# Narcissism and parenting.



## Hall33 (Dec 18, 2012)

So I've come to the conclusion that my wife is something of a narcissist. I've posted before in the last few months I believe the things I was posting about really revolve around this issue.

Pretty much anything that takes her away from thinking about or caring for herself, is just a chore, a bother, a task that needs to get done so she can get back to thinking and caring about the things she wants to be doing for herself. She'll do what tasks need to get done, but not without losing patience, griping about it, or complaining about how much time our son sucks up...(to which I want to yell, hey no effing $#!t genius, they're kids and *need* their parents time.

This results in her obviously not paying attention to our marriage, and only really engaging with our son when she's telling him to do something, or giving him dinner or a bath, in which bath time doesn't include any bonding time, or fun, but get him washed, and get him out, so I can go get back to the computer or something more self involved.

The issue is that when I bring this up, she gets defensive, as a sel-centered person might. But it' almost as if she's kinda checked out, everything she has to do with our son, pick him up from school, give him a bath, make his lunch, is met with audible sighs, impatient non-verbal expressions. 

She goes to a gym class everyday at 6am, and by the time she gets home, she's just done, she's got nothing left, and now not only is she finding reasonable excuses for why she needs help picking him up, she's thinking about going to work from the gym, meaning our son will not have his mom in the house when waking up one day a week, and not there for bed time 1-2 times per week.

She doesn't pay me much attention or affection at all, but then she will, but it's momentary.

She'll even say sometimes that she doesn't think she's cut out for it all.

I love my wife, but I'm starting to get frustrated. When I bring this up calmly and with concern for our son, she tells me I'm being controlling, trying to isolate her, and that our son just doesn't listen to her, and acts up with her (because you don't pay attention to him maybe?) that she's "present", which I guess to her just means physically being in the house. 

So instead of arguing and getting into fights, I've just picked up the slack, started doing more for our son, and just not giving her guff about it.

Anyone else deal with a self-centered spouse?


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## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

I had the opposite issue with NPD. The usual criticism about whatever I did with her, but once she was a little older, he treated her like a mini-me(him). He developed an unnatural bond with her and ignored any genealogical input of mine. 

Because she was 'his' child, she was perfect. She was beautiful, talented, genius... he thought she should skip grades and that her gymnastic skills were indicative of Olympian talent. Grades less than perfect were a result of an inadequate teacher.

I left when she was 4.5 but he enmeshed their personalities and because he thought she was perfect, she adored him. It wasn't until he sued for custody full of crazy allegations that I asked for a psych eval and got the diagnosis. i.e.: If I didn't let her ride her bike, it was abusive to not let her get exercise, never mind that I lived on the corner of a very busy street at the bottom of a very steep hill that could send her careening into 4 lanes of traffic so I made her wait until we could bike the sidewalk for one block to a green space with trails.

I knew he would never seek help (I had asked) and that the inequities and ugly words and criticism in our relationship would eventually affect the way my daughter perceived me, herself and a marital relationship. I had to end it. We did a lot of counseling, her alone, me alone, us together - to get to a good place.


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