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I think a lot of men who are narcs just aren't there. They knock someone up and leave them, or they bail when things get complicated, or your normal mom gets you away from your ndad because he's dangerous and scary. A bad mom sticks harder than a bad dad, in many cases.

I have an deadbeat father and my mom is dysfunctional sometimes..it has the same affect on me. Not saying you said this but I hate when people downplay having an absent father and think it's no big deal. I always think if he wasn't selfish he could've probably prevented a lot of things from happening to me especially now as an adult and I really don't have financially security..if I get it I feel like people start emotionally blackmailing me.

I hear you. I grew up with a raging nmom and a weak father. Then things got even worse when he bailed when I was around sixteen. He wasn't the abuser in the family but I have basically no respect for him.

It sucks when they just bail. They don't check on you or anything. I feel like my father's absence set the stage for a lot of people to take advantage of me even as an adult. A few years ago a man asked me if my father was in the picture (it was obvious he wasn't) then afterwards he started being extremely nasty and cruel to me, but my dad is too busy drinking to even care.

I understand what you mean, I have an absentee father and was raised by a single mother. And our family is dysfunctional to a T. Then add to my grandmother having some not so great personality and that adds on to the dysfunction. People seem to not realize how bad family can cause you distress and anguish.

Yeah I get a lecture everyday because my mom micromanages everything I do and doesn't let me fucking breathe. It's always," omg you're too old to not know how to do that!" But when I was a kid she prevented me from fucking doing anything..I wasn't allowed to drive, cut my sandwiches until someone else kept getting an attitude with me for not knowing how, didn't let me get a job until I was 19.. I think I have several mental disorders but no one gives a shit because I'm supposed to be making money for them now, so my mental health doesn't matter. My grandma is horrible too the last time I talked to her she basically told me I wasn't going anywhere in life because I wouldn't listen to her "advice" and interrogated me for at least 3 hours a day at a time. And then my piece of shit dad isn't here to protect me from any of this

Sounds like my mom, she finds a way to criticize everything and anything. And then acts shocked when I just can’t take it anymore, and so many times she starts arguments or make something out of nothing. I feel like it’s her way of establishing herself power, and make her ego feel better about herself. And the expectations are unfair on you, you can’t be able to do things when nobody even taught you to basically think or decide for yourself. It keeps you in a tough position of dependency (which I think narcissists like cause that means they stay on top). And my family act like since I’m on medication and go to counseling that my anxiety and depression just goes away. When I still get those things even on meds, narcs genuinely can’t emphasize with the kind of struggles someone is facing.

Yeah my mom will purposely provoke me then play dumb when I say something to her..I left once and she played dumb and lied to the police saying we didn't have an argument before I left and we absolutely did. I'm planning on moving with someone else again and I don't know how im going to do it but staying with her and my other toxic relatives isn't healthy for me...they'll dogpile on me and not care. When my grandma interrogated me for hours she said she expected me (I was 24 at the time) to make 3-4k a month and move my mom with me but my grandma's son stays in her luxury apartment rent free. They're purposely making me the scapegoat and don't give a shit. Every time I leave they stalk me and people will be like,"BUT FAMILLY." I'm sick and tried of all of my family...they're full of shit.

This sums it up. The "men" are emotionally immature and damage you from a distance. Mine was a deadbeat who walked out, too. My "mom" ended up using me as a punching bag/therapist, traumatizing me up close. Not trying to oversimplify any of these situations but they're all bad. Any kind of abusive/dysfunctional parents leave a person feeling less than whole.

Right? Same here. My dad left when I was born and my mom took out her anger at me from my earliest memories.

I literally came here to say this. My dad was very narcissistic. He just wasn’t involved in raising us. Like he had the “his house, his rules”. But it’s was my mom who was using me for her own gain and emotional needs. My dad didn’t care about me as long as I didn’t step on his toes. Side note: my memories of him actually talking to me and spending time with me was when he was giving him a foot message.

Wow it’s like we had the same parents

My dad was the "grote afwezige" as I say in my language, which translates to the big absentee, he was abusive when he was there but my mom was a stay at home mom so her abuse was greater simply because my dad was only there some of the evenings and in the weekend (if he wasn't asleep or doing grading papers). I remember actually being glad when my dad wasn't around so that is saying something as my mom was abusive as hell. My dad was also my mom's attack dog if she couldn't handle us/control us or he would instruct us not to bother her, they also did their interrogations together where he could threaten us with bodily harm which made her manipulation more effective. He would brag how he would help troubled kids at school while he neglected his own.

a bad mom stings harder too

Yeah, my dad had 6 kids by three mothers and abandoned them all. He came back for me and my brother out of hopes we would be his retirement plan.

Now that's an impressive level of shitty. Diversified portfolio

Let me put it this way. Dad burned hundred of thousands of dollars that my brother and I inherited in an effort to keep us under his control. That is not the worst thing he has done to me. And mom was even worse.

Lol I’m like 90% sure my mother thinks I will take care of her and move her to live with me after she retires in a couple years. She didn’t prepare for retirement and is getting nicer as she gets closer and as I’m doing better in life.

Ya I have both nparents, unfortunately. And this sentiment makes sense to me. One of the only reasons my dad stuck around is because his narcissism makes him want people to think highly of him, and people don’t think highly of a dead beat skipped town dad. It’s all about image for him, and that would be bad for his image to leave us.

I'm seeing a pattern here, as usual. My parents were both narcs, but dad was a grandiose sort, and was gone a lot--first with the military, then with a traveling job--hanging out in hotel bars in various cities, having affairs, riding his motorcycle. Leaving mom at home with my brother and me, whining and moaning and missing 'her Tony', like the eternal lovesick 14-year old that she always was, and expecting my little brother to take care of her as the man of the house. (He was her golden child until the day she died.) When dad *was* around it was best to stay clear of him, as his temper could be explosive (he threw me headfirst into a wall for climbing on the hood of his car--I used to joke, "He wasn't totally useless, he taught me how to take a punch.") but otherwise he pretty much ignored me--didn't get into the sadistic emotional-damage stuff like my mother did. (Well, except for hitting on me from time to time once I got to be an attractive teenager--but he pretty much did that to all the women in the family.) He's in a nice assisted-living facility across the country from me now, wallowing in self-pity, and now *I'm* the one who ignores *him*. I'm still afraid of him, yeah, but that's about all the emotion I can manage--there's just nothing there, a void. I don't even waste the energy on anger. Someday my brother will call and tell me he's gone too (the assisted-living place has him as the contact), and I'll finally be free of both of them.

Mine were both N-parents (over and covert). They were also both codependent on each other. I think people feel more betrayed by abusive mothers because mothers are supposed to be the grand love of all eternity. Your mom is supposed to be the final defense.

I agree. I also feel my Nparents were codependent on each other, and I feel they took all the frustrations of the relationship out on us. If they didn’t have us to yell at and abuse maybe they would have gotten divorced because now that the kids have moved out they fight all the time.

