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Most people love Dad think he is such a charming man with so many entertaining stories to tell.
I was married to one too.
I am guessing that many of us here were raised in a time when Dad's did not do too much hands on parenting. With my Dad he put on a show in public of being a Dad, but at home be was behind a news paper, watching TV or otherwise unavailable.
The other family dynamic that played out in many homes was Dad rules the roost, many of us for generations were afraid of our fathers. No matter how unreasonable the rules we asked how high when told to jump.
I still have both parents, Mum is 87 and Dad 92. They divorced about 34 years ago and both had new partners in their lives. Many Dad's died at much younger ages, after the kids had moved out and before the parents needed care.
Personalities are just part of why a marriage/union breaks down of course.. so many other factors, financial, illness, circumstance, addictions. People can just change over time too.
Many men (as many women) are driven & competitive. Some call this confident - others will call it arrogance. So what one calls selfish - others could call narcissistic.
A dx of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is probably quite rare... but I'm sure there are many out there with no diagnosis!
I have no idea if NPD is more likely in men or women. But personally, I see (in my workplace) a mixture of elder people. A big range of sweet, kind or selfish, entitled across both men & women. I meet some very selfish people who totally expect & assume their adults kids (or anyone within eye-sight) are their servants.
I doubt this is true NPD. More like the combination of dementia or other brain changes. I think of it as childlike. A return to infantile thinking, when their needs are their entire world & they expect the world to provide.
Fedup, if that is where your Dad is? Expecting you, or the world to turn to his command...? let the world keep on turning...
Shrug. Ask what he will do about his latest problem. Say something bland. "OK you do that". Do nothing about it.
So what I am trying to say is that at one time the man was looked at as being able to control his wife the woman was seen as a b**** and the husband hen pecked.
He was mentally, emotionally, verbally and physically abusive of his children. There are entire chunks of their childhood they have blocked out. But they are incredibly conditioned to jump when he says jump. It has taken them both a long time to learn they can say no. Not just can but should. His go to reaction is anger and yelling because he physically can't do anything to them now. But you can still see both of them physically recoil. His grandchildren all adults refuse to speak to him. Alot of this came to light when MIL passed away. For many years she covered it very well. It was a lot of short happy family gatherings for dinner or holidays with showtiming. But when she died and as his circle of supply has shrunk he has become mean and belligerent until he is left with just the adult children he abused and their spouses and he no longer has control. The facade has fallen.
I often wonder if one or both of HIS parents were narcissists? Or if his mother and grandmother were just super enablers? His wife, my MIL was an odd combo. She was the perfect doting wife in public, but in private, though she waited on him hand and foot furthering his sexist agenda, she would rip into him like it was her job too, so I can't fully call her an enabler entirely either.
He is definitely a created narcissist, from someone of very low self esteem by someone who wanted to counteract the other parent's damage but she went too far and created a monster and he believes now that he is the end all be all and everyone on earth is here expressly to fulfill his needs. Everything is on his time, his way, no one else matters. It is so beyond selfishness I can't even explain it. But at the heart of it, he lives in a different reality than we do.
Narcs of any variety are definitely a breed apart.
To give you an idea - my FIL - a very religious man - did indeed take credit on multiple occasions for what was happening in our church services- it was HIS presence at the alter praying for people and not the presence of the LORD that was having the impact. Had he himself not been praying for those people - they would NOT have had the experience they had. Also my FIL - the person at his TV and internet service provider PROMISED him free movie channels for LIFE - it was not HIS fault he did not listen to them mind you - HE wanted free movie channels for life so that must have been what they said and how dare they mislead an old man and use such sketchy business practices (mind you when the tape was replayed the representative said 3 months just as the family figured they did and my FIL REPEATED it back to him and agreed to it and we knew that because he originally TOLD us that it was 3 months when he signed up for it, but when his bill went up he swore up down, left and right that they had promised him a special deal that he got movies for free for the rest of his life - we talked about how that didn't make any good business sense - appealed to the long time salesman in him - and he agreed but said it was a SPECIAL DEAL JUST FOR HIM!!)
