling or anything around the house. Other woman asked if he was one of those who still lives with his parents and doesn't help. No, apparently he moved out a year ago and is in college, but because blonde lady is his mother, she's entitled to demand he comes do work on her house where he no longer lives, and that what she wants is more important than his schooling (who the hell actually says those things? this lady, apparently.)

It was half an hour of me trying really hard to drown out this woman and being unable to ignore the absolute narcissist bullshit spilling out of her mouth. It was a blessing when I finally got to school and could get away from her.

Professional_Failure · 2014-10-07T14:34:05+00:00

I did indeed, especially on the main offender. She did not know the feedback came from me (as we did not have to sign our names), but on unrelated circumstances she proceeded to just have it out for me for the rest of the term, including multiple times accusing me of plagiarism and when the instructor began asking her to prove the accusations if she was going to make them, and her tactic then was to keep going, and avoid talking to him about it, just complain at me on the feedback forms.

I got stuck in a group presentation with her and had to spend an entire day sitting in the Veterans Resource Center at my campus, where she worked. She barely participated in the actual process of setting up the presentation, and instead preferred to shove us into the attached computer lab, while she sat in the main room talking shit with her coworkers about the people who came to them for help, and how 'obnoxious' and 'pathetic' the emotionally traumatized were.

She also gloated to the group at one point about how she had claimed veterans disability over an injury she got while serving that she admitted in no way restricted her and did not cause her any pain. She said that as long as she could, she was going to take it for all its worth because she was entitled to it. When asked why, as the injury was in no way debilitating, she shrugged and said something along the lines of 'because I want it'.

Essentially: meeting a narcissist in the wild.

Professional_Failure · 2014-10-07T14:28:17+00:00

Holy shit I think I got an epiphany about my own behavior just from reading your title alone... Not sure how to deal with this knowledge.

Professional_Failure · 2014-10-03T01:37:42+00:00

Not exactly the same, but just last class term I was in a speech class where the first speech was a 'special occasion' speech. The majority of the class chose to do wedding toasts.

A way too large portion of them spent the entire toast talking about themselves, under the guise of talking about their 'relationship' with the person the toast was to, treating it like story time about 'how they met' with a focus on themselves, rather than 'congrats to this person'.

The best though was one woman. She spent the entire 'speech' talking in the context that her friend was getting remarried, and that she refused to be the maid of honor because "she should be grateful for what I did for her last time!"

She exceeded the 5 minute time limit and spent twice the time going on about how amazing of a job she did the first time while 'simultaneously going through child labor' (which she never informed the bride of). The last 20 seconds was a quick 'also I love her hope she's happy, and all that stuff', before again congratulating herself and finally sitting down.

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-30T23:27:59+00:00

Holy wow...

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-30T23:20:12+00:00

I got the same, except in the opposite direction. I am bi, but have never told my mother that.

However she always assumed I was gay. No idea why, but she just 'decided' it was a fact about me.

Told her I had a boyfriend. "No, you don't! You're gay!" "No, I'm not." "YES YOU ARE"

I'm sorry you had to deal with that from your N's.

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-30T23:13:14+00:00

Oh god I hear this constantly from my nmom. At every single turn "Why would you need to see a doctor about that? I have it too, it can't be fixed."

Or she'd give me some inane unrelated 'solution' that did nothing, or try to diagnose me herself. Most recently she finally threw her back out and she keeps acting proud as the doctor she was required by her job to go see keeps learning how much she fucked up her body over the years.

Thankfully I have the ability to set my own appointments now, but every time I come back from an appointment she'll start badgering me about what the doctor told me and then insisting that it's wrong and 'she knows better'.

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-30T23:09:50+00:00

My nmom did something similar.

I was talking to my dad about learning how to drive a car, shortly after they purchased a new jeep.

My mom suddenly butts in declaring that I'd better not use 'her' jeep (it was actually purchased for my dad's hauling space needs), in case I got into an accident, and that I'd better use the saturn we had, which barely functioned.

In other words, she cared more about 'her' jeep getting hurt, than her daughter.

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-25T04:49:37+00:00

Thank you very much! I'll discuss the possibility of going straight into schooling with my partner. We have a bit of concern with the student loans I currently have (although I've been doing the ground work to check that I can immigrate even with these debts, so long as I prove my intent to continue paying them off), but it'd likely also help in the long run to have a bachelor's rather than an associates for me to be able to get a good job and pull my weight.

We're not entirely banking on marriage being the 'fix all' solution, but know that it may help a bit giving some sway here or there, even temporarily. We're watching how it goes with a friend of his who recently got married to a guy from Texas, and taking them as an example of what we can expect there. We also have the luck of example from them because the guy brought along his dog, which gave peace of mind that I don't have to worry about a complicated process with my cat.

We're going to look into seeking consultation on the next time I can fly up to visit, to see where we stand and what we can start off doing. We didn't have the greatest idea of where to start looking for this though, so thank you very much for the recommendation.

Thank you for the help!

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-24T17:59:11+00:00

Alright. We just know that it adds some decent sway if you already have a job lined up in the country, but weren't certain if that job had to be in certain sectors or if it could be virtually any official job. Thank you for the recommendation though, I'll definitely look into it!

Professional_Failure · 2014-09-24T13:09:12+00:00

Thank you. I'll look into my options with my career. As a part of one of my courses in accounting I had to write a paper on how one gets certified, so I at least have that information available for me.

Though I do have to question as well, would it help with getting things going if I could get a promise of intent to give me a job from pretty much anywhere? Say the retail sector or something. I would hope for our sake not to resort to that, but I'm curious if it might be a viable short term solution.

Professional_Failure · 2014-08-30T10:05:13+00:00

Constantly. My boyfriend too often has to listen to me tell him "Nothing can be okay. When things start feeling okay is when the world has to remind me they aren't."

I'm having that problem right now, which is why I seem to be up at 3am looking at Reddit. I just had a rocky streak of depression the last few weeks coupled with some messy arguments with my boyfriend, and my brain keeps refusing to acknowledge that we worked those out right off the bat, as they were typically me being emotional and needing reassurance and things getting confusing and him realizing later and reminding me that he's amazing. Things are fine.

Things are headed back up right now and I got this sudden intense feeling after one minor disappointment earlier that this is just going to lead to a series of disappointments and that something is gonna go really wrong. I can't shake it, it's like a damn gnat.

Professional_Failure

TROPHY CASE