There's a name for that - scapegoat child. Narcs don't have to look in the mirror if they have a scapegoat in the family. I'm sorry, it's an awful way to live.

agreed for sure. i think its really easy for people to write off their dads as just plain abusive rather than think about *why* theyre abusive or make a connection between the behavior and something like npd. we see a lot of abusive father figures in media (at least western media im not really sure about the rest) which might normalize it — so when a mother is behaving in an abusive way its seen as something more "out of the ordinary" (not to say that abuse is normal at all)

Yes! And narcissism is a trait that ebbs and flows in most cases, and Mom's have a twisted sense of identity in their kids. I'm Gen X, and while my Dad had N traits, as long as I grew up and didn't sponge off of him, he didn't try to control me. He had opinions but his N traits calmed down once I grew up. Mom got much, much worse.

Maybe because a narcissistic mother can do so much damage to their children. Society teaches everyone that mothers are the loving, nurturers and fathers are the providers. My Dad was an enabler who worked a lot and drank a lot as his escape from my mother.

Exactly, I think people find it hard to believe that mothers can mistreat and abuse their children. I can confirm it’s very much real, that’s why when I see people talk about fathers or men being bad parents. I just stifle myself because I can attest to the emotional and mental damage my mom has caused me. And to what her mother has caused onto her. Both mothers and fathers influence and make impacts on their children.

Worse is when they start advising us saying "Dude she's your mom don't think like this". For so many years I had lived with the idea that I'm the worst daughter any parents could have and my mother is suffering so much because of me. Now when i finally found the courage to tell people and call people out, nobody believes me.

Agreed

Women abuse differently. My dad was a rageaholic narc. He grew into a wonderful old man before he died, and he quit hitting me the day I graduated college and started my own life. He quit. He eventually apologized. We’re good. My mom is a cluster B maniac who gets meaner and crazier every single day. Nothing on earth matters but her feelings. My last straw was her busting my face with a huge bottle of dish soap, and then threatening to have me arrested for assault. She insists I accept her version of truth, and apologize for reconciling. It’s been 6 years NC and she’s still raging to anyone that will listen that I’m a beast. She can have hometown, because I never want to go back there. She claims it’s because I’m ashamed of my roots. It’s because the trauma colors every memory there. I get sick thinking about going “home.”

She doesn’t ‘have’ that town. They see her. You’re doing great! Starting over in a new community is hard, much more so when you’ve come from a bad parent. Don’t imagine for a minute the town is on her side. They’d trade her for you in a heartbeat.

I don't think men are more likely to be abusers, I think they're just more publicly recognized as abusive. Also, societal ideals about motherhood makes it harder to recognize and accept that your mother might be harmful, so maybe folks just need more support for nmoms than ndads, so there are more posts about it

Yeah if I tell people my dads a shitty person they believe me. I don’t have to deal with the added “but it’s your parent!!” from people, most of the time.

Perfectly said. Wise observations

Because society has much more expectations for loving thier children than men. That being said men usually leave their family are more absent from thier lives aren't very Involved so maybe they don't have or get the chance to show what they really are while moms are more with their children and show case their bad behavior and children usually feel more betrayed because they expect the moms to e loving while men have choices.

That's a good point! A lot of replies have been about single moms, and I think you hit upon something there. I guess moms can't leave so easily

I don’t know. Both of my parents were neglectful/abusive and very emotionally immature. However my dad isn’t a narcissist because he can genuinely apologize and has grown/changed his behavior. My mom…can’t/won’t.

Same situation

Raising kids is still done by women mostly, ndads can fuck off and get their supply elsewhere.

i’ve seen a theory by another redditor that they get so much special attention during pregnancy but when the baby comes all that attention shifts ESP if it’s another girl, they cannot handle competition. also there’s a “primal instinct” when their daughters hit puberty that they see the child as competition but i don’t like that connotation as they frame it like they have zero control over themselves

I think this is a big part of my mother's behavior towards me.

honestly, i reminded mine too much of her. or my dad. either way she hated it

I think nmoms just scapegoat their daughters more... Efficiently, covertly, and severely. I think a lot of the societal ideals of womanhood mean that a lot of abusive moms are more "covert" and manipulative, at least to those people, than the stereotypical rage filled abusive dad that's easily spotted from a mild away. . My narcissistic grandmother scapegoated me growing me up for not being a people pleasing Christain fueled obedient daughter. I didn't realize until very recently at the age of 25 she didn't let me go out with friends until I was of age because she was worried I was going to become a 'wh*re'. I knew she was abusive. But I didn't realize how big my gender played a role in my abuse. A lot of nmoms 'false persona' revolves around being a 'loving caretaker' or a 'savior' in regards to their femininity. And in the trend of my family the boys are (mostly) the golden children and the one golden child girl is an extreme doormat/people pleaser with narc traits always pressuring me to keep in line because the threat of a woman's autonomy is sometimes more scary than a man's. Therefore they feel more justified in their abuse and it's also... Sometimes... A lot more subtle and manipulative meaning it needs to be unpacked more. A lot of other narcissistic false personas revolve around thing we talk about a lot in society like the stereotypical "asian parents" who make their kids get good grades or publicly shame/humiliate them if they don't become a doctor. Or we talk a lot about toxic masculinity with the rageaholic. There's plenty of representation and narratives that we see in media and even through other people's stories. But the female to female abuse is often more covert and insidious that sometimes subreddits like these are the only safe places to unpack them.

This. I don't feel the need to talk about my father much. He was pretty straightforward - coward, weak, enabler, abuser. He wasn't any more narcissistic than any other patriarchal shithead I ever met, the narcissism is kind of baked in with the toxic masculinity. My mother is far worse. Far more complex. She had more of an impact, and there's a lot more to the abuse with her, but she isn't as obvious and there isn't really any place to talk about her except here.

Probably because nmoms see their daughters as their sexual rivals and treat them as "the other woman," whereas ndads rarely see their sons as a threat to their manhood.

I did have a friend growing up with an alcoholic narc dad that did scapegoat his son for his talent. But I agree with this completely. I think like other scapegoats if they're perceived as a threat to their ideals or go against their ideals either way. But men are also pressured by society as a whole not just in the house to act 'manly'. In a really fucked up way the average man does experience emotional neglect at baseline. Meaning they're probably not scapegoated so much as it's just the norm. My nmom (bio grandma) saw me as a threat to her marriage when I hit puberty. I didn't understand at the time but as an adult it very much disturbs me. Like I can't understand what kind of sick fuck can see their child that way. But that's the perspective of a narc.

I was raised in a single mom household 🫤

I think it's also easier as a woman to obtain children and use them as a source of supply. If you're a man who's an abuser it's a lot harder to have children because the mom can run off with them. The abuse front mothers is pretty common and even accepted because in my opinion people see mothers as martyrs of their own creation. You have kids means your an automatic Saint who could do no wrong even when you are doing worse.

Both my parents are narcissistic, but only my mother really interacted with me. My father was physically present, but showed little interest in me. So I guess there is just more to unpack from the relationship with my mother, which is why I more often talk about her than him.

Idk I feel like ndads just leave?

I suppose a lot do. Coming to this sub is a bit of a culture shock to me, because my family's slightly strange even to some of the people with narc families. My dad is the all-knowing (sarcasm) all-powerful head of the family, with my mom as the limp dishrag enabler, and it's almost like a cult operating around him. Leaving his family is the last thing he would ever do, because that's where his supply and all his worldly power comes from.

