pinkblossom's comments

Dealing with a Narcissistic Family Member - Blog Entry

09 Sep 2008 04:18 AM

Hi Beth, I need help with a narcissistic family member. It's my brother-in-law. My husband was one of six kids, five boys and one girl. One brother seems to be jealous of us and manipulates his family because he plays the victim. We are the real victims. He has turned them all against us. All we ever did was try to be friends with him and his family. After six years, my husband had enough and told him that he didn't want to have anything else to do with him. My sister-in-law pretended that she wasn't taking sides but she was. She wouldn't tell us anything about what he said about us, but we found out that she told him anything we said about him. We were trying to get her to understand how he was manipulating everyone.

When my husband almost died from double pneumonia we called everyone in the family. But, a brother who came from out-of-state only came to our house one time during that week. He and his wife spent most of their time with the narcissist, showing him support, not my son and I. They tried to slip in to see my husband behind my back. They thought I was having lunch with some neighbors who brought over some food, but we went back to the hospital instead. The narcissist and the other brother were there at the hospital trying to slip in without us knowing. My son said that we could use some support and my sister-in-law got real defensive and said "we are supporting you". I said, "how, when you have only come over one time for one hour the whole week you've been here." She tried to start trouble when we went into the waiting room, but when I spoke up for myself she really got mad and said "whatever". No one ever talks back to her. Anyway, my husband recovered with God's help and he said I shouldn't have called any of them. He had been on a respirator for ten days, so I didn't know what to do.

One other incident recently was regarding his sister. For three years she always told me she had a birthday card for me, but I never got one. Neither has my son. I tried to think that she has a lot going on. But, she always called my husband on his birthday. This year she even sent him a card, writing that she loves him and wants him to come visit her. This is because the narcissistic brother tells everyone that I'm the reason my husband broke ties with him. I was not the cause.

Two things that seemed to be the cause of his rage with us: 1. I corrected him once when he was wrong about a comment he made. I didn't know he was a narcissist at that time. 2. My husband had mentioned that we were going to buy a camper. He had quit his job because of back problems so we knew it would be awhile. The next four times that the narcissist brother and his wife came over they said they wanted to borrow our camper and would pay $200.00 a week to use it. We tried to tell them it would be awhile and we might not even get one at all. My husband thought they were joking. The fourth time they mentioned it, my husband came right out and said no. The narcissist didn't like that at all. He really started turning family members against us. A few months later when the whole family snubbed me during Thanksgiving at another brother's house, my husband said, "that's it". He called the narcissistic brother and said he didn't want to talk to him anymore.

This was over six years that the narcissist worked on turning the family against us. After not talking to his brother for almost three years my husband called him in July to apologize for telling him that they shouldn't have anything to do with each other. That's the only thing we have ever done to him and his family. He was eager, very eager to "let by-gones be by-gones". He called four times in three days and came over on the fourth day. I thought maybe I would be ok about it, but I wasn't. I couldn't go in the room. He has manipulated us in so many ways that I can't list them all here.

I have tried so hard to be as nice as I can to everyone and when my husband's sister and other brothers come over here I'm friendly, I cook for them, we take them fishing, shopping, etc.

As far as his sister, her husband lost his job and has applied for social security. We gave them $200.00 for the last two Christmas', sent get-well cards, a gift card for her husband's 60th birthday last March, etc. We even gave them gas money several times when they came to Tennessee to visit from Georgia.

What do you think we should do? Would it be best to stop answering calls from him and the other family members (they just report everything we say back to him) until they can treat us as well as they do the others?

Any assistance you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I hope this doesn't sound too dis-jointed, I had so many thoughts in my head at once. Thank you.