Narcissists want the best things all the time - but they want to make sure you know they have the best things -the most expensive things and they make sure that everyone knows it.
But I think the big key difference between narcissists and people who are selfish - and maybe I'm wrong - but most of the people that I know that just selfish are like this - selfish people seem to have an off button. Most of them DO seem to hit a point where they realize that they have overstepped. Narcs DO NOT have an off button. They are always in it for themselves. They DO NOT have the capacity to feel empathy. They do not have the capacity to concern themselves with the needs of others, they are so consumed with having their own needs met. It's not a situation where they prioritize their needs over yours. They literally don't even recognize you have needs.
And I think that is a major difference between having traits and being a full blown narcissist. The ability to live in our reality.
Hmm..............
People get more self-centered as they age and become more infirm. If they tended toward being self-centered before they were old and infirm, then I guess it makes sense they'd become more so as they age.
My very wise dad once said to me that the strongest personality trait in a person seems to get magnified as they age. He was a very kind man, and as he aged, he became even kinder and more considerate. My mom had a tendency to speak her mind, and as she aged (and with the loss of all filters thanks to dementia), well, she REALLY would speak her mind. She wasn't mean, but she said anything that popped into her head.
I'd say if your dad was self-centered before, he'll be more so now. Doesn't make him a narcissist.
And I agree 100% there is a difference between a self-centered individual and a narcissist.
The funny part is that many of the posts labeling the "other" as a narcissist, come off as narcissists. lol
As to gender....Women tend to live longer. So, the majority of complaints about the aged would naturally be against women.
But when you come into contact with an actual narcissist you know it. My husband and his sister have been victims of their father's abuse for years. Mental, emotional, verbal, physical. He spent years degrading them. Brainwashing them. Training them that they were put on this earth to take care of his needs and they were not important. Their mother enabled him. He treats his grandchildren like crap and yet tells anyone who will listen that it's the other way around. The grands do not talk to him. NONE of them except if they have to. He will tell people that we do nothing to help him while we are literally helping him. I have never in my life met anyone like him. There is a huge distinction between his behavior and anyone else I know.
So yes to your point our society is very free with the term. But there are actually true narcissistic individuals in our society and living with and caring for those individuals is a very special kind of hell because their caregivers have often been conditioned to think that their entire job in life is to provide care for them. It is a vicious cycle and the loved ones of true narcissists are always looking for something that their loved one will never be able to give them.
It is incredibly sad for me to watch my husband and his sister, even knowing that their dad is not capable of showing love or compassion, to still bend over backwards to try to earn his love. Instead of being able to truly process that they are deserving of it, he is still in their heads enough that they still think it is somehow their fault.
So please recognize that yes, while we as a society are pretty liberal with throwing the word around, there genuinely are victims out there who are trying to recover from a lifetime of narcissist covert and sometimes not so covert abuse at the hands of someone who is supposed to love them. Its not always just about what's on the surface and what people see from the outside. Narcs are often experts at pulling the wool over people's eyes for years and managing their family and controlling the narrative to make themselves look perfect to the outside world. It's a house of cards.
I love almost all my clients, and if I can't quite manage that I hold tight to my professional hat, but the handful I have struggled with are the lately widowed narcissistic men who receive all sympathy for their loss but in fact have no thought in their heads but self-pity and the urgent need to recruit to the vacancy. It's especially stomach-turning when there are bereaved adult children on the scene.
As my Irish co-worker said when we compared notes about one: "my, but he's a rascal isn't he!"
For instance when a man in the workplace is overbearing and critical, bullying etc. people say he's strong and a good manager whereas a women is just a "bitch" Kind of the old double standard.
Aren't husbands with narcissistic wives enmeshed too? Saying narcissistic men have enmeshed partners and not women is just another way of diminishing women isn't it?
Please don't view my comments as criticism of you Countrymouse. You know I love you. I'm just wanting to get my point of view out there.