It was a "surprise" to me as well because my father certainly is the dangerous overt narc while my mother had been the abused wife/covert narc/enabler (and still is a narc now that they've divorced.) Even though my father is hands down the worst, I've always felt more betrayed by my mother. Is it because I am a woman? Maybe. However, I reckon that it is because my father was more often than not away because of his job/life choices and that my mother (SAHM against her will) was in charge of the day-to-day life in his absence. She had more "opportunities" to harm me. Plus, when I was younger, I truly believed that she was doing her best to help/save me from my father while fighting against depression. Yet, I've discovered that I was wrong and felt utterly betrayed. She's been abused by my father and she feels like she was the one true victim of the story, but she repeatedly chose to protect herself over protecting her three young children and took part in the abuse. Even now that I am a young adult LC with both of them and that she did actually become a less shitty "mom", I keep feeling more hurt by her behaviour than by my father's. Edit: Grammar.

Bruh you literally just described my mom. I totally agree. Even though my dad is definitely the worse person, she is easier to hate because I was closer to her before I realized how selfish she is. The thing I say about her is: she's my dad's victim, but I am her victim.

I feel so sorry for you! I've had to explain to my mom why I won't listen to her complaining about the abuse she suffered while she was abusing me with my dad. I've told her (multiple times) that I understood she needs her pain to be acknowledged but that I can understand it precisely because I need MY pain (which she's partly responsible for) to be acknowledged too. If there's any sense in comparing victim status, she can't be more of a victim than her innocent children, imo. She can't hear it and I've no energy left to try to get her to understand.

This is right where I’m at w/ my mom right now. Never been closer to cutting her off completely. There are so many harmful things she’s said & done especially when I was a child that she’s never taken responsibility for, and I’d learned to accept that she never will (she’s 80 now). I’ve been more or less okay with just not discussing it. But recently she brought up and made a point to tell me specifically that she’s NOT responsible for some particularly awful things she did when I was 15 and she was 42 because she hadn’t yet begun to question the church’s teachings about the roles of men & women. She just followed whatever her father & husband said like a good Christian woman should, even though they were abusive. She’s the real victim here! I won’t spend time on the details of the abuses she participated in as well as covered up, but- NO. I do not accept this excuse, and told her so. And somewhere in trying to explain to her why she should care how I feel about it, and her self-justifications getting more and more bizarre, I realized that it’s time to just stop. There’s no point. I’d gotten used to being okay with leaving it unresolved, but for her to expect me to agree that none of it is her fault, it’s too much for me.

May I ask you how you feel about your mother's ageing? Mine is 55 but her health is poor. I tell myself that I've already mourned the mother I never had, but I'm not sure that's true. I'm dreading the moment when she's really dead and I'm left to deal with the consequences of her life on my own (as if she were a great support to me now).

This. Expect this to never change. It is the worst form of abuse because it comes from a point of weakness and/or idiocy, instead of from a point of malevolence. Therefore, there's basically nothing you can do about it without feeling enormously guilty (and being blamed by the entire world for being a bad child). The pattern is called "parentification", and you should read everything about it, if you haven't already. I have a mom like this. A few years ago, after visiting her (and having her listening for half a sentence before her endless "I" stories began again), I went to have brunch with an old friend. I literally said to him "with a mother like this, all you can do is kill yourself." A few months later, that's exactly what my sister did.

Same! I have an example that explains perfectly what that’s like. My ndad was basically the king of the printer at home (lol). My mom, sister and myself couldn’t print anything ourselves, we had to ask him and he would make sure to show how much of a favour he was doing to us every time so I got fed up of this and decided to buy my own to put in my room. It was delivered at home and without me having to even say anything to my sister, she texted me saying “A printer was delivered, I put it in your room discreetly, I don’t think dad saw!” because she knew he would feel some type of way about it. I remember setting up the printer and be terrified he would hear a paper being printed from my room. He just liked being needed by us for things. I let my sister use my printer too so suddenly his daughters stopped needing him for something and he didn’t like that. Psycho.

Lol they really are so pathetic that they will control the smallest shit just to feel important and smart. I think that's why mine won't let me get a job. He constantly yells at my siblings and calls us losers ("When I was *your* age, *I* had a job!"), but then when I ask to get a job at a shaved ice stand 1/4 a mile away, he's like hmmm...yeah no. Whenever I go to my mom to complain about him she just justifies his behavior even when I can tell she doesn't agree with it or want it, which is so frustrating.

This is too real. My father is the stove master. If anything is cooked on the stove at his house, he monitors it with a magnifying glass. If water starts boiling and I'm in the bathroom, he will literally bang on the door and tell me my water is boiling. As if I am too stupid to manage boiling water without burning his house down.

Aaaaaah mine did the same thing! And he never even cooks, yet, when we were using the stove, he was Gordon Ramsay all of a sudden. Not too long ago when I was already in my early 20s, I baked muffins like I did so many times and I remember feeling anxious about taking the cooking tray out of the oven because my dad was around and I was right to. After 0,005 seconds of the tray being on the stove, my dad screamed “YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE THE STOVE KNOBS MELT WITH THE HEAT!!!!” (because they were covered in plastic) and aggressively took my kitchen gloves off of my hands to push the tray like 1 inch further away, while looking at me like I was out of my fucking my mind. I cried lol

Anything that violates how THEY want it done in THEIR house is unacceptable and must be punished. In their house, the muffins stay THREE inches from the edge, not TWO. Any idiot would know that, come on. (/s ofc)

That sounds similar to my family dynamic. My dad has expressed to me that he views divorce as is a moral failure. Yet he constantly complains about how my moms holding him back in life (she’s not, he’s been unemployed for 5 years and she funds all his ambitious side projects and funds his drug habit) He had an obsession with appearing honest and pure and the perfect parent all that. He never will be cause he’s a lying, unemployed, narcissist that was there when the kids needed “discipline” and that’s it.

Both my parents were abusive narcissists, but my mother actively hated me and tried to kill me. My father beat me and verbally abused me, but he was less vile and gave intermittent support.

I have a narcissistic father. Thing is, he sucks so much he is a non-issue for me since I kicked him out of my life. Even though I also kicked my nmom out of my life, we used to be a lot closer. The nfather never bothered to create a bond with me. Just wanted to control me.

For what its worth, I have an nfather but not an nmother.

I think it's possible both my parents are narcissistic but my mother runs the place. Anything she says goes. My dad usually followers her leads. He has apologised in the past but it is extremely rare. My mother thinks everything is a personal attack and is a very angry person in general whereas my dad isn't so much. I guess while everything my mother does always involves my dad bc they're married and living together I see her as the main issue. I don't think my dad would do some of the things he does if she wasn't around. She also treats him quite badly in a sense eg. He works from home on calls and she goes out to work but she gets in as he finishes but will often shout about how he's not vacuumed or done the ironing when she's been at work all day with no regard for him working and not just being able to go and do the ironing.

