Going Low or No Contact With My Narcissistic Mother (And Enabling Father)

In my last post I described how my parents think my husband and I are price gouging my son on the sale of our house to him. They also plan to give him a large amount of money "to keep his mortgage payments low". As it was, the mortgage would have been less than $500 per month, which he can well afford.

I've been reading a great deal about narcissistic mothers over the last couple weeks. In addition, my husband and I have left their house and moved over 1,000 miles away. After a week, my mother sent an email asking how we are doing and where we are (we are in a RV). I wrote back telling her where we were headed. She responded by asking where my husband had taken her dry cleaning.

What?

Not even a "that's nice"? "Why are you going there?"

I wrote back and told her where her precious dry cleaning was and she said thanks. I deleted that message and don't plan to send any others any time soon, though I do have a couple of financial dealings to take care of with her.

It's funny that I want to go no contact, but I also don't have the courage to say to them (N mom and Enabling Father) that I don't want to have any contact with them. And there's still the fact that there are some financial issues and some of our possessions are at their house.

The dry cleaning thing really threw me for a loop. Why would that be her response? But then I realized that since the whole world revolves around her, the only issue that my absence brings is that she needs someone to pick up her dry cleaning. (Of course, my husband made sure to pick it up before we left just so she couldn't bitch about it. That was probably a pointless exercise since she'll always find something to bitch about.)

What freaks me out is how scared I am of her. How I check my email waiting for her to rant about something.

Then I have to ask myself why I would care about that?  Well, for one thing, it would hurt for her to rant at me. But she's also a horrible person. The worst. I believe that now, though it's still hard to get my head around 100%. 

How long can I go w/o contacting them before they contact me. Do I have to respond? What is it that I'm hoping they will say?

When my husband and I left, we told them we were heading to a friend's house. My dad got choked up when we said good-bye. I think he knew we weren't coming back. It made me sad and still does when I think about it. And then I think about the horrible things he said the house sale to my son.

And, was he sad I was leaving or sad that now he's alone w/my N mom.

While we were there, they got along better. I assume we were the common enemy. Part of me wants to know what is going on now and part of me doesn't care. Or at least doesn't want to care.

This is a rambling post. Sorry. I'm just trying to wrap my head around all that has happened in the last two weeks.

Narcissists Have To Be The Stars Of Everything

So, I had a perfectly nice plan in place to sell my son my house at what I thought was a fair and even low, price. Which included about $3,000 or more in appliances, furniture and other things. Probably more than $3,000, but why quibble.

I thought I was being generous and worked hard to have the house clean when we left and even left some treats in the freezer.

In yesterday's post, I talked about how my parents said the price was too much. Mind you, this is three months after my husband and I moved out of our house, did improvements to my parents' house and let my son and his girlfriend move in and not pay rent. [Now that I read it, I can see I was a fool.]

So while my parents were diminishing my good news with their spewy goo about how I was trying to cheat my son, they said, again with a sanctimonious smile, that "to keep peace in the family" they were going to take out a second mortgage on their home and give my son half the price of the house as a gift. 

My son, as far as I know, never told them he needed money for the house and their arguments about how they were going to "bail him out" made no sense. He didn't need to be bailed out. He needed to man up, but more on that later.

As you might imagine, my husband and I were stunned by their statements and accusations. Engraged might be more like it, but I'm proud to report that we just said "mmm. yummy. give me another sh*t sandwich".

All day I was devastated. Did my parents really think I was such a horrible person? Had they thought this all along?

Were they right? (I was 99.9% sure they weren't, but I've had years of conditioning, remember).

Then I did some reading and read about how narcissists must be the most important person in the room and had a big AHA moment.

My son and I made this deal without invovling them. My son, their only grandchild and the 8th wonder of the world had not sought their advice or money.

So they created a big problem (realized that my father was the one who had fed my son some of the garbage he'd spewed a few days earlier) and then swooped in to fix it. Where there was no drama, they generated some so they could be the heros.

It's impressive in it's perveristy.

Now, I am the bad guy who tried to screw over her son (by the way, their opinion on this is based on zero information or knowledge about anything related to the house or home values, but why bother with information when you are right about everything), moved in with them to be a freeloader, and then probably used too much toilet paper or something else to add to my sins.

Oh, how would any of us survive without them to meddle in our lives?

The good news is that with this information, I am able to see exactly what they were doing. It sort of helps to think that they might not really believe I'm gouging my son, but I still think they do.

Narcissists Spoil Your Special Days

Yesterday I told my parents that my husband and I are going to be able to fulfill a long time dream of ours. You'd think they'd be happy for us. They said they were.

And then they said that I'm price gouging my son on the sale of my house to him. Followed by how I overpaid for the house and lots of other charming comments.

Amazingly, I just kept my cool and listened. I did defend a little bit but realized it was pointless and stopped.

My husband, wisely, left the room.

They said these things, my parents mind you, while smiling and as though they were commenting on the weather rather than their daughter's character.

It was the most freaky thing I've seen in a long time, though I suspect there will be more before this ordeal is over.

So...what was supposed to be an announcement that should have been greeted with excitement for us was turned into a bash session where they annhilated my character.

Wow.

I'm so glad that I read about narcissists and learned so much, though I'm still learning, before this happened and I was able to put it into perspective.

No, I didn't just laugh all day long at their silliness. For most of the day I felt nauseaus.

But I'm doing better now. I'm glad I didn't vent my spleet at them because it would have done no good and it would have provided the drama and narcissistic supply my mother wanted.

In fact, a short time afterward, when I continued my day as planned she became very chatty. Asked me questions about our plans. Asked if I might like to use some of her eye salve since I spend so much time on the computer...seriously, how deep did she have to dig to find that as a topic of conversation?

But, I think she was disappointed that I didn't create drama or react to their crappy statements and behavior.

So maybe being calm is the best revenge.