My mom has a phrase:

"Oh, you think so?" with a squint of her eyes.  As if to say "Oh really?" with an eyeroll. 

You know the conversation is over when she says this.

So I've found a good phrase of my own to use when she's nitpicking my house, or my sleep schedule, or my children, or just about anything and everything:

"I know, right?" then change the subject. 

I will show you how it works:


Mom: Oh wow, you never ripped up that part of your carpet!
Me: I know, right?  How's your dog doing today?

Mom: Oh wow, you never cleaned your porch!
Me: I know, right?  Did Alex get into any of your bread lately? (Alex=cat who steals her bread)

See how ingenious this is?  I mean, she COULD come back with "I was talking about....." but more than likely the chance to talk about her own life will outweigh her need to nitpick. 

We can hope. 

Try it and see it works for you and if so, come back and let me know!

OR if you have your own "phrase of diversion", let me know below :)

Cause you know what?  If you can distract them, you can confuse them into changing their behavior in that moment. 

Good luck!

And Happy Holidays :)

Stop expecting the NPD in your life to ever do the right thing.

Or to think when they do, they do it because they should or "that's who they really are"....no, they do it because it reflects well upon them.  And you're in their good graces.  If they get nothing out of it, they will NEVER do the right thing.  EVER.

I know it sounds harsh, but they won't.  They will ALWAYS choose the most self-serving route possible.

The more I study about narcissism, the more I learn that my ex-husband and ex-mother-in-law are TOTAL narcs.  Different than my mother, but still narcs.

No matter what, throughout our relationship and divorce, he would NEVER do the right thing.  Paying his child support, seeing his kids, it was all a part of his big grand scheme of "If I have to go out of my way and I get nothing in return (cause seeing your kids give you nothing in return), then I will just not do it".  Knowing my kids were not allowed to watch rated-R movies (at ages 3 and 6), he'd allow them to watch the raunchiest shit she could find, JUST to spite me.  See, he got something out of it: he got to be in control.  Even if that control hurt his children (and according to my sexually assault counselor, this was sexual abuse), he didn't care.  He got to go against my words.  I took his world away by divorcing him, so he took his children's worlds and used them to feed his own ego and narcissistic supply.

Narcs WILL NOT go out of their comfort zones to please others.  They will not put themselves out to save anyone but their own asses.

He even spent Father's Day partying with his brother down at his college every year (his brother's birthday) so he could feed this supply (cause girls used to hit on him and he got to be free of his family) while were married.  Every single year, and if his brother's birthday fell on Father's Day, so be it.  He would leave his sick and puking wife at home with a sick and puking baby to out to the bar and play darts.  He would tell me to "quit whining and take care of yourself" when I was sick but his ass would whine more than an abandoned dumpster baby when he was sick.

He would leave his 4 month old child on the couch, where he could roll off, just to bother me for sex (which I never gave him).  He'd basically abandon both of his kids for sleep if I wasn't home with them to watch them.  Try a 1 and 4 year old, alone in an apartment, fending for themselves, while he slept.  He did this every single time he had to watch them.

And when I actually got time off from being a SAHM, which was TWO times in 6 years?  He'd call and bitch and bitch and bitch to me about "when I would come home".  He, my dear readers, was a selfish dick of a man.

He made my husband's life hell too, having to put up with him all throughout the first half of our marriage.  And when my husband finally got to adopt my kids?  His own parents (who are something else....could be a little narcy, or something.....) didn't even give two shits.

But that's a whole other story. 

So, when you expect a narc to do the right thing?  (or if you're stupid like me, expecting it time after time after time after time), just know this:

IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!

Like, ever.

ALWAYS expect the worst with them.  So if they DO happen to do something right?  Its a pleasant surprise.  But please don't take that as "they are changing", cause they aren't.  They will eventually go RIGHT BACK to who they were once their "fakeness" wears off.

So yeah, no expectations.  I used to tell my ex, once I caught on "I know you'll always do the wrong thing, so I literally expect nothing out of you.  Nothing.  And you always deliver."

And I was right.

NO EXPECTATIONS my friends, or you'll be let down every, single, time.