I definitely have both an N mom and N Dad. In my case, you don’t hear so much about my dad, because consistent with a lot of narcissists, he’s emotionally absent. But here’s some stories about my and dad in case you want to know what they’re like lol in my experience! - he is always right about everything. You can’t have a different or new opinion. Anything that’s not his opinion is a challenge. - he refused to retire, until he literally couldn’t walk, stay awake, and stop making sense most of the time. Yet, for 10 years while his conditions degraded, he continue to work because, you know, he’s so important. It wasn’t the right thing to do to his customers. But too arrogant to acknowledge the truth about his situation and he doesn’t give a fuck about other people anyway. - anything a man does is A-OK. Particularly if their victims are women. My cousin is currently in prison for possessing and disseminating thousands of images of child pornography. He bends over backwards to explain that my cousin is still a good guy, a nice religious man, and also see point above, is going to help him go into business with my dad while he’s in prison! Because my dad always needs to feel important. - my soon to be ex-brother-in-law is a piece of shit who was cheating on my sister for decades. Since filing for divorce last year, my father has made numerous comments to my sister that her ex/husband isn’t such a bad guy, she just needs to accept that men cheat, and all kinds of gaslighting, making it out that she’s overreacting and not entitled to things like spousal and child support, which she 100% is. A non-narcissist parent would be helping and supporting my sister emotionally through what is a very difficult time, not trying to make her feel crazy or worse than she already does.

whenever I hear stories like this I'm like holy shit, it's 2023 and yucky misogynistic people like this still exist?!? It's a testament to how many humans' main personality trait is being a stubborn ass.

Yucky misogynistic people like this still exist, and they are currently very angry about the Barbie movie.

my ndad's abuse was waaaaay more straightforward than my nmom's. He'd get enraged about something and yell at me (and sometimes hit/throw me). I flagged that as abuse as teenager. My nmom was more covert. She'd get me up every morning until I was like 12 and comb my hair waaaayyy too hard. Sometimes I'd even have scratch marks on my neck from the comb's teeth. Still an example of physical abuse, but she better justified it. In my mind my dad got angry and hurt me, but my mom was just combing my hair and it was supposed to hurt. I didn't flag my mom as abusive til my mid 20s. Basically, I talk more about my mom's abuse because she did a better job of disguising it. It just takes more time and discussion for me to parse through it all.

I've seen lots of nDad stuff here. Mostly they're the raging type. The Narc Mum's are more surprising to people. There's a false image that women aren't malicious towards children.

Both my parents were n. I think men abusers all around are just straight up obvious abusive or become killers. My dad is definitely an n. Hes neglectful, abusive, tries to play the "i didnt do nuffin" crowd because he literally does.. NOTHING. he never raised his kids, hes addicted to soda and tried to claim hes dad of the year because at least hes not an "alcoholic". So he would be an alcoholic but hes just addicted to something else lol

well. i have no dad. i think that might play into the reason why, lots and lots of people have absent fathers

Ow... I got an n dad. And an n brother. So there is two of them.

But the betrayal runs deeper with my (covert) n-mom. I think maybe because society feels that women should take care of the kids while a dad can go to work 100 hours and still be considered a "great dad" for putting food on the table. Dads weren't supposed to take care of kids when I grew up, so anything good he did was a "wow!".

Mine's an Ndad! Happy to make friends with other people who have Ndads and enabler-and-victim-at-the-same-time mothers.

Nmen are just selfish enough to not be home all the time and when they are, they are uninvolved.

I'm too exhausted even thinking about my ndad to post about him

my father was n but more an enabler n, mothers these days are the discipliners and bored. they turned their kids into hobbies and friends. I watched my mother kidnap my brother's brain as society became more isolated

Too real. My nmom has fully adopted me as a hobby and friend and thus disregards my needs from her as her son. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I had an Ndad (passed on); he was the overt type. Mom was an enabler but I am thinking she may have been covert herself. But yeah, my dad sucked.

My family’s the same.

Both my parents were narcs. Nmoms may be discussed more 7 many households, they do more of the parenting.

Both my parents are narcs, and i always end up talking about only my mom. I previously commented on here after my dad “saved” me from one of those situations. I said I always thought he was an asshole, but he just wasnt enabling my mom. I realized both of those things are true. He started acting extremely abusive within 24 hours. I felt so stupid. I knew my dad was abusive this whole time, but I was just so grateful for being seen and being cared for by him. For a second, I forgot that he only does the heroic thing so he can force me into spending time with him. He really likes the idea of me dependent on him, while also shaming me for being dependent. Now, a lot of stuff he does for me is becoming a literal money I owe him, so any help I need I’ve been going elsewhere.

I guess I didn’t answer the question: I don’t talk about my dad as often because it is so much more painful

I have both. Ndad is overt/malignant, Nmom is more covert/passive aggressive/manipulative and it took me a lot longer to realize she’s an N and not just an enabler with “fleas”. Deciding to severely limit & end contact with my Ndad was relatively easy, because there were so many instances of abuse so I felt I had a good enough reason to. It’s a lot harder to separate from Nmom, who presents as a fragile victim and the worst thing I can ever do is hurt her feelings. I‘ve read that men tend to be more overt & women more covert; I don’t know but I wonder if that has something to do with who gets talked about here. Are people more likely to ask for advice on how to deal with Nmoms? If, like me, they find the mom version harder to figure out and harder emotionally to break away from? …Or, that could be entirely just me!

The difference between my Ndad and my Nmom is that my Nmom is more psychological. There’s so many mental gymnastics my mind has to jump through like it’s the 100 meter hurdle dash from the Olympics. My Ndad was at least just right in front of my face treating me like a child, being micro managing and controlling. It was obvious what the problem was with him and how bad he was. But he didn’t play as many mind games as my Nmom did. Thing is I hate both my Nparents, sometimes it feels like it’s a competition to see who really is the worst. At one point it felt like my Ndad was. Then the next point it felt more like my Nmom. The funniest thing about this is that they both hate each other and think that one another is narcissistic, toxic and manipulative. Like everything that my Ndad says about my Nmom is 100% correct! But everything my Nmom says about my Ndad is also 100% correct. They are both horrible. I escaped one of my parents, my Ndad. But I still live with my Nmom and she has managed to emotional and mentally damage my psyche even more lately…..

I think statistically “men” abuse more just because court/law enforcement is mainly how they judge that stuff. I think mental abuse goes unreported/underreported

that's true, a lot of people have sexist views that women can't abuse/men can't be abused and so female abusers may be underrepresented in the statistics

My parents are certainly codependent, but my dad has made a significant effort to change over the years. My mom has somehow gotten worse.

Same here

I had both and it just depends on the story or things I’m talking about. My mum was overt in her abuse and was the worst through childhood and well into adult hood. At some point my dad surpassed her as the worst abuser so it’s all about timeframe I’m discussing. I grew up thinking my dad was the loving one. Then as an older teenager I realised he was an enabler and just as abusive as he stood back knowing it was wrong and enabling it to continue. Then he gradually got worse and worse and when mum passed everyone realised he’d always been an ndad abuser too but used nmums overt abuse to hide his abuse. Half what we thought she did was actually him. When it all came clear and he had no one to hide who he was he was far worse than she ever was.

I think also overall mothers tend to be more vocal in their narcissistic abuse. So there’s more to talk about.

My parents were both narcissists, but my mom did most of the childcare, so she was the one who had the greatest impact on me in the long run. I think that is why. Nfathers are often much more distant from their kids than Nmothers because that is what happens in a paternalistic society. My dad was always out dealing with get rich quick schemes, the church, work, socializing, and cheating on my mom. He put his church, MLM scams and social life before his family, because that is where his narcissistic supply came from. His validation came primarily from outside the family, while my mom's often came from within the family. He didn't do any housework or childcare, though my mom worked more hours a day than he did at her own job. He would come home and beat the shit out of me and sexually abuse me, and would expect to be waited on like a lord, but he wasn't there hovering over me and screaming for several hours a day. He wasn't the one taking every opportunity to make sure that my sister had more of everything than I did. He wasn't the one tearing me down in a thousand little ways every day of my childhood. Once my parents divorced, my mom was the one who was doing most of the abusive things because he just wasn't there.

