What My Children Said About Having a Narcissistic Parent

And they weren’t wrong.

“It would be easier if he was an alcoholic,” says one of my boys.

I watch as my other children agree.

They are frustrated with their father. The financial abuse during divorce is escalating and never-ending. My kids can’t escape it. My ex-husband is willing to hurt them to hurt me.

I understand what my son is trying to say.

We’ve just had a conversation about narcissism.

My boys are confused. Can you blame them? Adults can’t process narcissism. It’s emotionally foreign and confusing to those of us who have entangled ourselves with a narcissist.

How can we expect children, even older children to digest narcissism?

Narcissism is a never-ending cycle of coldness, cruelty, and confusion.

My son is trying to say it would be easier to witness his father’s affliction. If his dad was falling down drunk, slurring, missing work, and other behaviors there would be proof.

It would be evident.

There would be a tangible testimony.

His father’s disorder would be in full view for all to see.

But narcissistic personality disorder hides within the narcissist. We can’t see it. Until a narcissist unleashes it. But nothing external is driving it. It’s internally ignited. A drink isn’t necessarily preceding it.

It’s difficult to decipher where the cruelty is invading the charm.

Is narcissism as unpredictable as alcoholism?

Yes.

They do share that commonality.

However, some indicators allow one to detect alcohol use. A drinker might be stumbling, irritable, or passed out. It might be evident in their breath. They might lose a job because of it.

They might embarrass themselves while out.

The narcissist presents well in public.

Narcissists play well in reality.

There’s an obvious cause and effect with alcoholics.

Their mood may change and you notice the empty bottles nearby. Or you see nothing but their behavior changes. And you realize they keep disappearing to go outside or to the bathroom. A place where they can sneak a drink.

My boys are tired.

They’re tired of the narcissistic confusion.

They’re tired of the narcissistic unpredictability.

They’re tired of being hurt by a seemingly phantom illness.

They no longer want to be lured back in by the charming father they once believed they had…only for him to hurt and disappoint them again. They no longer want to ride on a parentally baffling emotional seesaw.

They want clarity.

They want off the narcissistic excursion.

They want to understand it.

But narcissistic personality disorder can fool even a seasoned counselor.

I want my children to understand their father’s diagnosis of lacking empathy, and narcissistic personality disorder on the severe end of the spectrum. I want them to understand the serious reality of it.

It’s alarming and dangerous.

A lack of empathy is unnatural. A narcissist is missing an entire developmental stage we receive in childhood. You can’t put empathy back in an individual.

But I don’t want them to attach themselves to it.

I want them free of that burden.

I don’t want them to be continually hurt by their dad. Every child deserves to be taken out of a position of conflict. Every child deserves to feel loved even by the most limited parents.

I’ve made mistakes.

I’ve said things I shouldn’t have said about their father.

It was hard not to during my extremely abusive divorce. I was in the fight of my life to protect my children. Even worse, many didn’t understand my battle. They didn’t see the danger a narcissist presented to his children.

I was sleep-deprived, terrorized, depleted, stressed, and terrified.

But I tried to follow my weak moments…

With words that took my kids out of a position of conflict.

“Listen,” I say. “Your father loves you as much as he is capable of loving anything or anyone. My dad was an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a serious illness. My father was always going to pick a drink over me. I couldn’t take it personally. I couldn’t allow him to continually hurt and disappoint me. It was his illness. Your dad has been diagnosed with a serious personality disorder. He will always choose himself over everything and everyone. You can’t take it personally. He has gross limitations. It has nothing to do with you.”

My boys understand our reality.

It doesn’t make it any less difficult or painful.

“It would be easier if he was an alcoholic,” they say.

Again, I get their sentiment.

I know what they are attempting to convey. Ultimately, an alcoholic is on display. You can witness their illness. You can understand and digest that something is terribly wrong and identify the root cause.

But you can’t do that with a narcissist.

Even with my ex-husband who abused alcohol the last few years of our marriage.

It was only four to six times a year but to a girl who was the child of an alcoholic it was traumatic. It was unpredictable. I knew my husband wasn’t an alcoholic. Our psychologist marriage counselor confirmed that.

He was an angry narcissist.

A narcissist was unleashing his fury on me once I told him I may leave him.

A narcissist was using his wife’s Achilles heel to punish her. A narcissist who understood my dad’s drinking was a pressure point for me.

It was at this point, my children begged me to leave their father.

They recognized his bad behavior. It didn’t have to be constant. They were healthy enough to know a man shouldn’t drink and scare his family. Even if it was only a few times a year.

But they still didn’t see the narcissism.

They thought their dad’s anger was directed at me. They still believed he was a good dad. They thought the charming and funny guy they saw most of the time would still be there.

But the narcissist was always there.

Only he had been a happy narcissist most of their lives.

The narcissist was not only a covert narcissist (making him even harder to detect) but I had made his world go round. As long as the narcissist got what he wanted, there was little conflict.

It wasn’t until I got older and more intolerant.

It wasn’t until I had enough and cried, uncle.

And attempted to escape the narcissist.

That’s when I angered the narcissist. Anger pushes a narcissist out of hiding. It masks the charm and exposes the cruelty. It’s then that a narcissist can’t control themselves.

The narcissist has an overwhelming need to punish and win.

The narcissist retaliates and seeks revenge.

My children had witnessed a man who abused alcohol for several years. They understood it. It was an identifiable beast. It was tangible proof of unacceptable behavior.

It made sense.

It was wrong for a parent to behave that way.

It was easier for them to identify and understand.

They weren’t wrong.