Number 3: The ideal family image
Out of everything a narcissist will risk it all for, this one is most misleading because it’s masked as something that should be wholesome: family. They can drop true relationships at a moment’s notice. But when it comes to the snapshot of the perfect family, they keep it in a death grip. They might even neglect their kids. They can emotionally ruin their partner. They can leave the house in a mess every day, as my parents did. But the moment someone begins to see the cracks, the narcissist goes into performance mode.
They’ll post staged family photos with forced smiles and matching attire, pen melodramatic captions about devotion and loyalty, upload dated experiences they didn’t even participate in, just so they can prove to the world how “family oriented” they are. It’s not about love. It’s about narratives. They want everyone to perceive them as the cement that keeps us all together, the dedicated parent, the secure partner, the omnipresent one for their blood family, period.
And if you so much as challenge that narrative, you’re the villain: the ungrateful child, the unfaithful partner, the bitter ex, the resentful sibling. They will stop at nothing to make you appear to be the issue so that they can continue to appear as the savior.
They do not need the family to function. They just need it to look like it is in working condition because it is part of who they are, their image, their public image. They will stage family activities for appearance only, drag individuals into things they don’t wish to be involved in, get their kids to sit for photos, and behave. And behind closed doors, when no one is observing, they go back to being cold, critical, or downright brutal.
The emotional reality in the home doesn’t count. The activity outside of it does. And if an individual family member stops playing the game, they won’t attempt to rebuild the relationship. They will replace them in the story. And lo and behold, there is a new daughter-like friend, a new supportive wife/husband, a new inner circle. They begin to refer to that as “family.”
The true family members are replaced, pushed aside, or depicted in the worst way imaginable. It’s not presenting a good production. It’s sustaining the pretense that they’re lovable, that they are a caregiver, that they’re admirable because, take a look at how much their “family” loves them. Even when, in reality, the family is strangling in quiet, fear, and emotional neglect.
They will endanger their children’s health, their spouse’s sanity, peace of generations, just to defend that false story, just to have outsiders blissfully believe they’re an expert. Because if that illusion is destroyed, they are revealed. And revelation is death to a narcissist, something they can’t endure. They’d lose everything before they’d ever tell the truth. And that’s why this is so dangerous. They don’t want a healthy family. They want a flawless one, not in the world, but in other people’s eyes.
Read more: 3 Crazy Things Narcissists Do Before Getting Exposed
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