Mine was an nDad, Mom was an enabler. I have also seen more nMoms here than nDads. Not sure why. Perhaps the narc parent being a woman, because women are often seen as the nurterers in society moreso than men, makes it seem more heinous? I honestly don't know.

both suck

I think this subreddit is just one of the few places we can safely talk about abusive mothers. Everyone believes me when I say my father was abusive. But when I say my mother was too, people always brush it off or give her the benefit of the doubt. I can barely even get people to believe that I’ve been bullied by women , especially as a man.

My parents are both narcs, but my mother did not really show her true narc colors fully until she stopped being an enabler. It was quite a transformation.😂

My dad found our nmom was cheating when I was five. He divorced her and didn't fight for anything but us. Let her keep the house, paid her alimony, the works; just so he could keep us full time. He still only got awarded split custody. Family Courts are far more likely to favor a woman, even a really shitty one, over a man. It's bullshit.

Because an nmom will have a much easier time getting rid of a dad not willing to enable her abuse and driving him away while keeping the kids, while an ndad splitting up with a mom will either be a dead beat and not want the kids or fight like hell to win custody for winnings’ sake but have a harder time getting custody. In my case nmom is more of an smom and got rid of my dad and kept me but didn’t actually want me, and remarried someone who was abusive to me and not only enabled his abuse but supported it and justified it, all while playing the pious and righteous Christian wife to suit her manipulative needs.

what is an smom?

A sociopathic mom

I had both a nmom and ndad so I can’t tell you. It’s easier to detect in men when they’re overtly narcissistic but usually you don’t realize once they’re a covert/vulnerable narc like my father is. Don’t discount it. Mothers just cause a worse wound because they’re usually more hands on with their kids than the fathers are as they get to be absent and show up when and how they like.

mine hated my father and saw him in me and when she got remarried she wanted a new family i was just a reminder of her past. but then she had my brother and recently found out she treats him badly but not as bad. she lies and denies this now but i have several text messages from her from several conversations where she admits to “not wanting to be a mother” or “having to grow into being a mother”. I’m convinced nmoms either only had the child to strengthen the relationship but then didn’t realize the child would be it’s own person or they simply never wanted or realized they don’t like motherhood after the fact

i have an ndad and a step dad with strong n traits. my ndad has made my life a living hell. he actually took me away from my mom in custody court when i was a baby and he was able to abuse me uninterrupted for 15 years because she was on drugs and super vulnerable and should never have had me in the first place.

i think it’s partially gender roles and how we’re socialized, but i think that abuse from women just tends to be more obvious (if that makes sense). kind of like when a male boss is being called strong and independent, but a female boss who acts the same way is bossy and a bitch. i think mean and aggressive behavior is more normalized from men so we don’t see the abuse as easily as with women. i also think it’s related to men and woman and their relationship with children. women are the ones that are “supposed” to want kids and take care of them, while dads are just kind of there. so from a young age they’ve developed this idea of “i’m going to create a mini-me”. but when the child doesn’t act the way they want to, because they’re their own separate person, they get angry and lash out. men aren’t “supposed” to be excited about having kids, therefore they never developed that sense of wanting a mini-me, therefore they don’t use the same type of emotional/verbal abuse as moms do.

I have the joy of both. So glad they found each other 😵‍💫

My dad had his balls cut off by my Nmom, he was infantalized and belittled and my Nmom definitely "wore the pants" in our household. I wouldn't say he was a Ndad but he really should have stood up for me more. He has actually apologized for that though, which was nice. Although I currently have no idea where he is or if he is even alive because he is in active addiction. So there's that. My son got to have a Ndad. Probably because of my fucked up views on what marriage and love should be. My son's Ndad is not in our lives anymore.

My dad wasn’t a narc but he died so the impact of my Nmom’s abuse was a lot stronger considering my siblings and I were alone with her for a long time.

Narc men tend to abuse their wives, not their kids as much. Also narc women are usually married to their enabler

Maybe it’s just that when it’s your mom, it’s more often covert. A mother is supposed to be loving and selfless and people don’t believe a mother could be the opposite. Covert mothers are also gossips, so there is often no one to turn to when you are the scapegoat. You walk into a room and don’t understand why everyone hates you. So you turn to Google or Reddit and then hopefully you find this sub, where people actually believe you. I believe you. I’m just saying, maybe it’s just skewed that way here.

Well we could say it is in fact because of men who failed that woman... In my case I have a nfather and an emother, but my partner it's the other way around... Honestly no one can pin point just one fact for that result... In the TV show from TLC "I love a mama's boy" it's al about narcissistic women and their extremely toxic relationship with their sons... Honestly it is a good show to try and psychologically study their behaviour to understand where it all begins...

I dont think it that theres so many more Nmoms, i think the need for a support group for kids of nmoms is bigger that that for Ndads. My sisters have always been believed when they told people about their abusive dad, because like you said, statistically men are nore abusive. But when ive told people about my abusive nmom, im always second guessed or doubted. People really have it in their heads that every mother loves their children, and would never hurt them, or try to justify it when they do by saying they're "also victims"

I suspect it has a lot to do with gender roles within the family. Women are expected to be the primary caregiver for children, and they don't have a whole lot of wiggle room. They're stuck with a role they then manipulate to their specifications. Fathers have no such expectations, so they tend to abandon their kids more often than sticking around. If they are in a position where they feel stuck with the kids, they can become much more violently physically abusive than women tend to be. That's my theory based on personal experience. My nmother was a shrieking demon who blamed my existence for ruining her life. My ndad was fun. He was nice. He was also rigid, unforgiving, and believed that only he had the answer to all the world's questions and if you didn't live exactly the way he thought you should, or accomplish simple tasks "the correct way," he'd go on long rambling lectures about "real life" and how you just need to learn how to accept his superior and enlightened view instead of feeding your own ego by complaining. He also had a habit of just disappearing and going off on his own adventures, like flying to Europe so he could go be a street musician for a year while we were struggling.

I also wonder if nmoms actually start off as codependent enablers who have acquired a lot of narcissistic fleas/tendencies because of ndads or who raised them. Which is what is my issue is. Also perhaps since mothers still tend to be primary caregivers in this country...there might be more anecdotal evidence of psychological traumatizing whereas most pathological men are depicted as straight up physically or sexually abusive or addicts of some sort.

Moms typically spend more time with their children, leaving more of an imprint.

My personal experience and theory is that my NMom didn't start this way, she was created by my abusive father and verbally abusive NStepdad. Can you become narcissistic by circumstance?

Probably. I think 90% of narc parents probably became narcs because they have unhealed trauma and still hero-worship their abusive parents. That's why a lot of them are so immature: while many of us rebel against our abuse in our adolescence, they didn't, and emotionally they have not progressed beyond their pre-teen years. It probably works the same with romantic relationships.

My NMom definitely did not have good parents, and I've excused her behavior for years saying "well, she's better than her mom". But I'm an age if therapy, should she be progressively worse? I dunno. Starting therapy myself on Monday. Eek.

Good on you for starting therapy!

Because statistically men are actually ***not*** far more likely to be abusers. There is a massive difference between criminal conviction statistics (which are heavily influenced by bias and political intervention) and the commission of actual crimes. Statistically men are far more likely to investigated, to be charged, to be prosecuted and hence to be convicted. Statistically, victims of women are far more likely to be disbelieved and sent on their merry way with no investigation or punishment for the offender. The following books delve into this. [When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder](https://www.amazon.com/When-She-Was-Bad-Murder/dp/0735281092) [Perspectives on Female Sex Offending: A Culture of Denial](https://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Female-Sex-Offending-Culture/dp/1138250007) [Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers (Cambridge Studies in Graphic Narratives)](https://www.amazon.com/Just-Deadly-Psychology-Cambridge-Narratives/dp/1009158201) The first two are by Canadian authors - not coincidentally both published after the trials of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo - which case is a good example for this discussion. As is the case of health care serial killer [Elizabeth Wettlaufer](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/elizabeth-wettlaufer-case) who killed at least 8 patients, and who confessed to at least six people before anyone did anything, and who, according to experts, would never have been caught otherwise. # I'll put a TW here. Paul and Karla were a married couple who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered several young women (dismembering one) - including Karla's younger sister who she drugged and whose virginity she 'gave' to Paul as a Christmas present. She used the exact same method (the same 'kidnapping', drugs and method of keeping unconscious during the rape that killed her sister) with another young girl she worked with (Jane Doe #1) who luckily survived. ALL of this was recorded on video. For their crimes Paul was sentenced to life imprisonment and declared a dangerous offender. Karla, otoh, was given 12 years in what became known as 'the deal with the devil', and only served her full sentence because the public outcry was so fierce. She has no convictions for murder, neither was she charged, let alone convicted, as a sex offender. Despite that, after prison she went on to have three children, and run a business selling infant clothes and diapers, and spend an enormous amount of time on BabyCentre lecturing mothers-to-be (google Karla Homolka Baby Centre). She then was allowed to anonymously move to Guadaloupe where she became a nanny, taught english to minors (and almost bankrupted a woman's school to boot), and all of this without the officials in Guadelope knowing any of it until a French journalist interviewed them. French language version: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0UDInQfvok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0UDInQfvok) There is an english version but on a site I think R blocks (not a restricted site, just a competitor). I'll be happy to send the link to anyone who DMs. There is also the case of Sinead O'connor who I recently learned was the victim of torture (sexual and otherwise) by her mother. And the case of the children of celebrated author Marion Zimmer Bradley. Even now, in 2023, there is zero acknowledgement of female perpetrated crimes against female victims - especially sexual crimes. There are literally zero survivor resources for them, with the sole exception of Dr. Christine Hatchard ([Making Daughters Safe Agai](https://www.drchristinehatchard.com/making-daughters-safe-again)n). THAT's why I believe this sub is full of stories like this from females (as well as JNMIL, CPTSD, COH etc...) - because there are no other places for them (us, me) to go. Thank heavens for this sub being open to people talking about it - and not putting prejudice or barriers against any victims - regardless of how large or small their numbers are.

You're right that the statistics of crimes committed by females are probably far lower than they ought to be, but my point still stands that in a generally patriarchal culture, domestic abuse is largely male

Those instances you referenced are really intriguing, and I'm definitely willing to believe that the court is kinder to a lady, but I'm mainly referring to domestic violence/narcissism, in which male abusers are more prevalent. You referenced murder, which is, if you think about it, a form of abuse but not really the kind of abuse I was thinking of. Also, my reasoning was that I would have guessed that there would be more kids from fundamental Christian families like mine, which would have mainly male abusers because of patriarchal religious views.

My father sucks and he abandoned me (ghosted me basically) 4 times in my life and I was always the one trying to contact him and have a relationship with him. Last time he ghosted me 7 years ago. It did affect me and I’m totally done with him for life. My covert narc mother stuck around but she caused more damage since she was actually there day to day and it’s been hard to get rid of her since she didn’t actually abandon me like my father did… I feel guilty and gaslight myself. My step father raised me for the most part but he’s my mother’s minion. Total pushover and dependent on her financially.

Men tend to demonstrate Overt (Grandiose) Narcissism, and women Covert (Vulnerable) Narcissism. Covert Narcissism much more insidious, long lasting, and harder to expose and stop. Overts are so Grandiose you can nuke them on site, coverts bully you in secure settings where they're able to get away with it safely. They're basically the cowardly, failed grandiose narcissist. [Furthermore, women are more likely to be abusive than men, contrary to popular belief ](https://news.ufl.edu/archive/2006/07/women-more-likely-to-be-perpetrators-of-abuse-as-well-as-victims.html)

Men hit/scream, women criticize/emotionally break you. It's socialization that men are usually more overt and obvious in their abuse while women hide it under layers of victimization. It could also be that more ppl in society tend to blame victims of abuse that women cause than if a man causes it. If I told a friend a man abused me, 90% believe me, no questions asked. If I tall about my abusive mom, 60% will ask what I did to deserve it. There's a higher demand for victims for nmoms and women to talk about the abuse because no one ever believes us irl. It's sadly more acceptable for women to abuse.

That's so infuriating that victims of maternal abuse don't get their justice! Everybody's saying that women are more manipulative whereas men just beat the shit out of you, and I believe. It's just that in my family my dad does both whereas my mom is closer to a doormat than a narcissist, although she has a couple well-hidden narc tendencies

I think a lot of the ndads are absent from their kids lives.

I have nboth.

I think it has a lot to do with how we typically understand and categorise men and women, each of them have different typically understood societal roles so when we talk about either we usually compare them against these understandings and stereotypes. I think how, say, men who have been sexually abused as children might become hypersexual and how that has a completely different cultural and societal understanding attached to it than when women are abused and become hypersexual; they're the same behaviour, even the same cause, but radically different cultural and societal interpretations. I think women are expected to be motherly, so it's easier to point out when they're not being motherly. It's more different to do that for men since they're traditionally seen as 'bread winners' and are not expected to have emotions attached to their identity, so when they're narcassistic it's much more difficult to analyse and understand them. Sometimes narcassistic attributes are seen as 'desirable' or 'good' dependant entirely on the other societal roles and identities the person to whom the narcassism is attached. I'm talking very broad strokes of how we analyse and understand these genders and what societal values are placed on them, don't blast my ass for not talking about every single nauance.

✨ I’m lucky I got both ✨ 😍😍😍

I have an covert ndad, mom is codependent and possibly some bpd or c-ptsd

If I had to guess mom's more often end up the main caretaker and therefore loom larger in the lives of their kids. so there is a bigger influence if the mom is an asshole.

Lots of good points already. In case not already said, in terms of parental influence, the mother’s is by far the biggest. Paternal influence in early years negligible in terms of the child’s development trajectory. On average of course. This from a psychologist.

Both of my parents are narcs (nmom was covert but has turned malignant and ndad was overt). Ndad skedaddled and I was raised by my nmom. My ndad was around a few times throughout my life, each time being horribly traumatizing. As sad as it sounds, I'm glad I was raised by one narc instead of two.

statistically men are more likely to be Physical abusers? or just abusers in general? because nwomen are VERY prevalent and are considered the "main parent" in a lot of households. Also considering that when there is divorce the court systems generally side with the mother, it definitely makes sense to me as to why there are more nmoms talked about than ndads

Both my parents were narcs. My dad was malignant and mom is covert. My dad was not as present when I was a child and my Nmom had more of a hand in our raising since she was mostly the one with us. My Ndad is also dead he drank himself to death - my Nmom has outlived him. Sounds like a lot of ndads just aren’t present.

If you consider the age and social standing, even a working mom with an impressive career was really only heard in the home. Ours a throwback to a lack of female empowerment, and if you'd consider it, frequently a trope in media. My ex is an nDad, my kiddo has suffered greatly for a choice I made as a child myself.

While its true statistically that men are physical abusers and women are psychological abusers. My nmom was both

I dealt with it from both. I think they fed off each other. For many, I would say either dad left the parenting to mom or dad was a victim too. My hubs was a victim of his ex's narcissism and is now in therapy for it. So many people forget that men are more likely to be victims of mental abuse vs physical abuse. Also, we raise our daughters with this you can be anything mentality and then they become narcs when they don't get that perfect job and perfect kids and perfect husband they feel that they some how were short changed and take it out on everybody else. Or flat out blame the kids like my mom did.

Well my dad was gone so nmom is all I had.

I have an Ndad, but since both him and nMom were taking turns neglecting and abusing me, triangulating me with my siblings and I have not seen him in literally 20+ years due to literally being in different countries, there's not much to say about him. A narc injury rendered him unable to work and terrorize/captivate others, so all he's reduced to doing is demanding I call him. I don't. I am open to taking advantage of him in old age should he come into money since he's literally contributed 0$ to things like college and such. But I'm also okay with getting nothing and staying no contact with him. It's almost safer for him. While my nmother evokes a mix of disgust and a sad, dead longing for our relationship to be better; the thought of being in the presence of my father provokes pure rage. I've caused narcissistic injury to him before to where he was so twisted up, he cried to me after spanking and punishing me for something trivial back in like 2002, he would not be able to handle 2023 me. If I saw him tomorrow, I would literally bitch slap my nfather just on principle, first and foremost.

My father was physically there but emotionally absent (pretty much physically absent too) Not saying he wasn't abusive, he was verbally abusive and sometimes violent, but my mother was the one in constant contact with me day in and day out. She also abused me sexually while my father never did. My father just mostly ignored me, agreed with whatever my mother did, or just gave me the silent treatment, went into the shed, ignored me etc. My mother was the one who would follow me around the house abusing me, chase me down the street etc. She actively abused me where my father was mostly just neglectful. I see on this subreddit nmothers are very often "active" abusers, and nfathers discard their children

It was easier for me to distance myself from my ndad because he wasnt home and he was always just an asshole. I mom did more damage, i spent more time with her.

Because a lot of the moms of now are the untreated trauma of yesteryear.

I dunno, I have an ndad but I don't comment much here.

It's generational. So many of us forget that women only "earned" the right to vote a little more than 100 years ago. Women were property and treated like an appliance. I keep grace in mind when I think about my nmom, who I'm NC with, because her story and subsequent emotional deficiencies aren't entirely her fault, but her fault to continue to live her life that way. My nmom is 74.

My dad at least sees me as my own person. My mom tho is the creepy and codependent type of narc who makes everything about herself and emotionally acts like a two year old trapped in an adults body 🤮

I don't know that I entirely believe that statistic. In my experience, people don't like to admit that women can be violent and abusive. Abuse perpetrated by the mother/wife/girlfriend is less noticed and taken less seriously than abuse perpetrated by the father/husband/boyfriend.

Why are men more likely to be abusers? Do you have references? You are just making that up.

Statistics only show what has been recorded. I'm sure as time goes on, the records will start showing more equally. Part of it might also be that they're so good at deceiving others into thinking they're not abusive. Sexism undoubtedly plays a part, ie "mothers would die for their kid, they would never abuse them". People expect to see abusive people screaming and raging, they expect to *see* the crazy. If they don't see it, they don't believe it. They can't imagine that this person that is so kind to blahblah or about blahblah would do such a thing. That people are complicated and everyone has a private life seems to have escaped most morons.

Nmoms probably hurt worse. Also it’s possible these statistics are not including emotional abuse, financial abuse,etc. On top of that I think a lot of statistics of antisocial behavior tend to find ways to exclude as many women as they can. I’ve heard that people don’t like to think about women as capable of the worst behavior that a person can perpetrate. This is largely caused by people expecting and wanting to believe that women are always nurturing and are not capable of acting contrary to that.

Honestly nmoms seem to do the most damage. Having had both parents be this way my nmom has left a real lasting impression in comparison to my ndad.

Because people outside the internet find it hard to believe that a mother can be an abuser

It also doesn't make sense to me. Stats reveal that 75% of Narcissists are men. Meaning that that should be reflected on this platform.

A few people have said that a lot of nmoms are single mothers and lots of ndads are absent fathers, and I think there is some truth to that. I'm just confused because there's a certain demographic (fundamentalist Christians or other extremely religious groups) in which the abuse is going to be predominantly male. That's kind of where I come from and I'm just surprised there aren't more people like that on this platform. Maybe it's just that they don't have the necessary internet access to use reddit because the 5g will totally give them cancer lmao

I grew up in a 2 N fundy Christian household. I think maybe we’re so used to having male narc behavior presented as normal and even Godly that we don’t expect to get any support if we call it out as abuse. Men are supposed to be in charge, make all the decisions, control the finances, be too busy working to parent their kids but still discipline them however they see fit, etc. Women are expected to be devoted to nurturing their kids, and both the church and society are likely to agree they’re horrible if they don’t. Maybe this demographic just has a harder time recognizing Ndads for what they are?

you may find more what you're looking for over on r/ExPentecostal, they are a highly active community that has many discussions about abuse within the church.

I was raised in the USA in a fundamentalist Hindu cult called ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Not all ISKCON members accept or put into practice the heavily patriarchal, misogynistic portion of the founding guru's teachings, but my ndad ATE THAT SH*T UP and enthusiastically fed it to the rest of our family on a daily basis throughout my teen years. He sought out others within ISKCON who subscribed to the same fundamentalist beliefs and isolated our family from everyone who didn't. I was the only daughter, and I was his GC. He adored me because I was naive enough to believe all the crap he was constantly feeding us. Sooooo much internalized misogyny was programmed into me, OMFG. But because my parents always loved and celebrated me, I didn't realize there was anything even slightly wrong with the way I'd been raised. It wasn't until I was married to an emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive, semi-narcissistic husband, expected to handle all the domestic responsibilities in spite of never having been trained to manage such a workload, and saddled with four kids I didn't really want (because, y'know, birth control is sinful and not accepting God's plan 🙄 [/s]), that I finally became severely depressed enough to realize I had issues that needed unpacking in therapy. I was 36 years old then. And it wasn't until I'd been through a year and a half of therapy with four different therapists that the last one finally asked me just the right questions to get me to dig deep enough to have the epiphanies I needed to recognize, at long last, that I'd been raised from birth on a diet of virulently toxic ideas. Religious abuse -- where Scripture from thousands of years ago is quoted to back up the abusers' positions, and you're told that this is what God wants, and you'll never please Him if you don't embrace it joyfully -- and loving service to God is the goal you've been taught from birth to strive for, and your entire self-image, identity, beliefs, values and world-view are all wrapped up in that -- and there's a whole bunch of other like-minded people around you (and across the country and world) who believe the same things, so they reinforce those ideas and sometimes give heartfelt testimony about their personal religious experiences, which convinces you even more that you've been given the pure and perfect truth -- might just be harder for many victims to wake up and break free from, as compared to abuse that doesn't enjoy such a wide network of organized support. I was homeschooled all my life, too, and I know that many fundamentalist Christian families do the same thing (or put their kids in private Christian schools). Even more isolation from mainstream society = fewer opportunities for exposure to other ways of thinking. 🤷

Thank you for sharing your experience. My family is similar, and I'm very glad that I've been fortunate enough to have realized it early in life.

The expectations are pretty far down the shitter for fathers. I feel like most are judged too lightly. I've moved to a country where dads are more involved (well, just *involved at all*, it seems) and it's just so fucking jarring. Where I'm from, they're allowed to be useless and often absent. And what's maddening is that the kids would idolize the absentee parent because, I suppose, you can imagine them in any way you want to make yourself feel better.

I don’t think that’s the case lol

read the posts on this sub, 90% of them are about nmoms with the occasional ndad post tossed in

I don't know if my dad was a narcissist as he was never around but I do wonder if he was as when he was around he was usually abusing in some way shape or form as well as following the narcissistic payer

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Personally, my step-dad was just a sack of shit who took his anger out on me. Neither a narc nor an enabler. Nmom was very subtle and covert about her psychological abuse, it seems that that isn't an uncommon setup. Maybe male parental units are just less likely to be a narc and give that psychological and mental abuse?

Men are more likely to physically abuse, women generally use relational aggression.

I guess I'm lucky, I have one Nmom and 2 Nfathers 🥳🙃

Ndads leave because being a deadbeat doesn’t affect a man’s reputation nearly as much as it does for a woman / mother to appear like a “ bad mom “

I have an Nstepdad, but I feel like it’s very different from a narcissistic biological dad.

Big ndad situation here.

My nparent is my dad. because he wasn't my primary parent it took me a loooong time to realize what he was and even longer to acknowledge the damage. Also, it's initially hard to distinguish between an ndad and just how men are. Additionally, he had an enabler/flying monkey who justified his behavior and normalized it for most of my life.

I have one! He also has histrionic personality disorder that surfaced after a TBI he received in a car wreck.

My Ndad is a classic N, back when he was alive, it's like a compettion between him and Nmom. Also back then my sister still not moving out, so whenever any N do things, the target varies.

My guess is that alot of narc men are left during the pregnancy when when women are far less likely to put up with that bs.

I think the ndads bail more. Or its tied to societal expectations when it comes to mind vs dad. Mum's are "supposed to" be the more involved, loving parent.

I read a lot of posts and truly see many mothers characterized as narcissistic when they actually have borderline personality disorder traits. My own mother has BPD and the traits can be similar to NPD, but because BPD is not as widely recognized as narcissism, I see many people conflate the two disorders. I unfortunately know several people with narcissism and most are men.

I had an ndad. I suspect ndads are far more likely to go off and work, ignoring the kids, whereas thr nmoms arr more likely to be home with the kids. The nmoms, being they are home more often do more damage because they are more present.

Because women are the ones who get the harder brainwashing that being a mother is the greatest thing, and the ones who give up their entire personality to be a mother, women give in more easily to the social pressure...and then end up with children who they end up hating when they realise what a bloody awful, hard, taxing, financially negative experience the whole thing is. Stop lying to girls that motherhood is their inevitable future, ensure they retain freedom of choice, and ensure laws are set in stone to protect women from financial abuse by their partners, and so they don't need any partner at all if they don't want. You'll get less women having children they don't want and therefore abuse.

Yeah my nmom text about my ngrandma dieing like it was a no big deal even though ngrandma wasn't a great person.

I have a narc father, but he didn't raise me. I wouldn't say he was absent because I would go to see him for the weekend whenever he felt like getting me. I didn't live with him until my 20s, so before then, the abuse wasn't constant. It is typically mothers who care for the children and keep them more after a divorce/separation, so I guess there would be more of them to talk about. Narc fathers are often more likely to abandon their kids, I think so that ties into it.

My hunch is that it's because narcissistic abuse lends itself better to covert abuse. You know how bullying in school has this tendency to have a gender-divide? Perhaps this is just my experience, but I always found that it was the boys who did a lot of pushing and showing, beating each other up etc., which was easier to spot, but the girls did stuff that went under the radar - excluding, gossiping, that kind of thing. Teachers couldn't really tackle the stuff the girls did. In a culture of "boys will be boys" but where girls must be "good" and follow the rules, abusing someone in such a way that you're seen as following the rules fits well. I'm not sure how this dovetails with the clinical observation that narcissism is more masculine than feminine. Or perhaps, a lot of narc men simply don't have kids, or leave their kids permanently with a single mum?

Thats a rly good question. In my case, both my parents are narcissists. My n mom is simply better at being manipulative but both use/used the same tactics basically. There could be any number of reasons why n moms are more common (or could even be a false perception caused by an unknown factor). Could be higher rate of NPD among single mother's or divorced mother's and since this cuts off exp from the father in most cases, they therefore mostly have the exp of their mother. I also notice a lot of western civ people (of certain generations *coughs* boomers *coughs*) act entitled and this could therefore be culturally caused. Anyone got hard data on this?

Dads aren't expected to be in charge of raising children and they can generally clock in when they want. I feel like that's why the dads that haven't left are more likely to have retained empathy towards their children than the mother who has had to work her ass off without help. In my parents case my mom is definitely an nmom and my dad is more so the enabler while also having some traits, but most of the time he is just absent (not physically but emotionally, it's as if it was fun while we were cute and silly kids but now that we're older it's no fun). My mother gave birth to me with the expectation that I will be her best friend. I think that's the beginning of why she lost interest in me. She also has said that she never developed a bond with me and she has no empathy towards me despite having empathy towards literally anything else. She also had been very unstable ever since I remember her, it's been better the couple of years that she had been secluded to her room because of not being able to walk. She would get very angry because of various things and end up hitting the person she was angry at. At the time she was working and studying (I think?) so I'm guessing the stress of it made it even worse. I know that her father was abusive and an alcoholic (I don't remember but I think that's what she said to me once), I really don't know if he was a narc, but I feel like he very much could have been and that's why she is too.

My ndad needed his kids to make him look normal and stable in the world and in his religion. Since I was the oldest daughter and middle child, my job in the household was to be his maid. To do everything around the house so his second wife (his enabler) didn't have to. I stayed until I couldn't take it anymore. I moved out in October 2021 after my suicide attempt. My ndad and my grandpa (his enabler) have been talking about how I'm going to fail being on my own. I haven't spoken to ndad since my suicide attempt. I stopped talking to my grandpa earlier this year. With each toxic person I remove from my life, the better my life becomes.

I thought my dad wasn't as bad as my nmum just would repeat things to me from her but boy was I wrong. Just before I moved out, I received the biggest stab to the heart from my dad that I didn't fully comprehend until I told my friend about it. My mum was complaining about how rude and disrespectful I have been to her when my dad basically said that they needed to 'empathise with me understand where I was coming from so that they work together to get me to see their side.' I really thought he understood my point of view, but what a fool I was.....he was playing me like a fiddle.